[FOSDEM Substitute commentary], re asuffield

Sorry, as usual, for top-posting.  My only excuse is that I use
fedora out of the box.

Asuffield is very smart re anticipating my direction, mostly.  I'm
going to aim for the original contribution of usefully fuzzing things
up a bit more.  I also have this weird idea about atemporal hypertexts
(e.g., author's permitted to post into the past and readers never 
permitted anything but an approximation) -- we'll get there.

Thank you Andrew.  It'll be nice, I, suspect, to meet you for real
some day.

Meanwhile -- I've been (and still am but not for much longer) taking
some days off from the next essay.   I need to shift voice a bit -- 
it's f'n tricky writing, imo.

-t

Re: [FOSDEM substitute] "The Document" is Only a Hypothesis

On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 05:24:31AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> That's some strange variation on quantum theory... in the less-cute
> [ ... ]
.
.
.

Is it just me or is everyone getting new copies of this every now and then.
I've had about 20 so far.

Matt

Re: [FOSDEM substitute] "The Document" is Only a Hypothesis

On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 15:55 +1100, Matthew Hannigan wrote:

> Is it just me or is everyone getting new copies of this every now and then.
> I've had about 20 so far.

22

johannes

On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 15:55 +1100, Matthew Hannigan wrote:

> Is it just me or is everyone getting new copies of this every now and then.
> I've had about 20 so far.

22

johannes

mailing list malfunction

>>>That's some strange variation on quantum theory... in the less-cute
>>>[ ... ]

>> Is it just me or is everyone getting new copies of this every now and
>> then. I've had about 20 so far.

> I thought it was just my crappy mailserver, but yeah. A mailing list 
> malfunction?

It isn't just you.  The problem did seem to be on the gnu.org end.
I spoke with sysadmin <at> gnu who confirmed that they were aware of
the problem, pretty much knew the cause, and (by the time I
contacted them) had fixed it.   So, it should be all better now.

Thanks,
-t

Re: [FOSDEM substitute] "The Document" is Only a Hypothesis

Matthew Hannigan wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 05:24:31AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
>>That's some strange variation on quantum theory... in the less-cute
>>[ ... ]
> 
> Is it just me or is everyone getting new copies of this every now and then.
> I've had about 20 so far.

I thought it was just my crappy mailserver, but yeah. A mailing list 
malfunction?

--

-- 
Tim Gokcen

Re: [FOSDEM substitute] "The Document" is Only a Hypothesis

On 2006.03.01 22:55, Matthew Hannigan wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 05:24:31AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
> > That's some strange variation on quantum theory... in the
> less-cute
> > [ ... ]
> .
> .
> .
> 
> 
> Is it just me or is everyone getting new copies of this every now
> and then.
> I've had about 20 so far.

It's not just you.

I wasn't that interested in it the first time, much less all the  
others.

> 
> Matt
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Gnu-arch-users mailing list
> Gnu-arch-users <at> gnu.org
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-arch-users
> 
> GNU arch home page:

[FOSDEM Substitue] Loss, Corruption, Thievery, Confusion and Constraint (A Global Hypertext Strawman and Its Problems)

Since I won't be at FOSDEM I'm not preparing a talk or slides.  I am,
however, writing a brief series of short essays about the topic I
meant to speak about.

This is the fourth essay in the series.  The "cliff's notes" so far are:

1. The King's English: What Do Links Point At?

   Today's links point at property.

   We don't really have hypertext.   All our links point to
   Internet real estate, not to documents.

2. The Literature Shelf is Not Literature

   True names would enable real hypertext.

   True names don't really exist but can be approximated.

3. Who Owns the Author?

   Authorship is the right to modulate a document's contents.

   Documents require access protection.  The right to modify
   can be shared, transferred, and subdivided.

4. "The Document" is Just a Hypothesis

  Documents are never tangible -- only signals about documents are
  "real".  We can possess evidence of a document but not the document

GFDL docs with no invariants considered free by Debian

Hi, according to http://lwn.net/Articles/175451/, Debian voted and
decided that they consider GFDL documents without invariant sections
are free documents.  This differs from my personal view that all GFDL
documents are free, but in any case all documents produced for the
Arch project that were licensed under the GFDL are acceptable by the
Debian project as none ever contained invariant sections.  This shall
put the previous discussions about the use of GFDL acceptable or not
for the GNU Arch project to rest.  (Not that these have been awaken
for a while).

(Note for new documents that I may create for Arch, I will license
them under the GFDL and the GPL.  Existing documents like these in the
wiki, of course, remain the way they are.)

Regards,
Andy

Re: GFDL docs with no invariants considered free by Debian

>>>>> "Andy" == Andy Tai <atai <at> gnu.org> writes:

    Andy> Hi, according to http://lwn.net/Articles/175451/, Debian
    Andy> voted and decided that they consider GFDL documents without
    Andy> invariant sections are free documents.

They decided they are _free documents_ or _free software_?  AFAIK
Debian doesn't care about the freedom of documents per se; they
simplify by including documentation in the class of software.

    Andy> This differs from my personal view that all GFDL documents
    Andy> are free,

You're welcome to your opinion about the freedom of the documents, but
IIRC even the FSF warns that GFDL is not a free software license.  (At
least if it contains cover texts and/or invariant sections.)

    Andy> This shall put the previous discussions about the use of
    Andy> GFDL acceptable or not for the GNU Arch project to rest.

Not really.  Use of the GFDL for documentation means that people may
derive documents from them that (without special permission) cannot be
adapted to Arch in the form of docstrings and internal help, simply by
using only the GFDL for that document.  (_Requiring_ dual-licensing is
incompatible with both the GPL and the GDFL.)

The problem described here is a cross that my project must bear
because we don't own all of our code; it's real.  And it really sucks.

And of course they can make the documentation non-DFSG-conforming by

licensing question

I would like to solicit the community's opinion about a new commercial
service I am considering offering.  Specifically, does my service
conform to the requirements of the GPL and does it conform to the
spirit of the GPL.   Here is a description of the service:

My service will give Enterprises an opportunity to use the program
"GNU hello".  I am offering distributions, upgrades, and support.

A plain language version of the essence of the support contract is as
follows:

  You will pay me $5,000/yr for every CPU on which your installation
  of a GNU Hello binary, compiled from the sources I provide, is
  runnable.  For this purpose, multi-core chips count as a single CPU.

  In return I will provide support.  Because the GNU hello program
  is a joke, support consists of emailing you a joke once per quarter.
  For obvious reasons, I can not promise that you will find the joke
  funny.

  I reserve the right to come and inspect your facilities and records,
  twice per year, during business hours, to ensure compliance.  If I
  discover that you have made a binary derived from the sources I
  provide runnable on more CPUs than you have paid for, you will owe
  me $5,000 per additional CPU, plus 4% interest compounded monthly --
  because presumptively, that means you are using my support services
  to a greater degree than you've paid for.

  It therefore follows that you are not free to copy and use my