Is Ubuntu is licencing Linux? Canonical looking for value in the wrong places

Linux Mint 11 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Full disclosure: I am no fan of Ubuntu. I applaud their efforts to put Linux in as many hands as possible with the free CD distribution effort but I'm of the opinion that Ubuntu puts itself above Linux while riding on the contribution of open source developers to Linux in general. I applaud their focus on making Linux user-friendly but I'm of the opinion that their effort is no more better than of other distro developers like Mandrake/Mandriva in the past. To top it off, I've predicted the path Ubuntu will take eventually once it has decides it does not need the community any more.
So it comes to no surprise the latest move by Ubuntu to protect 'it's intellectual property' is to licence Ubuntu. Sounds harsh? Some people will think I am being unfair using language normally used to describe Caldera. How else should I react when Canonical is asking derivative distros to sign a license to use 'Ubuntu binaries'? Ubuntu apologists have already made their stand known. They have made light of the gravity of the act of demand to licence and trying to convince us that the issue is about protecting the Ubuntu brand when it comes to derivative distros, Linux Mint, specifically.
I have ask: Why Linux Mint specifically? Does Canonical ask the same from Kubuntu and lubuntu? Is it because Linux Mint is becoming increasingly popular at the cost to Ubuntu? I've been thinking about writing of the possible danger of other distros basing their work on Ubuntu and how dangerous it is to base their work on a source that is actively consolidating their hold on it. I guess I don't have to now.
Really, I don't. At the end of this post are links to articles that go into this deeper.

How to combine PDFs

Recently, I had to figure out how to join pdfs files into one. This used to be something non-trivial. Nowadays, you can use SimpleScan to scan in documents and create a multi-page PDF. But a few days ago I found myself on an older Mandriva PC with a scanner and the need to create a multi-page PDF. I scanned the pages of the documents with trusty old XSane.  Now I have the pages individually. I was thinking of something clever like opening up Scribus and pasting each image per page. I was also thinking of pasting the images in a OpenOffice document but the images would shrink too much. I gave up thinking like a Windows user and looked at the problem in it's most basic form. I could print the images into individual PDFs but then I would need to combine them together. I was thinking along the lines of printing out in postscript and then concatenating the files together. Then convert the resulting postscript file into a PDF, which is trivial.
Finally, I decided I wasn't that smart and asked Google. I found the answer here, in a Macworld article, of all places. Basically, I had to print out the pages individually as PDFs, which involves setting the printer to print to file. Then I use good old Ghostscript. The command is

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=merged.pdf source1.pdf source2.pdf source3.pdf etc.pdf

Replace source1.pdf, source2.pdf, source3.pdf and etc.pdf with the names of the files that I had printed earlier. Run the command and rename merged.pdf and I'm done.
Basically the command takes the list of pdf files as input and 're-prints' them out as one pdf file using the printer definition called "pdfwrite" which is a basically generates a PDF output.
Never underestimate the power of the command line tools.
Here is another tool I found to change PDFs.

Wikipedia deletes Mageia: A Lesson on Information Democracy

The Mageia page was voted out of Wikipedia on 13th May 2012. Since Wikipedia is transparent about this, how this came about is well documented. At first, I was upset. The community had similar reactions on its forum and others. But the more closely I read the Wikipedia's document, the more I understood why it happened. Let's get one thing straight, I am not apologizing for Wikipedia. The editor involved admitted he was a deletionist, that he favors deletion of unverifiable content. And the fact is that articles listed and generally found on the Internet about Mageia are few and usually about the break from Mandriva. The Wikipedia article also did not have many references, mostly back to Mageia's wiki. This was something I noticed earlier too. All this led to an editor challenging the legitimacy of Mageia's wikipedia page. This led to a discussion of the merits of the references in the Mageia page and references available to the editors to verify whether Mageia is significant enough to be included in Wikipedia. More on this later.
So the editor's preference took effect only after other editors stated their opinions. He even notes that he is not against recreation because Mageia may have enough sources/references, it's just that not enough were provided (emphasis is mine). This is where Wikipedia works as a form of information democracy. Another Mageia page on Wikipedia was set up, this time with many solid references to boot. I shoulder some responsibility for not doing anything when I first noticed the lack of references so I will try to add more references when I do see them.
I appreciate the efforts of Wikipedia editors keeping out fluff pieces and spam. The way I see it, what Mageia went through was a necessary process. The need to review and remove pages is necessary because of the threats to Wikipedia and it's credibility. And it is done by clear rules and criteria. Therefore, it is inevitable that false positives will occur. If so, it is up to us to rectify it. By the act of setting up another page and improving on the references, Mageia has proven itself to be significant to some people who believe that it is significant for others to know, thus worthy of inclusion to Wikipedia. To paraphrase someone more eloquent, the price of information liberty is eternal vigilance. As Wikipedia grows, it needs to shave off dubious articles. Sometimes the shave is a bit too close.

Mageia 2 Upgrade Success

I've just completed upgrading my HP Mini1000 Netbook (1GB RAM 60GB HD) using the in-place / seamless upgrade option. Seamless is not the word to describe it. Took a few hours because I chose to download all the files first. I didn't have access to an external DVD drive so this was forced on me. It felt forced because a notification came up saying that there will be no new updates for the current installed distribution (Mageia 1). A bit premature don't you think?

A few minor hiccups and surprises

• Surprise! The Marvell drivers automatically detected the network when I plugged in the network cable. In the past, required a reboot with the cable plugged in to enable the interface. 
• Hiccup. My on-board Broadcom Wiress NIC failed to work. Had some experience on this before when I first migrated Mageia so I knew what to do. Went into Mageia Control Center (MCC) and tried configuring the wireless card. Came back with response saying it needed the dkms-broadcom packages but was not part of the main distribution. Ignored link to generic Linux firmware and driver. Enabled Non-Free Repositories and re-configured network in MCC. This time it loaded the drives ok. But.. 
• Hiccup. ..still couldn't connect. Entered the right SSID and key and key types. Finally gave up and allowed the Gnome Network Center control over it. It is an option that is off by default below the advanced section. Turned it on, Network Center asked for password. Gave it and it connected ok.
• Hiccup. Mouse clicking is set to off by default. Took me some time to figure that out. Enabled it again on the Settings dialogue.

< rant > Over first impression of Gome 3 is bad. But that is because it reminds me so much of Suse Linux's gnome schema. And that was a huge stumbling block to productivity in a project I was working on a few years back. Back then it was confusing descriptions and duplicate descriptions for 2 different programs. Some free advice to the Gnome UI guys: Forget "Applications". Try "Work", "Play" and "Connect" and sub-divide from there. Put a Mageia Icon to replace the Applications and offer those three choices when it is clicked.

And why keep trying to look like Windows 3.1  Program Manager with the big icons? It was a bad design. Nobody missed it in the move to Windows 95.

The MCC was also hard to find. This is nuts because it is so central when setting up Mageia for the first time. Some Gnome settings apps could not configure the underlying components because MCC denies them access. Case in point: Wireless Network configuration. 

What makes this version worse is the thick window borders. I can see and fit less in a screen. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to open a text editor, set it to "Always on top" and takes notes over another application or webpage. Maybe I can configure the border thickness, I haven't figured it out yet. 

What compounded my frustration is that I installed a Mac yesterday. I know that since Apple sets the hardware, there is no surprise when you first turn it on. I will take that as one end of the scale. But the problems that I face today is less about the wide-range of hardware Linux has to support. It feels like we just are making life harder for us for the sake of making it harder. 

Let me scream this again:  " I HAVE A GREAT SYSTEM. I CUSTOMIZED IT AND IT WORKS FOR ME. WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP REINSTALLING AND STARTING OVER?"
< /rant >

Mageia and Mandriva working together but not?

Two postings by Mageia and Mandriva has signaled a new stage in the relationship between the two entities. This involves not only the distribution itself but also relates to the board of each distribution and therefore the directions of the distributions. The Mageia post, talks about the talks between the two parties on some form of integration or reconciliation. However, the philosophies of each organization has grown apart enough that direct reconciliation is not possible. So Mandriva SA has decided to pass the responsibility for the distribution to new entity. In the posting titled "Mandriva Linux will return to the community", Mandriva SA essentially relents to the wishes of the community and accepts a larger role for the community in the future of the distribution. Mandriva SA will be part of this new entity and they are working out the exact roles and responsibilities.
The question is right now, what is the community like now? How much of the Mandriva active community remains after the split and how many have migrated to Mageia? It is clear that even though Mandriva will be returned to the community, it does come with strings attached. Those strings probably gave the Mageia board enough reason to decline Mandriva SA's invitation. Those strings may not have been technical in nature. What the Mageia board probably wanted to avoid is uncertainty over the future of the distribution. This uncertainty has been hanging over Mandriva and in it's current form, the Mageia board is not convinced the cloud will be lifted or even if dispersed, will not return.
What was more interesting was when the Mageia post is read together with the Mandriva post on the future of the distributions. To Mageia's credit, Mandriva SA will be basing their server product on the Mageia distribution. This is an acknowledgement to the stability and the maturity of the technical processes relating the generation of the Mageia distribution. What is even more interesting is when that news is read together with the rest of the post which talks about the position of the current Mandriva distribution. Mandriva will continue to form the desktop products of Mandriva SA. The Mandriva/Mageia pairing achieves parity with the Fedora/RedHat and the Ubuntu/UbuntuLTS relationships.
There is a slight advantage to the Mandriva/Mageia pairing and it is a product of the first posting. While Fedora and Ubuntu distributions are aimed at the general user and incorporates new versions of software, their server range takes a conservative approach, favoring stability over new features. But since Mageia's board is not directly related to Mandriva's board, the decision to include more recent versions will be independent and more likely be sooner. These inclusions will also be closer the core distribution itself. This avoids the multi-repository and priority arrangement of RedHat's method of incorporating newer releases of software. Needless to say my experience with a system that failed because the administrator added third party repositories without priority management colors my opinions.
With the release of Mageia 2 imminent, coupled with this news, it should make for an interesting few months ahead for both distributions.

Mandriva or Mageia?

I've been putting this off long enough. I am a long time Mandriva user from the days of Mandrake. Not exclusive, of course. It's the distro I use at home and on my laptop at work. I promote it to novices and other Linux users alike. I think I use it because it appeals to the lazy part of me. I get things done with little or no hassle. No fireworks. Not too much bling. Not many surprises.
Ever since it was forked into Mageia, I realized that I would soon have to choose. But since there was nothing concrete from the fork, I waited. Then Mageia 1 came out. I waited some more. Now the new Mandriva is out. The updates are getting fewer and father in between for my  Mandriva 2010 Spring. Normally, it is that time when I turn on the backports repo and feed off that while I read the forums about possible show-stoppers. There wasn't much in the last few releases. So I think there shouldn't be much in the way.
I guess the real question is, how do I choose which one. I use Gnome on Mandriva, so there is that Gnome 3 choice also. After see-sawing back and forth I've decided to burn LiveCds of both to kick the tires a bit.  Only Mandriva doesn't have that anymore. And they only support KDE with a new tablet like interface.
The Mandriva upgrade instructions look frightening, largely because the English is confusing.

When you use --download-all option urpmi will download all the packages first and then begins to install all of them. It is strongly recommended option for migration to a new release with urpmi. It is used to provide reliable update, you need to download and update a lot of packages. If you do not use this option and during update process you face Internet connection problems, you will get a very bad situation when only part of system will be updated, that will result in problems with correct system working.

I'm having nightmares about my former Russian  math tutor repeating that to me again and again. Signs of influence from the Russian investors?
Not everything is going against Mandriva. There is no PLF in Mageia, so I'll need to figure out how that works out for me.
This is one of those times I want to shout out, " I HAVE A GREAT SYSTEM. I CUSTOMIZED IT AND IT WORKS FOR ME. WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP REINSTALLING AND START OVER?" Especially with stuff like wine setups lying around, upgrades means re-configuring those again.
I find it funny complaining about change. Especially from someone who has probed monitor refresh rates  to configure X windows (Look it up kiddies. There is no more spectacular way to make your monitor into a paperweight).  Change is why I don't have to do that anymore. But I think we have reached a plateau. Hopefully my choices won't lead me to cliff at the end of that plateau.

My WDTV and I

I've said before that I have other topical blogs and they have been taking my time away from this. Now, I am even spending less time writing since I got the WDTV, a box that connects the amongst other things, the Internet to my TV. Thats right, YouTube and podcasts (via MediaFly and Flingo)on the big screen.
There has to be some Open Source / Linux goodness going on because the WDTV even behaves like an Open Source app. For example, the firmware update process is so simple it's down to pressing Yes or No. But thats not it. The fact that is asks to update the firmware and waits for your approval as opposed to downloading it and forcing you to restart the set top box, says a lot more about the people who built this.
The costs is relatively cheap compared to setting up your own MythTV box.  MythTV may do more but for most people, the WDTV is more than enough. Read the post here.

I suck at this

I haven't been a good blogger. My last post was some time ago and not a good one at that.
Truth is I have a few other topical blogs and I am spending more time on them. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux and I use it every day in almost every possible way. But usually I don't have anything interesting to say about it. I could write about what I am thinking about most of the time when it comes to linux : I thank God I am not a Windows user. But that gets boring after some time. Plus I can't write too much about work and my projects because of legal reasons.
Linux is so ubiquitous in my life, it really is boring. It used to be really a challenge just to install. Then config the graphic card in X. But now everything is so well done and tested by so many other users that my experiences are shying away from the technicalities that I love to more of.... management. So much I do right now is management that I even blog about it.
Moreover I need to update this blog's template. I promise to write about something as soon as I have something interesting to say.