Project Chaplin Beta 2 Released
Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2015-04-12 12:36:00 UTC | Tags: appcache audio cc chaplin creativecommons floss free software github html5 import open open source oss project projectchaplin search sharing video videos youtube
I'm pleased to announce the release of Project Chaplin Beta 2.
Project Chaplin is an open source, free software video sharing platform with support for YouTube and HTML5.
Since release beta 1, the following features have been added:
Search now produces only CC-licenced YouTube videos Faster loading through use of HTML5 AppCache (where enabled).
The release can be updated using GitHub or downloaded as a zip or tar file.
Please let me know what you think!
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BSD for Linux Users: An Introduction
Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2015-03-29 14:05:00.003 UTC | Tags: bsd cddl debian dragonfly dragonflybsd free freebsd gnu licence linux netbsd open openbsd pcbsd sco unix zfs
BSD means a few things in the Open Source / Operating System world:
- The Berkeley System Distribution, a variant of UNIX that stemmed from the original AT&T UNIX, originally developed by Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California, Berkeley [1]
- One or many of a number of BSD distributions - a "flavour" of the original, modified by the vendor to suit the purpose of the distribution in question. Examples might be FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and Dragonfly BSD. Note that these are not "Unix-like" as Linux is, but actually based from and including code from the original BSD - minus the code from AT&T, hence the version they are based upon is known as "4.4BSD-Lite".
- The actual kernel of one of these distributions, in the same way as Linux is the main kernel of distributions such as Ubuntu, Fedora or Mint, although there are other choices of kernel for some distributions.
- One or many BSD communities around the world to support and help develop these distributions, such as forums, help desks, etc.
- A set of permissive non-copyleft licences which said distributions and kernels are distributed under [2][3] which allow redistribution provided that the original copyright notices are left in the associated media, and pose no other restrictions other than an optional "no endorsement" clause.
Following is a summary of some of the main distributions.
FreeBSD: the most popular BSD distribution, recognised by its support for running servers and famously run on [4]
PC-BSD: touted as "user-friendly", offering an easy install process and simple package installations from self-contained packages. [5]
OpenBSD: supposedly the most secure operating system, boasting "Only two remote holes in the default install, in a heck of a long time!" [6]
NetBSD: a distribution with a small install size, a popular base and excelling at portability with "formal releases for 53 architectures [7], and has integrated ports for four others", celebrating 20 years since its foundation this year.
Dragonfly BSD: a 10-year-old (so still relatively young) distribution famous for its extremely speedy filesystems. [8]
Debian GNU/kFreeBSD [9], the Debian distribution compiled to work on top of a BSD-type kernel rather than a Linux one, which has the upshots of being able to be used on top of BSD-supported filesystems, those compatible with BSD licences (but not the GPLv2 [10] used by Linux [11]) such as ZFS [12] (edit 2021: archived) (licenced under the CDDL [13]), and all the while using the familiar GNU tools common to the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
Next time: BSD Licences and why they are good, bad and/or certainly not ugly.
References
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution 4 [2] https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause
[3] https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause
[4] https://www.freebsd.org/
[5] https://www.pcbsd.org/
[6] https://openbsd.org/
[7] https://www.netbsd.org/about/portability.html
[8] https://www.dragonflybsd.org/features/
[9] https://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
[10] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
[11] https://www.kernel.org/doc/linux/COPYING
[12] [https://web.archive.org/web/20140908152050/http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/filesystems-zfs.html] (https://web.archive.org/web/20140908152050/http://www.freebsd.org/doc/handbook/filesystems-zfs.html) (edit: archived)
[13] https://opensource.org/licenses/CDDL-1.0
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Standards
Permalink | Author: Dan Dart | Published: 2008-09-25 14:57:00 UTC | Tags: argument desktop format gnome kde open standard war
First and foremost, well done community for adopting OpenDocument as the standard for office applications!
If the world adopts standards we will have a standard way of doing things, a standard window manager that everyone uses (pity no one can agree on one), a standard image format and all. This makes things easier for the community to understand their system and for it all to be the same.
The problem with that is that there will be less competition of ways of doing things and therefore no innovation. For example if everyone adopted KDE as their standard window manager, the innovation would slow down because GNOME and KDE aren't competing against each other. We need innovation because the world is driving itself so fast, new ideas excite us.
The thing we know is that these standards (if they exist) must be open, for without open standards, only one group of applications would be able to adopt the standard. For file format standards one must be able to use whichever application he or she wishes to use to view or edit the file. For desktop standards I personally do not want to be locked into a certain way of doing things. That is why for me, for file formats there should be simple open standards and for desktop applications, there should be no standard, just few competing ones. The KDE/GNOME war will never end but at least we know that if we have a problem we can use the other one, edit them as we choose, and we're sure there will be lots of innovation in these fields.
Do the pros outweigh the cons? Let me know your opinion.
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