LDP Weekly News

The Linux Documentation Project Weekly News

Issue Number : 3
Publication Date : 2004-01-21
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Table of Contents
1. New documents @ TLDP
2. Documents submitted for review
3. New document proposals
4. Updated HOWTOs, FAQs and Guides
5. News in The LDP world
    5.1. Linux+XFS HOWTO to Unmaintained
   
   
6. Discussions on TLDP lists
    6.1. ISBN for TLDP documents
   
   
7. Interview with Guylhem Aznar
8. HOWTO contribute to TLDP

1. New documents @ TLDP

This week we have for you:

  * The [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Webcam-HOWTO/] Webcam HOWTO, a long-needed
    addition to our collection. Howard Shane documents the use of USB,
    FireWire and parallel port webcams, explains about video devices and has
    detailed info for a number of webcam brands. He also discusses
    applications like Xawtv, Gqcam and SANE, and what to do when things don't
    work out as planned. The HOWTO already contains info for the new 2.6
    kernels.
   
  * The [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Cryptoloop-HOWTO/] Cryptoloop HOWTO, by Ralf
    Holtzer. With the Cryptoloop functionality, which is part of the
    CryptoAPI in the 2.6 kernels, you can encrypt disk partitions without the
    need to install kernel patches. Ralf explains how to configure the
    kernel, where to get adapted losetup and mount programs and how to use
    these commands.
   

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2. Documents submitted for review

  * Artemio completed his [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?5:mss:7200:200401:
    nnghnjankckgmeplmgkk] SquashFS HOWTO; Tabatha is doing a last checkup.
   

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3. New document proposals

  * Daniel Burr wrote this [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?5:mss:7198:
    200401:degpojhlceedpfcncgab] VCD conversion HOWTO, explaining how to
    convert your video tapes to a format suitable for Video CDs. He awaits
    your input.
   
  * Daniel Sumers Myers [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:6451:200401:
    addnmndhfbflgdbiaohg] proposed to write a HOWTO on installing the
    Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC; [http://
    boinc.berkeley.edu] http://boinc.berkeley.edu) and creating a simple test
    project.
   

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4. Updated HOWTOs, FAQs and Guides

  * Howard Shane published v1.05 of the [http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Scanner-HOWTO
    /] Scanner HOWTO, which contains various corrections and updates.
   
  * Rick Moen did some corrections of addresses in v1.7.6 of the [http://
    tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO.html] LUG HOWTO. Don't forget to let him
    know if your LUG's address or contact info change!
   

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5. News in The LDP world

5.1. Linux+XFS HOWTO to Unmaintained

Russel Ingram let us know that his Linux+XFS HOWTO can be moved to the
unmaintained collection. While SGI's journaling filesystem is of course
supported in the 2.6 kernels, Russel hasn't had the opportunity to keep the
document nor his own skills up to date. He welcomes anyone who wishes to take
over this document but also argues that you now have XFS support by default.

Note that you may also use the ext3 or Reiser journaling filesystems, but
tests have pointed out that XFS has better performance for really large files
(in the Gigabytes range).
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6. Discussions on TLDP lists

6.1. ISBN for TLDP documents

Machtelt Garrels was toying with the idea of ISBN numbers for The LDP
documents. People had various opinions about that and Martin WHEELER in a
related context said that The LDP should not not be attempting to do what it
is. Emma Jane Hogbin [http://lists.tldp.org/index.cgi?1:mss:6475:200401:
jcgoangfebccbgnflhnf] contradicted him and listed the incremental progress of
The LDP and the work that she had been doing recently.
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7. Interview with Guylhem Aznar

After a period of silence, we finally have another interview ready for you.
We had the opportunity of asking TLDP's "bad guy", Guylhem Aznar, a couple of
questions. Guylhem cuts the knots in troublesome issues; that is why people
feel very strongly - and sometimes also very differently - about him.

Guylhem is a native French speaker, and the fun thing about such people is
that they tell you much more than you want to know. We were flooded with
answers to our questions, and although we had to cut here and there, we don't
want to keep Guylhem's interesting remarks from you. So this interview is a
little bit longer than usual.


Figure 1. Guylhem Aznar, taker of decisions

[guylhem]

Q: What are you doing in the TLDP organization?

A: Apart from taking responsibilities in solving troublesome issues, I'm not
really doing very much at the moment.

There was a time when my role was much more active. On the one hand I'm
happy: the fact that I don't need to interfere that often anymore is a sure
sign that TLDP is running smoothly now. Decisions are taken, applied and
respected in an atmosphere of mutual trust. TLDP has matured, the team works.
Moreover, being a medical resident, a PhD student, running my own consultancy
business and contributing to various free software projects, all
simultaneously, I don't have a lot of free time.

But on the other hand there are still problems, such as the license issues we
discussed recently, or the co-operation with non-English efforts. There are
also problems with old and outdated documents, and I am concerned about the
lack of new authors. However few hours I have to myself, I'd like to invest
those in order to keep TLDP from coming to harm.

Q: So how did you get involved?

A: It was round about 1997, because of the lack of responsiveness from the
French group which I submitted my documents to.

I decided to start writing in English, and submitted my documents to TLDP.
There was an excellent ambiance and the project was very interesting. All
went well for some time, but just before the turn of the century, a severe
problem arose: the LDP leader of those days had to resign, for many reasons,
and I did not trust the only candidate for the succession. I feared there
were going to be conflicts of interest, so I started a campaign and got 
"elected".

Q: Can you tell us about your presidency?

A: My first job was to unify the LDP again: we had mailing lists and servers
all over the world, and nobody knew who was responsible for what. So I
started by putting together a "staff", a team of volunteers that could get
TLDP structured. I learned the hard way that it was a good thing to have
procedures and to discuss steps with my team before actually taking action.

After a short romance with SGI, we got the relationship with ibiblio going
again. They were very understanding and provided a lot of support, which
enabled us to centralize resources in North Carolina.

Q: Under your chairmanship, the LDP changed its name to TLDP. Can you
explain, for the readers who joined us more recently, why this happened?

A: Well, after I was elected, I didn't want the other candidate to feel left
out. So I trusted him to be our webmaster. However, we "lost" linuxdoc.org
because this person first purchased the .com and ran a commercial website on
it on the back of TLDP, then claimed ownership on the .org because he had
paid for the domain renewal. We offered to refund him for any expenses but he
refused any agreement which would have transferred back the domain to us. So
history proved I was right about not trusting him in the first place. As I
said, I learned the hard way. This time I learned that many people are
interested in TLDP, but not always for the good of the project.

Anyway, we had to find a new domain name, and TLDP.org was short and free, so
I took my responsibilities and moved the project to the domain we are
currently using. TLDP is now much more than the former English-only project,
and much more efficient, so it was for the best, if you ask me. I'd like to
take this opportunity to ask other non-English projects to join us, rather
than duplicating efforts. I'm confident that our new evolutions - such as
sorted documentation, more automatisation and the "seal of quality" on the
documents we put forward will make them want to work altogether.

Q: I read somewhere that you have a cure for ignorance. We're very curious as
to what this is?

A: Education, education and education. With a little support to help getting
started.

I call it a "cure" because I think ignorance is a disease (I'm into medicine,
don't blame me!). It can cause lot of symptoms, such as stupid questions,
lack of understanding on how to fix basic problems, bad behavior, and lack of
respect for this enormous effort.

I'm quite concerned by the current flow of GNU/Linux users who do not take
time to learn the system: the basics such as the shell, the multi-user
aspect, and above all, free software ethics. If I had a wish, I'd like a
desktop icon on every distribution linking to basic documents, to give new
users a clue. You can't blame them now - TLDP is not very visible, and free
documentation is not always put forward.

Moreover, some people take free software for granted. They think it's normal
and ask authors for all kind of features or support as if it was compulsory
for the authors, who are in most cases not even payed. They do code for their
personal satisfaction, not to indulge their every wish!

(Note from the reaction: these are the same people who think it is a
perfectly normal thing not to pay for commercial software as well and just
make illegal copies...)

This ignorance fuels Open Source movements, which only take free software
basic principles but forget ethics and the true projects behind free software
- society and politics. These words shouldn't be taboos: political and social
movements should be mentioned along free software for all sorts of reasons.

I'd like new GNU/Linux users to be aware of the global project behind free
software. Free software is about coming back to true capitalism - a real
competition, with real business opportunities. The current situation with 
"intellectual property" and non-free software is an artificial scarcity
created to try to sell what can't be sold. Illegal copy is just a symptom of
the lack of adaptation between the market and the people. Free software
offers an excellent way to solve that problem. DRM, DMCA, Palladium etcetera
are all designed to try to make a broken model work. You can see that I can
get quite excited about this, but let's face it: we live in the digital age.
Live with it or die like the dinosaurs did.

Thank you, Guylhem, for this abundance of ideas!

Find out more about Guylhem at [http://externe.net/] http://externe.net/.
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8. HOWTO contribute to TLDP

The Linux Documentation Project (TLDP) is working on developing free, high
quality documentation for the GNU/Linux operating system. If you want to help
TLDP, consider joining <discuss-subscribe@en.tldp.org>.

Help us create this newsletter. We need volunteers who follow the community
(mailing lists, newsgroups, web channels) and report events related to free
software documentation. Write to us at <feedback@en.tldp.org>.

The LDP Weekly News is compiled and edited by Machtelt Garrels and Y Giridhar
Appaji Nag with help from several other people.