Get DeltaH, gNewSense 2.0
| From: | Joshua Gay <jgay-AT-gnu.org> | |
| To: | info-fsf-AT-gnu.org, info-press-AT-gnu.org | |
| Subject: | [GNU/FSF Press] Get DeltaH, gNewSense 2.0 | |
| Date: | Thu, 1 May 2008 17:37:33 -0400 | |
| Message-ID: | <20080501213733.GA12349@fencepost.gnu.org> |
BOSTON, MA, USA May 1, 2008 The gNewSense project today announced the release of DeltaH[1], the second version of their all free-software GNU/Linux distribution. The DeltaH download web page states[2], "DeltaH was our second major release, based on Ubuntu Hardy. 2.0 was released on May 1st 2008 - less than a week after Hardy's release." The gNewSense project dubs itself as "A free as in freedom GNU/Linux distribution, that takes all the non-free blobs out of a rather popular distribution." In addition to stripping binary blobs from the kernel, the package and source trees contain only free software drivers, and do not offer access to any proprietary software. Because of this commitment to free software, the Free Software Foundation and the GNU project recommend that users seeking to install a distribution of GNU/Linux consider installing gNewSense. The developers of gNewSense invite those interested in discussing this latest release to join their mailing list[3] or join them on irc.freenode.net in the #gnewsense channel. [1],[2]: http://www.gnewsense.org/Main/Deltah [3]: http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnewsense-users ### _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press@gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press
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There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 2, 2008 22:32 UTC (Fri) by dwalters (guest, #4207) [Link]
As far as I can tell, GLX and Mesa have been torn right out of this release (obviously because they contained nonfree code, which I didn't realise), so now just about every 3D program won't run at all on gNewSense 2.0! I can totally understand the reason for doing this, and I have complete respect for the gNewSense developers for sticking doggedly to their free software-only principles, but I have to say I'm shocked that there isn't at least a free-software implementation of 3D/OpenGL stuff. I must admit, I thought Mesa was just that - a FLOSS implementation, which in the absence of a hardware-accelerated 3D driver, would at least support the basic 3D functionality required to run, say, Tux Racer.
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 0:36 UTC (Sat) by tetromino (guest, #33846) [Link]
You've got to love these people. Suppose you are distro and find some questionably-licensed piece of code in a free software project. It looks like no-one besides you knows about this licensing problem. What are your choices of action? 1. reimplement/replace with a free alternative; 2. tell the upstream developers about the licensing problem so they can sort it out; or 3. rip out the code, disabling major features, without informing upstream or giving anyone a chance to fix the problem. Naturally, gnuisance picked #3: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2008-04...
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 1:42 UTC (Sat) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]
I agree, informing the original developers would be great (in addition to the immediate upstream distro). I remember that their older version removed the driver for Atmel USB wireless devices. Nobody wrote to the driver developers. I was on the list for that driver at that time, but I learned about it from LWN.
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 7:29 UTC (Sat) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
According to http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2008-04..., the problematic files are: GL/glx/glxext.c hw/dmx/glxProxy/glxext.c But it's not only that, since also SGI Free Software Licence B is not a free software license, and covers basically all of GLX in X. So option a) mentioned would have been not feasible for gNewSense developers. Interestingly, there has been a bug about the non-freeness of the license in Debian since 2003: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=211765 , but still Debian has been shipping non-free stuff. It has been only recently found (?) that the bug is still there with X.org.
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 10, 2008 3:46 UTC (Sat) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]
According to http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2008-04..., the problematic files are:GL/glx/glxext.c hw/dmx/glxProxy/glxext.c
But it's not only that, since also SGI Free Software Licence B is not a free software license, and covers basically all of GLX in X. So option a) mentioned would have been not feasible for gNewSense developers.
But according to the corresponding bugs, X.org fixed it back in January. So why did gNewSense not pick up the fix (whatever it was)? (The bug referenced a checkin number, but there was no patch attached, as far as I could tell, so I have no idea what the X devs think they did to fix it.)
Greg
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 15:50 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
It is actually of little consequence, since gNewSense is mostly irrelevant except to those few people who use it and would heartily agree with the evil code being removed. Linux is open enough that pretty much any group should be able to find a distro with which they are comfortable. Which is nice. It helps keep the extremists off the more popular distros' mailing lists.
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 18:59 UTC (Sat) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
Dunno about extremists, Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/openSUSE/all want to have non-free stuff separated at least, and preferably not part of the distribution itself, and if what gNewSense has done is entirely making sense then there's some stuff to ponder for all distros. There are a few thing to consider, namely that the files are hugely important and if the GLX/SGI licenses are actually very strictly non-free or more like annoyingly non-free-like but not necessarily absolutely non-free. Also how much an effort would be needed for relicensing if necessary. The fact that gNewSense has guts to take an important part away which they have doubts about does not make them extremists in my opinion, just people who keep up the good work on investigating this stuff. Without DFSG, FSF definitions etc. we all would be in a swamp of uncertainty, even though the random Joe User does not care that much as long as it works.
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 5, 2008 15:24 UTC (Mon) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]
In this case it's something that is worth noting, maybe even requesting a licensing change, but I doubt it's worth actually worrying about or removing major pieces of functionality.
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 18:56 UTC (Sat) by felixrabe (guest, #50514) [Link]
I dare to guess that the gNewSense developers are doing both #2 (long-term approach) and #3 (short-term "we have to make a free software release *now*" approach) in parallel as that would make the most ... sense :) #1 is not the job of a distro IM(H)O (though individual developers that happen to also work on the distro are free to do #1 outside of the distro realm of course).
There's now no 3D support in gNewSense!
Posted May 3, 2008 18:59 UTC (Sat) by felixrabe (guest, #50514) [Link]
I dared to guess because just recently I stumbled upon code that had no license attached anywhere (cairo-demo (in cvs, not git), xcb-something) and contacted upstream immediately (not yet for xcb, but I will when I get to it again) because it's just natural for me to do that.
Pun?
Posted May 3, 2008 7:09 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Is the name a deliberate pun on "nuisance", or did they invent the name and promote it before anyone responsible noticed? I can't see how such a deliberate pun would benefit anyone actually involved. GNU hackers are no strangers to wordplay, so accident seems implausible. Perhaps it is a wry acknowledgment of how the GNU organization is perceived within the larger community?
Pun?
Posted May 3, 2008 7:37 UTC (Sat) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]
Yep, it's intentional. Richard Stallman is often playfully referred to as the Chief GNUisance (or actually, he himself uses that).
Pun?
Posted May 3, 2008 17:48 UTC (Sat) by engla (subscriber, #47454) [Link]
What about the name 'DeltaH'? What does that refer to?
Pun?
Posted May 3, 2008 17:58 UTC (Sat) by dark (guest, #8483) [Link]
I'm guessing: they based it on Ubuntu's Hardy release, abbreviated 'H'. In mathematical notation, a 'delta' is often an offset or difference from some other quantity. For example, Δt would be elapsed time. And since developing gNewSense mainly consists of defining the difference (delta) between it and the corresponding Ubuntu release, they called it the Hardy delta, or delta H.