The openSUSE team has released slightly changed openSUSE 10.2 ISO images. The reason for putting out these updated ISOs is a license issue, which had to be addressed. The ISOs on the mirrors have been updated to reflect the changes. Also, openSUSE 10.3 alpah 2 has been released.
What wasn’t licensed properly ?
Nothing was improperly licensed, the license for the Agfa fonts package was missing.
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2007-03/msg00031.html
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-project/2007-03/msg00032.html
I wonder how much effort is expended by us in the OSS community to address issues of licensing minutia?
The arguments on mailing lists. The releases of this or that to address some obscure conflict. And the impenetrable barriers placed between projects that source code simply cannot pass, despite that fact that the developers agree on so much!
Arguably more disturbing are those licenses that put up one way membranes to source code. “We can take from you, but we won’t give back”.
I don’t claim to have a solution. But if anyone does, please raise your hand. It could really give us a leg up.
Can someone actually do some research and mention what this issue was?
Do you seriously think I visit this site to track down the actual news?
Edit:
Woops need mean to place this post under the Overhead topic.
Edited 2007-03-16 23:18
Totally agreed. Every time I see one of the “license flamewars” on here, it reminds me of the scenes from Life of Brian mocking the tendency of activist groups to fragment (“No, we’re the The Judean People’s Front – NOT the People’s Front of Judea!”)
I wonder how much effort is expended by us in the OSS community to address issues of licensing minutia?
The arguments on mailing lists. The releases of this or that to address some obscure conflict. And the impenetrable barriers placed between projects that source code simply cannot pass, despite that fact that the developers agree on so much!
The real issue here is that in the open source community this process is open. You don’t see these kinds of things in commercial businesses because it is all done behind closed doors. Licensing issues and flamewars happen all the time in commercial software companies you just don’t get to see it because most companies have a policy that prevents outsiders from seeing the internal workings of a large company.
it seems the “licensing issue” isn’t even clarified on the site.
did novellosoft, sorry suse do some really bad copyright infringement?
No copyright infringement. An (obscure) package lacked the correct license bundled with it.
http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-announce/2007-03/msg00004.html
So I assume if someone really wants to know the reason for respinning 10.2, send the guy a friendly e-mail, and wait for a friendly reply back.
“””
So I assume if someone really wants to know the reason for respinning 10.2, send the guy a friendly e-mail, and wait for a friendly reply back.
“””
Where is the fun in that when you can accuse, through innuendo, Novellsoft of committing really bad copyright infringement?
I suspect that this issue is about as significant as the “Hot Babe” crisis on the Debian lists some time back.
http://lwn.net/Articles/113644/
Also, openSUSE 10.3 alpah 2 has been released.
alpah -> alpha
If you want to try the new Gnome main menu, don’t bother installing Alpha 2. They’ve had this nasty crasher bug for weeks and don’t seem to care about fixing it.
I was thinking of doing a comparison article against OpenSUSE 10.3 Alpha 2 and the latest Ubuntu development alpha release (Herd 5), but I gave up when I realized OpenSUSE didn’t actively fix bugs on a day-to-day basis.
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=251206
Edited 2007-03-17 09:50
Actually they do do daily fixes. You have to add the factory repository to yast. But you’re a linux guru so you already knew that, right?
> Actually they do do daily fixes. You have to
> add the factory repository to yast.
Why isn’t it enabled by default when you’re installing alpha software? Isn’t the point to test a development build? They would probably get less bug duplicates if it updates itself automatically like Ubuntu does.
Edited 2007-03-17 17:21
there is no reason to believe that it won’t be fixed. You are speaking of alpha releases. the OpenSUSE community does fix problems on a daily basis but it happens on some priorities. yes that may sometimes be inconvenient to you. If you really think it’s bad, you may as well stay away from the alpha’s.
Also, I think that a comparision is not fair; both products are based on differet ideas. You could do a side by side review or so.
Also, I think that a comparision is not fair; both products are based on differet ideas. You could do a side by side review or so.
What different ideas are they based on?
I was thinking of doing a comparison in terms of usability, user friendliness and stuff like that. From my personal point of view of course.
So basically when YOU snap your fingers, someone should jump, right?
You shouldn’t expect next-day service on a silver platter. That’s a bit unrealistic. It takes time to a) diagnose the bug, b) find out what’s causing it, c) implement a fix before releasing it to the public, and d) pray to a four-armed deity that it works.
It’s especially bothersome when a developer can’t reproduce the bug in question.
So just because they haven’t responded to your bugzilla in under 5 minutes doesn’t mean they don’t care. They may be fixing other bugs and haven’t had time to look at the bugzilla reports.
So basically when YOU snap your fingers, someone should jump, right?
Certainly not. All I’m trying to say if that if people (like me) want to try OpenSUSE because they want to test the nifty new start menu, then stay away from Alpha 2 for now because the start menu is broken.
You shouldn’t expect next-day service on a silver platter.
I’m not. Sorry if my post came across that way.
It’s especially bothersome when a developer can’t reproduce the bug in question.
I haven’t seen evidence that they can’t reproduce it. It’s even listed in the “Most annoying bugs” section. One developer was adressing another in the report though:
“Jim we really need to fix this before alpha2 which will be released in 10 days or so and so needs submitting by end of this week.”
Alpha 2 is out now and it’s still broken. That’s all. Sorry if I upset anyone with my friendly warning.
I’m sorry, as a long term (open)SUSE user I was pretty interested in this topic, which turns out to be a load of crap.
This topic is not very useful Thom, it only scares openSUSE users and is everything but helpful. Drop da thang