[PLUG-TALK] YAY I SUBSCRIBED! I think.

[Pomeroy Lab]

Good Point. I just changed the FAQ page. I know I'm not good at spalling and; gramer' and if anyone wants to give their time to correct my mistakes I would appreciate it. 

Rogan Creswick <creswick at gmail.com> wrote: On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Pomeroy Lab
 wrote:
> Ultumix is not a company but a distro made by USA Computer Tech Computer
> Rescue that is free for us to share with others. However due to the
> restrictions from Adobe no one can redistribute it without permission from
> Adobe so that is one draw back however I don't think people will care about
> this restriction because I know of people who redistribute it anyway and I'm
> not stopping them.

Oof... this bothers me a bit, particularly since it is not apparent
from the Ultimix web page--rather to the contrary (from the FAQ
http://www.mindblowingidea.com/FAQ.html):

"Q: Is this software free?

A: Yes it is free to use and share. You can download the .iso via
Torrent or directly from a mirror listed on our site for free. If you
wish to have a DVD copy then please use the Google Merchant Account
Below."

and:

"Q: What contributions have you made to the GNU/Linux community? What
gives you the right to redistribute this work?

A: The GPL gives me rights. I have contributed to the Linux community
with my GLUG, GNU/Linux User Group. I have sponsored the car in the
TUX500 Indy500 race. I use TheLinuxFund.org Visa credit card so that
every time I make a purchase it supports the FSF. My ideas to help
bridge the gap between Windows users and GNU/Linux users by designing
Ultumix is also my contribution even though I am using other's
software to do it."

This seems to blatantly contradict what you just said about Adobe
products -- Where *is* the licensing information about Ultimix? How
would the users know that they can't legally redistribute Ultimix?
Shouldn't the above paragraph say something about Adobe giving you
rights to redistribute their software? (They *did* give you those
rights, right?)

The open source movement *relies* on the legal system that supports
the licenses, like the GPL and US copyright law.  Without these
protections there is nothing to keep a company from taking anything
they wish and selling it as their own.  It sure looks like Ultimix is
taking a hypocritical position on this one, and might be part of why
the community is so critical of the distro.

> As far as a Google group the only problem is that the SF.net forums work so
> well for us already and so many people use them that we don't want to break
> away. If there was a way to start a mailing list using SF.net we would do
> it. Can we?

I don't know much about SF.net's options -- it seems like they should
have mailing lists, but I don't know for sure.  I personally don't
mind your announcements -- I wish they were proofread better so we
would see fewer of them (there always seems to be a string of
corrections to every announcement, and it looks very unprofessional,
as well as making it moderately more annoying to archive / delete the
messages).  Pluggers are engaged in some interesting projects, and I
like hearing about them, so while I don't like the Ultimix
announcements that much I appreciate the right to post the occasional
"Hey check out this cool trick/tool/etc. I found/made!" email.

--Rogan
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