[Menai-LUG] Meeting/event - notes from the meeting

[Kevin Donnelly]

(portmanteau reply)

On Wednesday 04 April 2007 20:56, Eion MacDonald wrote:
> Will you cover this in your applications point.
> (VAT accounting, it is major reason I still dual boot to Windows!)

Yes, this certainly needs to be addressed before we offer solutions.  GnuCash, 
however, 
does seem to handle VAT, eg
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2005-April/013417.html
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2005-November/015074.html
https://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/2005-March/013233.html
These are quite old, so it may even have improved since then - I haven't 
looked at the app for some time.  We might have to do a briefing note on the 
website walking people through using GnuCash for VAT to make it a more viable 
alternative.

On Wednesday 04 April 2007 18:33, Oli wrote:
>  I would be interested to speak to
> someone about Thyme and GnuCash - I always find its the apps that make
> people want the OS - not the other way around!

Gnucash - http://www.gnucash.org
Thyme - http://www.clocksoft.co.uk

> Anyway, best of luck, and I would be happy to help out with putting
> you in touch with people who can help with publicity in Flintshire.

Thanks - can you send me the details off-list?

On Thursday 05 April 2007 16:23, Carwyn Edwards wrote:
> I'll ask around at work (University of Wales, Bangor) to see if we can
> help in any way with this. Technium Cast (techniumcast.com) and Intec
> also have some people that might be interested. IT Wales (itwales.com)
> is another group that will likely have interested parties.

Much appreciated - please keep us informed of developments.  If you have any 
specific entrees to Cast or ITWales, perhaps we could use them when the 
planning is a bit farther forward?

> I'd be concerned about two words in this sentence: "free" and "GPL". "Free"
> is a double edged sword from what I've seen in businesses perception.
> People like free things, but tend to associate low value to things that are
> given away free. I've also had people argue that free is also often
> associated with poor customer support. I think I'd suggest Open Source
> instead of "free". It isn't free, there is value and cost to it. 

Yes, this is a valid concern.  In fact, it is exactly the argument made by 
ESR, Bruce Perens, etc when they generated the term "open-source".  The basic 
problem is that English uses the same word for two entirely separate things, 
unlike French (libre/gratuit) or Welsh (rhydd/am ddim) - as Richard noted -  
and there's not much that can be done about this.  "FLOSS" is confusing 
unless you already know what it stands for, "open-source" may evoke the 
response "I wouldn't understand a program's code, so why should I value 
that?" (and is also subject to term creep from people using "open" to mean 
"industry-standard", ie proprietary, or "shared source"), "libre software" 
sounds slightly posey, "liberated software" sounds a bit agitprop, and so on.

So I think we have to bite the bullet and use "free software", but with 
something to suggest that it's not your usual "free".  "Free as in freedom, 
not free as in beer" is a bit long, and in most cases the cosftware is free 
as in beer as well, so what I've taken to doing is just "free (GPL)".  Others 
may disagree, but to me this subsets "free" and also draws attention to the 
license, which is as it should be.

Whether this is the right thing to use for the event, I don't know.  I'm a 
little wary of the term "open-source" (though I wasn't 3-4 years ago), because 
it's becoming a bit of a moveable feast - "as open as we, the producers, want 
to make it" - instead of, as the GPL does, emphasising the consumers (who, 
after all, outnumber software producers by many times to one, and whose 
businesses are in aggregate far more important to the economy).  I also doubt 
whether it's that much more comprehensible/appealing to likely participants 
at the event, as Richard also noted.

I take the point about the negative connotations of "free".  But people often 
want to have it both ways - "Great, this software is free!  But I'll probably 
need support?  What, you mean I have to pay for that?  Why isn't it free as 
well?"  I'm not sure how many proprietary apps come with free support now - 
there were quite a few in the 80s (when your word-processor might cost you 
£800), but not many now, I suspect.  Most FLOSS providers (eg RedHat, SUSE, 
Canonical, Sun, MySQL AB, Sugar, etc etc) offer full support - at a price.  
So the issue is really one of whether you pay (up front, in buying the app), 
or only as you need it (in time or money) - free software at least offers you 
one more degree of freedom than the traditional software model.  I think that 
setting out this slightly different way of looking at or evaluating software 
costs might actually be one of the benefits of the event.

> GPL on the 
> other hand is too specific, much of the software that non technical people
> will associate with Open Source isn't GPL.

Most FLOSS is in fact under the GPL rather than an OSS license - Perl, PHP, 
MySQL, Linux, etc.  The outstanding contrary case is Apache.  I read 
somewhere that of all the FLOSS software in existence, something like 75% of 
it is under the GPL.  Granted, a large amount of that will be sleepware, but 
virtually all the big FLOSS software projects are GPL, and many individual 
developers (particularly in Europe) will in fact refuse to contribute to 
software that is *not* under the GPL (because software under OSS licenses 
like the BSD one can be "kidnapped" and taken proprietary, whereupon their 
code is used by someone else for that individual's/company's personal gain, 
instead of for the public good, as the coder intended).

> My suggestions:
> "Solve your business computing needs affordably and sustainably using Open
> Source Software"
> "How Open Source and Open Standards can help your Business"

I agree the "open standards" point might be a good one, although that is 
already subject to term creep (eg Microsoft's Office Open XML, which uses the 
word "open", but is really nothing of the sort, since it allows you to use 
OOXML as a wrapper for proprietary blobs).

On Thursday 05 April 2007 17:18, Richard Smedley wrote:
> I'm afraid talking about ``open source'' is far more baffling for
> non-technical people than talking about freedom. Besides, a lot
> of software sold as ``open source'' is not free at all :-(

Indeed.  Just to take an example relevant to business (since Huw wasn't quite 
convinced :-)), Sugar CRM sourcecode is available, but the Professional 
version's license agreement says:
===
Company shall not, directly or indirectly: (i) sublicense, resell, rent, 
lease, distribute, market, commercialize or otherwise transfer rights or 
usage to: (a) the Software, (b) any modified version or derivative work of 
the Software created by the Company or for the Company, or (c) any software, 
either modified or not, licensed under a SugarCRM Public License, for any 
purpose including timesharing or service bureau purposes; (ii) remove or 
alter any copyright, trademark or proprietary notice in the Software; (iii) 
transfer, use or export the Software in violation of any laws or regulations 
of any government or governmental agency; (iv) use or run on any of Company's 
hardware, or have deployed for use, any copy or version of the SugarCRM open 
source version of the Software; (v) reverse engineer, decompile or modify any 
encrypted or encoded portion of the Software; (vi) bifurcate the source code 
for any SugarCRM open source licensed products into a separately maintained 
source code repository so that development done on the original code requires 
manual work to be transferred to the forked software or so that the forked 
software starts to have features not present in the original software.
===

Not much you can do with that version of the software except use it!  I 
actually think that negotiating your way around the thickets of various OSS 
licenses is more difficult than having a straight proprietary license :-)  
GPL is easiest of all .....

> Access to source code is only part of freedom - being able to run
> the software wherever you like, for whatever purpose you like, is
> very important when it comes to the crippling pain of keeping
> track of licences across a large organisation. And in schools,
> being able to give OOo discs to the kids would put an end to
> teachers' tacit encouragement to the pupils obtaining illegal
> copies of MS Office (and actually passing out discs of illegally-
> copied proprietary software in a couple of cases I know of at a
> local school).

This is a very good point - "free software encourages ethical behaviour 
shock!" - and of course there have been instances (Birmingham rings a bell) 
where LEAs have been fined for running unlicensed software.

> How about:
> ``What is software freedom? Find out how...'' and then something
> about sustainability, GNU/Linux, growing your business, etc.

Yes, attractive.  "Flourish - choose freedom!  Find out how GNU software and 
Linux can offer you bottom-line savings and help you grow your business 
sustainably."  That would meet Carwyn's point about avoiding the word "free".

On Thursday 05 April 2007 20:30, ian.lists at hassium.dyndns.org wrote:
> There are a lot of definitions of Free and Open Source.

Open-source, yes - that's part of the problem.  Free, no - if it's under the 
GPL, it's free, if not, it's not.

> Debian decided that the FSF's GFDL can be non-free.

Well, what *some* Debian people objected to was that the documentation writer 
could include conditions about particular changes, retaining his/her name, 
etc.  The GPL allows you to change anything (apart from the copyright) in the 
source-code, and they felt that the same should apply to documentation.  
Since the GFDL allowed for something else, they concluded it was not "free" 
under the terms of the GPL.  I suppose this is logical, if you happen to 
agree with their "purist" stance. :-)

On Thursday 05 April 2007 18:14, Huw Wyn Jones wrote:
> Just been talking to my work colleague about this thread and it looks
> like that I can source finance for a OSS event in rural (read objective
> one) Wales.

These North Wales FLOSS events are like buses - you wait ages for one, and 
then three show up at once (c.f. Oli's)!

Do you mean that you have money in hand, or can get it fairly certainly, or 
that you would still need to bid for it?

> What we (www.cefngwlad.org) would like to see if an event demonstrating
> how OSS can benefit rural businesses and organisations. That is of
> course a very 'open' brief as far as the technology goes !! :-)

I agree.  But do you have any info on the size/number of rural businesses, and 
what sort of software they might find useful?    Most agribusinesses (ie a 
farmer with a sideline) might be covered by info on a router, and OpenOffice, 
Firefox and GnuCash.  Given your audience, it might also be relevant that 
"non-core" apps like GnuCash can easily be translated to Welsh.  Do you have 
anything specific in mind?  And of course, could rural stuff be a track in a 
more comprehensive event?  Getting a critical mass might be better than 
having smaller events.

> Would there be any objections to holding such an event in CAST in
> Bangor? Convenient enough for most list members and many of the 'target
> audience'.

Will Cast do a good deal on the hire, and would they do the same good deal for 
a larger event? :-)  If so, worth considering.  Although Oli's point about 
moving farther down the coast is a valid one.

On Wednesday 04 April 2007 18:33, Oli wrote:
> As I was mentioning earlier, I have been given the go ahead to find
> content for an IT event to be held in Flintshire in October. 

Assuming your content is just one strand of a wider thing, I suppose there's 
not much you can do under the "critical mass -> combine resources" heading.  
What I'm interested in is timing - do you know what date you are looking at 
in October (your earlier posts referred only to "autumn")?  It would be 
ludicrous to have two FLOSS events on the same day - do any of the dates I 
suggested in my earlier post clash with yours?

-- 
Pob hwyl / Best wishes

Kevin Donnelly

www.kyfieithu.co.uk - KDE yn Gymraeg
www.klebran.org.uk - Gwirydd gramadeg rhydd i'r Gymraeg
www.eurfa.org.uk - Geiriadur rhydd i'r Gymraeg
www.rhedadur.org.uk - Rhedeg berfau Cymraeg