[Sussex] GNU, things to come?

[Angelo Servini]

Hi Geoff

Yes, 'Baby Driver' is a S&G song.  I like playing with double meanings.  ie.
this is a 'Baby Driver' in the sense that it is being worked on. :-)

Taking the point of your argument about GNU.  This would be a great
opportunity for me to 'give something back', as I am very greatful for all
the help I'm getting both in learning and implementing.  In fact the very
open way in which I see the SLUGS helping each other is very refreshing to
see.

However, conversely, most people in other areas of life hog their knowlege
dearly.  This of course is considered to be niche building.  What in fact
actually happens is that an organisation's knowledge ends up primarily in a
select few's heads.  When one of these either leaves or ends up as garbage
disposal on some motorway, the organisation ends up having to re-invent the
wheel.  Of course maintenance on a daily basis is also a pain, because the
poor developers have to run around like headless chickens trying to gather
necessary info (as you know, we both know a place like that!).  I wonder, as
Linux becomes more and more an accepted paradigm in corporate life, will the
GNU philosophy begin the big melt in working practices?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Geoff Teale 
> Sent: Monday, 25 November 2002 12:35
> To: 'sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk'
> Subject: RE: [Sussex] Baby Driver
> 
> 
> > Hi Geoff
> 
> Hi Angelo,
> 
> Isn't the title a Simon and Garfunkel song?
>  
> > I downloaded a driver for my Artec Ultima 2000 scanner.  
> > There is an 'ALPHA'
> > driver for this scanner under development but working.  It 
> also has an
> > userspace app that unfortunately creates PMN files?  Anyhow I don't
> > recognise these (maybe the Gimp may load them and convert to 
> > JPG so that
> > they are portable to my non-linux mates.  What do you think?
> 
> Simple answer.. I've no idea - I've never seen a PMN file 
> either..GIMP is
> your best bet (it supports anything that isn't completely 
> proprietary and
> doesn't require a license fee to be paid (hence no GIF)).
> 
> ***NOTE***
> 
> A quick conversation with Angelo has uncovered the the file format in
> question is not PMN, but actually PNG.. OK, we know PNG 
> "Portable Network
> Graphic".. PNG is the only W3C approved bitmapped graphic 
> format for web
> pages (that's right folks, anyone using JPEG's or worse still 
> GIF's on their
> web pages can strip that W3C compliant icon off the bottom of the page
> straight away!).
> 
> ..course anyone with anysense should be working towards 
> presenting their
> graphical information as SVG's these days..
> 
> > Second question: would the userspace app from the install 
> > disk of the Ultima
> > recognise and use the above driver?  Maybe not, as all this 
> > stuff happens at
> > quite a low level?
> 
> Do you mean the Window's app?  I would think not Wine (and 
> thus CrossOver
> office) relies heavily on simulating a windows environment 
> for applications
> to run in - this goes write down to physically implementing 
> the file system
> and such like.  I find it unlikely that the driver 
> infrastructure will be
> supported because, while the DLL's can be installed in the 
> pseudo files
> system, the calls they make to the Windows kernel are dodgy 
> ground for WINE.
> 
> As far as scanning in LINUX is concerned - if you can get 
> LINUX specific
> software from the vendor - great - hopefully there is someway 
> of getting
> those files into other packages!
> 
> Otherwise SANE is the informal standard for all scanning in 
> LINUX.  Scanner
> specific driving happens in userland, as far as LINUX is 
> concerned it is
> just a USB/SCSI/Parallel device.  If you are looking to 
> intigrate scanning
> into GIMP or any other generic LINUX software you need to get 
> it up and
> running in SANE.
> 
> Unfortunately Scanners generally fall into a class of device 
> that has become
> very popular in since the mid 1990's.  The home "Multimedia 
> and Internet"
> boom set up a market for cheap devices for home users with 
> little technical
> know-how.  IN order to cut costs companies relied on generic 
> lowlevel comms
> drivers and wrote the functionality into high level programs 
> - generally
> these programs only run on Windows.  This category includes:
> 
> * Software or "Win" Modems
> * Scanners
> * A lot of cheap digital cameras
> * Photo quality printers
> 
> A lot of work has been done to bring these kind of devices to 
> the LINUX
> platform, and luckily this trend seems to be in decline as 
> standards emerge
> for accesing USB devices.  If you scanner is not supported by 
> SANE your best
> bet is to let the people at SANE know an  give them some tech specs.  
> 
> If you're really generous you could even donate a scanner to 
> the project -
> or better still sit down and try to do the work necessary 
> yourself - I know
> this isn't typical user experience in the Windows world, but 
> this is what
> LINUX is all about - it is a community project (or collection 
> thereoff) for
> the benefit of every man woman and child on the planet.  We 
> get out of it
> what we put into it, and we do it because we don't want to 
> live our lives as
> slaves of huge corporations just because we happen to need to 
> use computers
> in our daily lives.
> 
> THe two best known arguements made in support of this idea are the GNU
> Manifesto:
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
> 
> .. (and of course the GPL) and Donald E Knuth's letter to the 
> US Patent
> office:
> 
> http://www.pluto.linux.it/meeting/meeting1999/atti/no-patents/
brevetti/docs/
knuth_letter_en.html


- Geoff

-- 
GJT
geoff.teale at claybrook.co.uk


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