---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gregory Zysk gmzysk@fedoraproject.org Date: Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:22 PM Subject: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux? To: Sam Tuke mail@samtuke.com
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Sam Tuke mail@samtuke.com wrote:
I find it hard to believe that it is a licensing issue - many other commercial distributions mention Linux repeatedly on their websites (Suse, RHEL, Mandriva...), and if it were because of this then why would they be able to put it on other pages, and just not the front page?
It is a licensing issue when they cannot ship their distro and all of its parts under the GNU/GPL. Certain proprietary components are not free to modify and distribute unless cleared through the vendor and in the case of flash that would be Adobe.
Linux is a trademark (and I've gone through the sub-licensing process of it myself), but there is nothing stopping companies referencing it - "based on Linux", "a version of Linux" etc. are all acceptable references to the term.
I do not see the argument here. Linux as a product is different than that of the GNU philosophy.
Also GNU's opinion isn't relevant to Ubuntu's ability to refer to Linux as far as I can see - they have no rights to the word or its application; what power could they have to prevent an organisation from using it?
There is nothing preventing Canonical from building an operating system off of the linux kernel. Many companies do that.
I'm not aware of any good reason for Ubuntu hiding the fact that its based on GNU/Linux.
I do not think that they are trying to hide it personally, I believe that Hugo's comment was right in the fact that they are trying to differentiate themselves in the market rather than being another linux distro.
Greg
Sam,
That is because they can't. It is about licensing. They ship non-free or proprietary software with their distribution, such as Flash which
prohibits
them from adhering to the 4 freedoms of the GNU philosophy. You can find GNU's own stance on Ubuntu here.http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/common-distros.html
Gregory
On 16 April 2010 15:35, Gregory Zysk gmzysk@fedoraproject.org wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gregory Zysk gmzysk@fedoraproject.org Date: Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:22 PM Subject: Re: Ubuntu's not GNU/Linux? To: Sam Tuke mail@samtuke.com
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Sam Tuke mail@samtuke.com wrote:
I find it hard to believe that it is a licensing issue - many other commercial distributions mention Linux repeatedly on their websites (Suse, RHEL, Mandriva...), and if it were because of this then why would they be able to put it on other pages, and just not the front page?
It is a licensing issue when they cannot ship their distro and all of its parts under the GNU/GPL. Certain proprietary components are not free to modify and distribute unless cleared through the vendor and in the case of flash that would be Adobe.
Linux is a trademark (and I've gone through the sub-licensing process of it myself), but there is nothing stopping companies referencing it - "based on Linux", "a version of Linux" etc. are all acceptable references to the term.
I do not see the argument here. Linux as a product is different than that of the GNU philosophy.
Also GNU's opinion isn't relevant to Ubuntu's ability to refer to Linux as far as I can see - they have no rights to the word or its application; what power could they have to prevent an organisation from using it?
There is nothing preventing Canonical from building an operating system off of the linux kernel. Many companies do that.
I'm not aware of any good reason for Ubuntu hiding the fact that its based on GNU/Linux.
I do not think that they are trying to hide it personally, I believe that Hugo's comment was right in the fact that they are trying to differentiate themselves in the market rather than being another linux distro. Greg
Sam,
That is because they can't. It is about licensing. They ship non-free or proprietary software with their distribution, such as Flash which prohibits them from adhering to the 4 freedoms of the GNU philosophy. You can find GNU's own stance on Ubuntu here.http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/common-distros.html
Gregory
Neither "Linux" is mentioned on ubuntu dot com first page. I think an official direct question to Mark Shuttleworth, Jane Silber and Jono Bacon could solve the question and it could also received as a kind pressure to foster "GNU/Linux" in some FAQ. The reason, for this I think is that Ubuntu is both a trademark and a product (despite the fact of the existing community), of Canonical Ltd. and probably legal issues raise when a distro is supported by a company.
On Fri, Apr 16, 2010 at 03:51:18PM +0300, Kostas Boukouvalas wrote:
Neither "Linux" is mentioned on ubuntu dot com first page. I think an official direct question to Mark Shuttleworth, Jane Silber and Jono Bacon could solve the question and it could also received as a kind pressure to foster "GNU/Linux" in some FAQ. The reason, for this I think is that Ubuntu is both a trademark and a product (despite the fact of the existing community), of Canonical Ltd. and probably legal issues raise when a distro is supported by a company.
Here's what it says on Ubuntu's "philosophy" page:
"Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees."
With that in mind, I think it's wrong to say Ubuntu does not support free software principles. They do so with a twist, though, since they include the free as in beer part in the values. But that makes sense with their "for all, regardless of background" approach.
But it is true: They might credit Linux and the GNU project in a more prominent place. Even so, this page is part of the official documentation and is headlined "What is GNU/Linux?":
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/i386/what-is-linux.htm
I usually advocate free software for political purposes but recommend people switch to Ubuntu because it's easy. From a software freedom perspective, having proprietary drivers is bad, but having someone swith from 100% unfree (on windows, with Office and Photoshop) to 99% free is still a step forward.
I prefer to see projects like gNewSense as frontrunners who are carving out a freedom for the rest of us which will later extend itself to more popular but not 100% free distros as Debian and Ubuntu.
Carsten Agger agger@c.dk writes:
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/i386/what-is-linux.htm
That seems to be just a copy of
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch01s02.html.en
and might be included there just by accident? ;-)
Carsten Agger agger@c.dk writes:
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/installation-guide/i386/what-is-linux.htm
That link seems to be dead from where I'm sitting. However, this one is not: https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/about-ubuntu/C/free-software.html
There has always been somewhat of a discrepancy between the commitments laid out by Ubuntu's manifestos and the actions of Canonical. One of the most prominent ways in which Ubuntu has distinguished itself from other distributions is how they've been helping people install patented codecs and proprietary software themselves. The most prominent of the alternatives have been: * "Those repositories are not part of the project" (Debian, Fedora) * "Buy our PowerPack/EnterpriseDesktop" (Mandriva, RedHat, SuSe) * "We're a non-profit community project. No one will sue us" (Arch, Mint, etc.)
I don't see Ubuntu as particularly more problematic than any of the above. In fact, since the inclusion of proprietary software in Ubuntu is a corporate decision that affects everyone of its users, and not a matter of people choosing convenience for themselves, an argument against it might have a more persuasive effect.
For instance, in at least one case we could argue that it has been made un-needed. What I find most absurd is perhaps that Adobe Reader is included in Canonical's repository, when the free readers work at least as well.
/Stian
On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 11:46:08PM +0200, =?UTF-8?Q?Stian R=C3=B8dven Eide?= wrote:
There has always been somewhat of a discrepancy between the commitments laid out by Ubuntu's manifestos and the actions of Canonical. One of the most prominent ways in which Ubuntu has distinguished itself from other distributions is how they've been helping people install patented codecs and proprietary software themselves. The most prominent of the alternatives have been:
- "Those repositories are not part of the project" (Debian, Fedora)
For Debian I'm not sure how serious they take it, because they host the non-free repository on their servers.
Fedora is really ambitious about this and made a clear decision. Repositories from community or company which contain proprietary software have their own servers and are in no way related to the distribution itself.
- "Buy our PowerPack/EnterpriseDesktop" (Mandriva, RedHat, SuSe)
If you really need legal certainty and have to work with patended standards (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4), this is a good option for you.
Rather than accusing these companies, you should be thankful to them they make it possible that you can legally work with Free Software on mulimedia content. Most cameras, recorders and "content providers" don't support free formats and open standards, so accusing the providers and manufacturers is a better choice.
- "We're a non-profit community project. No one will sue us" (Arch, Mint, etc.)
This approach might work when you are an individual, but a public institution or company can't accept breaking software patents.
For instance, in at least one case we could argue that it has been made un-needed. What I find most absurd is perhaps that Adobe Reader is included in Canonical's repository, when the free readers work at least as well.
There is actually no need for including the Adobe Reader in their repository even if people wanted it. Adobe has a yum repository for Fedora, because the Fedora Project refused to include it in their repositories. I can imagine that this would happen if Canonical removes the Adobe Reader from Ubuntu since they already have an APT repository for the flash player which Canonical also distributes.
Despite this, I've never found a PDF document that didn't work with xpdf or evince.
Regards, Matthias-Christian
Matthias-Christian Ott ott@mirix.org writes:
Despite this, I've never found a PDF document that didn't work with xpdf or evince.
http://www.emesystems.com/pdfs/topboard.pdf
has really ugly fonts in xpdf/evince/gv/mupdf. Do you regard this as a PDF document?
As far as I understand it is not a valid PDF document since it uses fonts that it does not embbed. However, neither of those programs shows any warning to user about this so they conclude that xpdf/evince/gv/mupdf are just broken.
On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 01:28:32PM +0300, Timo Juhani Lindfors wrote:
Matthias-Christian Ott ott@mirix.org writes:
Despite this, I've never found a PDF document that didn't work with xpdf or evince.
http://www.emesystems.com/pdfs/topboard.pdf
has really ugly fonts in xpdf/evince/gv/mupdf. Do you regard this as a PDF document?
Yes. I also saw older versions of TeX that produced text with totally broken kerning. But you could still read it and it was TeX's fault, not the fault of the PDF reader.
As far as I understand it is not a valid PDF document since it uses fonts that it does not embbed. However, neither of those programs shows any warning to user about this so they conclude that xpdf/evince/gv/mupdf are just broken.
Fill out a bug report then. I also find this useful.
Regards, Matthias-Christian
Matthias-Christian Ott ott@mirix.org writes:
As far as I understand it is not a valid PDF document since it uses fonts that it does not embbed. However, neither of those programs shows any warning to user about this so they conclude that xpdf/evince/gv/mupdf are just broken.
Fill out a bug report then. I also find this useful.
Hi,
On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 12:00:17PM +0200, Matthias-Christian Ott wrote:
Despite this, I've never found a PDF document that didn't work with xpdf or evince.
Easy: Try one with DRM. Several public libraries offer these, for example. They call it a service to their users.
Best wishes Michael
Matthias-Christian Ott schrieb:
Despite this, I've never found a PDF document that didn't work with xpdf or evince.
How about this one: http://www.skppsc.ch/1/downloads/de/Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-i...
I'm not able to open this with any of my PDF readers, not even xpdf. It doesn't appear to be DRMed, just somehow prgrammed not to open without the required Adobe reader. My usual trick of using pdf2ps doesn't work either, it is the first PDF I've not been able to view without resorting to Adobe reader. Or am I doing something wrong?
This is strange, as it comes from a semi-official website http://den-trick-kenne-ich.ch/4/de/ from the combined police departments of the Swiss kantons.
Cheers, Theo Schmidt
On Tue, 2010-04-20 at 08:01 +0100, Theo Schmidt wrote:
Matthias-Christian Ott schrieb:
Despite this, I've never found a PDF document that didn't work with xpdf or evince.
How about this one: http://www.skppsc.ch/1/downloads/de/Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-i...
I'm not able to open this with any of my PDF readers, not even xpdf. It doesn't appear to be DRMed, just somehow prgrammed not to open without the required Adobe reader. My usual trick of using pdf2ps doesn't work either, it is the first PDF I've not been able to view without resorting to Adobe reader. Or am I doing something wrong?
This is strange, as it comes from a semi-official website http://den-trick-kenne-ich.ch/4/de/ from the combined police departments of the Swiss kantons.
Wow, produced by: Acrobat Distiller 8.1.0 (Windows) - why would they want to do that? Maybe they were falling behind on their yearly CIA quota of machines made hackable via vulnerabilities in the adobe reader.
I found that I can load it into inkscape (I guess using pstoedit) a page at a time and remove the on-top shapes (not that I'd want to do that for the whole document).
Sam
Theo Schmidt theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch writes:
I'm not able to open this with any of my PDF readers, not even xpdf. It doesn't
You should have defined what open means exactly...
1) xpdf 3.02-1.4+lenny2 shows some text but also
"This document requires Adobe Reader version 6.0.1 or later. To view this document, please download Adobe Reader from:"
2) mupdf 20090707 shows some text but not the warning.
3) gv 1:3.6.5-2 just says
Error: /unknownerror in --fill--GPL Ghostscript 8.71: Unrecoverable error, exit co
4) evince 2.22.2-4~lenny1 crashes
** (evince:13638): WARNING **: Owner of /tmp/orbit-lindi-sudo is not the current user
Error: ExtGState 'GS0' is unknown *** glibc detected *** evince: double free or corruption (out): 0x00007f65a6601a60 *** ======= Backtrace: ========= /lib/libc.so.6[0x7f65a6326928] /lib/libc.so.6(cfree+0x76)[0x7f65a6328a36] /usr/lib/libpoppler.so.3(_ZN12ObjectStreamD1Ev+0x4d)[0x7f65a2fd7ced] /usr/lib/libpoppler.so.3(_ZN4XRef5fetchEiiP6Object+0xf5)[0x7f65a2fd8b35] /usr/lib/libpoppler.so.3(_ZN7Catalog12embeddedFileEi+0x23d)[0x7f65a2f6648d] /usr/lib/libpoppler-glib.so.3(poppler_document_get_attachments+0xad)[0x7f65a7f4385d] /usr/lib/evince/backends/libpdfdocument.so[0x7f659f2afcbc] evince[0x443661] evince[0x44214b] evince[0x43b380] /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_dispatch+0x23b)[0x7f65a685b7ab] /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0[0x7f65a685ef7d] /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_loop_run+0x1cd)[0x7f65a685f4ad] /usr/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0(gtk_main+0xa7)[0x7f65a8f3f837] evince[0x44a38d] /lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xe6)[0x7f65a62d11a6] evince[0x41ab19]
5) evince 2.28.2-1 shows some text, an owl and "Betrugssignale, -strategien und -delikte This document requires Adobe Reader version 6.0.1 or later. To view this document, please download Adobe Reader from: frühzeitig erkennen und vorbeugen http://www.adobe.com/
It seems that the real text is hidden by overlaying some white box on top of the real text. Maybe some javascript is used to hide this box?
-Timo
Timo Juhani Lindfors schrieb:
Theo Schmidt theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch writes:
I'm not able to open this with any of my PDF readers, not even xpdf. It doesn't
You should have defined what open means exactly...
...
Thank you for the analysis and the various answers. I'll complain to them (in a friendly manner).
Best, Theo Schmidt
* Theo Schmidt theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch [2010-04-20 09:01:28 +0200]:
How about this one: http://www.skppsc.ch/1/downloads/de/Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-i...
I'm not able to open this with any of my PDF readers, not even xpdf. It doesn't appear to be DRMed, just somehow prgrammed not to open without the required Adobe reader. My usual trick of using pdf2ps doesn't work either, it is the first PDF I've not been able to view without resorting to Adobe reader. Or am I doing something wrong?
Does it use some proprietary extensions? http://pdfreaders.org/os.en.html
Best wishes, Matthias
Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org writes:
Does it use some proprietary extensions? http://pdfreaders.org/os.en.html
If this is the case then maybe we should submit a bug report against evince to warn the user about these extensions too? Current situation where the user is left staring at a blank document without explanation is very bad.
Theo Schmidt theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch writes:
How about this one: http://www.skppsc.ch/1/downloads/de/Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-i...
If you decompress that with
pdftk Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-ich.ch.pdf output a.pdf uncompress
you can see that it contains 246 small adobe flash programs:
<</P<</TF(TEMPACCESS)>>/D 1491 0 R/N(Media clip for dmPageTrigger24)/CT(application/x-shockwave-flash)/Type/MediaClip/S/MCD>>
(Yes, file says "Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9" and gnash plays them (shows only blue background))
If you decompile the programs you see they refer to vitrium.com which says
"Smart Document Technology software to control and track PDFs and their content, while transforming PDFs into dynamic and interactive documents.
Track who is reading your PDFs and determine whether your content is being accessed by unauthorized readers; control access to your PDFs and deter information misuse; embed in-document forms to capture information on who is reading your PDFs and qualify them as sales leads."
Google finds
Peter Nieforth: I'm sure there are many ways to do it, but the technology that we have developed is Flash based. We are actually using a Flash application inside a PDF, and that Flash application is collecting the information and reporting it back to the publisher, in real-time.
"As a result, we know where a document came from and where its gets passed to."
-- http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-peter-nieforth.shtml
-Timo
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 12:12:32PM +0300, Timo Juhani Lindfors wrote:
Theo Schmidt theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch writes:
How about this one: http://www.skppsc.ch/1/downloads/de/Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-i...
If you decompress that with
pdftk Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-ich.ch.pdf output a.pdf uncompress
you can see that it contains 246 small adobe flash programs:
<</P<</TF(TEMPACCESS)>>/D 1491 0 R/N(Media clip for dmPageTrigger24)/CT(application/x-shockwave-flash)/Type/MediaClip/S/MCD>>
(Yes, file says "Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9" and gnash plays them (shows only blue background))
If you decompile the programs you see they refer to vitrium.com which says
"Smart Document Technology software to control and track PDFs and their content, while transforming PDFs into dynamic and interactive documents.
Track who is reading your PDFs and determine whether your content is being accessed by unauthorized readers; control access to your PDFs and deter information misuse; embed in-document forms to capture information on who is reading your PDFs and qualify them as sales leads."
How very nasty. We're fortunate that free software readers refuse to open that kind of c***.
Hi Timo,
That sounds very bad. If this is an official government body, I would complain to them, because this is surveillance.
Thank you for your detailed analysis.
Best wishes, Matthias-Christian
On Tue, Apr 20, 2010 at 12:12:32PM +0300, Timo Juhani Lindfors wrote:
Theo Schmidt theo.schmidt@wilhelmtux.ch writes:
How about this one: http://www.skppsc.ch/1/downloads/de/Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-i...
If you decompress that with
pdftk Betrugspraevention_www.den-trick-kenne-ich.ch.pdf output a.pdf uncompress
you can see that it contains 246 small adobe flash programs:
<</P<</TF(TEMPACCESS)>>/D 1491 0 R/N(Media clip for dmPageTrigger24)/CT(application/x-shockwave-flash)/Type/MediaClip/S/MCD>>
(Yes, file says "Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9" and gnash plays them (shows only blue background))
If you decompile the programs you see they refer to vitrium.com which says
"Smart Document Technology software to control and track PDFs and their content, while transforming PDFs into dynamic and interactive documents.
Track who is reading your PDFs and determine whether your content is being accessed by unauthorized readers; control access to your PDFs and deter information misuse; embed in-document forms to capture information on who is reading your PDFs and qualify them as sales leads."
Google finds
Peter Nieforth: I'm sure there are many ways to do it, but the technology that we have developed is Flash based. We are actually using a Flash application inside a PDF, and that Flash application is collecting the information and reporting it back to the publisher, in real-time.
"As a result, we know where a document came from and where its gets passed to."
-- http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-peter-nieforth.shtml
-Timo _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion