Self-Introduction: Timothy Murphy

[Timothy Murphy]

My name is Timothy Murphy.
I am a retired mathematics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
<http://www.maths.tcd.ie/>
(although I still give courses,
this year on Elliptic Curves:
<http://www.maths.tcd.id/pub/Maths/Courseware/EllipticCurves>).

I have a fairly precise idea of what I would like to do
for the Fedora Documentation Project,
namely to bring Miles Brennan's "Linux Home Server HOWTO"
<http://www.brennan.id.au/>
within the Fedora Documentation Project.

I should say that this has Miles' blessing.
The latest version of his HOWTO is based on Fedora Core 5,
and Miles says he does not have time to bring it up to date,
and would welcome someone else taking on the task.

This HOWTO assumes that the reader is running Fedora,
so it is entirely appropriate that it should be brought
under the auspices of the Fedora Documentation Project.

It seems to me that this HOWTO serves
a growing need, as more and more of us
become administrators of small home systems,
with several laptops and perhaps a desktop
shared among family members and friends.

I don't think this HOWTO as it is
requires many content changes,
although I appreciate that the Fedora Documentation Project
has fairly precise style and format requirements.

I have been using Linux since it first came out,
having been a Minix user before that.
(I still find Andy Tanenbaum's refusal
to bring Minix to the 386 difficult to comprehend.)
Much earlier, I introduced the first Unix system in Ireland,
Unix V6 on a pdp-11/23, in the School of Mathematics at TCD, in 1979.
I was also a very early user of TeX.
and wrote one of the first TeX output drivers,
for an IBM golf-ball typewriter.

I am not a computer guru,
but have a circle of highly-qualified friends
in the Irish Linux Users Group (ILUG)
who will ensure that any changes I make to the HOWTO
will be accurate.

gpg key: <http://www.gayleard.com/gayleard-pubkey.asc>

[Rahul Sundaram]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
>   
>  My name is Timothy Murphy.
>  I am a retired mathematics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.ie/>
>  (although I still give courses,
>  this year on Elliptic Curves:
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.id/pub/Maths/Courseware/EllipticCurves>).
>  
>  I have a fairly precise idea of what I would like to do
>  for the Fedora Documentation Project,
>  namely to bring Miles Brennan's "Linux Home Server HOWTO"
>  <http://www.brennan.id.au/>
>  within the Fedora Documentation Project.
>  
>  I should say that this has Miles' blessing.
>  The latest version of his HOWTO is based on Fedora Core 5,
>  and Miles says he does not have time to bring it up to date,
>  and would welcome someone else taking on the task. 
Welcome to the Fedora Documentation Project

Note that Linux Home Server Howto is under a different license than OPL 
without options which is what the documentation project uses. If you are 
planning to copy paste content from the HowTo, you would need explicit 
permission to relicense.

Rahul

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 December 2007 01:42:51 am Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>  Welcome to the Fedora Documentation Project
>
>  Note that Linux Home Server Howto is under a different license than OPL
>  without options which is what the documentation project uses. If you are
>  planning to copy paste content from the HowTo, you would need explicit
>  permission to relicense. 
Well, I haven't sold my soul to the Fedora Documentation Project.

If the HOWTO doesn't suit the project I'll probably update it anyway,
and leave it outside.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
>  On Thursday 20 December 2007 01:42:51 am Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  
> > Welcome to the Fedora Documentation Project
> >
> > Note that Linux Home Server Howto is under a different license than OPL
> > without options which is what the documentation project uses. If you are
> > planning to copy paste content from the HowTo, you would need explicit
> > permission to relicense.
>  
>  Well, I haven't sold my soul to the Fedora Documentation Project. 
I have no idea what this means and it's relevance to what I said. Maybe 
you have a misunderstanding. I am merely pointing out a licensing 
requirement. If you are deriving your work from existing content, you 
need a explicit permission from the original authors to relicense it. 
This is true regardless of whether you work with the Fedora 
Documentation Project or not. The author has previously confirmed that 
he would be ok with others basing their work on his but it would 
courteous to reconfirm at this point.

>  If the HOWTO doesn't suit the project I'll probably update it
> anyway,
>  and leave it outside. 
The content itself is very well suitable however the license is not. 
The non-commercial restriction the document currently has is not 
acceptable.  Refer

http://www.brennan.id.au/01-Introduction.html#copyright

Fedora Documentation Project as with Fedora itself requires content to 
be under a free and open license and it has selected OPL with no options 
to meet this requirement. If the authors are willing to relicense 
content, you can copy paste directly. Otherwise you can just use the 
factual information and will have to write a new document based on those 
factual information.

Rahul

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 December 2007 02:41:40 am Rahul Sundaram wrote:

>  >> Note that Linux Home Server Howto is under a different
> license than OPL
>  >> without options which is what the documentation project uses. If you are
>  >> planning to copy paste content from the HowTo, you would need explicit
>  >> permission to relicense.
>  >
>  > Well, I haven't sold my soul to the Fedora Documentation Project.
>
>  I have no idea what this means and it's relevance to what I said. 
I think what I said is reasonably clear.
But to put it brutally:
it doesn't seem to me to matter greatly
if a document does or does not come within the auspices
of the Fedora Documentation Project.
I doubt if it makes much difference to those who read it.

This HOWTO _is_ a Fedora-oriented document,
so the Document Project is a fairly natural place for it to live.

>  Maybe  you have a misunderstanding. 
I don't think so.

>  I am merely pointing out a licensing 
>  requirement. If you are deriving your work from existing content, you
>  need a explicit permission from the original authors to relicense it.
>  This is true regardless of whether you work with the Fedora
>  Documentation Project or not. The author has previously confirmed that
>  he would be ok with others basing their work on his but it would
>  courteous to reconfirm at this point. 
As it happens, Miles Brennan wrote to me to say, more or less,
that he was happy with the Document Project licence.

I must admit I am slightly allergic to the endless discussion
of the myriad of open source licences,
which seems to me to cause much more trouble
than any good it does.
(I suspect that I follow in the footsteps of Linus Torvald in this.)

I don't usually agree with Karl Larsen (that is an under-statement)
but I agree with him that the Fedora Documentation Project
seems to be run in an excessively formalistic way,
with pointless hurdles erected in the way of those who want to help.
The idea of making life simple does not seem to rank high
in the order of priorities.

If the Project was a roaring success this might be understandable.
But as far as I can see the result of this formality
has been that the output of the project has been meagre, to put it mildly.
In fact there seems to be far more discussion _about_ the Project
than actual documentation produced by it.

[John Babich]

On Dec 20, 2007 3:13 PM, Timothy Murphy <gayleard(a)eircom.net&gt; wrote:

< some material snipped >

>  I don't usually agree with Karl Larsen (that is an
> under-statement)
>  but I agree with him that the Fedora Documentation Project
>  seems to be run in an excessively formalistic way,
>  with pointless hurdles erected in the way of those who want to help.
>  The idea of making life simple does not seem to rank high
>  in the order of priorities.
>  
As a member of the Fedora Docs Project for past 18 months, I
definitely agree. However, there's a great opportunity to solve this
at the upcoming FUDCon.
See http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JohnBabich/SimplifyingOnboarding.
Things get done at FUDCons.

>  If the Project was a roaring success this might be understandable.
>  But as far as I can see the result of this formality
>  has been that the output of the project has been meagre, to put it mildly.
>  In fact there seems to be far more discussion _about_ the Project
>  than actual documentation produced by it. 
In my opinion, two big blocking issues are
1. complications due to licensing
2. too complex a procedure to join the Docs Project

I'm still optimistic that these are growing pains and can be
successfully dealt with.

Please hang in there.

Best Regards,

John Babich
Volunteer, Fedora Docs Project

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:46 +0300, John Babich wrote:
>  In my opinion, two big blocking issues are
>  1. complications due to licensing 
Cannot be helped.  The OPL is the only good license for Fedora content.
If the situation changes or a sufficient license arrives, we can use it.

The complications of copyright law, US law, and other intellectual
property laws are not the fault of this project.  We do with what we
can. :)

>  2. too complex a procedure to join the Docs Project 
How?

This oft-repeated phrase needs some justification.  I'd like to see a
specific list of what is too complicated.  For that, I started a
separate thread, "fixing what we can".

Thanks - Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 15:37 -0800, Karsten Wade wrote: 
>  On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:46 +0300, John Babich wrote:
>  > In my opinion, two big blocking issues are
>  > 1. complications due to licensing
>  
>  Cannot be helped.  The OPL is the only good license for Fedora content.
>  If the situation changes or a sufficient license arrives, we can use it.
>  
>  The complications of copyright law, US law, and other intellectual
>  property laws are not the fault of this project.  We do with what we
>  can. :) 
Timothy mentioned that Miles was in favor of him bringing this document
to us.  That means if Miles dual-licenses the document, with the new
license being the OPL with no restrictions, Timothy could bring it here
and work on it.  Timothy, if you want to bring that question to Miles,
and he simply plops a bit of text into the document at his site stating
that, that's probably sufficient.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
           Fedora Project: http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

[Miles Brennan]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 15:37 -0800, Karsten Wade wrote: 
> > On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 16:46 +0300, John Babich wrote:
> >> In my opinion, two big blocking issues are
> >> 1. complications due to licensing
> > Cannot be helped.  The OPL is the only good license for Fedora content.
> > If the situation changes or a sufficient license arrives, we can use it.
> >
> > The complications of copyright law, US law, and other intellectual
> > property laws are not the fault of this project.  We do with what we
> > can. :)
>  
>  Timothy mentioned that Miles was in favor of him bringing this document
>  to us.  That means if Miles dual-licenses the document, with the new
>  license being the OPL with no restrictions, Timothy could bring it here
>  and work on it.  Timothy, if you want to bring that question to Miles,
>  and he simply plops a bit of text into the document at his site stating
>  that, that's probably sufficient.
>   
Paul,

I attempted to bring the HOWTO into the FDP in Jun/Jul 2006.

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2006-June/msg00149.html
http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/2006-July/msg00006.html

Tim was willing then to bring the document to FDP and work on it.

At the time I was happy to change the licensing to meet the objective.
However I did find there seemed to be more emphasis on the format, style
and inclusion into the wiki, than the content of the HOWTO.

Although the document was written to suit Fedora Core, I tried to
maintain generic configuration and commands where possible so other
distros could also benefit from it. Also stayed away from the GUIs.

Converting the plain HTML version of the document to wiki format was
much more painful than first anticipated. I wanted to keep the feel of
the original HOWTO styled document, as I believe they are much easier to
read and follow than the current wiki construct. However the wiki code
does not easily support the formatting of tables, cells, preformatted
text and other basis formatting. Working in RAW wiki code was very time
consuming.

Here is the draft of the HOWTO I worked on:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/ServerInstallationGuide

I installed moinmoin on my own server to work on the formatting issues a
little easier and found I needed to make some significant changes to the
CSS for the document to look and feel the way I wanted it to. It was
also mentioned at the time that FDP would be moving to a Plone and Zope
based system, making these type of migrations easier. Although I had no
experience with these two applications, I was happy to try something
new. I eventually gave up on transferring the documentation because the
new system has not been implemented and I found the wiki frustrating.

If FDP is still willing to accept the documentation, I am happy to
change the licensing and Tim is prepared to start some work on it.
Perhaps we start a new thread on updating the HOWTO and moving it into
the FDP.

Open to suggestions.

Regards,
Miles Brennan
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFHbFBacSPa0xQu/fARAk02AJ4nd6ftY5wMig3Dwzajg1qxYEy3gQCgjPPJ
> dzSj6SVetX9Z3lY25UtzwF0=
> =Byre
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

[Marc Wiriadisastra]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
>   
>  My name is Timothy Murphy.
>  I am a retired mathematics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.ie/>
>  (although I still give courses,
>  this year on Elliptic Curves:
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.id/pub/Maths/Courseware/EllipticCurves>).
>
>  I have a fairly precise idea of what I would like to do
>  for the Fedora Documentation Project,
>  namely to bring Miles Brennan's "Linux Home Server HOWTO"
>  <http://www.brennan.id.au/>
>  within the Fedora Documentation Project.
>
>  I should say that this has Miles' blessing.
>  The latest version of his HOWTO is based on Fedora Core 5,
>  and Miles says he does not have time to bring it up to date,
>  and would welcome someone else taking on the task.
>
>  This HOWTO assumes that the reader is running Fedora,
>  so it is entirely appropriate that it should be brought
>  under the auspices of the Fedora Documentation Project.
>
>  It seems to me that this HOWTO serves
>  a growing need, as more and more of us
>  become administrators of small home systems,
>  with several laptops and perhaps a desktop
>  shared among family members and friends.
>
>  I don't think this HOWTO as it is
>  requires many content changes,
>  although I appreciate that the Fedora Documentation Project
>  has fairly precise style and format requirements.
>
>  I have been using Linux since it first came out,
>  having been a Minix user before that.
>  (I still find Andy Tanenbaum's refusal
>  to bring Minix to the 386 difficult to comprehend.)
>  Much earlier, I introduced the first Unix system in Ireland,
>  Unix V6 on a pdp-11/23, in the School of Mathematics at TCD, in 1979.
>  I was also a very early user of TeX.
>  and wrote one of the first TeX output drivers,
>  for an IBM golf-ball typewriter.
>
>  I am not a computer guru,
>  but have a circle of highly-qualified friends
>  in the Irish Linux Users Group (ILUG)
>  who will ensure that any changes I make to the HOWTO
>  will be accurate.
>
>  gpg key: <http://www.gayleard.com/gayleard-pubkey.asc>
>
>     
Hi Tim,

You would probably want to take a look at the Administration guide[1] 
that would be your area of expertise and area where it looks like you enjoy.

Your best bet is to speak to Bart who will talk to you further.  If you 
do have spare time the Desktop User Guide needs some loving as well. [2]


Regards,

Marc

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/AdministrationGuide
[2] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Docs/Drafts/DesktopUserGuide

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 December 2007 01:49:55 am Marc Wiriadisastra wrote:

>  You would probably want to take a look at the Administration
> guide[1]
>  that would be your area of expertise and area where it looks like you
>  enjoy.
>
>  Your best bet is to speak to Bart who will talk to you further.  If you
>  do have spare time the Desktop User Guide needs some loving as well. [2] 
I will indeed look at the project guides.

But my aim is fairly precise, as I said,
namely to bring Miles Brennan's "Linux Home Server HOWTO"
within the Fedora Documentation Project.

If that proves to be impossible for some reason (including licensing) 
I would not really be interested in any other aspect of the documentation -
I would probably help to update the HOWTO outside the Project.

[Karl Larsen]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
>   
>  My name is Timothy Murphy.
>  I am a retired mathematics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.ie/>
>  (although I still give courses,
>  this year on Elliptic Curves:
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.id/pub/Maths/Courseware/EllipticCurves>).
>
>  I have a fairly precise idea of what I would like to do
>  for the Fedora Documentation Project,
>  namely to bring Miles Brennan's "Linux Home Server HOWTO"
>  <http://www.brennan.id.au/>
>  within the Fedora Documentation Project.
>
>  I should say that this has Miles' blessing.
>  The latest version of his HOWTO is based on Fedora Core 5,
>  and Miles says he does not have time to bring it up to date,
>  and would welcome someone else taking on the task.
>
>  This HOWTO assumes that the reader is running Fedora,
>  so it is entirely appropriate that it should be brought
>  under the auspices of the Fedora Documentation Project.
>
>  It seems to me that this HOWTO serves
>  a growing need, as more and more of us
>  become administrators of small home systems,
>  with several laptops and perhaps a desktop
>  shared among family members and friends.
>
>  I don't think this HOWTO as it is
>  requires many content changes,
>  although I appreciate that the Fedora Documentation Project
>  has fairly precise style and format requirements.
>
>  I have been using Linux since it first came out,
>  having been a Minix user before that.
>  (I still find Andy Tanenbaum's refusal
>  to bring Minix to the 386 difficult to comprehend.)
>  Much earlier, I introduced the first Unix system in Ireland,
>  Unix V6 on a pdp-11/23, in the School of Mathematics at TCD, in 1979.
>  I was also a very early user of TeX.
>  and wrote one of the first TeX output drivers,
>  for an IBM golf-ball typewriter.
>
>  I am not a computer guru,
>  but have a circle of highly-qualified friends
>  in the Irish Linux Users Group (ILUG)
>  who will ensure that any changes I make to the HOWTO
>  will be accurate.
>
>  gpg key: <http://www.gayleard.com/gayleard-pubkey.asc>
>
>     
Hello Timothy Murphy and Welcome to the Group. I am not yet a member because part of the
setup will not work for me on F8. I suspect it worked fine on FC5. 

	Your papers will be a god-send to this Group! Anything that is near perfect for FC5 can
be updated to say F9 in good time.

	If you have run into any problems with joining the Group please share them. In particular
were you able to complete the legal part of joining? I was not able to return my signed
document for some reason.

Karl



-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
   PGP 7025 BB6C 7CC3 CFE7 43B2  1574 3279 EBB0 B626 2B7E

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 December 2007 01:51:41 am Karl Larsen wrote:

>  Hello Timothy Murphy and Welcome to the Group. I am not yet a member
>  because part of the setup will not work for me on F8. I suspect it worked
>  fine on FC5.
>
>  	Your papers will be a god-send to this Group! Anything that is near
>  perfect for FC5 can be updated to say F9 in good time.
>
>  	If you have run into any problems with joining the Group please share
>  them. In particular were you able to complete the legal part of joining? I
>  was not able to return my signed document for some reason. 
I haven't reached that hurdle yet.

I agree with you that the documentation about Fedora documentation
leaves a lot to be desired.
I followed the instructions for sending one's gpg key to the MIT server
in <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg/CreatingKeys>
but they did not work - the command  
  gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --send-keys 0x1381C1A4F
resulted in the error message
  gpg: "0x1381C1A4F" not a key ID: skipping

I was able nevertheless to send the key by registering the server
hkp://pgp.mit.edu:11371 in kgpg
(it did not appear among the servers there,
as the wiki documents suggest it does)
and then exporting my key.

I'm not convinced that whoever wrote this wiki document
ever tried out his own instructions;
I suspect that he (or she) just "knew" they must work.

[Murray McAllister]

On Dec 20, 2007 12:28 PM, Timothy Murphy <gayleard(a)eircom.net&gt; wrote:
>  On Thursday 20 December 2007 01:51:41 am Karl Larsen wrote:
>
>  > Hello Timothy Murphy and Welcome to the Group. I am not yet a member
>  > because part of the setup will not work for me on F8. I suspect it worked
>  > fine on FC5.
>  >
>  >       Your papers will be a god-send to this Group! Anything that is near
>  > perfect for FC5 can be updated to say F9 in good time.
>  >
>  >       If you have run into any problems with joining the Group please share
>  > them. In particular were you able to complete the legal part of joining? I
>  > was not able to return my signed document for some reason.
>
>  I haven't reached that hurdle yet.
>
>  I agree with you that the documentation about Fedora documentation
>  leaves a lot to be desired.
>  I followed the instructions for sending one's gpg key to the MIT server
>  in <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg/CreatingKeys>
>  but they did not work - the command
>    gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --send-keys 0x1381C1A4F
>  resulted in the error message
>    gpg: "0x1381C1A4F" not a key ID: skipping
>  
Hi Tim,

Thanks for joining. I'm glad you got your keys sorted out. That was
almost correct, but you do not need the 0x pre-pended (so it would be
1381C1A4F). Out of curiosity, where did you find that information
(0x)?

Kind Regards,

Murray.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pub   1024D/81B3FDEB 2007-09-19 [expires: 2008-09-18]
Key fingerprint = 4ED9 9907 5BF0 4132 2B46  20D1 C0C6 362D 81B3 FDEB
Murray McAllister (Fedora Docs Project / mdious) <murray.mcallister(a)gmail.com&gt;
sub   2048g/B04CFA0C 2007-09-19 [expires: 2008-09-18]

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 December 2007 05:27:31 am Murray McAllister wrote:

>  > I followed the instructions for sending one's gpg key to the
> MIT server
>  > in <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg/CreatingKeys>
>  > but they did not work - the command
>  >   gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --send-keys 0x1381C1A4F
>  > resulted in the error message
>  >   gpg: "0x1381C1A4F" not a key ID: skipping 
>  Thanks for joining. I'm glad you got your keys sorted out. That
> was
>  almost correct, but you do not need the 0x pre-pended (so it would be
>  1381C1A4F). Out of curiosity, where did you find that information
>  (0x)? 
I actually tried with and without 0x,
as well as using capitals and lowercase.
All resulted in the same error.

I'm afraid my conclusion is that the command as given
in <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SelfIntroduction>
simply does not work.

In any case, it is bad documentation to say that one should give the KEYID
without explaining precisely what that means,
or better, giving an explicit example.

I note that kgpg adds the port (11371) to the URI;
I don't know if that is necessary.

As for using the prefix 0x,
you will find that if you google for "gnupg keyid"
almost all the examples given do this.
It is of course the Unix standard for hexadecimal notation.
However, I tried with and without, as I said.

[Karl Larsen]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
>  On Thursday 20 December 2007 05:27:31 am Murray McAllister wrote:
>
>    
> >> I followed the instructions for sending one's gpg key to the MIT server
> >> in <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg/CreatingKeys>
> >> but they did not work - the command
> >>   gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --send-keys 0x1381C1A4F
> >> resulted in the error message
> >>   gpg: "0x1381C1A4F" not a key ID: skipping
> >>       
>
>    
> > Thanks for joining. I'm glad you got your keys sorted out. That was
> > almost correct, but you do not need the 0x pre-pended (so it would be
> > 1381C1A4F). Out of curiosity, where did you find that information
> > (0x)?
> >     
>
>  I actually tried with and without 0x,
>  as well as using capitals and lowercase.
>  All resulted in the same error.
>
>  I'm afraid my conclusion is that the command as given
>  in <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/SelfIntroduction>
>  simply does not work.
>
>  In any case, it is bad documentation to say that one should give the KEYID
>  without explaining precisely what that means,
>  or better, giving an explicit example.
>
>  I note that kgpg adds the port (11371) to the URI;
>  I don't know if that is necessary.
>
>  As for using the prefix 0x,
>  you will find that if you google for "gnupg keyid"
>  almost all the examples given do this.
>  It is of course the Unix standard for hexadecimal notation.
>  However, I tried with and without, as I said.
>
>     
    Hi Tim, the error your getting from MIT sounds like the real thing. 
Your key might well be bad. I suggest you make a new key with gpg which 
should be on your computer. Then try it again with MIT.

    On all your other observations about the Fedora Doc web pages I agree.


Karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
   PGP 7025 BB6C 7CC3 CFE7 43B2  1574 3279 EBB0 B626 2B7E

[Jonathan Roberts]

>      On all your other observations about the Fedora Doc web pages I
> agree. 
Hey, 

You know if you're still interested in helping out with docs after all
your troubles with getting started, why not try updating the pages you
found problems with and improving them!?

Might not be documenting the actual operating system but it shouldn't
take too long and once you've done it could well make it a lot easier
for new contributors in the future - would be a great help :D

Best wishes,

Jon
>  
>  
>  Karl
>  
>  
>  -- 
>  
>  	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
>  	Linux User
>  	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
>     PGP 7025 BB6C 7CC3 CFE7 43B2  1574 3279 EBB0 B626 2B7E
>

[Davidson Paulo]

2007/12/20, Jonathan Roberts <jonathan.roberts.uk(a)googlemail.com&gt;:
>  You know if you're still interested in helping out with docs
> after all
>  your troubles with getting started, why not try updating the pages you
>  found problems with and improving them!? 
Yes. I updated 2 wiki pages to insert instructions on how to use only
graphical tools to create PGP keys and sign files during CLA request
just after my fiancé had problems doing this.

You have a problem -> You fix the problem -> You document the fixing
process -> You share it to the world -> The world turns better :-P

Davidson Paulo
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DavidsonPaulo

[John Babich]

On Dec 20, 2007 6:46 PM, Davidson Rodrigues Paulo
<davidsonpaulo(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  You have a problem -> You fix the problem -> You document the
> fixing
>  process -> You share it to the world -> The world turns better :-P
>  
+1

John Babich
Volunteer, Fedora Docs Project

[Timothy Murphy]

On Thursday 20 December 2007 05:27:31 am Murray McAllister wrote:

>  Hi Tim,
>
>  Thanks for joining. I'm glad you got your keys sorted out. That was
>  almost correct, but you do not need the 0x pre-pended (so it would be
>  1381C1A4F). Out of curiosity, where did you find that information
>  (0x)? 
I've been experimenting with pgp a little,
and it seems to me that pgp.mit.edu _does_ expect 0x to precede the key.

I've looked again at
<http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg/CreatingKeys>;,
and in my view the advice given there is not the best.

What for instance do the lines
------------------------------------------------------
gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --send-key KEYNAME

For KEYNAME, substitute the key ID of your primary keypair.
------------------------------------------------------
actually mean?
Why not just give an example instead of this abstract terminology.

Assuming the "key ID" means something like "D575F650"
then the advice in my experience does not work.

I believe a far better procedure is to create a key-pair on one's computer
(I use kgpg) and an ascii version of this 
(in kgpg with Keys=>Export public keys).
Then go to <http://pgp.mit.edu>
and enter the ascii version there.
When this has completed, check that the key is entered
by trying something like 0xD575F650 .
(You can enter the longer version -
0xC9010A47299E1F3A643D8AB2C9C110DFD575F650
- in my case, but you must, as far as I can see,
precede the hexadecimal in all cases with 0x.)

In my experience, it is much easier to do things like this
as directly as possible,
rather than using "clever" procedures that are meant to make it quicker.
After all, one is not likely to be creating key-pairs every day.

[Paul W. Frields]

On Sun, 2007-12-23 at 15:16 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>  On Thursday 20 December 2007 05:27:31 am Murray McAllister wrote:
>  
>  > Hi Tim,
>  >
>  > Thanks for joining. I'm glad you got your keys sorted out. That was
>  > almost correct, but you do not need the 0x pre-pended (so it would be
>  > 1381C1A4F). Out of curiosity, where did you find that information
>  > (0x)?
>  
>  I've been experimenting with pgp a little,
>  and it seems to me that pgp.mit.edu _does_ expect 0x to precede the key.
>  
>  I've looked again at
>  <http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/UsingGpg/CreatingKeys>;,
>  and in my view the advice given there is not the best.
>  
>  What for instance do the lines
>  ------------------------------------------------------
>  gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --send-key KEYNAME
>  
>  For KEYNAME, substitute the key ID of your primary keypair.
>  ------------------------------------------------------
>  actually mean?
>  Why not just give an example instead of this abstract terminology.
>  
>  Assuming the "key ID" means something like "D575F650"
>  then the advice in my experience does not work. 
I just performed this step on my machine again, using my key ID
"BD113717," and the procedure worked fine.  I have done this many times,
both with a prepended "0x" and without, and all of these operations
succeeded.  I've confirmed the success using wireshark to look at the
network traffic.  I think if you are having a problem -- the nature of
which I can't tell from the information you gave -- it might be on your
end.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
           Fedora Project: http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

[Timothy Murphy]

On Sunday 23 December 2007 04:42:07 pm Paul W. Frields wrote:

>  > What for instance do the lines
>  > ------------------------------------------------------
>  > gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --send-key KEYNAME
>  >
>  > For KEYNAME, substitute the key ID of your primary keypair.
>  > ------------------------------------------------------
>  > actually mean?
>  > Why not just give an example instead of this abstract terminology.
>  >
>  > Assuming the "key ID" means something like "D575F650"
>  > then the advice in my experience does not work.
>
>  I just performed this step on my machine again, using my key ID
>  "BD113717," and the procedure worked fine. 
What precisely are you doing?

My statements are:

1. It is not clear what "key ID" means.
If you google for this term,
you will find that the ID is normally prefaced with 0x.
Here for example is the entry in "PGP glossary"
------------------------------------------------------
To enable PGP to distinct between a username (userID) and the key ID, the 
keyID is prefixed with 0x, for example 0xDD934139. ...
------------------------------------------------------

But my main point is the term "key ID" _is not clear_,
and should be accompanied by a concrete example.

>  I have done this many times, 
>  both with a prepended "0x" and without, and all of these operations
>  succeeded. 
If you go to pgp.mit.edu (which appears to be the point of the exercise)
and put in your ID without 0x, is it found?

>  I've confirmed the success using wireshark to look at the 
>  network traffic.  I think if you are having a problem -- the nature of
>  which I can't tell from the information you gave -- it might be on your
>  end. 
I'm not having a problem at all.
I'm saying that the documentation is not clear.

[Karl Larsen]

Timothy Murphy wrote:
>  On Sunday 23 December 2007 04:42:07 pm Paul W. Frields wrote:
>
>    
> >> What for instance do the lines
> >> ------------------------------------------------------
> >> gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --send-key KEYNAME
> >>
> >> For KEYNAME, substitute the key ID of your primary keypair.
> >> ------------------------------------------------------
> >> actually mean?
> >> Why not just give an example instead of this abstract terminology.
> >>
> >> Assuming the "key ID" means something like "D575F650"
> >> then the advice in my experience does not work.
> >>       
> > I just performed this step on my machine again, using my key ID
> > "BD113717," and the procedure worked fine.
> >     
>
>  What precisely are you doing?
>
>  My statements are:
>
>  1. It is not clear what "key ID" means.
>  If you google for this term,
>  you will find that the ID is normally prefaced with 0x.
>  Here for example is the entry in "PGP glossary"
>  ------------------------------------------------------
>  To enable PGP to distinct between a username (userID) and the key ID, the 
>  keyID is prefixed with 0x, for example 0xDD934139. ...
>  ------------------------------------------------------
>
>  But my main point is the term "key ID" _is not clear_,
>  and should be accompanied by a concrete example.
>
>    
> > I have done this many times, 
> > both with a prepended "0x" and without, and all of these operations
> > succeeded.
> >     
>
>  If you go to pgp.mit.edu (which appears to be the point of the exercise)
>  and put in your ID without 0x, is it found?
>
>    
> > I've confirmed the success using wireshark to look at the 
> > network traffic.  I think if you are having a problem -- the nature of
> > which I can't tell from the information you gave -- it might be on your
> > end.
> >     
>
>  I'm not having a problem at all.
>  I'm saying that the documentation is not clear.
>
>
>     
Please go to the MIT web site at http://pgp.mit.edu/ and put your own 
good key in and see if it finds it. if it does please put FE2353A7 in as 
a new key and see if it takes it. I have been trying all day without 
success.

Karl


-- 

	Karl F. Larsen, AKA K5DI
	Linux User
	#450462   http://counter.li.org.
   PGP 4208 4D6E 595F 22B9 FF1C  ECB6 4A3C 2C54 FE23 53A7

[Timothy Murphy]

On Sunday 23 December 2007 10:18:52 pm Karl Larsen wrote:

>  Please go to the MIT web site at http://pgp.mit.edu/ and put your
> own
>  good key in and see if it finds it. if it does please put FE2353A7 in as
>  a new key and see if it takes it. I have been trying all day without
>  success. 
When I put in my key 0xD575F650 I get the response
-------------------------------------------
Type bits /keyID    Date       User ID
pub  1024D/D575F650 2007/12/23 Timothy Murphy <gayleard(a)eircom.net&gt;
-------------------------------------------

When I put in D575F650 I get
-------------------------------------------
No matching keys in database
-------------------------------------------
I get this with the key you gave,
whether preceded by 0x or not.

[Nb I disabled the key I gave earlier,
as I had included a photo -
which appears to be the default in pgpg -
and this made the key awkwardly large.]

If you actually want to register your key at pgp.mit.edu
may I suggest you get an ascii version
and paste it in the "Submit a key" window at pgp.mit.edu .

[Paul W. Frields]

On Sun, 2007-12-23 at 21:52 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:
>  On Sunday 23 December 2007 04:42:07 pm Paul W. Frields wrote:
>  
>  > > What for instance do the lines
>  > > ------------------------------------------------------
>  > > gpg --keyserver hkp://subkeys.pgp.net --send-key KEYNAME
>  > >
>  > > For KEYNAME, substitute the key ID of your primary keypair.
>  > > ------------------------------------------------------
>  > > actually mean?
>  > > Why not just give an example instead of this abstract terminology.
>  > >
>  > > Assuming the "key ID" means something like "D575F650"
>  > > then the advice in my experience does not work.
>  >
>  > I just performed this step on my machine again, using my key ID
>  > "BD113717," and the procedure worked fine.
>  
>  What precisely are you doing?
>  
>  My statements are:
>  
>  1. It is not clear what "key ID" means.
>  If you google for this term,
>  you will find that the ID is normally prefaced with 0x.
>  Here for example is the entry in "PGP glossary"
>  ------------------------------------------------------
>  To enable PGP to distinct between a username (userID) and the key ID, the 
>  keyID is prefixed with 0x, for example 0xDD934139. ...
>  ------------------------------------------------------ 
That only applies if there is a collision between a user name and a key
ID, which rarely happens in practice.  The gpg command line program
otherwise will find the right key.

>  But my main point is the term "key ID" _is not clear_,
>  and should be accompanied by a concrete example.
>  
>  > I have done this many times, 
>  > both with a prepended "0x" and without, and all of these operations
>  > succeeded.
>  
>  If you go to pgp.mit.edu (which appears to be the point of the exercise)
>  and put in your ID without 0x, is it found? 
No, but since that's not part of the process we're documenting, does it
matter in terms of our procedure?

>  > I've confirmed the success using wireshark to look at the 
>  > network traffic.  I think if you are having a problem -- the nature of
>  > which I can't tell from the information you gave -- it might be on your
>  > end.
>  
>  I'm not having a problem at all.
>  I'm saying that the documentation is not clear. 
I've added a short paragraph in each "creating a keypair" section to
note that in most cases, using "0xNNNNNNNN" is sufficient usage.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
           Fedora Project: http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 02:28 +0000, Timothy Murphy wrote:

>  I'm not convinced that whoever wrote this wiki document
>  ever tried out his own instructions;
>  I suspect that he (or she) just "knew" they must work. 
Probably old instructions needing updating?

"'Tis the cobbler's children who are barefoot and the carpenter's roof
that leaks."

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41

[Miles Brennan]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


Timothy Murphy wrote:
>   
>  My name is Timothy Murphy.
>  I am a retired mathematics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin (TCD)
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.ie/>
>  (although I still give courses,
>  this year on Elliptic Curves:
>  <http://www.maths.tcd.id/pub/Maths/Courseware/EllipticCurves>).
>  
>  I have a fairly precise idea of what I would like to do
>  for the Fedora Documentation Project,
>  namely to bring Miles Brennan's "Linux Home Server HOWTO"
>  <http://www.brennan.id.au/>
>  within the Fedora Documentation Project.
>  
>  I should say that this has Miles' blessing.
>  The latest version of his HOWTO is based on Fedora Core 5,
>  and Miles says he does not have time to bring it up to date,
>  and would welcome someone else taking on the task.
>  
>  This HOWTO assumes that the reader is running Fedora,
>  so it is entirely appropriate that it should be brought
>  under the auspices of the Fedora Documentation Project.
>  
>  It seems to me that this HOWTO serves
>  a growing need, as more and more of us
>  become administrators of small home systems,
>  with several laptops and perhaps a desktop
>  shared among family members and friends.
>  
>  I don't think this HOWTO as it is
>  requires many content changes,
>  although I appreciate that the Fedora Documentation Project
>  has fairly precise style and format requirements.
>  
>  I have been using Linux since it first came out,
>  having been a Minix user before that.
>  (I still find Andy Tanenbaum's refusal
>  to bring Minix to the 386 difficult to comprehend.)
>  Much earlier, I introduced the first Unix system in Ireland,
>  Unix V6 on a pdp-11/23, in the School of Mathematics at TCD, in 1979.
>  I was also a very early user of TeX.
>  and wrote one of the first TeX output drivers,
>  for an IBM golf-ball typewriter.
>  
>  I am not a computer guru,
>  but have a circle of highly-qualified friends
>  in the Irish Linux Users Group (ILUG)
>  who will ensure that any changes I make to the HOWTO
>  will be accurate.
>  
>  gpg key: <http://www.gayleard.com/gayleard-pubkey.asc>
>  
>
>  
Tim,

Thanks for the post and email off-list. Your offer to support the Linux
Home Server HOWTO is greatly appreciated. I have replied to your
original email off-list so we can sort out some of the finer details.

Regards,
Miles Brennan
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
> Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
>
> iD8DBQFHahthcSPa0xQu/fARApkfAKClQ4HcG0TmnnKcVV04wgR3RhEXjgCeNrjm
> eIot+PXoTNSJAmnlzZA2ZQo=
> =A7DZ
> -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----