Discontent with LiveContent

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

A review of the creative commons live content image derived from Fedora 
7. Should we be happy for the praise on Fedora 7 artwork or unhappy 
about the criticism that the derivative didn't tool well atleast in the 
eyes of the reviewer? Jack, you might want to take a look.

http://www.linux.com/feature/118750

"Nor, unfortunately, does the LiveContent customization do much to 
inspire industry. The default Fedora 7 wallpaper, with its air-brushed 
armada of balloons ascending to the moon above clouds and mountains, may 
not be to everybody's taste, but at least it is unquestionably 
professional. However, LiveContent has replaced it with a lifeless 
gray-green design of its own with the unhelpful slogan "share, remix, 
reuse" and the Creative Commons URL."

Rahul

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

Rahul Sundaram escribió:
>  Hi
>
>  A review of the creative commons live content image derived from 
>  Fedora 7. Should we be happy for the praise on Fedora 7 artwork or 
>  unhappy about the criticism that the derivative didn't tool well 
>  atleast in the eyes of the reviewer? Jack, you might want to take a look.
>
>  http://www.linux.com/feature/118750
>
>  "Nor, unfortunately, does the LiveContent customization do much to 
>  inspire industry. The default Fedora 7 wallpaper, with its air-brushed 
>  armada of balloons ascending to the moon above clouds and mountains, 
>  may not be to everybody's taste, but at least it is unquestionably 
>  professional. However, LiveContent has replaced it with a lifeless 
>  gray-green design of its own with the unhelpful slogan "share, remix, 
>  reuse" and the Creative Commons URL."
>
>  Rahul
>  
Ouch! Not only about the Fedora substitutions, but about the project in 
general (at least as the article portrays it). I thought this disk would 
also include audio samples, not only free in license, but also in free 
formats (FLAC/Ogg), or video samples (Ogm, Ogg-theora). I certainly hope 
as the project matures, the actual included material will also broaden.

[Jonathan Roberts]

Earlier this year I'd produced a project with almost identical aims to
the CC Live CD, but being one guy (and am amateur at that) I haven't
had time or the ability to polish it. However, some people might find
it relevant to this discussion as some of the points that were
mentioned in the article I think I might have addressed.

The website, http://questionsplease.org/freeme/, is currently a touch
out of date as I've created a version 2 in the last month or two with
updated content and improved information about free culture etc.

I've uploaded to my server a copy of the info pages that are on the
disc, which auto-run from Windows and Ubuntu on version 2 (not Fedora,
though I have intended to make a Fedora version, I haven't been able
to figure it out yet!), describing the content and some of the
background to the project - so this features updated info compared to
what's on the currently downloadable version. So if you're interested,
download it and take a look at
http://questionsplease.org/freeme/freeme.tar.gz.

I hope some people find this interesting, and perhaps if you think
this might address some of the issues the CC people are facing might
pass on the relevant information to them - I'd be quite willing to
help :D

Best wishes all,

Jon

[Rahul Sundaram]

Jonathan Roberts wrote:
n about free culture etc.
>  
>  I've uploaded to my server a copy of the info pages that are on the
>  disc, which auto-run from Windows and Ubuntu on version 2 (not Fedora,
>  though I have intended to make a Fedora version, I haven't been able
>  to figure it out yet!) 
If you explain what you are trying to do and ask in fedora-live cd list, 
you should be able to get help. It is pretty simple and you would only 
need a kickstart file. We could even make this part of the Fedora 8 release.

Rahul

[Jonathan Roberts]

>  If you explain what you are trying to do and ask in fedora-live cd
> list,
>  you should be able to get help. It is pretty simple and you would only
>  need a kickstart file. We could even make this part of the Fedora 8 release. 
Lol, I have asked before but I'm afraid I can be a bit slow
technically sometimes and I felt silly for asking repeatedly for
something so simple!! (Essentially all it needs is a sym link adding
to the desktop to point at the folder on the root of the disc).

Would be super cool to have it made a part of the F8 release but I
don't have the time to make the changes myself just now as I start uni
this autumn and have a million things to do before going away!

If anybody was interested in picking this up and working with me on it
things might be a bit more realistic, I could even send out a disc
with all the material I currently have on it to save bandwidth
download time...

Best wishes,

Jon

[Nicu Buculei]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
>  Hi
>  
>  A review of the creative commons live content image derived from Fedora 
>  7. Should we be happy for the praise on Fedora 7 artwork or unhappy 
>  about the criticism that the derivative didn't tool well atleast in the 
>  eyes of the reviewer? Jack, you might want to take a look.
>  
>  http://www.linux.com/feature/118750 
Back  when the LiveContent CD was released I intended to write on my own 
blog a small *positive* review (got busy with some personal things, 
delayed a few days and considered is already too late and scratched the 
idea). So of course I disagree with the reviewer on *many* points.

In my opinion the biggest weakness of the CD is its small amount of 
content included, this is the most important point for a "Content" CD. 
And I think I understand the cause: the disk was co-developed by 
Worldlabel.com, which has a business around OpenOffice.org. If 
OpenOffice.org would be removed from the disk, then *a lot* of space can 
be freed for actual content.

Bruce say in his review "the welcome page begins by repeating the vague 
rhetoric of the project wiki" - this is so easy to fix, just change the 
wording in the wiki, this is why it is a wiki.

I do not agree with the critic of not having Evolution installed, this 
is a CD about content not for general use on the desktop. If the user 
install it on the hard drive he can easily do an "yum install 
thunderbird" or "yum install evolution" (the CD does not have pirut, 
otherwise it would be even easier).

I didn't look at the final 1.0 but only at a release candidate, so I may 
not be 100% correct, but as an Open Clip Art Library developer I 
specifically looked for it on the CD and definitely the browsing 
interface was in the pre-installed Firefox bookmarks so I see no reason 
to complain about that. Yes, it would be nicer to have the content 
available for offline use, but I can understand: 1) there is not enough 
space on the disc for +100MB of clipart images because of OpenOffice.org 
and 2) we (OCAL) failed for quite some time to produce a proper 
up-to-date package.

One thingI didn't like was the link to blip.tv, where the user can 
access CC licensed content but can't use it from the LiveContent CD 
because the content in in Flash format...

>  "Nor, unfortunately, does the LiveContent customization do much
> to 
>  inspire industry. The default Fedora 7 wallpaper, with its air-brushed 
>  armada of balloons ascending to the moon above clouds and mountains, may 
>  not be to everybody's taste, but at least it is unquestionably 
>  professional. However, LiveContent has replaced it with a lifeless 
>  gray-green design of its own with the unhelpful slogan "share, remix, 
>  reuse" and the Creative Commons URL." 
I don't agree even here: in fact I kind of liked the look, it was clean 
and simple (and I like "lifeless gray-green", colors which fit the theme 
used in the CC buttons available all over the web, see [1]).
Of course it has to use something different than the Fedora blue and 
Fedora imagery, as it is not Fedora but a derivative distro.


[1] - http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/us/88x31.png

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

Nicu Buculei escribió:
>  I didn't look at the final 1.0 but only at a release candidate,
> so I 
>  may not be 100% correct, but as an Open Clip Art Library developer I 
>  specifically looked for it on the CD and definitely the browsing 
>  interface was in the pre-installed Firefox bookmarks so I see no 
>  reason to complain about that. Yes, it would be nicer to have the 
>  content available for offline use, but I can understand: 1) there is 
>  not enough space on the disc for +100MB of clipart images because of 
>  OpenOffice.org and 2) we (OCAL) failed for quite some time to produce 
>  a proper up-to-date package. 
Why not make a LiveDVD, then? DVD's would be much more suited for 
"media" and "content" oriented LiveDisk projects. Granted not everyone

has access to highspeed internet connections to download and burn these 
images, but a distribution channel I'm sure could be set up. Even in a 
DVD there's room for all of OOo with all and its lang-packs (so every 
language the distro supports also has a corresponding OOo language and 
resource... Not to mention it opens up the possibility to include so 
much more content (video, audio, writings, pictures, etc)
>  One thingI didn't like was the link to blip.tv, where the user can 
>  access CC licensed content but can't use it from the LiveContent CD 
>  because the content in in Flash format... 
Doesn't it include GNASH? The latest release supports rather well video 
playback from on-line sources such as YouTube and GoogleVideo, it'd only 
make sense to make sure it also played nice with the video player on the 
sites the Disk links to... Or at least let the Gnash developers know of 
these so they could broaden their test cases.

[Nicu Buculei]

Gian Paolo Mureddu wrote:
>  
>  Why not make a LiveDVD, then? DVD's would be much more suited for 
>  "media" and "content" oriented LiveDisk projects. Granted not
> everyone 
>  has access to highspeed internet connections to download and burn these 
>  images, but a distribution channel I'm sure could be set up. Even in a 
>  DVD there's room for all of OOo with all and its lang-packs (so every 
>  language the distro supports also has a corresponding OOo language and 
>  resource... Not to mention it opens up the possibility to include so 
>  much more content (video, audio, writings, pictures, etc) 
I don't know why CC used the CD format, I believe they wanted to reach 
the largest possible audience (more people can read CD than DVD). I 
suspect the connection speed was not the main concern and the main 
distribution channel for that disc is physical media.

>  Doesn't it include GNASH? The latest release supports rather well
> video 
>  playback from on-line sources such as YouTube and GoogleVideo, it'd only 
>  make sense to make sure it also played nice with the video player on the 
>  sites the Disk links to... Or at least let the Gnash developers know of 
>  these so they could broaden their test cases. 
Gnash using ffmpeg? You know ffmpeg is not allowed in Fedora...

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

Nicu Buculei escribió:
>  Gian Paolo Mureddu wrote:
> >
> > Why not make a LiveDVD, then? DVD's would be much more suited for 
> > "media" and "content" oriented LiveDisk projects. Granted not 
> > everyone has access to highspeed internet connections to download and 
> > burn these images, but a distribution channel I'm sure could be set 
> > up. Even in a DVD there's room for all of OOo with all and its 
> > lang-packs (so every language the distro supports also has a 
> > corresponding OOo language and resource... Not to mention it opens up 
> > the possibility to include so much more content (video, audio, 
> > writings, pictures, etc)
>
>  I don't know why CC used the CD format, I believe they wanted to reach 
>  the largest possible audience (more people can read CD than DVD). I 
>  suspect the connection speed was not the main concern and the main 
>  distribution channel for that disc is physical media. 
I see... However, with the recent prices on DVD drives, there's 
virtually no excuse for many computer users to have one... except maybe 
laptop users whose laptops were shipped with CD drives. No 
justification, I know, but at least it *is* very cheap to get a DVD drive.
> > Doesn't it include GNASH? The latest release supports rather well 
> > video playback from on-line sources such as YouTube and GoogleVideo, 
> > it'd only make sense to make sure it also played nice with the video 
> > player on the sites the Disk links to... Or at least let the Gnash 
> > developers know of these so they could broaden their test cases.
>
>  Gnash using ffmpeg? You know ffmpeg is not allowed in Fedora... 
I know, though I find it rather funny for CC content to not be available 
in free formats, but that's just me, I'm sure. But since that's the 
case, why even link to those, then? The users won't be able to view them 
anyway...

[Nicu Buculei]

Gian Paolo Mureddu wrote:
>  
>  I know, though I find it rather funny for CC content to not be available 
>  in free formats, but that's just me, I'm sure. But since that's the 
>  case, why even link to those, then? The users won't be able to view them 
>  anyway... 
Exactly the same was may own question and I think is a better concern 
compared with the ramblings about gray wallpapers in the linked review.

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro