Hi! (& Fedora remix with emphasis on identity)

[Jesús Franco]

Hi Fedora fellows!

My name is Jesús Franco, and i'm a Fedora contributor from México city. 
I'm working with Fedora from 2 years ago and GNU/Linux systems since 
2006. I'm not not technical developer not designer, merely a translator 
and ambassador who focus on software and culture freedom.

I've become interested in a remix of Fedora based just on FaiF software. 
Please correct me if i'm wrong but i think the kernel is the only tiny 
piece of software it's non free. I'm not saying redistributable, but free 
as in freedom.

There is a project called Blag who includes the kernel-libre provided by 
Linux-libre project (maintained for Alexandre Oliva, engineer at Red 
Hat), and another "purified" software like icecat instead of upstream 
firefox. IMHO, it's not necessary a whole new project just to provide to 
users worried about non-free blobs in the kernel a kernel-libre. It's 
easy and straightforward to do it in Fedora as it is now.

However i'd like to provide (under the umbrella of Fedora and as an 
alternative as part of my Fedora ambassador activities) a remix based in 
just free software, providing tools like ffmped, mplayer or similar 
covered with patents and available in rpmfusion-free repo. Similar to 
Omega remix by Rahul Sundaram.

Another question is the visual identity, i've heard some complains about 
the displacement of nodoka as default theme of Gnome. I'd like to include 
in a remix as default theme too, among another "freedom brands" like 
libreoffice, and focus my remix in the latinamerican locales. Thus 
hopefully letting more space to include office and graphics apps. I think 
in liveUSBs of 1GB size, more than a classic remix of <700 MB.

This is my general introduction, i'll slice this into smaller and 
specific questions of how to do thing 1, thing 2, and so on. I'll document 
too, everything in our common wiki for reuse for anyone who can be useful.

Best regards.

-- 
Salud, tierra y libertad
Jesús Franco Fedora Ambassador and translator.
http://identi.ca/tzk

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 01/21/2011 02:14 AM, Jesús Franco wrote:
>  Hi Fedora fellows!
>
>  I've become interested in a remix of Fedora based just on FaiF software. 
>  Please correct me if i'm wrong but i think the kernel is the only tiny 
>  piece of software it's non free. I'm not saying redistributable, but free 
>  as in freedom 
Welcome. 

If you are talking about firmware, the kernel is not the only piece. 
Most of them independent firmware packages don't have equivalent source
under Free software licenses and Fedora merely requires them to be
redistributable.   FSF free system guidelines at
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html are
themselves based on the Fedora guidelines and was born out of my
discussions with RMS and FSF on bringing more clarity to FSF's position
on various things beyond just software (fonts or game data for instance)
and FSF's later document at
http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html confirms that they
believe Fedora conforms to the policy with the exception of firmware.  
Fedora's exception is at

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Binary_Firmware

So you might have to replace the kernel and exclude (via yum.conf or at
the repo level) most if not all of the firmware for such a remix. 

>  There is a project called Blag who includes the kernel-libre provided
> by 
>  Linux-libre project (maintained for Alexandre Oliva, engineer at Red 
>  Hat), and another "purified" software like icecat instead of upstream 
>  firefox. IMHO, it's not necessary a whole new project just to provide to 
>  users worried about non-free blobs in the kernel a kernel-libre. It's 
>  easy and straightforward to do it in Fedora as it is now. 
You will have to confirm with FSF whether they consider Firefox as free
software or not.  My understanding is that they do consider it as Free
software and Icecat or whatever was born out of a preference towards
promoting software that doesn't point to non-free plugins.  RMS had
earlier contacted me asking if there was a interest in packaging Icecat
for Fedora and although I don't think we have a policy preventing that
from being packaged in the official repos, it seems a bit redundant
considering the very few changes between that and Icecat and I in turn
suggested to RMS earlier to create and promote a firefox extension
similar to Ubufox instead that would favor say Gnash over Adobe Flash
and that mail was copied to the Icecat developer although I haven't
heard from them after that.   

On the question of kernel-libre, we don't permit alternative kernels to
be in the official Fedora repository although Alexandre Oliva has
created a repo as per my suggestions via identi.ca and it is quite easy
to use in a Fedora Remix. 

>  Another question is the visual identity, i've heard some
> complains about 
>  the displacement of nodoka as default theme of Gnome. I'd like to include 
>  in a remix as default theme too, among another "freedom brands" like 
>  libreoffice, and focus my remix in the latinamerican locales. Thus 
>  hopefully letting more space to include office and graphics apps. I think 
>  in liveUSBs of 1GB size, more than a classic remix of <700 MB. 
Nodoka is a GNOME 2.x theme and GNOME 3 themes have a different format
and Fedora 15 is going to default to using GNOME Shell and unless Nodoka
is ported over,  this idea seems a bit belated.  You might want to talk
to Nodoka author, Martin Sourada on his GNOME 3 plans before picking a
default.   Hope that helps and let me know if you need further assistance.

Rahul

[Jesús Franco]

El Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:34:58 +0530, Rahul Sundaram escribió:

>  On 01/21/2011 02:14 AM, Jesús Franco wrote:
> > Hi Fedora fellows!
> >
> > I've become interested in a remix of Fedora based just on FaiF
> > software. Please correct me if i'm wrong but i think the kernel is the
> > only tiny piece of software it's non free. I'm not saying
> > redistributable, but free as in freedom
>  
>  Welcome.
>  
>  If you are talking about firmware, the kernel is not the only piece.
>  Most of them independent firmware packages don't have equivalent source
>  under Free software licenses and Fedora merely requires them to be
>  redistributable.   FSF free system guidelines at
>  http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html are
>  themselves based on the Fedora guidelines 
Yes, even Alexandre Oliva has recognized than Fedora licensing guidelines 
its the basis on actual FSF's guidelines. This is a goal i pursue on the 
promotion of the Remix: you just need just a few changes to Fedora, if 
you want a totally FaiF system.

>  and was born out of my
>  discussions with RMS and FSF on bringing more clarity to FSF's position 
Fedora goes far beyond than FSF position in so many things! We encourage 
free culture and licenses, FSF not necessarily. For example, they don't 
assign even a free license to lot of the essays of RMS, and other 
documents.

>  http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html confirms that they
>  believe Fedora conforms to the policy with the exception of firmware. 
This is one of the only "issues" i have with Fedora project. This said, 
it's a foundation than Fedora respects its community members to realize 
their own vision of what they think a whole free system should be. That 
is just one of many reasons i do "marketing" most about Fedora project 
than default Fedora distribution.

>  So you might have to replace the kernel and exclude (via yum.conf or
> at
>  the repo level) most if not all of the firmware for such a remix. 
It's pretty easier to user the kernel-libre in an installed system. And 
arranging the replacement on kickstart files is easy to do, too.

>  You will have to confirm with FSF whether they consider Firefox as
> free
>  software or not.  My understanding is that they do consider it as Free
>  software 
Yes, they consider Firefox as free, even they said its use of trademark 
is acceptable. Debian did a lot of noise about the unmodified binaries, 
just because a bunch of their developers always like to mess with the 
upstream sources. Disrespect for the trademarks its an issue on DFSG, not 
with FSF or Fedora policy.

>  packaging Icecat
>  for Fedora and although I don't think we have a policy preventing that
>  from being packaged in the official repos, it seems a bit redundant
>  considering the very few changes between that and Icecat 
I think they distribute even a privacy extension to include in Firefox, 
maybe this would be the only real contribution to it.

>  On the question of kernel-libre, we don't permit alternative
> kernels to
>  be in the official Fedora repository although Alexandre Oliva has
>  created a repo as per my suggestions via identi.ca and it is quite easy
>  to use in a Fedora Remix. 
Yep, me too, insisted a lot to Alexandre Oliva to do so, even he went far 
than our proposal and has arranged a freed-ora-freedom package with the 
only functionality of bringing to the user knowledge of what firmware-non-
free packages are included by default in Fedora, conflicting with that; 
once installed, it doesn't let to install such kind of packages without 
removing "freedom" as a feature itself.

>  Nodoka is a GNOME 2.x theme and GNOME 3 themes have a different
> format
>  and Fedora 15 is going to default to using GNOME Shell and unless Nodoka
>  is ported over,  this idea seems a bit belated.  You might want to talk
>  to Nodoka author, Martin Sourada on his GNOME 3 plans before picking a
>  default.   Hope that helps and let me know if you need further
>  assistance. 
Hmmm, i didn't know Martin Sourada was the author of Nodoka, i need to 
write to him, to know if is interested in the port. However, i'm 
interested too in not packaging Gnome-Shell into the remix, but the more 
stable Gnome 2.x, because its able to run too in older machines, and 
Gnome-Shell demands more powerful graphic capabilities. I hope it won't 
become an issue to try the next release of Fedora in older hardware, added 
to the theme discussed on desktop mailing list about the abscense of an 
office suite on the default Gnome live desktop. BTW, KDE spin includes 
KOffice in its liveCD.

Also, by a while will be easier to help someone to use Gnome 2.x than 
Shell given the amount of tutorials around there.

>  Rahul 
Thanks a lot for your welcome and assistance, it helped me a lot to 
clarify a little bit more my own goals to make the Remix.

Chris and Scott, thanks for the welcome too. Maybe a look to Blag 
kickstart files could give you some enlightenment about the issues you 
want to tinker more in your remix projects.

Take a look here: ftp://blag.fsf.org/139000/en/iso/

-- 
Jesús Franco
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Tezcatl

[Chris Smart]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 7:44 AM, Jesús Franco <tezcatl(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;wrote:

>  Hi Fedora fellows!
>
>  
Hi!


>  My name is Jesús Franco, and i'm a Fedora contributor from México
> city.
>  I'm working with Fedora from 2 years ago and GNU/Linux systems since
>  2006. I'm not not technical developer not designer, merely a translator
>  and ambassador who focus on software and culture freedom.
>  
Welcome :-)

-c

[Scott Dowdle]

Greetings,

----- Original Message -----
>  Hi Fedora fellows! 
Cool.  Maybe we can get some more discussion going here... after all this mailing list was
made for remixers.

I'd like to see a tutorial on how to properly rebrand a remix... beyond just replacing
the fedora-logos and fedora-release packages with the generic versions.  I'd love to
help with the tutorial but so far much of the process is a mystery to me.

Rahul volunteered to teach us how to build rpms and after I write a lengthy post asking
how to go about replacing the generic packages, he basically ignored me.  My guess is that
my post was seen as mostly rambling and my questions weren't necessarily direct
enough.  I also guess that a lot of the information is already available in the Fedora
wiki in bits and pieces but I've been a bit lazy looking for it and my post was mostly
"dear lazy web" in nature. :)

So, how does everyone go about rebranding their remixes?

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
[phone] [home]
[phone] [work]

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 01/22/2011 01:24 AM, Scott Dowdle wrote:
>  Rahul volunteered to teach us how to build rpms and after I write a lengthy post asking
> how to go about replacing the generic packages, he basically ignored me.  My guess is that
> my post was seen as mostly rambling and my questions weren't necessarily direct
> enough.  I also guess that a lot of the information is already available in the Fedora
> wiki in bits and pieces but I've been a bit lazy looking for it and my post was mostly
> "dear lazy web" in nature. :)
>
>  So, how does everyone go about rebranding their remixes? 
Didn't ignore.  Just mostly on vacation
(http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/devel/2010-December/147532.html)
and haven't had time to read all the mails yet.  In any case, I don't do
anything special beyond just replacing fedora-logos and fedora-release
packages.

Rahul

[Scott Dowdle]

Rahul,

----- Original Message -----
>  In any case, I don't do anything special beyond just replacing 
>  fedora-logos and fedora-release packages. 
And *HOW* do you replace those packages?  With generic?  You build your own?  If the
later, how exactly do you do that?

TYL,
-- 
Scott Dowdle
704 Church Street
Belgrade, MT 59714
[phone] [home]
[phone] [work]

[Rahul Sundaram]

On 01/23/2011 05:47 AM, Scott Dowdle wrote:
>  Rahul,
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> > In any case, I don't do anything special beyond just replacing 
> > fedora-logos and fedora-release packages.
>  And *HOW* do you replace those packages?  With generic?  You build your own?  If the
> later, how exactly do you do that? 
Yes, with generic.  The kickstart file is available at
http://omega.dgplug.org

Rahul

[Valent Turkovic]

On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 8:54 PM, Scott Dowdle <dowdle(a)montanalinux.org&gt; wrote:
>  Greetings,
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> > Hi Fedora fellows!
>
>  Cool.  Maybe we can get some more discussion going here... after all this mailing list
> was made for remixers.
>
>  I'd like to see a tutorial on how to properly rebrand a remix... beyond just
> replacing the fedora-logos and fedora-release packages with the generic versions.  I'd
> love to help with the tutorial but so far much of the process is a mystery to me.
>
>  Rahul volunteered to teach us how to build rpms and after I write a lengthy post asking
> how to go about replacing the generic packages, he basically ignored me.  My guess is that
> my post was seen as mostly rambling and my questions weren't necessarily direct
> enough.  I also guess that a lot of the information is already available in the Fedora
> wiki in bits and pieces but I've been a bit lazy looking for it and my post was mostly
> "dear lazy web" in nature. :)
>
>  So, how does everyone go about rebranding their remixes? 
Fusion Linux currently replaces generic-logos with it's own version of
generic-logos package with rebranded graphics, quick and dirty way.
You also need your own repo for this and that your package is higher
version that one in fedora repos, or disable generic-logos package
from fedora repo via exlude command in fedora.repos file.

Anybody interested how Fusion Linux does it you can check out our
kickstart files here:
http://fusionlinux.org/downloads/

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Valent.