Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 17:49:38 -0700 (PDT)
From: parker@momma.mi-recordz.com
To: marty@linuxtoday.com
Subject: MWS38-16-05-2000
Greetings!
MWS for 16th of May, 2000 (#38)
Current versions:
Stable: 1.2.5 'Mad King'
Devel.: 1.4beta.3
Oracle: 1.2.5 Oracle 8i
Defining Copyright, Publishing Model For The Midgard Manual
A discussion concerning the Midgard documentation effort and
Midgard Projects Ry’s role as a publisher and copyright holder is
taking place. Participation by someone experienced in handling Open
Source related copyright and publishing issues for documentation
would be highly valuable.
An effort to understand copyright and publishing interests is
currently centered around OpenContent and the GNU free
Documentation License. Both of these organizations offer licensing
solutions and it’s likely Midgard Projects Ry and the documentation
writers will embrace a solution that’s developed around one cense
Issues Raised When Considering Sales of Midgard Product
Sean D. Ackley, Midgard contributor and user, announced his
interest in selling the Midgard application server as a supported
product. “In the same manner that RedHat, and other versions of
Linux have gone, we have the ability to actually sell Midgard, with
a printed manual,” said Ackley. “My ideas include offering a full
Midgard with documentation (printed), on a CD, with install
scripts, and even support if needed.”
Ackley’s announcement of his interest for selling a Midgard
product on the Midgard mailing list is intended to elicit a
discussion about licensing issues. “I would like to start
entertaining that idea,” said Ackley. “I wanted to get some
feedback on this before I plunged ahead with it, as I want to
maintain license agreements, and such.”
“I think it’s great, if he can pull it off,” said Emiliano
Henys, Midgard developer, when asked about Ackley’s intentions,
“It’s quite a responsibility he’ll be taking on. If he does well,
we do well. I do hope he shares his plans so I can jump in when
needed.”
Heyns stated that the licenses for the Midgard application suite
are in place, and efforts to sell Midgard will have to abide by
those licenses. It is stated on the Midgard web site, http://www.midgard-project.org/article/884.html,
that the core libraries are distributed under the GNU Library
General Public License, which permits the software to be freely
used so long as it is dynamically linked to or the user can relink
to new versions of the libraries.
The GNU GPL Preamble explains that the use of the word “free” in
regards to GNU GPL licensed libraries grants the freedom to
distribute free software, charge for the service of distribution,
receive or have access to source code, change the software, use
pieces of it in new programs, and awareness of these rights.
A discussion on the Midgard user and developer lists has failed
to resolve the issue of how Midgard documentation will be licensed.
However, writers retaining copyrights to their documents and MPRy
publishing the documents with the GFDL has been suggested.
A search for this thread using the original subject
“documentation in Word 2000” at http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/
failed to find the original post so a new post that includes this
excerpt from this report will be posted to the list and titled
“Sales, Licensing.” of these licenses.
The midgard-dev mailing list archive subject titles for this
thread are “Some documentation” and “Documentation License” the
archives can be found at:
Learn more:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=midgard-dev&w=2…
Manual Updated, Includes “Building A Site Tutorial”
Part II of the Midgard manual titled “User Guide” has been
updated to include Dariusz Debowczyk’s “Building A Basic Site”
tutorial. The tutorial is a step-by-step guide to building a site.
The tutorial does not cover advanced features or design “The site
only for demonstration purposes so we won’t bother it’s design nor
advanced functionality,” said Debowczyk. “We assume you know HTML
and at least basics of web page creation. Some knowledge about
website deployment on a server (using FTP) is also required.”
The tutorial is located at:
http://www.midgard-project.org/manual/basicdevel.html
SiteGroup Bug Demonstrated, Patched During IRC Session
On Monday May, 15, 2000 Emiliano Heyns, SiteGroups programmer,
and I, Ron Parker, SiteGroups editor in chief, used our newly
created Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server to uncover a bug which has
been hampering the documentation effort for SiteGroups. After a
couple weeks of struggling with the problem, I was able to
demonstrate it and Emile wrote the fix within 30 minutes.
There has been some interest in having a chat forum for Midgard
developers and users, so Emile built an IRC server which is being
hosted by Mi-Recordz. The first session where we worked on
SiteGroups proved effective and has made the effort a success.
We’re inviting everyone that’s interested in Midgard to use
server: “irc.mi-recordz.com” channel: “#midgard” for any Midgard
activities including social interaction amongst our group.
To use IRC you’ll have to install a client application. There’s
an abundance of IRC client applications available. A quick search
at
http://linuxberg.vegasys.net/
for keywords “irc clients” produces a list of six applications that
can be downloaded from those servers. There are many IRC clients
available.
Henry Bergius, Midgard developer and user, has begun redesigning
the midgard-project.org website to improve ease of use. “The
current architecture of our site is rather confusing,” said
Bergius. “I’m planning to do a redesign of the site this month, and
I’ll try to rearrange the contents.”
The thread for this topic can be found at:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?t=95798146500002&w=2&r=1
About Midgard
Midgard is a freely-available Web application development and
publishing platform based on the popular PHP scripting language. It
is an Open Source development project, giving you the freedom to
create your solutions in an open environment. Midgard is the tool
for creating, modifying and maintaining dynamic database-enabled
web services.
-> http://www.midgard-project.org
About MWS
The Midgard Weekly Summary is a newsletter for the Midgard user
and developer community.
The MWS is currently being distributed in following mediums:
-The Midgard Project’s Web site
-> http://www.midgard-project.org
-Linux Weekly News
-> http://www.lwn.net
-Linux Today
-> https://www.linuxtoday.com
-Linux Developer’s Network
-> http://linuxdev.net
-LinuxProgramming
-> http://www.linuxprogramming.com
-Midgard mailing list
If you would like to release it elsewhere, please contact Henri
Bergius
(Henri.Bergius@iki.fi).
Previous issues of Midgard Weekly Summary can be found archived
at the Midgard web site.
-> http://www.midgard-project.org/topic/169.html