Daily Archives: Friday, May 24, 2013

  • Fedora caught in language trap

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Linux, Oddities, Tech

    Fedora Pi remix logoFedora, the community spin-off of Red Hat Linux, has announced the release of Pidora – a special remix of Fedora for the Raspberry Pi, as follows:

    Pidora 18 (Raspberry Pi Fedora Remix) Release

    We’re excited to announce the release of Pidora 18 – an optimized Fedora Remix for the Raspberry Pi. It is based on a brand new build of Fedora for the ARMv6 architecture with greater speed and includes packages from the Fedora 18 package set.

    * * *

    There are some interesting new features we’d like to highlight:

    • Almost all of the Fedora 18 package set available via yum (thousands of packages were built from the official Fedora repository and made available online)
    • Compiled specifically to take advantage of the hardware already built into the Raspberry Pi
    • Graphical firstboot configuration (with additional modules specifically made for the Raspberry Pi)
    • Compact initial image size (for fast downloads) and auto-resize (for maximum storage afterwards)
    • Auto swap creation available to allow for larger memory usage
    • C, Python, & Perl programming languages available & included in the SD card image
    • Initial release of headless mode can be used with setups lacking a monitor or display
    • IP address information can be read over the speakers and flashed with the LED light
    • For graphical operation, Gedit text editor can be used with plugins (python console, file manager, syntax highlighting) to serve as a mini-graphical IDE
    • For console operation, easy-to-use text editors are included (nled, nano, vi) plus Midnight Commander for file management
    • Includes libraries capable of supporting external hardware such as motors and robotics (via GPIO, I2C, SPI)

    Unfortunately for Fedora, Pidora has a rather embarrassing meaning to some: in Russian, “pidora” is a derogatory word for a male homosexual. As a consequence, the following announcement has been posted on the Pidora website:

    It has come to our attention that the Pidora name bears an unfortunate similarity to another word in Russian, and this has offended some community members and amused others.

    Please accept our apologies for any offence caused. Our goal was to simply associate “Pi” (from Raspberry Pi) and “Fedora” (from the Fedora Project).

    We are actively seeking a broadly-acceptable alternative Russian name in consultation with some community members, and will post more information shortly.

  • Grayling – contempt and abuse

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    image of Justice Secretary & Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling
    Justice Secretary & Lord Chancellor Chris Grayling
    Former BBC producer and current Secretary of State for Justice Chris Grayling MP is the first non-lawyer to serve as Lord Chancellor since the earl of Shaftesbury in 1672-3.

    His lack of legal training could explain lots: he’s been brought in to do a hatchet job on the justice and legal system; some of the changes he’s planning to implement would never be contemplated for an instant by lawyers.

    Whilst in opposition, Grayling became known as a national politician through his “attack dog” pressure on leading Labour politicians.

    It would appear that Grayling is still on the attack if an interview in the Law Society Gazette earlier this week is examined.

    Grayling seems completely unworried about removing the right of the accused to pick an advocate of his/her choice under the criminal legal system. Indeed, he’s positively contemptuous of those that end up in the dock!

    ‘I don’t believe that most people who find themselves in our criminal justice system are great connoisseurs of legal skills. We know the people in our prisons and who come into our courts often come from the most difficult and challenged backgrounds.

    Yes, you did read that correctly. If you need to rely on legal representation funded by criminal legal aid, Grayling thinks you’re too thick to pick your own lawyer, so why not let the state pick one for you. Furthermore, by lumping together people who find themselves in the criminal justice system with those in prison, Grayling arrogantly seems to be equating being in the dock automatically with being guilty. What happened to the presumption of innocence, Mr Grayling?

    However, Grayling’s contempt and abuse is not confined solely to those unfortunates in the dock. Several times in the interview he refers to the provision of legal services as an ‘industry’.

    When I did economics 4 decades ago, the economy consisted of 3 sectors: primary (e.g. agriculture, mining), secondary (e.g. manufacturing, industry) and tertiary (e.g banking, insurance, legal services).

    By referring to the ‘legal services industry’ Grayling has moved legal services from the tertiary to the secondary sector. In so doing he has reduced the role of the skilled legal professional to that of a mere machine operative and that of their clients to the widgets that the machine produces. Grayling is thus guilty of treating people as objects, which is not just a retrograde step for justice, but for British society as a whole.

  • Introducing Joeffice

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Linux, Open Source, Tech

    Japplis of Amsterdam has released the alpha version of Joeffice, the first open source office suite written in the Java programming language.

    The office suite comprises a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, database editor and a drawing viewer.

    Joeffice spreadsheet screenshot
    Joeffice spreadsheet screenshot

    Joeffice works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It also works online in a browser. Joeffice is released under the Apache license 2.0 which makes it possible for companies to change the code and redistribute it internally without having the need to share the modified code.

    Unlike some other office suites, Joeffice has a tab and docking system when opening multiple documents. It also can
    be installed online and it has a plug-in system under which third party plug-ins can be downloaded and installed.

    Japplis’ developer Anthony Goubard states he developed this open source office suite in just 30 days, according to Le Monde Informatique. In Goubard’s words: “The office suite was built with NetBeans and uses several popular open source Java libraries, which allowed me to build the program in one month.”

    Joeffice needs Java 7 to run.