Re: Name of next release (was: Release Status, and IRC meeting reminder)
[Jonas Smedegaard]
> Some may even be upset about the name Debian (which is a trademark)
> used for something including SUN Java. As I understand trademarks
> there's a big difference between mentioning the brand in the product
> name (indicating the product *is* the brand - which is wrong) and
> using it in description or other places (indicating the product
> *contains* the brand - which is correct).
Well, some might even be upset by the printing of caricatures. I'm
quite sure we should not be guided by what migth upset people, but
what is sensible, just and correct.
The skolelinux project have a trademark license agreement with SPI,
and are allowed to use the Debian trademark. This was the first
license agreement for the trademark, I believe. Using the Debian name
with the Debian-Edu/Skolelinux distribution should be just fine thanks
to this.
I'm not sure where you got your ideas about the difference between
Debian-Edu and Skolelinux, but they are just different names for the
same project, and thus "both" subprojects aim at getting everything
the schools need to do their job included in Debian as free software.
You are absolutely right that we still have a bit left before we can
provide everything a school need as free software.
SUN Java is one particular annoyance, and for those who do not know
this, getting a free alternative into Debian is quite high on the
priority list. To make this happen, I and Kurt Gramlich have for
example organized a Debian Java meeting (the DevJam, funded by Debian
with funds collected by Andreas Schuldei working for Skolelinux) to
improve the situation. It is important to have an alternative in
place before ripping out functionality the schools need. I've also
spend countless hours assisting the free java maintainers getting
packages into Debian, and providing test results and feedback to the
free java developers.
Another annoying isue is the lack of free flash viewers. We need more
people working on this too. At the moment I've focused on java to try
to get it to a state were it is possible and safe to run applets using
free java. I hope to look at the flash issue in the future. I am
pleased to see that FSF is putting this high on their agenda, and I
hope this will solve the issue soon.
We used to include Opera, a non-free web browser, as the free
alternatives were not able to display the web pages the schools needed
to display. In the recent years, this need has been taken care of
first by mozilla and next firefox and konqueror, so we no longer need
non-free software in this area. Of course the fact that a lot of web
pages are no longer broken help a lot as well. :)
One issue which keep coming up is the wish to include Squeak,
<URL:http://www.squeak.org/>, and I hope someone will soon spend the
time needed to document and fix the remaining license issues. I'm not
sure if there are any license issues left, and look forward to hearing
an updated report on the issue.
I hope everyone will help us make sure we can improve free software to
a point where we can cater for the schools needs using only free
software. And the best way to do this is by improving free software
and making sure the schools learn how to use free software by
providing them with a working alternative today. We need to provide a
system that solves todays issues in the schools, if we want the
schools and the pupils in them to discover the advantages of free
software today.
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