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and blag linux 90001 cannot hear the laughs!

This is not the only Linux distro that is free of proprietary software. The Fedora-based BLAG Linux (http://blagblagblag.org/) has been around for longer and is very serious about keeping binary blobs out of the kernel and non-open source code out of the repos.

The user base isn't huge but it's worth a look.

I am working on a project to "liberate" the EeePC so it runs only Free Software as defined by the Free Software Foundation.

Already, most of the bits are there, but need to be patched in to the kernel (e.g. ACPI, "eee.ko", ATL2 ethernet). There is no free wifi driver working yet, but it is actively being worked on as a part of ath5k.

The other main non-free part is the BIOS. Hopefully someday we'll be able to get coreboot running.

My notes, docs, code, etc:
http://www.blagblagblag.org/pub/BLAG/developers/jebba/eee/

git repository of patched kernel:
git://blaggit.blagblagblag.org/linux-freeeee

-Jeff

Try Blag Linux out of Brixton, England. It is a single CD Fedora based distro that seems only to issue a release every other cycle (FC3, FC5), plus it uses apt-get (as well as YUM). It is updated frequently (the FC3 version, for instance has Firefox 1.5.0.8 in its repositories). it is one of only a half dozen distros certified by the FSF as only having free software in the distribution image or package repositories, but still comes with support for mp3s out of the box, unlike Fedora. It has a friendly, helpful community. It has got to have one of the easiest installation routines ever. If you want it to take over your disk just boot the disc and type blagblagblag.

I'm glad Ark is the only distro that standardizes on apt-get with rpm

Don't people read and make sure they understand a license before they start distributing software under it? Just copy the source file from the original distro and post them on your FTP site. You could set up a script to do this while you sleep at night. The distro I use, BLAG, which is only a couple people seems to have no problem with being a derivative of fedora and offering the source in both individual SRPMs and ISOs.

You might be interested in BLAG Linux. It's Fedora without all the bloat, and aimed at the desktop user.

http://www.blagblagblag.org/

Thanks,
Stephen Clement

Blag Linux (http://www.blagblagblag.org/) has E17 preview in a production release for months, I don't see why this is so amazing...

Most distros just use the default Gnome or KDE theme. Through laziness or maybe they think it actually is the best default. I don't know.

Most people theme theirs though. It doesn't matter to me what the theme is that comes wih a distro; I'm going to change it. Some distros probably realize that we do this and don't bother putting an effort into the looks.

A few distros look different, like Blag. Hmm, that's not very pretty. Maybe that's why distros should stick to the KDE and Gnome default themes.

At least this time, the Blag Servers at http://blagblagblag.org/ aren't affected, as they were the last time.

There are some good questions on Spy Blog:

The questions about whether or not Rackspace's UK subsidiary have acted illegally under United Kingdom law, by intercepting "electronic communications" (including emails), disrupting an electronic communications system, export of personal data outside of the European Union to the USA without permission, breach of copyright etc. still need to be answered.

Without the protection of a properly authorised UK law enforcement warrant, which was obviously not obtained in this case, Rackspace UK could be sued for breach of confidentiality by the >Indymedia systems administrators with whom they have a legal contract.

The contract was with Rackspace UK and Rackspace are a UK limited company... you can look this up with Companies House (UK office hours, they don't leave their mainframe connected to the net when they are not in the office!)... so there must be potential for breach of contract action(s) here...

Check term 10 of Rackspace UK's Master Service Agreement:

"10 Law and Disputes
10.1 This Agreement shall be governed by English law.

I rang Rackspace in the UK today, their Linux managed servers sales section, I asked them if they would host a box for me in the UK and if it could be exempt from UK laws... I didn't get very far... I asked to speak to her boss but she said they were both out... she said only the US company could speak about this matter...

For more background on this see Jebba's blog and also please sign the Indymedia Solidarity Statment!

PS Isn't it time for a Indymedia topic with a nice (((i))) logo... :-)

There are some good questions on Spy Blog:

The questions about whether or not Rackspace's UK subsidiary have acted illegally under United Kingdom law, by intercepting "electronic communications" (including emails), disrupting an electronic communications system, export of personal data outside of the European Union to the USA without permission, breach of copyright etc. still need to be answered.

Without the protection of a properly authorised UK law enforcement warrant, which was obviously not obtained in this case, Rackspace UK could be sued for breach of confidentiality by the >Indymedia systems administrators with whom they have a legal contract.

The contract was with Rackspace UK and Rackspace are a UK limited company... you can look this up with Companies House (UK office hours, they don't leave their mainframe connected to the net when they are not in the office!)... so there must be potential for breach of contract action(s) here...

Check term 10 of Rackspace UK's Master Service Agreement:

"10 Law and Disputes
10.1 This Agreement shall be governed by English law.

I rang Rackspace in the UK today, their Linux managed servers sales section, I asked them if they would host a box for me in the UK and if it could be exempt from UK laws... I didn't get very far... I asked to speak to her boss but she said they were both out... she said only the US company could speak about this matter...

For more background on this see Jebba's blog and also please sign the Indymedia Solidarity Statment!

PS Isn't it time for a Indymedia topic with a nice (((i))) logo... :-)

Apache on these boxes was set not to log any IP addresses in the access logs, see the discussions on the IMC Tech list if you want to know more about this.

You can also see Yeb's comments (Yeb is Jebba, the guy associated with Indymedia who has the contract with Rackspace) on this exact issue in a slashdot comment he made once upon a time...

-- Pete.

This is an excerpt from a previous message he received from Rackspace, which seems to be about something different. I find the text very troubling. (The text is taken from here)

Rackspace said:
Mon Oct 4 07:30:53 2004

Hello,

I am sorry for the tone of the ticket you referenced. However, we are at the mercy of the DMCA as it is written. As a hosting provider, once we have received a DMCA notification, we are responsible for removing the offending material regardless of the merit of the complaint. In fact, we are not even to look into the merits of the complaint. We are only to act to remove the offending material as quickly as possible. If we fail to remove the material, we can be held liable for damages.


Essentially, they're saying that while he may well be correct that his material doesn't infringe any copyrights, Rackspace is legally obliged to remove it immediately.

I've long known that the DMCA was a terrible law. I didn't know it went quite this far, though.

Jebba, the guy with the contract with Rackspace has a load more info about this whole affair in his blog.

I'm the tech who had the contract with Rackspace. My blog has info about this, including copies of the rackspace trouble tickets:

http://jebba.blagblagblag.org

I'd like to clarify a few misconceptions I see in some slashdot comments (imagine that!):

daveschroeder wrote in comments (he also submitted this story to slashdot):
The bottom line here, for what it's worth, is that the US (or political agents within the US) had absolutely nothing to do with Indymedia's drives being seized, even though that's what 90% of the posters in the original article immediately assumed.

It is believed that it is the US State Department that had the drives (servers?) seized. You say the US had absolutely nothing to do with it? How about the Federal Order? Do you have info I don't have? Sounds very much like US agents are involved...

We do not know for certain whether it is related to Italy or Switzerland or somewhere else. It is a good guess, but still a guess. All we know is that it was a Federal Order from the U. S. of A.

ptitvert wrote in comments:
Indymedia was publishing some pictures of swiss cops under cover with 1 name, addresses from both cops.

Really? Did you ever see the post? I never saw a single name or address of a cop. There was just a newswire submission (very similar to a slashdot comment, except that it's multimedia enabled). See my blog and trouble tickets with rackspace for more info about this issue.

Also, folks write things like:
It could be a story they ran about the Swiss undercover police

Indymedia has feature articles and a newswire. Indymedia "ran a story about undercover cops" in the same way that CmdrTaco ran a story about your comments. Get it? FREE POSTING TO ANYONE WITH A FREAKING MODEM (npi).

Anyway, no one really knows what is going on, and that's the spooky part. I mean, the Feds just yanked the servers and never even contacted us once. And they still haven't. (Um, not that I'm inviting them over for coffee or anything...)

Look! They're just grabbing servers, no comments. This sucks folks, even if you loathe indymedia.

I know there is a lot of noise/spam/junk on indymedia, but there is on slashdot too... Since ANYONE can post, the posts are of greatly varying quality. But Indymedia has some of the best (if not the best) coverage from the street, especially at demonstrations. It does break news which is found no where else. It is extremely valuable for this alone.

Let's say there is a Swiss pharmaceutical company in Ohio that does something the Mexican cops don't like. Do the Swiss cops raid? The Mexicans? It seems we really have Team America: World Police.

The rockin' EFF has volunteered to represent me/indymedia pro bono. Very nice. :)

Have fun,

-Jeff

If anyone wants to help out (there are still many IMC sites down) some more mirrors would be good!

You can get in touch with IMC techies via email or via #tech on irc.indymedia.org.

The sites that are easy to mirror are the ones running Mir since this CMS generates static HTML, this includes the global site and the UK site.

Also one of the siezed London servers was the main Blag Linux server and it ran some other Free software mirrors... :-/

http://jebba.blagblagblag.org/

I am the tech who had the actual contract with rackspace.

-Jeff

BLAG Linux (no they're not slashdotted, just gotta wait for the new location to go through the DNS) too suffered from this, as they were hosted on the same server. WHY SHOULD A TOTALLY UNRELATED SITE END UP SUFFERING FROM THIS?!?! I don't exactly like what happened at Indymedia either with FBI, etc. etc. Sheesh, you ever notice that if you rearange the letters in FBI, you get fib?

The RCN stuff was on NYC IMC (and it wasn't posted by Indymedia, most content on IMC sites is posted by the site users just like happens here...), the two servers siezed in London did not host NYC IMC, they hosted a lot of others IMC sites (like Italy and UK) and also some big Free software mirrors and projects, like the Blag Linux distro... :-/

It is not know if the Nantes issue is related to this, perhaps it was enough of an excuse for them and they are after other information, thankfully these servers were set up not to log IP addresses :-)

• One CD
• apt-get with pre-configured repositories
• multimedia (mplayer, xine, audacity, icecast, etc)
• gnome/xfce/blackbox
• galeon/mozilla
• peer-to-peer toys
• kickstart automajick installs