From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 20 04:05:37 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7566D16A4CE for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 04:05:37 +0000 (GMT) Received: from msr4.hinet.net (msr4.hinet.net [168.95.4.104]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD54043D41 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 04:05:36 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net) Received: from sonic (61-227-219-131.dynamic.hinet.net [61.227.219.131]) by msr4.hinet.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id MAA14397 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:05:35 +0800 (CST) Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 11:55:57 -0400 From: Robert Storey To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Message-Id: <20040720115557.03462af4.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.8.11 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-debian-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Apple's contribution to FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 04:05:37 -0000 Dear All, I made the following post to freebsd-questions, but somebody wrote back and suggested I should post this to chat@. So that's what I'm doing now - forive this "double posting". The following is the whole post, verbatim.... --------------------------------------------------------- First off, apologies for this off-topic post, but I think this is the only place I'm likely to get an intelligent (and well-informed) answer to my question. I tried searching the web, but found a confusing and contradictory bunch of poorly-informed opinions, which wasn't helpful. I'm writing a news article about Apple's contribution to open source. In particular, I'm interested in finding out the following: 1) How much of FreeBSD did Apple actually use in OSX? If I'm not mistaken, the Darwin kernel is not related to FreeBSD in any way (or is that wrong?). Basically, what exactly did Apple gain from FreeBSD? 2) What exactly has Apple contributed back to FreeBSD? (money? equipment? source code?). Nowadays, does Apple still continue to give anything back to the FreeBSD community? 3) How much of OSX today is open source (or "shared source")? Can you actually see the OSX source code? Can you use any of it? Because this is off-topic, it might be better if people responded directly to my email address rather than this forum. I can be reached at y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net. I know that I could ask these questions on an OSX forum, but then I'd probably receive 1000 replies from people telling me that OSX is the greatest thing since sliced bread - which, even if true, has nothing to do with the article I'm writing. And yes, I'm running FreeBSD (and Linux) at home, not OSX, but that also has nothing to do with the article. I appreciate any help I can get on this, and as always I'm happy to acknowledge anyone by name in the article for their assistance. thanks in advance and best regards, Robert From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 20 05:11:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF5DE16A4CE for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 05:11:50 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail024.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail024.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.242]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98A4043D1F for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 05:11:49 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from syncman@optusnet.com.au) Received: from webmail02.syd.optusnet.com.au (webmail02.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.236])i6K5AYL12065; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 15:10:34 +1000 Message-Id: <200407200510.i6K5AYL12065@mail024.syd.optusnet.com.au> Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.411 (Entity 5.404) Received: from [203.108.78.38] as user syncman@optusnet.com.au by webmail.optusnet.com.au with HTTP; From: Andrew Sinclair To: Robert Storey , FreeBSD Chat Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 15:10:34 +1000 Subject: Re: [OT] Apple's contribution to OSX X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 05:11:50 -0000 > Robert Storey wrote: > > Dear All, > > First off, apologies for this off-topic post, but I think this is the > only place I'm likely to get an intelligent (and well-informed) answer > to my question. I tried searching the web, but found a confusing and > contradictory bunch of poorly-informed opinions, which wasn't helpful. > > I'm writing a news article about Apple's contribution to open source. > In > particular, I'm interested in finding out the following: > > 1) How much of FreeBSD did Apple actually use in OSX? If I'm not > mistaken, the Darwin kernel is not related to FreeBSD in any way (or is > that wrong?). Basically, what exactly did Apple gain from FreeBSD? > This is the 2nd time this question has been asked on the lists. I'll be sending an E- Mail to Apple Computers tomorrow. As for the other two questions: 2) A FreeBSD core team member should be able to answer this. 3) Only Darwin is open source. Mac OS X is basically proprietary extensions to Darwin and is thus closed source. This includes the GUI and its libraries. - Regards Andrew Sinclair From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 20 08:48:51 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97C9016A4CF for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:48:51 +0000 (GMT) Received: from faceman.servitor.co.uk (faceman.servitor.co.uk [80.71.15.146]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CA56443D68 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:48:50 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from wiggy@servitor.co.uk) Received: from wiggy by faceman.servitor.co.uk with local (Exim 4.30) id 1BmqIr-000Jrv-NB; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:48:49 +0100 Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 09:48:49 +0100 From: Paul Robinson To: Robert Storey Message-ID: <20040720084849.GC5699@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <20040720115557.03462af4.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040720115557.03462af4.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> Sender: Paul Robinson cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Apple's contribution to FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:48:51 -0000 On Tue, Jul 20, 2004 at 11:55:57AM -0400, Robert Storey wrote: > 1) How much of FreeBSD did Apple actually use in OSX? If I'm not > mistaken, the Darwin kernel is not related to FreeBSD in any way (or is > that wrong?). Basically, what exactly did Apple gain from FreeBSD? As I understand it, all of userland, plus they stole Jordan Hubbard. :-) The kernel is based on Mach, not FreeBSD, and when you do drop down into a shell, it doesn't look or feel much like a FreeBSD system really. They might have taken a lot, but you can barely tell. Quite honestly, I don't think they've taken a great deal more than /bin, /sbin, /lib, /usr/bin, /usr/sbin, /usr/lib or if they have, I couldn't tell when I was hacking away on one the other day. The config files don't *really* sit in /etc, home directories are in /Users and it's full of that kind of non-sensical nonsense. So, to say Mac OS X is like FreeBSD with knobs on, is like saying the Ferrari F1 car is like a Testarossa with knobs on - bits might have come from the same factory, but at different times and for different purposes. There are a lot of OS X guys around the FreeBSD lists though who will no doubt jump in and explain if it's more than what I'm suggesting. If you're writing an article on this though, you should absolutely 100% go out and try a Mac OS X box, otherwise you're just making stuff up. > 2) What exactly has Apple contributed back to FreeBSD? (money? > equipment? source code?). Nowadays, does Apple still continue to give > anything back to the FreeBSD community? I know they sometimes help sponsor the odd event relevant to us, and they're the first OS vendor I know who will go to a Linux User Group and give a talk to a bunch of people who won't buy their product just to talk about the tech. Also Darwin is there for us to nick things off if we want it, just like the other BSDs. If FreeBSD wanted more than attribution, perhaps the choice of BSD license was a bad idea. :-) > 3) How much of OSX today is open source (or "shared source")? Can you > actually see the OSX source code? Can you use any of it? Darwin. As somebody else pointed out, Darwin is open source, but doesn't have the GUI or proprietary libs included. -- Paul Robinson http://www.iconoplex.co.uk/ From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Jul 20 12:31:33 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4EAF316A4CE for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:31:33 +0000 (GMT) Received: from vhost109.his.com (vhost109.his.com [216.194.225.101]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8EEA843D55 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:31:32 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from brad.knowles@skynet.be) Received: from [10.0.1.3] (localhost.his.com [127.0.0.1]) by vhost109.his.com (8.12.11/8.12.3) with ESMTP id i6KCVDL0032890; Tue, 20 Jul 2004 08:31:28 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from brad.knowles@skynet.be) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20040720084849.GC5699@iconoplex.co.uk> References: <20040720115557.03462af4.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> <20040720084849.GC5699@iconoplex.co.uk> Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 14:24:03 +0200 To: Paul Robinson From: Brad Knowles Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org cc: Robert Storey Subject: Re: Apple's contribution to FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2004 12:31:33 -0000 At 9:48 AM +0100 2004-07-20, Paul Robinson wrote: > As I understand it, all of userland, plus they stole Jordan Hubbard. :-) Not quite. ;) From what I've been able to determine from my own experiences with FreeBSD over the years and MacOS X since 10.1 (and some playing around with NextSTEP years earlier), I think what has happened is this: 1) Kernel is Mach. No FreeBSD there. 2) Drivers are pretty deeply embedded into the Kernel, and frequently use totally proprietary things like I/OKit. Not much FreeBSD, but bits are being ripped out as it makes sense to do, and being replaced with stuff from more modern/generic *BSD implementations, FreeBSD included. 3) Userland stuff is still largely inherited from NextSTEP, which was Mach plus a BSD userland anyway. So, directly or indirectly, it's pretty much all *BSD, although not necessarily directly derived from FreeBSD. Again, as it makes sense, NextSTEP-legacy bits are being ripped out and replaced with more generic/modern *BSD bits, usually coming from FreeBSD but not always. For example, look at the work that's being done to throw away NetInfo Manager, and instead go to something based on OpenLDAP. 4) Where MacOS X diverges the most is in the UI and graphical applications, anything that comes over from MacOS 9/Carbon, etc.... Obviously, no FreeBSD here. >> 2) What exactly has Apple contributed back to FreeBSD? (money? >> equipment? source code?). Nowadays, does Apple still continue to give >> anything back to the FreeBSD community? > > I know they sometimes help sponsor the odd event relevant to us, and they're > the first OS vendor I know who will go to a Linux User Group and give a talk > to a bunch of people who won't buy their product just to talk about the > tech. Also Darwin is there for us to nick things off if we want it, just > like the other BSDs. Speaking only for myself, I believe that the long-term goal is to merge more and more components of Darwin (the freely available bits of MacOS X) and FreeBSD, until there effectively is little or no difference. Where it makes sense, NextSTEP legacy components will be ripped out and replaced with generic/modern *BSD stuff, and Apple no longer has to worry about paying the maintenance and support costs for that part of the code. They will focus their efforts on the Aqua and MacOS X specific stuff which they wish to keep proprietary, and reduce their long-term O&M costs by putting as much of the rest as possible out into the *BSD community. I believe that this is a very reasonable business plan. Indeed, when it comes to building proprietary systems on top of open source components, I believe that this is the only workable business plan. Trying to keep everything in-house and then deal with the increasing divergence between your starting point and where you are now, is a recipe for disaster. I believe that we've been there and seen that. >> 3) How much of OSX today is open source (or "shared source")? Can you >> actually see the OSX source code? Can you use any of it? > > Darwin. As somebody else pointed out, Darwin is open source, but doesn't > have the GUI or proprietary libs included. You'd have to get some engineers at Apple to count the lines of code in Darwin as compared to the non-Darwin stuff in MacOS X, but I believe that Darwin is by far the largest chunk. -- Brad Knowles, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755 SAGE member since 1995. See for more info. From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 21 11:12:29 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF3CE16A4CE for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:12:29 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mx20.leapbroadband.ie (smtprelay.leapbroadband.ie [217.67.140.89]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DCE8F43D49 for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:12:27 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from relyod@cooperationireland.org) Received: from mail.cooperationireland.org ([217.67.143.158]) by mx20.leapbroadband.ie (8.12.8/8.12.8) with ESMTP id i6LBCPDs032484 for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 12:12:25 +0100 Received: from IT3.cooperationireland.org (it3 [199.107.2.144]) i6LBAFQK058385 for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 12:10:16 +0100 (IST) (envelope-from relyod@cooperationireland.org) Message-Id: <6.1.0.6.0.20040721120300.02845fa0@199.107.2.1> X-Sender: relyod@199.107.2.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 6.1.0.6 Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 12:11:54 +0100 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org From: Mike Doyle In-Reply-To: References: <20040720115557.03462af4.y2kbug@ms25.hinet.net> <20040720084849.GC5699@iconoplex.co.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed X-CoopIrl-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: relyod@cooperationireland.org Subject: Re: Apple's contribution to FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 11:12:29 -0000 The easy way to see apple's contribution is to search the mailing list archives. Look at http://www.freebsd.org/search/search.htm Search the Commit(all) for commits mentioning Apple One example: Fix to NFS from apple (dated 1999) http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=407983+409098+/usr/local/www/db/text/1999/cvs-all/19990704.cvs-all <>< =================================================== ><> Michael Doyle email: relyod@cooperationireland.org Network Administrator mobile: +353 87 235 7853 Co-operation Ireland http://www.cooperationireland.org/ Phone: +353-1-661 0588 Fax: +353-1-661 8456 *********************************************************** From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 21 22:56:08 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B011C16A4D0 for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:56:08 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.oisca.org (mail.oisca.org [164.46.152.13]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBBA443D2D for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:56:07 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from pwd8jmr22w@me.point.ne.jp) Received: from [192.168.1.35] (165.191.192.61.tokyo.bflets.alpha-net.ne.jp [61.192.191.165]) (authenticated (0 bits)) by mail.oisca.org (8.12.11/8.11.3) with ESMTP id i6LMu2Ei023926 for ; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:56:06 +0900 Message-ID: <40FEF466.4000807@me.point.ne.jp> Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:55:34 +0900 From: Srot BULL User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.1 (X11/20040706) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Need advice on an application for creating a Newsletter X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: pwd8jmr22w@me.point.ne.jp List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 22:56:08 -0000 Hi to everyone, Since I did not think that this post is about asking a technical question on FreeBSD, I thought I should try this list first for any advice or help. Now here is my problem, I have been incharge (on/off) for the publication of our Newsletter (we call it Bulletin Board), I have had experiences on Adobe's expensive applications...Photoshop and PageMaker...What would be the best way (application in the ports) for me to start with...? I have tried Scribus from the ports but, it is like using PageMaker with a Distiller inside, please do not get me wrong I have nothing against Scribus...I just want to learn new ideas... Besides, the publication only have 4 pages with 2-4 images per page...and I will have to print some copies and email some (text) and maybe upload in our website. I have search the internet...DocBook, XML...(did not have the courage to read all because, there were just too many and I still do not know if I am in the right track... I was thinking of using Vim as my editor (close to vi, would really help me learn both)...but after that, I do not know what to do next... Anybody using FreeBSD for small DTP here? Mine is just 4 pages...If you could reply with some links where to start? Would be a big help for me...I hope I have not wasted your time with this long posting... Srot BULL From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jul 21 23:18:08 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C8F016A4CE for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 23:18:08 +0000 (GMT) Received: from pilchuck.reedmedia.net (pilchuck.reedmedia.net [209.166.74.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DCB3A43D41 for ; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 23:18:03 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from reed@reedmedia.net) Received: from reed by pilchuck.reedmedia.net with local-esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 1BnQLO-000398-00; Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:17:50 -0700 Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 16:17:49 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jeremy C. Reed" To: Srot BULL In-Reply-To: <40FEF466.4000807@me.point.ne.jp> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Need advice on an application for creating a Newsletter X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2004 23:18:08 -0000 On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Srot BULL wrote: > Now here is my problem, I have been incharge (on/off) for the > publication of our Newsletter (we call it Bulletin Board), I have had > experiences on Adobe's expensive applications...Photoshop and > PageMaker...What would be the best way (application in the ports) for me > to start with...? I have tried Scribus from the ports but, it is like > using PageMaker with a Distiller inside, please do not get me wrong I > have nothing against Scribus...I just want to learn new ideas... > Besides, the publication only have 4 pages with 2-4 images per > page...and I will have to print some copies and email some (text) and > maybe upload in our website. > I have search the internet...DocBook, XML...(did not have the courage to > read all because, there were just too many and I still do not know if I > am in the right track... > I was thinking of using Vim as my editor (close to vi, would really help > me learn both)...but after that, I do not know what to do next... > Anybody using FreeBSD for small DTP here? Mine is just 4 pages...If you > could reply with some links where to start? Would be a big help for > me...I hope I have not wasted your time with this long posting... Depends on how you want your newsletter to look. kword is a lot easier and faster for generating a simple newsletter than scribus. Like scribus, it supports the concept of having text frames which can be resized and moved and linking the text together. Tools like inkscape, sodipodi, xfig, sketch, kontour, and tgif are not useful for desktop publishing for newsletters because you can't easily enter text with frames that can be resized while having text flow automatically between text frames. (A common problem is resizing the text frame also squishes/stretches the text.) It is possible that some of these vector editors now have improved text frame support; please let me know. Another alternative is lyx. But doing newsletter-style layout can be very difficult. (Formatting a brochure in lyx using latex took me days but only minutes in scribus.) I do use lyx to generate reports, courseware, and book-type material. Another alternative to look at is passepartout. At one time, I was looking for a mailing list that focused on open source desktop layout publishing. Does anyone know of a good one? Jeremy C. Reed BSD News, BSD tutorials, BSD links http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/ From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 22 07:11:26 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0809516A4CE for ; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:11:26 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mail.oisca.org (mail.oisca.org [164.46.152.13]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 386A243D1D for ; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:11:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from pwd8jmr22w@me.point.ne.jp) Received: from [192.168.1.35] (165.191.192.61.tokyo.bflets.alpha-net.ne.jp [61.192.191.165]) (authenticated (0 bits)) by mail.oisca.org (8.12.11/8.11.3) with ESMTP id i6M7B0uO006900; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:11:05 +0900 Message-ID: <40FF6868.4070601@me.point.ne.jp> Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:10:32 +0900 From: Srot BULL User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.1 (X11/20040706) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Jeremy C. Reed" References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Need advice on an application for creating a Newsletter X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: pwd8jmr22w@me.point.ne.jp List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 07:11:26 -0000 Jeremy C. Reed wrote: > On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Srot BULL wrote: > > >>Now here is my problem, I have been incharge (on/off) for the >>publication of our Newsletter (we call it Bulletin Board), I have had >>experiences on Adobe's expensive applications...Photoshop and >>PageMaker...What would be the best way (application in the ports) for me >>to start with...? I have tried Scribus from the ports but, it is like >>using PageMaker with a Distiller inside, please do not get me wrong I >>have nothing against Scribus...I just want to learn new ideas... >>Besides, the publication only have 4 pages with 2-4 images per >>page...and I will have to print some copies and email some (text) and >>maybe upload in our website. >>I have search the internet...DocBook, XML...(did not have the courage to >>read all because, there were just too many and I still do not know if I >>am in the right track... >>I was thinking of using Vim as my editor (close to vi, would really help >>me learn both)...but after that, I do not know what to do next... >>Anybody using FreeBSD for small DTP here? Mine is just 4 pages...If you >>could reply with some links where to start? Would be a big help for >>me...I hope I have not wasted your time with this long posting... > > > Depends on how you want your newsletter to look. Well, I would want it to look as simple as possible, The cover page would contain some logos, images, 1-2 main articles, and the rest of the pages would look like colored newspapers...I hope your getting this... > > kword is a lot easier and faster for generating a simple newsletter than > scribus. Like scribus, it supports the concept of having text frames which > can be resized and moved and linking the text together. > > Tools like inkscape, sodipodi, xfig, sketch, kontour, and tgif are not > useful for desktop publishing for newsletters because you can't easily > enter text with frames that can be resized while having text flow > automatically between text frames. (A common problem is resizing the text > frame also squishes/stretches the text.) It is possible that some of these > vector editors now have improved text frame support; please let me know. Back when I was using KDE, I did tried to use koffice for a while but due to lack of knowlegde in how to make things work (specially japanese input, in a totally english environment)...I had to give it up...koffice was just too slow and kept on hanging... AbiWord and Gnumeric handled japanese input pretty normaly...o.k. this is just me, a newbie trying to share my experience...I knew kword could handle test frames or it was designed for text frames...but my configuration was just poor that I had to abandon it... > Another alternative is lyx. But doing newsletter-style layout can be very > difficult. (Formatting a brochure in lyx using latex took me days but only > minutes in scribus.) I do use lyx to generate reports, courseware, > and book-type material. I should definitely take a look at this one... > > Another alternative to look at is passepartout. and this one too... > At one time, I was looking for a mailing list that focused on open source > desktop layout publishing. Does anyone know of a good one? > Anyone who could share as some links would be a great help... Thank you very much for your ideas... At least I can start somewhere... Srot BULL From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 22 09:36:38 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A1D716A4CE for ; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:36:38 +0000 (GMT) Received: from brain.otenet.gr (brain.otenet.gr [195.170.0.25]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8A5A243D48 for ; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:36:36 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: from orion.daedalusnetworks.priv (aris.bedc.ondsl.gr [62.103.39.226])i6M9aImM031415; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:36:25 +0300 Received: from orion.daedalusnetworks.priv (orion [127.0.0.1]) i6M9b7he004253; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:37:07 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from keramida@localhost)i6M9b55w004252; Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:37:05 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:37:05 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Srot BULL Message-ID: <20040722093705.GA4088@orion.daedalusnetworks.priv> References: <40FEF466.4000807@me.point.ne.jp> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <40FEF466.4000807@me.point.ne.jp> cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Need advice on an application for creating a Newsletter X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2004 09:36:38 -0000 On 2004-07-22 07:55, Srot BULL wrote: > Hi to everyone, > > Since I did not think that this post is about asking a technical > question on FreeBSD, I thought I should try this list first for any > advice or help. > > Now here is my problem, I have been incharge (on/off) for the > publication of our Newsletter (we call it Bulletin Board), I have had > experiences on Adobe's expensive applications...Photoshop and > PageMaker...What would be the best way (application in the ports) for > me to start with...? A very beautiful and aesthetically pleasing newsletter (at least for my standards) that is typeset using tools available on any UNIX system is "irregular expressions" -- the newsletter of the CS Department of the Okanagan University College (British Columbia, Canada): http://www.ouc.bc.ca/cosc/newsletter/ One of their issues included a note that said the latex magic that is needed to use a layout similar to theirs (or a locally hacked version, anyway) is available at request. I don't know what sort of experience you have with LaTeX but I'd ask the editor if the macros and LaTeX setup they use can be used by others too. Of course, you can find innumerable newsletters that use TeX or LaTeX for layout. I'm not suggesting that this particular newsletter is the perfect solution to everyone's needs. I just thought I'd write about it, in case it seems useful. Giorgos