Eriotstarbeline vaba tarkvara

Kommentaar artiklile Delfis hakkas väikselt pihta ja siis kulus selle peale jälle mitu-mitu tundi, peale mida tundus kompositsioon juba nii kokkulitsutud, et vääris juba oma postitust (ilma lingita sealtsamusest). Alguses oli umbes 40-45 rida, alles jäi 34 rida ilusat teksti. Ennast meeldib ikka kiita :-).
Lõpuks tuli iga siinne lõik tõmmata kokku paariks lauseks, et kommentaar Delfis ei tunduks nii väljapeetud ja keerukas.

Umbes 10 (ja veidi rohkem) aastat tagasi samal teemal Delfis:
• Windows/Office on kallis, ei jõua osta, litsentsi hind maksab *kuue kuu palga!*
Nüüd:
• Windows/Office (karbi)litsents maksab ühe kuu palga!
^ Pange nüüd tähele, kuidas elatustase on vahepeal tõusnud :-)

Ühest kommentaarist jääb ehk liiga väheks, et kõiki teemasid põhjalikult puudutada.

Tehnilistel argumentidel põhinev võrdlus näitab Linuxi ja vaba tarkavara¹ kasuks olulist arengut, mispuhul isegi suured tootjad pakuvad Linuxiga eelinstalleeritud masinaid, küll kitsamas sortimendis, aga siiski. Samuti pole Windowsi ökosüsteem enam kõige-kõige olulisem, eriti mis puudutab laiatarbeprogramme, mõnesid mänge (põhjuseks Wine ja mängukonsoolid) ja internetiseadmeid (Android, MeeGo).

Iseasi on eriotstarbelise tarkvaraga, mis mujal ei jookse kui Windowsil/Macil ning kus spetsiifilised tööülesanded sõltuvadki ainult niisugustest programmidest. Et kõik kasutavad
suletud omanduslikke failiformaate, on monopoliseisus karanteeritud [sic] ja selliseid ökosüsteeme on raske murda. Säärane omanduslik eriotstarbeline tarkvara on kallis.

Kahjuks ei olda niskses olukorras vabatarkvaralistest alternatiividest väga teadlikud; ometi on niisugune teave kõigile ühest kohast kättesaadav, parimal juhul inglise keeles: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category%3AFree_computer-aided_design_software (näiteks)

Ehkki kahtlusteks palju ruumi pole, on kahju eeldada, kui koolitustasemel puudub omanduslikuga vähemalt samaväärse eriotstarbelise vaba tarkvara väljaõpe ja et vabade programmide juurutamise vajadust reaalelus justkui polekski. Võib väita, et õppematerjalid puuduvad või veel pole neid koos praktiliste näidetega süstematiseeritud, sest praegune omanduslikul tarkvaral põhinev olukord rahuldab. Seega nokk kinni, saba lahti ja vastupidi.

Või nähakse erialase tarkvara vabades alternatiivides vajakajäämisi, kus omanduslik variant on asendamatu. Sarnane oli olukord kontoritarkvaraga, mil edasiviiv vabatarkvaraline jõud alguses puudus ja peale tulemist oli mitu aastat kaasajooksiku rollis.

¹ Paluks vaba tarkvara mitte segi ajada vabavaraga, sest viimast terminit kasutatakse tihti tasuta ja omandusliku tarkvara kohta.

Why Iceweasel versions before 2.0 are not Debian-based

One nice day I found a screenshot of Iceweasel that looked like a version prior to Iceweasel 2.0 and added in its description that it was Debian Iceweasel, as browsers named Iceweasel with a lower-case w are usually Debian-based. (As opposed to GNU IceWeasel, which in 2007 was renamed to IceCat to avoid confusion.)

It then turned out for me, this particular screenshot, and other screenshots in the database that it was not so for the reasons that follow.

The uploader of the screenshot had the unintentionally good sense of including the taskbar of the operating environment, which happened to feature a program window with the title of package iceweasel-1.5.0.4-g1-i386. While this got me to get the version number right, the package name was just enough information to start looking further, results of which only pointed to Gnuzilla servers and mirrors. This put me into some doubt as to whether the browser in the screenshot was Debian Iceweasel, and looking even further, my doubts were confirmed.

Locations for iceweasel-1.5.0.4-g1-i386 available here:

From a selective search of most GNU mirrors, I found only one mirror still actually hosting some original files:

ftp://aeneas.mit.edu/pub/gnu/gnuzilla/
http://www.ftpdir.hu/aeneas.mit.edu/pub/gnu/gnuzilla/

The relevant binary files there were last modified on 06.09.2006 00:00.

From the Internet Archive I found another mirror which has hosted iceweasel-1.5.0.4-g1-i386:

web.archive.org/web/20070507153807/http://ftp.download-by.net/gnu/gnu/gnuzilla/
(also features a later capture)

The binaries were last modified on 05.09.2006 23:59, so a minute earlier than those at aeneas.mit.edu.

Note that researching this kind of history through the Internet Archive has three or so limits:
* I tested to see if only an HTTP mirror had an archive page. Although I did not try to see if the WayBack Machine archives FTP pages, too, I didn't find any necessity for it either; Assuming also that the WayBack Machine does not archive FTP folder listings in the first place;
* The Archive has its own exclusion list of servers that it won't crawl (limited in relation to the GNU mirror list);
* Many mirrors had blocked crawling through robots.txt, as mirrors anyway host large files, which can be taxing to the Internet Archive. It's still useful for the WayBack Machine to archive programs — especially device drivers and obscure program packages, because the Internet Archive can sometimes be the only place where these can be found.

Through my searching whether an HTTP mirror has an archive page, then in the process a substantial number of those ftp-as-http mirrors that allowed crawling had their /gnuzilla folders captured by the Internet Archive. This should serve useful at tracing browser history with a similar method in any possible future research.

No other mirror services in the list of GNU mirrors that I searched at contained the original packages of iceweasel-1.5.0.4-g1-i386.

Left out from the search:
- South America: Brazil /only country in the list;
- Africa: South Africa;
- Asia: Bangladesh, China, Japan, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan;
- Europe: Greece, Portugal, Spain.

(Funny, Israel was in Asia, too :-)

There were two reasons for leaving these countries out of my search: Either a non-sensical URL (which I couldn't recognize as something resembling legitimacy), or the country is not trustworthy enough to visit its websites, no matter how harmless on appearance. The amount of servers not checked was approximately 10-15%, based on guesswork.

A user-published package of 1.5.0.8pre2 available at safeweb.sitesled.com/iceweasel

Now, Debian started including Iceweasel as a rebranded replacement of Mozilla Firefox only since version 2.0, after which GNU slightly renamed their package to IceWeasel (note capitalisation of W), then a year later renamed their package to IceCat to finally avoid confusion with Debian's own package.

In conclusion, all Iceweasel versions prior to 2.0 are Gnuzilla-based.

I had to add to that screenshot file's notes that this was a screenshot of a Gnuzilla-based Iceweasel and not one of a Debian-based Iceweasel. The GNU IceCat Wikipedia page was also of great help in determining the right source.

Comparing text lists with conditional formatting in OOo/LO Calc

· Given that I hadn't found enough completely satisfying information myself, I had to make a separate blog post about it, as an acquaintance asked me for how to solve list issues.
· I deem my explanation better than others', as I think this one explains the relationships much better (:smug:).
· Applies to both OpenOffice.org Calc and LibreOffice Calc.

This post actually assumes the following:
• That you already have two lists of textual information that you want to compare;
• That you've already created your own custom styles for formatting the necessary cells, but that it's hard to get one's head around about how to do all that comparing.

So, then:

• Select the column range that you want to format (for example A1:A15);
• From the menu bar choose Format > Conditional Formatting;
• In its window, "Condition 1" is selected by default; below choose "Formula is", and in the next field it gets important,

  where inside COUNTIF brackets you specify the target column (range array) you want to compare the selected column against:

  So, you have A1:A15 selected (which eventually gets formatted) and you want to compare it against B1:B15;

  the latter you have to write in array format, with a dollar $ sign before every column letter and row number in the range ($B$1:$B$15;  );

  After the semicolon, specify the last cell of the selected range (the one you want to format, not the target range), which is A15. The whole formula line goes almost exactly like this:
  
  COUNTIF($B$1:$B$15;A15)=1

=1 means that you apply the format only if there is a match;
  =0 is inverse: most cells are formatted, those that match are not.
  
• Don't forget to specify your custom formatting style for cells, then click OK.

All this should work in older OO.o versions, too.

Source: Conditional Formatting: Comparing two Lists (has screenshots), archived from www.openofficetips.com/2006/02/01/conditional-formatting-comparing-two-lists/

Smith-Corona Personal Word Processor

For some odd reason I rather vividly remember an early 1990's ad for the Personal Word Processor in the "Smithsonian" magazine I got my hands on when alone at home; the item in that ad looked nice enough to my not quite yet post-Soviet eyes... I also remember a very nice looking businessman pretending to work on a file there.

The fun part of it nowadays is getting to enjoy the sardonic read of almost completely failed attempts to recover all that data saved to obscure Mitsumi diskettes from those machines.

A similar comment was posted here first.

Tablet history reflecting early personal computer history

The situation with tablets that I currently observe somehow resembles the personal computer history throughout 1980's and early 1990's, when there were many often mutually incompatible solutions, of which only a few really survived into the current era (I know the word 'survive' can be inaccurate and maybe even corny). Here what I had in mind were the IBM PC & compatibles, the Apple and Mac series, Power-based computers with OS/2, Amigas, Ataris, BeOS and a few others, even Next. Each tried with their own ecosystem and I see the same happening with iOS, Android, WinMo, WebOS, and MeeGo (other ecosystem names for tablets escape me right now).

The 1980's species that did not survive or only got a niche footing, were Amigas and Ataris, and OS/2 to some extent, as these computer ecosystems either failed to have enough popular application software to garner widespread appreciation and acceptance going forward or their development was stopped. NeXT was downright expensive, but it became the first-ever web server (working at CERN must have its perks :-).

I have been trying draw the same parallels with today's tablet platforms, whereby:

• From the developer standpoint, the iOS is a bit like OS/2, as software development APIs for OS/2 were not free of charge, if memory serves me right (this was SOP for some other manufacturers' developer kits, too. Most ironically, OS/2 outlived Windows 9x in terms of available free software), and so iOS also has restrictions on developing for it;
• Android, therefore, offers more latitude, like Windows did at the time, and is just as well plagued by viruses.
  Furthermore, Android, being half-open, sees itself right now in waters similar to BSDi.
• WebOS... The most similarities with an older system that strike me wrt WebOS are with Atari ST, because Atari released their ST series computers to much acclaim and then suddenly stopped developing them.

Vanemad Skype versioonid

Üldiselt on nii, et Skype puhul tuleks pigem kasutada kõige uuemat versiooni ning ka suhteliselt head riistvara, sest Skype'i kõige uuema versiooni puhul on parandatud ka kõik turvavead.

Vanemate Skype (ja teiste tarkvara-) versioonide kasutamise põhiargument on näiteks see, kui arvuti ei ole piisavalt võimas ning selle näitajad jäävad alla Skype'i kõige uuema ja/või põhiversiooni (X.x) miinimumnõuetele.

Siin on inglise keeles täiendavalt kirjas, et mis põhjustel ja tingimustel oleks vanema Skype versiooni kasutamine põhjendatud. Samuti on kirjas ka, kuidas see vanem versioon endale peale tirida.

Muidu on nii, et Skype enda saidi kaudu vanemaid suurversioone kui 4 enam kätte ei saa (veebilehekülgede kaudu vist enam mõnda aega juba).

Väga tähtis: Uutelt Skype versioonidelt üleminek vanadele võib väga tõenäoliselt põhjustada kontaktide kadumise, mistõttu on kõik selline tegevus ainult oma riisikol. Kontaktide kadumine toimub näiteks järgmistes stsenaariumites:
• Kui arvutis on olnud näiteks mistahes modernne Skype versioon (5.x), kasutaja võtab selle maha ja paneb asemele väga vana Skype'i suurversiooni (2.5.0.154).
• Tagasiminek Skype 3.0 peale versioonilt 4.1. Arendajad teatavad, et tagasiminek uusimatelt versioonidelt 3.0 peale ei ole toetatud.
• Tagasiminek Skype 3.8 peale uuemalt Skype versioonilt kui 4.x (see on siis 5.x) kustutab reeglina kontaktinimistu ära...

Alati enne tagasiminekut tuleb teha kõikidest oma kontaktidest varukoopia: programmimenüü

Kontaktid > Veel > Salvesta kontaktid faili...

Samast alammenüüst saab kontakti failist ka taastada.

Ja üldse, kui on vaja kasutada vähem ressursinõudlikut otsesuhtlusprogrammi, siis on olemas Pidgin IM ja Miranda IM (viimane mõeldud eriti vanadele arvutitele :).

Skype 2.5.0.154
Üks sisselogimiskogemus näitas, et 2.5.0.154 versiooniga enam sisse logida ei saa, teine kogemus (vt. allpool) näitas, et saab. Seega mis täpselt selle Skype versiooniga serverite poolt enam toetatud pole, ei ole selge.

T., 24.02.2012.

Selleks päevaks selgus, et antud versiooniga on siiski võimalik sisse logida. Operatsioonisüsteemiks oli siis sel korral Windows XP, nii et selline kombinatsioon töötab. Küll ei ole teada, kas antud Skype'i versiooniga on näiteks vanemas opsüsteemis (eriti just Windows 9x/Me) võimalik sisse logida või mitte.

Tähtis hoiatus: Kui arvutis on olnud juba uuem Skype'i versioon, siis sellelt antud arvutis vanemale versioonile (ntx. 2.5.0.154) üleminek võib kontaktide nimekirja ära kustutada, seega sellist käiku ei soovita üldse. Kui installida vanem Skype'i versioon, võib nii juhtuda küll.

Kui arvutis/opsüsteemis varem Skype'i ei ole olnud, siis on vist ehk teine asi. Mingeid garantiisid ma muidugi ei anna.

Seesinases on esile toodud mõnede suurversioonide vaid kõige uuemad variandid. Igasuguse vana tarkvaraga tuleb arvestada, et seda edasi rohkem ei arendata ning see tähendab, et sellel võivad olla lappimata turvavead.

Windows 98/Me jaoks on järgmine variant Skype 3.8.0.188, mille saab oldversion.com saidilt (versioonide nimekiri on pikk, seega tuleb õige versiooni valikul olla tähelepanelik). Nagu ikka, kehtib hoiatus, et alla võib tirida omal riisikol, kuigi oldversion.com paistab ise suhteliselt usaldusväärne. Kas selle versiooniga on veel võimalik sisse logida, ei ole teada.

Windows 98/Me pole Skype 3.x versioonide puhul ametlikult toetatud, kuigi need versioonid nende opsüsteemide peal on veel käitatavad.

Minimaalsed süsteeminõuded (vähemalt kõike järgmist):

• 800 MHz keskprotsessor;
• 128Mb RAM mälu
• 600 Mb vaba kõvakettamälu

• Audio- ja videokõnede jaoks on tarvilik vähemalt 1GHz keskprotsessor, 256 Mb RAM mälu ja veebikaamera (kui videokõnesid pole vaja, siis viimane pole kohustuslik).^[allikas]

Täiendav info Skype'i Win98SE/ME-s kasutamisel on siin.


Windows 2000
Suurversiooni järgmine variant, mis töötab vähemalt Windows 2000-s või uuemas, on Skype 4.2.0.187. Tõmmata saab antud versiooni sellelt aadressilt:

download.skype.com/msi/SkypeSetup_4.2.0.187.msi
2011.a. novembrist aadress ei tööta, nii et järgmine peatuspaik on oldversion.com

Skype'i MSI installeritega on lood sellised, et erinevalt SkypeSetup.exe-st ta nii automaatne pole ja seega tuleb kõigepealt vana Skype'i versioon Windowsis Add/Remove Programs appleti kaudu nö. käsitsi maha installida.

Süsteeminõuded arvutile Skype 4.2 jaoks (allikas):

• Windows 2000 puhul vaja videokõnede jaoks tõmmata ja installida DirectX 9.0 lisakomponent
• Vähemalt 1 GHz keskprotsessor;
• vähemalt 256 megabaiti RAM-mälu;
• Kõige muu juures soovitan vähemalt 600 megabaiti vaba kõvakettaruumi (gigabait oleks parem).
• Kõrgekvaliteetsete videokõnede jaoks on tarvis vähemalt kahetuumalist keskprotsessorit, 512 Mb või rohkem RAM-mälu ning eraldi videokaarti (mis pole integreeritud videoadapter).

Muu Skype 4.2 abiinfo on Skype'i kodulehel saadaval siin.


Skype 5.5
See põhiversioon toetab Windows xp-d või uuemat.

Vanemate suurversioonide seadistustes tuleb välja lülitada automaatne uuendamine, mis on sellistes ka võimalik. Skype 5/5.5 jne versioonides automaatset uuendamist välja lülitada ei saa :/.

Lynx: Associating filetypes with a program in Windows

After a few hours of trying and failing in lynx.cfg and searching the Internet, I found a reasonably good collection of ideas (kudos to Kenneth Kwok), which served me with inspiration for a working solution.

• The version of Lynx is 2.8.7rel1, unfortunately it doesn't support SSL (gonna work on getting Lynx with that some day...).

N., 15.09.2011. update: A fully functional and SSL-enabled, albeit an older, 2.8.5rel1, version of the browser is available at Claudio Santambrogio's (csant) website (beware that export and other restrictions may still apply to the downloader's country).

As I needed an SSL-based browser, then out of curiosity I started comparing both Lynx browsers' config files and to my great delight found that csant's external app configuration was more elegant than my previous discovery. Jump to a description of how to implement the better solution.

And yes, the options inspired by Kenneth Kwok are still valid, but there are now less scenarios to use them.

• The operating system is Windows xp SP3, other Windows operating systems may also apply, but exact instructions on how to change environment variables were gleaned from this version of Windows.

Unlike in the linked article, it turned out that I didn't need to use a .mailcap file to associate a helper app.

The interesting part is that Windows Lynx (still) requires batch files to send requests for an external application and a path to them must be set as a global or user environment variable.

• Create a folder that will hold batch files. I created one in
  

  C:\Program Files\Lynx\Batches

• Create an environment variable pointing to that path:
  
  In My Computer/System Properties > go to Advanced tab > click "Environment Variables" button > in the relevant window's "System variables" section > scroll down to Path, select it, click the Edit button;
  
  In the path editing window, the Path string is long, but you can add a semicolon to the end of the string (if it's missing), then right after the semicolon add
  
  C:\Program Files\Lynx\Batches
  
  and that's it. (No additional semicolon required.)
  
  Click OK to close the window, click OK in Environment Variables window — This will save and update the path in Windows xp (maybe 2000, too) or newer; click OK for System Properties window.
  
  You won't need to restart unless it's a Windows 9x OS, for which you'd need to edit autoexec.bat, enter a short-form path à la C:\PROGRA~1\Lynx\Batches and restart the system for changes to take effect.
  
• Now, in the C:\Program Files\Lynx\Batches folder itself, assuming you only want an image viewer program to be associated, create paint.bat, edit it as follows:

  @ECHO OFF
  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Mspaint.exe %1

  ^ In addition, you may wish to add %2 %3 %n — if you know that there may be more arguments passed from Lynx, but there's usually one.

  Save the batch file.
• In lynx.cfg (opened either via WordPad or Notepad2 or something that supports both CR & LF newlines), go to a certain place in the file by searching for the image/png pattern. There, you will see which MIME types you must activate for each filetype suffix.
  
  I uncommented (deleted a hash # from the start of the line) all that were web images, such as those concerning .png, .gif, .jpg and .jpeg.
• Then in lynx.cfg, go to part of the file using the VIEWER: search pattern. There, you will see a list of program commands associated with a particular MIME-type (they are short by default, because they're typically UNIX-specific).
  

  N., 15.09.2011.:
  Uncomment, or rather, copy, paste, and uncomment those for image formats, and modify the commands to look like this:
  

  VIEWER:image/gif:start mspaint %s
  VIEWER:image/png:start mspaint %s
  VIEWER:image/jpeg:start mspaint %s
  VIEWER:image/tiff:start gimp-2.6.exe %s #special case

  • The superb catch ^ is where one must use the start command to invoke a program that's located in the Windows Path environment variable.
  • mspaint is the command-line name of the Windows Paint program, which is located in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 and that address is typically set as one of the locations in the Path environment variable.
  • gimp-2.6.exe is a different case, where I separately had to include C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin in the Path environment variable to make it launch, as for some reason it was impossible to use the full program path in the Lynx config file.

  Uncomment, or rather, copy, paste, and uncomment those for image formats, and modify the commands to look like this:
  

  VIEWER:image/gif:paint.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS
  VIEWER:image/png:paint.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS
  VIEWER:image/tiff:gimp.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS
  VIEWER:image/jpeg:paint.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS

  • Up here ^, add paint.bat right after a colon that follows the mimetype;
  • %s is the wildcard for the filename to be entered;
  • The ampersand & is there to leave the program in the background. It can be there in Windows, but it's useful in Unix-like systems.
  • :NON_XWINDOWS [sic] basically specifies that the targetted application is not an X Window System program and this option can be there, too. In Windows it may mean that the batch program is not exactly a graphical program either.

• Save the configuration file and I think you should be done.
  Launch Lynx, go to a page with an image file, then on it, press Enter/Return or the left key to activate.

Similar steps can be made for other filetypes and MIME-types (which can be added, btw, since the list in lynx.cfg is non-exhaustive) and you can add programs different than Paint for other filetypes. Above, I have setup a batch file to run The GIMP for the TIFF filetype.