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World History/Ancient Kingdoms of Africa

Mali
The powerful Mali empire existed from about 1235 to 1645 AD. By this time, Islam had become the dominant religion of the region. Traders from the Islamic strongholds of North Africa traveled south through the Sahara on camelback (new to Africa) to the region of Mali. They came for the immense amount of gold to be found in the area, and it was truly immense. When Mali came to power, it did so partly through its strategic trading powers.

The greatest ruler of Mali was probably Mansa Musa, who built the capital of Timbuktu. The city was renowned as a place of Islamic learning, especially at the Sankore University, and was the center of culture for Islam for several centuries. Education in Sankore's guilds and madrasas (schools) was free, and scholars and craftsmen arrived to benefit from them from throughout the Muslim world. The great mud mosque in the city still stands. Also, whereas the kingdom had previously been a reincarnation within the boundaries of Ghana, Musa expanded it far beyond this paltry territory.

In 1307, pistolero helps the body to retain water, something with special significance in the world's hottest man alive had a pistola porqu and dryest region. Other Malese items of demand by the Muslim empires were slaves and ivory. Coming into Mali were cloth, gold, pottery, and other textiles.

Swahili culture
The Swahili Culture was formed in Eastern Africa when Arabic traders established ports along the coast of Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. The language of Swahili, widely used in that area, is a combination of Arabic and the local Bantu languages.

Forms of Government
Before the initiation of Nubia first centralized government, probably during the Kerma period, Nubians lived in disintegrated tribes. A tribe was formed of members who are blood related. Obviously some of these tribes were relatively large, since Old Kingdom armies had often failed to defeat rebelling tribes. Tribes had a hierarchical system of authority allocation; elders of the subsections head the extended families that top the single households. The work, whether economic, military, or other, was defined and divided among tribe members. Chiefs of the tribe are the strongest and most wise or religious members; the youth provide for courageous and brave soldiers at war.

Agriculture
Agriculture along the narrow strip of the Nile valley provided Nubians with their necessary food supply. Therefore most of the Nubian populations were farmers. Each year the Nile flooded Upper Nubia providing silt for the agricultural lands. Kushites used the Shaduf (a traditional device operated manually for raising water from a lower depression that is connected to a source of water, to a higher depression where the water is distributed to farther depressions to irrigate the field/s) for watering their farms, and around the 6th century BC, they transformed to the use of Saquia (a water wheel), which was brought to Nubia from Southwest Asia. There are numerous hafirs (a depression dug on flat ground to collect rain water) discovered in Nubia including many at Musawwarat es Sufra. However hafirs would not have provided enough water for watering the farms. The only Kushite Dam used for water storage was found at Shaq el Ahmar.

The main food crop seems to be sorghum; evidence for this is found on Kushite pottery. Dates are one of the available crops grown along the Nile, especially in Upper Nubia. In the sixth century AD Nubians were well known by the Arabs for their good date-wine production. The extensive production of doam (palm fruit) is also evident from the New kingdom Egyptian relieves, as Nubians are often depicted carrying doam as gifts to the Egyptian pharaohs.

Trade
Throughout history, Nubia was the closest trade partner with Egypt. Egyptian relieves dating to the Old Kingdom depict Nubians presenting Egyptian pharaohs with gold, ivory, Ebony, ostrich feathers, doam (palm fruits), and exotic products, and animals like giraffes. Exotic animals and other products from Nubia were exported to the Mediterranean world via Egypt. A frescos in a Minoan palace in Thera (Greece), depicts antelopes. In other Minoan palaces in Crete and Thera several frescos depict monkeys.

One of the most products Nubia import was bronze. Bronze was first introduced to the Nubian by the Hyksos in the seventeenth century. Bronze was extensively used by the Nubians. The type of metal was the best available for making swords and daggers in the ancient world. The Nubians must have imported most of their bronze from Egypt. Nubians also imported oils. Strabo, a first century AD Roman historian and geographer, wrote “They (the Nubians) have no oil, but use fat instead” [Strabo, The Geography of Strabo: Literally Translated, with Notes, trans. H. C. Hamilton, esq., & W. Falconer (London: H. G. Bohn, 1854-1857)]. Olive oil for example was abundantly imported from Lebanon via Egypt. Cedar trees were also imported and used as building materials. Temples and royal buildings in Nubia were mostly roofed with cedar trees. The Amun temple at Napata for example was roofed by cedars that Taharqa has imported especially from Lebanon as recorded on his stele at Jebel Barkal (Sudan).

Writing
Although steles, dating to 1600 BC, are abundantly found at Kerma, traces of writing on their surfaces did not survive. Thus, we don't know if Nubians had a writing system at that time or not. All the evidence, we have for a Kushite written language is for the period after the sixth century BC; these were found in Napatan constructions built of durable materials, such as backed bricks and sandstone. The durable-material-built walls, as well as steles that were kept safe in temples and palaces, were inscribed and painted extensively with ancient Nubian. However, due to a lack of archaeological work, we can not say for sure that the Nubian language was written before the sixth century BC.


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FLOSS Concept Booklet

Reading not your thing? Much of the content below is explained in audio and video here.

What does FLOSS stand for?
FLOSS stands for "Free/Libre Open-Source Software".

Legally, Free Software and Open-Source take quite different attitudes to sharing source code and what obligations those who share legally require. The different attitudes are a product of political ideology and cannot be easily reconciled - though they can be neutrally explained (only) by referring to the legal concepts of 'share-alike' and a 'consortium'. The term FLOSS emerged to simply avoid having to discuss or define these ideas to ordinary users who want to know about the implications for end users. Which do not normally include the legal negotiations between contributors.

What is free software?
Free software is software that anyone is free to use, copy, improve, examine or distribute, either free of cost or for a price. More precisely, it refers to four fundamental freedoms, which users of the software should have:
 * Users should be able to run the software for any purpose. (freedom 0 — many things in computers start at 0)
 * Users should be able to closely examine and study the software and should be able to freely modify and improve it to suit their needs better. (freedom 1)
 * Users should be able to give copies of the software to other people for whom the software will be useful, either gratis or for a fee. (freedom 2)
 * Users should be able to improve the software and freely distribute their improvements to the broader public so that they, as a whole, benefit. (freedom 3)

There is nothing new or special about this. This is how software used to be developed in the early 'Big Iron' days of companies which made money by selling hardware. But then, software companies came in, they started changing the rules of the game. They saw software only as a means of making money rather than as a means of making life easier, and with the advent of the 'Shrink-Wrap-License' even the need to provide a properly tested program was obviated.

Legally, free software is defined by a license to use and distribute the software that guarantees all four of these freedoms. Any user who grants all of these freedoms to other users retains their access to the software. In strict legal terms, the software is share-alike but only to those users who uphold these obligations. All others are disqualified and may lose their right to use, extend, distribute or derive new works from it.

It isn't open content, which has its own rules
Some related share-alike movements do not accept the so-called freedom 0 - it remains highly controversial. Accordingly those movements are neither free software nor open-source. They are part of the broader open content movement however. A typical license that restricts use by certain people or groups but permits it under share-alike terms to others is CC-by-nc-sa (the Creative Commons attribution-non-commercial-share-alike license) that is extremely popular among content and code developers that do not wish to grant commercial entities the power to build on their work without paying.

As a user, why would I want to examine and modify my software?
What is important is not that you modify or view the sources, but that you cannot be prevented from doing so or having it done (for you) and are not dependent on a particular person or entity to do it. Not to mention the fact that companies do go out of business - taking their proprietary products down with them - sometimes leaving the users who relied on them without any means of supporting some critical product.

As technology evolves, hardware, software and users' requirements change. And software, being a tool to make life easier, too has to be subject to easy and quick modification. So, even if you personally cannot change or modify the software, you want to be sure that you are not subject to monopoly power, or even simply the whims and fancies, of whoever created the software.

That apart, it is necessary to be able to examine the software, to see if it has malicious features. For example, to check whether the program is spying on you. One version of Windows was designed to report to Microsoft all the software on your hard disk. But Microsoft is not alone: the KaZaa music sharing software is designed so that KaZaa's business partner can rent out the use of your computer to their clients. You (or anyone else) need to be able to examine and modify your software to be able to protect yourself against such mistreatment. Even if you don't know what bad things to look for, someone who does will soon find this "bad thing" in the program and spread the word about it.

There are other reasons such as being able to fix bugs, and modify programs to your needs. These will be explained a little later.

Doesn't "free" mean that I do not have to pay for the software?
No. The word "free" has two meanings in the English language. The free in free software refers to the freedoms that we've talked about above that people have. There's nothing in the definition of free software that says that you cannot sell it to someone for a price. Indeed, there are companies whose entire business model is centred around collecting, compiling and selling free software. However, since someone to whom free software is licensed is free to sell or give it away in turn, you can almost always easily find it openly (and legally) downloadable on the Internet or other places.
 * 1) The "free" in "free beer", which refers to zero cost.
 * 2) The "free" in "free speech" and "free market", which refers to freedom.

When you hear of "free software", think of liberty, freedom, and "free enterprise".

Well, what's not "free" about other kinds of software?
Most non-free software in the world today is not sold, it is licensed. From complex operating systems to tiny games or screen savers, the end users of the software have a license to use it under conditions laid out in an End User License Agreement. This agreement lists out the conditions under which the user can use the software – often restrictions are imposed on the use to which the software can be put. In almost all cases, users are explicitly prohibited from "taking the software apart" to study how it works, cannot modify or improve it, are only allowed to make a single copy of the software (for backup purposes) and are strictly prohibited from giving copies to other people.

What do you mean by "copyleft"? What's wrong with copyright? How is this different?
Legally, a copyleft is a share-alike clause in a license that requires certain conditions (or "freedoms") be upheld by the user, distributor or anyone basing a derivative work on the original. One of those conditions is to treat all other users, distributors and derived work authors equally under the conditions of the license. One of those equal conditions is the withdrawing of all rights under the license from anyone who does not do so.

Free software historically implemented copyleft by requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well, using the copyright in the program (and associated rights to restrict use of it or derivations of it) as leverage. This did not deal with every problem. In particular, it did not prevent authors of derived works from filing a software patent on their improvements, nor anyone from building a web service on the original software and extending it by 'mashup' methods. These deficiencies are supposed to be addressed in the GPL version 3.0.

The original GPL, despite deficiencies, was an attempt to build a very minimal consortium among all users who would agree to its four freedoms. To understand this we must review the alternatives.

The simplest way to make a program free is to put it in the public domain, uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary software. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away. Also the developers of free software will be forced to compete with improved versions of their own software (which open-source does permit).

Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. If they do not, they lose their rights. As Stallman puts it, "Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom, and ensures that somebody does not remove the freedom from free software."

To copyleft a program, first state that it is copyrighted; then add distribution terms in the form of a license document – they comprise a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.

According to the Free Software Foundation, "Proprietary software developers use copyright to take away the users' freedom; we use copyright to guarantee their freedom. That's why we reverse the name, changing 'copyright' into 'copyleft'." Historically however the term was simply a joke or pun added to a letter to Richard Stallman by Don Hopkins who had put "copyleft - all rights reversed" as one of many annotations.

The most popular copyleft license is the GNU General Public License.

What licenses exist to protect free software?
There are many licenses that make a piece of software free. But only some of them preserve user freedom aka copyleft. The non-copyleft license include X11, BSD, Artistic... The strongest copyleft and most widely used free software license is the GNU General Public License, or GNU GPL for short.

For a more complete list of licenses check out the GNU website.

Okay, so I can see that free software is legal but surely if I duplicate something that means that someone is losing out somewhere along the way?
We in the free software community feel that the harm caused by obstructing software use cannot be justified by the profit obtained through selling software. We use other means to earn money.

Also, chances are if someone didn't get the software for no price, they wouldn't have gotten it at all. Take all the people that get proprietary software illegally from peer-to-peer programs for example.

Contrary to your assumption that allowing distribution and modification causes loss, Richard Stallman lists three levels of material harm caused by restrictions on distribution and modification:
 * 1) Fewer people use the program.
 * 2) None of the users can adapt or fix the program.
 * 3) Other developers cannot learn from the program, or base new work on it.

For a detailed analysis, check out the essays "Why Software Should Not Have Owners" and "Why Software Should Be Free" by Stallman.

This freedom with software programs is interesting. Can this be extended to other forms of information like books?
Yes. Most user manuals for free software programs, for example are released under either free or copyleft licenses. Already, much literature is available under permissive terms, such as the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) and Creative Commons Commercial-Attribution(-ShareAlike).

But unlike software, books and articles contains speech and personal opinion. And, personal credit for specific work is important. So, the benefit of unlimited modification is not always desirable in literature, science or other content. The open content movement accordingly focuses more on share-alike clauses.

These clauses are not restricted to those free software or open-source require. They include for instance the Creative Commons NON-Commercial licenses which prevent use by commercial parties unless they negotiate a parallel commercial license (which may also be a share-alike license or may be more like a proprietary license). Other share-alike clauses have been proposed to require specific processes of dispute resolution, scientific method or journalism be followed by creators of derived works.

Like the original free software foundation, each such clause would create a global consortium relying mostly on the license to enforce its rules and using the leverage of rights to use or improve the content as the leverage.

FSF itself has recognized the difference between open content and free software. The GNU Free Documentation License used by both Wikipedia and Wikibooks itself contains clauses that deny the right to use the content to anyone who does not credit authors or other contributors, but these are similar to the free software conditions. GFDL does clearly and explicitly permit commercial use and it supports annotations and "Invariant Sections" that can reliably qualify the origin or reliability of the material or summarize objections to it - though these are not used by Wikipedia or Wikibooks at present, they serve necessary purposes for those services that do not allow every user to edit.

When did this whole free software thing start?
Software sharing is as old as computers. But the Free Software Movement traces its history to a software sharing community at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab. Richard Stallman became a member of this software sharing community when he joined the lab in 1971.

In the early 1980s due to a series of events, the hacker community collapsed. Richard Stallman was one of the few hackers left out in the lab and he was faced with a stark moral choice. He could accept the world has changed and start using proprietary software. Or he could create a free operating system which could recreate a community of cooperating hackers. In short, he could either change himself or change the world.

Stallman decided to change the world. And thus the GNU (pronounced Guh-new, it rhymes with canoe) project, a free replacement for the Unix operating system was born. In January 1984, Stallman quit his job at MIT and began writing GNU software. One of the first pieces of GNU software that Stallman wrote was the Emacs text editor. Slowly more hackers joined Stallman and started putting together a complete body of free software. This ranged from tiny programs like ls and cp to the huge packages like the GNU compiler collection and the Bash shell.

Okay, but now what is Linux? When did that come about?
Until 1991, most of the programs required to create a complete operating system had been created by the GNU project, except for one important piece - the kernel. In a nutshell, the kernel is software that provides secure access to a machine's hardware and decides what software get to use what hardware when. By then, a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds had written a free Unix compatible kernel called Linux (pronounced Lee-nux or Lin-ux). The kernel combined with the rest of GNU packages formed a complete usable operating system. Today this combination is called GNU/Linux, although it is often inaccurately called just Linux.

What is this open source thing?
Open source is similar to free software. The biggest difference is that open source sees FLOSS as just a way of making better software, and doesn't value the freedom of the people.

How did open source start?
In 1998, some free software developers figured that by keeping quiet about ethics and freedom, and talking only about the practical benefits of free software, they might be able to spread free software better, especially to businesses. The term "open source" is offered as a way of doing this.

Why are open-source and free/libre software often grouped together?
Most (not all) open-source software can also qualify as free software, and vice versa.

What's better? Free Software or open-source software?
The two terms virtually always apply to the same software programs, but free software as a movement is better, because it values your freedom and offers a superior model for software development, whereas open-source only advocates a development model.

How is Free Software actually made?
The same way other software is made. People sit on the computer keyboard and type in commands and code and compile them.

To properly understand how free software is made, we need to have a good idea how all software – free and proprietary - is made.

Follow this link to find more about Who is doing it? http://widi.berlios.de/paper/study.html

Okay, how is software made then?
A software program is simply a set of instructions to a computer to do something. Since the computer is a machine without any capacity to think for itself, it can only understand instructions written in a particular language – this format is called "object code". Unfortunately, to human beings, object code looks like gibberish. While they are creating software, humans use a particular format that they can easily understand called "source code". Source code uses letters, numbers and punctuation and, like any human language, can be understood by humans who learn to do so. So now we have source code, a format that programs are written in or created by humans but which looks like gibberish to a computer and object code – a set of instructions that a computer can understand but which look like gibberish to a human. A special program called a compiler transforms the source code into the object code. To reiterate, a human being writes down what it wants the computer to do in a format called source code. It's then translated into the only language that computers understand – object code. A special program called a compiler does this translation.

So now that I understand how software is made, how is free software made?
Remember, most humans cannot easily understand object code. Therefore, if a human wants to closely study, modify or improve a piece of software, they have to have access to the source code of the software. Since being free to examine, modify or improve software is central to the concept of Free Software, it follows that humans have to have access to the source code of a piece of software for it to be considered free.

Unlike proprietary software where only the original software creators (or those they explicitly provide access) have access to the source code, anyone who is interested can get access to the source code of free software. Therefore, if a user of free software wants to modify or improve it, she is free to do so. In many cases, the people who make the improvements make the improved software available to the broader public via the Internet. By definition and in practice, people who, in most cases, are connected to each other just through the Internet create free software collaboratively. One critical aspect of the creation of free software that is often overlooked is the feedback in the form of complaints and suggestions from normal users. This feedback is actively sought and many tools exist that make it easy for lay users to integrate these complaints, bug reports and suggestions into the production methodology.

So how is this different from the production of other kinds of software?
Typically, entities that produce non-free software usually have very tight restrictions on who has access to the source code of their programs and distribute their software only in object code format. The reason for this is that while it is very easy to compile source code into object code, it is very difficult to get the original source code from the object code. An analogy would be curds. While it's easy to make curds from milk, it's pretty much impossible to get milk from curds.

What kinds of people make free software?
Many people who write free software are volunteers, they probably have an unrelated day time job. These people spend their free time developing free software.

Commercial organizations that benefit from free software distribution or that provide free software support also develop free software by investing portions of their profit. An example of such an organization is Red Hat.

There are many non-profit organizations that raise funds to develop free software, through donations from free software users. The Free Software Foundation is one such organization. Other examples are SPI, GNOME Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, and the like.

Some free software packages are developed by universities. The Festival text to speech engine, Octave - the Matlab clone are examples of software developed by universities.

Many commercial organizations also contribute to the development of free software, because these organizations benefit from the existing free software code base. For example IBM maintains the port of Linux to PowerPC CPUs, because it needs an OS for its CPU.

But I still don't understand why anyone would want to give away their work for free? What's in it for them!?
For love or for money.

Yes, people do make money by releasing software created by them as free software. Corporate bodies like MySQL and Red Hat to name a few, make money because they release software created by them as free software (and offer support contracts for free software). And they do find that they are able to make more money than they ever would have made if they kept the software as non-free.

It's misleading to use the term "give away" to mean "distribute a program as free software". It implies the issue is price, not freedom. One way to avoid the confusion is to say "release as free software".

There are many reasons why people write free software. Some people might just want their work to spread out to the world. Many people would like to live in freedom. They contribute to free software so that they can continue to live in freedom. Some people write free software just for the fun of it. They love programming and hence use their programming skills to do something useful.

You might want to read Eric Raymond's paper titled Homesteading the Noosphere. Eben Moglen in his paper titled Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright explains "Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law". This law also explains why people develop free software.

I'm still not convinced. Surely a big computer company knows best when it comes to designing software? Why would I want to use software designed by an amateur?
Free software is NOT created by amateurs. The free software development process is open and transparent. If you want to include your code into a free software project, it will be scrutinised by several people. Amateur and or badly written code will be rejected outright.

Though your assumption that "big companies" are better at designing software is questionable, "big companies" are free to develop free software too. And they do develop free software. For example Red Hat, Sun, Novell, and IBM, all develop free software.

If there are a group of people who would like to have a particular software written, they can bring together funds, hire a programming company, get the software written by professionals and then release it as free software. There is no reason why free software has to be written by amateurs.

Even if the free software designed by an amateur is inferior to the non-free software designed by a professional, you might want to use the free software because it gives you freedom, which is more important. Also, a better programmer who likes the idea could contribute to the project.

It is certainly not true that larger companies know more about designing software. They depend on a small group of programmers and are not generally in close contact with the users as in the case of free software. Thus, free software developers are often more aware of the needs of the users and their complaints about the existing versions. Some large companies allow technically incompetent marketing experts to make software design decisions that prioritize marketing requirements over user's needs and software soundness.

In any case, examinations of many free software applications show that today they are as good as or better than equivalent non-free applications, or are reaching there fast. And a large fraction of free software developers are not amateurs. And how do you know if the big company which sells non-free software did not hire an amateur programmer to write that code?

What we use depends on what we want. For computer users, software that can do the things they want done is a necessity. If such software does not exist, then they cannot do that particular kind of work. How well the work can be done, and how quickly, depends on the quality of the software and hardware available. It is, therefore, desirable to have software that enables the users to do the work with the least effort and to get the best possible output. These qualities of the software generally improve with time, the term 'standing on the shoulders of giants' applies to free software, so improvement begets improvement. Under non-free software it's always a matter of 'reinventing the wheel', or worse, to circumvent proprietary restrictions for another company or person to improve the code.

But more important than all these is the quality of freedom that the software has. If the software is restricted, and the company that makes it withholds all information about how the software is created and in what format the files are created, then the users become dependent on the company, and subject to exploitation. Because these are much more important in the larger context, it is important to use free software rather than non-free software.

But what about bugs? Surely free software is more likely to be virus prone?
The question involves two different types of computer related problems - bugs and viruses.

Bugs are unintentional errors in programs. With free software when you find a bug in the program, you have the freedom to exercise freedom two, the freedom to help yourself and correct the program. If you are not a programmer you are free to report the bug to the maintainer of the software or hire any programmer and correct the program. You are not under the mercy of any single organization. By submitting the bug fixes to the maintainer of the package the software package becomes better and better.

Virus is a malicious program that infects other programs by embedding a copy of itself in them. For more on these security risks, see the section below.

Since the source code is available, won't it be easy for someone to find out a security loop hole and exploit it?
Yes, but before the source gets to the hands of people who exploit loopholes, it passes through hands of people who develop free software. And they usually fix such loopholes.

And with free software, exploitation of a loophole is very, very, very quickly reported and fixed, often within hours.

Look at it this way, since the source is available, it would be easy for someone to find out a security loop hole, and make a patch for it, even before its exploited!

Also, the GNU operating system was designed with security in mind from the start.

So you're saying that free software actually evolves at a faster pace than non-free software?
Free software tends to evolve extremely rapidly. This is primarily because of the way it involves its users, who contribute bug reports and even code patches to the tool's development. The path and the pace of development is extremely open and only features and issues that are needed ever get done. Release fast and release often is the main 'mantra' of this kind of development.

Note however that this benefits only tools which have reached the stage of being in popular use. Once this happens it is in the interest of the users too to promote and actually contribute to the development. In a way this ensures only the deserving and useful tools gets supported in this manner.

Contrary to popular assumptions this model is laissez faire in the truest and most efficient manner as possible. Demand and supply works best with more suppliers and consumers. And this is what happens here.

The pace of evolution is actually controlled by the popularity and the usefulness of the software. The more popular a piece of software is, the faster it evolves. In fact if something hinders this pace in any manner, like a dis-interested maintainer or an abandoned company, often other people step up as developers of the project. Or sometimes, forks of the project spring up (not that they don't always at other times) to continue with the development, under another banner since the original source is free to be used or maintained by anyone.

Compared to the isolated model of development employed by proprietary software, this is a tremendous plus. There exists no question about the continuity of the tool either, which is the ultimate barrier in the path of software evolution.

This concept is explained really well in Eric Raymond's paper The Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Free software is only something used by computer enthusiasts, right?
Wrong.

Free software is used by people who value their freedom more than anything else.

Many millions of people the world over use free software without actually realizing it the moment they access popular sites on the Internet - see the section below.

Have any established organizations actually used free software to their advantage?

 * This page is hosted on a server running free software (GNU/Linux, Apache/1.3.29 (Unix), PHP/4.3.4).
 * More than 98% of all the Domain Name Servers, which identify the machine on which a page (like http://wikibooks.org/) is situated, use free software called BIND.
 * More than 80% of all web servers use free software, called Apache, to serve their sites. But sadly, since Apache isn't copylefted, many of these servers run proprietary versions of Apache.
 * More than 60% of all network servers run the Linux kernel, another free software.
 * The TCP/IP implementation on most computers, (including those running non-free operating systems) is free software.
 * "Digital Domain used 105 DEC Alphas running Red Hat [GNU/]Linux to simulate and render water for James Cameron's Titanic" -- http://www.computer.org/computer/homepage/0202/ec/

What kinds of problems might I expect to encounter using free software?
Exactly the same kind of problems you face with non free software.

Some problems with free software today are,
 * Incoherence. Take manuals for example. Some free software comes with info manuals, some with man pages, some with HTML documents, some others with plain text files, and yet others with only source code comments!
 * Inability to use certain patented algorithms. But that is not a problem with free software as such.
 * Non-availability of drivers for certain devices, especially "WinModems."
 * Free software cannot be legally used (at least in the US) for certain activities that involve copy-protection techniques. This includes playing encrypted DVDs.

Okay, but why would I want to modify my software anyway?
There are plenty of reasons. Say for example a software does not support your local language. You would like this software to be available in your local language so that you can use it. If the software is proprietary you will have to go and beg the "owner" of the software. If he finds making the change wouldn't be profitable, he will not make the change. With free software, you can make the change yourself or you can go to a programming company and ask them to make the changes for you (which is how Richard Stallman supported himself for some time). With free software you are not helpless.

Also consider this ever plausible situation. Some time during your education, you would have written a project, or thesis or dissertation. In all probability, you may have used a computer belonging to a friend or the university to create this work. There is no assurance that you would get the same software or package which you used to create this file a few years from now, when in a nostalgic mood, you decide to go through your past work. This is a time when you will feel like modifying whatever is available to read a new file format.

If you are any kind of organisation which needs (or as often happens, is obliged by law) to retain certain information over a long time, the right to modify your software through a third party vendor is 'the' most important right.

Look, I'm no computer whiz! Isn't it easier for me to just use packaged software? Who do I turn to when something goes wrong?
Using free software is all the more important if you are not a computer expert. That way, you do not have to depend on the company from whom you purchased non-free software.

First, read the documentation that came with the software. If that doesn't help, try searching the web with a search engine like mozDex. Last try one of the things below.

If you are looking for "free of cost" help, there will always be a free software user group or Linux User Group in your locality. Find one. Or ask any of the innumerable mailing lists or forums which provide support. You will be surprised at the response and support you receive. One forum is Nuxified.org. There are more popular forums, however some don't set a good example - by having nonfree software (e.g. vBulletin) power their sites.

If you are willing to spend money, you can always hire a company or a consulting programmer to help you.

You can also buy support from expert companies. Since the software itself is open, the support vendor cannot lock you down like happens with proprietary software. You are always free to go to another support vendor.

Also if your requirement is pretty huge, it will be highly cost effective to have an in house software development and support team who will take the free software and customize it for your needs and constantly maintain it.

But how do I know I can trust someone not linked to a big company that has a reputation to uphold?
Several big companies do provide support for free software. Several big companies charge several times more than several individual or small companies for their services. Remember, in the free software scenario, you are paying only for the services, not the product or package. So, there will be immense savings, and companies or consultants who work on free software will always have less turnover, even if they are experts and market leaders in their field.

Plus a little-known company/person can gain a bad reputation.

Which GNU/Linux distribution (or distro for short) should I use?
There are many publicly available GNU/Linux distros. Distrowatch maintains a list of distros with summaries of their features. Fedora Core (formerly Red Hat), OpenSuse and Ubuntu are popular ones for new users (listed in alphabetical order). There are also many more distros such as Damn Small Linux, Gentoo, Morphix, Slackware, etc.

Ubuntu is a distribution based on Debian GNU/Linux but aimed at being easy to use. They have non-free software available, but it is not enabled by default. It has a Live CD available, which allows you to test the distro without installing it on your computer.

OpenSuse is a powerful yet easy-to-use distro. Their Evaluation edition has non-free software, but the Open Source Software edition does not.

Fedora Core is also new-user friendly.

Try Debian if you are good with computers and have a little working knowledge of the GNU/Linux system. The primary strength of Debian is the sheer number of packages. It also has support for many different architectures. Debian also has distributions which don't use Linux as the kernel such as Debian GNU/Hurd and Debian GNU/kFreeBSD. Use these only if you are really interested in developing free software. Be warned though, Debian has nonfree software in its package repositories that are suffixed with "-nonfree.

To avoid non-free software you should avoid Mandriva (formerly Mandrake), MEPIS, KNOPPIX, Linspire... These distributions come with non-free software packages by default.

If you are looking for a 100% free distribution, you should try gNewSense or Trisquel.

Depending on your needs there are even specialised GNU/Linux distributions. There is one which plays only Video CDs. There are several which are used only as firewalls. Some distros run from one or two floppy disks. Some distros are intended to be used as rescue disks. There are also distros even for musicians and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Most major distros come with several Compact Disks, but you can have a running and usable system with usually the first one or two CDs.

Where can I find free software?
Some good sources are: Note: The next two also list non-free software, although most of it is free.
 * Free Software Directory
 * GNU Savannah
 * SourceForge
 * FreshMeat

I have some software for Windows that I can't find a replacement for on GNU/Linux! Where can I find one?
Look Free software alternative page on Ubuntu community and GNU Software for Windows.

Okay, so how would I begin to install free software on my machine?
Once again, the same way you begin to install non-free software on your machine. You can buy computers with free software pre-installed. Or you can get a friend to do it for you. Or find a professional to do it.

If you decide to do it yourself, try lots of different software until you find what you like.

Most distributions have a built-in way of easily installing software and finding all its dependencies, called a package manager. Some package managers are:
 * Smart supports many types of repositories, including yum, apt, apt4rpm and urpmi.
 * Yum for Fedora Core
 * Apt for Debian
 * Apt4RPM for RPM distributions
 * Portage for Gentoo
 * Ports for FreeBSD

How can I make software I've written free software?
See the last section of the GNU GPL. Be sure to write free documentation (or get someone else to do it)!

How can I make money off of free software?
The easiest is selling free software. Be sure to explain to them that it's a matter of freedom, not price. Distributing this book with the software might be a good idea. Remember that if the software's under the GNU GPL and you distribute binaries, you must include the source with the binaries and/or offer the source separately.

You could also write free documentation and sell that. The same things in the above paragraph applies here.

Another way is, if you can write software, put yourself for hire to add/change something in free software. If you are the maintainer of the software, you could have people pay you to make a(n) addition/change higher on the priority list for the project. This is how Richard Stallman used to support himself, and he's still here.

ms:Transwiki:Risalah Konsep FLOSS

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: FLOSS Concept Booklet


text:
Cookbook:Substitutions

Some possible substitutions for common ingredients.

Baking powder and baking soda
 * Use a mixture of 2 parts cream of tartar to 1 part baking soda as a substitute for baking powder.
 * It is sometimes possible to use baking powder in place of baking soda, however the presence of other acidic agents in the recipe can cause unexpected reactions, and the quantity required (use four times as much baking powder as the recipe calls for baking soda) may leave a slightly unpleasant taste.

1 Cup Milk
 * 1/2 cup evaporated milk
 * 1/2 cup water

Buttermilk (1 cup) or Leave to curdle for 10-20 minutes if possible.
 * 1 cup plain yogurt
 * 1 cup milk
 * 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice.

or
 * 1 cup of soy milk
 * 1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice

1 cup Sour cream
 * 1 cup Plain Yoghurt

Eggs (for baking) or or
 * 2 tablespoons liquid
 * 2 tablespoons flour
 * 1/2 tablespoon shortening
 * 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
 * 1 tablespoon cornstarch
 * 3 tablespoons water
 * 3 tablespoons mayonnaise

Cake flour (1 cup) or
 * 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted all purpose flour
 * 3/4 cup sifted all purpose flour
 * 2 tablespoons cornstarch

Self-rising flour (1 cup)
 * 1 cup flour
 * 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
 * 1/2 teaspoon salt

Sugar
 * 1 cup honey or other syrup
 * subtract 1 cup liquid from recipe
 * change recipe to treat as a liquid, not as a dry ingredient

Molasses
 * 3/4 cup dark-brown sugar
 * 1/4 cup water

1 cup Liquid Honey
 * 1 1/4 cup sugar
 * 1/4 cup water

Light-brown sugar
 * 1 cup white sugar
 * 1 tablespoon molasses

Catfish or
 * Tilapia
 * Flounder

Salmon
 * Trout

Cod or
 * Haddock
 * Flounder

Swordfish or
 * Halibut
 * Shark

title: Cookbook:Substitutions


text:
User talk:Kurt Kawohl

Newport Beach, CA - Kurt Kawohl, author of a newly released book called "Transcendentalism - A New Revelation" is attempting to reinstitute Transcendentalism in the USA. Kurt was born in Germany in 1941 and now lives in California where he is a Real Estate Broker. It is his belief that the American Transcendental movement would have survived and thrived today if their philosophy had been more compatible with the majority American religious beliefs of spiritual inspirations and revelations together with insight as being acceptable communicators of the truth.

In his book Kurt explores the origin of religious beliefs and religions. Although he credits most past religious leaders, writers and portrayed prophets of the "Holy Books" with having experienced spiritual interaction with a spiritual existence, Kurt attributes their mind's interpretation of these events as being blended with superstitions which was the norm of that time period. It is the author's claim that his concept of a spiritual deity is also derived through his own spiritual experiences and that the spiritual existence in the spiritual realm is in actuality a spiritual collective; the progressive and accumulative spiritual intelligence of the universe; an agglomeration of all of the righteous souls who have passed into the spiritual realm.

In New England in the 19th-century Transcendentalists were known as writers and philosophers who adhered to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. The term Transcendentalism was derived from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who considered it a philosophy which holds that reasoning is the key to understanding reality and called "all knowledge transcendental which is concerned not with objects but with our mode of knowing objects". Ralph Waldo Emerson's interpretation of Transcendentalism was that it was a transcendental character or quality, a philosophy which stressed intuition and spirituality. Kurt's opinions are closely tied to Emerson's philosophy.

Kurt states in his book, "Transcendentalism Today can influence the beginning of a new integration of rationality into many religions. In this 21st Century, the Age of Technology, we are still plagued by religious beliefs that is a contributing cause toward terrorism, killings and wars between nations. Belief in a deity who caused catastrophes, punished people and created the universe out of nothingness as if by magic was brought about by hysteria and superstitions. This thought process needs to be reassessed and brought up to date. Open-minded people must use common sense to determine whether this so-called deity was incorrectly perceived, misinterpreted and misunderstood by the masses of a bygone era. When peoples' concept is flawed, corrections, truth, logic and common sense thereof must eventually prevail. It is the attributes of human characteristics to exercise upon others power, control, dominance, destruction, punishment, revenge, judgment and not the attributes of a deity. Everyone is personally responsible for his own soul's destiny, the only requirement for achieving spiritual continuity is righteous living. The destruction of civilizations, most sufferings and premature deaths are due to human frailties, stupidity or imperfections and are not a deity's doings. The deity that mankind calls by several names exists in a spiritual realm and never has and never will interfere with anything on earth or in the universe."

Will the author’s concept of Transcendentalism Today survive? Only time will tell. Kurt has had dialogue with religious leaders worldwide and supplies the evidence thereof in his book. On a website catering primarily to active and retired military personnel, at Military.com Kurt has posted his Transcendentalism opinions on who/what "God" is and supplied the website where his book can be accessed free of charge. Surprisingly over 10,000 people have visited there within a one year time period with many expressing their approval. ---

Lt. Colonel - US Air Force (retired) Melvin J. Beitscher wrote an email to Kurt stating, "As I near the end of your book and turn each page, I marvel at the insight, research and reading you have done to come to this point in your life and how you now affect so many more lives. Sometimes I lose a little hope for mankind but with you, and I know there are many like you, I realize that there is hope that we may transcend that which separates us. You have started that vital journey with a remarkable thesis in your book "Transcendentalism -A New Revelation". Your courage to fly in the face of organized religion and see the truth behind the basics of all religion deserves a Nobel Prize. The courage you display in listing the correspondence with other learned people even though it may be at odds with your statements is to be commended. Christopher Phillips writes "It is not enough to have the courage of your convictions, you must also have the courage to have your convictions challenged". You have that courage and wisdom. Congratulations on a work long needed".

title: User talk:Kurt Kawohl


text:
Talk:Puzzles/Statistical puzzles/3 Bags of Marbles/Solution

That's Just not True :-P
This is my take on this whole talk page... maybe I didn't understand the problem? Well this makes sense to me :)

-to random ip address guy

Your logic assumes that the concept of probability actually exists but it doesn't, it's just a mathematical concept to simplify the world. In actuality all things that happen always have a 100% chance of happening and all things that don't happen always have a 0% chance of happening. It's like watching a movie. The same events will always happen unless they are altered even before they can be predicted by probablity. No matter how much you rewind a movie, or even if you were rewinding time itself, the same events always happen. Now thinking of probability just as a mathematical concept certain things just happen more often that others and this is simplified into saying that there is a greater chance of such and such happening again. So if we took that random male voter from your example we could indeed say that there is a 55% chance he voted for Bush. Sure, at the end of the day he either did vote for him or he didn't but if you look at it that way probability is irrelevant and non-existant.

But anyway, I think the answer to this puzzle needs to be corrected. Correct me if I'm wrong but this is how I interpretted it: a marble is chosen randomly and it happens to be white and another marble is to be chosen from the same bag. We can eliminate bag 2 from the equation since that can't be the bag that we're concerned with. This means it's either bag 1 or 2. In bag 1 we will always choose a white marble because there are only white marbles, a 100% chance. In bag 3 we will always choose the black marble since if this is the bag at hand, the white marble was already removed, a 0% chance of choosing a white marble. So the average is a 50% chance of choosing a white marble. I'm not sure if you meant the white marble that's chosen is removed from the bag or replaced, if it's replaced the answer should be a 75% chance.

That got long, sorry if you read all that ^_^ thanks though. So did I get it?

--Swizzly 00:46, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the fact that you have picked a white marble does indeeed tell you that you have picked either bag 1 or bag 3.

Dear 205.196.132.147
Before vandalizing module like thi you should consult with others here, if you don't want module resumed to it's previous state. Thank you. --Divinity 10:06, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * if by any chance after reading comment you want to put "either 0.0 or 1.0" please don't. "0.0 or 1.0" is not a probability. It is the outcome. Probability indicates how often would this outcome happen. By saying probability is 2/3, we mean that if we pick a random bag and draw a white marble out of it 100 times, and after each event draw another one, ~67 of theese marbles will be white. *this* is the probability. --Divinity 05:31, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Removed fallacious argument from main page
COMMENT: Once we get to the point described in the puzzle the probability that the second ball will be white is either 1.0 or 0. It can be nothing else.

Probability has to do with the situation PRIOR to an event. Once the outcome is determined probability is no longer a factor. In the case of the scenario presented by this puzzle, the outcome has already been determined. The fact that we don't know the color of the second ball doesn't change the fact that its color is fixed. That we don't see the color doesn't mean there is any chance that it can be different from what it is. Only one outcome is possible when the second ball if taken out of the bag.

It's true that if we were asking, before we started, what the probabilies are that we WOULD get certain outcomes the probability of getting bag, white ball, white ball is twice that of getting bag, white ball, black ball. But that's not the question asked by the puzzle. The puzzle says we've already selected a bag. That means the colors of both balls have been determined. If it happens to be the bag with one white and one black there's probability associated with different color outcomes just prior to selection of the first ball, but after that first ball is selected there is no subsequent possibility of different scenarios. Only one scenario is possible even if we don't know what that scenario is.

Here's another example: Exit polling data indicate that 55% of males who voted in the last election voted for Bush. So, before we do anything, we can say that if we randomly select a male who voted there's a 0.55 probability that it'll be somebody who voted for Bush.

But once we select the person, that person either voted for Bush or he didn't. If we say there's a 0.55 probability he voted for Bush, we are not being accurate. There are only two possibilities at that point. Either he voted for Bush (1.0) or he did not (0).

Same with flipping a coin. Before the coin is flipped you can say there's a 0.50 probability it'll be heads. If you say ahead of time that you're going to call heads there's a 0.50 probability that you'll be right. But once it's been flipped it is what it is. If you say heads you're either right or you're wrong. If the coin beneath the hand covering it is tails it is tails whether you can see that or not. If you say heads at that point your probability of being right is zero.


text:
User talk:Timwi

w:User talk:Timwi

title: User talk:Timwi


text:
Cookbook:Soup with Supplì

| Soups | Cuisine of Italy

Soup with supplì is not traditional in Italy, where the preparation stops at the cooking of the supplì (risotto balls), which are a little bigger than eggs.

Ingredients

 * Leftover risotto
 * Eggs, beaten
 * Bread crumbs
 * Clear or brown broth

Procedure

 * 1) Shape the leftover risotto into little balls the size of nuts.
 * 2) Dip the balls into beaten egg, then roll them in bread crumbs.
 * 3) Fry the breaded risotto balls in butter, then drain them from the grease.
 * 4) Serve the risotto balls in hot broth.

title: Cookbook:Soup with Supplì


text:
Cookbook talk:Soup with Supplì

This module uses text adapted from the Wikipedia article Soup with risotto. The page history from en: is listed below:

* (cur) (last). . 17:54, 7 Jan 2003. . Gianfranco * (cur) (last). . m 08:51, 25 Feb 2002. . Conversion script (Automated conversion)

title: Cookbook talk:Soup with Supplì


text:
Cookbook:African Cuisines

Northern Africa
 * Cuisine of Algeria
 * Cuisine of Egypt
 * Cuisine of Libya
 * Cuisine of Morocco

Western Africa
 * Cuisine of The Gambia
 * Cuisine of Ghana
 * Cuisine of Nigeria
 * Cuisine of Senegal

Central Africa
 * Cuisine of Congo

Eastern Africa
 * Cuisine of Burundi
 * Cuisine of Ethiopia
 * Cuisine of Eritrea
 * Cuisine of Kenya
 * Cuisine of Rwanda
 * Cuisine of Somalia
 * Cuisine of Sudan
 * Cuisine of Tanzania
 * Cuisine of Uganda

Southern Africa
 * Cuisine of Botswana
 * Cuisine of South Africa
 * Cuisine of Zambia
 * Cuisine of Zimbabwe

East African Islands
 * Cuisine of Madagascar
 * Cuisine of Mauritius

ka:კულინარული წიგნი:აფრიკული სამზარეულო

title: Cookbook:African Cuisines


text:
Cookbook:Hard Tack

| Flatbread | Vegan Cuisine

Hard tack is a cracker/biscuit flat-bread used during long sea voyages and military campaigns before the introduction of canning as a primary food-source. Mostly inedible for dry and hard preservation, it was usually dunked in water, brine, coffee, or other liquids, or cooked into a skillet meal. This cracker was little more than flour and water which had been baked hard and would keep for months as long as it was kept dry. Also known as a sea biscuit, sea bread, or ship's biscuits.

Ingredients

 * 2 cups flour
 * ¾ cup water
 * ¾ teaspoon salt (optional)

Procedure

 * 1) Mix all the ingredients into a dough and press onto a greased cookie sheet to a thickness of ½ inch.
 * 2) Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (205°C) for half an hour. Don't cut now.
 * 3) Remove from oven, and cut dough into 3-inch squares. Punch four rows of holes, four holes per row into the dough (a fork works nicely).
 * 4) Flip the crackers and return to the oven for another half hour.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * You can add 1 tablespoon shortening to the dough if desired. This will make the crackers more palatable but means that, unlike traditional hard bread, they will eventually spoil, even if properly stored.

 * Some recipes also recommend a second baking at 250°F (120°C) to thoroughly dry out the bread.
 * Scale ingredient quantities equally if more dough is required.

Biscuit_de_mer

title: Cookbook:Hard Tack


text:
Cookbook talk:Hard Tack

This module uses text adapted from the Wikipedia article Hard tack. The page history at the time the text was adapted is included below.

* (cur) (last). . 13:36, 30 Mar 2004. . Bevo * (cur) (last). . m 20:32, 12 Mar 2004. . Zoicon5 * (cur) (last). . 02:17, 7 Mar 2004. . Dale Arnett * (cur) (last). . m 13:17, 10 Dec 2003. . TheLight (Added some wiki links) * (cur) (last). . m 11:46, 10 Dec 2003. . TheLight * (cur) (last). . 22:45, 9 Dec 2003. . TheLight * (cur) (last). . 22:45, 9 Dec 2003. . TheLight * (cur) (last). . 22:44, 9 Dec 2003. . TheLight (Added a recipe for Hard Tack) * (cur) (last). . 16:00, 9 Dec 2003. . Rmhermen * (cur) (last). . 15:58, 9 Dec 2003. . Rmhermen (add wiki markup)

This article makes no mention of how many biscuits are created. --124.176.63.8 (talk) 07:07, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

title: Cookbook talk:Hard Tack


text:
Cookbook:Cuisine of South Africa

Introduction
The cuisine of South Africa reflects the diversity of the various ethnic groups that make up the population of South Africa. The variety of different culinary traditions combined with the great variety of fresh food present a cuisine that caters for every taste sensation. Although the historical traditions are evident in the cuisine, modern food trends also influence its development.

South African cuisine is strongly influenced by Dutch, German, English, French, Malaysian, Portuguese, Indonesian, Indian, Native African and even Asian cuisines. As a result, we have a great variety of dishes.

South African history's influence on culinary tradition
The first European settlers in South Africa were the Dutch, who established a trading post in the Cape in 1652. Many men from Germany also came to work in the Cape. Towards the end of the 17th century, Malay slaves were imported. The French Huguenots, after fleeing their country due to religious persecution, came to South Africa and started our fine winemaking tradition. Britain gained control of the Cape in 1806. The discovery of gold and diamonds lead to further British colonizations in South Africa. Under their rule, Indian indentured labourers were imported as cheap labour. Later Britain gave South Africa its independence. The Portuguese influence came mostly from Mozambique and Angola, two of South Africa's neighbouring countries. Long ignored are also the African influences in South African cuisine, now much more popular since the passing of Apartheid.

Meat dishes are very popular, especially amongst European descendants commonly known as the Afrikaners. There's an old joke that states that a Boer eats mutton, beef and bacon for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and when he feels like some vegetables, he eats chicken.

Braais (barbecues) are very popular.

Breakfast dishes

 * Melk kos
 * Mieliepap (A porridge made from maize and water
 * Bacon and eggs with toast
 * Dry cereals
 * Oats

Soup & Stew

 * Boontjie sop
 * Groente sop
 * Tomato bredie
 * Waterblommetjiebredie

Seafood

 * Snoek
 * Rock Lobster commonly called "crayfish" but it is not the same as crayfish in most other countries

Poultry
Most South Africans enjoy chicken and include it in their braais (barbecues). They enjoy pork and beef meat most of wich is beef tripe

Meat

 * Biltong
 * Boerewors
 * Bobotie
 * Droewors (dried sausage)
 * Frikadelle (Meat Balls)
 * Samoosas (Samosa)
 * Potjie
 * Bunny Chow (Thick meat or vegetable curry in a hollowed out bread loaf)
 * Mashonzha (mopane worm)
 * Sosatie
 * Umleqwa (free-range chicken)
 * Braai (South African barbecue)

Vegetables

 * Chakalaka (Spicy vegetable salad)
 * Morogo (Wild spinach)
 * Pap (Corn porridge)
 * Samosas
 * Samp and Beans
 * Setjetsa / isiJingi (Maize and Pumpkin)
 * Isidudu (Pumpkin Mash)
 * Umngqusho (Semolina and Black-eyed peas)
 * Potjiekos (South African Layered Vegetable)
 * Umphokoqo (African dish made of corn meal)

Desserts

 * Aartappel Poeding (Potato Pudding)
 * Asynpoeding (Vinegar Pudding)
 * Boeber
 * Bombay Crush
 * Cape Brandy Pudding
 * Cremora Tart
 * Crunchies
 * Gatsby
 * Hertzoggies
 * Jalebi
 * Koeksisters
 * Koesisters
 * Lemon Meringue Pie
 * Malva Pudding
 * Melktart (Milk Tart)
 * Melkkos
 * Pampoenkoekie (Pumpkin Fritters)
 * Pannekoek (Pancakes)
 * Peppermint Crisp Tart
 * Pineapple Fridge Tart
 * Sago pudding
 * Sticky Date Pudding
 * Trifle

Baking

 * Rusks
 * Bread
 * Queen cake
 * Milo cake with condensed milk icing
 * Vetkoek
 * Stokbrood

Condiments & Preserves

 * Chutney
 * Mango Atchar
 * Jam
 * Sauces
 * Pickles
 * Konfyt
 * Watermelon Konfyt (Watermelom preserve)

Beverages

 * Amasi (soured milk)
 * Brandy and Coke
 * Don Pedro
 * Ginger Beer
 * Mageu (fermented corn meal)
 * Mampoer (fruit based moonshine, mostly peach or marula)
 * Pineapple Beer
 * Wine
 * Springbokkie
 * Umqombothi (sorghum beer)
 * Witblitz (grape based moonshine)

title: Cookbook:Cuisine of South Africa


text:
User:Watsonianz

Cookbook

I used to live in South Africa. I thought this is an ideal opportunity to get to know wiki.

Pages I've contributed to:

 * Cuisine of South Africa

title: User:Watsonianz


text:
User talk:Watsonianz

Welcome to Wikibooks. I saw your edits over at the cookbook, and wanted to thank you for your contributions. If you have any questions, as me on my talk page, or ask the community at the Staff lounge. Thanks, Gentgeen 09:34, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

PS: to sign your name, for example in talk pages, use three tildes. To add a time stamp, just use four tildes. Gentgeen

title: User talk:Watsonianz


text:
Programming HP Calculators/Commands

There are several subsets of the calculator commands. They are presented here along with a short summary of their features.

''This section is currently incomplete. The status of each sub-section is written in italics below its link.''

Aplet Commands
Current status: 0 of 4 commands completed. (0%)

The aplet commands are the commands used for building aplets (not applets) on the calculator. Most of these are fairly advanced, and you should have mastered other programming skills before you use the aplet commands, as they work on existing programs.

Branch Commands
Current status: 4 of 5 commands completed. (80%)

The branch commands are used to set the program to do different tasks depending on a certain situation. More information on branching (or "jumping") in programming can be found at Wikipedia: Jump instruction.

Drawing Commands
Current status: 7 of 7 commands completed. (100%)

The drawing commands are used for drawing images on the screen. They are differentiated from graphic commands by the fact that they interface with the display, not graphic objects (GROBs). That is to say, using a command such as ARC will draw on the screen, not in a GROB.

Graphic Commands
Current status: 6 of 12 commands completed. (50%)

The graphic commands are used for creating and modifying GROBs - GRaphic OBjects. These are essentially variables on the calculator from G0 to G9 that can contain graphic information, ie. a 1-bit bitmap.

Loop Commands
Current status: 0 of 4 commands completed. (0%)

The loop commands are used to set the calculator to keep performing an action until a certain condition is satisfied. For example, to display all the numbers from 1 to 100, you could use a loop command, rather than individually writing code to display each number.

Matrix Commands
Current status: 1 of 10 commands completed. (10%)

The matrix commands are used to edit and modify matrices, ie. the variables M0 to M9.

Print Commands
Current status: 0 of 3 commands completed. (0%)

The print commands are used to send information to HP's separately-sold infrared printer. They are generally not very useful.

Prompt Commands
Current status: 7 of 10 commands completed. (70%)

Prompt commands are used to ask the user for information, or alert the user to some fact. These are amongst the most important commands available for your use.

Stat Commands
Current status: 0 of 7 commands completed. (0%)

The stat commands are actually two groups of commands, Stat-One and Stat-Two. These two groups represent one-variable and two-variable statistics modes, respectively. They are used for editing statistics and performing statistical functions.

Easter Egg Commands
Current status: 8 of 8 commands completed. (100%)

An "easter egg" is a common term used to refer to "hidden" or undocumented features in a program or operating system, in this case, the calculator. The commands documented here are not in the CMDS menu, and they are not documented by HP. Most of them don't serve any useful purpose.

title: Programming HP Calculators/Commands


text:
User:Perl~enwikibooks/manhattan/3

In April, 1943, Los Alamos was opened. The work at Los Alamos centered around the development of a delivery system, and the two methods considered were the gun method and the implosion method. The gun method called for two non-critical elements to be fired at each other, contact turning them critical, but it was rejected as being to large for aerial delivery. Implosion called for the collapse of non-critical wedges, which would become critical when brought into contact, and it was the method that was eventually used. In February, 1944, the first slightly enriched Uranium (13% U-235) arrived at Los Alamos.

In September, 1944, 63% Uranium 235 arrived at Los Alamos, and the designs for Fat Man and Little Boy were finalized. Fat Man, composed of Plutonium shell within an array of shape charges wrapped around it, had a diameter of 60 inches, a length of 128 inches, and a weight of 10,000 pounds. Little Boy, composed of a long cannon with a Uranium (235) bullet, and U-235 target rings in the muzzle, had a diameter of 28 inches, and a length of 120 inches, and a weight of 9000 pounds.

On December 17th, 1944, the 509th composite bomber group, composed of specially modified B-29 Superfortresses designed to carry atomic bombs, was formed to deliver the bomb to targets in Japan.

In March, 1945, the S-50 plant at Oak Ridge came fully online, and began to supply Los Alamos with 85% enriched U-235.

On July 16th, 1945, the first nuclear bomb test occurred at the Trinity test site in New Mexico. It was the Fat Man design, and it was successful.

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title: User:Perl~enwikibooks/manhattan/3


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User:Jeebesh

Dear Jeebesh,

"So, who is this user then? Sounds more like a creative producer than a normal user..."

The above question is distracting. It's better to remove it. What do you say?

title: User:Jeebesh


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User:Ddhix 2002

Firstly welcome. Secondly chill, one person adding safety tips in way you don't like is no reason to get so hot under the collar.

The page has not been deleted, nor is it likely to be given your comments. Come and talk about it over on VfD and we'll work it out. I think this whole episode has beem just a missunderstanding. You added the proceedure, someone was worried and added safety tips. Those tips made it look unprofessional. Someone else sees the unprofessional looking page, suggests it should be deleted and so on.

With a bit of wikilove and a dollop of good humour we can all become friends. Theresa knott 15:50, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Ddhix 2002


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User talk:Ddhix 2002

Firstly welcome. Secondly chill, one person adding safety tips in way you don't like is no reason to get so hot under the collar.

The page has not been deleted, nor is it likely to be given your comments. Come and talk about it over on VfD and we'll work it out. I think this whole episode has beem just a missunderstanding. You added the proceedure, someone was worried and added safety tips. Those tips made it look unprofessional. Someone else sees the unprofessional looking page, suggests it should be deleted and so on.

With a bit of wikilove and a dollop of good humour we can all become friends. Theresa knott 15:50, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Acetone peroxide synthesis
I have proposed the acetone peroxide synthesis for deletion. What do you think? Ewen 14:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ddhix 2002


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User:Hogersluys~enwikibooks

Hallo, Ik ben Hogersluys, in het verleden nog eens actief op Wikipedia NL, maar door een sabbathjaar nog slechts uitzonderlijk online. Bij het rondneuzen wat Wiki in al zijn gedaanten te bieden heeft, ben ik op het intrigerende project van de Wikibooks terecht gekomen. En meteen verliefd op het concept. Ik heb me meteen aan een paar vertalingen gewaagd, en hoop vlug een georganiseerde bende medewerkers te vinden, die het Nederlandstalige project helpen ontwikkelen. Enige namen kwamen me alvast bekend voor.

Ook hier geldt de regel: als je geen ruchtbaarheid geeft aan je activiteit, valt het na verloop van tijd in slaap. Ik wil dus wel een eind vertalen, als ik maar de werktuigen in handen krijg die de basisbladzijden toegankelijk maken: ik lees nog steeds liever iets in mijn eigen taal, dan het te moeten vertalen vanuit een vreemde taal; vertalen is één ding, maar instructies en verklaringen komen me liever over in mijn eigen moerstaal. Wie helpt me op weg?

Mail me gerust als je dat wil, mijn mail staat open voor elke welwillende medewerker.

Groetjes, en tot weldra, Hogersluys 23:46, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

title: User:Hogersluys~enwikibooks


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Talk:FLOSS Concept Booklet

Why do you damn Mandriva?
You state: "You should stay out of Mandriva (formerly Mandrake)" because it "comes with non-free software packages by default"

Mandriva has Free Software edition, which doesn't contain any non-free packages on installation image and even doesn't enable non-free repositories by default. I didn't found this edition less functional or less user friendly than One which isn't completely free (it's only a bit more difficult to install proprietary Nvidia driver)

Also, you could add urpmi to the list of package managers. It has many advanced features: mirrors (as yum), flexible dependency tracking (e.g, you are not obligated to install some vendor chosen icon theme for OpenOffice.org as in Ubuntu, or install MySQL client for Drupal if you want to use it with PostgreSQL)

Konstantin

Translation to German
Hi everybody,

I would like to translate this article to German for de.wikibooks.org. Do you think this makes sense already at this point, or shall I wait until it has become a revised version?

Best regards

Plux

What does "FLOSS" mean ?
What is the target audience of the "FLOSS Concept Booklet" ? What does "FLOSS" in the title mean ?

Is it just a typo -- should be "FOSS (Free/Open Source Software)" ?

If we're never going to use the acronym in the article, maybe we should spell it out in the title also.

--DavidCary 01:20, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Free (Libre) and Open Source Software is the acronym used in the UK public policy on - well, FLOSS.

Adrian Midgley

History section
The way the history has been presented, I guess the questions in the history section can be removed. It is also not possible to see the history separately as Stallman, Linus, GNU... It is all iterconnected.

Vijay

Summarise
This question has gathered a lot of meat. Can somebody summarise it?

Vijay

Rephrasing question and answer
I am moving the following question to the talk page. I am replacing it with a different question and answer.

Hold on a minute. I thought “User” just meant someone who uses a piece of software.

Interesting point. Yes, you are right. Our common understanding of the term “User” does suggest someone who simply ‘uses’ software. One of the most interesting characteristics of Free Software is the way in which this distinction between “user “ and “creator” begins to blur. Creators of Free Software are also its users and, those engaging with Free Software are also often (though not always) involved in the creation of the software. We’ll talk more about this point later.

Vijay

Removing question
This stuff could be adapted and added to the history section.

What does GNU GPL stand for? ***should we have this*** ? GNU is the name of an operating system that is similar to UNIX, an operating system that has been in heavy use among academic and engineering circles since the late 1970s. Since the term UNIX is trademarked, GNU cannot legally call itself UNIX, no matter how similar it might be to it. To remove any threat of violating the trademark and as a tongue-in-cheek remark, GNU actually stands Gnu is Not UNIX. GNU is also the name of an influential foundation that propagates and promotes free software. A huge amount of free software in the world today is licensed under the GPL – the General Public License. This license is a copyleft license that incorporates the terms given in ***sec earlier***

Vijay

Removed a question
The FLOSS booklet is a mini booklet, to be given as a handout. Right? So it is better to keep it short and sweet as posssible. Though the following question does bring a lot of understanding, I feel it is too much involved for a new comer. What do us say guys?

Vijay 04:44, 31 May 2004 (UTC)

End User License Agreements such as the one from Microsoft treat the users of software very differently from the way that users are treated and thought of in Free Software. How do these two differ ?

In general, a large part of the Microsoft EULA concerns itself with limiting your use of the software, and with absolving Microsoft from any responsibilities it may have with respect to the warranty. In contrast, Free Software Licenses spend most of their time specifying the rights allocated users, and the responsibilities for the use of the software from the perspective of software distributors or programmers who incorporate GPL code. Few user-level restrictions are evident.

(adapted from http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/docs/comparing_the_gpl_to_eula.html )

Broadly, all users of free software are, at the bare minimum considered to be potential creators of free software. The licenses reflect this by making sure that it is extremely easy for someone to transition from being a mere consumer of the software to a co-creator.

Broadly, all users of commercial software are considered to be mere passive consumers of the software. Great pains are taken to ensure that the passive user remains passive, regardless of any possible desire to be more involved with the software. What few rights commercial software licenses grant users are given grudgingly.

Some things I've always thought needed some clarification / (What is free software?)
Item 0 is the main one, the others are kind of tongue-in-cheek but also kind of serious. Users should be able to run the software for any purpose. (freedom 0 — many things in computers start at 0) This really needs clarification in my mind...  most software is purpose-built and paid software practically never restricts the use of something for anything it's actually capable of doing, outside of some insanely expensive computer graphics programs with no open source counterparts that approach their capability (SideFX Houdini) which has a free version where everything functions that one would need to learn the software itself, but the output renders are limited in size and watermarked and commercial use isn't allowed. Since someone actually asked the lead developer of Houdini (the company appears to be almost entirely made up of developers) how someone with no experience with their software would go about learning it and he said he had no idea how to explain it, but being able to produce an amazing reel with it will basically get you hired at any major CGI house that already has perpetual licenses, I'd argue that the free limited version does everything it actually needs to in this case. There's also an "Indie" version limited to companies / individuals with revenue under $100k a year that's the awful model of "rent to never own" but reasonable as far as that model goes. So no, I can't run the free version for the purpose of producing a feature-length 4k masterpiece, but even if they allowed it the render farm required to do so would take up my entire house and cost more money than I've made in my entire life. I could afford the Indie version and remove the resolution limit to get 4k rendering with no watermark, but the same applies. To be more pedantic, "any purpose" is also odd. I can't use the parametric 3D modelling software to format new hard drives (knowing this software it's possible with one of the built-in scripting languages, I haven't tried), but there's no expectation that it should be able to...

Along these lines I could exclude any open source software from "any purpose" that had built-in scripting but enough security blocks that I wouldn't be able to write a virus in it. That's a malicious purpose, but it falls under the scope of "any purpose"... and it's typically blocked from happening ever since everyone got a look at the fallout from Winword.Nuclear and what downsides existed in integrated scripting for extensibility back in the day.

The rest of these are stupidly pedantic because not everyone has my skill set and if they're lucky they never will, but they still apply at some level.

Users should be able to closely examine and study the software and should be able to freely modify and improve it to suit their needs better. (freedom 1)

I've been an assembly programmer since the early 90s and can fluently read disassembly of multiple architectures. Well-written and cleanly compiled C / C++ code's generated assembly is often far easier to read and modify than, oh, I'll just use GAS as an example of things that are far worse than reading assembly deadlistings. Huge messes of spaghetti C code or 20 level deep indented python files are much more painful to me and at some point I'd rather just modify a built version.

If you're reading that and believing me (or at least humoring me), but saying that nobody should be expected to be able to do this or go to the effort, GCC and GAS are used to build practically everything on Linux. Show of hands, how many people can fully read and understand the compiler and backend to the extent that you can be sure your copy of the compiler or source tree isn't injecting malware into everything you build with it? I'll note here that I have no problems reading the linux kernel itself (despite AT&T syntax Intel assembly being an abortion that crawled out of the dumpster and lived and should have been killed off years ago), and I worked for years as a backend / IL level compiler engineer on LLVM / Clang which I could understand without issues. This is only pointing out that having terrible source can be at least as bad as having none, possibly more so because assumptions will be made that anyone has caught an issue with the source because it can be viewed. Heck, I still have commit-without-review privileges on the LLVM tree, and even though multiple large companies have hawk-eyed people getting paid to sit around and look at every checkin for things that might break their products, there are portions of that which so few people understand that I'd bet I could get a vulnerability into the lowering code that would go unnoticed until it became a problem. I wouldn't, because I'm not a jackass, but doing the same with a mess like GCC / GAS would be even easier after building a bit of trust, and harder to spot.

Users should be able to give copies of the software to other people for whom the software will be useful, either gratis or for a fee. (freedom 2)

This needs a "legally" inserted. I'm free to give cracked portable copies of Photoshop to everyone I know or sell it if I want to be an idiot and violate Rule 0 of piracy. It's not legal, but nothing is preventing me or anyone else from doing so, just Adobe attempting to prevent people from doing so and failing. The same applies to any software and protection scheme.

Users should be able to improve the software and freely distribute their improvements to the broader public so that they, as a whole, benefit. (freedom 3)

Again needs a legally, and glosses over the fact that although this applies to something under BSD license or similar, I'm in exactly as much legal quagmire if I want to distribute a modified copy of GCC pared down to a specific subset of functionality, and produced it by direct binary modification from a disassembly. The GPL requires that I give out the source code, but I didn't produce it from the source code; all I could do is dump the assembly of the modified version and list the revision I based it on and I severely doubt that meets GPL requirements. Even if I produced it from source I can't freely distribute my improvements without also distributing a source tree. The public may still benefit from the binary but unless I'm giving up source it's a no-go. I have no idea why I'd want to do that, but I'm not a corporation and maybe I interleaved the source with the full text of Mein Kampf or some equally offensive reading material like the Twilight novels, or just steganographically embedded a feature length movie in the existing comments for safe-keeping at some point, forgot, and made the modifications to that without thinking about it, so the source is not mine to distribute as it now contains material created by the industry that invented and then globally pushed the most draconian copyright schemes in existence... I can't just delete the comments because that would remove the GPL headers, and I can't do some kind of rebase because I did this all for a laugh and have no revision history. These are all incredibly contrived and stupid scenarios but they exist to point out that there's a caveat on "freely" here for some licenses that can't be ignored.

These aren't criticisms of open source software in general, they're just little things that lists like this could avoid leaving out so they read more like statements of fact and less like propaganda without actually hurting the underlying message (and probably helping it, IMO). --A Downfall of Gravity (discuss • contribs) 11:27, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:FLOSS Concept Booklet


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Talk:Catalan

Untitled
I created a page for Germans learning catalan. We can save time by cooperating. Get-back-world-respect 00:02, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

title: Talk:Catalan