This week in DotGNU – no 9

See http://www.dotgnu.org for general information about DotGNU.

1. Debian packages of Portable.NET released
2. Bizplan project moves forward
3. phpGroupWare discusses issues related to GNU's boykott of GIFs
4. Reminder about the DotGNU panel at LinuxWorld


Debian packages of Portable.NET released
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Mitchell has released Debian packages of DotGNU Portable.NET
which are now available from http://www.dotgnu.org -- those who run
Debian GNU/Linux can put this line into /etc/apt/sources.list to
allow easy installation with apt-get.  Packages for GNU/Hurd are
also planned, but not available yet.


Bizplan project moves forward
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bill Lance, who is experienced in the area of consulting to young
companies in matters related to Business Plan creation, is helping
the participants of the bizplan mailing list to go forward in a good,
structured manner.  The next step is to define the Value Proposition,
from the customers point of view.  As Bill wrote, "They are the ones
that will be providing the cash for revenues.  It has to make sense
to
them."


phpGroupWare discusses issues related to GNU's boykott of GIFs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Software patents are evil because because they can make it illegal to
create Free Software for certain tasks.  For this reason, the Free
Software Foundation and the GNU project have a policy of of
boykotting
GIF files, because the compression algorithm which is used in most
GIF
files is encumbered by such a patent.  This has caused some problems
for the phpGroupWare project which uses graphics with transparant
background, because among the graphics formats which are widely
supported by web browsers, there is none that would reliably support
transparent backgrounds.  (The support for this in PNG graphics is
not
consistent enough).  It would not be acceptable to cripple
phpGroupWare
in any way because of this boykott.  Fortunately it seems that a
solution has been found that allows phpGroupWare to remain part of
GNU
and DotGNU.


Reminder about the DotGNU panel at LinuxWorld
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The LinuxWorld conference in New York City (USA) will be a good
opportunity to meet many of the key people behind organizing the
DotGNU effort.  A special DotGNU panel will be held on January 30th
at
2:30pm.  The full announcement is available at 
http://archive.dotgnu.org/pipermail/announce/2001-November/000002.html


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"This week in DotGNU" is Copyright (C) 2001 by Norbert Bollow.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire issue is
permitted in any medium or format, provided this notice is
preserved.
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