[Kernelbook-feedback] Re: tips for kernel doc

[Gary L. M. <ga...@ca...>]

Hi Holger,

Thanks for the comments!  I will make the corrections to the CVS
editions later today.

>>>>> "h" == holgerschurig  <hol...@gm...> writes:

    h> all: html pdf ps rtf txt
    h> html: $(HTMLDOC) ...

Easily done.  I had actually intended the Makefile to be used with
command lines like "make prokernel.rtf" to make a specific print, but
it is no extra work to add the rules you state.  I also noticed only
last Friday that dvi2pdf is not part of any distro (it is just
something I had collected long ago) --- I have put this script into
the ftp archive.

    h> Missing pictures ---------------- After I made the html
    h> documention I saw that the pictures where not included. At
    h> least "note.gif" is not there. I'd also suggest that you
    h> convert that to *.PNG --- gif is not a free format when the
    h> pictures use lzw compression.

Another oversight --- these are icons provided by the stylesheets; I
will also put a tar of these images into the FTP archive.

Norm only provides GIF files and the stylesheets reference these - to
convert to PNG would require developing and maintaining a forked
edition of his stylesheet package.  Also, I had some trouble with my
PNG conversion software and hence left my images at GIF; I like PNG as
a format, but if ESR is so adamant about our using GIF, he should
update his tools more often than once every 3 years ;)

Another problem with PNG is in going to production: Our editorial
review and typesetting processes will not understand PNG, and there
are still many browsers which do not, including many versions of
Netscape for Linux --- all of these machines understand GIF.  The only
alternatives for production which are also supported on Linux are BMP
and PCX formats, both of which produce unbearably large bitmap files.

I understand the patent concern, but I come from a background in art
and folk music where we long ago realized boycotts do not work; they
only hurt the consumer, not the agency which is perpertrating the
problem.  Even folk-superstar Pete Seeger now sees boycotts as naive
and as _serving_ the target company's interests more than it forces
change.

I studied the art of 'civil-disobedience' during my association with
the American composer John Cage and later with Udo Kasements; both
men were close friends of Marcel Duchamp.  Here is perhaps a relevent
story: When John Cage was granted a Guggenheim Fellowship award, he
received a form which included swearing to the statement "I will never
try to overthrow the government of the United States".  John was in a
dilema.  He needed that money, but could not sign such a
freedom-limiting statement.  He called Max Ernst who told him, "Sign
the papers ... and continue spreading joy and revolution everywhere".

If we use GIF rampantly, everywhere, at every opportunity, and if we
all flaunt our violation of their patent in the face of the patent
holders every time there is a court issue, Compuserv will loose their
right by shear weight of our civil disobedience against them.  If we
bind together, send money to any company being sued and show up in
numbers to insist we be charged along side of them, Compuserv will go
broke just serving us all with suppoenas. They cannot take us all to
court.  To reform a bully, we must provoke them into a fight they
cannot win.

The GIF restriction is untennable.  Like all software patents, it is a
bad law. But we can never force a bully who benefits from such laws to
change any law that sustains their power and control, we must force
change in the law itself first.  We cannot do this through a boycott.

-- 
Gary Lawrence Murphy <ga...@ca...>  TeleDynamics Communications Inc
Business Innovations Through Open Source Systems: http://www.teledyn.com
"Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers."(Pablo Picasso)