The Whole is Less than the Sum of the Parts

Managed to get AbiWord running on the Nokia 770 running the stock system.

First of all, I repackaged the original packages from INdT using these scripts. This made it possible to install the package using the system installer.

However, AbiWord still was not starting up. I found two problems. First of all, the ossomaemoword.sh script has incorrect path in it to the binary; needs to be /var/lib/install/usr/bin/maemowordprocessor.

I fixed the script on my Linux box and copied it manually back on the 770. AW would still not start. So I started up xterm to see what is going on, and it turns out that the system does not have libglade on it, so I have copied the one from maemo. One reboot later, and I have AbiWord running. (If I am not mistaken, the INdT package is based on 2.2.7; Renato build also 2.4 package, but it has many more dependencies, so I thought I start with this one.)

Initial observations on using AW on the device:

• Dialogues do not work; the glade files are hardcoded as being in /usr/share … while the installation on the device is in /var/lib/install/usr/share …

• We really need a proper normal mode without margins. The margins are costing us too much realestate, and as a result the text is too small.

• The Full screen button does not work.

A deb package that can be installed on on the 770 using the control panel installer applet is here; it is based on the INdT binary, but it fixes the bug in the startup script, plus it installs the required libglade. The dialog problem is not fixed, I think that will require rebuilding the actual binary. An SHA1 sum for the package: A6AE B5DC 7F6E 868B DE59 8980 DCB4 65BE D7E3 89 5F; MD5 sum C243 9911 7B83 8244 8DA2 5F88 0496 6DCA.

Just back from a week climbing on the Spanish Costa Blanca. We stayed in Calpe, renting a lovely villa from Abahana Villas, whom I would recommend. Private swimming pool, fresh seafood and good company created excellent context for the real objective of the week, the Spanish limestone. Read the rest »

Yesterday I caught a glimpse of Annie Robinson testing the nation’s knowledge of English, and today came across this blog about the death of language (make sure to follow the links it makes). Is language being killed off by email, blogs and SMS? Should we declare war on language-terrorism, to reclaim it, to restore it to a primordial purity? Read the rest »

This press release is embargoed until 2230 hours on Thursday 6 October. Before that time it is only available through the link which you have been sent.

President George W. Bush told Palestinian ministers that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and create a Palestinian State, a new BBC series reveals.

In Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, a major three-part series on BBC TWO (at 9.00pm on Monday 10, Monday 17 and Monday 24 October), Abu Mazen, Palestinian Prime Minister, and Nabil Shaath, his Foreign Minister, describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003.

Nabil Shaath says: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I’m driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, “George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.” And I did, and then God would tell me, “George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …” And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, “Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.” And by God I’m gonna do it.’”

Abu Mazen was at the same meeting and recounts how President Bush told him: “I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state.”

Israel and the Arabs: Elusive Peace - Mondays 10, 17 and 24 October, from 9.00 to 10.00pm on BBC TWO.

The BBC Press-Release; via BoingBoing

Sun has made a new statement regarding its IPR claims in connection with OpenDocument to the OASIS group. It differs from the old statement at two significant points (a) the language of essential claims is gone, and (b) the reciprocity requirement is now limited only to IPR relevant to the OpenDocument itself.

As far as Sun is concerned, this is undoubtedly a major step in the right direction, indeed a step that goes farther than we might have reasonably expected of them. Nevertheless, the question whether the free software community should ever embrace as its own a specification that is encumbered by patents remains; free software and software patents make uneasy bedfellows. The great mogul has graciously bestowed his benevolence upon us, allowing us to use his ideas in spite of his exclusive claims on them. How kind! Long live the gratious King! May his mercy never leave us! Can we ever repay him? Can our gratitude ever be enough? I promise to do my best, and that means I have to stop uttering these empty words and put them into action — time to install Solaris and rewrite AbiWord in Java. The future is bright, and my eyes are dazzled already from the brilliance.

P.S. They taught me at school that I should not look directly into the sun without a dark glass. And do you know what? When looking through the dark glass, not all of the giant ball is that bright.