Discontent with LiveContent

[Nicu Buculei]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> Hi
> 
> A review of the creative commons live content image derived from Fedora 
> 7. Should we be happy for the praise on Fedora 7 artwork or unhappy 
> about the criticism that the derivative didn't tool well atleast in the 
> eyes of the reviewer? Jack, you might want to take a look.
> 
> http://www.linux.com/feature/118750

Back  when the LiveContent CD was released I intended to write on my own 
blog a small *positive* review (got busy with some personal things, 
delayed a few days and considered is already too late and scratched the 
idea). So of course I disagree with the reviewer on *many* points.

In my opinion the biggest weakness of the CD is its small amount of 
content included, this is the most important point for a "Content" CD. 
And I think I understand the cause: the disk was co-developed by 
Worldlabel.com, which has a business around OpenOffice.org. If 
OpenOffice.org would be removed from the disk, then *a lot* of space can 
be freed for actual content.

Bruce say in his review "the welcome page begins by repeating the vague 
rhetoric of the project wiki" - this is so easy to fix, just change the 
wording in the wiki, this is why it is a wiki.

I do not agree with the critic of not having Evolution installed, this 
is a CD about content not for general use on the desktop. If the user 
install it on the hard drive he can easily do an "yum install 
thunderbird" or "yum install evolution" (the CD does not have pirut, 
otherwise it would be even easier).

I didn't look at the final 1.0 but only at a release candidate, so I may 
not be 100% correct, but as an Open Clip Art Library developer I 
specifically looked for it on the CD and definitely the browsing 
interface was in the pre-installed Firefox bookmarks so I see no reason 
to complain about that. Yes, it would be nicer to have the content 
available for offline use, but I can understand: 1) there is not enough 
space on the disc for +100MB of clipart images because of OpenOffice.org 
and 2) we (OCAL) failed for quite some time to produce a proper 
up-to-date package.

One thingI didn't like was the link to blip.tv, where the user can 
access CC licensed content but can't use it from the LiveContent CD 
because the content in in Flash format...

> "Nor, unfortunately, does the LiveContent customization do much to 
> inspire industry. The default Fedora 7 wallpaper, with its air-brushed 
> armada of balloons ascending to the moon above clouds and mountains, may 
> not be to everybody's taste, but at least it is unquestionably 
> professional. However, LiveContent has replaced it with a lifeless 
> gray-green design of its own with the unhelpful slogan "share, remix, 
> reuse" and the Creative Commons URL."

I don't agree even here: in fact I kind of liked the look, it was clean 
and simple (and I like "lifeless gray-green", colors which fit the theme 
used in the CC buttons available all over the web, see [1]).
Of course it has to use something different than the Fedora blue and 
Fedora imagery, as it is not Fedora but a derivative distro.


[1] - http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/us/88x31.png

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro