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List: LinArt List
Sender: Michael Stutz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Welcome to linart!
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 01:12:04 -0400 (EDT)
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Okay, there's been a recent rash of subscriptions to the list -- there are
more than 50 of us right now -- so I thought it'd be the right time for an
introduction post of some kind.
Basically, I think Linux has become an _extremely_ effective platform for
various and sundry "creative" applications. I think it's even better than
non-free and non-Unix-based operating systems because of the importance of
the Internet and all its related protocols, formats, ways & means, and the
intrinsic connection between the net and Unix.
I've found that no commercial software even compares to the the tools
available to me with Linux. Not just using wc and spell on my documents, but
the whole Linux way of doing things allows for much more exploration -- I
hope this list can be used as a way of discussing these techniques. For
instance, the late William S. Burroughs was a pioneer of the "cutup"
technique in literature, which involved actually cutting a text up and
rearranging the pieces; unique patterns formed in the results which were
often quite extraordinary. Now I've found that using the "an" program
combined with a good dictionary can yield similar, if not much more
thorough, results on any text.
So I'm using Linux to do all sorts of things in this area and I know I'm not
alone. I'd like to hear what other people are doing and exactly _how_ they
are doing it. I know that "art" is a word that has some semantic
connotations to it and potentially covers a lot of ground, but I think if we
do it right we could get a lot of useful discussion out of this. Certain
elements of configuration and installation that don't directly pertain to
this list's charter could be directed elesewhere, such as the newsgroups or
"technical" lists like linux-sound, gimp-user or whatever, but I think
there's a lot to talk about as far as the aspects of using Linux and free
software in creative or "art" projects.
Another reason I see a bright future for Linux and this kind of work is
philosophical, and involves the nature of free software published via GNU
GPL copyleft. I did an analysis of the GPL and after talking this over in
detail with various people, including Richard Stallman, came to the
conclusion that the GPL could be applied generically to _any_ digital
information, not just computer programs -- thus music, texts, images and any
other data could in fact have the same copyleft as enjoyed by Linux and
other free software. I wrote a HOWTO on this subject, which is published at
<http://dsl.org/copyleft/>.
This is what I've been doing right now with Linux:
* Making music. I've successfully done some hard-disk recording on my Linux
box, and have recently begun to use what sound-generation apps I have to
generate music with it, too (above and beyond "cat /proc/kcore > /dev/audio"
;-). While not generated on my box nor originally a hard-disk recorded work,
I digitized a music album I made and used Linux to burn a CD of it. The
files are also online (copylefted, of course) at
<http://dsl.org/m/doc/mus/magical_animal/>. I've been experimenting with the
"multitrack" program and forsee a whole world of possibilities here for
Linux and music.
* Writing, typesetting and book-on-demand publishing. Just about everything
I write originates in Emacs. My first novel, _Sunclipse_, is out in text, HTML,
and TeX-derived PostScript formats <http://dsl.org/m/doc/lit/sunclipse.html>
-- and doing this was trivial with Linux.
I use TeX to create excellent-looking printed documents and recently have
been experimenting with using TeX as a way to produce chapbooks, zines and
other small "book-on-demand" publications. I've also been thinking about the
nature of desktop publishing systems and whether or not something like HTML
and style sheets could supercede the old school of PageMaker etc. programs.
For posters and the like, I either code directly in PostScript (like to make
mandalas and other cool illustrations, as described in a book called (I
think) _Learning PostScript: A Visual Approach_) or HTML (to make quick
signs or whatnot).
* Images, illustration, and photo editing. xfig, xpaint, and most
importantly, GIMP. 'Nuff said. ;D
Finally, great thanks go to the kind folks at Linux International
<http://www.li.org/>, including Patrick D'Cruze and Martin Michlmayr, for
making this list possible.
Welcome to the list. Looking forward to hearing from everybody,
m
email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright (c) 1997 Michael Stutz; this information is
<http://dsl.org/m/> free and may be reproduced under GNU GPL, and as long
as this sentence remains; it comes with absolutely NO
WARRANTY; for details see <http://dsl.org/copyleft/>.
