FOSDEM - a geek trip to Brussels. Going abroad to experience different cultures. Or at least, a chance to eat chips, suffer rain, and watch American TV in a different country.

Many moons ago I tried using Windows for a week to see how the other half live. Despite my thorough openness and fairness, I still got criticized! (Well, it wouldn’t be the free software community if people didn’t, I suppose!) So, when I needed I new PC I decided to take the plunge and buy one. For the first time ever I bought a PC from a shop, instead of building it myself. Consequently, it came with Vista pre-installed. So I decided to spend a week with it to see what had changed…

So I, along with everyone else today, got forwarded this link which shows that Wikipedia has begun its journey from an edit-focused hive of activity, to read-only archive, as people stop editing the site.

As one of the larger “open” projects, it can point to possibilities in the future for other projects. It also mirrors smaller projects, and the history we discovered years ago. So, what does this tell us?

With the lay public now moving their businesses and lives online, everything they do has an electronic component. But, being lay people, they’re using the most antiquated, bug-ridden, security-deficient, poorly-implemented solutions and services possible. And this is despite being told better. They indulge in PayPal, eBay, FaceBook, DRM, MySpace, and on-line shopping. All of which suck…

Two things piqued my interest recently. One was the iPlayer protests at the BBC, the other was the Wiki tracker project. More specifically, it was the reporting of these events. In the case of the former, it went virtually unreported and made me proud of our independent and open news sources and reporting network. The latter highlighted (again) the many issues of user-generated content. Is there a half-way house?

Microsoft. Open-Source Certification. This is not an April Fools, apparently. According to various news feeds (this was brought to my attention from PCWorld, but YMMV as these stories are periodic) they will be submitting some of their “shared source” licenses to the OSI. This is genuinely fantastic news, as after years of FUDing us around, they finally admit that Open Source exists, is a good thing, non-cancerous, and something with which they want to get involved. It’s also very flattering, because since they’re submitting to the OSI it tells us that they acknowledge the term “Open Source” (and by its implication “Free Software”) and that its definition is vested and controlled. By someone else.

But now they’ve built the bridge, they need to know how to cross it. There’s a cultural divide that has been fostered through the years. So listen up Microsoft, this is your next step in allowing shared source to become compatible with FOSS licenses and - more importantly - its inherent ideals!

I can still remember my first LUG meeting; the Greater London Linux User Group at the GND building, London. I met developers, end users, geeks, sysadmins, and a magazine editor who, although neither of us knew it at the time, would later publish my first articles on Linux. These were people with intelligence, soul, and consideration. I had finally found a like-minded milieu for my free software tendancies.

To contrast, in my capacity as the local “geek about town”, I recently attended a one-off event intended to bring together the local geek community to examine the future of the Web 2.0 technology platform. Of all the people present I met only three geeks. Everyone else was a corporate schill wanting to tell me of how their corporate strategy was going to change the face of Web 2.0. Or a marketroid relentless pushing their closed-source buzzword-compliant platform. Or bourgeois recruiters intent solely on badmouthing every employer they didn’t represent. Or a hanger-on, desperate for free beer. Alas, this was not the first geek event hijacked by corporate import.

So what happened to the community?

Having a web page is probably the most complex of the ‘simple’ tasks available. The typical process pipeline would begin with DNS, converting a human-friendly name into an IP address, and would be registered through one of the many registrars on the Internet. This IP address would connect, via your ISP’s address block, to your public router or load balancer, routing valid traffic (and only the valid traffic) to the appropriate machine on your network. This machine could be a GNU/Linux box, an embedded device, or an arbitrary, standalone, application that just happens to open a suitable port. This machine relies on the server software and (sometimes) the underlying operating system to determine which files are available to which users.

And at every stage there’s software involved that could be bugged, broken, or suffering planet-sized security flaws. Each configuration file gives an opportunity for human error, opening the holes wider. Every registration service discloses a little more of your private information to the general public. With so many steps involved, is it any wonder that problems exist?

Usually, I use this spot to rant about something, or someone that’s riled me up in some way. My lack of discussion on software patents doesn’t mean I agree with them, it’s just that everyone else has been doing it. I couldn’t see why I should do so and be seen as just another blogger with nothing better to do with my time.

Someone that has plenty of things to do with their time is Simon Phipps. He was brought into Sun to work up their Open Source strategy, and was instrumental in getting Java released under the GPL. And he still has enough energy left to be a great speaker. I had the pleasure of meeting and hearing him talk last night, where he introduced his ideas for software patent form. Let’s face it - software patents are going to happen, so we might as well be constructive about it and guide it in the right direction, so it can be implemented in a manner with which we are agreeable.

As a GNU/Linux user and developer I rarely get to see how the other half lives. That is, Windows users. So, during my week off work, I had two goals: complete the recording of a music project I’d been working on, and finish as many outstanding (non-Linux-centric) projects as possible… using only Windows. I managed the first without too many problems (now to find a record deal ;) but had some issues on the second. This entry documents those problems, and the lessons to be learnt from it.

A new hard drive manufacturer, Sextor, is entering the market (pardon the pun!) by pre-loading all of it’s 120+ gig drives with porn and music MP3s to save users the time and effort in downloading them.

The announcement, made earlier today, says that Sextor will be providing pre-loaded drives as from October 9th 2007 in three different flavours, general porn, MP3s, and TV shows. A spokesman commented on the decision.

With the bickering about what Dell will and won’t do to provide Linux on their desktop machines, it seems to me there’s a much easier way to introduce GNU/Linux into the world. Scrap it!

FOSDEM - a geek trip to Brussels. Going abroad to experience different cultures. Or at least, a chance to eat chips, suffer rain, and watch American TV in a different country. What follows is my diary of the event, told from a primarily personal and social aspect… but with all personal details withheld to protect the innocent and guilty alike.

[Click here for an expanded, updated version of this blog entry which hasnow been published in issue 17 of Free Software Magazine!]

Programmers. The system administrators worship their bit twiddling capabilities. The users exchange vast quantities of beer for new features and tools. And the project managers sell their soul when they make the magic work. But inside the average programmer’s psyche are several demons that need exorcising.

Pride

Drink was the first great leveller, as it brings everyone to the floor eventually. The second was the Internet. Everyone can be published, listened to, and promoted giving freedom of expression to the masses. Community-driven development is the third leveller, as it allows anyone to affect a project that’s important to them, as either a programmer, artist, writer, or web designer. Alas, the leveller in this case engenders a flat uninteresting landscape because these self-assumed polymaths reduce everything to the best they could manage. And not the best that can be achieved.

It’s this:

1. Download some software that isn’t pre-packaged with your distribution, and try to build it.
2. Er.
3. That’s it!

(Or, how to prevent the Dark Ages of computing through free software)

In a few years time, it will be impossible to study the history of home computers since everything at the time was proprietary; both in terms of the physical hardware, and all the software that ran upon it since most of it is encumbered by software “protection” to prevent copying.

To compound the problem, the hardware is dying (literally) and (being proprietary) can’t be rebuilt in any equivalent manner. In some cases the software is physically disintegrating too since, in the case of many 8-bit micros from the 1980’s, the storage medium was cassette tape; a temperamental mechanism at the time, let alone now. It’s not that no computer innovation took place in the 1980’s, just that none of it will be recorded.

What follows is a ten-point plan outlining the primary issues of digital archaeology, the methods necessary to preserve the legacy, and how free software can lead this endeavour.

The ideals of free software may have freedom have its center, but for many the concept of ‘free’ relates to its price. Even with RMS’s jingoistic “free as in freedom, not free as in beer” people don’t get it. Even though RMS has repeatedly said he has no problem with commercial software, the message is not getting through. Instead, the merest hint that someone in the community might be making money from something open source related sends large factions into spasms of rabid anti-commercialism.

There is a fundamental problem with GNU/Linux—it requires clueful people to exist in the IT food chain. Anywhere in the food chain. It doesn’t take an experienced kernel hacker to install GNU/Linux, run a web server, or teach people how to log on to the network. It just requires a user with an interest in the subject, the ability to solve problems, and the desire to achieve results.