emacsen's journal
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Below are the 10 most recent journal entries recorded in the "emacsen" journal:
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10:29 pm
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Never forgetting the Free in Free Software
A few weeks ago I posted a reply to my local LUG list asking them to reference a large event as supporting both Free Software as well as Open Source (which had been the original title).
The replies I received amounted to "Shut the hell up", and one list member stating that people should fear me, I am "capable of anything".
I decided not to go to the event, a "picnic" as discussed. I'd received too many responses- not just negative responses but threats. Why go into a situation with such negativity when I could just as easily spend it at home with my girlfriend? Moreover, why bring her into a situation where she could be hurt, or at very least, be fearful of my safety?
But when I saw this same group hadn't had a speaker in about six months, I stepped up to give a talk.
The premise of the talk is the role of GNU/Linux and Free Software in the mobile phone. And to be sure, I'll cover the basics of both the Android and OpenMoko platforms, but at the same time no less than 1/3rd of the talk will be dedicated to Free Software, specifically the unique role that Free Software plays in this new computing platform, or more specifically, the dangers of non-Free platforms in this space.
The question I've had to ask myself is why. It's not so much the flamewars. I've been on the 'net in various forms since the mid-90s. Trolls and flamewars are part of the fabric of online life. What's changed for me is that the hostility has moved from one of ideas to personal attacks. These have never been part of the equation and I can tell you that up until now, I've never felt physically threatened by the FLOSS community.
There's also the question of why give a talk to a group which has been consumed largely with apathy and hasn't booked a speaker in so long. It wouldn't be an exaggeration for me to tell you that I weighed these views heavily when deciding to offer to give another talk.
The answer is that despite itself, the "Linux" community needs us in the Free Software community to remind them of what's really at stake. It riles people up when I openly criticize Linux. I honestly couldn't care less about the kernel, nor the Unix design in general. My main focus is on control, ensuring that the user remains in control of their machine and their data.
This is why I make the effort.
Tags: computers, politics, rant
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08:57 am
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Galvanic Skin Responses
According to this story from Marketplace, ABC and ESNP are embarking on a program to monitor viewers heart beats and galvanic skin responses.
Stories like this make me glad I've gotten off the TV hamster-wheel.
Tags: rant
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07:16 am
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Follow the White Russian
I had some difficulty with my Internet yesterday and thought that this would be a good time to upgrade to Kamakaze (the current OpenWRT release). Big mistake. Unless you want to spend time with the minutiae that is the config settings in OpenWRT (which have changed completely between the two versions), stick with White Russian until X-Wrt is finished porting their nifty web apps to the new interface. I spend 45 minutes and couldn't figure out why clients weren't being routed properly out to the Internet. Doesn't seem worth it to me. Maybe in a few months...
Tags: computers, rant
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09:55 pm
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wrt45g, nslu2 and what I did this weekend
I put Debian on an old nslu2 this weekend. After some issues with the installer, I eventually got it all working.
I had to add a new static DHCP entry for the nslu2 box. The wrt45g box uses dnsmasq[1] for DHCP and I had to mess with it to get it to accept the new address.
Installed an NFS server on the box and got NFSv4 working[2], but sadly there's some issue with Ubuntu not supporting everything that's needed. I'm not entirely sure what the issue is, but I believe that one of the services that does UID mapping isn't ready "out of the box" on Ubuntu. But NFSv3 is still around and works fine for my needs.
Doing those steps manually shows me just how far we have to go for things like auto network configuration and ZeroConf accessible storage resources. I really should buy a new WRT45G and put a newer OS on it and experiment with making two internal networks (one for known hosts and one for unknown hosts) and set up VPN on the router. I think that's somewhere near the end of my queue...
[1] I decided DNSMasq was less memory intensive than running Bind + DHCPD, and I don't need anything fancy.
[2] It required some very minor fiddling with services, adding new entries in fstab and reworking /etc/exports
Tags: computers, rant, zeroconf
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06:00 am
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Python, I'm sorry but you cause me pain
My work on Pea has picked up again lately. My plan was to fix up the major bugs and make a release which I'd turn into a Debian package (learning both distutils and debhelper).
The major bugs I'd found have been largely addressed:
There was a bug where newly subscribed feeds had the podcast numbers in reverse. That's fixed.
There was a bug where some of the configuration options in the local file weren't overriding the defaults. That's fixed.
There was a bug where the temporary file names didn't match what I thought they should be. That's fixed.
But suddenly this week I started getting a very odd bug. Some of the podcasts casts weren't being moved from the temporary file location to the permanent one. The odd part was that it wasn't all podcasts not being moved, just some of them, making the problem hard to debug.
In hindsight, the right answer would have been to do an svn diff against old versions of the code until I found the bug, but since I hadn't touched the part of the code that handles downloading, that I was seeing a deep bug which was only being expressed now. In the end, I spent several hours looking at the various podcasts which were stored and trying to find a commonality, along with debugging the code.
I eventually found the problem. I must have accidentally indented a single line in the code.
From this:
if not isdir(dirname):
makedirs(dirname)
rename(tempfilename, filename)
cast['filename'] = filename
To this:
if not isdir(dirname):
makedirs(dirname)
rename(tempfilename, filename)
cast['filename'] = filename
Lessons learned:
1) Python's spacing is often problematic.
2) Don't assume bugs are deep
3) Use your version control diffs to find bugs, assume new bugs are new
Tags: computer, programming, python, rant
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06:34 pm
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Apple and DRM, the reality
A quick reality check on the Apple DRM situation from two weeks ago. I waited a couple of weeks for things to shake out, and they have.
The quick summary is that the music company EMI has made a deal with Apple to offer EMI's music (minus The Beatles) to customers without DRM. Many folks credit Steve Jobs for this, given his open letter against DRM.
The reality here is far less pretty.
First, most regular people I've spoken to about this don't realize that non-DRM doesn't mean non-AAC. AAC "Advanced Audio Coding" is the audio format Apple has chosen to support. AAC files are still largely Apple only. If you have a competitor's player, your non-DRM files won't work. Even Rockbox, the popular firmware replacement that plays Vorbis and Flac, doesn't play AAC yet. Even though AAC is in the process of being standardized, with so few implementations, Apple retains a de-facto hold on the market. This is especially true since DRM files and not distinguished from non-DRM files, so a future player with AAC support may not play all your iTunes music.
Secondly, Apple is charging a high preium for not enabling DRM, essentially punishing their "in the know" customers with a 32% penalty ($1.30 a song instead of .99) . At this penalthy, a 16 track album will cost more than $20.80 instead of $15.84.
Thirdly, Apple's non-DRM stance is selecttive. A number of artists have uploaded thier Creative Commons licensed work to the iTunes Music store. Apple has insisted on DRMing this music even though by doing so, they violate the Creative Commons license. If Apple were truley concerned about DRM, they would have allowed for non-DRM music to have been made available before this EMI stance. The reality of the situation is that Apple depends on DRM as a part of its vertical integration strategy in controlling the music industry.
This poisition is supported by Apple's continued distribution of video content with DRM. Since Steve Jobs has a large stake in Disney, he should be able to use his power and influence in deciding how Disney works are distributed though the iTunes store. Jobs has responded on this point by saying that, unlike music, "the market" has never known a time when video has not been DRMed. Of course we all know this isn't true, since most every video distribution model except iTunes has no DRM, including the broadcast and cable distribution systems, as well as VHS, and to a lesser extent, DVDs.
Apple would like to keep its image up as the little guy fighting for consumers against the powers that be ala it's famous 1984 commercial, but the reality is that Apple has always been more focused on marketing itself as a good company than taking actions that favor the consumer.
Tags: computers, drm, politics, rant
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10:12 pm
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Debian, RPath, Ian and Ressu: Moving a Mountain, Building a Platform
Debian is the largest GNU/Linux distribut
ion yet the project is slowly
failing. Each release comes with less frequency, and innovation inside
Debian has nearly come to a standstill. Debian's future may lie not in
its current work, but its ability to transform itself into something
new. ( Read more... )
Tags: computers, debian, rant, ubuntu
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09:52 am
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Political Ass Licking
If anyone hasn't heard this year's Radio and Television Correspondence Dinner entertainment, I highly encourage you to do so.
Some of you may have been fooled last year to think that Steven Colbert's performance would be indicative of the tone of the group, but this year there's no possible misunderstanding. This year's performance was by a group called "Jib-Jab", which sounded like a mix between Capital Steps and Nickelodeon, complete with sound effects, and poking fun at the media itself.
I don't think that the media needs to have an adversarial relationship with the presidency, only that the two should never forget their places and duties.
The media, under increasing corporate control, has remained a mouth peace of this administration and as such, has no reason have any edgy entertainment at an event like this.
Further Kudos to Steven Colbert.
Tags: politics, rant
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09:32 pm
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My .02 on the Sirius/XM Merger
Here's my .02 on the Sirius/XM merger being presented to the DOJ and FCC.
( Read more... )
Tags: politics, rant
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10:40 pm
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Our Invisible Master
This weekend I saw the film "The Corporation". I was fairly skeptical about the film, but what I saw genuinely changed my view on corporations and the econony.
I like to think of myself as fairly educated. I worked for a consumer rights organization. I read a lot of news, I watch Frontline and NOW. I stay informed about corporate control. The puzzle peice for me has always been in the understanding of where the evil tendency of large buisness comes from.
I don't believe the vast majority of people are inherintly evil. I do think there are people at every level of society who display symptoms of psychopathology, and there are people in our society who have been raised without the ability to empathize or experience compassion. Still, for the "Big Evil Machine" of corporate power to work would take too many people with too many sociopathic tendencies. Where, then, does the disconnect lie?
( Read more... )
Tags: politics, rant, review
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emacsen's journal