Safe as Milk

To stir or not to stir?

That is the question…

I am honoured to have become the latest GNOME personality to catch the eye of Sam Varghese.

Sam feels I was unfair in my characterisation of him as a “shock jock”. He may be right… he says himself that the definition of a shock jock is “a slang term used to describe a type of radio broadcaster (sometimes a disc jockey) who attracts attention using humor (sic) that a significant portion of the listening audience may find offensive.” Clearly, since Sam’s not funny, I was unfair. Sorry Sam.

I take issue with Sam’s massive leap (which reminds me of when my maths professors used to say “obviously it follows…” at the end of complicated theorems) when he says that I “have to fight the perception that any of [our] major sponsors is making nice noises to the other camp”.

First, as I have told Sam on numerous occasions when he contacts us for answers to leading questions, we do not think of KDE as “the other camp”. Second, Mark Shuttleworth doesn’t exactly avoid a perception that he’s a fan of KDE. Later in the same article, he says that he thinks that KDE have got a nice rate of development going, and are driving innovation better than GNOME. He’s the first top-paying member of KDE eV, which is roughly the same amount of money annually as Canonical gives to GNOME.

And Mark’s not alone. Nokia are sponsors of both Akademy and GUADEC, as well as investing heavily in both GNOME (through Maemo) and QT (and paying the wages of some KDE developers).

What Sam has trouble understanding is that I have an issue with sloppy journalism. I like the KDE developers, we get on well, and I’ve done a lot of work bridging gaps between projects – whether it be through the organisation of Libre Graphics Meeting or FOSTEL, or my participation in the FLOSS Foundations group, or the numerous conversations I have with KDE board members about any number of subjects (including Akademy & GUADEC colocating).

So when Sam sets me up as a shill, or as someone who has a problem with KDE (or considers them competitors) he’s ignoring a body of evidence that suggests otherwise. But then, with Sam, that’s par for the course.

Brothers separated at birth?

I only noticed this after finally meeting him in the flesh at LinuxTag – Aaron Seigo bears an uncanny resemblance to Franck Ribéry, French footballer extraordinaire (except for the scars that Franck got going through a windshield as a kid and the funky hairdo).

The proof?

Aaron Seigo

Franck Ribery

Get a First Life and the SecondLife trademarks

I am not a Second Life resident, and so far I have not had the inclination to become one. But this message from Linden Labs in response to the very funny parody site Get a First Life brought a big broad smile to my face – and gives me ideas about the ways in which the GNOME Foundation should be handling trademark issues. Talk about turning an opportunity for bad press into good press.

(via Jim Fruchterman of Benetech, one of my heros)

Dirk Hondel on GNOME

On the occasion of the release of Portland v. 1.0, VNUNet digs up a classic quote:

“The KDE guys desperately wanted to look and feel like Windows, and the other guys desperately wanted to make it as hard to use as possible,” said Dirk Hondel at LinuxWorld in San Francisco in August.

Joshorn

So Jono got shaved at LRL – and now he needs a new hackergochi.

Before the shaving, I was anticipating the event, and with my reknowned GIMP skillz, decided to see what he’d look like afterwards. So now I give you the Jono shaved hackergochi.

An Australian solution to a global problem

Daggy music is one way to make the hoons leave an area, because they can’t stand the music

Who knew that Barry Manilow could become such a force for public order.