Safe as Milk

The desktop Andy Oram would like to see

Andy Oram from O’Reilly and Associates (a very nice guy over email, and a man I would like to have a pint with one day if our paths ever cross) wrote an article on O’Reilly Radar about the problems he has with the desktop in general, and free software desktops in particular.

I’d rather have lean visual effects with minimal distractions (which can look very attractive) and let desktop developers focus on getting programs to be more open to each other and work together more tightly. I’m getting tired of moving between one silo of an application to another, a division I’m finding increasingly arbitrary.

In brief, Andy wants to have a set of pluggable components, each doing one thing well, which get brought together for a seamless user experience where that makes sense. I agree, but as Federico points out:

To turn a personal tool into an application robust enough for other people to use takes three times as much work as developing the personal tool. This includes polishing, documentation, and debugging.

To turn an application into a library (which Brooks calls a “programming system product”) so it can be used in the way I’ve asked as a component also requires three times as much work as developing the application.

Andy talked to myself, Federico, Lubos Lunak from KDE and others on the nature of the desktop, and what was going on right now to address that. All in all a little utopian and perhaps a bit simplistic, but a good read nonetheless.

WengoPhone 2.1.0 released!

It’s been long, it’s been painful, and it’s been one of those projects where I’ve been saying for weeks that we’ll be releasing very soon now, but it’s here!

The WengoPhone 2.1.0 represents a big step forward from the 2.0 release for a couple of reasons – not least is that it is stable and usable on Linux. We’ve added some major features too – secure calls with sRTP when the SIP platform supports it (which is most of the time), interoperability work to make it easier to configure accounts with SIP providers other than Wengo, a heap of usability fixes, and some nice work mby translators at LaunchPad which got us 100% translations in 13 languages – not too shabby.

Binaries are available at the OpenWengo website and source files and contrib binaries are available (or soon will be) at the developer’s community site.

Balloon animals

Back at Christmas, one of the presents that Thomas got was a box of balloons and a pump, and a small book explaining how to make balloon animals.

Being a good father, I decided to have a go

It took me a while to get things right – a lot of balloons ended up getting burst, but I finally got some reasonable results.

I also had a few disasters – this is a mouse in progress that lost an ear, but didn’t completely burst:

And I practiced ear twists and lock twists on this one, about which Anne commented “Looks like haemerrhoids”:

But in the end, the parrot, the crocodile, the centipede, the hummingbird and the giraffe were my pride & joy.

Links

Some interesting stuff I’ve read recently:

• Ari Jaaksi on collaborating on free software:
  

  I’ve noticed that companies are seting up different forums and clubs to standardize/promote/develop Linux/open source based technologies for mobile/consumer/embedded devices. I have my doubts… I do not fully understand how they plan to work. I’d go directly to places like the kernel.org or to GNOME to get things agreed, aligned, and -the most of all- developed. These are the communities that do the actual work and I’m not sure how these additional forums add value.

• An oldish article from Stormy Peters on free software and patents:
  

  I’m starting to wonder if we in the open-source community need a grass-roots effort to address patent and license issues… [the] effective and realistic means to protect the health of the open-source development model and community is to take a page from the corporate playbook.

The story continues…

A bunch of updates since last month:

FOSTEL

FOSTEL went really well – attendance was over what I expected, but we still had enough food & drinks for everyone (thanks to the very generous “traiteur”) and the content of both the presentations and BOFs was pretty good. A smidgin more organisation, and a round of introductions to start off the conference (which I wanted to do, and promptly forgot) would have been perfect.

As it was, I spent all my time running around sorting out last-minute issues, although I did get to have a good chat with some people, particularly over dinner. It was particularly good to see Craig Southeren and Jochen Topf, who have been giving me help with the conference from a distance.

I am still waiting to attend a free software conference where no-one has any trouble with the projector, though.

Roll on FOSTEL 2007 in Germany.

OpenWengo

We’re still in a heavy pre-release push for OpenWengo’s next release of the WengoPhone (I know, I know, I didn’t choose the names). Marco Marongiu talked to myself and Philippe Bernery from the project to ask us a little about the project’s past, present and future on the cusp of a major release.

Tendonitis

In spite of some early optimism from my tendonitis (it’s funny now that 3 weeks ago I was still wondering whether I’d be able to run the marathon), a short 2km run and the advice of my physiotherapist put paid to any hopes I had of doing any serious running for quite a few weeks. In addition, I haven’t had the chance to do any biking for the last couple of weeks either, and I’m starting to feel some of that condition going. Hopefully I’ll still manage to be fit for a 10k in a couple of weeks so that I can at least do some running when my friend Dennis comes over.

GNOME board

As usual, lots of stuff is happening with the board, and as usual, there’s much of it that we can only allude to in the minutes. And a couple of people aren’t happy with the level of secrecy in the board.

It’s a tough problem because in the same way that a developer doesn’t necessarily want to release his code until he’s got a working first prototype, if I’m working on something through the board, I’m not going to announce it to the entire membership until it’s reasonably consequential – to boot-strap things, you get buy-in from important companies & community members and nail down important elements of whatever it is you’re working on before going public.

One example where I’ve been confronted with this was when I worked on getting a GNOME store in place by getting a preferred merchandising supplier – in the end, I went public when we were still in contract negociations with someone, which then fell through (for a number of reasons). Would it have been better to keep quiet about the project until I was certain of success?

Profile

Why anyone would want to profile me, I don’t know, but back in February, I sat down with Joe Brockmeier in SCALE and chatted to him about my free software past and more. We got a bit waylaid back then, and followed up by email. The result was the bass for a profile of me which came out on linux.com recently.

Running is bad for your health

As some have noticed, I’ve been running for the past few months, training for a marathon at the end of April.

Since I started running, I have had a series of injuries – Achilles tendon from running uphill, a tendonitis in the groin from not stretching my hamstrings and adductors enough, and now, ITBS.

It’s another tendonitis which you get from running too long on a slanted surface, or poor posture during running, or pronation in your gait. Not sure which I did, although the doctor said I was fairly straight and he didn’t see any pronation, so it could be hip rotation, worn shoes, or just not changing footpath often enough.

The long & short of it is that whenever I run more than 10 or 15 minutes, I get knee pain. It’s nothing major, but it can take weeks to treat properly, so the chances are I’ll have to say goodbye to my marathon this time around… I am not giving up quite yet, but it’s not looking good.

Anyone reading this ever recovered from ITBS (syndrôme de l’essuie glace, ou tendinite du tenseur du fascia-lata en français) within 6 weeks of running a marathon? If so, what’s your secret?

The GNOME Foundation to work with SFLC

For many years, the GNOME Foundation has had pro-bono legal help through Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati – they have helped us with a lot of issues from drafting trademark usage guidelines and contracts through auditing our bylaws and lodging trademark registration papers.

But some issues have needed an in-depth knowledge of our project, our values and our community. Treademarks in particular is an area where the interplay between copyright, trademark and community is particularly sensitive, and needs expert knowledge of free software as well as expert knowledge of the law.

Last year, we welcomed the SFLC onto the GNOME advisory board as a non-profit advisor. The foundation and SFLC announced today that we have now become the SFLC’s newest client.

We will continue to use WSGR’s services for most of our legal needs, but for anything which touches on our stature as a free software project, we will now be able to call on the very special expertise offered by the SFLC.

Thanks are due to Luis Villa for proposing this idea and bringing the parties together, and Anne Oestergaard for finally bringing things to conclusion.

GNOME Live CDs II – the return!

They’re back! And this time, they’ve got company.

Two years ago, Luis Villa took up the cross and made sure that there was a GNOME LiveCD for GNOME 2.10 and GNOME 2.12 – he was joined in that journey by a band of companions like Marcus Bauer, the man who made sure the 2.12 Live CD was available in 12 languages.

After a couple of releases of a lapse, they’re back! We have revived torrent.gnome.org (with many thanks to Corey and Michael from OSU OSL for installing the server so quickly, and for providing the rack space and bandwidth, and to Intel for the 5U (!) server that it’s running off, and to Olav for getting things configured).

Ken van Dine is the man to send all the accolades – he’s one of the people behind Foresight Linux, the most GNOME friendly distro around – they release with the latest GNOME release on the same day as GNOME.

Not only do we have a LiveCD ISO image for download this time, though, we also have VMWare, QEMU and VHD Virtual Server images available for all you virtualisation freaks out there.

LiveCDs and VM appliances are good for a few different things – giving away at trade shows and conferences, showing off GNOME to your boss without having to spend all day installing, or writing and testing GNOME software for the latest platform without being on the bleeding edge for all your user needs.

So head on over to torrent.gnome.org and start seeding.

GNOME annual report

Here’s my foreword to the GNOME annual report which I just announced on foundation-list. The report is available on the Foundation website. This is the first time we’ve done an annual report, and I’d really love to hear what people think of it.

Dear Friends,

All traditions need a starting point, they say. What you now hold in your hands is the first annual report of the GNOME Foundation, at the end of what has been an eventful year for us.

Each year brings its challenges and rewards for the members of this global project. This year, many of our biggest challenges are in the legal arena. European countries have been passing laws to conform with the European Union Copyright Directive, and some, including France, have brought into law provisions which we as software developers find it hard to understand, but which appear to make much of what we do illegal. We have found ourselves in the center of patent wars as bigger companies jockey for position with offerings based on our hard work. And we are scratching our heads trying to figure out how to deal with the constraints of DRM and patents in multimedia, while still offering our users access to their media files.

But for each of these challenges, no matter how much they weigh on our minds, we also have liberating moments when we feel like the work we have done is changing the world. GNOME software will be included on the 1.2 million laptops which will be distributed to every Libyan schoolchild, ensuring that the world gets a new generation of free software developers in 10 or 15 years. The blood and sweat that we and other free software developers pour into our work has made it possible for people to have a real alternative to monopolistic hegemony—even if
we are not yet at a level where mass adoption is realistic. Social movements like the Software Freedom Day and the Free Culture movement spread our ideas far and wide. The enthusiasm and passion in the eyes of the people who use our software, and who love it for the price, but also for the freedom and community, makes all those evenings and nights spent in front of a screen feel worth it.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams, Eleanor Roosevelt once said. And so I give you the first GNOME Foundation annual report — the first of many. I invite you to join us in sharing the burden of our difficulties, and in celebrating our many successes. Let the future be ours, because our dreams are beautiful.

Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation, Chair

The future of GNOME?

A few days ago, I was asked for an interview what I thought the future of GNOME held – in the context of the recent LUGRadio episode (where GNOME’s lack of direction and leadership was cited as a major reason why we’re not making any revolutionary change to the desktop) I thought it was relevant and worth wider distribution.

We will see is one of two things happen – either GNOME will grow beyond what it is currently, and develop a number of different façades which will become GNOME releases (such as OLPC GNOME, LinEx GNOME, Enterprise GNOME, Home & Small Office GNOME, etc) or we will end up shrinking to something smaller than we currently are – the most important GNOME product will be the platform, which will then be re-used by third parties to build the interfaces they’re interested in on top of it.

We have already started to see this trend – distributors cherry-pick the applications they are interested in for their own desktop projects, which are then themed and targetted for their core audience. The variety of platforms and human interfaces being built upon the GNOME platform is dazzling – these go from small form-factor interfaces like the Nokia N800 and the Maemo application framework and OpenMoko and GPE through to innovative interfaces like Sugar from OLPC, which is totally unfamiliar to someone used to the GNOME desktop, but which is undeniably GNOME based. Even the major distributions have modified the GNOME interface to suit their needs – the OpenSuse, Red Hat Enterprise and Ubuntu desktops all behave in different ways, and have different target audiences.

Clearly, when you see groups like ACCESS, Nokia, OLPC, Sun, Novell, Red Hat and pretty much every other software producer and distributor in the free software market opening up their own internal sources, their preference is clear – they want to encourage common spaces of collaboration, and concentrate only on differentiation.

The project has the choice of embracing this trend, and becoming a place where this kind of targetted development happens in a co-ordinated (free software) way, or letting the trend pass us by, and have each distributor in the market have their own specialised interface, or search for collaboration elsewhere, and simply use the GNOME platform as just another building block.