Life is so good, it gets better every day

An Incredible Achievement

So this time, Java really goes open source, and in case you’re the last person on the planet to hear, the entire platform will now be released under the GPLv2 (including the classpath exception for some parts). Huge congratulations are due to the entire team who made it happen – you know who you are, you’re all rock stars. Check out the official announcement at 9am PST and watch some of the videos that are streaming in from people right across the free software community. In a bizarrely unplanned turn of events, the Java GNOME bindings go into Solaris Nevada at the end of the week.

Obviously there are some pretty insane challenges that are going to have to be faced over the next couple of months, and I’m personally hoping that the changes they bring will help other communities – everything from infrastructure like public bug trackers and source management, to tecnical issues like what to do with the TCK and what bits to release first to get to a fully buildable state, to more cultural issues like building/growing a community (though arguably it’s already there) and getting people in Sun directly involved. It’s another wonderful shift for Sun that makes things just a little more exciting. A pretty incredible year for the company, and I’m loving every bit.

Hell has frozen over. Very cool.

More OpenSolaris IRC Action

Awesome to see the localization and internationalization OpenSolaris community start an IRC channel, #opensolaris-i18n on irc.freenode.net. They’re still working on getting the translations out into the open, but already working on figuring out best practices and tools for the job. They’re super keen to, which is great to see, so drop in and say hi!

Little Miss Sunshine

I love the way you can go to the cinema, not really knowing much about a film and be in for a complete surprise. I went to see Little Miss Sunshine with Patrick and Dave this evening, after a quick eats at Charming Thai a small restaurant down on Columbo Street. The film was great, had me laughing from end to end, with a really great ending. I’d recommend this one highly, and now lust for a VW.

OpenSolaris on IRC

I guess there’s a lot of people out there that don’t really do IRC. It’s very easy to be distracted by it, very hard to switch off and ignore a window of constant conversation. For me, it’s been wonderful though. It’s the first personal interaction you get where you can start to learn about the people you’re working with and has been invaluable getting to know a lot of the GNOME folk in the 6 years I’ve been working at Sun.

Likewise for OpenSolaris. It’s been great getting to know a whole bunch of new people there. Being able to listen first hand to any feedback of how things are from a non-Sun perspective has been hugely educational, and a crucial step in getting the process of creating an open development environment. It’s also been personally great to be able to help various contributors out in real time, either by giving them information on bugs, ARC cases, or otherwise. Frustrating all round that things aren’t further advanced than we’d all like.

Without the continual help of Tpenta, stevel, sommerfeld, jmcp (while he was at Sun) and alanc, #opensolaris would be a very lonely place. I know there’s a lot more Sun engineers out there – I’d encourage you all to connect to #opensolaris on irc.freenode.net. Your community needs you!

Bad Hair Days

I’ve been getting a few recently, and most of the days I’ve gone down to get my hair cut have been pretty bad – I’ve had some shockers in my time, everything down to the mullet. Went down to ‘bojangles’ on 131 Armagh Street – it’s a little bit more expensive than your average $10 bar, but at $20 it’s far from expensive. Great service, real friendly dude, and a walk in, no appointments ‘this is a modern mans shop’ deal. I like it, and I recommend you checking it out if you’re near Christchurch. You even get a hot towel at the end.

New Music

I haven’t bought any new music for a long, long time, so having felt a little off form on Friday afternoon, I wandered in and met Jayne for a frappucino, and then a browse around the CD store. Picked up ‘This is not the target market’ by Steriogram (excellent so far), ‘Broken Boy Soldier’ by Raconteurs (again excellent), ‘Move by yourself’ by Donavon Frankenreiter (few few tracks being a little too Jamiroquai’y), and ‘Half the perfect world’ by Madeleine Peyroux (Careless Love seems better right now).

Climbing at Cattlestop

Heidi and myself got out for a sneaky trip to Cattlestop crag during the week. We were joined by Flo, Greg and his flatmate’s dog, Lizzy. The evenings are getting a little longer here, and you can pretty much climb until about 8 before the sun starts to drop and it gets cold again. Climbing at Britten crag (Cattlestop is just an extension of that crag up towards summit road) is always a little tricky when you first start off the season. It takes a while to find the various crimpers in that volcanic rock, and with occasional long run outs, it was a pretty cautious start. Started off on a bunch of easy 16’s, through harder 17’s and a real sweet 19 at the end. Planning on making it a regular session up there, and looking forward to pulling on steeper climbs.

Crocs

For everyone that hasn’t joined the crocs craze, you’re probably missing out. They’re ultra comfortable, ultra light, and ultra airy for those warm summer days. I’ve got a lime green pair of these babies and I’m loving them.

Not sure it’s the weather, but I’m getting freaking zapped like a lightning conductor with all the static. Anyone else experiencing this? Might have to add some static discharge strips to these buddies…

Broadband Cowboys

Telecom unsurprisingly get this award this week for providing me with bandwidth allowing me to download at a staggering 15KB/s this afternoon, which is barely workable for me while I work remote. Outside their definition of ‘peak hours’, I’m sure they’ll flick the switch and suddenly I’ll back back up to 180KB/s, as I was last night. Fitting that they currently choosing to associate themselves with MSN – maybe their speculated move to another partner may clean up their act, but I’m unconvinced. Once again I’m spectacularly disappointed with Telcom’s service. What a joke.

Keeping My Head Down

It’s been a busy couple of weeks work wise. While most of stuff inside has been relatively plain sailing, I’m still stuck in the middle of paper review for linux.conf.au. There has been some stunning proposals for the conference, and looking forward to it already. The less exciting thing is the 300+ proposals that I’m having to review as part of a wider review team. Heading over to Sydney for a short weekend to meet up with the guys and girls to come up with a kick ass schedule – I imagine there will be beer involved. Start making your LCA plans now!