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English language planetList of feeds
Sign me up to social networking!
I do not like it when people tell Web 2.0 sites to send me invitation e-mail. I won’t enumerate the reasons here. But there is one reason for why I don’t like you passing on my address to those sites, which is subject of this article: Unlike popular belief, the Web 2.0 is not a money-printing machine. It’s a long road until you can actually generate real money with user content. Therefore, some shadey sites are probably selling contact details to advertisers to make ends meet while hoping for the big cashflow. I don’t have any data to back this up, and I want to change that:
Thank you for your time. Keep in mind: the more, the merrier. I’ll make sure to report back on the outcome of this little experiment right here, so watch this space. NP: Billy Joel: Cold Spring Harbor Posted Tue Feb 9 01:45:22 2010
New inter-forges discussion list on planetforge.org
You work on developing a software forge, you’re an admin for a software forge, or a project administrator. Join us and discuss (in english) forge matters on discussions@planetforge.org, to try and improve communication, sharing, reuse and interoperability among various hosting platforms, and collaborative development tools. You may prefer joining the PlanetForge RSS aggregator if you blog about forges (feel free to add it to your preferred RSS reader). Posted Mon Feb 8 11:07:12 2010
Working on standard forge exchange format
As part of COCLICO, we’re working on an exchange format for forges, that should help dump, restore, export and import from different software forges. There are various use cases for this, like moving a project from one forge to another, but also as backup/restore feature for forge admins. More about the rationale here. We’d like this format to be a standard some day, so it should have good properties so that it’s generic enough and at the same time easy to adopt. Thus it would be relatively easy to contribute new exporters or importers to an framework (for which we’ll implement basic core tools), while having a long-lasting format that can still be used in the future. A lot of work ahead of us, and this is just a short notice in
case you’re interested and you’d like to know more Stay tuned, and if interested, join discussions@planetforge.org to discuss this topic. P.S.: yes, it’s a rebirth of CoopX, somehow (see the coopx tag in my blog for more details) Posted Mon Feb 8 10:56:55 2010
Raiders of the lost (debian) package
Ever wondered whether you are missing a functionality of a
program because some With the Recommends now being installed by default, but not always, apt-get and aptitude use heuristics to know whether or not a recommended package should be installed (as far as I know, it is not if it should already be there by virtue of some Recommends, but is not). But, at some point, it would be good to be able to review the missing packages that you refused at some point (for some reason that may not apply any more). Also, when forcing installation, you can sometimes miss some dependencies on your package. Even if aptitude is able to list the problems for the second question (aptitude search ~i~b is roughly ok), the first one is not doable (aptitude search patterns cannot distinguish between an or clause of several dependencies and independent dependencies). I wrote (still in python with python-apt ≥ 0.7.93, so in unstable at the
moment) a program named Only positive dependencies types are considered (Pre-Depends, Depends, Recommends, Suggests and possibly Enhances). Negative dependencies will possibly be added later, but it is the presence of a dependency item in a clause that should trigger a warning, not the absence of all of them. The program is hosted there, and the packages are available here. ExamplesRunning apt-missing with no args is like doing apt-missing --recommends:# Package abiword has some Recommends missing:Interestingly, this pushed me to delete old module packages recommending no-more installed kernel images. Also apt-missing -a looks for all positive unsatisfied dependencies: # Package a2ps has some Suggests missing: Options
© Jean-Christophe Dubacq, licence CC-BY
Optimise Google
I had previously sought alternative, innovative search engines, but none of the proposed options made me particularly happy. About a year ago, I came across DuckDuckGo, and today, I’ve been using DDG as my primary search provider for exactly 10 months. The reasons why I switched included
I am aware that ?DuckDuckGo is index-based itself, using the Yahoo API, which, in turns means that ?DuckDuckGo may already be using Bing data. Sounds a bit like out of the frying pan into the fire, unfortunately. I am still investigating better search solutions, sticking with ?DuckDuckGo meanwhile. Unfortunately, ?DuckDuckGo doesn’t quite cut the mustard at all times, forcing me to go to Google instead. For this reason I am glad to find that the ?CustomizeGoogle Firefox extension has not been discontinued, but simply renamed to OptimizeGoogle. This extension allows me to anonymise my identity towards Google, remove click tracking (which Google doesn’t want you to know about and hence hide with ?JavaScript), hide ads, and customise a slew of other aspects of the giant’s search engine. It alleviates some of the aforementioned concerns, but not all. Maybe it’s time to rethink the way I use the web and lower my search needs. If you are using Firefox, try it out! If you’re still using Internet Exploder, you should not, and instead upgrade to Firefox. Users of other browsers might find similar functionality for their application, or might want to switch as well. NP: Tunng: Comments from the Inner Chorus Posted Sun Feb 7 21:51:31 2010
If I were a caricaturist
I’d draw a caricature involving a Toyota car, representing capitalism, with a stuck gas petal and Barack Obama trying to fix it. But as I cannot draw very well, especially recognizable people, I created this collage:  The photo of Obama was created by Beth Rankin. Posted Sun Feb 7 20:33:45 2010
FOSDEM - video helpers needed and DPL election
FOSDEM is the usual awesomeness
this year, I'm just too tired for too many words, so I'll keep this
post very brief.
Of waterfalls and communication culture
I got involved with open-source software before I learnt about software development in a university course. Naturally, when my profs tried to teach the waterfall model to me, I couldn’t take them too seriously back then. After all, requirements specification → design → implementation → verification → maintenance is not really in line with the principle to release early, release often. Furthermore, since water cannot flow uphill, the waterfall model fails to represent development cycles, as they naturally appear, even in behemoth, ancient software nightmares. And yet, when embarking on a new project, I do tend to find myself first thinking about the big picture, instead of churning out the code. I am certainly not the best coder out there, and it might well be that I could benefit from learning to break down problems to get an earlier start on the implementation of components. However, I maintain that avoiding the waterfalls and engaging directly in extreme programming, agile software development, or pair-based approaches right away is not the answer. Rather, the best approach should probably involve a certain level of conceptualisation before code is produced. I am a big fan of test-driven development, and I like the scrum method for the very reason that it involves talking and challenging ideas (although I wouldn’t follow the method down to the book). I like to think about trickles in the mountains where water droplets joyfully jump around. * * * When Glyn Moody spoke in his LCA2010 keynote about challenges we (as in society) face, and how open-source seems to have many answers, he dropped the following gem, which spoke right to my heart:
By this simile, journal articles are produced according to the waterfall model. This may well be why they are usually outdated at the time of publication. Microblogging (like Twitter), on the other hand, is primarily used to publish stuff before it’s ready, and which would never be published otherwise. With journals on one end, and microblogging on the other, I think the epiphany is found in between — as with software development: web logs — web applications that allow for easy publishing by anyone (which is a different problem not to be discussed here). Since articles on those platforms usually have at least a title and a body, they require just a little bit more thought than 140 characters of contracted brain farts, spilled into the world faster than it takes one to stand up to make money online, stretch, and sit down again. * * * Microblogging seems to be in line with where we’re heading: more information, more self-promotion, more access to more people, and all that with lower barriers of entry. It’s hard to argue against a trend, but I think we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. The one specific instance of content is no longer relevant, and there is no more time in the day to read elaborate treatments of subject matters. Instead, what seems to prevail is a constant flow. This flow threatens to replace actual thinking and discourse, both of which require reflection and time — a scarce resource used up by ever new, fast-flowing media. It seems to me that those who immersed in this flow are unable to get out, as if sucked in by a maelstrom. I’ve seen people enter serious withdrawal within hours of not knowing what’s going on in the world. One could miss out on something. If you’re “following” people on one of those microblogging platforms, I challenge you to spend the weekend offline and when the urge hits, ask yourself what you are actually missing. I mean what you are really missing, and by that I mean anything other than the cozy buzz and hum of entertainment washed upon you, preventing you from having to think about what you could be (actively) doing instead. I hope it’s not a lot. For else, I fear that this means that future generations will be stuck with this communication culture, just like water droplets can’t ever play in the mountain trickle again. NP: Sola Rosa: Get It Together Posted Sat Feb 6 06:53:55 2010
FontForge-Article in the German Linux-Magazin
Yesterday, I found the 3/10-issue of the German “Linux-Magazin” in my mailbox. (I don’t dare to call it the March issue – they are a bit off schedule...) On page 62, you can find my 3½ page article about creating a symbol font with FontForge. I briefly covered the topic on my blog and later thought that it would made a nice article, even though I’m not an expert on this area. The article will be freely available in about three years.This is already my third publication, after my article on the Cross-Site-Authentication attack that was published in the same magazine (circulation ~63.000) and in its international counterpart in 2005 and my recent article in the “freeX” magazine (circulation ~15.000). Looks like I’ll have to add a “Publications” section to my website soon... Posted Thu Feb 4 21:50:11 2010
AlsaMixer tries to be poetic
I've just unplugged my Audigy 2 NX from my laptop, not noticing
that alsamixer was still running.
When switching to the terminal it was running, I was greeted with: In the midst of the word he was trying to say, In the midst of his laughter and glee, He had softly and suddenly vanished away--- For the Snark was a Boojum, you see. (Lewis Carroll, "The Hunting of the Snark") The sound device was unplugged. Press F6 to select another sound card. Someone did have too much time... Posted Thu Feb 4 20:18:36 2010
Apologize for the inconvenience
Dear readers/visitors, I would like to apologize for the
inconvenience caused because of the website not available for few
hours today. We migrated our blog site from one account to another
one and hit few snags during the process. All is well now and we
hope to continue to serve you as we have been doing. Thank [...]
Posted Wed Feb 3 15:40:01 2010
I’m going to FOSDEM 2010
Next weekend it’s time for FOSDEM10 in Brussels. I’ll take part and give a short lightningtalk on saturday noon. If you want to meet me feel free to contact me here (via comment), at identi.ca, twitter or at the beer event on Friday night. Cu in Brussels!
pidgin-blinklight goes subliminal
A long while ago I wrote a plugin for gaim called gaim-thinklight that blinks ones ?ThinkPad ?ThinkLight when a new message arrives. By now it is called pidgin-blinklight and supports some other hardware as well, but has not changed since over a year. Today, I implemented a new feature, and I’m curious if it will actually work: Until now, the blink pattern was hardcoded: ON, wait 150ms, OFF,
wait 125ms, ON, wait 150ms, OFF. Since version 0.11,
pidgin-blinklight will calculate these three delay times based on
the contacts login name. So different contacts will have very
slightly different blinking patterns. The idea is that, after a
while, you start to recognize your frequent buddies already by the
blinking. The wait times are from the range from 50ms to 250ms, I
hope that range works well. Users of Debian
unstable will get the new version automatically. If you want to
compile pidgin-blinklight from source, you will have to grab it
from
the debian ftp server. The source is in the pidgin-blinklight
Darcs repository.
TIP: Getting rid of initramfs trying to update a non-exsiting initrd file
Problem: If you have been playing around with your Debian system
for a long time i.e. installing, purging, un-installing and
re-installing them again you might end up in a situation where
anytime you run a program, for example splashy, which triggers the
initramfs-tools you might end up with the following message:
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
/boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-mycustom does [...]
Adopted passwdqc
Tollef forced me to take over libpam-passwdqc after I had reported bug #517967. passwdqc is a toolset that can be used to enforce password strength policies at exactly the right place: there’s a PAM module, and with the next version, you can also use a library and command-line tools — read on below. The toolset gives administrators flexibility in defining the minimum password length based on the number of character classes a user tries to use. It also includes libpam-cracklib functionality and prevents the use of trivial passwords. I appreciate this functionality, so I had little choice but to make the best out of it:
Debhelper 7 is really nice. Thanks, Joey. Posted Thu Jan 28 05:30:49 2010
DistroSummit 2010
Linux.conf.au 2010 has come to an end and I am looking back at an intense week of conferencing. A big shout out to the organisers for their excellent work. I think LCA (as well as ?DebConf) just keeps getting better every year. This does not at all discredit previous organisers, because they were the best at their times and then passed on the wisdom and experience to help make it even better in the following year. The week started off with the DistroSummit, which Fabio and I organised. Slides are forthcoming, as I failed to get them off the speakers right after their talks — it’s interesting how stress levels and adrenaline can cause one to forget the most obvious things. This is where experience comes in. I’ll be there again next year, I hope, to do things better. The theme of the day was cross-distro collaboration, and we started the day a little bit on the Debian-side with Lucas Nussbaum telling us about quality assurance in Debian, alongside an overview of available resources. We hoped to give people from other distros pointers, and solicit feedback that would enable us to tie quality assurance closer together. Next up was Bdale Garbee who talked about the status of the Linux Standard Base. While I am really interested in such standardisation efforts, I realised during his talks that I had considerable difficulties paying attention because as organiser of the conference, I had all sorts of other things occupying my thoughts. I proceeded to tell the audience — the room was mostly filled throughout the day with an estimated 40–50 folks, and I’d say about half of them stayed throughout, while the other half came in and left the room between talks. I could not get the projector to work with my laptop after the upgrade to Kernel Mode Setting, and thus used the whiteboard to give a brief introduction to vcs-pkg.org, talk about the current state of affairs, summarise the trends in discussions around patch management and collaboration, give an outlook of what’s up next, and solicit some discussion. Sadly, just like during Bdale’s talk, I found myself worrying over the organisation of the day, rather than actually taking in most of the discussion. Fortunately, others have written about the most important points, so I defer to them. Michael Homer then told us about GoboLinux’s Aliens system, which is a way to integrate domain-specific packages with distro-specific package maintenance — e.g. how to get APT to handle CPAN directly, or how to let YUM manage Python packages. The ensuing discussion was interesting, and we carried it over to the next slot, because Scott, the next speaker, was stuck in traffic. To summarise briefly: scripting languages have a lot of NIH-style solutions because it works for them, but these are a nightmare to distro packagers. One symptom of the status quo is that complex software packages like Zimbra are forced to distribute all required components in their installation packages, which make distro packaging, quality assurance, and security support even harder. I don’t think we found a solution, other than the need for further standardisation (like the LSB), but the road seems to be a long and windy one. Laszlo Peter introduced the audience to SourceJuicer, a new build system used by OpenSolaris. The idea is that contributors submit packages via a web interface, kicking off a workflow incorporating discussion and vetting, and only after changes have been signed-off are packages forwarded to auto-builders and eventually end up in the package repository. This is very similar to upload ideas I’ve had a while ago, which I’ve started to (finally) implement. Unfortunately, ?SourceJuicer seems very specific to ?OpenSolaris, as well as non-modular, so that I probably won’t be able to reuse e.g. the web interface on top of a Debian-specific package builder. After the break, Dustin Kirkland stepped up to tell us about his user experience of Launchpad. Unfortunately, I found his talk a bit too enthusiastic. Launchpad undoubtedly has some very cool features and ideas, but it’s just one of the available solutions. The dicussion of Launchpad also dominated the next talk, in which Lucas Nussbaum told us about the Debian-Ubuntu relationship. While his presentation showed that the relationship was improving (Matt Zimmerman made the point that there are rather many relationships, rather than one relationship), I was a bit disturbed by the comments of Launchpad developers in the room, ranging from “Debian is declining anyway” to “Just use Launchpad if you want to collaborate with others and not go down”. There was a slight aura of arrogance in their comments which tainted my experience of the otherwise constructive discussions of the day. Overall I had a great time. Debian and Ubuntu made up the vast majority of attendants, with only a handful of representatives from other distros present. I wonder why that would be. One reason might be that around 70% of LCA attendants declared themselves Debian or Ubuntu users, and so there weren’t many other distros around. Another might be that I still haven’t spread the word enough. Let’s hope to do better next year! Thanks to all the speakers. We may have organised the day, but you made it happen and interesting! Slides and recordings of the talks will be linked from the archived website when they become available (yes, the archive page does not exist yet either). Update: Jelmer informed me that the people who spoke up against Debian during and after the Launchpad talk were not officially affiliated with Launchpad. It’s a shame that this negatively reflected upon Launchpad for some of the attendees (not just myself). Posted Thu Jan 28 04:34:19 2010
Packages and origins
Sometimes, I want to check where my packages come from.
Therefore, I wrote my first (real) Python program. package_origins [options]
The program also reads the origins in the file
A sample run: ./package_origins -o 'stable=ftp.fr.debian.org/stable testing=ftp.fr.debian.org/testing unstable=ftp.fr.debian.org/unstable experimental=ftp.fr.debian.org/experimental multimedia=www.debian-multimedia.org/unstable' -L 20 --columns 40Posted Wed Jan 27 12:18:31 2010
© Jean-Christophe Dubacq, licence CC-BY
TIP: 10 useful CD/DVD writing programs/software in Debian Linux
Purpose: In this post we will see some CDs/DVDs burning (or
writing) software that are available in Debian Lenny. For a long
time I have been dreading to burn CDs in Linux (don’t know why) and
I always use to end up burning in Windows. Finally I decided to
learn burning CDs/DVDs and here are [...]
Posted Wed Jan 27 03:36:36 2010
Serna XML editor uploaded to Debian
The XML-Editor Serna by Syntext has been published as Free Software a few months ago. This was very good news, because there was a lack of a good free XML editors with a good graphical view on ?DocBook documents, which I needed to recommend to users of zpub. Therefore, I investigated packaging Serna for Debian. I had to patch a few things to make it compile on and64 and to use components shipped by Debian where possible. Today, I could finally close the RFP bug filed by W. Martin Borgert, as the serna package was accepted by the ftp-masters. The first bug (SEGFAULT on startup on lenny) is already filed. I hope this is a good sign, as it shows that there is interest in the package. For my packaging workflow, I used git-svn to import the upstream SVN branch into a git repository. I then use git-dpm by Bernhard R. Link to manage my changes as patches in the new 3.0 (quilt) debian source package. I must say that I prefer this approach to git-buildpackage, as there is only one git branch to publish. I hope that Bernhard uploads git-dpm to Debian soon. Serna is quite a big software project and uses stuff that I know
little about (Qt, C++ with python interaction etc.). Also, the
package currently bundles the DITA-OT package, which should
rather be packaged separately. Therefore, I’d be glad if
co-maintainers would join the effort.
Vodafone intransparency
Coming to New Zealand for an extended period of time, I figured it would make sense to purchase a prepay mobile plan to make it easier to mix with locals. Not knowing better, I went with Vodafone, which I whole-heartedly regret: their website is a massive pain in the ass, their price plans completely over the top, and their customer service representative incompetent and unfriendly. My latest experience eclipsed all previous encounters, and makes me want to tell you about it: Between all the obscure add-ons Vodafone threw at me when I bought this SIM card, two weeks ago I couldn’t figure out how my balance had decreased from $30 to $0 when I rarely ever made calls. I wrote an e-mail to their customer service hotline, and it took them a week to get back to me, with the following text:
Obviously, I wasn’t going to accept this claim of omniscience, so when last weekend, $20 disappeared over the course of a day, that was the catalyst for me to reopen the ticket and reply along the lines of:
This seemed to convince the representative, and 8 messages and 11 days after my initial request, I was told I could request the records at $5/30 records. Yes, you read that right: they wanted to charge me to view the records. I thus replied:
That worked, and I finally got an Excel sheet with my usage data, which allowed me to track down the depletion of my account: to lure customers in, they promise free calls to other Vodafone numbers for the first four weekends. There are three problems with that though:
So thanks, Vodafone. You’ve lost a customer, who should have gone with 2degrees in the first place, who have much lower rates, even though their data coverage doesn’t seem as good. I don’t need data anyway. I’ll still insist on Vodafone providing the data in a Free format. You can find more information about NZ mobile phone providers on the LCA2010 wiki page. NP: Age Pryor: Shank’s Pony Posted Mon Jan 25 05:25:16 2010
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