OSCON Wrap-Up

This got backlogged due to all of the stuff I had to deal with before I up and disappear for close to month, but here it finally is.

OSCON, in a word, kicked ass. Okay, so two words. Aside from the fact that my luggage was lost for most of the time I was there, people were really impressed with our booth setup and with our commitment to the community. Let me explain.

We went in figuring that we would get railed due to the fact a large majority of people there would be there for Ubuntu live as well. I thought that at least every other person would walk up to us and say "Ive Switched." In fact, what we got was the exact opposite. We even got Ubuntu users AND developers coming up to us and tell us that we are doing some really cool stuff in Fedora. Boy, if they could only see the future!

A large number of people were visibly distraught at the fact that they paid $700 bucks for Ubuntu live and then Ubuntu didn't have an OSCON booth and not a single CD was there to be had. Naturally, they thought that Fedora would be the best place to vent this anger. After speaking to many of them, it seems as though they couldn't care less which distro they were running, they cared more about having someone at these shows representing their "clan" and someone they can vent their frustrations and delights at. Us being there worked well in this case.

I cannot begin to tell you how many people were so extremely enthusiastic about our little PS3 demo. People were walking up to us left and right asking us, "Hey is that Fedora on the PS3? That's wicked Cool!" I know, thats why I thought we should be showing that off. We even had a couple of IBM developers walk by us and tell us, "All of the cool innovation happens in Fedora anyway." Thats a direct quote.

That quote sums it up pretty efficiently and we heard alot of that stuff especially after Dave Jones' "Why Userspace Sucks" talk. It was really nice to have people acknowledge what we've been saying all along--we are the ones driving innovation forward.

Also, and this goes without saying, the OLPC was a massive draw. Everyone was really interesting in finally seeing the machines which will lead us to the promised land and did we ever deliver! We had non stop action around the thing. Education people, software people, government people, social movement people, a group of economists and we even had a monk come by and give us a benediction and thank us for contributing to such an awesome project.

We have some video footage which will go up somewhere once we have it in our hands. Other than that, I think that OSCON was the proper venue to re-invigorate the troops and to prove to everyone that not only will we not stop, but we are pushing forward even more quickly, with some pretty interesting initiatives and with a renewed commitment to our community showing that the Fedora 7 milestone wasn't the end of anything, it was simply the beginning of all the awesomeness to come.

Come Party With Fedora

Hey all you geeks in the valley or those making your way to LinuxWorld Expo SF! This is an open invitation to come on down and experience Fedora like you've never experienced it before. Heck, come experience open source, open content, free culture and lots of giveaways the way you never have before.

As part our booth goings on at LinuxWorld, we have a very special set up. I can't give it away, but you should know that you'll be stepping into the hottest party north of L.A.!!! We'll be asking you why you love Fedora, how you love Fedora, enabling people to create great open content, talking smack about the future of freedom as it applies to geekdom at large, showcasing some amazing hardware and software, and giving away tons of great stuff.

Oh yeah, did I mention the Live DJs, Fedora Kool Aid and free downloadable music?

It only gets better from there.

Plus, you'll get details about the Fedora BoF happening Wednesday night and very special after party and get together.

See you in SF August 7-9 2007 for the party of your open source, open content, geeked-out-to-the-max-and-loving-it life!

If There Was a Reason, It Was You

You know who you are....

Don't even think about reachin' me,
I won't be home.
Don't even think about stoppin' by,
Don't think of me at all.
I did, what I had to do
If there was a reason, it was you...

Don't even think about gettin' inside,
Voices in my head, voices.
I've got scratches, all over my arms,
One for each day, since I fell apart.
I did, what I had to do,
If there was a reason, it was you...

Footsteps in the hall, it was you,
Pictures on my chest, it was you,
It was you...

I did, what I had to do,
And if there was a reason,
There wasn't no reason,
And if, there's something you'd like to do,
Just let me continue, to blame you...

Footsteps in the hall, it was you.
Pictures on my chest, it was you.

The Guise of a Sheep in a Storm

I couldn't help but notice how Novell ripped off FUDCon and how Ryan Paul over at Arstechnica calls it "An Experiment in Innovation."

Can I get some truth please? Just this once!?

How about calling it like it is--the less than inventive efforts of a company severely lagging behind, and now severely hated in the community, trying to catch up with everyone else who are blazing a trail and leaving them in the dust.

Truth Delivered Daily.

The Novocaine You Pump in Your Cheek

It's quite interesting reading Jonathan Schwartz's blog. Frankly, the fact that he "gets it" is quite refreshing; there aren't too many of those folks around anymore, especially not as his level. Reading his latest post made me want to comment on something which seems kinds of backwards to me and has pissed me off in the recent past.

What's up with companies setting up "Direct" blogs, similar to what Dell has done, through which they communicate directly with customers? Where's the magic? What's the message there exactly? Before blogs we never really ever needed to listen to you guys, but now through the magic of the internets we thought it might be a good idea? Many companies hail this particular setup as a great achievement and, call me stupid, I just don't see it as that.

Wake up!!! You have been foolish not to listen to your customers in the past and just assume you know what was good for them and what they wanted was whatever was on your menu that particular quarter. A blog alone is not going to help until you admit that you've sinned, repented and decided that from now on, not only will you let customers post stuff to a blog for you to read, you will actually read it, listen and adjust accordingly.

I just love how good we've gotten at extolling the virtues of mediocrity.

Another Death by Misadventure

Everyone knows how much I love Linspire, the most useless entity on the face of the planet and now home to Fedora-defector Eric Raymond. So it should come as no surprise that I was less than pleased when I woke up this morning to see this: Linspire signs Patent Deal with Microsoft. They're dropping like flies, boys!

In reality I couldn't be happier that this happened. If we end up having to be the sole defenders of freedom, than so be it. I'm more than willing to line up and take my place amongst the righteous ones in history.

I just can't wait until Click n' Crap is available for every distro so that it infects all the stupid people who will doubtlessly run to use it. It's going to be rather unfortunate for those who are none the wiser though.

If I had the strength I would set up a boycott Linspire sight. I just don't have the time or the energy. Anyone else want to be part of the dismantling of a useless company? Let me know, I'll be glad to help.

God Bless Solid State

AWESOME!!! The pictures of the which I thought were lost forever along with my laptop turned up on one of my spare SD cards that I had stored away. I was so happy to find them, I'm freakin' ecstatic. The lesson that I learned from this is to buy more SD cards, the larger the better and just put stuff on them never delete them. When I run out of space, I can just run out and buy more SD. I figure its much better for backup purposes to use something solid state than a hard drive or raid array.

I don't know for some reason I find this the act of leaving stuff on SD more therapeutic than just backing up to a real disk.

OLPC on 60 Minutes this Sunday!!!!!

Congrats to everyone on the OLPC team and FOSS Community. This Sunday we hit the big time!

WATCH IT!!!

I Just Can't Catch A Break

Posting from my phone. Just got back to my car. Out of the 100 cars on the block someone decided to pick mine to break into and steal my laptop, TomTom and police badge. The laptop was going to be replaced soon anyway, and it sucks about the very expensive TomTom, but when my friend found out his family badge was stolen he flipped his lid. I'm in a really bad situation.

At this point I really need to re-evaluate my life. Just when I started to get some semblance of normalcy back, this hits me. Needless to say I'm in very very very low spirits right now. I'm seriously considering dropping off the radar for a long while and trying to make sense of things.

Peace.

Run the Presses

I think after all the awesome work we have done, we should be working equally as hard to make sure our good news makes the press.

So, Digg it.

Fedora Merges Core and Extras

We can now honestly say we are now, completely and 100%, by community, for community and of community.

Thanks to all who made it possible.

I'm Fine, Thank You

I believe things got way out of proportion before and I've taken down my last post for now. Thank you to everyone who helped me and gave me information. I was just looking for someone who was familiar with Fluoroquinolone poisoning who could give me some more information. There has been a mass of misinformation going around and I want to put the rumors to rest.

1. I am okay and will be fine. I suffered a bad reaction to a drug, no more, no less.

2. I did not have a heart attack, not by any means. I said I had a really rapid heart beat, thats it.

3. I do not have fluoride poisoning, I was wrong about that. I got that info from a nurse who suspected thats what I had, but as it turns out, thats not what I have.

4. I know people love to blow things waaaaaaay out of proportion, so please stop doing it. Everything is under control.

5. I found what I am looking for, so you can all stop emailing me/IMing and calling me.

6. Educate yourself about Fluoroquinlone antibotics so that you don't get yourself into a situation you don't want to be in.

7. Thanks to everyone who sent me relevant and useful info.

Condolence

I just wanted to send a shout out to Roozbeh to give him some support, given what he is going through. I also lost my grandfather a little more than a year ago and I was very close to him as well, I know what you're going through. Hang in there.

I Can't Can't Wait, Until You've See See Seen

I am proud as hell to be writing this post. Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my unbelievable pleasure to introduce to you the new undisputed champions of Punk, the band which has single handedly brought the rock crown back to New York City where it belongs--our good friends Bayside.

They are quickly rising to the top and it's no surprise. Never since the days of the Ramones has a guitar's every riff smacked you like taking an elbow to the face in the pit. Layered with deeply entertaining and thoughtful lyrics, grooving baselines, killer drums and vocals harmonies so sticky you'll swear they were covered in honey, it is some of the best punk since Green Day first hit the scene.

New York is mighty proud of our boys. Anthony, Jack, Nick and Chris, it was nice seeing you guys again earlier in the week. Keep on rockin' and take over the world! We'll be waiting for you when you get back.

Lay Down Your Arms

I need to get something off my chest. Recently, I feel as though there has been too much distro bashing going on. I admit my guilt in having participated wholeheartedly. I have also come to a realization that it has been, thus far, relentless, childish, foolish and immature. Consequently, it has proven contrary to the spirit of the greater community and clearly not productive.

We are all (well, mostly) reasonable people just looking out for the community and for each other. A difference of opinion shouldn't constitute a declaration of war. More importantly, we all have the same long term goals.

Don't get me wrong, I will still be the first to call out any iniquity on the part of anyone. I can never turn down a good fight--its just not my nature. However, I think that everyone needs to act more diplomatically, myself included, and pursue more savory discussion in an effort to create and coact better policy and solutions.

We need to work better together as a community, have more open dialogue and work in a concerted effort to disenfranchise the real enemies here. Unforgivable are the actions which desperate entities such as Novell take. Likewise, Microsoft is also clearly in our sights. Do I even need to mention SCO?

Sun on the other hand seems to have turned a new leaf. I don't think any of us views them as the bad guy any more. The same goes for IBM. Adobe seems to be opening their clamshell slowly. We really need to get on them. Ubuntu, by all accounts has been a run away success and has done much to forward the cause. Given they have all had some missteps, but then again, who hasn't. It just goes to show you how far competent management can take an organization.

The olive branch has been extended. Onward to victory.

Riddled with Metaphors

I would like to take a moment here to thank Novell for providing me with countless hours of priceless comedy. No matter how insanely terrible the weather outside might be, and no matter how crappy my day might be going, I can always look forward to getting an awesome laugh out of the latest story about the Microsoft/Novell deal.

I still don't understand how some people are so easily fooled. Look at what Novell's good friend Steve Ballmer said today.

"I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly establishes that open source is not free, and open source will have to respect the intellectual-property rights of others, just as any other competitor will."

So thanks for selling not only yourselves out, but everyone else, as well. We live in an age where the senselessness of one person or group is amplified and causes a definite domino effect.

To me, the above says that two things. First, Novell might as well fold up today, they're done. Second, the higher ups at Microsoft believe that the only way they can effectively compete with Open Source is via litigation. That's sad news because I know that there are smarter people at Microsoft who understand exactly how Open Source dramatically changes the value proposition for the customer, and are trying to reform that corrupt culture. Who knows, they might one day be successful. After all:

First they ignore you; Then they laugh at you; Then they fight you; Then you win.

Speak the Truth or Make Your Peace Another Way

I feel like I have to respond to the bigillion emails I received over the weekend with regard to my prior post. I am assuming that I owe most of the traffic to Matt Asay quoting me in his InfoWorld blog. Matt is one of that rare breed of people who bring delight with every word they write. If you're not reading him, you should be.

First, to make this blatantly, unequivocally and unmistakably clear--I do not hate neither Mark Shuttleworth nor Ubuntu. We should all be jealous. Mark is a stand up guy. After all, how many people do you know that have invested $10 Million in a true Linux company? I am also very appreciative of all the great work he has done with Canonical/Ubuntu, penetrating into markets which would have otherwise never heard the word Linux. I also have interminable admiration for his awesome humanitarianism. After all, is that not what we fight for day in and day out? To create a culture which values both physical and intellectual freedom and transparency so that future generations can have a freer existence?

Second, with regards to what I said last time, I meant every word of it, although I will admit it was said, somewhat, in the heat of the moment. I will however further explain the context within which I wrote it. I couldn't believe what I read because I believe that what they are doing is such a bad idea. Ubuntu is choosing to act pre-emptively, by providing users a means to access software, which although they might know they want, they don't understand why it is so bad for them to have. The fact that they want it so badly proves the point exactly; it's like an illegal drug.

Now I'm not saying that the users are idiots, which they are clearly not, but what I am saying is that if you are going to target the mainstream desktop and the whole wide world user base which comes along with it, odds are that people are going to be none-the-wiser. The same thing happened to us with fossil fuels and look at the sorry state we are in now, trying with all our wonderous ability to break its suffocating grip.

I believe that education about these social issues (and yes they are as much social issues as anything else), prior to opening these potentially hazardous channels is the only way to solve this problem. Like Matt Asay said in his blog, pragmatism needs to be balanced with advocacy. If we don't educate people then we are opening doors for the same travesties we suffer with to occur over and over and in other parts of the world as well. That being said, I view this as one whole big marketing mess, and while I do believe that the letter of the announcement was written in good faith, (providing value to the user base) it certainly violated the spirit of the values of the Open Source community.

On a final note, Linspire claims that they are going to unify packaging in the Linux world. They also claim the Click-N-Run source is open and available. I spent about two hour earlier today looking through various Linspire sites, wikis, and software repositories and was unable to find the code. Also, I think I sort of figured out they were saying was that the Click-N-Run plugin is Open Source but that the web service backend is not. I am dying for a member of the Linspire community to prove me wrong on this and point me the place where they offer the CNR code. And as for their claims that they will be the end all and be all of Linux package management, well, as they say in Missouri
--SHOW ME!

P.S. I am in no way affiliated with the state of Missouri, either officially, unofficially or clandestinely. I had a friend who was a reporter there once, but he's moved on. In fact the St. Louis Cardinals of Missouri defeated my Mets in the NLDS this year. Boy did that suck. ;)

Have a Drink! They're Buying!

It's mighty funny how things come full circle, often out of the blue. I got back from FUDCon on Sunday and started digging through my collection of CDs and records, trying to organize everything since it was a terrible, hopeless mess. I happened to come upon a CD which I hadn't listened to for a while--Pearl Jam's Binaural. I used to think it wasn't that good for some reason, but then again I hold them to really high standards. Anyway, a review of a 7 year old album isn't the point of the story here.

FUDCon was great. Everything worked out well, we got tons of work done and things were looking up. The community was solid, stronger than ever and I was high on life and confident that we were making inroads, positive progress, in our battle for freedom and liberty. I was so happy and my outlook so positive that even in the frozen New York air I felt like was on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas perhaps. Then I read this and this. Oh crap! What the hell is this nonsense?

I would like to point out one very important part of this press release.

"Beginning with Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu users will be able to use CNR to access commercial programs and proprietary drivers with one click of the mouse. In subsequent releases CNR technology will be integrated to provide an even better desktop user experience for getting commercial software."

[Que sound of needle coming off record]

The timing of this was impeccable. Right as I was listening to Binaural, track 9, Grievance. I instantly began to think this song was a message from God or Shadow Man; no one else could have timed this better. Let me explain. It all goes along so well with the lyrics of the song.

Progress laced with ramifications; freedom's Big Blur.

Mark Shuttleworth claims that Ubuntu is "Linux for Human Beings" and that they are going to be the entity which is going to be the pioneer of Linux on the desktop, coming in with guns blazing and driving Microsoft out of Dodge. Yet, the only thing I've seen from Ubuntu is crap, crap, proprietary crap and now, CNR--so more crap essentially. Ubuntu being "Linux for Human Beings" is at this point the same as saying "The Flu is for Human Beings". Hey, we will even ship you up to 5 copies of "The Flu" for free through our proprietary online application.

While some of us in the community are fighting for liberation, fighting to prove that we have a substantial enough user base to warrant the opening of drivers, fighting to be free, apparently the folks over at Canonical and Linspire couldn't care less. They're more than willing to force the poison apple down people's throats. Hey, is the tree too high for you to grab that poison? Why here's a ladder! It's named Ubuntu.

Progress simply cannot be laced with ramifications. It's all or none in this battle. Canonical and Linspire are perpetrating the biggest blur of freedom. In this fight, you are either pure of heart or not. There is no middle ground.

For every tool they lend us a loss of independence.

This line of the songs is clearly talking about CNR and Launchpad. If you're going to be open, be open and enable openness. Don't introduce "solutions" into the community which are going to put people in shackles and then drag them into a hell. A proprietary hell. I just want to call out Eric Raymond here for encouraging this kind of rubbish specifically. Are we so freaking desperate to have Linux win the desktop war that we are willing to compromise our values in order to succeed? To Mark Shuttleworth, Kevin Carmony and Eric Raymond the answer is apparently, yes. Yes we are.

This is why people like Richard Stallman and our very own Max Spevack are heroes. Sure, one of them might be conceived as a little crazy (I'm talking about Max there) but at least they know what is right and are unwilling to compromise the integrity of our community. While RMS actively advocates from freedom, people like Max are doing things to facilitate and further the cause, like collecting stats about our user base and shifting the burden of proof onto the hardware and software vendors. That, my friends, is the right combination, not the mixing of closed and open software. People like Mark Shuttleworth on the other hand might have their hearts in the right place, but they're drinking the wrong cocktail.

I pledge my grievance to the flag, cause you don't give blood then take it back again. Oh we're all deserving something more.

You heard that? You don't give blood then take it back again.

P.S. I mentioned the other two 8 times, so I need to make up for it. Fedora, Fedora, Fedora, Fedora, Fedora, Fedora, Fedora, Fedora, Fedora. Fedora will set you free.

N800 Envy

All these people posting rave reviews of the N800 is making me jealous. Someone send me a code. Please? Pretty Please?

Send me a code or the kitten gets it.

Rudy

I was completely oblivious to the news today that Rudy Giuliani had officially announced his candidacy for president until someone sent me an email a little while ago. I must say that I am strongly inclined to vote for him, should he win the Republican nomination. Before anyone goes and freaks out, let me explain why I think he would be an excellent president. Only a true New Yorker could describe to you what a phenom Rudy truly is.

Rudy Giuliani is a true political centrist. The man has courage and conviction. Never have I ever seen another politician in my life who was so purely interested in making life better for people. His political ideology and decisions are based on solid logic and good common sense. He doesn't jump to conclusions, he exhibits thought and practices due diligence.

How do I know this? A proven track record. Giuliani is pro-stem cell research, civil unions, social programs and all the other progressive ideas our country seems to want. He doesn't consider them progressive though, he considers them necessary for the betterment of peoples' condition. Giuliani doesn't focus on "right and wrong" as so many Republicans foolishly do, he focuses on "good and bad." The man is a true centrist and a true fighter for the rights people.

When I was growing up, New York City was a terrible shit hole. The physical condition of the city was terrible, graffiti covered almost every square inch, the city agencies ran like crap, there was rampant crime to the point where people were scared to walk around the streets past rush hours. Poverty was everywhere, in every neighborhood, drugs and guns flowed freely on the streets and everyone in the city felt like we were on the verge of the apocalypse. Rudy Giuliani came in and turned all that around and restored New York to its pinnacle. He reformed social programs and city agencies to ensure that they could deal with the growing poverty rate effectively and basically all but stamped it out in New York. He cleaned up our corrupt ass police force and actually made the streets safe for parents and kids alike. Giuliani rehabilitated the MTA and other critical services which restored life to the city and drastically increased the quality of our lives. He pushed the city council to enact fair, thoughtful and useful legislation. Legislation which encouraged freedom and innovation. He works with all sides and pays service to none. New York was on top again, where it belongs. Then came 9/11.

It is what we do in our most trying of times that defines us. Those with natural character and ability will always triumph over any obstacle. The ignorant will fall by the wayside and true leaders emerge. When we were down late in the game, an unlikely hero, Rudy, got us back in it and back on our feet. We went on to win that game.

In a world where New York is a microcosm, a melting pot, a mirror of the country, and even of the world, New Yorkers already know--Rudy Giuliani is not only a president, but a king.

Lost and Found

I just want to report about the awesomeness that is Pam Andrews and Matt Miller at BU. I left my camera in the Computer Lab Room 307 and they helped me track it down and now have it in their posession and it's on its way back to me. Special thanks to Jim Bardin as well.

BU is freaking awesome. I honestly have never seen an institution run as smoothly and as coordinated as the team at BU does. I guess that what happens though when you've got Pam and Matt running the show. My younger brother is applying to colleges right now and BU is one of his top choices. I am most definitely making sure he ends up at BU. This is one relationship worth fostering.

Camera Left in Room 307

Did anyone who was at the hackfest on Sunday perhaps see or pick up a Canon Powershot S3 IS in a small Samsonite case?

I remember I took my camera out and took a couple of shots and then put it back down, not near my belongings. I forgot it wherever I laid it down and didn't pack it up when we were in the mad rush to leave. I just arrived home and realized it isn't in my bag.

If you have any information please email me at jaboutboul@fedoraproject.org .

Thanks,
Jack

Undercover Agent

For those who frequently find themselves around a prominent and well wired coffee chain try setting your user agent to this:

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
App Name: Microsoft Internet Explorer
App Version: 4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0)
Platform: Win32

Restart your browser and there should magically appear a link to a Windows Vista Promotion. Enjoy your free wifi until April 30th.

All I Wanna Do Is Zudeo

I don't usually go out of my way to point out new fancy-shmancy Web 2.0 services, but I stumbled upon something this morning which I felt I had to make known. The good folks over at Azureus have started a new video sharing site, called Zudeo. The kickers here are that there is no flash required to view the videos (YES!!!!!!) and they actually solved the #1 problem with youTube--Zudeo supports HD!!

To my surprise, there wasn't much press coverage of this, except for this Wired story.

Word Up Magazine

More Novellgate, more Microsoft, more garbage. We all knew what the truth was, and now we have confirmation from the mouth of the ass, err, donkey. Wait, no, it is actually the ass. But I wouldn't dare paraphrase anything as good as this, you can read it yourself right here.

For those who will undoubtedly say your browser doesn't work with links, or that for some reason that link doesn't work, I'll paste the relevant lines below.

"We've had an issue, a problem that we've had to confront, which is because of the way the GPL (General Public License) works, and because open-source Linux does not come from a company -- Linux comes from the community -- the fact that that product uses our patented intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders. We spend $7 billion a year on R&D, our shareholders expect us to protect or license or get economic benefit from our patented innovations. So how do we somehow get the appropriate economic return for our patented innovation, and how do we do interoperability. The truth is, because of the complex licensing around the GPL, we actually didn't want to do one without the other."


"What we agreed, which is true, is we'll continue to try to grow Windows share at the expense of Linux. That's kind of our job. But to the degree that people are going to deploy Linux, we want Suse Linux to have the highest percent share of that, because only a customer who has Suse Linux actually has paid properly for the use of intellectual property from Microsoft. And we took a quota, you could say, to help them sell so much Suse Linux. That's part of the deal."

I don't know what else to say right now. We clearly knew all along that this is what they were getting at. Novell played right into their hands, easily. I would like to ask Ron Hovsepian what it's like to live without a soul. Did you gain the ability to fly? Can you teleport? It must be interesting.

I'm not going to take this sitting down, and surely, nobody else in the Open Source world should take this lightly. It's time to start churning the gears of war. I already have a plan. Are you with me?

Software Learnings for Make Benefit Glorious Open Source

What a glorious day for Open Source. I don't remember a day as good as this in a long while. My next post is going to include a ton of stuff from the Fedora Summit being held today, so I figured I should get to all the other great news of the day first.

First and Foremost, in what took a back seat in the news today, more than just reaction and raw emotion has started to pour out of the community regarding Novellgate. Today, the Samba Team sent Novell a big Fuck You (Sorry Kids). I'm glad to see projects becoming actively vocal about this and letting Novell know that the GPL and Open Source is not just another whore in their harem of short-term solutions to rectify their long standing history of malfeasance.

Secondly, Sun has finally acted upon their long standing promises of Open Sourcing Java. J2SE, J2ME and yes, even J2EE (read the press release) will now be offered under GPLv2. That's great news all around the table and truly a shot heard 'round the Open Source world. It's even better news for companies offering enterprise Java Application Stacks.

Jonathan Schwartz even got in on some of the Novell bashing fun. Awesome!!! So now, let's give credit where credit is due, Jonathan Schwartz, myself and freedom loving people around the world applaud you. Of course though, in traditional Sun-has-delusions-of-grandeur fashion, they decided to post this on their Open Source Java FAQ site.

"This singular act is the largest contribution ever made to the free software community, and places Sun squarely at the front of the open-source movement - as the single biggest commercial contributor."

Yeah, nice try. I think they make have gotten a little too excited. I really just posted that because I thought spot would get a kick out of reading it.

All in all, today should serve as a validation to all involved or watching the community that we are winning, we are affecting change and we will ultimately succeed in changing the world. It should also serve as a warning to all those skeptics who thought Open Source was and still is going nowhere fast (yes, I'm pointing at you guys at Gartner).

Fedora Summit - Day 1

I'm not going to go into too much detail since everyone sitting next to me is about to post in heavy detail about all that's going on. We nailed down an agenda concentrating on the key issues, started talking about defining what a Fedora "Platform" should be defined as, and got a good way through before everyone got brain dead. I blame it on the lack of caffeine here. I'll update stuff on this post as the day progresses and as time allows.

UPDATE: A one photo summary of the day's events thus far.

Don't Upset the Kernel Hacker!!

Listen All Of Y'all It's A Sabotage

Based on Jesse's request for a more eloquent scathing. Directed at all Novell Linux-centric Employees:

[For those who like song]
[To the tune of Beastie Boys' Sabotage]

I Can't Stand It, It Seems They Plan It,
But I'm Gonna Set It Straight, This Novell-Gate.
I Can't Stand Hacking When I'm In Here,
Because Your Commitment to Freedom Ain't So Crystal Clear.
So While You Sit Back And Wonder Why,
I Got This [censored for the kids] Thorn In My Side.
Make No Mistakes, This Is Not A Mirage,
I'm Tellin' All of Y'all It's Sabotage!

[For those who like prose]

I don't know how they do it in other places, but in New York, we throw down. That's right. We're not afraid to issue challenges, question mediocrity, expose improbity and when it comes down to it, just down right fight. The Free and Open Source and Free Culture movements are unabashedly and intensely committed to upholding the noble principles we hold so dear: Freedom, Liberty, Choice, Transparency, Candor, Responsibility and Value. What's more is that we always exhibit constancy of commitment towards those principles. In the battle we fight, perfidiousness is not an option.

So this is my challenge to all the Novell employees who are involved in Free and Open Source software in any way shape or form, from the lowliest hacker to directors, managers, VPs, former Ximian Employees, etc. Now that it is blatantly obvious that your corporation's commitment to these values is nothing more than a brief interlude on an infinitely unsuccessful and fruitless path, and if you yourselves are truly committed to the aforementioned values, pack up and leave. You heard me right--QUIT!

"Dems be big words from a small man," many of you might say. Yes, that might be true; I am a little on the short side. Last time I checked though, the minds and hearts of men are what truly define them. Those words are at least as big as my thoughts. That you're continued commitment to Novell, and this evil indenture, at this point and forever forward, constitutes nothing more than a concordat on your own parts to conspicuously taint the Open Source community, imperil the future of the movement and jeopardize your fellow hackers.

Those who feel threatened by Free and Open Source will always be lurking, waiting and eager to sink their loathsome claws into the next unassuming piece of prey, to attempt to hinder freedom and progress and delay their own inevitable fate. The only way to ensure that your life's work remain salubrious to the Open Source movement is to disassociate yourselves from these entities. You needn't fret about your livelihood either; there are many benevolent entities seeking hackers of your magnitude, which would warmly embrace your arrival.

All legal assurances and PR jabberwocky aside, you know in your hearts what is true and just and prudent and brave. Do it now so that come impending times you won't be unwillingly trapped, fighting for the enemy. You must escape with your conscience and souls while you can.

It Rains on Our Parade

The Mets were just eliminated from the postseason. I am deeply saddened by this fact. The team with the best record in baseball was just beaten by the team with the least wins coming into the postseason. It's a terrible tragedy and its very fitting and tragic that it was raining throughout most of the game while the Mets were experiencing an offensive drought.

You're not going to win games when you let key opportunities slip through your grip. Teams without good starting pitching will never win, even if those who fill in are successful in that role. Leaving 11 men on base, while your worst pitcher is 1 hitting the other team, is no recipe for success. As good as the Mets bullpen was all season, they gave up the game, but I don't blame them. I don't fault Aaron Heilman for giving up the home run.

The blame is all Willie Randolph's. He has made some horrible mistakes managing the team throughout this series. The most blatant being letting Oliver Perez continue to pitch, although he is bouncing pitches in the dirt, to pitch to Scott Rolen. Thank God for Endy Chavez and his Spiderman like leaping ability. Letting Cliff Floyd swing away in the bottom of the 9th. Also, why let Heilman continue to pitch the 9th when in the same situation he brought in Wagner in Game 2 (a game in which the Mets also had the lead 3 times and gave it up).

All in all it was an excellent, but the bitter taste in Mets' fans mouths will not be washed away quickly.

Revelations

Here comes the bombshell. After much introspection and after conferring with many hundreds of people, and one in particular just a few hours ago, I have decided that it would be prudent and wise to run for public office. It's the only way that certain goals can realistically be accomplished. I'm not talking about my own selfish, albeit important, goals. Although those would be nice. I am thinking of more noble ideals; which I am not going to spell out right now. I don't want to ascribe to any specific platforms right now--except for one. Things suck and I can, and will, make them better.

If you want more information, please email me. If you have money and would like to see it wisely appropriated (yes you, Mark Shuttleworth,) email me. If you think I'm crazy, email me.

While you won't be seeing me on any ballots on November 7th, 2006, know my friends that the day is not far away. Incumbents watch your backs.

Summer Has Come and Gone

Okay, so Summer is pretty much officially over here in New York. The last couple of days we've had 60 degree weather with cold winds. It just happened way to fast. Literally in the span of 3 days. Saturday was really nice and then on Sunday I needed to break out the jacket and jeans. Looks like its going be a long cold winter, which sucks. The upside though is that it means much more time indoors, thinking, writing, planning and working on cool things. Especially in a new environment there are many opportunities to exploit. Let's see what develops.

Jack

OSCON Day 0 - Freedom 2.0

So after 14 hours in the airport, I finally made it to Portland, got some rest, woke up right on time to head into the Conference Center for the O'Reilly Executive Briefing session, starring none other than our own Michael Tiemann. I wouldn't normally write about something like this, except that there was an interesting point made by Tim O'Reilly which was expanded upon by Michael.

A question was posed to the panel about what they thought the next big thing in technology will be? Obvious answers, such as virtualization, VoIP, "the ubiquitous network," faster and flashier toys, came pouring out rapidly. Then with a bit of a pause, Tim O'Reilly offered up an answer. "We seem to be heading towards a Cassandra complex." The unfortunate truth is, we have become so good at "doing tech", we are able to foresee and predict disasters and societal impediments, but we are still slow as ever to act, and sometimes it stems from just disbelief, or more likely just not being brave enough to face the future.

Michael expanded on this by relating a story of how while working with NOAA, they successfully rolled out a new platform which allowed them to track weather changes and patterns for windows as small as five minutes. The severity and likely damages of Hurricane Katrina were predicted two weeks in advance and we still failed miserably on the most important level of the game. A few hours later, irrelatively, Spot mentioned how odd it was to watch on television how the hotel which had just hosted the first Red Hat Summit in New Orleans, where an award was given out for Open Source Crisis Management Software, was being used as a triage center for Katrina victims.

Michael closed the talk by revising his earlier answer. The next big thing in technology will be when we can effectively democratize action based on the information which we have become so adept at processing. This is the true promise of a technologically advanced society.

Dean Raymond von Dran, of the Syracuse University School of Information Management related that many of society's most pressing issues are fundamentally, information problems. Whether it be faulty intelligence in a war or a certain Senator rambling on about the Internet being a series of tubes (I'm sure the intern feeding him information was fired), many of our modern dilemmas exist because of inability or callous reluctance to react to information.

Linux and Open Source have now grown up and matured past the point of arcane popsicle stick and glue black magic and Fantasia-like wizardry concocted with crude tools. Face it. We aren't alternative anymore, we ARE mainstream. The greatest contribution of the movement has been a truly viable and robust platform for processing all the world's information. We are now at a critical juncture where we must step back and face the future. If we cannot grow up and, as Michael said, enable the evolution of societal ripostes to our most critical contexts, what have we really accomplished? Have we really accomplished anything?

Everything seems to be 2.0 these days. We, as a community say we stand for freedom and rights. My dear friends, code for code's sake is fun, but now it's time to work towards Freedom 2.0.

Intending to Burn

This is primarily a test post, so you can go ahead and ignore it. I wanted to test out the new automatic feed translation that I enabled on my feed. I would prefer to publish in Atom, but of course not every reader (including Planet) likes parsing Atom feeds, so I had resorted to manually doing the Atom -> RSS 2.0 conversion. Theoretically, this should allow automatic detection of the client's capabilities and give it the right version of the feed. If things look messed up to someone, or if your client is choking and/or is spewing garbage please email me and let me know.

Fedora in Israel פדורה בישראל

Slow rolling clouds exhale warm winds along the picture perfect Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The water glistens, as if unsullied from creation, and soaring palm trees dot the landscape. The remainder of the scenery, green all over with abundant fruit trees, would seem a bit embellished, as if to indicate you've stumbled upon paradise. For me, it's a pleasant departure from the usual gray, washed out, maneuver your way through the multitude, concrete streets of New York City. So where am I, and what am I doing here?

It is far from a pristine paradise undiscovered by humanity. In fact, just a few meters from the shoreline you will find the same hustle and bustle of New York City and one hell of a falafel, too. A short cab ride through the streets miraculously unveils some of the world's oldest standing structures juxtaposed against a flurry of billboards bearing its newest names: Oracle, Intel, IBM, HP and yes, even Novell has a couple. Quite an amazing and amusing site the first time you see it. In the middle of this desert oasis you will find tech's second coming.

I am on a quest to seek out Fedora community members half a world away. The community needs strengthening and one of our weakest links is in a country which is a tech powerhouse and yet often neglected by geekdom at large--Israel.

That is quite unfortunate though, because there is a tremendous amount of interest and involvement in technology around here--especially around Linux. Somewhere along the last 15 years, Linux became related to business. I'm sure many geeks are still scratching their heads, but the courting is being played out all over again on this side of the globe. Linux runs rampant throughout the university system, so students are introduced to it fairly early. The economy is experiencing a boom similar to the one the U.S. had, although it is more tempered and as a result, businesses are looking to modernize, extended their presences and improve processes. Additionally, startups, in every sector, are abundant and each must look for cost-effective means to break into their respective markets. Many have gravitated towards Linux due to previous exposure and for the obvious advantages it provides. While the people have struggled to build a country, their geeks certainly are not afraid of building a kernel.

Of course the big boys have set up shop as well. Anyone who owns an Intel Centrino laptop must thank Intel's Israel R&D, almost all of the latest microprocessors have been designed here (and named after rivers near the Intel HQ). IBM, whose outlandish, CRT shaped, spherical Petach Tikva HQ has become an icon in the country, has a massive presence here as well. Oracle must be making a killing here; it has bought up the ad space on literally every other billboard throughout the country. Google is coming too. It all stems from a government which is very pro-tech and has passed much legislation to subsidize high tech, in both education and industry. Now I hav come to find the geeks and rally them.

So I have come to seek out members of our Fedora community sporting an essentials-filled backpack, a water canteen, sunscreen and a 103 degree fever (39 degrees in Celsius) which I picked up somewhere along the way. I knew we had a Fedora Ambassador here, Moshe Roffe, whom I have now spoken to on several occasions, but judging by the otherwise initially lukewarm communication efforts with groups around here, I almost drew the conclusion that the Israeli Linux scene was either deep underground or dead, as in BSD. ;)(Come on, I just style="font-style:italic;">had to). I am glad to say I was easily proven wrong.

It is much easier to win a battle when you are on the ground and combat ready and I did what I have been trained to do, "find your friends." So I first emailed Moshe Bar whom I met a while back in New York City. I knew he often hung around these parts. Moshe is a true champion of Open Source, being the founder of some great projects such as OpenMosix and of course co-founding XenSource. Luckily enough, Moshe was in the country and we decided to meet up the next day. After some nice chit chat I got to take a tour of the offices of Moshe's new venture (it's super secret) and talk with some of the guys. The whole office runs on RHEL on the backend with Fedora on the frontend, which is a good sign! We had a nice site down with about 5-6 people from his staff who had many questions about Fedora. The whole RHL -> Fedora progeny, how to get things into extras, the QA process, what other projects we have up our sleeves. It was quite interesting conversation, with much learned on both ends.

Next, I got to stop by Intel and chat with some of the engineers in their Haifa center. The people over at Intel are very smart. I know this because all the engineers have standardized their desktop platform on Fedora. If you are running a Core Duo chip, odds are that it was designed on Fedora Core 2. It was kind of nice to see people who actually Get It(tm). There weren't too many questions. Some people asked me some RHEL5 and Xen questions, and I responded with what I knew and pointed them to where they could get more info. One of the managers there asked me something about Red Hat opening an office in Israel. I told him I will get right to work on it, that it was priority A1. He liked my response and laughed me all the way out the security gates. (Just Kidding).

A couple of days later, I finally coerced someone I know into setting up a visit for me at the IBM HQ here. IBM is all about their services division lately, which has netted them great growth. It was no surprise to learn that more than half the IBM employees here work outside of the office. The visit was real brief, but I got to see some nifty projects they are working on and then went out to eat with a few of the software engineers at the end of the day. IBM's role here has been has been pretty much the same as their role everywhere--design a custom software solution and then convince the customer to deploy it on IBM's hardware and software stack. The engineers work on projects ranging from websphere development, custom solutions development and one guy here even works on code for the cell processor which he is writing for the next version of the Blue Gene supercomputer. Overall, some really cool guys, they all run Linux at home and some do at work as well. Out of the 7 of them I was with, four ran Fedora, one was a die hard Debian fan and the other two ran Ubuntu.

After all of the above, madly racing around I finally got to spend time working on the Fedora Event Kit. See my email to fedora-ambassadors-list for more info, this post it too long as it is. (We finally got Fedora stationary, too, thanks again to Diana for the awesome work). Also, our local Ambassador, Moshe Roffe, finally stopped by and we got to talk about a few things. We discussed the event we are planning on having here, the general state of Linux affairs here and of course the World Cup. Moshe happens to work for Matrix IT, the official Red Hat reseller in the country, so he has a pretty good sense of the Linux uptake and what really needs to be done in order to gain more widespread Linux adoption. Truth is, no one around here is too fond of Microsoft and most companies would rather not trust their whole infrastructure to them. At least that's the feeling you get when talking to people around here. Hilti, for example, a power tool and construction equipment manufacturer, is constantly dealing with problems with their Windows Server deployment and they recently decided to switch off of Windows and are currently looking at SuSe and Solaris.

A lot of my interaction with the greater Linux community here came when visiting the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Open University. There are a large number of students in the Computer Science and Engineering programs of which a large majority love Linux. There are so many projects being worked on at HUJI and the students were telling me how much of it would not have been possible without Linux. I did the standard Fedora talk twice to two very different groups of people and everyone loved it. Many people came out feeling very energized and enthusiastic, and hopefully we will have some new community members soon.

And so the story continues. I have 10 days left here and plan on making the most of them. We still have to go pick up Fedora DVDs and T-shirts, an event to run and hopefully lots of more meetings. More as it happens. Right now though, I just got word that there is a large rally of Fedora fanatics at the beach. Yeah, I should go check that out. ;)

Technological Nose Picking

It's called Balloon Sinuplasty and it freaking awesome!! The doctor shoves a tube/needle with a balloon up your nose, all under local anesthesia, so it feels really weird. He then inflates the balloon which expands the sinus cavity and begins to slowly drain the sinus. Yes it sounds nasty and disgusting, and if you get a chance to look at the product, it most certainly is. Other than the "ewwww" factor though, it is an awesome procedure which everyone with sinusitis should be aware of and requesting.

I Feel A Sickness, Coming Over Me...

... but it's a good one.

Many of you know of my longstanding obsession with the world's greatest band ever--Pearl Jam. Just wanted to announce that their new album, which is appropriately self-titled (i.e. Pearl Jam for all those of you who don't understand) is released as of today May 2nd 2006. The reason I say it is appropriately self-titled, is because it is much like a debut release, with the band getting back to the basics which made them so well accepted in the earlier parts of the 1990s.

This is, in my opinion, and in the opinions of many of the popular review sites, the best Pearl Jam album in 10 years, and the more I listen to it, the more I start to think it is their best ever. Seriously, it's not like previous albums, it's real good.

The maturity of the lyrics make this album well worth the 10 bucks you'll pay; it's not kiddy stuff. The songs are all catchy and the musical arrangements have such uncharacteristic (for PJ at least) depth to them, that you might mistake them for something off a Pink Floyd record. With this album, Pearl Jam renews its reign over the kingdom which is Alt Rock and are well on their way, blazing a path, to the retake throne of Rock and Roll, which is so rightfully theirs.

Diamonds in this Coalmine

So a good friend of mine just called me in response to my recent blog post and she wasn't too happy with my pessimistic outlook. She also reminded me that I forgot to post about the good news I got on Friday -- NYU has formally agreed to put me another $60,000 in debt. (Get It?!?)

I'm sure once I have a chance to relax and let some time lapse things will be looking better again. So until then, can someone please post a review of FUDCon for all to see. I would do it myself, but I'm too damn tired and don't feel like concentrating enough to write a proper review.

Also, Fedora has been officially invited to the O'reilly Open Source Convention this year. I have all the forms and paperwork ready and have spoken to the coordinator for that, so I'll post up some more info when it's available.

Down In A Hole

Just got back from Boston. This has ended up being the worst and most expensive trip of my life.

$800 Auto Glass Replacement + $350 Traffic Ticket + $200 Gas = $1350.

I now realize that I could have gone on a weeklong European vacation and saved money. Anyway, somebody must be giving me the evil eye or something because this is just insane. Just when I got over the broken window, and had the weekend to relax, a stupid fucking state trooper pulls me over.

I've learned my lesson though. Time to take a break from travel for a long while. I think I am going to crawl into some hole and disappear for a good long time.

Do The Evolution. Or Not.

In response to Jesse's recent posts about filing evolution bugs:

Have fun. I myself have filed numerous bugs, especially over this past summer working with Dave Malcolm, and all are yet to be fixed. Wait, scratch that, one was fixed, but that was the one which we included a patch with, and it was a stupid fix anyway. The important things, including the potential to lose mail, don't seem to bother them. I doubt you will get very far using bugzilla reports. Me, I prefer baseball bats and brass knuckles.

Evolution was sucking hardcore and no one cared to fix anything so I switched to Thunderbird. Thunderbird has open bugs about reply-list and guess what, it's actually been fixed already. Chris Aillon is out in California this week and is meeting with some of the moz dudes. So I had him talk to the people responsible, and that bug is fixed and ready to be rolled out in the next update.

Mozilla is actually willing to work with people and invest the time and effort to fix things and I proudly support their efforts.

P.S. Why did we ever abandon Mutt and Pine?

Announcing FUDCon Boston 2006

Hot on the heels of the release of Fedora Core 5 and the success of previous FUDCon events worldwide, the Fedora Project is proud to announce FUDCon Boston 2006. FUDCon Boston 2006 will offer a wide range of speakers on an even wider range of topics, in three separate tracks, and is sure to have something for everyone.

More Info can be found at:
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConBoston2006

==When==

Friday, 7 April 2006. This is the Friday right after LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.

==What==

FUDCon Boston 2006 is the fifth such event globally and the second to be held in Boston, Mass. USA. FUDCon Boston 2006 will feature an expanded three track lineup which includes a user, developer and applications track. The application track will feature unique individuals and corporations, such as Levanta, MySQL, Pogo Linux and even representatives from the Catalonian Government in Spain, who have
leveraged Fedora for unique purposes and have contributed to the community.

The complete schedule can be found on the wiki and will be updated to reflect any time conflicts speaker may have. Please use it as the definitive timetable for the day's events. Additionally, the wiki will be updated with more detailed speaker, abstract and room info for each specific talk.

==Where==

The Fedora Project is honored to be able to work with Boston University once again to make this FUDCon a reality. The event will be graciously hosted once again by the BU Office of Information Technology, and this year, the BU School of Management gets in on the fun.

Also, as last year, we plan on offering streaming video and audio of all tracks and sessions. This year, these streams will be higher quality than previous attempts, as we think we've gotten it right this time. The streams will be Ogg Theora and should work out of the box for users of Fedora Core 4 and 5. Check the wiki in the coming weeks for links to the streaming content.

==How==

As spaces are limited we urge all those interested to pre-register by emailing fudcon-register@fedoraproject.org . Those who pre-register will have badges available for pickup the day of FUDCon and will receive preference for sessions which may fill up quickly.

==Thanks==

Thanks go out to all who made this possible and have contributed so much to the massive growth and success of the Fedora community. You know who you are.

See you in Boston!!

FUDCon CFP Almost Closed

The Call for Papers for FUDCon Boston 2006 is drawing to an end. The official deadline is about to lapse, although we will still consider submissions that come in over the next few days and are encouragin. Thanks go to everyone who has submitted abstracts and we look forward to announcing the final lineup and events schedule later next week.

FUDCon Boston 2006 Call for Papers

I would like to start out by thanking both the community and developers who have helped make Fedora such a huge success on so many different fronts.

Riding on the success of the series of FUDCon events worldwide I am proud to announce that we will be holding FUDCon Boston 2006, taking it back to where it all began. The event will be graciously hosted by Boston University once again with sponsorship from BU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the BU Office of Information Technology, and this year, the BU School of Management. The date for the event is Friday April 7th, the day following the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.

We are looking for interesting topics and presentations covering a number areas. Talks should be focused on one of the 3 main tracks.

Track 1 - User Track : Topics that deal with the user experience, desktop innovations, etc.
Track 2 - Developer Track : Topics that deal with software development in the Fedora environment.
Track 3 - Application Track : Either topics that deal with applications/uses of Fedora in other Open Source projects or topics that showcase a specific Open Source application.

To be considered for presentation, abstracts should be submitted to fudcon-cfp@fedoraproject.org by no later than Thursday February 23, at 11:59pm. We welcome submission from both developers and community members alike, new and old.

After the review process, notifications will go out on Thursday March 2nd followed by a full schedule for FUDCon Boston 2006 and official announcement on Monday March 6th.

Thanks.

There's No Place Like ~

Okay, so it's been a struggle getting caught up with everything and finally being able to breathe, but lo and behold, sometime between 11 and 12 today, I accomplished that exact feat. So what now? Well, I've been working on a little project on the side with a few friends for the past month and things have really begun to pick up steam. I might be headed to NYU in the fall to participate in the most awesome ITP Program. Lot's of good stuff coming out of there.

However, don't be fooled. As of Jan 9, I am able to step back into all my Fedora work full force, and I find that awesome. There is much to be done on every front. Marketing is always busy and we are trying to get together another awesome FUDCon and a most special event for the LinuxWorld expo, so look for updates on that. As part of the ambassadors, I am almost done writing my letters to the U.N. and Mayor Bloomberg. I'm looking forward to picking up pieces of the triage stuff as well and maybe getting my hands dirty in a few other things.

It feels good to be able to breathe again.

P.S. Howard Stern's first Sirius Broadcast is Jan 9 as well. I'm looking forward to listening to the first show and seeing what it's like. I got my Sirius Radio last year for other reasons, but I'm sure this will be interesting.

Hiatus

Where is Jack? While reading my backlog of emails, I've realized that a large number of people have emailed me regarding my whereabouts over the past few months. This is aside from the large number of people who have phoned me.

Well all I have to answer all you people is that most of the time life is good; Unfortunately, recently, life sucks. Therefore, I've been on kind of a computer break. I'm trying to tie up a few loose ends, catch up with some long overdue work and think about some new directions.

Hopefully, the picture will be clearer after Thanksgiving Day, that's the plan at least, and I will be able to return to some type of normalcy. I am hoping to be back up to speed, caught up with everything by 20 December.

See you then.

Is It Wrong to Hate Stupid People?

In response to this story http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php? option=content&task=view&id=1645, and its author, this idiot, varun@cooltechzone.com, I would just like to say the following:

This is a prime example of how any turd that can open its mouth can now become a "journalist" in our day in age. This guy is the most clueless motherfucker on the face of the earth. He is clearly severely undereducated, due to his clear lack of understanding, based on some of his comments, such as:

"...I hate Linux. I think it’s the most over rated piece of software ever built and survives simply out of spite and not because it is terribly good at doing something because it is not!"

"In Linux, you have to recompile a kernel if you want to so much as change your modem!"

and the ever conclusive:

"as most of the people developing Linux probably sit at night writing up malicious code for windows!"

Varun, you could clearly benefit from some form of instruction, both in the English language, with regards to grammar and punctuation, as well a course in how to be a real journalist and actually do some factual
research to base your article on.

It is clear and obvious to anyone with even the smallest of brains that you probably have never tried Linux in your life, if you think that it is not good at anything and that you need to recompile the kernel to get a modem working. I doubt you even know what a kernel is.

I really don't even care that you are talking shit about Linux. You just need to realize that if you are going to write articles and expect people to read them that you can't just go running off your mouth. There is something called journalistic integrity and factual basis.

But dude, by all means, If you really want to give Bill Gates a blowjob, just ask him directly and do yourself and the world a favor and spare us from having to waste our time reading your crap. Instead of an "article" just write him a love sonnet next time.

Fedora Bug Day Event - Pick Your Poison - Friday 2005-07-29

Saddle up the horsies and git yer shotguns kids, its time for a Bug Day!

Who:
The Fedora BugZappers Triage Team, men, women and children alike. More information is available at
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

When:
Friday 29 July 2005 - Starting at 9AM in your timezone!

What:
The theme for our first bug day will be "Pick Your Poison." Anything in bugzilla is fair game! The goal will be to try and triage as many bugs as possible, close out duplicates as well as linking to upstream bug
trackers. Additionally, we have the special honor of trying to file and close out as many Documentation Bugs as possible.

Where:
Join us on #fedora-bugs on irc.freenode.net and on fedora-triage-list@redhat.com . Bugzilla is at
https://bugzilla.redhat.com .

How:
The following steps are necessary for those interested in participating:

1. Go to http://bugzilla.redhat.com and sign up for an account.

2. Sign up for a Fedora Account using the same Bugzilla name at https://admin.fedora.redhat.com/accounts/ . When setting up your account, click the box to be added to the 'fedorabugs' group. An administrator will then approve your membership.

3. Sign up for membership to the fedora-triage-list at https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-triage-list .

Once you are done and signed up, please send an email to the list with a subject line of "Triage Participant: 2005-07-29" so that we know you plan on participating. This also ensures that you will be entered into the
activity tracker for the day so you can earn a reward. More on that later.

4. Hop on #fedora-bugs on irc.freenode.net on Friday morning and bring lots of ammo!

Why:

To help the project, to help the developers and to earn rewards. Yes you heard right, rewards. There will be awards given out to certain participants at the conclusion of Bug Days. Awards for things such as
most active, most reported, most closed, most marked upstream an so on will be announced within a week and all rewards sent out. Also, sometimes we will have special rewards that we give out just for fun, at
random, because well, we're nice guys and gals.

What are these rewards you ask? Joining us is the only way to find out what's in the treasure chest.

See you on Friday.

Official Launch of the Fedora BugZappers Triage Team

Want to help out with the Fedora Project, but can't code a lick? Well fear not my dear friends. There are many ways you can help the cause and today I am pleased to announce a brand new way you can help contribute. Join the Fedora BugZappers!

Who are the BugZappers?

The BugZappers, (http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers) are the official triage team of the Fedora Project. The main goal of the team is to triage, or do a first pass, of bugs in Bugzilla and ensure that a number of parameters are satisfactorily met. Basically what that means is that the BugZappers will go through bugs as they come in and try and make sure the bugs are valid (i.e. not a duplicate), sane and contain enough information to be escalated to developers. If you have ever reported a bug and wondered why it took so long to get fixed, well then BugZappers is the right project to join.

Tell Me More!

The BugZappers aim to be the primary line of defense for Fedora Quality Assurance (QA). The BugZappers will begin running Bug Day events, every alternating week, usually on Wednesdays. Bug Day events are when the team gets together to concentrate our focus on certain subsections of the project which need work. Triage should continue on though, and remember kids, "Every day should be a Bug Day!"

So, if you are tired of hearing complaints about things not working, pieces being broken or just plain want to help Fedora be the best dang Fedora it can be, then join the BugZappers team and help the developers make the most of their coding time. It's fun, it's easy, you don't need much experience to start and we are willing to show you the path of the righteous, should you choose to accept this mission.

What's in it for me?

Glad you asked. First of all there is candy. OK, so there is no candy, but there is free stuff. The team is working on some giveaways and run contests during Bug Day events. You also get to work on triaging things that annoy you first, so your problems get fixed sooner; kernel problems anyone? Also, a wise man once said, much fame and fortune come to he who close many bugs. OK, it really wasn't a wise man buy you get the point.

How Do I Join?

Step 1: Sign up for the mailing list at:

http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-triage-list

Step 2: Join us on IRC

We live in #fedora-bugs on Freenode

Step 3: Read/Modify/Enhance the wiki

Our wiki is located at http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

Additionally, we have more information available on the wiki at:

http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsReports and http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs.

More content will be added as we get the project off the ground and moving.

Also, be sure to look for our announcement of the first Bug Day event coming soon to an Inbox near you!

Songs for Polar Bears

Ok so in response to Thomas' last post about needing more music, here is a list of new-ish bands that you might find some interest in. But before I get to them, I would like to first say that I've been thinking for a long time about starting some kind of band of the week thing, where I would talk about or introduce a new band every week, so I might actually get around to doing it now. Lastly, I would like thank Sirius Satellite Radio for not playing shitty music and introducing myself to some of these new and awesome bands. I'm just going to rattle off a list, if anyone wants me to include links, let me know and I will edit accordingly.

1. Snow Patrol - Although they aren't as unknown as some of the other bands to follow, I really dig their sound. Sort of laid back-ish and maybe a little, kind of emo. The lyrics are golden though. They are what's currently in my cd player at the moment.

2. Head Automatica - The lead vocalist is from Staten Island, NY not too far away from me and someone I know grew up down the block from him. He used to be in a band called Glassjaw which was almost like thrash metal, but now he hooked up with this DJ, Dan the Automator and their sound is really unique. Take two parts rock, one part disco add a dash of hipster-ism, and you have Head Automatica. If you pick up their disc, Decadence, I really like the tracks Beating Heart Baby, The Razor and Solid Gold Telephone.

3. Alkaline Trio - Just good plain ole' rock. Their new disc, Crimson, really kicks ass with some great tracks. It starts off really powerfully with the track, Time to Waste, and continues to be a great ride all the way through. I don't think any true rock fan can say anything bad about this disc, its just that good.

4. The Bravery - One of the better UK bands that are up and coming, their self-titled debut disc is pretty good, I like them.

5. Thornley - OK, so some people already know of them, and they've been out for quite a while now. I forgot how I found out about them, but I listened to their debut disc, Come Again, for about 5 months before I moved on, it just rocked so much. Last week I picked up a new copy, since my original one was lost, and rediscovered them again. I really, really like them and as ender can attest, they are excellent live.

That's about it for now. I can't give them all up on the first go round.

Like Eating Glass

Well, in a follow up to my previous post, I guess if I am going to admonish the bad, I must praise the good as well. So, fortunately, this story posted on news.com is a decent description of the situation and not some sensational scare peace. Joris Evers, should be commended for writing up such a concise and non-FUD spreading piece. Kudos!

People are Stupid, Yet Again

People, especially so called "journalist" need to learn to calm the fuck down. Earlier today Mauricio points out to me this story about Jon Johansen "hacking" Google Video. For God's sakes, all he did was remove 5 lines of code, which might I add, are freely available , as in open source, on google's code site. To add insult to injury, the google video player is nothing but a bunch of patches to VLC, which Jon works on already anyway. Oooh, an open source hacker modifying his own code! Quick someone call the US Department of Justice and Interpol. This is horse shit.

Ryan Naraine, you my man are truly an idiot and worthy of the title "Connecticut People." This article is nothing less than sensational journalism which should be retracted immediately. People should not be allowed to write misleading stories like this.

Providence and Anti-Providence

So last week Joe basically all but dragged me to the state of Rhode Island to go this "awesome" mall in Providence. Well let me just say that my list of states that suck has just grown by one. I decided to go because I needed a large picture frame to house my digital picture frame project and I figured an "awesome" mall would most likely have at least one place to buy a picture frame. Boy, was I wrong. The mall sucked so badly. It was really big with lots of room, but no good stores whatsoever. It also took a century to walk from one side of the mall to the other, which was exacerbated by the fact that you need to pass 5 Abercrombie and Fitch stores and listen to the blazing really really bad music. Not to mention that they had elevators that only go up one floor, when there are like 4 in the mall. Smart, real smart.

Also, Connecticut, you are not alone. People in Rhode Island seem to not know how to drive either, as Melissa can attest to. This has led me to the conclusion that pretty much ever state in New England has inept drivers. They insist on driving at 45mph in the left lane, not yielding, and subsequently screaming, honking, and yelling at you when you cut them off. Connecticut is by far the worst offender and I have therefore coined the term, "Connecticut People," henceforth to refer to people who are bungling, clumsy and incompetent.

Lastly, I must say that I am extremely sad today. Maybe more on that to follow, Maybe not.

FUDConIII Call for Locations

We are currently researching the possibility of having a third FUDCon take place around the time of LinuxWorld San Fran, Aug 8-11. Therefore, we are looking for institutions in the area, and there are many, who would be interested in possibly hosting us. The only main prerequisites are as follows:

1. We prefer it to be an academic institution if at all possible.
2. That it be reasonably close to San Francisco proper, although exceptions might be made if there are sufficient transportation options.
3. The institution and/or it's constituents are involved in some way, shape, or form with Linux, Open Source and obviously, preferably Fedora.

If you think your place fits the above criteria and would be willing to host a FUDCon please click here to send email to both myself and fedora-marketing-list and let us know.

The Endian of an Era

So obviously there is much controversy all over the computing world about Apple's announcement, as well there should be. It seems as though Apple has finally decided it should be targeting mass markets, too, since Jobs said they plan on having more offerings like the Mac Mini. Personally, I think Apple did the right thing. Hopefully the PPC architecture will still live on somewhere other than XBOX 360 and handhelds.

Also, John C. Dvorak, here, made it a point to mention that he now thinks Linux will be hit significantly harder than any other operating systems due to Apple's shift. He predicts that many developers will forgo writing and distributing open source software for Linux since they can now do it for Mac and they have better user interfaces and more intuitive design. He also says that some never really cared much for open source and now can develop for OS X and sell their code for profit. Well, I disagree completely. People who write open source software do so for many more reasons other than eye candy, ideology or profit. I'm not going to get into it but great organizations doing great things, similar to Summer of Code, will ensure that there is a healthy stream of high quality FOSS developers for years to come.

Dvorak's final comment was that he sees this as a major threat to Red Hat and it's business. Now, I've been a Dvorak fan for quite some time, but I must say, this is pure crack. Anyone who knows anything about Red Hat's business model would surely know that the markets for RHEL and OS X are so completely different, they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. What Dvorak fails to see is that many more people are replacing UNIX with Linux and not Windows with Linux. So barring Apple allowing installation of their server offering on stock hardware, I really don't see why Red Hat or any other Linux centric product distributor should be worried. Apple is still way to closed minded to begin thinking about expanding to the mainstream server or embedded markets.

Otherwise, haven't been up to much lately. Working on getting some python/xmlrpclib foo to work with some graphing foo to make some pretty pictures of things. Also, spent a fair bit of time trying to troubleshoot broken hardware today. As Warren mentioned in a post a few days ago, broken hardware sucks, it took forever trying millions of combinations of hardware to finally figure out what was wrong. What's even worse than broken hardware is when manufacturers decide to change specs mid production without changing revisions. This makes problems significantly harder than they need to be.

Oh well, fun fun fun.

A Hunting We Will Go

Okay. So this past week saw me going down to Raleigh and then back to New York, up to Westford and then back to New York Again. The funny part is, I had always imagined myself disliking the South, you know based on that whole Union vs. Confederacy thing. So I was shocked when I left and I found myself saying that the South is actually pretty nice. Lots of green. I don't get very much of that anywhere else. While I was down there I got a chance to go out with Greg, Seth and Elliot and we discussed some things. It was nice to see everyone again.

Anyway, so at some point on Wednesday I got settled and started focusing on accomplishing something, to gather some hard data on the overall Fedora bug situation. Mainly I wanted to get a breakdown of certain metrics, bugs by component over each release, % bugs reported by community members vs. Red Hat employees, % bugs that are really bugs vs. feature requests, % bugs that are being reported which should be upstream etc etc. I think it's really important to gather the data before we start conjuring up documentation and creating triage processes. Hopefully, in a week or so we should have a really clear and extremely detailed overview of what is going on, where it is going on, and by whom. At that point it will be a lot easier to do a handful of things.

Other than that, I just went through BZ and tried and close anything which was fixed upstream already, and just wasn't noted as such in RH BZ. Also filed a few bugs upstream and linked them into RH BZ. So at least things are moving along nicely and bigger things are starting to take form.

**Special mention of the week: The jukebox in that place in Harvard square, was it Charlie's? Man that thing kicked ass.

The Greatest Thing Affected

Sleep on it.

Correction

I'm afraid I must apologize about comments made in a previous posting about KROCK 92.3FM Radio in NYC. My previous post was made based on what someone had told me and only this past weekend did I realize that he was talking about a different station KROQ somewhere in Iowa. I actually got a chance to listen to the new KROCK in New York and it sounds pretty nice. Basically, not really a format change at all, just playing more rock overall, whether it be alternative, classic or whatever. It actually sounds neat. Nothing else to report for now. Emancipation is just around the corner though. Ah, dreams...

Satellite, In My... Ears?

Well it's official. Reports are coming in to me that my favorite radio station 92.3 FM KROCK in New York City is officially dead. Not Exactly. The truth is that they have decided to change formats to some weird ass mix of 70's, 80's and 90's rock. So far everyone is saying that it is terrible and that although they are playing more Classic Rock, there is already another Classic Rock station in NYC, 104.3 that is much better. I have also heard that they fired all the on air DJs and have bought into something called JACK-FM. This is somewhat like an IPod on shuffle with a commercial every once in a while, usually mocking Sirius. After speaking to some people online, I have realize that this JACK-FM crap is invading radio stations across the country. Some people are even saying that this is Infinity Broadcasting's way of getting back at Howard Stern, and that XM is funding this JACK-FM nonsense. One thing they did that is good however, is create Krock2, which is the streaming version of the station that plays only modern alternative rock.

Whatever happens though, its official, New York has lost its only Modern Alt Rock station. This couldn't have happened at a more opportune time, now that I have Sirius. I was wondering what was up with a bunch of the Krock DJs being on Sirius. I figured some took a second job with Sirius, since it was in Manhattan anyway. Well, looks like I found my answer. Regardless, Sirius kicks ass! Aside from it being completely commercial free, almost all the former Krock DJs are on it, and I'm happy about that. This includes Demos, who I used to call into late at night, when he did the overnight weekend shifts at Krock, Matt Pinfield who has an awesome show, and they even got Will Pendarvis, who used to be on Krock and moved to LA. It's awesome. The only downside is that XM has baseball, which is XM's one saving grace. I got around that though by getting an mlb.tv password. Viva Sirius!

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, all the IPv6 stuff is now in place. I managed to get everything up and running last week and tied all the pieces of the puzzle together. I think with a little more tweaking on the FreeBSD machine we should be able to allow others to set up tunnels for themselves. Need to work on a script for that. I won't have much time to play with anything until Thursday night, so it will have to wait till then.

In other news, I have spoken to two groups who plan on putting on Linux and in general, free software demos for a number of local schools and businesses in the Central New York area. One group is throwing a showcase together at the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce fair thing that is being held at the convention center in two weeks. A number of companies who already use or have successfully switched over to Linux are running the thing. The great thing about it is that all of them use either Fedora or Red Hat based distros. I suggested that I could perhaps play some sort of role and use this as a marketing event and they were delighted to hear that. There is one ISP that uses Debian though, and the guys there were pretty cool and wanted to help as well. They still think RPM is evil though.

The school group thing is pretty cool as well. They have already set up K12 LTSP at some schools in Albany and have gotten a flood of requests ever since to do the same at other schools, even as far away as Philadelphia. They already use Fedora as well and were also happy to here that I wanted to join their efforts. Another artists collaborative thing also uses Linux and wanted to put on something to show artists in the area the benefits of using FOSS. Definitely some good marketing opportunities.

I also need to figure out what, if any, sessions will be done at LinuxWorld in SF. The call for papers is already out and I think it would be a really good idea if we gave a session again. The last one was a spectacular success which drew the largest crowd out of any of the sessions given. If anyone wants to team up or has any ideas, please let me know as soon as possible. We have so many possibilities to talk about that we should at least start considering some as potential candidates versus other. Also thinking about another FUDCon in SF, maybe at Google HQ?

"Sick and Pissed Off" or "The Case Against Cable"

Well, I'm nearing the tail end of whatever it is I have. I need to go see the doctor again, but I felt better today after a weekend of medicating and headaches. Anyway, I am fed up with the fact that companies are fighting and hurting customers, and the government doesn't seem to care. Therefore, this letter has found its way to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's inbox.

Dear Attorney General Spitzer,

I am writing to you with regard to a topic that has surfaced numerous times, and has once before been successfully quelled by your intervention. More specifically, this is about the business practices of Cablevision and their reluctance to cooperate with other entities in providing broadcast rights to selected programming. By now I am sure you are quite aware of the situation with Cablevision and Time Warner that has left millions of New Yorkers without coverage of the Mets and Knicks.

I would like to say that this is completely unacceptable. Both of these "hog fat" companies have lost sight of their customers' interests and this seems to be a dangerous and ever rising trend. I know that you have successfully dealt with this issue before and was hoping that you would be swayed to take some action on behalf of millions of New Yorkers. Frankly, all these exclusivity and broadcast right shenanigans have come to head. If no agreement can be reached by Cablevision and Time Warner, then at least for the time being, programming should be available a la carte, for those willing to pay. This, however, should be a temporary measure since setting a precedent for a la carte program pricing would allow cable companies to raise rates even higher in the future.

Furthermore, it seems rather foolish and somewhat insulting that the FCC which takes in millions of hard earned tax dollars to regulate free air spectrum cannot prevent these types of exclusivity agreements from being established. Any programming, especially those of local sports teams and other local interest, which is at any point broadcast over the air, should be available to all persons regardless of what service provider they choose. Anything less, is unappreciated, unacceptable and should be viewed as predatory and anti-competitive.

Finally, I would like to add that specifically over the previous decade, the United States Congress and in fact, almost all areas of the government have either turned a blind eye to or have willingly indulged in jurisprudence that is detrimental to technology and its development in the United States today. Regardless of what scope of technology, the citizens of this country are being robbed, day in and day out, of progress that could prove to be crucial and even necessary in future years to come. As a defender of the people and the public interest, and as a person of prestige, ultimately seeking higher office, I hope that you can help undo a century of the crippling of technology in America, primarily due to a lack of understanding it. I look forward to your potential candidacy as Governor or Senator of our great state. Progress begins with the most elementary of steps, and as your record shows, you have been a pioneering champion of the people. Best wishes in your continuation to do so.

Being in NY, I can watch the Cubs, Tigers, Royals, Indians, Brewers, Pirates, Phillies, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Nationals and even the Giants--just not the Mets. Even if you have the stupid MLB Extra Innings package, even the MLB's own MLB.TV service blacks out local teams. This is service? This is fuckin stupid. I just want my fucking baseball.

Get Down With The Sickness

Something is amiss... I've been getting really bad headaches the past 3 days with constant nosebleeds. God only knows what this could be.

March Madness

Well, March truly is the season of madness. I haven't blogged in a while and people have been wondering where I am, so I would like to oblige them with an answer--right here. Jack hasn't gone anywhere. The month has been pretty hectic. First of all there is the mandatory school stuff, which doesn't suck but needs to get done and often times takes a large amount of time to do. Secondly, traveling has been the ongoing theme this month, mostly back and forth, but nonetheless, the odometer is running. Spring break was uneventful as well.

Haven't done too many fun things lately--except the tourney. I've been following it extensively and getting ready for baseball as well, watching some spring training. I've been not feeling well pretty much the whole month. One thing to the next to the next, so I have been to the doctor more than a few times, rackin' up them bills! For break I just spent some time reading various things and working on projects I've been meaning to get done. Alot of VoIP and robotics stuff, mostly. The rest of the month has been pretty much the same working on school, side projects and helping out someone with a secret. Hopefully, I will be able to tell everyone what it is soon now. It's been under wraps for a while, and I've been devoting time to it, but hopefully soon I will be able to share. It kicks ass though, really.

Spent some time recording some songs too. Not bad. Anyway, that's about it. Need to finish reading a few things and take some pills and get to bed, but a lot of stuff is out of the way now. I promise to updated frequently. Including some posts about some current events that I meant to write about but didn't have time.