Tag Archives: open source

hurray, another entry

After being away for an awful long period of time – at least ‘mentally’, it’s time to write something again. Well, there isn’t much to tell …. just kidding ;-)

There is much movement going on, like a different job, new colleagues to cope with, piles of unread books, many games I’ve played or I want to play in the near future … did I mention work? Of course I did, but it’s a reoccurring disruption on may path to true enlightenment :D

Apart from those tidbits called life, I’m keen on doing something more ‘hackish’ again,like tinkering with electronics or pushing open source in terms of participating on some project.

One thing is for sure there is less of me in the so-called social web. Once in a while I’ll stop by  to look after some fellows I’ve got acquainted to over the last couple of years. It’s a kind of boredom I feel, there isn’t anything real new, too much old content wrapped up in shiny outfits ready to confuse the mind. Today it is difficult to find the real stuff, if you’re looking for the extraordinary, the things far away from the common taste.

But enough of the lamenting rubbish, I’m eager to get my hands on Rage and Skyrim andI have to place an order for the Blu-ray of The Big Lebowski. So in the end it’s all about quality, according to my personal point of view.

So, stay tuned …

FreeBSD 8.2 Release

Well, FreeBSD 8.2 is already there just have a look at the mirrors or Bittorrent. Get it while it is hot or wait for the offical announcement. Furthermore, if you’re already using some beta, try the binary update. In case you wonder what they have done so far, have a look at the todo. It’s the usual “quality instead of quantity”-business :-)

Update: it’s offical now …

 

ewww … NetBSD

Long time ago I started with NetBSD 1.x on my Amiga. It was a short-lived adventure, but a nice one. Once in a while I try a new release to get a glimpse on what’s going on in the “portable business”. But nowadays it’s more or less adventurous in terms of a major pain in the backside. I get on the same hardware, an Asus EEE900A, with different releases lots of different problems. Today I get no DRM with Intel GMA950 and no touchpad support, more precisely wsmouse doesn’t work, it uses pms elantech instead of pms synaptics. I don’t have any of those problems with Debian Squeeze, FreeBSD 8.2RC3 or OpenBSD 4.8, however it would be no problem on those operating systems to solve such a problem without compiling a new kernel. Is this really the only option in NetBSD, to compile a new kernel? Well I wouldn’t dare to try this task on my netbook with Intel Atom and its rather small SSD. For a portable operating system this is an epic fail in my opinion. NetBSD today is just far behind, even the so-called “firewall-OS” OpenBSD is superior in many aspects.

been there, done that

At least udev is strongly linked to Linux and as far as I know is not available on any of the BSD flavors. Unfortunately it is now the only good way to detect storage devices, cameras, printers, scanners and other devices using a single framework. That’s why we use it in Xfce now in situations where HAL provided us with device capabilities and information to distinguish between the different device types before. The consequence is that thunar-volman no longer works without udev and thus only compiles on Linux. In Thunar itself udev remains optional.

via

The usual hogwash about *BSD and its “compatiblity” to Linux. Especially FreeBSD has got different mechanisms like devd etc. So it’s no problem of *BSD itself, but developers unable to do a proper job. Well, in reality *BSD-devs cannot hop around to mimic everybodies darling. It’s just impossible, especially in the face of Linux chaotic development.

The correct “solution” here is for “desktop” devs to stop using the kernel features directly and having to continuously rewrite things for udev, HAL, *Kit, u*, etc and instead to write to a standardised abstraction layer with pluggable backends. Something the KDE devs figured out with 4.0 and the creation of Solid and Phonon and similar.

A comment of a FreeBSD-Admin

So nothing spectacular, just the usual loss of reality of the Linux-community. Being portable is different from “it works in Linux”.

the sorry state of the “UNIX”-desktop

In case you wonder why I’ve been choosing this topic: see this talk. I’m refering to “UNIX” as alias for Linux/BSD and so on, at least in this very context.

“The mindset from the 1970s UNIX” … at the end of the talk your hear this “argument” of Lennart Poettering. He is some guy from Red Hat responsible for PulseAudio and systemd. You know, the company, that supports developers like Ulrich “libc” Drepper and others. Red Hat isn’t the easiest to cope with if it comes to changes to the Linux kernel or the system itself, it’s most of the time a crusade for them or similar to the search for the Holy Grail. Boiled down to their Linux-distro Fedora: they have got many bright people at their company, but their distro is just a huge mess. I was a huge fan of Red Hat in the 90s, well aside of my beloved Slackware, but today it’s just the testing ground for mostly hasty developed technologies. Their race for more glimmer on the desktop, together with Ubuntu and OpenSuse, destroyed in my opinion every attempt to gain momentum on the desktop for the non-administrators.

The new credo is “it’s just good enough” compared to the former “it’s just better”. “Plug’n pray” once a synonym to Microsofts crappy attempt for the detection of devices is nowadays the hallmark of Hal. The latter was for some time the “Holy Grail” for Linux and Nemesis to *BSD systems. A pain in the backside since the beginning and today just history. For good? No, “the king is dead, hail to the king”, Linux just gave birth to another experiment we have to cope with in future.

Today the desktop is still ruled by companies like Microsoft and Apple. Why? Because they do it right to some degree. Sure, Microsoft had lots of serious problems in the past and nowadays the company is just a shadow of their former self, but have a look at Windows 7. They did it, maybe too late, but you see real advancement. Or have a look at Apple, it just works out of the box — well, most of the time.

My desktop is a desktop of the 90s, maybe I have got the mindset of a UNIX of the 70s. But what’s wrong with it? UNIX is a child of the 60s/70s and most of the things you see in it aren’t compatible with the “mindset of 2010″. UNIX follows the K.I.S.S.-principle, keep it simple stupid, trying to attach something complex to something “simple” under the hood is prone to fail. It’s that easy!

Again, have a look at Apple and their Mac OS X. Mac OS X is a UNIX, it uses FreeBSD and portions of NetBSD to build the base, the things under the hood you usually don’t see, and attaches some GUI-mumbo-jumbo to it, to get the attention of the masses. Some people talk of a “GUI on roids” and similar to those anabolic steroids, you get “something”, but at what expense? In terms of Mac OS X you have to pay the price in form of many “layers” between the “glimmer” on the desktop and the UNIX in the cellar. If you e.g. mess with something under the hood, you’ll have sometimes unpredictable results at the desktop. Administrating Mac OS X like some UNIX is prone to fail, it’s not made for such tasks. Stick to the fixed desktop and you’ll be happy most of the time. Windows tries to get more power on the desktop, make it a less fixed experience than Apple, with the result of more problems.

Now the free “UNIX”-desktop again: don’t try to mimic Apple or Windows. We cannot win with this silly attempt. You have to choose between the power of a “UNIX” or the simplicity of a Mac OS X desktop. Try to mess with those attempts and you’ll get something like KDE, Gnome and lots of “layers” like PulseAudio etc. pp. to get Linux/BSD in shape. Maybe there is a path to more usability for Linux/BSD, but playing the copycat just renders those free operating systems less attractive for everyone. Free operating systems need a path of their own, compatible to this “UNIX mindset of the 70s”. If you want something different, then build something new.

As you can see one size to fit them all is just not possible. We have to say good bye to the masses, we have to find different paths, more suitable for the “UNIX-mindeset of the 70s”, ready for a “UNIX”-future with “UNIX”-usability.

sick of Google

We expect even more rapid innovation in the web media platform in the coming year and are focusing our investments in those technologies that are developed and licensed based on open web principles. To that end, we are changing Chrome’s HTML5 video support to make it consistent with the codecs already supported by the open Chromium project. Specifically, we are supporting the WebM (VP8) and Theora video codecs, and will consider adding support for other high-quality open codecs in the future. Though H.264 plays an important role in video, as our goal is to enable open innovation, support for the codec will be removed and our resources directed towards completely open codec technologies.

Chromium blog

Google drops H264 in favour of their very own inferior video codec WebM. Guess why? “Because it’s free.” So why they bundle Adobe Flash with their browser? Flash is a pain in the backside since its early Macromedia days. It’s fine to have some free codecs around, but Google is just a huge hypocrite. Time to move on again.

Netzneutralität: das Internet ist ein Shopping-Kanal

Vor ein paar Tagen gab ich mein “Amen” zu der Initiative Pro Netzneutralität. Warum? Nun, weil ich das Anliegen für eine gute Sache halte und es für zu wichtig erachte, um es mittels den üblichen, von Pathos geprägten, Idealen niederzureden. Fefe sieht dies anders und wäre er nicht Fefe würde ich auch kein Wort darüber verlieren, denn anderenorts schaue ich hauptsächlich die üblichen Cassandra-Rufe, die zwar stetig opponieren, jedoch selten etwas Gehaltvolles beitragen.

Fefe aber nun geht auf ein paar Details dieser Initiative ein, die ihm eher übel aufstoßen. Beispielsweise “Netzneutralität fördert die Entfaltung kreativer und ökonomischer Potentiale und sichert damit das Innovationspotential des Internets.” Nun von meinen Idealen aus betrachtet ist dies sicherlich keine gute Basis, da stimme ich mit Fefe überein. Allerdings leben wir in einer Welt, die nicht von Idealen geprägt, sondern die einzig auf eben diese ökonomischen Potentiale fixiert ist. Indem man diese Definition nimmt und erweitert, öffnet man aber das Tor für ein breites Spektrum an Interessen. Letztendlich gilt es jenen, die die Infrastruktur bereitstellen, dies alles mit deren Terminologie schmackhaft zu machen.

Was bitte sehr ist daran verkehrt? Jene mit ökonomisch geprägtem Habitus sitzen am längeren Hebel, es gilt jene zu überzeugen, jene die eben diesen “Big business” repräsentieren. In einer idealen Welt wäre nicht einmal eine derartige Initiative notwendig, die vom Volk gewählten Politiker wüßten was zu tun ist. Nun die Welt ist aber nicht ideal, die Welt ist auf ökonomische Potentiale fixiert und in diesem Kontext muß man agieren, will man denn etwas erreichen.

Anderer Kontext, ähnliche Vorgehensweise: Mitte der 80er propagierte ein gewisser Richard Stallman “freie Software”, jedoch war es erst die von Bruce Perens und Eric Raymond initiierte Open Source Kampagne in den 90ern, die Bewegung ins Spiel brachte, die mit dem Vokabular einer ökonomisch geprägt Welt sprach. Diese Initiative sprach nicht von Idealen, sondern bereitete den Weg für diese, indem sie das Tor zum Business mittels dessen eigener Sprache öffnete. Quod erat expectandum.

Die größte Leistung besteht darin, den Widerstand des Feindes ohne einen Kampf zu brechen.

–Sun Tzu

identi.ca

Ich bin ja wirklich ein Freund von Open Source, aber auch nur solange halbwegs die Qualität stimmt. Ehrlich gesagt ist diesbezüglich bei identi.ca nicht viel zu verspüren. Meiner Meinung nach ist es der Prototyp dieser FLOSS-Software, welche man gemeinhin als Gefrickel tituliert. Raymonds Faustregel Release Early, Release Often erweist sich einmal mehr als Rohrkrepierer — zumindest dieses early sollten einige Projekte nochmals überdenken.

Wir setzten auf F!XMBR in der frühen Phase diese Software eine ganze Weile ein[1], meldeten eifrig Bugs, umschifften mal den einen oder anderen herben Fehler etc. – dennoch, auf Dauer war diese Software ein einziges Desaster und bis dato hat sich nicht wirklich etwas geändert. Hinzu kommt zwar auch die zwischenzeitlich gestiegene Server-Belastung, wobei man hierbei noch Lichtjahre von einem Microblogging-Dienst wie Twitter entfernt ist. Und wie stehts mit der Freiheit? Nun ehrlich gesagt ist mit dies bei 140 Zeichen völlig egal. Hier auf dieser Publikation genieße ich diese Freiheit im gesetzlichen Rahmen und solange ich meinen Hoster bezahlen kann, danach endet diese Freiheit jäh.

Folglich wende ich mich wieder Twitter zu, dieses zeigt mir zwar gelegentlich einen prächtigen Wal, funktioniert ansonsten aber recht formidabel. Hauptsache frei ist zumindest in puncto Software desöfteren ein Schuß ins eigene Knie.

  1. siehe lallus [↩]

WordPress 2.9.1 Beta 1

Unfortunately, the recent 2.9 release triggered a bug in certain versions of PHP’s curl extension. With these versions of curl, scheduled posts and pingbacks are not processed correctly. To fix this problem as well as a handful of other, lesser issues, we are quickly releasing 2.9.1, the first maintenance release of the 2.9 line.

WP

Oh dear … screw them for their hasty releases. I’m sick of this development policy. Unfortunately it’s getting worse instead better. Time for an alternative …