SunMink

Simon Phipps's other Weblog
(a WebMink in the Sun)

Driven to Extremes

I've been speaking at the excellent Go Open 2008 conference here in Oslo today - attendees may be interested in my slides. My talk embodied the comments I made in response to Michael Tiemann a while back.

Of much more interest was what happened at lunchtime, however. I've heard plenty of accusations from certain OOXML proponents that all the noisy opposition to them is coming from extremist agitators and anarchists and should be ignored as a consequence. The (very un-Norwegian) activities in Oslo today seemed to suggest otherwise. As the International Herald Tribune reports, there was a demonstration and protest march by placard-wielding demonstrators on the streets of Oslo - see the local TV report. This in itself is unusual - Norway is not given to such outbursts - but there's more that makes it unusual.

This protest was organised not by extremist agitators but by Steve Pepper (who made a great speech), the widely respected chair of the SC34 mirror committee that reviewed OOXML for Standards Norway and by his colleagues. I asked them why they were taking this unusual step and they told me it was because the majority view of their committee had been ignored by Standards Norway. They are furious - Pepper has resigned. So there may be extremists involved in the protests against OOXML somewhere, but in the specific case of Norway the protesters are highly respected standards and business people who have been driven to extremes rather than starting from them.

Podcast Interview With Trond Heier

I also had the chance to interview the CEO of Linpro AS, a respected Norwegian open source service provider, about his reasons for taking part in the protest. You can listen to the podcast in either MP3 or Ogg format. Trond explains that the message Steve Pepper delivered was in English so that the Norwegian group could encourage other, similarly unhappy groups in other countries to speak out as well. The protest was held outside the building where JTC1 SC34 was holding a meeting.

More pictures:

If you are a writer looking for photos or clips for your article or blog, you are free to use any of these as long as you attribute them to me. I'd also prefer you to link to this blog posting too.

LiveMink: Alan Hargreaves and the telnetd bug

While I was in Australia last month I went to the Sydney OpenSolaris User Group, one of the oldest OSUGs. As part of the evening's casual conversation, I interviewed Alan Hargreaves. Alan was one of the first engineers in the OpenSolaris community to work on the telnetd bug that was zero-dayed onto the Solaris 10 community, and in this interview he describes a frantic day spent working on the defect. Some key quotes:

• "This bug was a putback to kereberise telnetd"
• "It didn't exist in OpenSolaris within about six hours of being reported"
• "The actual fix was submitted by someone on one of the OpenSolaris discussion forums"
• "It seems to me in this case closed source made the code less secure and open source fixed the problem"

Listen on!

LiveMink—[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(12' 00")

LiveMink: Jeff Waugh

Another skipped week, but my recorder is full of interviews so hopefully we should have weekly programming for a month or so, assuming the editing happens this week.

This week's LiveMink podcast is an interview with perky chappie Jeff Waugh. Jeff and his partner Pia run an Australian Free/open source software consultancy in Sydney, and are the Brad and Angelina of the FOSS community down-under. They recently co-ordinated the OpenCeBIT conference within the huge CeBIT Australia event in Sydney, and they invited me to speak there. Jeff is on the board of the GNOME Foundation and talks to me about his involvement there, his new mobile software activity and more. Listen on!

LiveMink—[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(12' 14")

LiveMink Extra: Open Source Communities panel

It's been a busy week in Australia where I have been speaking at their CeBIT conference. I have given my keynote about five times in one form or another. I really enjoyed meeting the Sydney OpenSolaris User Group last night, and I recorded an interview with Alan Hargreaves about the telnetd issue he helped solve recently. I'll edit that into shape and put it out on LiveMink in the future. I also have an interview with Jeff Waugh in the queue.

I also sat on a show-floor panel with Linux Australia, and since I have a new Edirol R9 to play with I decided to try recording it. Here's an unusually long LiveMink, of variable quality, with that panel in it.

LiveMink—[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(27' 22")

LiveMink: Ian Murdock's View Of The World

It's been a long haul, but I finally found time to edit the second part of my interview with Ian Murdock - apologies for the skipped podcasts.

This second interview is much longer than usual (half an hour) but includes all sorts of juicy goodness including Ian's views on Debian, Progeny, the Linux Foundation and more. Ian is very candid, I think you'll find it fascinating. Listen on!

LiveMink—[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]&mdash(31' 29")

LiveMink: Ian Murdock's New Job

After a missed episode last week (sorry, I was just burned out from the travel and started the Easter break early), LiveMink is back this week with the first of two interviews with Ian Murdock. The second interview is longer and ranges much further, but this one is a good place to start.

As you're doubtless aware, Ian has joined Sun to head up the operating systems strategy for the company, and brings with him a rich history of involvement in the area, not least with the semi-eponymous Debian. In this interview I caught him in the cafeteria at Sun Menlo Park just before his first big staff meeting and asked him about the job he was about to start, his views on OpenSolaris and more. Listen on!

LiveMink—[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]&mdash(9' 12")

LiveMink TV: Three Hot Databases

The SDN TV series on open source comes to an end this week with a programme in which I interview three of the people making databases happen at Sun. Josh Berkus is well known in the PostgreSQL community, and also serves on the board of Software in the Public Interest, the non-profit that manages finances for them and for Debian. Sun offers commercial support for PostgreSQL on Solaris.

Rick Hillegas and Francois Orsini are part of the Apache Derby community and work on Sun's database product (yes, we have one), Java DB, which is a distribution of Apache Derby. Go take a look at the programme, which is available both as video and audio (I enclose the audio on SunMink since my LiveMink audience are, I assume, expecting a podcast).

LiveMink: Roy Fielding

I was honoured to be asked to give the opening keynote at the first ever OpenSolaris Developer Conference over in Berlin. The other keynote speaker was Roy Fielding, who like me is on the OpenSolaris Governing Board. Roy is scary smart, having written the Apache License, coined the term REST and defined the HTTP 1.1 protocol.

Roy was distracted by his upcoming keynote so we kept the interview really short, but his comments about the Waka protocol he's working on (a successor to HTTP) will be interesting to those without the patience to listen to the full Udell interview. Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]&mdash(3' 49")

LiveMink TV: Open Source Development

Open Source Month continues over on SDN TV (have you subscribed yet?), and this week I interview Kuldip Oberoi about Sun Studio and about Solaris Express Developer Edition, and OSG candidate Glynn Foster about GNOME. If you've not tried Sun Studio go give it a try - it's a great development environment for the non-Java programmer.

LiveMink OGB Special: Jim Grisanzio

Right from the start of OpenSolaris, today's candidate has been a respected, moderate and firm influence despite his non-technical background. Having worked with him for many years I know these characteristics come from deep within, and I think that comes across in several of the answers to the questions.

Do persevere despite the poor quality of the audio connection, which took quite a bit of setting up and was pretty dodgy even when it worked. This is the last interview I have in the queue for election candidates by the way, I suggest you go ahead and vote if you were waiting for the end of the series, noting perhaps who didn't want to be interviewed.

This candidate interview is with Jim Grisanzio, who joined my via a relay of phone connections from his office in Tokyo, Japan. Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(18' 39")

LiveMink OGB Special: Stephen Lau

I'll be ending this series soon so the remaining candidates should contact me if they want to be included (Casper Dik just told me he has a throat infection and can't participate, I've not heard from the others despite two e-mails). I'm hearing that people are listening to the series and getting a helpful insight into the different candidates, which is good - the 24 or so hours of recording and editing haven't been in vain!

Today's candidate interview is with Stephen Lau, who joined me by phone from his office in California. He replied quite early in the process but was prevented from participating until now by a throat infection (lot of it about). Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(15' 05")

LiveMink OGB Special: Shawn Walker

It's the start of the second week of voting, and there are still hundreds of people who haven't voted, so I think it's worth continuing to publish interviews. Some of the candidates seem rather shy, but hopefully most of them will be willing to speak with me in time for voters to hear everyone's voice and views.

This interview is with Shawn Walker, who joined me via VoIP from Kansas on his return from Australia. His story about moving to Solaris from GNU/Linux is worth listening to even if you're not voting in the election. I've tried post-processing this interview with The Levelator, let me know if you like the audio quality it produces. Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(19' 53")

LiveMink OGB Special: Michelle Olson

We're half-way through the OGB Elections and I'm half-way through doing interviews with the candidates - let's hope I can find them all before too long.

This interview is with Michelle Olson, who spoke with me by phone from California. Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(8' 50")

LiveMink OGB Special: John McLaughlin

He's not been involved with the OpenSolaris community much, but today's candidate interview is with someone who has a big influence on the Solaris market by publication of System News. I've not met him before and so enjoyed the introduction. Turns out he has an extensive and practical background in both Solaris and user groups.

This interview is with John McLaughlin, who joined me by VoIP from Florida. Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(13' 35")

LiveMink OGB Special: Jörg Schilling

Many Unix and Unix-alike OS users owe a huge debt of gratitude to this candidate for his open source software. Without cdrecord, we'd be living in a greatly impoverished world concerning CD and DVD support. His high-energy, forthright and sometimes controversial approach makes him an interesting and often compelling community member.

This interview is with Jörg Schilling, who spoke via the phone from Berlin in Germany. Listen on!

[MP3]—[Ogg]—[iTunes]—(12' 58")