Sunday August 31, 2008 links for 2008-08-31
- OpenSolaris based AMI catalog on Amazon EC2
This has to be the future of deploying software. Especially interesting to me is the MediaWiki instance, although I'd really like them to make Wordpress available as well. - Mythbusters Gagged: Credit Card Companies Kill Episode Exposing RFID Security Flaws
That makes everything OK then. Making sure that a group of actors who found your security was so flawed even they could break it can't make a TC program is bound to keep it a secret. Long live Security Through Obscurity! - Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis
It is surely time for change. - Minnesota police raid homes of suspected RNC convention protesters
"Two people were outside the home in handcuffs while police awaited a search warrant" -- This time there's not even the pretense of a "free speech zone" involved. This is the same thing as the injunction against the CharlieCard researchers, except in politics - fixing the messenger rather than fixing the problem.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 31 2008, 05:13:53 AM PDT )
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Saturday August 30, 2008 links for 2008-08-30
- Amazon Web Services : OpenSolaris Ruby On Rails
If you want to deploy a Ruby on Rails application on Amazon EC2, here's the best way to do it. Complete with DTrace so you can tune it to absolutely scream. - the business of barack
Danny O'Brien observes that the Obama campaign has all the hallmarks of a successful 21st century startup, blending leadership, informality, efficiency and instinct to create a smooth-running machine that doesn't alienate you. - McCain Picks Palin - The Fix
No word from the rest of the Python team yet. - Malaysia's schools get OpenOffice.org
This is one of several similar moves in Malaysia, where pragmatism is winning and back-room pressure from foreign corporations seems to be losing. - BBC interrogated over iPlayer
Fascinating viewing, especially the blatant lies by the BBC Director General about iPlayer Downloads being available for Mac & Linux. - delicous.com Blog Posting tool
Dave offering to come to the rescue yet again. This is so what I want. - Because I am still doing this manually.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 30 2008, 05:17:20 AM PDT )
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Friday August 29, 2008 links for 2008-08-29
- Java 4 IPhone
Looks like it exists and works, but is not integrated with Safari becuase, well, you can't, and is only available on a jailbreak phone because Apple doesn't want a system it can't control showing up so has written Ts & Cs that make Java inadmissible. - Quebec government sued for buying Microsoft software
"The proprietary software vendors have been very successful in convincing people in procurement, whether in government or the private sector, that software is a product and you buy it like you do an automobile," he said. "If you actually look at what software does, it's more like a service." - Mozilla and Eclipse Licenses Now Available for Hosting Users
"our removal of the MPL from the site seemed a little absurd. So, our bad." -- Congratulations to Chris for realizing he'd made a bad decision and reversing it (I await the crow-eating from Mark). Now all they have to do is add one or two more licenses from OSI's anti-proliferation list and they are on pretty solid ground. - Manual, but I had a reply from Yahoo today acknowledging my enquiry. Not fixed, though.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 29 2008, 02:44:19 PM PDT )
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Thursday August 28, 2008 links for 2008-08-28
- Introducing Ubiquity
Awesome new Firefox extension for those addicted to the command line. It's a smart command line for the web. Loving it so far (even if I haven't found a way to make it post delicious links). - Apple Advertising Misleading - Official
Apple actually claimed that Java SE is not open source. Can someone please clue them in about OpenJDK and Harmony? - Full Disclosure and the Boston Farecard Hack
"The benefits of responsibly publishing attacks greatly outweigh the potential harm. Disclosure encourages companies to build security properly rather than relying on shoddy design and secrecy, and discourages them from promising security based on their ability to threaten researchers. It's how we learn about security, and how we improve future security." - Dancing Baby v. Universal: Baby wins!
"Copyright holders must assess whether material has been used fairly before they demand that it be taken off the internet, a US court has ruled." -- Hopefully this will have a chilling effect on those who seek to gain or protect unfair advantage by use of chilling effects. - Manual, and still no reply to my delicious ticket.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 28 2008, 06:27:56 AM PDT )
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Wednesday August 27, 2008 links for 2008-08-27
- Canon announces EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens
Want. - Proposed Charter for OASIS Open Document Format Interoperability and Conformance (OIC) TC
Open for comments until September 8th. - Love is Noise: The Verve
This week's free track on Amazon MP3 US is actually rather desirable.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 27 2008, 02:37:27 AM PDT )
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Tuesday August 26, 2008 links for 2008-08-26
- NetBeans Innovators Grants - Winners Announced!
I am especially excited to see the Scala support, looking forward to trying it. - American Embassy Owes A Million In London Tolls
I read the footnotes and discovered that the American Embassy used to pay its tolls in London until the Bush appointee ambassador arrived. Anyone know of a decent explanation beyond public posturing of why he decided to become a scofflaw? - What Obama’s Text Message Campaign Reveals
"So the game is all about finding the 5 to 10 percent of the population that can swing the election." -- This could turn into the old-guard vs Web 2.0 election. - Sun's OpenOffice.org/StarOffice product marketing offers an Internship
If you'd like to work on OpenOffice.org marketing, Kay would like to hear from you. Read his blog posting to find out more. - Open Malaysia: The entire State of Pahang moves to OpenOffice.org
Fantastic news of another government switching to ODF that opens up so many opportunities for Malaysians. As Yoon Kit says, the only losers are the ones relying on excessive margins... - Manual, and still no reply to the Yahoo ticket.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 26 2008, 12:23:52 AM PDT )
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Monday August 25, 2008 links for 2008-08-25
- Joe Biden's pro-RIAA, pro-FBI tech voting record
"By choosing Joe Biden as their vice presidential candidate, the Democrats have selected a politician with a mixed record on technology who has spent most of his Senate career allied with the FBI and copyright holders" - Presumably he's there to appeal to the GOP swing voters though - it's not like people concerned by these issues will find much solace in McCain. - Caring for Your Introvert
"Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?" - Bank holiday
Today is a Bank Holiday in the UK, so I'll not be working (apologies if you expected me for anything). - Manual, no reply to that ticket yet.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 25 2008, 03:49:49 AM PDT )
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Sunday August 24, 2008 links for 2008-08-24
- A Few Speculators Dominate Vast Market for Oil Trading - washingtonpost.com
"It is now evident that speculators in the energy futures markets play a much larger role than previously thought, and it is now even harder to accept the agency's laughable assertion that excessive speculation has not contributed to rising energy prices" - Woot : 10 Things To Look For At The Olympic Closing Ceremony
<cough> - Get Paid to Twitter Using the Adjix Link Shrinker
While I'm happy enough with Amazon affiliate codes in book links, this service seems to cross the line and I'd expect it to cost whuffie to use it. Am I over-sensitive? - Posted manually. Doesn't look like delicious posting jobs on my account are even attempting to run any more. I just opened a new ticket but fully expect an "it's experimental and we don't support it" reply from the Yahoo support people.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 24 2008, 05:06:00 AM PDT )
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Saturday August 23, 2008 links for 2008-08-23
- List of Sun Twitter Users
More tweets than you can handle. - Killer Carbs: Scientist Finds Key To Overeating As We Age
Fascinating research that makes me instantly want to cut the kids' sugar intake even more. I wonder if the degradation can be reversed? - redhat.com | OpenSSH blacklist script
"the intruder was able to sign a small number of OpenSSH packages " - There goes another "that would never happen" hand-wave at a future product status meeting... - Five alternative Olympics medals tables
I particularly like "population per medal" but the one I would most like to see is "dollars spent to win per medal", preferably in reverse order. - Entered manually
Posted by webmink
( Aug 23 2008, 04:37:44 AM PDT )
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Thursday August 21, 2008 links for 2008-08-21
- What's $100 Million Between Frienemies?
The word that springs to mind here is "Danegeld", in the Kipling sense. - Judge: Man can't be forced to divulge encryption passphrase
Although this is good news (that suspicion of a crime isn't enough to allow constitutional rights to be abrogated) I doubt it will make a whole lot of difference to most people actually at the border, where authorities routinely assume they can ignore all human rights without recourse. - Who's on First in Medals Race?
This WSJ article points out that the Olympic Games rules actually prohibit counting medal rankings, while noting only the US media out of all other global commentators ranks countries by number of overall medals. - A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance - Software Freedom Law Center
Interesting new document from SFLC. - Commercial Open Source: Is That an Oxymoron?
How come anyone - least of all a journalist who claims they cover the "open source beat" - still be asking this question a decade into the revolution. For goodness sake, it's free as in "freedom", not free as in "price", how many times do we all have to explain it? - SoyLatte, Meet OpenJDK: OpenJDK 7 for Mac OS X
Give the community the freedom to meet its own needs and see what happens. Fantastic work! - Posting manually has its benefits (I was able to add the link in the text above) but I'd still rather I could make it happen automatically as, well, that's the whole point.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 21 2008, 05:04:29 AM PDT )
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Wednesday August 20, 2008 OpenSolaris - Open & Getting More So
I got a comment this week from someone asking why OpenSolaris didn't accept commits from community members. The fact that a reasonably well-informed individual could ask that question suggests there are some misunderstandings that need clearing up. I've been investigating the current status.
Already Open
First, the question itself is wrong - OpenSolaris accepts commits from outside Sun. Both Subversion and Mercurial have been available on OpenSolaris.org for a couple of years now so that projects there can host their source code. Indeed, one of the significant new-code updates in OpenSolaris - the integration of ksh93 - was accomplished mainly by Roland Mainz and his sponsor April Chin with support from a range of community members, who put in a huge amount of work and achieved integration into the OpenSolaris code in build 72 in August 2007.
Multiple projects are being developed in the open on the site with source code repositories out there using one or the other. Individual projects grant commit rights using whatever method they choose. There are multiple examples of non-Sun people having direct commit rights on projects - one that comes to mind is Shawn Walker on IPS before he became a Sun employee.
Sponsor System
While many of the code groupings in OpenSolaris (consolidations) have been publishing source code for a while now, the version control systems (VCS) used by some of the OpenSolaris consolidations are still inside the Sun intranet at the moment, having completed their move from the old closed system to Mercurial (with much help from Richard Lowe). Changes to those must be done by a Sun volunteer - this is what the sponsor program is for. The outside person can work on the code (for the "ON" consolidation, using the Mercurial mirror repository that has been available for about a year), make changes, test, do a code review in the open, and so on.
The Sun sponsor is needed to update the bug tracking system inside Sun (although we now have a public one that many projects are using) and do the actual putback. The request-sponsor table lists the 600+ contributions offered to date via the sponsor program and their status (~43% integrated; ~20% in progress).
In Transition
ON has transitioned to using Mercurial as its VCS as of this month. The tentative date for ON to move its VCS to the public internet is the end of October. Companion CD and JDS have been outside since 2006 (they use Subversion). G11N has been outside since 2007 (they use Mercurial). The new install code has been outside since it started; it's been developed in the open. Publications has a gate with source for four books so far (opened this Spring). I didn't get status reports from some of the consolidations, most importantly SFW, and I think it's important from them to move as soon as possible.
Summary
The summary is that OpenSolaris has been accepting commits from community members pretty much from the moment the source was published. Of necessity there were Sun employees inserted in the flow when the project opened because the VCS in use was closed source and internal. In the years since then the process has gradually been getting easier and easier. Having the gates internal to Sun certainly hasn't helped growth, but it was unavoidable. That is finally getting fixed.
The Sponsor system itself is actually a great idea and is now working better than ever before. Like Jim I think it should be retained - and populated with experienced developers regardless of employer - even when all the gates are publicly accessible. Even in the world of Linux it's hard to get started as a contributor and the Sponsor system provides a great pathway.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 20 2008, 01:57:56 PM PDT )
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links for 2008-08-20
- O'Brien to push high-performance for Sun
Congratulations to Gary, who I know completely "gets it" when it comes to open source. A clever new role created by the Sun Australia MD. - August 2008 Board Report - Apache Roller
"Why did they fork? I believe this is due to the instability that was caused by our Apache policy required move away from Hibernate/LGPL and move to OpenJPA. Those two high-profile projects are still not using our new implementation and perhaps cannot justify the time required to get back in sync with main-line Roller development." Makes me wonder if Apache was the right choice after all. - Sun Downloads
New download page looks much better. - Sun Support Center
New page for support provides easy links to Red Hat, VMWare and more as well as to Sun support. The team has concentrated a huge amount of information into one page, quite an achievement. - No-Fly? No Worries, You Can Sue in Trial Court
Want to bet how long it will be before this "loophole" is sealed with tar? - Open JDK in Debian's Lenny -- Distro Grandslam!
Three years ago Java was MIA in GNU/Linux, despite the best efforts of the fine Classpath folks. Today, "Can't Swing a Dead Cat without hitting a Distro with OpenJDK Included" according to Barton. Amazing. That's the power of choosing to go with the grain of the community. We chose the community's license, worked with the communities' packagers and the rest is history. - Editorial: Collaboration is the new revolution
The Guardian suggests that open source and collaborative engagement have come of age, and that the reactionaries in UK government who side with the safe past are "analogue politicians in a digital age". - Yup, manually posted.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 20 2008, 02:58:59 AM PDT )
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Tuesday August 19, 2008 links for 2008-08-19
- Snapfish:Photo Contest:Winners
I didn't win. I wonder if the contest is documented anywhere? - eSpares - Spare Parts & Accessories for Electrical Appliances
The local Aladdin's cave has closed down and we have a growing pile of broken things I can't bear to throw out, so this is a welcome discovery if they actually live up to their promise. - Online image editor pixlr
This is amazingly feature complete for a browser-based Flash application. Good to have on-hand in case of image emergencies. - At JFK Airport, Denying Basic Rights Is Just Another Day at the Office
Pretty scary stuff, with the ring of truth about it. Probably just the same story at UK airports too. I have to assume that this is the real reason they don't want people with cameras or phones in the area. - Muxtape
"Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA." The dinosaurs of IP try to kill off another route to survival. - Twitter / Tim O'Reilly: "Digital onanism"
Being the characteristic of sites like NYT to only link to their own content and never to anyone else, lest they in some way lose control of you. - Yup, still manually posting.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 19 2008, 07:58:18 AM PDT )
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Monday August 18, 2008 links for 2008-08-18
- A Sound Legacy: 60 Years of Folkways Records and 20 Years of Smithsonian Folkways
Awesome free sampler available from Amazon US with classic American folk - leading with Woodie Guthrie and going from there. Grab it while it's free. - Lessons on Blogging from Jon Stewart
Fine analysis from Tim. Of course, some say that you have to be a "liberal" to love Stewart, but I think his style builds trust and is the future of US journalism. I sense Brian Williams at NBC heading in this direction - interesting he has been a repeat guest for Stewart. Not sure it would transfer to the UK though, Stewart's style is too respectful for over here... - National security and free speech - The Boston Globe
"Thus the T, in reality just another local transit system struggling under crushing debt and long-term mismanagement, transmogrified a temporary threat to its fare collection system into something so urgent as to override the First Amendment." I wonder what it will take for us all to wake up to the threat to liberty that the so-called defence of liberty has become? - Perspectives: Firefox3 Extension for OpenSolaris
Moinak Ghosh has already ported and built Perspectives for FF3.0.1 for OpenSolaris. Awesome stuff - maybe we should have OpenSolaris.org offer a notary? The idea of a peer-based trust system is very appealing here. - Bolt Of Lightning Doesn’t Fall Anywhere Near NBCOlympics.com
I've seen a little of the US coverage via "Nightly News" and it is unbelievably lame, with the US-only focus masking out pretty much everything else. And the medals table they use is sorted by "total medals", not the usual "gold medals won", presumably so that the US can come top. I gather the "live coverage" is delayed 12 hours and edited to death as well. No wonder they fear the web - I bet they try to blame it for their failure. - Still posting manually. You can tell, I expect!
Posted by webmink
( Aug 18 2008, 04:05:21 AM PDT )
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