Older blog entries for Burgundavia (starting at number 89)

In the end there was only the sound of silence

With a , it appears the DCC has slid into history. As these sort of things usually do (think UnitedLinux or UserLinux), there is no formal end, merely radio silence. Likely Ian leaving for FSG and MEPIS moving to Ubuntu were major factors in killing it. However, despite it's acrimonious beginnings, I mourn the passage of the DCC. Any organzation that gets people out of their little silos and talking to each is a good thing.

Clue infects the CBC

In happier news, it appears we have our first mention of Ubuntu at the CBC. In an article on the EOL of Windows 98/ME, we have a mention of Linux, specifically Ubuntu. They even have feeds of some of their stuff in OGG format (lower left, above the listening guide).

Evolution in 148 lines of Python

While new and interesting ideas about Evolution appear stalled, a group of new applications have been sneaking up to show us all a better, faster, lighter email and calendaring app.

For starters, there is Tinymail, written by Philip Van Hoof. This is followed by Dates and Contacts, which I think are pretty self explanatory. So you say, what about the 148 lines of Python? Well, Chris Lord, who is working on Dates and Contacts for Opened Hand, glued all those three together with a mere 148 lines of Python. The source, just to prove it.

What about the backend? Well, Ross Burton, also of Opened Hand, has been working on an embedded Evolution-Data-Server. Not only does it talk dbus, it even takes up a fraction of the space.

And the best part? No data migration (I hope). For a test I am going to be trying out this awesome combination this weekend. All hail the next evolution of Evolution!

And then there were less

Seems somebody shut down a Toronto High Schools Linux lab. There is a great deal of confusion whether this is part of a general school board policy or simply the actions of a lone principal. Either way, it is sad to hear.

CLUE (The Canadian Association for Open Source) has an interview with the teacher, Ed Montgomery, here.

"Enjoying" Continental's service

Seems some people in the GNOME camp are getting to enjoy the "service" from Continental. While my trip with them to New Orleans was fairly uneventful, I have noted that their flight attendants are rude, their 1-800 people are rude and unhelpful, and they seem to be allergic to the idea that people might need to change times and names on flights. Now contrast that with excellent and friendly service from Westjet, both with ticket changes and their flight attendants. Maybe these old airlines really just die...

New Orleans

I have arrived in the lovely city of New Orleans. The weather here is stinking hot and the city is mess. You can walk five blocks and see everything from abandoned buildings with the Katrina searchers tags on them to glitzy brand new Holiday Inns. Plus everybody here seems to have a new car. I guess all that FEMA money came in handy. More later...

Running up my carbon debt

As some of you may already know, I have been away for work at the Canadian Library Association's annual conference in Ottawa for the past 5 days. If you have emailed or otherwise tried to contact me and have not been able to reach me, I apologize. I am currently sorting through my email now.

Given there is no rest for the wicked, I am off to the American Library Association's annual conference in New Orleans this Wednesday and I will be away until the 2nd of July.

All this travel means I haven't done much on the Ubuntu front nor can I say that I will be able to respond any message is any sort of timely fashion. On the flip side, the number of libraries DiscoverStation (and thus Linux) is growing! Now I just need to convince my company to base off of Ubuntu. Oh, and stay tuned for something interesting from my company and Ubuntu. (or just read dapper-changes )

Just to clarify...

It seems a some people are confused about my previous blog post. I just wanted to clarify a few things:

  1. This is mostly a social issue, not a technical one
  2. As such, even if an existing tool is not perfect, if you can get the people that make it onboard to help write an NG version, you have won. Hence the reference to system-config and Fedora.
  3. I don't want the world to be written in Python. I mentioned Python because Ubuntu has a love affair with it, which naturally attracts more Python people and thus we can more easily maintain such code.
  4. Each distro having its own configuration tools is complete madness. Note that our friends in the KDE world are just as stuck. (although Guidance might go a long way to solving this)

I didn't want to offend anybody and I am sorry if I did. It is just frustrating to see all this duplication when there are so many other cool things to be working on.

Cheers :)

Yet Another Set of System Configuration Tools

The world needs yet another set of system configuration tools. Yes, it really does. To prove it to you, I give you: Umbrella!. I can hear Baby Jesus crying already.

Sarcasm aside, this is a serious. Yes gnome-system-tools suck, but lets come at this a different way then every other distro on the planet. Rather than write our own, why don't we sit down with the Fedora people and Carlos (who maintains g-s-t) and merge our various efforts into one. Fedora have already produced their system-config stuff, written in the lovely Python. Lets get those into GNOME and start working on this in a collaborative space, not our own little silos. Please?

We have a logo!

Due to some inspired work by Brian Burger (Madpilot), Ubuntu Canada now has a logo:

1 Jun 2006 (updated 1 Jun 2006 at 19:37 UTC) »
Celebrating Dapper

It appears that the Globe and Mail (one of two of Canada's national newpapers), has an article on Ubuntu 6.06.

This is exactly the kind of article the Marketing Team needs to help produce more of. Ubuntu already has great traction in the national and international tech press, now we need to get the non-tech press and local tech press.

And as a final note, thanks to everybody for a great release. It has been a real pleasure working alongside everybody. Special kudos to Matthew East for piloting the ubuntu-doc ship through these last few months. It has and will be a great ride. If you live in Victoria, BC, Canada and want to come hang out with us, we are having a party. Details for all the Dapper parties on the Dapper Release Parties wiki page.

Ubuntu Canada

After much downtime, we now have web presence again! And a new logo! Check us out at ubuntu-ca.org. The DNS for ubuntu.ca should also happen sometime soon.

Reclaiming our public spaces

After reading Paul Graham's excellent essay on How to start a Silicon Valley and the website of the Project for Public Spaces, I have realized that the Free Software and Open Source communities can do more to bridge the divide between us and those who advocate a more human world such as librarians, teachers, philosphers, scientists, environmentalists, and social activists. They help the poor, the weak, the ignorant and the forgotten. To them computers are ivory towers with flashing lights. To be feared and respected. And they cost a bundle, money and time sorely needed elsewhere.

So how do we engage our allies? Talk to them about copyleft, Creative Commons and freedom of information. Tell them about them about the wonders of Free and Open Source software. So what if business people think Linux is not ready for the desktop? These are not business people! We can give them high quality software at a price they cannot beat, backed with a philosophy they can agree with.

Where do you start? Go volunteer at a local NGO. Better yet, organize a technology night for a bunch of them. Get your local LUG involved. There are a million myriad ways, limited merely by your imagination.

80 older entries...

New Advogato Features

New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.

Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.

If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!