Digested

Paper paper everywhere

2010-06-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

I have an itch. I need to get hundreds of pieces of paper to my bookkeeper who happens to be on the other side of the country. And as usual, when poking an itch things happen in interesting ways, opening up possibilities. So start with Python, PyQt and the KDE python bindings. The plan was to write some kind of bulk scanning application, with the ability to annotate notes to the scans, bundle them up in a pdf, and send them off by email. Some issues that I ran across. The python-imaging-scan module is quite flakey. Repeated scans would lead to crashes. I encapsulated it within a subprocess, which seems to prevent bringing the whole application down, and somehow allows it to do it's thing each time reasonably reliably. Still has issues however. The python-keyring-kde works nicely. Very simple to use, and it works. I use it to keep the password needed to login to send emails. The python-imaging is very nice. I clip the images to remove whitespace around it, and it is very easy. To create a QImage is trivial using the QtImage module. The reportlab pdf creation module is very nice. Once you get your mind around the structure, which is much easier than the documentation seems to portray, it is very easy to create a simple pdf. The code is at code.google.com. There are doubtless many bugs, and I have only done testing with the scanner that I have.

I now have a few hundred pdfs containing all kinds of interesting information. They are mostly structured documents, ie. invoices. Now to figure out some way of parsing and categorizing the data so that I can use it in some way.

Truth in Advertising

2009-11-10T22:39:00.000-08:00

Jasper's blog (and the seeming tenor of planetkde today) seems negative. It isn't. It is the truth. The Linux desktop is, for all it's advances and neat stuff, pretty limited.

There are a few reasons for this. Starting from the premise that it, for the most part, is written by individuals or groups to scratch a specific itch:

Major parts of the infrastructure are either missing, old and outdated, or unstable.

The process of filling the gaps and getting things working has required throwing away quite a bit of stuff, requiring updates elsewhere in the stack. Which consumes resources and creates instability and raises the cost of entry.

The amount of basic infrastructural work required to write even a modestly ambitious application limits the field to the devoted and few.

Throw in the tendency for distributions to attempt to differentiate themselves by infrastructure projects that try to solve a problem, but end up being either chronically unfinished, poorly thought out because of lack of communication, and many times eclipsed by smaller projects that work well, are well maintained but refused entry by the NIH syndrome.

And because the whole thing is necessarily in flux, the cost of entry and cost of maintainership rises.

Have no fear. It will get worse before it gets better. By the time the Xorg guys are done, and the kernel guys get a file system and scheduler that works for the desktop, and all the *Kit stuff gets finished, we will have something great. In the meantime, a mess.

What all this means is that we will have new media players every week. We don't have users that require the broad range of applications and functionality, some of which will write that stuff if the basics were there because the functionality isn't quite there yet. Linux and desktop will always be a developers platform, and as the basics get sorted out, people needing specific function for vertical or specialized requirements will flock to it. For the simple reason that it is cheap and easy.

It isn't easy now. But it is getting closer. Stuff like akonadi is amazing, opening up possibilities that the pim guys haven't imagined, and making basic function easy for developers. PyQt is simply awesome as a RAD environment. The stuff I'm doing with it makes me wonder why I would ever use C++ again. Fast and stable. The nepomuk stuff is cool, and we are going to see very neat things come out of it. Not some Nepomuk Application, but making it easy for developers to sort and index and connect their data opens possibilities that otherwise would take too many resources to write.

As for attracting and expecting commercial ports of applications to Linux, we might as well wait for the moon. It won't happen. The only way we would get a stable Skype on linux is if someone wrote one. The commercial houses have no interest in doing anything but token support of linux to check some boxes for someone. And they will never fit in with our very nice packaging and updating systems. As it always has been, if we want something good, we have to write it.

I still believe in a rich and thick desktop computer. Web based applications take me back to edlin except with colors and pictures. Serious handheld applications remind me of a time at my local credit union, oh 25 years ago, watching a woman enter information into a dbase table. She typed in a bit of stuff, hit enter, and waited a while for the data to be transfered to floppy I think. When I say serious I means something I can do business with, not texting or even email. The desktop allows a rich experience, and with quad cores, 2 terabyte drives for cheap and low cost seemingly unlimited memory, the possibilities are endless. And we will write them.

Oh, and finally. The stable, well finished and usable desktops from Apple and Microsoft are as good as they are because a bunch of guys in their basements, in their spare time made fools of them. OS9, Windows95, even NT as a server were pretty bad. They were forced to improve their wares, their processes by free software nipping at their heels. That is something we can all be very proud of.

Release

2009-09-16T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've packaged up a tarball to make a first release of idfeditor, an application to create and edit the configuration files for Energy Plus building simulation. It can be found at code.google.com/p/energyplus-frontend. The first release is very basic allowing editing of most elements of the configuration file.

Next is to simplify viewing and editing the building geometry. Energy Plus has a few different ways to represent the information. One way is vertices, with a building element made up of a series of 3d points. The points can be relative to a building basepoint, or zone, the points can be clockwise, counter clockwise, starting at any of the four corners, etc. Or there is another way which has azimuth or facing angle, tilt, origin, length, width. Again from origin. It is quite flexible, meaning quite complicated and error prone.

Right now I'm working on translating the various input types into xyz space, something suitable to transforming, rotating and such. The first goal is to get the code to the point where it reads and writes the data reliably with all the defined input types. The math is fun. I vaguely remember learning all this stuff in school, and have the horrifying memory of doing the calculations on a slide rule. I can't honestly say that it is coming back, that would assume there was some memory remaining. It is all pretty basic vector geometry.

Almost ready to release

2009-09-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

Almost ready for the first release of Energy Plus frontend, idfeditor. code.google.com/p/energyplus-frontend. The link lists the features that are done. I'm in the process of testing by building and editing a simulation, and am finding the odd thing that needs fixing. There are many things I want to do to make creating a simulation easier, but they will have to come in future versions. Anyone who wants to test can checkout the svn tree and run "python idfeditor.py".

One issue that I'm not sure about is regular crashes when calling QFileDialog. It doesn't crash each time it is called, but seemingly random. The traceback shows a call to free() in Qt. The PyQt folks may have some ideas, but has anyone else run into this? I'm not sure if it my Arch Linux setup which is somewhat bleeding edge.

Phantom Pain and Python

2009-08-15T21:15:00.001-07:00

Been rereading The Brain that Changes Itself (link). A friend had a severe injury a number of years ago, lost two limbs. He experiences phantom pain, where the missing limb hurts or itches. Quite common for amputees. A neurologist figured out a mirror box, where for example if you have one hand amputated, you put the good hand in this box, and you see the mirror image in another compartment. The patient is told to imagine putting his phantom hand in the other compartment.

The movement of the good hand is reflected, and the brain sees the mirror image and gets the impression that the missing hand is moving. People would find the pain and odd feelings from the missing hand go away. About half of the patients treated in this way improved.

The gentleman who figured this out, V. S. Ramachandran says to his students "when you go to meetings, see what direction everyone is headed, so you can go in the opposite direction. Don't polish the brass on the bandwagon". He describes pain as "an opinion on the organism's state of health rather than a mere reflexive response to injury". Out of these insights come therapies that help in dramatic ways.

The energy plus frontend is progressing. I wrote a script that reads the class definition and generates python classes representing all the elements that make up a building simulation. Right now I'm working on models that encapsulate the data for the variety of views that are needed. Andreas Gerber, who teaches building technologies, has contributed code for writing out the definition data from the classes.

Rapid Application Development

2009-05-03T21:49:00.000-07:00

An itch showed up, I needed (wanted) a simple, or so I thought, application to edit or create a definition file for the Energy Plus building simulation suite. Energy Plus is a US department of energy sponsored project. You need to define the building quite specifically. There are applications available for windows, or for purchase. So I decided that the best way to learn the rather complex structure was to write some code to fool with it.

I started with Ruby, but when I needed some gui stuff, found the bindings not up to date. PyQt is up to date and well supported, so I started writing. First was to parse the definition dictionary provided in the suite to build python classes representing each needed description. The classes would know how to read, write, edit and draw the particular element. Or would once I wrote it. Then read some example definition files, and work on the edit code. So far, so good. There is still a ways to go, but I'm seriously impressed how quickly one can bang out a working application for a specific purpose. This isn't trivial; the definition files are complex, long and involved. I have some widgets to write, some careful parsing through the results to check for accuracy, and some code to draw a few elements onto a graphics scene to represent the building outline. I suspect another 40 or so hours on top of the 40 or so I have into it already to get something useful.

Very impressed so far. PyQt is well documented and works, python works well and is reasonably quick. Qt is of course very nice to work with. It is so quick to build something useful.

The project is at http://code.google.com/p/energyplus-frontend. You need python, and pyqt. And the energy plus suite mentioned above, which is free. Get both the linux and windows one, it runs in wine. The windows package has the dictionary files required to build the classes. I'm working with the v3.1 stuff, and eventually may test with earlier versions.

The prerequisite screenshot. Note the empty space in the middle. A graphics scene ready for one's imagination.

Qt and Community

2009-01-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

The opening of the Qt repository is potentially the most important move Nokia has made.

Jeff Jarvis documents the decline of print media and explores strategies that could be adopted to keep in business. He describes an attempt to build a news product with community involvement, attempting to use the community. He probably inadvertently describes some of the attempts to leverage free software developers. It only works if people are building something for themselves.

Nokia is building something for themselves, and opening the repository (and adjusting the license) so that developers can build something for themselves.

One might add that having developers by definition as users of the library makes it more likely that valuable contribution will happen. End user applications face a bigger hurdle in eliciting contribution.

I have an article in lwn.net this week regarding the Qt announcements.

Nortel Bankrupt, My Fault

2009-01-15T10:08:00.001-08:00

Nortel, a venerable manufacturer of telecommunications equipment has filed for bankruptcy protection. Their last gasp was the tech boom of the 90's, but since then they have been shrinking. The market they sold into has changed, and they didn't.

Why is that my fault? Simple. My daughter is in Scotland, so I explored the various alternatives to be able to call. Cheap was the goal, with the expenses paid on my end preferably. So I set up a voip account with a UK provider, purchased a local number in the city where she resides. It costs me around $8 a month. I dusted off an old laptop that was sitting idle, installed Asterisk and got it working. I purchased a product from Nortel's arch nemesis Cisco, who sells a Linksys phone/voip adapter. She calls the local number with her cell phone on the weekends when it is free. The phone rings here and we talk as long as her free minutes allow.

All for $8 a month. For 4-6 hours of chat.

That is why I feel personally responsible for the bankruptcy of Nortel. I don't feel bad or guilty. Just responsible.

Qt LGPL

2009-01-05T11:26:00.000-08:00

Big news. I actually liked the GPL since it forced 'payment' of some kind. But there is no denying that the license conditions of Qt have limited it's adoption. Those barriers are gone.

The one thing that was problematic with the old arrangement was the insistence on ownership (with rare exceptions) of the code within Qt. If there was a bug, the solution was to maintain a parallel tree and/or wait for Trolltech to fix it. To quote from Ars Technica:

An inclusive and transparent development model

In addition to adopting the LGPL license for Qt, Nokia will also be completely changing Qt's development model to make it more inclusive and transparent. The source code will be moved to a publicly-accessible Git repository so that the latest changes will always be visible. The use of Git, a distributed version control system, will make it easier for third-party developers to participate directly in the process of improving Qt. To further reduce the barrier to participation, Nokia plans to accept code from contributors without requiring copyright assignment.

That is a very positive change. And probably bigger news than the license change.

Looking At the Gift Horse's Teeth

Multi-national corporations don't give things away. So what is the deal here? Nokia seems to be trying to gain developer mindshare. They are in a multi way fiercely competitive market in phones; Apple, now Google, the Microsoft platform, Palm is back in the game, RIM, etc. The base phone market is pure commodity. But if you had a very nice smart phone with a very large developer community that is cross platform, cross capability, cross everything, there is potential.

This is up against Microsoft, with an solid toolchain and product offering. But it is closed and expensive. Google, with an open and free platform developed in the dark. Google is great with free software, but does it the typical way, periodic free code dumps. Control rears it's ugly head. RIM has a totally closed stack and offering and has the benefit of first to market, actually having defined a market segment. Apple with very tight control of not only the platform but what runs on it. Nice, expensive, boutique, but ultimately limiting.

So Nokia comes tearing into the corner like Esa Tikkanen, attempting to change the game. An excellent toolkit with a large and vocal and enthusiastic user base. A license change that will only increase the size of that base, potentially changing KDE and Qt from an outlier in the free software stack to a central part. Throw in the freeware and shareware potential for other platforms. And much of what is written potentially available for a smart phone. With some work of course. The platform potential gets defined in large ways by the numerous users and developers. And by the way, I've got some hardware that you'll like for sale. Think of the implications. I enjoy free software for the ability to customize my work environment. Not wallpapers and sounds, but the whole application and workspace. I want a portable device that would allow me to do that. Not 'allow', but by design encourage.

If you look at the offerings now, they each have a small well defined market to cater to. Rim with the connected. IPhone with the fashionable. I have no use for either, and haven't bought them. My needs will not be met by someone looking for market share. They will be met by ideas implemented by people with similar needs. All we need is a platform to build it on. It seems that Nokia is looking to build that platform.

As I said, very interesting. Palm had such a platform for it's time, but when the possibilities changed, their software wasn't ready for it. As long as Nokia keeps it open, lets go as much as possible, and follows while leading (as tough a challenge as it sounds). Don't do anything approaching the Apple khtml/webkit BS. Remember that people will work to no end for themselves, but will not ever work for you for free. Think hard about the difference and get it right. Produce nice compelling hardware for us to buy and build on.

We are in for an interesting ride. I'm actually excited by the portable platform again.

Look Back at 2008

2008-12-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

The big news this year is the beginning of the KDE 4 series. On January 11, 2008 KDE 4.0 was released. KDE 4.1 was released on July 29, 2008.

The first commit regarding KDE 4 happened on May 8 2005. There was a BOF session at Akademy 2004. After 3 years and 7 months the work seems only to have started. This is what I love about free software. No one in their right mind would even try something like this, but it was done. And I humbly submit, quite successfully.

I wrote last year at this time that "probably this time next year we will have a version that we can recommend to our grandmothers". My perfect skills at prognosticating have again been validated. The coming 4.2 release will be ready for grandmothers everywhere.

So we have Plasma working well, Phonon simple and working. Akonadi will wait for 4.2 along with many other neat things. Much of the infrastructure is in place, some things not quite there yet, but coming. The user experience is getting better. Not too bad for a broken development system.

Any change as large as that will engender feelings. Some wish that things had gone quicker, some don't like some decisions and directions. Flame wars are a hallowed tradition of free software, and we haven't disappointed. The community came up with Code of Conduct to keep a lid on the more damaging manifestations that we saw earlier on. But as always, code triumphs, those who did the work decided and produced, the rest spectated.

How can the large behemoths of the software industry harness the energy and ideas of free software? And the real question is how to harness it without creating or feeding a viable free desktop that could potentially put it out of business? Now we know. WebKit has made the news a number of times this year. Google released it's own browser, Chrome. It is based on WebKit. Microsoft made noises about using WebKit as browser engine. Nokia continues to use it, Qt includes it as part of their library.

A couple of thoughts. It is more evidence of the industry's fixation, unhealthy fixation with monoculture. Also, it is a marked event where the software behemoths of the industry, Apple, Microsoft, Google, become consumers of, in Doc Searls terms, building materials, instead of producers. Is Microsoft is such dire shape? And along the way every effort has been made to deny the benefits of the collaboration to the free desktop.

What interests me in the browser world is the single minded perseverance of the khtml folks, who don't want to become unpaid labor for these behemoths. And hv3, another browser with another html engine. Who in their right mind would write another html engine? The same type of folks that would write an OS, a desktop, and all the interesting and difficult pieces that make up the free software stack. You see, without this single minded determination all we would be are very low cost venture capital firms coming up with neat ideas and implementation, but no one to pay.

Nokia bought Trolltech. How this all works out remains to be seen. Trolltech and KDE had a symbiotic relationship, but how does Nokia and KDE?

Probably the slapdown of not only the year, but of the decade came about at Linux Plumbers Conference. Greg Kroah-Hartman gave the keynote address, and lambasted Canonical for it's lack of contribution upstream to the plumbing of what makes up the linux desktop. Here is the talk, here are more of Greg's comments, and for a sample of the response from the community, a post at lwn.net. Read through the comments, among the hurt feelings of Ubuntu users, there are comments from individuals who confirm what was said. So a question for us users; if a distribution can be the most successful without giving back, do we have a responsibility? If hardware vendors ignore the basic structure of free software, do we support them?

And lastly, the abundant and inexorable flow of code changes seems to have worn out our faithful chronicler, Danny Allen. What does the future hold? Will he regain his power and determination and madness?

Not A Team Player (tm)

2008-11-06T20:55:00.000-08:00

Impatient and cynical. Moody. With no understanding of the realities of the software business. Obviously don't write c++ code.

All this because I dare mention that Nokia has released a beta of a tool for Qt without source code.

(checking) This is a free software community, isn't it? We actually do believe in those things still, don't we?

And yes, I do write code, have been for many years. And have worked with a number of variations of designers. Always end up yearning for a text editor. I'm funny that way, goes with moody and cynical.

And no, seriously no, I will not use, look at or try a binary development tool. Been there, done that. Life is too short. In fact, offerings of that sort are taken by my flawed personality as an insult. Especially when I'm expected to be grateful, demeaned and condescended to.

Miscellaneous

2008-11-06T18:14:00.000-08:00

I'm attempting not to be grouchy. We had our first snow fall of the year; wet, sloppy and cold. Although I probably wouldn't have noticed it as much if I wasn't walking the dogs, rolling in the wet grass trying to hide from them, and sliding down hills. They had fun.

Updated the Kubuntu box at work. There is a definite disadvantage to running an svn build of KDE; you see the shortcomings of the release scheme. Konqueror doesn't work on Kubuntu, no addressbar. That issue was fixed around a month ago. Maybe I should write things down so I can complain coherently. I like Konqueror, but somehow Kubuntu has consistently conspired against it's usage. I must say that KDE4 is nice looking. The menu was fixed to require clicking on the tabs to select. Not sure that is an improvement. I dislike clicking for some reason.

Olivia, our portuguese water dog, has a simple purpose in life. Every fall when I start wearing gloves, she isn't content until she has chewed one finger off. Her single minded focus is admirable. On a similar subject, has Nokia released the source to the Qt designer marketing trinket they threw at the wall last week?

Talked to a guy who is setting up a generator for his house so he can be self sufficient. He is quite sure this whole economic mess is going to get ugly. No guns though, this is Canada. A question; How is this turmoil affecting KDE developers who are spread all over the world?

I had the distinct privilege of running windows the other day. One of our vendors has an engineering application that won't run in wine, so I had an emulated copy of windows running. My hand got sore double clicking. I think it illustrates how bad ideas get entrenched in desktop software. I'm not a poster boy for throwing out everything, but some ideas need to go by the wayside. Including some of the things we do on the free desktop. The challenge is to come up with something better, which almost always requires quantum leaps in technological advancement and capability. I'm looking forward to Nepomuk actually changing how we see the stuff on our hard drives. Very challenging, not there yet, and there will be many iterations that will suck. Fun nonetheless. Like walking dogs in the first snowfall of the year.

Solzhenitsyn, December 11, 1918 – August 3, 2008

2008-08-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

One summer quite a few years ago, I read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was a hot day, and I shivered due to the cold. That was how powerful this book was. A man condemned to the Soviet work camps, but the humanity and dignity that showed through. It described the prisoners working in the cold of Siberia. I then read The Oak and The Calf which describes his battle with the authorities.

You can see from the review in the New York Times that Solzhenitsyn was not loved, even by the western liberal elite. Oh, he was their hero for a time, while he represented the persecuted writers in the USSR, but he refused to believe like them. Even on his death, you can read the resentment of him and his ideas oozing from the commentary. Yet, that belligerence, refusal to submit to the common ideas and thinking of the day if he found it wrong, is what draws me to him. I'm quite sure that if I had met with him, we would have disagreed on many and substantial issues, but a man to have lived and survived, even thrived under the conditions that he did is enough. Every person who writes down all his thoughts will offend someone, and hopefully many.

It's been a while since I read the Oak and the Calf, but two things come to mind. The story is about the travails of publishing underground in the USSR, and the events that led up to him being expelled from his country. He was not afraid of the all powerful state, which made them powerless. Yes, power is based on fear, and if you are not afraid, no one can have power. Yes, they can imprison, exile, harass, make life difficult, but they cannot make you someone or something that you aren't, because you are not afraid. Interestingly, and this is borne out by other similar stories, if the state's agents act in a way to purposely intimidate you, and you don't react as they expect, they don't know what to do. Because they have no power. A lesson for life.

The second point is his disdain for the apparachik that distributed illegal copies of his works. The Samizdat became a way for the enablers of the state to get frissons of danger without much risk. The end result was that his works were unattributed, and no benefit accrued to him, but those same individuals who enabled the persecution by supporting the state apparatus got free reading. Again, no holds barred.

I haven't read any of the Gulag series, they have been on my long time reading list. I have some impetus to read them now.

It's quite simple. A man who is hated by both western liberal intellectuals and Soviet communists is worth reading. An interesting comment, again words to live by, is when asked why he didn't respond to all his critics in the west, he said that he had a book to write, and wouldn't have time to do both. He lived to 89, an age befitting his spirit and dignity.

Here are some quotes from his speech that he gave at Harvard in 1978. He purposely is taking a poke at many of the sacred cows of the west.

Thus mediocrity triumphs with the excuse of restrictions imposed by democracy.

Enormous freedom exists for the press, but not for the readership because newspapers mostly give enough stress and emphasis to those opinions which do not too openly contradict their own and the general trend.

This debilitating dream of a status quo is the symptom of a society which has come to the end of its development.

The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism's crimes. When they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them.

Doesn't Quite Work (tm)

2008-07-25T16:26:00.000-07:00

It started when I tried an update of Kubuntu. Using the gui, Adept I think. It borked, and crashed with some error or other. I really, really want to forget the syntax of dpkg, but this gui that Doesn't Quite Work forces me to go to the command line to first diagnose and then fix it.

Then, having the desire to set up Asterisk, I purchased a SPA3102 phone adapter, which works fine. I installed AsteriskNow in a virtual machine, VirtualBox doesn't like AsteriskNow, or visa-versa. VMWare doesn't like the updated libraries on my distro. So back to what works, QEmu. Set up bridging, and attempted to set up Asterisk to talk to the SPA3102 through the web based interface. Quickly ran into limits, forcing me into a hackery of configuration file editor. Ssh'd into the vm, fired up vim, and edited the files as required. Got it working, but the nice web based interface Doesn't Quite Work.

Must be a bad week. A couple of months ago lightning smoked my trusty WRT54G router. Replaced it with a cheap Belkin, Linux based. Works ok for wireless and the like. Asterisk and sip want multiple ports accessible to the wide world, and the router has an option to enable upnp. Everything worked fine, asterisk talked to the provider as expected. For a few hours, then registration errors would occur. I thought maybe the bridge setup, the vm, rebooted, etc. Nope. Reset the router, and everything works. For a few hours, then the same problem. Is it the router? Next is to set up IAX incoming with the provider, which seems to bypass NAT and firewall issues. Doesn't Quite Work.

And finally, since it's friday, and we got caught up on most of the emergencies, I took advantage of my neighbor who builds canoes and rents kayaks. I took a kayak out on the lake, attempting to have my dog sitting on my lap. Doesn't Quite Work. Next time, I'll use a canoe.

Too Many Projects, Currency, Google Sucks

2008-07-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

Google doesn't really suck, but when you use something as often as Google, well, it sucks sometimes. For example. If you live on the bleeding edge of things, and are having a problem with getting things to work. So you do a google search on "ati xorg 6.9.0" you get a whole listing of announcements. Great. I know it's out there, I'm using it. I want to find out if this or that works, and how to fix it. Eventually there will be search results for what I want, but by then I'll be using 7.1.0 or something. A more precise search term would help, but you need to know the words before you can search for them.

In my day job, if someone is willing to spill lots of real money, they get our attention. Free software works a bit differently. Not entirely, having $500 million or so to drop judiciously may even buy you a distribution, but I digress. For mere mortals, the currency is contribution. If someone contributes, they get attention. I can vouch for that. People read and comment on my semi-coherent rants possibly because I bought some currency by contributing.

The contribution doesn't need to be source code. How about someone collecting or linking all the current problems, fixes, development efforts on a particular piece of hardware or software that they use? I've enjoyed it when others have done that. The information is available, but spread all over the various forums and lists.

I've wondered why no one has written a regular summary of all the changes in xorg. It affects everyone, so there would be an audience.

What about a podcast or series of articles on using the KDE technologies to solve common business problems? This one has been perking in the back of my mind for a long time. Akonadi gives access to data that businesses always need. How could someone use the api's to accomplish what they need? That is one example. How about scripting workflows with KOffice? This stuff is the bread and butter of commercial desktop usage. When these types of questions are asked, solutions come forward, improving the software for everyone.

There is so much to do. Instead of wallowing in disappointment, jump in. Either work with the project, or do something on your own. KDE is today what individual contributions have made it. Oh, don't be anonymous. Building community is another word for building relationships.

YMMV

2008-07-04T14:03:00.000-07:00

It seems the radeonhd driver doesn't work for everyone. Here are some links that are surprisingly difficult to find using Google.

Xorg radeonhd wiki page with many helpful links. There is a section about monitor detection issues that may help with misresolution issues. Also, for getting OpenGL working, How to setup DRI with radeonhd. Requires quite a bit of bleeding edge stuff. The urge to fiddle with xorg.conf and xorg drivers comes and passes quickly, especially if I have a reasonably working setup.

For those who are vehement that this all should be working NOW, I have a suggestion that will really help. Get yourself comfortable, close your eyes, and start humming. Hmmmmmmm. Do it as long as it takes for the video stack to stabilize. If you get the urge to flame someone, control yourself. Close your eyes. Hmmmmmmmmm. How can you expect things to improve if you don't do your part?

a thousand years
inside
a thousand years
beyond

empty
these eyes
are full.

ATI and KDE 4

2008-07-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

I've got a cheap on board ATI 1200 series video. I've been using the Catalyst proprietary driver from ATI, with some success. I have become reaquainted with the hard reset button, but the free drivers have been not much better. Seeing notice of a new version that supported EXA rendering, it was time to try them again. Here is the announcement

What a nice surprise. Everything worked fine once I renamed the xorg.conf file. It detected the monitor and resolution just fine. The peripherals worked as expected. Plug and Play. Scrolling in Konqueror is quick, Dolphin is downright snappy. 2D is quite satisfactory.

When I turned on Desktop Effects using OpenGL, it didn't work at all, and I had to revert. Using XRender however, the effects are quick and tidy. I can watch a video with Dragon, which I couldn't do with the Catalyst drivers with Effects enabled. A slight problem with Dragon, it doesn't want to go full screen. I'm sure there will be other issues show up, but so far so good. I can't get the 3D Earth Model plasmoid to work, but it didn't work with Catalyst either. I may be missing something there. Xine ui doesn't work properly either, but mplayer does.

Ahh, the sweet smell of freedom. There has been enormous effort to get the video stack working, there is quite a ways to go. But how nice to experience the first fruitage of the efforts. Kudos to the ati radeon developers. And kudos to AMD for releasing specs that allow free drivers.

Oh, this was version 6.9.0 of xf86-video-ati, KDE svn version 827820.

Plasma

2008-06-29T17:35:00.000-07:00

When we learn new things, our brains reorganize. This process produces feelings of confusion and frustration. I like that state, and always pursue the limits of my understanding.

Keeping the above in mind, I explored the current Plasma desktop ideas. Very interesting, in fact, not frustrating at all. I've often wanted to explore the idea of zooming in and out of various work areas, or areas of interest. Right now I have 10 windows in my panel, and often have more, depending on what I'm doing at the moment. I would love to be able to zoom in and out of tasks, leaving everything open and where I left it. OS/2 had attempted this with the Workplace Shell. You could create a folder (don't remember the terminology of the time) with links to applications or files, open the folder which opened the applications, closed the folder which closed the applications. Handy, but flawed. The api was closed of course, and to do anything mildly useful required using undocumented interfaces. And the Workplace Shell didn't show the filesystem, but had something akin to .desktop files that linked to the various real files. So if you moved the physical files, the whole thing got confused. And in practice, it was flakey. Plasma didn't make the same mistake. Nice.

So far not much new learning for me. Only questions, which will be answered in time as things get done.

If you click on the cashew thingy, one item is Zoom Out. Try it. Your desktop, not including panel, will shrink. If you left click on the checked background, you can slide it side to side, hiding your desktop. There is lots of real estate open for exploitation. Click on the cashew thingy, and another item shows up. Add Activity will create another desktop. You can add widgets to that, zoom in or out to each one. Cool.

So here comes the questions. Will applications be able to work within the plasma zooming scheme? That would be a killer. Or will applications based on the plasma api be the only ones? Then the tricky parts. This could get complex in a hurry, which I have no problem with. But how to allow a user to keep track of what is there, easily switching etc. I see that the panel we know doesn't really fit into the paradigm. What would replace it, and how? As it stands it is just starting to be useful. There is a pile of work to be done yet, and I eagerly await what is to come.

One thing for sure. My monitor is suddenly too small. And I don't feel the slightest frustration. Maybe time to delve into the plasma api. I'm sure I'll get there quickly enough.

Users vs. Developers Ad Nauseum

2008-06-28T08:30:00.000-07:00

I read this comment on the Dot earlier this week. It stuck in my mind, and I wanted to share it: (link) It was written by someone called outolumo.

"Couple years back I moved to France for 11 months, didn't know the language, anyone in there, and for the first two months my only access to Internet - to keep me at least somewhat sane - was in an Internet café, where I visited about once a week or so. And besides reading my mail (which there never was too much), how did I use that time? By reading carefully about the developments of KDE4 (and 3) from the KDE Commit-Digest..."

I don't know if he was reading what I did, or what Danny does. Doesn't matter. I know that comments like this give a burst of energy.

All this discussion about users vs. developers obscures what really matters. What would move someone to write, debug, translate, draw artwork, study usability, test, file bugs, document something like KDE? LWN interviewed a kernel hacker named Peter Zijlstra and we learn what motivates him. Here is the link. I understand what he says, and feel the same excitement and pleasure in solving difficult problems.

Process or Product

2008-06-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

One of my proudest moments was when I learned that someone quit their job as a result of my speaking up.

I won't bore you with the story, but what I said cut through all the messaging and managing of expectations and easing of the customer experience, helped a fine gentleman realize he was working for a bunch of snakes, and he quit.

The killer feature of free software is it's lack of artifice. Software is a product of the human mind, and since the human mind ranges from intolerably stupid and destructive to sublime beauty, software reflects those extremes. Of course, most minds and software are somewhere in between. Free software processes expose the reality, closed software tries to hide it. I mistrust software, although I have an implanted device run by software that keeps me alive and well. I know bugs exist in all software, and gleefully climb into an airplane run by software. I know I could lose all my data, but I run KDE 4 from trunk.

I would hope that one gift free software gives to humanity is a realization of the frailty of software development. For that reason, exposing the process of free software development is extremely important. But equally, the exposure of this reality imposes a discipline. Most ideas look wonderful until they are exposed to the light of day. And like all human endeavors, great ideas are usually the result of many bad ones.

The killer app of free software is the process. The products range from awful to awesome, but the process, in all it's beauty and ugliness, has challenged well financed development houses. Any attempt to protect users from the process will inevitably hurt the product. We have a saying at work that the paying customer is always right. Those who can pay, who can contribute to the process, will and do appreciate the exposed nature of the process, including the rough and tumble and the uncertainty of the development process. That rough and tumble and uncertainty and much more will come out when developers speak their minds. And tell us the neat things they are doing. And show us pictures of their kids. Why would anyone give their time to work on free software if they couldn't show off their kids?

Speaking of intolerably stupid and destructive, Mussolini said "Ruling the Italians is not difficult; it's pointless." It is not difficult to control the message. Disaggregate some bloggers, like me for example. Write a community communication manual. But why? It's pointless. In fact, it's counterproductive.

In case you're wondering, in the situation I described above, there was no need for abuse or yelling. Just a simple clear description of the truth sufficed. I talk to the gentleman nearly every week at his new employer, and the enjoyment is mutual.

Bliss

2008-06-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

The KWallet icon showed up in my panel. I'm at Revision 821975. See, I'm not that hard to please.

Buyers remorse

2008-06-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

That Bruce Tognazin quote I referred to reminded me of an experience I had this winter with a customer. (the names and details have been changed to protect the foolish)

Ground source heat pumps use the warmer temperature of the earth as a source of energy. They are efficient if sized and installed properly. They are also sold as "going to save us all" solutions, which leads into emotional purchase territory. Large purchases. The Canadian government gives a grant of $8000 for an installation. It isn't unusual to have people spend $25-35K on a heating system, and there was a $175K system put in not far from here.

The only problem is that many of the systems don't work. Work in the sense of saving energy, or even sometimes heating the home. They are sized to get the sale, not to solve a problem. One customer has a system that doesn't work, but the esteem given to someone enlightened enough to have such a system is worth the monstrous heating bills. I'm not joking. The system doesn't work. Many don't. But no one complains or says anything because they know they were suckered by a sales pitch, and they convince themselves that they made the enlightened choice. Even if it doesn't work.

The $175K system I referred to didn't work. At least it didn't work during the winter when it was cold. The fellow had a multimillion dollar house at 55F 12C in February. I was told by a customer that I didn't understand such systems and therefore my opinion that it didn't work was invalid.

You see, I deal with this BS all the time. Overpromise and underdeliver works only if people pay way too much money and are ashamed of telling everyone how foolish they are.

Negatives

2008-06-13T12:20:00.000-07:00

Some have commented that my descriptions are negative.

I ran Dolphin on my Eeepc this morning. The experience was quite different, even satisfying. I only had 6 files and folders in my home folder. At home on my desktop with hundreds of files and folders the tool failed for me. This is not a question of user skill. I ran across this quote:

"The purpose of the icons, the purpose of the entire OS X look and feel, is to keep the customer happy during that critical period between the time of sale and the time the check clears." (Bruce Tognazin) list of interesting quotes Ask Tog, source of quote

Dolphin

2008-06-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

I hate graphical file managers. Not only graphical. I hated the text mode filemanagers of yore. I feel deep comfort seeing the lonely and stark command prompt.

Using Dolphin the other day to browse through my drives, I realized why. I would dislike affixing a large magnifying glass in front of my face. Hence the command prompt. I tell it what I want to see, and it shows me.

Dolphin starts up with an incredibly cluttered interface. No, not the menus, toolbars and the like. Every addition is painstakingly decided and parsed. But the 251 Items, (88 Folders, 163 Files) show up unbidden and undesired. In the Tools menu there is a helpful Show Filter Bar selection, which brings up a text line where you can enter some kinds of filter. Forget everything you know about wildcards and the like, it doesn't work. If you type the first letter of a folder, it will list all folders and files whose name contains that letter. If you select the folder, the filter stays, and to see what is in the folder you have to clear the filter editor. Maybe I will implement T days, or if I'm particularly grouchy, Y days, only seeing the filtered files and folders with that letter included.

If only the darn thing showed up next time I ran Dolphin. Maybe if I ran the thing more than once every three weeks I could remember where to find the menu selection. Maybe if it showed up when it started I might run it more than that. But no, clutter is evil. Except in the file listing. This is where I start looking for the little X button. Did I mention that I hate graphical file managers?

But I persist. Konqueror did automatic file previews. This was one feature that overcame my apprehension of graphical file managers. Dolphin does similar. The file type is identified by an icon, and as you hover, the preview shows up in the information panel. It is a bit small, showing just not quite enough information to identify a text file for example, but adequate. Definitely a plus. Clicking on a file loads a viewer or editor as expected. I miss the embedding from Konqueror. Hovering and previewing or even getting a left menu takes a long time. The application becomes unresponsive. Hopefully it improves by release time.

Tabs are supported, but as of 819969 drag and drop between tabs doesn't work. Strange, but I think it did work at one time. Not sure.

A neat feature that I just noticed is the ability to zoom in and out. It changes the density of the view pane, increasing or decreasing the size of the icons. The small icon size messes up the + and - clickable points though.

There is no indication once you click or hover whether something is happening. That may be a kde4 issue.

As I said, I don't like graphical file managers. Dolphin has some sweet spots and if it was lightning fast, much could be endured. I'm sure that will improve in time.

Something I found in browsing my cluttered drive:

Gwenview

2008-06-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for a reason to move to KDE4, Gwenview is it.

I took some pictures of our dog for my wife to upload to Facebook, and to email to our daughter who is seeing the world with an Eeepc in her luggage. Our camera uses Xd memory cards, and I've got a handy Lexar JumpDrive usb dongle gizmo that reads all the card varieties that I use. I use KDE4, she is still in kde3.5. In kde4, it was a matter of mounting the drive in Dolphin, left click on the folder, run Start a Slideshow which loads Gwenview. It was easy and quick to select the pictures we wanted.

In Kde3.5.x, it was more difficult. Oh yes, there is digikam and other picture viewers. I ended up using kuickshow for speed and simplicity.

It's almost time to migrate. Everything else is coming along nicely. Gwenview is the killer app. Kudos to Aurélien Gâteau.

Poof

2008-06-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

Lightning 1, Computer 0

Last thursday evening we had a lightning strike somewhere close. A surge came through the phone line, which was plugged into a pci modem, which smoked the motherboard, jumped across to the ethernet card and smoked the wireless router. Somehow a usb 4 port adapter was hit. Our television is dead. Our neighbors had various things but I think we got the worst. Great fun.

The Brain

2008-06-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

"Second languages learned after the critical period (8 years to puberty) are not processed in the same part of the brain as is the native tongue".

When I read french, I understand but don't 'get' what it says. This is a quote from the book The Brain the Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. (Amazon) For a long time neurologists believed that the brain was localized, ie. each physical section of the brain controlled specific functions. Nobel prizes were won by researchers that described brain function in that way. But it is only partly true. It seems that our brains are plastic, adaptable, constantly changing, rearranging depending on the use that we make of it. Our brain function or more exactly dysfunction is evident when there is an injury that causes disability. My favorite story from the book is a woman who had her vestibular system damaged by medication. She had no sense of balance, and was either falling or feeling she was falling through space. A device was placed on her tongue which gave 2D electrical stimulation patterns based on an accelerometer on her head. Almost instantaneously she regained her sense of balance as her brain identified and interpreted the stimulation pattern on her tongue. Remarkably after a few months of regular use, she regained her balance even without the device. Her brain learned, adapted, somehow.

Jeff Hawkins invented the Palm Pilot. He was involved in various ventures to do with Palm type devices. Having worn out 3 Palm handhelds, I took note of his name mentioned in the context of brain and intelligence research. Business Week article He describes intelligence as sophisticated pattern matching which permits prediction. Or something like that. Another book to read.

Cement Finishing as a Development Methodology

2008-05-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

In one of my iterations, I worked for a cement finisher. We would pour slabs, driveways and basements. We would prepare the forms and the reinforcing, and when ready the concrete would arrive, and we would pour and finish the surfaces.

When the prep work was getting close, we would hear the announcement that the concrete would arrive in 30 minutes. The pace quickened as we tried to get everything done. The truck would arrive, the first concrete poured as everyone ran to complete the last of the preparations. Maybe. Concrete hides all, so the important stuff got done. Utter madness, process driven by the demands of the product.

On the 19th, a hard freeze was imposed for KDE 4.1. A flurry of last minute features are stuffed into the repository. Utter madness prevails until the panic passes and the loose ends get fixed up.

And the important part. Once it's done, everyone gets a cold one. A humble suggestion for naming the next beta: KDE4.1 beta2, Exposed Aggregate edition.

Usability and More

2008-05-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

I'll explain a bit. It's very simple.

I use tools every day that most readers here wouldn't know which end was up. The are eminently usable because they allow me to do the job I'm paid to do. New and better ideas are always heavier or more fragile. Neat ideas that end up sitting in a box. They were designed by someone who doesn't use them.

In fact, 'usable' tools are designed to allow inexperienced people to do basic work. A fine goal, but not mine. Thankfully I still have the ability to choose my tools.

To suggest that people who use a piece of software extensively are somehow unqualified to have an opinion on how it should work strikes me as misguided.

That gets to the crux of the matter doesn't it. Satisfying new user's needs will more than likely make the software unusable or less usable for an experienced user. Is it possible to have it both ways? No, because catering to the new user involves controlling or limiting the experience. And I can't run apt-get install kde-for-experienced-users. There is only one.

The tendency is to satisfy the new users. I realized long ago that my needs and desires in software don't correspond to the interests of those who want to grow markets. I have stated before that software leaves me as it 'progresses', as it attempts to gain a wider audience. In other contexts they lost my purchase, but there were many more willing to pay. We will see if the same thing happens here.

We want their feedback, but we also want to do what’s best for them.

2008-05-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry. I've had opinions about 'Usability' and free software. This cements it. Count me out.

Link

Dragon Player & Skanlite

2008-05-09T19:54:00.000-07:00

What a nice video player. Simple and clean. If you open the application it asks whether you want to use a file or a disk. If disk is selected, it opens the dvd you have in your drive. Files open fine. If you close the app while watching a file, and reload it, it knows where you left off. Very nice. There are few settings available, you can view full screen or window. I believe it uses Phonon, and gives us an idea of how useful and nice these abstraction layers are.

There are a few bugs left to sort out. I tried an mpg and it crashed for some reason. The full screen/windowing signals are confused sometimes. All in all, very nice.

A simple scanning application in extragear/graphics is called Skanlite. I've got an inexpensive canon LiDE25 flatbed scanner. Remember to plug the scanner in before loading the app. It has all the scanner configuration selections, with reasonable defaults. You can do a quick preview scan, which shows the scan as it comes off the machine. Nice. The icon meanings are a little confusing. I knew there must be some way to scan with such an application, and finally found the right button by pushing most of them. The DPI editing is a bit flakey. I would do the preview at a bit lower dpi for speed sake, and put the settings back to default after preview scanning. I tried scanning a document at 625dpi. The app became unresponsive during the slow scan. Eventually a window popped up with a full dpi representation of the scan,ie. quite useless unless I have a monitor 8.5*625 wide and 11*625 deep. It saved the png eventually (quite slow for some reason.) and gave back the application.

My understanding is that there is a udev hook in SANE available. I expect that Solid will eventually handle scanners. Especially if someone like me writes it. hmm.

A slight quibble with the menu. How to handle the description and application name? This is a classic case of catering to new users and those familiar with KDE. The menu shows the description, and on mouse hover, shows the application name underneath, with the icon at the left. Under Sound and Video, I've got a Audio Player (amarok) Media Player (helix player) Multimedia Player (mplayer) Music Player (juk) Video Player (dragon) and Xine. The descriptions are more confusing than the application names, at least in this instance.

There is an issue here. Descriptions are fine, but fall flat quickly if there are more than one similar application. One of the benefits and gifts of the free software community is the abundance of choice. Don't like amarok? There is Juk, or banshee or ??. Also, the application isn't some anonymous entity out of the ether. Someone spent their time, usually freely, to write something for me. How dare I tear away any recognition of their specific work and gift by renaming it?

Otherwise there are two options. Restrict choice, or have the user hover over bland and unappealing names to find out what they are actually about to run. Any time restricting choice is offered as a solution I suggest the paradigm is fundamentally broken.

I look for applications by name and the descriptions get in the way. For me.

Change

2008-05-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

No, not a political slogan

The headings in the menu are changed. Multimedia is now Sound & Video, Development is Programming, Accessories, System Tools.

We now have a cashew or whatever it's called taking up space on the limited and valuable real estate that makes up the panel.

Cookies and KWallet work again with Konqueror. Konqueror is getting better and better. A few crashes last week seem fixed.

Now to update to Qt 4.4.

Kdevelop and Friends

2008-04-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

First, I think I was a little over the top in my last post. Aseigo took me to task on vaporware. It ain't since we are running it. I repent in dust and ashes.

I'm now running KDevelop. If you want to build it, you need to start with kdevplatform, the kdevelop. I'll note any issues I have with it. The project handling is much better than the previous version, actually prompting it's use :). So far so good.

I noticed an odd glitch with KRunner. I haven't looked for Konversation, so I don't know if it's available for KDE4 yet. Kopete doesn't seem to have IRC support, at least with my setup. So I'm running a kde3 version of Konversation. The menu doesn't show (again, in my setup at least) any kde3 apps, so I start KRunner with alt-f2, type in the path and hit enter. Konversation runs, but I get an error from krunner saying it couldn't find it. Hmmm.

I turned the exploding windows effects off by editing the .kde/share/config/kwinrc file by hand. The fading out windows thingy is next to go. The taskbar plasmoid with pop up stuff becomes obtrusive after a while. Especially if it doesn't disappear right a way.

To ease the pain in the neck of building all the kde modules, I wrote a perl script that goes through all the PKGBUILD's, builds and installs them. It's cranking away slowly as I write. Speaking of pain in the neck, I woke up with a nasty one this morning. Still stiff and sore. Nothing staring at a computer screen won't make worse.

To Build or Not To Build

2008-04-12T14:02:00.000-07:00

I build therefore I am.

I appreciate the pointers to the kdemod KDE4 packages and PKGBUILD's. I prefer to maintain my own. It helps me get to know a system if I have to build it, and allows me to keep as up to date as I wish, and easily revert if required.

Speaking of which, Konqueror now starts from the menu. Svn revision 795948.

I feel I need to get something off my chest. My expectations for KDE 4 series are realistic. It is not ready, but will probably get more and more usable and useful as time goes on. There are some very interesting, may I say even exciting stuff being done. Qt 4 series has some very nice ways of doing things that I enjoy working with. Technology is fine. What really bothered me over the last year or so was the attempt to market KDE4. Everything that I like about free software was assaulted. Attempts to control the message, to spin, to pull the vaporware trick out of the hat created a feeling of revulsion. I knew what state the code was in. I followed the discussions on IRC where fundamental parts weren't working or ready. Nothing wrong with that. But trying to portray it as something it wasn't made me question my desire to be attached to such an effort. But, patience is a virtue. Marketing is meaningless when it's not attached to production. And thank goodness, it isn't in free software, it isn't in KDE.

I would be perfectly happy with a truthful message, something like "All software sucks. We suck less. Sometimes."

KDE 4 Plus and Minus

2008-04-10T23:03:00.000-07:00

I spend most of my time at my desktop in few apps. Konqueror, KDevelop, KMail, Konversation for irc, Konsole, Amarok. Throw in a video player, usually mplayer. On my Eeepc, Vim in Konsole as editor, Konqueror. The hardware integration is important in both, using the media capabilities of Solid for mounting SD cards and backup partitions.

I loaded KMail (svn revision 794573), set up the accounts, and everything worked as expected. Essentially the same experience as KDE 3.5, at least from a cursory examination. The existing setup for spam and filters worked as expected. I'm very interested in exploring Akanodi.

Konsole has changed quite a bit. The configuration is simplified, although accessing the configuration is a matter of trying menu items until something useful shows up. The configuration dialog didn't size to the Eeepc screen and required the alt-leftmousebutton treatment to get to the OK button. One thing I miss is the button for creating a new tab. It was the most used control element in Konsole 3.5x. At least for me.

I loaded KDevelop from svn. It didn't recognize my existing projects. There may be a feature that does, but I didn't run across it. I didn't get very far in the testing as it crashed. I'll do a bit more testing to see if it's ready to use.

Oh, I didn't mention that Qt4.4RC1 is installed.

I used the Suse Kickoff menu for a while. I liked it, especially the easily available search capabilities, and the favorites. Kdemod had a setup which included Kickoff and beagle, but it is no longer maintained. I was forced kicking and screaming back into the old KMenu, which is painfully broken. The new menu setup in KDE4 is in some ways better than Kickoff. The search works well, Favorites is nice, the hierarchical menu setup works well. The difficult to control mousing in Kickoff is much better in KDE4. There seem to be two types of people. Those who like it and those who don't. One thing I really liked about Kickoff is the access to beagle search. I'm not sure if KDE4 menu (whatever it is called) does, at least here it doesn't return any results. I'm hoping Strigi ends up better than beagle. It is somewhat disconcerting when the beagle indexes are bigger than the indexed data. I ended up disabling it for that reason.

More KDE4

2008-04-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. Looking at the Plasma widget gizmo at the top left of the screen, it reminded me of something.

KDE 4 in Actual Usage

2008-04-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

I've decided to fill the large gap in my blogging with descriptions of my experiences with KDE4.

I've been building KDE 4 from svn for a while, testing from time to time to see if it could be used. The answer was negative until recently. Most of what I want has stabilized enough to become my working desktop. I use Arch Linux as a distibution, and have built PKGBUILD's for all the major modules. The build scripts are here.

My first test was to install it on my Eeepc. I was using kdemod 3.5 series, which worked fine. But I wanted to see if KDE4 was usable and how resource intensive it is. Konqueror works, the taskbar can be shrunk enough to be possible, and there is a reasonable working plasmoid for battery power monitoring. No crashes so far. I installed the kdesupport modules, kdelibs, kdepimlibs and kdebase. Startup is quick, shutdown is about as slow as kde 3. If the machine shuts down abnormally, ie. not through the Kde menu, any configuration changes seem to be lost and I needed to delete the plasma configurations in .kde to get it to start again. Once the configuration is saved by a shutdown, further abnormal halts don't seem to cause any problem. This is based on svn revision 792413.

This gave me confidence to try the it on my desktop which is used differently. There have been a few issues, some almost show stoppers. My setup is at svn revision 795172. Konqueror won't start from the menu, and top tells me I have a konqueror --preload instance that is taking 95% cpu. If I start from a console, it loads and runs fine. Every so often nsplugin crashes, and on some pages the cpu usage spikes. It works well enough most of the time. I'm typing this in Firefox because Konqueror locked when trying to insert an image.

The desktop effects are neat for a short while, but for some reason the individual ones can't be shut off. I haven't tried editing the configuration file yet, and I probably will turn them all off. They work. Great.

Most desktop items are profoundly rudimentary in usage. Barely useful. These will no doubt improve with time.

I have used Amarok as a podcast collector, and use it to transfer to my mtp based MP3 player. This isn't working in Amarok 4 yet.

2007-12-28T22:13:00.000-08:00

It's been an eventful year. Change seems to happen either painfully slowly or painfully fast. I think we are in one of those fast periods that occur from time to time. Here is my list of interesting things that happened this year. Order is based on the important and empirical measure of what comes to mind first.

Eeepc. This is one of those industry changing bits that come along from time to time. Small, cheap and running Linux. I am thoroughly impressed with it. It puts a polished and impressive implementation of Linux in people's hands. We will look back at this little thing as a turning point. 350,000 sold so far

Finally some release candidates of KDE 4. The long process has yielded fruit. Now it's time to release it. There are mixed feelings about this. It really isn't ready for prime time usage. There are major holes in the offerings. But time to get it out, lift the freeze and go on to the next version. Probably this time next year we will have a version that we can recommend to our grandmothers. There is a reason why major reworkings don't happen very often. Somewhat like world wars. A new generation has to come along. KDE4 will live a long and fruitful life.

Last year ended with some inkling regarding the dismantling of the SCO case. Novell eclipsed IBM as a formidable legal opponent as they systematically tore apart SCO, forcing them into receivership. SCO is now delisted from the stock exchange, the last few dollars being apportioned by the bankrupcy court. Gone and good riddance.

AMD ATI Intel Dell Asus. I wonder what the people in Redmond are thinking when they hear these names. Oh yeah. They offer hardware that either runs linux, or are supporting open drivers for their hardware. Intel has made great strides and a great reputation with free software users by making available free drivers for their video and wireless hardware. ATI being purchased by AMD have changed course in the right direction, offering hardware specifications to developers. Dell is selling laptops and desktop products running linux. Asus has the Eeepc, but also a motherboard that has linux in rom with some basic function. Hardware support has been ok for linux, but with the movement that became a stampede this last year, we can look forward to even better hardware support in the future.

The GPLv3 was released. Much controversy has resulted, but more than likely in the end most everything GPL will end up GPL3. Why? Samba. KDE is updating it's licensing for that reason, and many project will do the same.

Apple completed it's purchase of CUPS. Now all free software distributions and projects will be in the thrall of Steve Jobs. Who will be changed the most? Apple's touch in free software has ranged from benign to pernicious, but the projects that they have affected were of marginal interest to most of the free software world. Now the question is whether CUPS will be run like KHTML/Safari/Webkit to the detriment of free software projects, or will the free software community recognize the hazard and act appropriately. Some may disagree with the characterization of khtml/webkit as a detriment, but consider this; could the free desktop afford to have a major portion of their offerings (printing) be essentially frozen for 2-3 years? No. So watch this space.

OLPC. This is special hardware. Linux based, designed for children, with the lofty goal of putting as many as possible into the hands of children in the developing world. It seems that it is everything that it was designed to be. Funny what happens when you start designing hardware from free software. We will remember this one for a long time. And we will see some of the technology developed for this project in other places.

Some things don't happen in ways that you put a date to. Things still don't work as you would like, but they are different things. Wireless networking seems almost easy. Things just work. Most of the time, but more often than not. Now if a year from now we can say the same thing about video drivers...

Speaking of networks, cellular networks are as hidebound as the Microsoft franchise. The IPhone came out with much fanfare, but it ends up being nothing more than another fancy phone to access the same old tightly controlled networks. Google introduced a platform, and are backing it up with a bid for wireless bandwidth. Linux based cell phones are getting common, but again, they are more of the same; closed, tied to a tightly controlled network. This system is ripe for an overthrow, the titans are in the ring, and we have the privilege of a ringside seat. Enjoy the show.

So that is my list. I notice looking it over that hardware is the focus. Don't get me wrong. Software across the board is improving. Except for KDE4, most software improvements are incremental. The basics are there, and what we are seeing is maturation. The hardware breakthroughs are new ideas made possible by free software. These new hardware platforms will spawn software ideas, which by nature take more time to mature. I can't see all these creative free software developers content to stay in maintenance mode. Give it two years. We will see some dramatic movements in software.

Dissention on the Menu

2007-11-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

Much discussion and debate circles the use of Kickoff and other attempts at replacing KMenu. Hopefully some ideas will come out of the noise.

What I would like to do is ask a few questions that need to be answered by whatever solution is offered. I'll state up front that I like Kickoff, and until seeing it had grown to hate KMenu. The reasons why will become apparent in my questions.

How can easy access to commonly used items be provided? Browser, mail client, music player, file system, and maybe a few others.

The first question had two answers, one for a new user, or someone unfamiliar with the icons and application names, and a second answer possibly for an experienced user (which probably applies to those reading this blog).

How can easy access be provided to log out, shut down or switch users?

How can a list of the application history be provided?

How can a hierarchical list of applications be provided?

If I install new software, how can I find it to run it?

How can I have tens or hundreds of applications installed and have access to them?

With all these answered, estimate how often each of these actions occur. In percent. This would determine how easy access to each action should be.

Kickoff attempts to answer these issues. The most powerful and the most unpredictable feature of Kickoff is the search, but moving the mouse wrong can lose the results. I think a persistent search pane would help. Hopefully other attempts will be made to solve this difficult problem. But to be useful they need to provide answers real problems.

Mountains and Sun

2007-11-16T18:13:00.000-08:00

November is a grey month, with low clouds, fog and rain. You can see the difference in people. Instead of smiling and talking, everyone is huddled in their coats and fighting a mild depression that will last until february.

I enjoyed getting above all that, literally. Across from Nelson there are well worn trails up the mountain. In an hour you can get to around 4500-5000 ft elevation. Above the low cloud that hangs in the valley. The wind is bracing, the air is clear. Whenever I stop to catch my breath, Olivia my dog turns around and looks at me, willing me further. It seems the elevation energizes her. The sun was shining through the high clouds painting the low clouds shades of pink. Watching the low clouds drift up the valley and run up through the trees as they hit the mountain makes me yearn for a camera, although the majesty would be lost on film.

I've been experimenting with virtualization in an attempt to retire an old Compaq laptop that runs Windows 98. We work on control systems with peculiar software interfaces, some that run on dos, some 16 bit windows. They communicate by serial port, hence the virtual machine. I purchased a USB to RS232 adapter, which is recognized in Linux. It creates a device equivalent to the RS232 port. I installed win95 in qemu, no problem, but for some reason it won't talk to the controller. The serial port works. I dug out from some dark and dusty corner a 2400 baud modem, plugged it in and talked to it with a terminal in windows running virually. But there seems to be some timing issue. So I did the same in VirtualBox, same problem. I tried VMWare, with the same result. Next is to install win98 with usb support, have it see the usb device directly, and see if I can use that to talk to the controller.

After a few hours doing that, I feel the need to get up some mountain to clear my head. I haven't installed windows for years. I haven't missed it at all.

The Case for Configuration Options

2007-11-13T18:05:00.000-08:00

KDE is criticized for having too many configuration options. Too complex, confusing, and in the end unnecessary. I will make the case, from real experience that options are necessary, along with easy to access configuration.

The Eeepc has a small screen, clear and bright but small nonetheless. Opening a browser window, with a window bar at the top, menu bar and toolbar leaves little space for the content. With a panel at the bottom and the screen is full of everything except what you want to look at. Same with other applications. The default KOrganizer has many panes showing interesting information, much of it filling corners that are left, but again with a small screen there is too much.

A standard configuration doesn't work. Hiding the panel, having a full screen browser, being able to show only the desired panes make it possible to use.

I wondered why Asus didn't use KDE as desktop in the stock simple mode. The answer became apparent as soon as the thing was set up. KDE takes too long to start. On my desktop machine this isn't an issue since I rarely shut the thing off.

It's The Distribution Stupid

2007-11-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

More distribution trashing. I think there is an inverse relationship between having a life and the number of distributions installed.

The Eee Pc runs a Xandros distribution, and in the easy mode it works well if you stay within it's confines. If you want something more, the advanced mode gets you an older KDE, and a very limited repository. Free software moves so quickly, and improves so quickly, especially the desktop.

Is is just possible that free software challenges everyone's assumptions? I'm sure manufacturers and distributors would like something constant, non changing, non-changeable in fact. It keeps life simple. How about starting from the point that everything is in flux, anything can be changed, in every aspect there is any number of viable alternatives, and it works. Let's push that further. How about a constantly improving set of packages, with undefined release points? In my years of using KDE from cvs/svn, release points were noteworthy by the sudden instability of the software. The gradual change and improvement caused few problems, fewer problems than the sudden changes and upgrades that characterized release events. Maybe Shuttleworth's goal of a 6 month release cycle is counter productive, and a better way would be to provide a constant upgrade stream, and instead of a forward looking release cycle, do a release from a backward looking perspective, ie. recognizing points of stability in the stream to produce an installation candidate. The user experience would be jumping onto a moving platform, which is a good description of the development process.

Eee Pc impressions

2007-11-03T15:48:00.000-07:00

The first impression you get from this machine is how small it is. I can use it comfortably between my belly and the steering wheel. The keyboard is small. The keys are small, and my fat fingers have some trouble typing. Not uncomfortably though. I have used small keyboards where my hands hurt after a while. Not this one.

The hardware is nice. Tidy, well put together. It doesn't feel cheap, in fact it has a nice feel. It is a pretty basic configuration. An Intel Celeron M, 900 mhz although it is stepped down to extend battery life. Intel graphics, an Atheros wireless adapter that is currently not supported in MadWifi. It has a video camera above the screen. It has 3 usb ports, an SD card slot, ethernet jack. The batteries seem to last quite well.

The screen is small, 7" diagonal, running at 800x600. It is very bright and clear. Easy to look at and read in various ambient lighting conditions.

The truly interesting part is the software. It runs a Linux distribution from Xandros specially set up for this machine. There are two modes. The default has icewm running with large icons that are either applications or buttons that load another icon window. Firefox is set up with a number of links to Google applications, Wikipedia and the like. This mode works well, and for the strange among us a terminal is available with a Ctrl-Alt-T. All the hardware buttons work nicely. The wireless works very well, if you plug in an ethernet cable it gets an ip automatically. A usb card or SD card brings up a dialog asking what to do. Amarok loads as a music player. MPlayer is used as a video player. It all works quite nicely if somewhat limited. There isn't a menu for selecting applications. It is all nice and tidy and controlled.

With a bit of hacking the advanced mode is available. It requires that you install kicker and ksmserver, yes, sudo apt-get upgrade and install, as Xandros is debian based. Once those packages are installed, when you shut down there is an option of booting into advanced mode. This loads a nice KDE desktop. The only problem is that when you shut down, it deletes all your desktop settings and reverts back to the simple mode. The solution is to back up /usr/bin/startsimple.sh to something, and copy /usr/bin/startkde to /usr/bin/startsimple.sh. Then the KDE desktop is the default, and it works as expected. Very nice. It is an older version of KDE 3.5 desktop. Here the 600x800 resolution bites. Most dialogs are larger than the screen requiring an alt-leftmousebutton-scroll circus act to move things around.

So far I've been impressed with this machine. My needs are small and portable first, and it definitely is that. Carrying it around is like carrying a book. It is very comfortable to use for the common uses. The Xandros repository is limited in content, so it may be necessary to install something else, or mix distribution repositories. How can we live without CMake, cpp, Qt4?

My favorite part is reading the User Guide and seeing a chapter on how to install Windows. One can almost hear the gnashing of teeth.

Embarrassment

2007-10-26T06:34:00.000-07:00

Why is it embarrassing that KDE is airing it's dirty laundry over khtml/Webkit?

This situation has festered for 5 years now. If no one was angry, upset, no one called anyone names, if there was no hard feelings, I think it would be time to look for another project. Dead people don't feel.

One of the first Digests I produced documented a rather messy saga in KMail. The only thing that prevented fistfights in that instance was two oceans of separation. It would be nice to say that everything turned out in the end, but that would be too simple. Development stagnated until a new generation of developers got interested. However I will suggest however that KDEPIM's solid and mature leadership was forged partly from that saga. Leadership that has maintained the KDE tradition of underselling and overdelivering, of incremental and well thought out progress. This current mess contains many lessons; what is important, what motivates/demotivates developers, who to listen to, who not to listen to. I believe that situations very similar to this one will arise again. How can anyone know how to handle the next time if the issues are not discussed?

Oddly enough, it always comes back to code. Thankfully it comes back to the code. What makes free software so good and so interesting isn't that users decide. It is because developers write what they want. If I wanted a platform where users decide I could go with 98% of the market. I doubt that many free software developers would willingly give up control that they have painfully wrested from MBA's and Marketing. Thankfully those endeavors are on the fringes in free software.

The Beatings Will Stop When Morale Improves

2007-10-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Or, The Care and Feeding of your Free Software Developer

The coming release of KDE4 will invariably ruin us all and cause paroxysms of angst among the faithful, and there possibly will be a few things not quite working as we want. It's time to remember how we can be the best user community in free software.

I am working with a piece of free software, no a whole suite of free software that I didn't pay a cent for. It arrives well endowed, with numerous surprising and delightful flourishes. And it was free. Where did it come from? Well, a bunch of computer programmers, hackers, got together by some means to write the thing. It is a result of years worth of coding, mostly done for nothing except the satisfaction of being part of something amazing. It is fun writing code. Especially when everyone else is there for the same reason.

So I as a user, without the skills to actually do things to make it work better, want this process to continue. I want a Better KDE (tm). I recognize my self-interest in this matter. I need to find a way to feed these strange people so they do more. How can I motivate these hackers so that they work even longer hours, or even better, motivate new hackers to give their time and skill to ME!

What do those who contribute to free software need? Let us make a list.

Money. Unfortunately, software hackers, like most of us have gotten into the habit of eating and wanting to sleep in a warm dry bed. Usually this takes money. How does this work with free software? Many of the core developers in KDE work for companies that benefit from KDE. The distributions sell their product. Trolltech sells developer licenses for closed development. Some developers have consulting firms that sell products. If we purchase from these firms, we benefit our beloved KDE.

A second obvious way to make sure developers have the money they need is to offer it directly to them. A case in point. KPrinter is somewhat in flux because the developer that wrote most of it is off working somewhere else. What that means is that we as a community have lost a valuable worker because someone else pays them more. Maybe we as a user community have the gained the reputation of being too cheap to keep our core assets. Hmmm. Something to think about.

Appreciation. Many who contribute don't expect or want renumeration. We all thrive when we are appreciated. Have you personally thanked the developers who wrote the software that you are using right now? If not, why not? There are many ways to get this message to them. This is the easiest and cheapest way of feeding your developers.

Keep your trap shut. This may be a bit counter intuitive to many, but may be one of the most important contributions you can make. Let me explain. Any time we use a tool we run into frustrating situations. It may not work the way you want. Frustration is one of the signs of new learning. This is normal, and I would say healthy. So what do we do with it? Do we vent our frustration on the writers of the code, who for the most part give it to us? The answer is no. If we have a dog, what would happen if we kicked it every time it came to us? It would stop coming. Same with developers. If every time we felt frustration we vented, maybe the developer would lose motivation to do anything for us.

Contributing back. We really show that we value the gift we have by contributing our skills and time to the project. Did we find a bug? File a report, and more importantly, follow up on the bug. Maybe the developer can't reproduce it. Maybe (s)he needs more information. You can measurably help the project by following up on the sometimes onerous task of tracking down a bug. KDE is open to contribution on many fronts. Translation. Testing. Packaging. Web design. Support in irc channels. Actual code contributions. etc. The project has gotten as far as it has because willing people have jumped in to contribute where they have seen a need.

And now for a personal note. I wrote the Commit-Digest for around 3 years. It was enjoyable and challenging, and I believe helped attract developers to the community. Every week someone I didn't know sent me a note saying how much they appreciated my work. Someone, I don't know who, paid the registration fees on the domain name. I didn't do it for money, or fame. I wanted to advance KDE in some way. I know my work was appreciated, and I thank everyone who made me feel that way. I wish one thing only. That everyone who contributes to KDE gets that same feeling of appreciation that I did. If they do KDE will continue to improve.

My Name is Derek and I'm a Usabilaphobe

2007-10-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

An interesting post on usability at humanized.com. Including the usual slag at KDE for having too many configuration choices.

Oddly enough, software held as examples of usability are python, emacs and Firefox.

This confirms my suspicions about 'usability'. It is a matter of preference. What I like and what the author likes are different. One set of applications, programming languages, desktop environments feel natural and comfortable to me. Another set feels comfortable to him. Maybe I'll call myself an expert and say that my preferences are the most human and natural, and studies prove it again and again :)

Yes there are good reasons to establish discipline in this matter. KDE developers probably don't need to, for example, design the main menu system in their app. There are common patterns that fit most apps, with some additions for specific function. Having common dialogs, some thought as to layout and common usage patterns is helpful. Probably the best way of doing this is technological, ie. having classes that are subclassed and extended if necessary. The HIG then becomes part of the codebase, allowing developers to focus on the particular usefulness of their app.

But lets get real here. The free desktop isn't going to all of a sudden get massive user uptake if we restructure our menus and dialogs. Even if it is perfectly done. If user interface was the key, Windows wouldn't have the massive market share, OSX would probably be seen all over the place. But that isn't the case.

There is a pattern I've seen happen over the years of using computers. Someone comes up with an idea, implements it. It reflects the developer(s) with the idea. I think like that, or rather they think like me, and it shows. I find their interfaces natural extensions of the function. The software succeeds, gains a following. Success breeds a desire to go after a larger market. The product is changed to attract new users, made 'easier to use'. The product doesn't catch on in the larger marketplace, which is already occupied with 'easy to use', lowest common denominator type products. Eventually it dies, and disappears. This has happened so many times, it is so predictable, so disheartening. Why does it happen?

Very simply that the developers ignore what brought users in the first place. Why do people use KDE? Probably because they like the way the interface works, they are attracted by certain applications in KDE. Possibly because as hackers they appreciate the underlying technology, ie. IPC mechanisms, the abstraction in ioslaves, the configurability on an individual and wider scale. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who sees great potential in KDE as a development platform. Maybe I'd like html rendering in my app without shelling out to a browser. Maybe I could use a nice full featured editor part within my application. etc. Then I look at the underlying Qt libraries, see the depth of features and elegance of implementation.

And, a well rounded set of applications that I can set up for less technically inclined users.

The biggest challenge for the free desktop isn't going to be attracting users. This is already happening. Note Ballmer's screed. The only reason he is saying this is because Microsoft is seeing bad sales numbers. Vista has so far been a dud. I don't remember, well, maybe except for Windows ME, users downgrading as they are from Vista to Xp. The free desktop market share is growing. The challenge will be in attracting developers.

And what does this have to do with usability? I propose that making usability a primary focus drives developers away. It absorbs energy and focus when, lets be real here, in most areas of free software the biggest problem with usability is either lack of features or lack of stability. Again lets be real. Software is an iterative process in all aspects, including usability. Having a chorus of 'usability experts' doesn't help the software get done. Nor is restructuring a working development community to fit some goal of usability worth the risk.

I suggest that KDE continue doing what it does best. Produce elegant API's, which allow for elegant and powerful apps. KDE should continue to embrace choice, with multiple implementations competing for interest and developers. KDE should continue to be open to new developers, allowing them to grow in skill and influence. KDE should continue to aim to be powerful and full featured. KDE should remember who pays the bills, who writes the software, who contributes, and value their contribution.

Let someone else be the most 'usable' desktop, and aim to be the most useful, powerful, elegant and full featured desktop.

Finally

2007-09-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

Some decent and lasting rainfall today. It hasn't rained significantly since June. Today is cool, 10C and very wet.

Still plugging away on handling scans. Every roadblock that I hit seems to have been solved by someone. Interestingly, it seems the real challenge is defining the problem space.

Where am I? I'm about to test orsu threshold code. I'm thinking that all I really need to do is basic cleanup, get the image segments defined, pass them to ocr, check if results are reliable, and if not do more extensive (and time consuming) cleanup. It seems the only areas where there are real issues are text with shaded background, which when scanned ends up a mess of blots, and places where text size changes on the same horizontal line. Other than that, the ocr seems reliable. So why waste time preprocessing other areas?

Tipping Point

2007-09-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

Some things of note: SANE, the scanner backend system, is going to do HAL notifications in the next version. So if the scanner is plugged in, possibly if buttons are pushed (not sure) HAL will broadcast through dbus etc so that apps can respond appropriately. Neat. Too late for 4.0, but SOLID would appreciate a patch no doubt.

ASUS is going to release their small and cheap notebook, the Eee PC. Here is a hands on review. This really interests me. I use a Palm right now, and would like a small portable notebook. Inexpensive helps. It seems the really small light notebooks are also the most expensive, the cheap ones don't have any realistic battery life. The Eee weighs less than 2 lbs, costs less than $500, battery life 3-4 hours. Quite resource limited, however. They will be available at the end of the month, possibly. Be interesting to see how they work out.

I don't think I've written so much code in the last couple of months ever, and thrown most of it away. Sometimes the most difficult thing to do with a project is defining the problem. Once that is done, the solutions are evident. I'm working on cleaning up scanned documents, and coming up with blocks to feed through the ocr engines. There are utilities available, such as unpaper, but they are focussed on a different problem set. Playing with graphic data is endlessly fascinating, with the various edge detection algorithms, etc. Great fun.

Speaking of edges, are we on the edge of a realization that the structures that worked so well for development and distribution of server applications fall flat when applied to desktop systems? This LWN article describes the unintended consequences when the various players in enterprise distributions attempt to satisfy the need for stability. The mainstream kernel has drivers for new hardware, but the enterprise distros don't distribute newer kernels, which encourage hardware manufacturers to develop binary modules for the said enterprise distro. Boom. All the work in encouraging free and open development goes to naught when hardware people can't get their drivers out except through binary modules.

What unintended consequences could arise from how things are structured in the desktop realm? Aaron was wondering about what it all means and where it's going. I have an idea. What thought process has led to a situation where a person wanting to develop a broadly capable app, using web, document creation, IPC, and desktop integration would have to learn at least 3 completely different API's? That on top of the multiple API' of supporting libraries. This is the situation in the most commonly distributed desktop available. Frankly, I'm not interested, freedom or not. KDE has the possibility of being the integrator of all the different api's that developers would need. One line calls to get a necessary service. This is neat and a differentiates KDE from anything else out there.

Essentially the primary linux desktop right now is equal to windows 3.0 with a web browser. If anyone wants to know why the marketshare sucks, or Dell is having trouble integrating, look no further. Unintended consequences of decisions made for good reasons.

And Now The News

2007-07-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

Strangely enough, this all seems normal. Two weeks ago, on the 15th at around 4PM, a thunderstorm made it's way down the valley, finally hitting us with rain and wind. We noticed the water running up the hill instead of down, and watched as two trees slowly fell over in our yard. One hung up on the telephone lines, the other hung up on other trees over the truck. I moved the truck, and it promptly fell to the ground. Our neighbor had a beautiful lakefront with shade trees. They all came down. Quite a mess.

Friday I was on a roof in town, and could see a large plume of smoke over the mountain above our house. There is a large fire a few miles away. The prevailing winds are blowing it away from the valley, at least for now. The fire suppression crews are settling in for a long one. Once a fire gets this big, it can only be contained. We have 5-6 weeks of good burning weather ahead. This picture is from across the road in front of our house.

$150 laptop a scam?

2007-07-26T12:39:00.000-07:00

I don't know. I was going to wait for someone else to find out :)

Here are some links for discussion: laptopspirit.fr (in french), slashdot, phoronix.com. And probably many others.

There is a 6 week delivery, so we won't find out for a couple of months whether this is real or not.

If the price point is a difficulty, I can get a very well appointed brand name laptop at the local Walmart for under $600 canadian. Put in a cheap underperforming 3 generations back CPU, get rid of Windows, small amount of ram and do direct sales (Walmart is probably getting $100, Microsoft around $70, service and warranty charges another $30, etc.) and you could see a price around $150-200.

I suspect we will see a large number of these offers in the next while.

Buyer beware. The again, I bought a $300 Zen from Creative that lasted 4 months, and they want money to tell me if they will fix it or not.

$150 Linux Laptop

2007-07-26T07:28:00.000-07:00

Check this out. Medison Celebrity laptop, for $163 canadian. Linux based.

I'm running (as a manner of speaking) KDE on an older Toshiba, 400mhz, 96mb ram. This would be an improvement. And cheap enough just to try out.

I'm going to watch a bit to see if any horror stories arise.

Fun stuff

2007-07-07T22:59:00.000-07:00

I've finally figured out how to get tesseract to give me the coordinate data that I need. It was quite simple once I found my way around the codebase. And figured out how to use CMake. And KDE4. Google code has it all in svn. Look at the plugins/scan directory.

It's all very basic right now. I've got to figure out how parse the data and draw boxes around the text. Then some analysis of the data can start. Interface stuff can wait.

There seems to be quite a few people interested in KDE applications for windows. Hopefully they realize that if they want them, they'll have to write them or port them.

Any moderately complex application needs support from libraries. In my case, off the top of my head, scanning, ocr, database, and probably more as time goes on. I'm finding that in most cases there is work that needs to be done to bring the secondary libraries up to speed. They lack either the interfaces or the features needed by other developers. For example, Sane works very well, but doesn't (as far as I know) support the buttons on scanners. In other words, a batch type scanning operation would be a pain in the neck. Someone has written a small application that watches the usb bus for button action, but lacks support for many sane supported scanners, and it would be a prime candidate for d-bus notification. I, and others working away on things, improve the platform. When I need something, I may need to write and submit a patch, and I depend on others doing the same thing.

When the focus moves away from the platform, the platform stops improving. If I was interested in just getting it done quickly, I probably would do best with some Microsoft development platform, probably finding most everything available to do what I want. But why would I do that? I dislike closed environments. As frustrating it is to figure out the code in Tesseract, it is far more satisfying compared to bumping into and working around bugs in some closed libary. Been there done that, and never again.

People can do what they like, work on whatever they want. If someone wants to port something to windows, fine. I long ago gave up believing that things have no cost. The cost here will be born by the free platform.

Compromises

2007-06-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Christian Ehrlicher considers what I said is stupid. I would agree most of the time, but not this time.

Within a very short time, I ran into a situation where the full power of a platform was compromised for the goal of cross platform compatibility. This particular situation would mean me using 3 threads instead of 2 using the linux services. This in a quite trivial little app. I know I'm stupid, and I hesitate to add unnecessary complexity. I have trouble keeping up as it is.

A cursory examination of the win32 services shows that I would have to have two different applications in this instance, the two platforms being so different. Again, this for something very trivial.

The time and energy it takes to work around the compromises necessary for cross platform will take away from the quality of the application. Cross platform isn't free, even with an excellent toolkit as Qt.

Buy High, Sell Low

2007-06-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

Further on the discussion about porting to proprietary OS'

A recent experience of mine illustrates the point. Linux (and Unix) has a means of blocking on a device until there is something to read. Qt encapsulates this functionality in QSocketNotifier. Cool. If I open a serial port, I can be notified of incoming data. So I dutifully used QFile to open the port, and set up the notifier, then dented my desk wondering why it wouldn't work. Why didn't it work? Because Qt is cross platform, and the Other Supported OS' don't work that way.

In other words, I expended much time, inadvertently, supporting an OS that I have nothing in common with. The structure of my application became dictated by the vagaries of multiple OS'. I have studiously avoided learning anything about the win** api for the last 15 years or so, and have no intention of starting now.

Cross platform has it's benefits. Applications that take full advantage of the underlying services and features of a platform isn't one. Blood and treasure will be expended on getting the damn thing to run everywhere instead of running extremely well somewhere.

Delving into libkscan

2007-05-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I've got the caller id module almost done. I haven't written the plugin and dbus stuff yet though. My mind keeps straying to scanning and ocr, so I better follow.

Soon after posting the last entry, I was contacted by a fellow who is working on KTiny, a kde frontend to TinyERP. It seems that some means of scanning and ocr'ing invoices has some interest. Gamera is also working on this.

Since libkscan already is written, I figured I should use it. I am now building a kde4 setup so I can link to the libraries. For my purposes I don't need a complicated scanning application, just something that scans at predetermined settings, saving the image. Preferably it would just be a matter of loading the scanner and pressing a button. Tesseract will do the ocr reliably, but not yet return the coordinates of the text. Someone has done a dll for windows, but not released the source. I'm hoping that tesseract will be fixed by the time I need to start experimenting with it.

My specific needs of document recognition are reasonably well defined. Invoices have things in common; a date, a number of some kind, a vendor identification, terms and shipping stuff, then a list of items showing quantity, description, shipped or back ordered, price, discount, total. Or simply a description and total. My user audience would typically use 5 or 6 major vendors, and maybe twice that in minor vendors. In other words, most of the paper going through would be very similar. I'm not sure if this would make sense, but if you had the text, the coordinates of the text, and a couple of examples from a vendor to get an idea of what changes and what stays the same across invoices, some logic could probably extract the desired information. We shall see.

Ocropus

2007-05-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Seems that things are moving along quite quickly. Ocropus is an open source document analysis and OCR system. It uses tesseract as ocr, and a bunch of other stuff for statistical analysis, aspell for spell checking, etc. Not even alpha yet though.

I'm building it right now.

Hmm. How hard would it be to write a scan -> pdf generator?

I think Google is paying people to work on this stuff.

Glory Be! or Finally Working Free OCR!

2007-05-21T20:30:00.001-07:00

I hope this post doesn't spam planetkde. If it does, enjoy my enlightened opinions once again. And blame Google.

The project I'm working on will gather information from numerous sources with the goal of tracking tasks from inception to invoicing. That is the secondary goal, the primary being learning Qt and C++, and keeping an interesting challenge floating in the back of my mind. So I've recently worked on reading caller id data from a modem, using threads, mutexes, communicating this to the mother ship using dbus, plugin interfaces and all the neat stuff that Qt 4 provides. Great fun. Next, I wanted to set something up that would scan and ocr supplier invoices. Scanning is the first challenge, although there is a libscan in KDE. Maybe that will be the impetus to migrate from Qt to KDE4. Which has been my intention all along.

I have been watching gocr and ocrad for a while. They are quite a ways from being useful. I started considering using wine and some windows tools. Ugh. I ran across tesseract, the ocr tool originally from HP that was freed and Google picked up. It works. I have a few scans I was using for tests, in pnm format. Tesseract requires TIFF, so I did a conversion, and tried the ocr. Very nice. There are a few errors, mostly in areas where the font was small and blurry. But it definitely works. So now I can scan documents, ocr them, use QScript to grab the important data.

This really means I don't have any more excuses. I've got to get this thing to the point where I can begin using it.

In the May 14, 2007 LugRadio podcast, there was a discussion of what needed fixing in the Linux Desktop. Someone suggested that it was already there. I spluttered and fumed as I listened, thinking where is OCR! No longer. With working OCR, the next level of tools such as ocr->pdf, and other neat stuff will come along. Great.

Every look as a provocation

2007-02-10T21:51:00.000-08:00

Choosing a distro to use brings on a nasty frame of mind. Each installation is done with hope, and a sincere desire to find good. When the results are unsatisfactory, the mood worsens until resolve is built to try another. And another.

I have been a happy Gentoo users since I migrated from a moribund Debian a few years ago. The time requirements of Gentoo have moved me to look for alternatives. Like a smoker trying to quit, I usually ended up back due the limitations of other distros. The last few months have been particularly trying. It seems that the Gentoo packaging arrangements are unable to keep up with the rapid changes, the obvious result being things not working right. So time to seriously look for an alternative.

First attempt was Kubuntu. I have developed a metric called MTBS, or Mean Time Before Shell. Initial setup went very well. Hardware setup worked, everything looked good. Then came time to install the stuff I use. After a couple of packages, I had to close Adept and open a shell to sort out some apt problems. Then I attempted to install the libaries for my music player, and Amarok to access it. I know this works fine since I had it working in Gentoo. Lo and behold I was expected to build, not a deb, but a source tarball since the deb package wasn't configured for what I wanted. Hell. If I'm forced to compile from source, outside of the packaging system, I might as well use Gentoo. Somehow KUbuntu people don't use their machine the same way as I do. And there seems to be a strange obsession with 'function follows form', ie. removing useful solutions to problems to make things look good. End of first attempt.

I heard some good things about opensuse. Installation went well, very easy. Installation of the various packages I needed went equally well. I truly like the Suse KDE menu. I really wanted to like this. Everything seemed to work well. Yast sucks, but it seemed to be stable, and the MTBS was getting suitably long. Then strange things started happening. I'd set up Konqueror as I like it, and it would crash. I'd log out and log in, things would be changed. My poor wife found a bug with the powersave daemon, having her session starting and aborting a suspend every 30 seconds. Suse likes it's own .kde setup, and if I logged in with another distro, it was borked. My nicely endowed machine seemed sluggish. End of second attempt.

What now? I have three system partitions that I can use for distro installs. I booted back into my gentoo setup, figured I'd do a complete rebuild. Two days later I got things working. Everything seemed fine. Back to square one? No. I didn't want to stay here. End of third attempt.

Someone mentioned Arch. I downloaded an iso. Stuck it into my drive. Rebooted. The installation went very well. I wouldn't say it is for new users, but I found it easy and flexible for my purposes. It was done very quickly. The packaging system seems very simple and fast. I had to learn how pacman works, how to find packages and install them. I installed kde, got the permissions right, and rebooted. I feel like I have my machine back. It is fast. The community seems active, and there are modular kde packages available, including one with the Suse kmenu. In a surprisingly short time everything was configured and working.

We will see how it goes over a few upgrade cycles. Right now I can't think of any reason why I would want to try anything else.

Time, Oh Sweet Time

2006-12-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

With things at work at a voluntary standstill, I've been enjoying having time to do some coding. A project that has been kicking around in my mind for at least a decade, with a couple iterations that shrivelled on the vine, is some way to track all the stuff that comes in each day, and which should all eventually be invoiced.

So a while ago I dusted off my very limited c++ skills and dove into the Qt4 api. As expected, the challenge is not so much the syntax. Using a library written by someone else requires getting into their thoughts to be able to make things work. Having done some gui stuff on OS/2 and Windows(very limited) in the past, I knew what I needed, and the learning was how to get Qt4 to give it to me.

I've found that if I feel the need to bend things around, I have missed something. In fact, most everything is quite easy and quick, once you find the class and method that you need to override. Learning which is the slow part of the process.

So I've figured out sql, models, tables, proxy models (finally stable in 4.2.2). The model-view architecture is very powerful. I had a familiar feeling of being totally lost and seemingly unable to grasp the fundamentals. Very satisfying. Already I have seen where KDE will be useful, ie. the date picker widget. I'm about to start delving into the calendar and contacts api's in kdepim. I intend to use the data entry and syncing of data from other sources that is built into the kdepim libraries. That should save me some work.

So here is a picture. Nothing is even close to being useful yet, still working on getting various data entry issues sorted out.

The structure of the application is to take seemingly random and unorganized data from all sources, ie. phone logs, vcalendar files, scanned and ocr'd documents, scheduled work and the odd data entry, and allow users to sort through it all quickly, assigning each event to a job. The job will then be organized further, some explanations and cleanups of the raw data, eventually outputting an invoice. We generate a huge amount of stuff, doing on average 4-5 jobs each a day, each with callbacks, parts ordering, some warranty issues. The only real roadblock so far is the lack of good free ocr software.

10 most important events of the year

2006-12-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, here are some highlights from the year. Absolutely selfish and from my perspective.

Danny Allen started producing the Commit Digest, with the first issue on April 9th. Scroll through, and you will see a week to week report of the development effort. This is an enormous effort, and Danny deserves kudos and intoxicating liquids (except on the weekends. Send something healthy like, umm, celery. Otherwise he won't be able to produce the report). The uninformed who talk of what they know not have obviously not been keeping up. Thanks Danny.

DBus and HAL have become ubiquitous parts of the desktop infrastructure. Even though KDE 3x doesn't use DBUS as inter process communication, it is used for device detection handling. KDE4 has replaced DCOP with DBUS. The UDEV -> HAL -> DBUS stack measurably improves the user experience, and has become the standard.

Successful integration of usability people into the KDE development process. There isn't one event that would make this obvious. Maybe it is the lack of resistance to the idea. The beginnings of the HIG is a valuable addition.

Focus on KDE 4. The magnitude of this endeavor is not to be understated. It is not a simple port to Qt4, but entails redesign of many of the fundamental libraries that make up KDE. I built and ran KDE4 a week ago and was pleasantly surprised, first that kdelibs and kdebase built without error. It is definitely not a working desktop yet, but I suspect that will change over the while. For the uninitiated, this is an opportunity to see a complex system come together, where the core libraries (Qt), the base KDE libaries, the specialty libaries such as Phonon and other new technologies are in flux, and on top of that the apps are being ported, all the while new functionality is being added. To an outsider it looks like a huge mess, a quagmire. But whenever something gets finished, that allows another level to start progress, and so on.

Coming as a surprise to me, the advancements and improvements to KDE3 are outstanding. KDE3 will be around for a long time. I am in awe seeing the two parallel development efforts.

The Novell-Microsoft pact. There are many opinions on this, some quite strong. Lug Radio Season 4 Episode 8 has an interview with Nat Friedman giving one point of view. On the other hand Jeremy Allison quit Novell because of it. There are many parts to this story. First is patents, and the danger they present to free software. Novell did something they thought would help. They maybe forgot that other than their contributions, they don't own the software that they distribute. The multitudes of very opinionated developers, some who work for Novell competitors, most with a deep distrust of the software behemoths that have arguably ruined more than built, own the software. We are going to see many more of these controversies. This community reminds me in some ways to the Bullet Ant. They have relatively primitive social organisations, but are characterized by their nasty sting, compared to being shot. They sting only when provoked, effectively protecting themselves and their nests with a nasty sting that forces large mammals to stay clear. Their nests are small and could easily be destroyed inadvertently by a large mammal, so they sting to remind everyone of their existence. So effective are they that other insects imitate them. This community tends to sting from time to time to remind the behemoths to stay clear. I suspect that next time Novell wants to do something like this they will tread a little more carefully.

More legal stuff, but in SCO vs IBM, IBM was able to limit SCO's claims. SCO has said lots of things over the last few years, but proof has been hard to come by. The judge seemed to agree, and many of the allegations have been struck from the case. This is a major victory for IBM, and probably the first of many serious reverses that SCO suffers while being smeared on the highway by a fast moving IBM. It is worthwhile to remember that as a community we would be hard pressed to come up with the defenses to fight this sort of battle, and we have IBM to thank.

Strigi. If you haven't, try it out. We will see more in KDE4, but it has the feel of a very solid solution. A fast, well maintained storage and indexing libary, CLucene. A stream design that is showing up in other contexts. Developers that are intent on making it easy to use and implement. I predict that this will be one of the jewels of KDE in a year or two.

10th anniversary of KDE. We are seeing a maturity of process all the while maintaining the openness that has characterized KDE. There are some developers that have been here all along, but we are seeing maintenance of applications being passed on the third or fourth time. KDE is doing something right.

And finally, having run out of ideas, I would like to thank everyone for their work. Every year I look back and am amazed, and wonder what more could be done. Not this year though. It seems the closer we get to the destination, the clearer the focus becomes on what remains to be done.

It always comes down to freedom

2006-12-19T20:59:00.000-08:00

Some of the trollish comments on the Dot and the link to the Adobe thread where KDE is described as something written by college students brought to mind a phone-in show on CBC Vancouver. The guest was a technology guru, and offered to help people sort out computer questions. The majority of the calls were from people trying to get things done in spite of the limitations that came from software publishing firms trying to lock down their data and formats, or lock out a competitor. Yes, some problems were about Adobe products.

I called in, and said that most of the issues that were brought up could be solved by using free software.

Now I don't have my head in the clouds, thinking that the KDE desktop is vastly superior to everything else out there. No. There are many areas where it is incomplete, and for some not functional enough for their needs. But inexorably it progresses, and eventually will become complete enough for most people.

But the fundamental strength is freedom. Every time I use some proprietary application, even on my linux box, there is always an insistence on preventing me from using the application freely. Sometimes I am forced to use these things. But I am finding that there are more and more free alternatives, and I find the freedom is of far greater value than some neat feature. In fact, freedom is the neatest feature of all.

This is constantly being confirmed when dealing with the plethora of embedded devices at work. Why would a bleeping thermostat have bleeping software bugs? And what the bleep are we to do when more and more of our lives are controlled by trashy software? And we only find out about the bugs long after the systems are installed, and usually during extreme circumstances, like Canadian winters. I dream of a time where the code would be available for all these things, with the ability to fix and update the software. I'm reminded of a story told by a technician who works for the local school district. He is a highly qualified programmer, but decided to leave the industry after one too many death march projects. The school district had an intrusion alarm system installed that would fail reliably under a peculiar circumstance. He removed the rom chip, disassembled the opcodes and found a bug in the software. The manufacturers refused to fix the problem. So he burnt a new rom, installed it and the thing worked as expected. A hacker in the true sense of the word. Unfortunately I think we are doomed to the sloppy and closed, but damned if I'm going to submit to that tyranny if I have the choice.

Podcasts

2006-12-18T20:59:00.000-08:00

Running a linux desktop means you are always a little behind the curve. Actually, this is an advantage. By the time the technologies are fully supported, the technology is mature.

I have always listened to CBC radio during the work day, but it seems to have left me somehow, or my interest have left it. So I started listening to podcasts from various sources. My first attempts were to copy onto an sd card and listen on the palm that i carry all the time. Highly unsatisfactory. So I bought a cheap mp3 player that could use sd cards. Much better, although after a month's use it started acting strange, and AAA batteries are expensive. So I picked up a Zen from Creative, 8 gigs. Luckily the mpt protocol has just matured, and Amarok fully supports it. Very nice. Probably by the time I wear it out, Rockbox will have a port ready for it.

Is there any way to share or publish podcast lists? The top of mine would be Lugradio. At first it sounds like some wierd revival of sorts with incantations of 'Jesus Christ' and other strange things, but after a while your ear tunes to the inflections and between the body function jokes there is good information and opinion. Great fun. I have a young lad working with me and the show had him laughing while proselytizing linux. I don't know if the button down business types would enjoy it.

In the continuing saga of keeping hardware working, Samsung has released a new set of drivers for their printers and scanners. They seem to work, but it is disconcerting to see an installation program install all sorts of versions of libc and the like. Of course the real solution would be to open up their software and allow it to be included in the various printer driver aggregations and sane driver collections. In the meantime they have to come up with some magic that keeps things working over versions of glibc, gcc compiler versions, cups iterations, and whatever else they use, just to keep one small binary working. All of course outside of the system package management, sprinkling who knows what all over the place. From where does this perverse logic come from? What could possibly happen to Samsung if they dared release some printer language specs? Ooh, someone may write a printer driver that actually works, ie. prints and respects the system that it is installed on.

Watching this horrible spector got the juices running. Has anyone written a tool that would build packages for all the distros? And all the versions thereof? I don't know if it would even be possible. The speed of the desktop development may eventually force these people into either giving up or opening their code and allowing the community to handle the distribution. Hopefully the later.

Developer Shortage for Free Software. Major Distro Forced to Poach

2006-11-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

At one point in my life I had the privilege of choosing my career. Death march projects punctuated with periods of inactivity was no way to raise a family. So I went off in a different direction.

Free software development has proven to be different. We see people working on projects over long term, getting paid to do what they enjoy doing, in an environment where it is possible to have a life. The difficulty is to get into the position where you are paid.

That is what frustrates me about the poaching by Mark Shuttleworth. Are we so short of developers that we need to poach from another free software project? Is there not some fine talented developer somewhere, working away on a project, that would appreciate the opportunity to work for someone doing what he loves, and in the process benefitting Mark's project and all of us by extension? How about the radical idea of finding an individual with promise, hiring and training them to suit your purposes?

If you insist on poaching, why not increase the ranks by poaching from, say, Microsoft?

Gender

2006-11-13T19:44:00.000-08:00

Free software is written and maintained almost universally by men. Women do contribute, but it is undeniable that there are far more men than women. Since it is largely a labour of love, where people spend their free time and contribute without renumeration, the fact that there are more men than women who participate is puzzling at least. Is it due to hardwiring or social conditioning? Or both?

I started reading a fascinating book by Leonard Sax, Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. He doesn't cater to stereotypes, but discusses the hard wired differences between men and women, especially boys and girls. Some of the details are very surprising. One day old girls will look at a persons face, while the boys are looking at the mobile that is moving around. This is due to the difference between girl's eyes and boys. Girls have more receptors and nerve connections for colour and texture, while boys have more receptors and nerve connections for contrasts and movements. Boys often have trouble in classroom settings simply because they can't hear as well as girls. A girl's brain develops connections between the parts that deal with feelings and the parts of the brain that deal with conscious thought, where a boys brain doesn't develop those connections. My wife says that boys don't connect fear and pain, hence do crazy things that sometimes hurt them, while girls tend not to. This is possibly due to the way our brains are wired. Left/right brain function, speech vs. spatial, are typical of male brains, where female brains distribute these functions more evenly. Some of these characteristics are seen in other mammals and primates. All this changes the way boys and girls play, interact and learn. Could it possibly affect the way we spend our free time?

There is a school in a neighboring town that has grade 7 classes separated by sex. The teachers then use methods that are best for the sex they are teaching. Everyone is impressed how well the children are doing, and the idea is spreading to different schools.

The idea is that all children can do well at math, for example. It may be a matter of teaching girls and boys differently, since they learn differently.

Harvard University president Lawrence Summers created a big fuss when he suggested that the lack of women in some branches of science may be due to innate differences between the sexes. The University of BC did an interesting study where two groups of women were subjected to a very difficult math exam. One group was shown a newspaper article describing scientific research that suggested that the different math capabilities of men and women were due to genetic differences. The other group was shown a similar article where the suggestion was made that the differences were due to environmental factors. The articles were fabricated. The two groups then did the test, and the ones who received the suggestion that genetics played a factor did substantially worse than the other group. This suggests that if women are told that they are not capable, they will do measurably worse when tested. I don't think that is surprising, since we are all open to suggestion. But interestingly when the disadvantage was said to be genetic and out of our control, the results were worse. Social expectations definitely have a role.

Maybe what happens is a toxic mixture of influences. When a young girl is taught math in a way that doesn't play to her strengths, she may decide that she is bad at math. This will be confirmed to her every time the subject comes up. A young boy may have trouble reading, and decide that reading is a girl thing, because reading isn't taught in a way that plays to his strengths. Neither of them gain enjoyment from what is hard for them to do. So is the girl going to chose a career in something that requires extensive mathematic abilities? Probably not.

Free software as a primarily male domain has certain characteristics. The discussions are rather rough and tumble affairs. Some flame wars resemble quite closely male elk during rutting season where the two run full speed into each other butting heads until one backs down. And if a woman shows up, well, male elk during rutting season still holds as illustration. It may be because the free software communities have matured, the participants have matured, that we are now seeing women take their place in our communities. It is no longer simply a bunch of like minded guys writing code. There are people making a living, supporting families and companies. Maturity has told us that we need different perspectives to reach the next level. We recognize that we need different skills in addition to the hard core code monkeys. We have learned to tone down to allow others to contribute their skills where needed.

I hope that is the case. People with the skills and desire to contribute to this exercise are rare.

Freedom and Value

2006-10-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

Adding to the weight of opinion to the value of code discussion. Source code has an illusion of value only. It costs money to produce, no question. Time, expensive time hiring smart people, large quantities of time to design, code and finish the software. But value? As anything, things are worth what someone will pay for them. No more, no less. Many an entrepreneur has failed due to not recognizing that fact. A stunning example of this was when British Columbia spent over $400 million to build 3 high speed ferries that were ultimately useless, and could only get $25 million for them when auctioned. Value is in the eye of the beholder. Value in source code comes from other factors, such as artificial scarcity from patents, first to market, look and feel copyright. Or value coming from an established name, such as Microsoft or Oracle or IBM, which are able to charge large sums of money for products that fill a need. Or value that comes from it's utility. Or value that comes from the capability to execute, to manage large numbers of developers to enable timely release of stable software.

One could even argue that source code costs money. Not only doesn't it have any intrinsic value, but it consumes resources. Code requires constant maintenance to retain it's usefulness, hence it's value.

Any piece of code can be duplicated, decreasing it's value. Not trivially, for the reasons outlined above, but given adequate motivation, any piece of software can be duplicated. Take Microsoft Excel, by all accounts an excellent software package. Back before Windows, Borland wrote a version of their spreadsheet that possibly equaled Excel. The story as I remember it was that they had six developers using the then new fangled object oriented C++, wrote this spreadsheet in a relatively short time. Nice piece of software. That code is now valueless, and quickly became so because they couldn't sell a spreadsheet alone. The market changed, suites became the thing, Windows came along, so all this expensive source code had no value.

And ad nauseum. Even if all the code that was written and quickly became without value was opened up, it still would have little value except possibly historical. OS/2 had a nice graphical interface, fully threaded, that ran on 4 megs of memory. Even if it was opened up, it probably would be useless due to the changes in usage and expectations of software. When I first used OS/2, it didn't have tcpip built in. The full commercial version had that and all the other network protocols (more valueless code, remember Banyan?). If I took my OS/2 Warp cd, and tried to install it on a modern machine, it wouldn't work. It is without value, although it was very expensive to produce.

Realistically, in todays marketplace, the only way most code can gain in value is for it to be open. Firefox would have very little value at all if there was a requirement to pay for it. That is simply due to the market conditions. I think the developers are being paid to write it. I don't know how the economics work for that particular project. Same for KDE. If I had to pay $200 for it, and developers were paid from it's proceeds to continue writing it, I doubt if we would have anything close to what we have now. Especially if the source was hidden. The challenge with free software is to find ways so people can eat, but as the source gets finished and better, I think many see value in it, in some way. In fact, that is how things are working out.

The knowledge that I use to generate money for living is freely available. I am now passing my knowledge on to an apprentice, who will then make money for himself and his employer. My employer has trained around 30 apprentices during his career. Some have repaid him by generating profits for him, some haven't. To suggest that his knowledge loses value if it is opened up is ludicrous. The application of his knowledge has value, and people pay him very well to apply it. We have no problem charging high prices and collecting promptly from people who are making a good profit using the equipment we install. They percieve good value in our services. The opposite is true also. We look very carefully before doing work for someone who we think is going to get over their head, simply because they will not value our services as highly.

The same with software. Hiding things, keeping code secret gives a short term advantage if at all. Even if someone like Microsoft made their code available, with restrictive copyrights, would that materially affect their sales? I doubt it. Piracy is rampant even without the source. I suspect that in the long run the code would have even more value. Their code is valuable only because of the machine named Microsoft that generates enormous sales. Even if 'hobbyists' have successfully duplicated their software.

Note that I said 'restrictive copyrights'. Licenses make a big difference here. The GPL has created value in source code by encouraging collaboration. This makes source code that isn't complete in every way valuable to a wider audience because everyone can make it fit their needs all the while benefitting from others doing the same. A BSD type license adds value in other ways. A restrictive license doesn't valuate open code as much, but allows other attributes that valuate the code to remain.

The high tech industry has not had any trouble generating source code and ideas. It has had trouble generating cash. Those who have been successful may think it is due to having hidden the code. If they were realistic, they would see that the critical elements have been everything else. All else being equal, Microsoft would still own the market even if their code was open from the beginning. Wordperfect would have disappeared when they couldn't move fast enough to develop a suite for Windows. Banyan would still have disappeared when tcpip made them unnecessary. etc etc. When your code becomes valueless, the fact that it is hidden adds nothing.

Thbbbt

2006-08-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

Is it my imagination or is the Linux hardware situation getting worse?

My motherboard, a socket A with an amd xp processor, gave up the ghost. Unfortunately, my ability to research was limited by dialup internet access on an ancient win95 machine. So I got a dual core AMD64 AM2 system with an ATI rs485 chipset motherboard. Sound looked easy, the ethernet adapter common, the xorg radeon drivers would give me good results. But how to boot. I didn't have access to a cd burner, and an old 2.4 kernel knoppix is the only thing that i had that would boot, but it wouldn't see the sata hard drive. Kubuntu 5 something wouldn't boot, suse 9.3 wouldn't either. A friend had a knoppix dvd from the beginning of the year that would boot, see the drives and allow me to install a system. I then installed gentoo, chrooting into a partition and doing the longish process of building a system. I got a cd burner working, burnt the gentoo and kubuntu live cd's, neither would boot. Getting a kernel to work off the hard drive was miserable, finally using genkernel which loads everything and it's progeny to work. Good.

It was the most difficult install I've ever had to do. The next hardware issue is my Samsung 1740 laser printer. Samsung provides drivers but they only work with cups 1.1x, not 1.2 which the latest distros want to use. Of course I find this out after much vile muttering.

Thankfully the video was simple to setup, and I experienced the impressive speed and ease of use of those inexpensive usb hard drive enclosures. The existing partitions showed up and the speed is amazing. Oh, the dual core amd is very nice, even under heavy load it provides a smooth user interface.

I thought maybe the new hardware configuration was a bit to bleeding edge, but no. I purchased a via based motherboard for the old machine. Guess what. The 6.x kubuntu wouldn't boot there either. This is not new or uncommon hardware. I'm downloading suse to see if it works on any of the machines I have here.

As usual, the only useful documentation anywhere are the user forums in ubuntu and gentoo.

In an attempt to end on a positive note, Wine is getting impressive. At around version 0.9.14, it could install things using install shield. It has hit that nice sweet spot where things just work. Time for microsoft to drastically change their api.

Another apparition

2006-03-25T16:13:00.000-08:00

It seems everyone is starting to discover the joys of Qt4. The model-view paradigm is rather neat. I too have started an app, and am enjoying how easy it is to make the skeleton of the application, then gradually add the finishing touches. Once I get the thing to a working state I'll let others see it. I figured that if I start with Qt4, by the time I'm ready to include many of the goodies that KDE provides, it will be around version 4.6 or so.

I think what I am enjoying the most is not having to work with php and html. And web servers. All these are powerful tools for communicating. I'd rather not, just ask my wife. I've found that I don't have the fire in the belly required to produce the weekly reports anymore. Time to move on to something else. Like learn C++ and the Qt/KDE api.

Random musings

2006-01-05T19:25:00.000-08:00

Well, since my life is boring and there is so much spare time to use up, we decided to embark on a project. We got ourselves a puppy. A Portuguese Water Dog to be precise. Fun. She is 12 weeks old and has attempted to eat most of the furniture already. She isn't quite old enough for long walks, which I am looking forward to for my own benefit. This experience is whetting my appetite for something deterministic and predictable like software development.

I realized that I had gotten seriously burnt out on the brainwork end of my existence, and have enjoyed not having the pressure of producing the Digest each week. I am getting capable of rational thought again however. And as per my habit, I get thinking. How can I see what is going on in the KDE world without wading through thousands of commits each week? There must be some way of automatically organizing things so that the interesting bits are evident.

So I scribbled a bunch of design stuff on a piece of paper, never to be looked at again. My mind is now cranking away in the background, usually unnoticed, and some glimmerings of ideas are starting to appear. The KDE repository is home to a multitude of projects. There are various applications, sections of the main libraries. A run through the commits for the week would first sort by project. A project would be defined by a list of paths and/or developers. The each commit would be further analyzed for keywords such as feature, bug, bug references, and any other pattern that could be useful in winnowing out the interesting bits. Each project could have specific keywords that are of interest, such as khtml having an url, or something similar. Having the definitions and keywords readily available to the readers would elicit feedback and finetuning (hopefully). I guess the real question is whether this would produce anything useful and interesting.

Now to start coding.

KStars

2005-12-23T18:44:00.000-08:00

In the January 2006 Linux Journal there is a letter from Doug Phillipson describing his interaction with the KStars developers in getting his telescope driver to work. Jasem Mutlaq helped this motivated user to debug the drivers and the whole process measurably improved the software. The experience was summed up "fun, pleasurable, fast and most of all free".

What a pleasant contrast to the recent annual/biannual/quarterly/monthly gnome/kde/linux desktop/Qt/GTK/C/C++ flame fest.

Long time no blog

2005-11-19T13:48:00.000-08:00

I haven't disappeared as far as I know.

There has been lots going on. I installed a heat pump at home, which works well. Considering that computers have been around for a few decades, and embedded control has become ubiquitous, it is surprising to see how long it has taken for someone to come out with a simple, reliable, adequately featured thermostat for heat pumps. There are a few special requirements for economical operation, but the most important feature is simplicity. This isn't a complicated application; when it's warm, bring on the cooling, and visa versa. Throw in a little anticipation or integral control to smooth things out. Have a way to schedule occupied and unoccupied temperatures. Permit easy override of everything. Allow (for heat pumps) lockout settings based on outdoor temperature. There have been thermostats on the market that did all of this, but damned if I'm going to install something where my clients call me on Saturday morning asking how do I get this to warm up, or why is it blinking at me. Been there, done that. Honeywell came out with a touch screen thermostat, reasonably priced, with enough screen real estate to lay things out logically so almost anyone can work it. And it can be set up non-programmable, or simply put, if you want it warmer, press the up arrow. Finally, in my opinion, something that rivals the old mercury bulb thermostats.

Where was the breakthrough? Very simple. Start with a clear understanding of what the thing is for. It must control temperature very well. Oddly enough, most control products have the feel of having been written by computer specialists, not HVAC control specialists. Throw in cheap, largish screens, a flair for simple design, and you have a winner.

Actually, building control products are universally awful examples of digital progress. Buggy, unreliable, requiring constant maintenance and fiddling, barely capable of doing what they are installed to do. The only reason they exist is the lack of viable alternatives, along with aggressive sales organisations prone to exaggerate (lie). If this situation sounds vaguely familiar, it isn't. Microsoft products are paragons of excellence compared to hvac control software products. There are two or three products that I will install, only after experience has shown me that they work, work well, will be working next year, and that I won't have to go back to adjust things over and over again.

We had an interesting call this week from a refrigeration rack control company. The local grocery store which we service was renovated, and the controls were upgraded. A rep from Texas (or somewhere equally remote) phoned to let us know that if we changed anything we would be notified by email of the change, and if we had any issues, we could call somewhere or another for help. My boss, who is a curmudgeon much of the time, informed the helpful person that if there was a problem we couldn't fix from the software side, they would find their hardware/software package in a pile in the corner, and that they could send someone from Texas or somewhere equally remote to fix it if they wanted, and no, we weren't going to play telephone tag with some semi-literate incompetent to sort out a bug in their product. Oh. I suspect the remote monitoring will last a month or two, time enough for the store manager to be roused from sleep because some stocking clerk left the freezer door open. Side cutters are an amazingly powerful equalizer.

You see, from where I come from, a qualified technician is paramount, not secondary or a cost center, I really have trouble getting excited about what Shuttleworth, or Suse, or anyone for that matter thinks about KDE. This whole thing about a free desktop isn't about some higher up, or even some sales guy, or some large organisation deciding strategy. It is about developers, programmers and qualified users solving problems for themselves or someone who pays them. If someone figures they are powerful enough to dictate the direction of free software, they will be successful only if they are in fact following those doing the work, those solving the problems. It is useful to remember how bad everything was before free software. I am constantly reminded of this when I use HVAC control products.

I enjoyed a week in Montreal visiting my family. My daughter, 4 sisters, 1 brother, Mom and Dad, plus nephews, brothers and sisters in law all live within an hour of each other. Very enjoyable time visiting family. I installed Ubuntu for my brother in law. Quite amazing how easy the install is. The only nit I had was a somewhat confusing way to designate into which partition should the OS be installed. Previous installs allowed one to set the partition as 'Installable', but here it had to be set as '/root'. It installed to Gnome, and everything worked fine. I didn't have time to install KDE, but he will be running Kontact and a few other KDE apps.

October 7, 2005 Commit-Digest

2005-10-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

October 7, 2005 Commit-Digest

It seems the only way to find out what's happening in KDE is to read the commit logs. If I do that, I might as well write up a report about it. And I do have all the stuff to make it easy. So here is a tentative relaunch into the regular publishing of the Digest.

It is good to read what is happening. I love the sardonic comments about the vaunted speed improvements of Qt4. The back and forth discussions on d pointers.

I'm sticking with kdelibs and kdebase for now. I suspect that if I'm leading the willing helpers will follow, so I hope to have the whole thing soon, but we'll see. I sat down last night and thought, why not. So I started reading the logs, selecting the interesting ones, trying to get a feel of what is happening. Today I finished things up. It may be sparse, but I can handle sparse. Maybe if I keep it modest, I'll be able to sustain the effort and time.

Without sounding indispensable or whining, it seems that if I want to read a reasonably detailed report of what is going on, I got to write it. Fine. That was the motivation when I started this thing.

Same old

2005-10-06T07:55:00.000-07:00

re Web Based Office

If I translate the for vs. against into market share, Microsoft is going to get a headache.

Does anyone think this is about technology? At best we would have an editor similar to what we see in blogger.com with a button encouraging download of openoffice. And some type of magical virtualization technology (where have I seen this before?) where you can browse a remote storage site as simply as your own hard drive. Google/Sun takes a bunch of available pieces, hacks them together, and with the Buzz-Generator fills the media with stories of the next greatest thing.

Remember the context. Microsoft announced a short while ago a program identical to Google's adsomethingorother. A direct poke in the cash cow. This stuff is the tat for that tit. They are trying to get a reaction from Microsoft by poking their cash cow.

I despise these games that make up this industry. What I want and need is unimportant in these tectonic battles. Let them all go to hell while I use KOffice, warts and all.

Social not technology (rant alert)

2005-09-15T17:56:00.000-07:00

A user/packager/developer/sycophant finds a bug, needs to communicate with a developer to alert them of the issue. The information goes into a huge, unwieldy database that only the most intrepid and dedicated read, probably to rot. And we wonder if adding another field would solve the problem.

This is a social communication issue. How many patches have languished in bugzilla for months? The system encourages the gathering of useless information, and actively prevents access to useful data.

Maybe the whole paradigm is borked. I'm sure there is a wealth of useful data in bugzilla. Just like there is in the box of papers I hauled to the dump the other day. Anything really important will show up again anyways. Bad news always comes back.

First off, developers know what are bugs and what are just unfinished features. Unfinished features are on a list somewhere and don't need to clutter a public database.

Anything over two weeks old automatically drops to /dev/null unless it is marked as valid by the developer. Important stuff will show up again. Without the necessity of handling everything, important stuff will be handled.

Some apps that are at the stage where large numbers of bug reports are just noise (see unfinished features), refuse bug reports. The developer probably has the 10 or 20 users that he/she listens to anyways. Once things have matured, open bug reporting to catch the odd corner case.

Force the reporter to make a commitment; don't open a bug until it is confirmed a second time by the user, with more explanation. An automatic email asking for confirmation and more information a few days after the initial report will confirm whether there is really a problem, and if there is, the user will have more data to supply.

Attached patches generate emails to 30-50 developers picked at random from those who have committed recently to svn in a similar module. IOW, patches will be picked up and handled. Derek and Sam stop selecting commits that refer to bug numbers, which probably has encouraged the insanity :)

Developers get a private email address that they give to packagers and those working with them as testers to report directly. When the traffic gets too high, get another email address.

After feature freeze, at some suitable time, open a channel for bug reports such as a mailing list. The flood of emails will probably give a good idea of the state of the release. And a side benefit of focussing attention on bug fixing without forcing developers to wade through mounds of marginal information in bugzilla.

Nurture a category of users; Testers. Recognize these individuals that are available for testing, capable of maintaining a build system and willing to submit bug reports directly to the developer. Developers at the unfinished features stage could then easily find testers to help bring the software to maturity. This doesn't mean closing the development process, rather is a means of providing a resource, and encouraging the communication and collaboration that actually works. And more than likely many of these testers will eventually graduate to development.

Use the coming scripting and unit testing capabilities to allow testers to define correctness. Essentially recruiting regression test writers.

Would KDE developers know what wasn't working without the Total: 9838 bugs and 9141 wishes that are now open? Absolutely. How many developers would rather make an appointment for a root canal than wade through bugzilla? There has to be a better way. Aaron is right. We wonks love deterministic solutions. This isn't a deterministic problem.

Community

2005-09-10T17:50:00.000-07:00

Something I ran across:link

I think the fact that these folks are so amicable is one reason why the software has been built so well. When you engage a community of users and developers, there's no room for myopia and one-upmanship, which I've unfortunately seen too much of in certain other projects.

This is in reference to Kontact.

Appealing file managers.

2005-09-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

After blathering on at some length about file managers, I ran across some of the ideas that the Appeal project is thinking about. Here is a link to the Content Manager proposals.

This is interesting, and gets the juices running. How to address the challenge of presenting the complexities of data in a way that looks good and is not confusing. The many ways that one document could be presented, or better, the inherent metadata contained within the document (and hopefully collected and collated by something like Tenor) could overwhelm a user, all the while granting the user enormous power. Using the smooth pop-up panes similar to what we see when we hover over an icon in Kicker suggests possibilities. A transient and 'melting' overlay, with possibilities of further drill-down and instantaneous back-out permits deepening levels of complexity. The more you drilled into an object, the more detailed the overlay. This would be very similar in action to taking a pile of papers, flipping through them, glancing at the ones that seem pertinent until you find the one you want. Easy in, easy out. If you find what you want, or want to bookmark or keep your thumb somewhere, allow a level of overlay to be opened as some kind of container.

This overlay view could apply to folders, either virtual or physical. Overlays would show different paths of inquiry or action, leading to another overlay or action screen. Some kind of visual or textual representation would show the user where they are.

When the same data is presented in many different ways and contexts, it is very easy to get confused. This has been the downfall of virtual file systems. Actually confused isn't the right word. It is difficult to remember how you got somewhere. It doesn't take very many levels to get confusing. This week I was working in a complex that has a new control system for their ice plant. The graphical display shows the equipment status and allows changing setpoints and viewing logs. There are 6 major screens. Everyone including me had to click on a few different views before finding what we saw before and would like to see again. But, and this is important, to do what I needed to do required access to much more. Similar to KDE users opening Konsole to do routine tasks that are cumbersome or impossible to do graphically.

A minor nit, and perhaps an important philosophical point. Please please please don't forget something so basic that we can miss it; computers are tools for managing complexity. If I have two documents in my life that I need to handle, edit, send, or whatever, two only, I don't need a computer. The internet, birds, flowers, cultures, scientific pursuits, any endeavor is appealing to us due to the infinite variety that is presented to us. We love abundance. That is why we have 250 gig hard drives. If you are doing a mockup, put 20, 30 items in it. It will change how you view the problem. Or at least force us to think about how we can easily get it down to two or three.

File browser

2005-09-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

What I want in a File Browser(tm). Or what I don't want, and I think would be a mistake.

Some obvious things are speed. Instantaneous display of folder contents is an absolute. If it takes as long to display a moderately sized folder as it does to open Konsole, Konsole wins.

I don't want a gui designer to tell me how I should organize my files. Design decisions force usage. If a small number of files in a folder work best, then the designer is telling me I should work that way. No.

The current thinking is to somehow model real objects to help us understand simple concepts (We spent a few years learning to read, but we really don't want to use that). In the past, any large amount of data that needed to be sorted, stored or retrieved had some intermediary who did that for a living. Think executive secretary, librarian, the ancient scribes and secretaries. For what I have in my home folder and descendants, I would probably have needed two or three people to keep it for me. The objects I can keep track of in spatial memory are few. The rest are thrown in closets or piled on my desk waiting for me or someone to sort through them. Any screenies of 'spatial file manager' conveniently shows 3-6 objects in each folder. Spare me. What we need to model is the parsing, sorting and retrieving capabilities of a good librarian/secretary.

A good example of this is iTunes, although I ran into a flaw within 15 seconds which renders it unusable for me. It models a very narrow minded librarian who cannot fathom anyone being interested in anything but music. For music it works well, with a few hints allows you to find what you want. But it only works with a very narrow data type. Let me explain.

I heard that iTunes had audiobooks. And indeed they do. So I installed iTunes for Windows using Crossover Office. It is an older version, so maybe things have changed a little, but it illustrates the point. I found the audiobooks section, clicked on it and got a bunch of categories; non-fiction, history, mysteries, etc. Great. So I click on Non-Fiction and what do I get? A list of authors. Bah. You have to select each one individually to get the book title. If you search on something, it returns music selections and audiobooks. There may be a way of fine tuning this, but frankly I gave up. Life is too short to try to shoehorn a piece of software vision into my reality.

So a file representation that works well with one type of data may work horribly with another.

Another very irritating thing, this time about Konqueror, is the difficulty in narrowing the displayed files. In my home folder, if I'm looking for a pdf file, I can conveniently type /home/derek/*.pdf. I end up with half the screen showing subfolders, with my pdf files at the bottom. That is full sized screen. If I want to split the screen in two for easy moving, all I see are folders. This is where I look for the little X button and open Konsole.

By the way, is there any way using the mouse to do a wild card sort on a particular metadata? In list view there a limited way, but icon view?

I want an easy way to drill down into non-hierarchical data, with an obvious and very easy way to back out. I want to be able to use applications to handle their data effectively, without knackering the file manager. I want the file manager to recognize and respect the hierarchical structures that I build, at the same time ignoring them when I'm trying to find something. I want the file manager to recognize my skills of pattern matching and filtering out unimportant data.

If you have ever worked with a good secretary, you know what I want. Remember that job we did over at so and so's? I want to see the engineering calculations I did, or didn't we have a mechanical failure similar to the one we had yesterday? Who did we talk to about that? A good secretary will have the answers for you in a very short time. I want my computer to do the same thing for me. Let me throw things on her desk, and have it at my fingertips. But don't touch this pile. I'm working on it right now.

I don't want to have to enter a bunch of data to have this happen. If I download a document, create a spreadsheet or KWord document, I don't want to have to fill in a bunch of metadata. I would prefer not to have to create a file name either. The computer, like the secretary, knows (or should know) what I'm working on, what the file is about, where it came from, and where it should go. Sometimes I may want to be specific, but most of the time not. The computer can read, can't it?

Being fussy and miserable, damn the computer that does things without telling me, and doesn't allow me to override it's decisions.

I haven't found a graphical filemanager interface that matches the power and flexibility of the command line. I suspect that most of the audience here hasn't either. Shouldn't a good gui filemanager be far better than the command line?

Vitriol

2005-08-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

http://lwn.net/Articles/148007/#Comments presents an interesting picture into the users and developers of a free software project. I don't want to overstate anything, or suggest that KDE is all roses and sweets. But what I read sounded alarms in my head. Here is a group of potential contributors displaying deep frustration, which at least will prevent contribution.

The structure and economics of free software are based on participation as opposed to consumption. The continued progress of the software depends on a growing body of contributors. The goal of producing a useful desktop requires immense resources. Where will these resources come from? Individuals and commercial interests who see a benefit from participating. Hence, anyone who wants to build a community around a project needs to cater to those who will participate and contribute.

This is so basic I wonder why I wrote it. But what if your business plan is providing product for consumers? Won't that color your approach to fostering contribution?

And before someone suggests that we need to write for our grandmothers, just remember that it is the rare grandmother who can write a desktop application, let alone environment. Powerful flexible and simple tools are the result of engineering. Removing the power and flexibility isn't the answer. The answer is design through many iterations which requires manpower.

Speaking of contribution and community, we hope to produce the KDE Commit-Digest this weekend. Watch for the announcement on the Dot.

Update

2005-08-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am overwhelmed with the support that has been offered to produce the Digest. I have three individuals, Razmi Ferchichi, Jonathan Lee and Sam Weber who are subscribed to kde-commits and going to help out. Still very preliminary, but very gratifying nonetheless. And I must mention Nuno Pinheiro who is helping with a graphic redesign.

We'll keep everyone apprised of our progress.

Hiatus

2005-08-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

Ugh. Sometimes things don't go as planned. I'm unable to produce the Digest for the next while.

Hopefully things can be arranged so that either I or someone else can satisfy the thirst for information about this amazing project.

Parts

2005-08-06T11:16:00.000-07:00

Aaron makes the point that all of the technologies that make up KDE would be used in a file browser/manager. In fact, these technologies make it possible to come up with a spectacular file manager.

Usability is often misunderstood as simple adjustments in menus, dialogs etc. Those things are necessary of course. What makes the complicated systems that we use usable at all are the numerous technologies that abstract the complexities into managable pieces. Think web addresses. Instead of 24.67.200.84:80, you can enter http://commit-digest.org. The workings of that system are quite complex, and require server maintenance, security and all the magic that makes up the dns system. For the user, just enter the address. KDE has a whole stack of technologies that permit easy access to complex systems. The next challenge is to scare out the remaining unnecessary complexities, further abstracting the abstractions.

The improvements we are seeing in the 3. KDE releases are a result of the maturing of these technologies. There is much more to come. The pace of development over the last couple of years has been torrid. I think we ain't seen nothing yet. Hang on tight. It's gonna be fun.

Now that I've got you excited, I would like to ask for assistance. The KDE Commit-Digest has been a success by any measure, and I think contributed to the KDE project. The problem I'm having is keeping up with the above described torrid pace of development. There is too much happening for me to keep familiar with, on top of trying to maintain an increasingly complex application and server. If someone would like to help, drop me a line. You can have the unique and satisfying opportunity of serving a growing developer base. Remember though, the primary feature of the Digest is it's regularity.

Gnome vs. KDE Round ?

2005-08-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. Another round. But this time seems lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. Where are the ad hominem attacks? No one questioning the other's sanity, morality, manhood or coding ability? Is this what it has come to; whining about column inches?

Maybe a realization is sinking in. There are and will be two major free desktops. Wishing KDE/Gnome would go away isn't going to make it happen. Choosing favorites is fine as a developer or user, but anyone who depends on developers and users can't afford to piss off half the developer/user base. We have two healthy development communities actively improving their software. The userbase for both desktops are growing. Both are maturing into useful and full featured desktops. They both represent different visions, development styles, organisational and infrastructure styles. Both attract different sponsors and users. And both communities churn out amazing quantities of good quality code. And both are providing employment opportunities for developers.

This is good.

We are seeing another instance where accepted wisdom is being turned on it's head. Everyone knows that we need one desktop API. Everyone knows that it is a dead end to choose the loser. Software is a natural monopoly, so we have to choose the winner. Otherwise we have confusion and orphaned software. Microsoft has astutely placed itself to benefit from this wisdom. They defined the api, defined the software suites that would be everywhere. And the result has been bliss, peace and layoffs of admin people everywhere.

Wrong. The monopoly on the desktop has meant stagnation and an insecure mess.

What we see with the free desktop would never even be contemplated. Anyone suggesting or planning such an outcome would be certified as nuts. Take note. If I run KDE, I can run Gnome applications quite well. Not only that, but if I run KDE on 'BSD, Solaris or Linux, I can run Gnome applications. If I run Gnome on any of these platforms, I can run KDE applications. It isn't perfect, but it works. It can get complicated, but when it doesn't work it is a bug, not a feature.

The free desktop has become larger than any one person or even organisation. Linus still defines the kernel, but who defines the desktop? Novell? Redhat? Trolltech? Sun? How about all of the above. No one person can speak for everyone. This is a reflection of its strength. Too many developers, users, sponsors, distributions, consultants are benefitting in too many different ways for one person or vision to fit. The combined strengths are greater than any individual, encouraging collaboration when necessary, and only when necessary.

This is all for the good and bodes well for the future. I guess we'll all have to find something else to fight about.

Shallow musings

2005-07-28T20:52:00.000-07:00

I'll be glad when the extreme heat of summer is over.

The local used book store has proven to be a useful destination every month or so. I usually come out with one or two books that keep me occupied and challenged. Shipping News was a very enjoyable read, describing a man with his family returning to the family home in Newfoundland to put his life back together. Makes me want to visit. My daughter suggested I watch the Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy movies. I read the first book and just picked up the second. My goodness. It has been a while since I read a book that I had to put down every so often to settle down. I was pacing back and forth, my hands shaking. I had to go for a walk to calm myself. So I look forward to the second of the series. It's rare that books produce physical reactions. A number of years ago I read Solzenitzen's A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch. It was in June, and the weather was warm. The book describes working in the subzero temperatures of Siberia, and I felt physically cold.

A couple of enjoyable musical experiences. I went through my teens listening to the Eagles, and like many know the songs by heart. It has become elevator music, part of the background noise everywhere. I picked up Eagles Farewell Tour 1, a video recording of a concert in Melbourne. Very enjoyable. Nothing new or groundbreaking, in fact they play the songs almost as they were recorded. The musical and sound quality is outstanding. Not a stretch in any way, but very entertaining. Today I purchased Talking Heads Stop Making Sense. It is surprisingly difficult to find any of their recordings. Don't know why. I almost drove off the road listening to Burning Down the House. Good rocking, bad driving music. I'll educate my 18 year old coworker on good rock and roll.

Blink

2005-07-23T13:19:00.000-07:00

Next on the shopping list is an uninterruptible power supply. As rsync was rsyncing the svn repository, the power went off and on very quickly. I think I got a corrupted file system in that partition, and it will take a while to get a working repository. The digest is getting it's data from anonsvn.kde.org (don't worry, it's cached). There won't be any statistics until I get things fixed.

Oops

2005-07-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

Do you know how long it takes to rsync all of the svn repository into an empty directory? As opposed to updating an existing one? This was a question I hadn't asked and wasn't interested in knowing, but found out at my own hand. Let's see... I started the rsync around 6pm friday, and it wasn't done when I sat down at around 3pm saturday. My investigative abilities restored by sleep and rehydration found the problem.

No harm except a late Digest :)

Yes we are in our crazy season at work. A local government office had their servers quit due to overheating this week, so we installed a system in record time, this in between a very large number of emergencies. Not much of me left at the end of the day. This will go on for another couple of weeks, then poof! everyone will vanish for their August holidays and sanity will return. Although it is good for one's self esteem (and wallet) when you feel needed.

Sales

2005-07-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

Aaron's blog about market share brought to mind my experience with sales people. They never say anything without a reason.

So Ballmer is talking about the percentage market share of the Linux desktop? Who is he talking to? It isn't me, because it doesn't matter to me or most users of the desktop what the percentage is. I don't have to worry about KDE or the greater Linux desktop going out of business due to small market share. He isn't talking about his worries.

Ballmer is talking to those who produce software for the desktop. There is a rubicon to be crossed by an independent software developer; they can't produce cross-platform software with Microsoft development tools. If a developer goes cross platform, .NET is out of the question. Microsoft loses on many fronts. Investment in cross platform tools puts real money into development of the free desktop (see Trolltech). Significant movement is happening in that direction, or else Ballmer would never have brought it to our attention.

So as Ballmer says, the linux desktop is miniscule. .0*13 %. Or whatever. Stay with us. Please please.

As of now, Officially, the Linux Desktop(tm) is on Microsoft's radar. We have made it. Kudos to all the developers, distributors, artists, testers and users who have made this possible.

Ideas

2005-07-06T07:43:00.000-07:00

Nuno Pinheiro is helping, let me rephrase that, is coming up with all the good ideas on how to make the KDE Commit Digest look better. Here is his blog. The work in progress, with some mockups are available on a test server at commit-digest.org:8080. It is a great pleasure to work with Nuno. I lack any artistic ability and his ideas have literally taken a load off my shoulders.

I appreciated the blogs on kde-edu. These applications fill a real need. If you want a ready, active and appreciative audience, make sure that you have the keyword 'home school' somewhere where google can find it. Get your stuff written up in some home schooling newsletters. A home school Knoppix Special! Words like free, freedom, community, contribution, support have real meaning to these people. Notwithstanding the progress made in school systems to date, I wouldn't pin my hopes on the hidebound lifers that run most schools. Please don't take that as an insult. I would act the same way if every time I stuck my head up someone whacked it with a stout stick. It is ironic that the product of a remarkably free wheeling process finds success in the most tightly controlled environments.

Books

2005-06-27T21:03:00.001-07:00

Holidays would be incomplete and unsatisfying if we couldn't find a good book store.

I read Lance Armstrong's book It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. The descriptions of the Tour de France were very interesting. Winning 6 of these races can't be a fluke, and we read of his almost fanatical dedication to the sport. The descriptions of the races are fascinating. We think of a bike race as an individual effort; it is a team effort with a group working together so that one person can claim victory. Reading his story puts many of the obstacles and discomforts of my life in perspective.

I'm fascinated by military history, and enjoyed Operatives, Spies, and Saboteurs : The Unknown Story of the Men and Women of World War II's OSS. The book is from the american perspective, interviewing surviving members of that service. The war had an enormous impact in so many ways. The nastiness of insurgency and special operation warfare, with small groups taking advantage of local partisan movements, the shifting allegiances, makes for a fascinating read. Many times the stories revolve around civilians either protecting and hiding, or finding and reporting the operatives. I and many of my generation have never experienced war. It is good to read of the damage done to societies when faced with conflict, and how there is no possible way to stay innocent if involved.

I finally finished Uncle Tungsten, Oliver Sacks' autobiography. For some reason I read about half, then put it down. Reading about the structure of the atom, of electrons, radioactivity and his fascination when exploring these things as a young boy reminds me of when I learned these things. My high school chemistry teacher had the ability to instill wonder when describing the structure of the atom. Sometimes when we learn things the result is not understanding but a flood of questions and possibilities.

I was pondering the times in my life when I had that feeling of setting out on a journey of discovery. In the late 80's I was interested in computers, read computer magazines but wasn't in the position to purchase one. A friend had an Apple IIe that he lent to me. I had some weird infection, so I was home for a week or two. Between sleeping off the fever, I worked through a book on Pascal. The sense of possibilities, the intellectual challenge, the joy of accomplishment. Since then I've always had a programming project on the go. When my friends were learning the intricacies of the drawing and graphic programs, I was exploring assembly language.

Books

2005-06-27T21:03:00.000-07:00

Holidays would be incomplete and unsatisfying if we couldn't find a good book store.

What is KDE doing right?

2005-06-25T00:40:00.000-07:00

The KDE community is as healthy and active as I've ever seen it. Vibrant sub communities, such as artists, usability people and others are providing substantial contributions to the project. The sub projects such as kde-edu, KOffice and others are lively, attracting developers. Everyone seems to be having fun. I know I am.

So what has KDE done right? This is what I see:

The legal organisation does what they are best at: organize conferences.
Long standing core developers are employed by companies that benefit from KDE.
The repository is open. It is very easy to get write access to the repository. The systems are in place so that experienced developers can watch what goes in, but nonetheless, to become a contributor is easy.
Sharing the repository creates a ready 'market' for well designed libraries and services. The libraries and services get use and testing. KDE as a rather large package provides a test environment for users. The feedback loop isn't 'corrupted' by outside packages and dependencies that swallow time and resources better used in fixing KDE issues.
No single point of failure. How many experienced release dudes are there? The very loose structures seem to come together when needed, and allow motivated individuals to fill the needs as they see fit.
Biannual releases grows the userbase, keeps KDE in the limelight and attracts new developers.

What do you think? Much of the work is unpaid. Something is keeping us all interested and motivated. What is it?

Eye Candy

2005-06-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

Other than a few minor issues, the code to generate the Digest from Subversion is done. But in my opinion the layout and look sucks. I can say that freely because I designed it. Obviously some artistic talent is needed to design a new layout. This is a request for assistance to that end.

The design parameters for the project are:

No hand editing. A script will generate the html from data sources, and the design needs to take into consideration the variation that occurs in the commit logs, and other sources of data.
The content is dynamic. The number of entries, the number of types and categories may and do change from week to week.
The digest is read from top to bottom or in sections by a good number of people. The purpose of the design is to allow comfortable and pleasant reading of a lengthy technical report.

Preferably the graphical elements would be easy on the server. Outside of these basic requirements, the field is wide open.

The most challenging parts are the table of contents and the layout of the commit log with all it's attendant data.

If you would like to help, send me an email. Your name and picture will be prominently displayed in gratitude. The code is available in the kde svn repository in trunk/www/areas/cvs-digest/enzyme. I can do the required coding, I need help with the design.

I will be posting this request on www.kde-artists.org.

Misc.

2005-06-10T16:09:00.000-07:00

I'll be away next week, so there won't be a Digest on the 17th of June. A well deserved time off. Is it a good or bad sign when your boss remarks that finally you are taking some time off?

Had a brainwave today while scrolling through the kde-commit emails. I look for bug numbers (among other things) and try to avoid the revision numbers sometimes referred to. Why not link to the revision when a developer refers to it in the commit log? Now the challenge of creating a regex to differentiate between the two.

I learned something this week

2005-06-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Frameworks work.

Let me explain. I've been using a Palm handheld for a number of years. Mostly for keeping track of the multitude of details at work. Part numbers, contact information, the innumerable details that make up my day. Without the palm, I would fill up a pocket booklet in about a month, with all the recall issues that come with paper. When I first started using the Palm, the built in software seemed inadequate; I wrote my own application that tracked all the stuff I needed.

The problem with rolling your own is the maintenance and side issues that require time. Palm has changed processors and many other things that my app requires. I never got around to writing a hotsync for it, so the data never strayed from the handheld except as a binary backup.

And more importantly, I never was able to see any usefulness of the KDE PIM tools, which today make up Kontact. My older Palm started losing it's mind, so I purchased a Tungsten E. I started using the built in Palm applications to track the days details, and magically they appear on my desktop. Every morning I do a hotsync, then drag stuff around or edit as necessary. I have actually started using Kontact.

Since I have the summary view open, I've written scripts with dcop calls to add notes and reminders for my perusal. I'm considering writing a script that extracts all the data from my application and inserts it into the calendar. The whole thing is getting more and more useful. My creative juices are flowing as I see ways of expanding usage to the others I work with.

Along the way I've run into some bugs or lack of function that I will either fix or report. No doubt as Kontact gets heavy usage the bug count will skyrocket.

But the most important lesson I've learned is the value of working within frameworks. This implies two things. The framework has to be extensible and powerful enough to contain almost any workflow situations. Quite a challenge. How difficult it is to extract the data from Kontact for other purposes? How easy and complete are the scripting interfaces that would make these things possible?

And I have to content myself with almost perfect solutions that are maintainable. A database app may suit better, but the tie-ins to the handheld that would require maintenance.

It is critical that the scripting bindings be included in KDE installations. That way users and writers of scripts would be assured of things working as expected.

Bite

2005-05-26T18:28:00.000-07:00

I once heard a radio show describing an ant that lives in the South American rain forests whose bite is so painful that all the creatures of the forest steer clear of it's nests. If a man is bitten, a multple day coma ensues where one is writhing in pain. The idea is that large animals in their carelessness can damage a nest, and the only defense against either purposeful or inadvertent damage is a bite that definitely gets attention.

Free software is paradoxically fragile like an ant that can be crushed, but if roused to bite can inflict serious damage. Think SCO vs. Groklaw. Anyone who ignores the license requirements of the GPL and gets a friendly visit from Eben Moglen learns that it is much easier to steer clear of license violations.

To a lesser degree, the Apple khtml saga illustrates the sharp edge of free software, and used effectively can keep others from inadvertently damaging a project. A little prick here and there can get needed attention.

Then there is the annoying prickishness of someone like Larry McVoy who seems to purposely stir up the nest for no reason.

Down

2005-05-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

I can't complain. I enjoy the slow relaxed pace of life in the Kootenays, so how can I complain when a thunderstorm takes out the ISP at 19:24:43 and service isn't restored till 02:46:56? Yes that was last night, Friday the 20th. Maybe nobody noticed until they came home from the bar? If there was a serious issue requiring parts replacements, the fixes wouldn't happen till monday sometime.

And of course when I saw that everything was down, I did the responsable thing; went to bed.

Money

2005-05-15T14:13:00.000-07:00

Does money changing hands affect free software?

I like money. The more the better. But then again, I'm not willing to pay the price necessary to get enormous amounts of money. I could probably double my income within a month or two, but that would require that I give up many other things that I enjoy, such as a quiet country lifestyle, my family, my faith, my hobbies.

In other words, the commercialization of free software isn't a problem. I'm sure that most KDE developers would love being able to work full time on what they enjoy doing. There are some developers who are paid to work on KDE, and a comment from Andrew Morton recently noted that most of the kernel developers are paid to do so.

There are certain aspects of commercialization, or rather certain characteristics of high tech business that can cause a problem.

Ownership: Obviously tight intellectual property control is anathema to free software. But what about when a commercial interest releases their software as gpl or similar? Who owns, as in controls, sets future direction, drums up developer support, maintains communication systems, etc. for the development effort? We have many examples of this situation that we can learn from.

Trolltech owns Qt. There is no question. When a KDE developer finds a bug in the Qt classes and sends a patch, Trolltech rewrites the fix. They want to maintain ownership of the codebase, all the while releasing it under the GPL. This is one of the more successful commercial open source stories. They get income by selling the libraries to those who want to develop proprietary software. They nurture the relationship with the KDE community by substantial contributions of developer time, and in return they get testing and a rather admirable case study for their product. Does Trolltech own KDE? They definitely influence KDE greatly. When Trolltech released Qt bindings for D-Bus, it probably sealed the decision for KDE to use D-Bus in future versions. This wasn't a decision by fiat however; many KDE developers were leaning that way already. There seems to be a healthy symbiosis between the two interests, and a common view of what constitutes good taste. It is in Trolltech's interest to maintain an excellent relationship with KDE, so we see good results. If that ever changes, KDE developers will need to take over maintenance of the Qt classes.

Note that I have no difficulty with Trolltech's licensing schemes. If someone wants to develop a proprietary application, let them pay the going rate for whatever libraries they need. Indirectly I benefit from that arrangement, since the revenue is put back into the Qt libraries or KDE developers are hired.

Easy Software Products owns CUPS. I am not as familiar with the business end, but the software is available under the LGPL and GPL. Many printer manufacturers provide drivers that work with CUPS, and they sell either software or consulting along with other printing and document products. They own the software, but it is made useful by the extensions of others.

OpenOffice. SUN owns OpenOffice and are constantly trying to get others to contribute. They will probably get as many contributions as Trolltech does to Qt. Not many. Why would I hire someone or contribute myself to something someone else owns? Realistically future OpenOffice development will have to come from SUN itself. How does the free distribution of OpenOffice contribute to SUN's bottom line? I understand from a business point of view why Trolltech releases Qt under a free license. Does SUN get enough revenue out of StarOffice to maintain development? This is a side effect of commercialization, one that again favors the monopoly.

Safari. Hah. Who owns khtml/WebCore? The answer is KDE/Apple. The twain don't meet. This is an interesting case study, and contains a salutary lesson for the next time someone shows up with a gift horse. The rather ham handed ways that Apple proceeded could have killed a less resilient project. As Zack so eloquently stated, the development of khtml changed from a rather interesting challenge to a frustrating parsing of questionable source code while fending off impatient unknowledgable users. I give full credit and thanks to those who have continued khtml development. Very strange pronouncements have emanated from various quarters, such as eskewing code quality for feature implementation. I have a hunch how far that would get in the khtml developer circles. How dare khtml reject the generous code offerings from Apple! There is a very interesting precedent to do just that. Remember the LVM/EVMS competition in the kernel? How the kernel developers rejected a working but inelegant solution from IBM?

When a commercial interest tries to take ownership of something or tries to get others to contribute to what they own, problems develop. Why should I work for someone else if there is no benefit that comes to me? IBM contributes to the kernel even if HP, SUN and other competitors may benefit, because they don't own the kernel. Trolltech, Novell, DataKonsult, Open Office Polska Company and others contribute to KDE because none of them own KDE.

Another aspect of commercialization is branding. I am interested primarily in one brand, Derek Kite. Whatever benefits that brand, I am interested in contributing to. I know that I alone cannot do everything, and recognize the value of community, so I am interested in the KDE brand. I can be made interested in other brands however. Contact me for my rates. In other words, no, I'm not going to contribute to a software project where a commercial interest takes all the credit. Unless I'm paid to do so.

The Linux desktop is maturing and becoming a viable choice for ever greater numbers of users. Commercialization will happen as people step in to fulfil demand for Linux desktop services and products. As a result many more people will be making a living from KDE. This will contribute to an increasingly rich software offering. But danger lurks. Something about software, particularly the desktop makes people stupid. Someone in the near future will make a play to dominate the free desktop market. They will do it by the old standbys of exclusion and differentiation. KDE will once again be attacked viciously for having the temerity to exist. It will turn out badly for many. Comparisons to the Unix wars of old will be made.

It's not money that is the issue. It is control.

More statistics

2005-05-10T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've got the basic statistics generating code for svn done. Some testing is in order, but it seems to work.

A few minor frustrations/learning opportunities. If you svn log -r [rev] [path] you get a nice formatted log. If you --xml, it spits it out in xml format, for which I've written a nice parser in php (bleh). So I figured in the name of code reuse and efficiency (laziness) I could use the php class to generate the statistics. Well, no. the --xml arg does everything as expected except include the lines changed count, which I need. So back to perl and lines like

if ($i =~ /^r\d*\s\S\s(\S*)\s\S\s(\d*\D\d*\D\d*\D\d*\D\d*).*\|\s(\d*)/) {

So as to keep my good name with the admins, and not be blacklisted while I run loops through a week's worth of commits, I set up the local svn mirror. rsync.kde.org::svnmirror has what I needed, so I did the rsync, went to work, came home, went to bed, went to work came home and it was done. So I tested with svn log file:///home/extra/kde_svn and got the same error that anonsvn.kde.org users got last week. The rsync seems to fetch the repos/db/current file near the end, which indicates the last commit. It was out of sync with the fetched revisions, hence the error message. A quick rsync fixed the problem.

How big is the KDE svn repository in fsfs format?

@:/home/extra$ du -hc kde_svn
12K     kde_svn/dav
1.6G    kde_svn/db/revprops
13G     kde_svn/db/revs
64M     kde_svn/db/transactions/411053-1.txn
64M     kde_svn/db/transactions
14G     kde_svn/db
8.0K    kde_svn/html
4.0K    kde_svn/locks
14G     kde_svn
14G     total

@:/var/www$ du -hc kde_repository
...
19G     kde_repository
19G     total

The second set of numbers is the cvs repository. Kudos again to the svn migration team for preserving the important stuff, but mucking out the unnecessary cruft.

Statistics

2005-05-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

ade commented on the history available within the KDE repository. I thank coolo and ossi for their efforts to maintain an accurate record of development. You cannot know where you are going unless you know where you come from. KDE is as much a social phenomenon as a collection of software. Other projects have at their center a mailing list, but KDE seems to revolve around the source repository. Hence the importance of preserving the history, and my decision to document what goes in.

I am in the process of (actually have a blank open document in Kate) rewriting the statistics generating code for the Digest. A blank slate is daunting yet liberating. What information should I gather, and how should it be presented? I ask for comments and suggestions.

Currently a perl script goes through the cvs repository, file by file, selecting commits between the dates passed as arguments. From the cvs logs, it gathers everything and outputs an xml file (may62005.stat).

The commit summary data is as follows:

totalcommits
totallines
newfiles
modfiles
numdevs

For each module the following data is gathered:

modulename
moduleatomiccount
modulefilecount (which doesn't make sense)

and each author has this data:

authorname
authorfilecount
authoratomiccount
authorlines

Which with a bunch of lines and html is used to create the statistics page in the weekly Digest. svn log creates a line of data like this:

r410589 | dkite | 2005-05-07 16:56:21 -0700 (Sat, 07 May 2005) | 1 line

Throw in the list of files per commit, a rather long running loop through all the touched files, spit out an xml file, et voila.

So after all that blather, let's cut to the chase. What do you want? Some people mentioned graphs. Graphs of what?

Counterintuitive

2005-05-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

So much about free software challenges conventional wisdom.

I don't know for sure if my experience is representative in any way, but I suspect it may be.

I started my Linux experience with Redhat 5.2, then 6.idon'tremember. The rpm madness drove me to Debian, where I enjoyed solid engineering that characterizes the distribution. As advancements in the desktop, compiler and libraries left Debian behind I installed Gentoo. Oddly enough the long builds were very similar in length to the dial-up apt-get upgrades, especially using the KDE packages regularly put together by Ivan E. Moore II. To digress a little; Watching the effort Ivan put into the project moved me to find a way to contribute.

I remember wondering at the time how the free desktop would survive the demands of a less technically adept user base. Attempting to freeze a release in software that was under rapid development seemed to be a colossal wasted effort. It seemed an affront to my profoundly lazy nature. And to call something 'stable' that was frozen even a few months previous didn't make sense. Real bugs, real functionality, real usefulness had been incrementally added over that time.

So I did the only reasonable thing. I ran right off of cvs HEAD. Gentoo had easy ebuilds that made simple work of keeping up to date. I noticed two strikingly important things: the maintenance of the packaging was almost trivial since it pulled directly from the KDE repository, and, the experience was very stable. Oh there were the odd issue, mostly due to rapidly changing software. Most everything worked well, and the important improvements were experienced immediately.

This doesn't make any sense. I should have had failures, data loss, or at least a bad experience. I'm a realist. I knew I was living on the edge. But oddly enough, the most unstable and treacherous times were when KDE was preparing for a release. It should be the opposite. This in spite of the valiant efforts by Stephan Kulow and Dirk Mueller before him as release coordinators. It seemed that the release process broke something.

I don't think this is restricted to KDE. The Kernel developers recognized that fast moving development and attempts at bi-annual or annual releases was fundamentally broken. The distributions maintained (and paid for) a huge duplicated effort. And the kernels were still unstable. Now the releases happen regularly, new stuff is put in and deployed quickly. In general the stability has been reasonably good, again surprisingly.

What brought this whole thing to mind is my recent experiences. My gentoo installation, similar to my Debian and Redhat installations, got too big and ugly, and needed to be mucked out. The easiest way is to reinstall. Lacking time, I installed Kubuntu. It was quick and painless, and I got what I thought was a stable installation. Finally I was no longer living on the edge.

Or so I thought. I'm seeing behavior that I've never seen before. OOM killing, having to delete KDE configuration files. In fact my box isn't as stable as it was before. And I'm running into the frustrations of living with the builds done by others for their purposes. The audiocd ioslave doesn't do mp3's. Mplayer would need a forced install with all the attendant maintenance issues.

Sure I could wait for the bugfixes, or updates to the packages. A slight problem though. I already see fixes and features since KDE 3.4 that I need, that won't be in 3.4.1. No minor stuff either. For example the kpilot work by Jason vanRijn Kasper fixes some issues that I need.

Is it possible that the problems that I've described are from trying to apply conventional wisdom solutions to free software? Almost anything can be done by brute force, by applying unlimited resources to the problem. Free software doesn't have unlimited resources. The duplication of effort to try to package something unpackageable, to the satisfaction of no one seems crazy. To try to announce, organize, test and finish a release when everyone knows the results will be unsatisfactory again seems crazy. Sure, these things could be fixed with tighter discipline. Oh yeah, that doesn't work unless releases every three years is deemed acceptable. Maybe our headaches will stop when we stop banging our head on the wall. Trying to do something that doesn't work to solve a problem that doesn't exist to satisfy conventional wisdom that is wrong.

I have become a firm believer in the importance of source code distribution. The resulting installation represents what the designers of each project had in mind. The feedback mechanism is shortened, duplication of effort is avoided. The only problem is the computer resources and complexity. Gentoo is in some ways purposely complex, not desiring to coddle the users. That isn't necessary. And Moore's Law again comes to the rescue. How long does it take to build KDE on a well endowed AMD 64? That and the compiling speed improvements in GCC 4.x. Beineri's timings show a dramatic improvement in build times, with more speed improvements to come. Instead of trying to control the uncontrollable, organize the unorganizable by packaging everything neatly and instantly obsolete, maybe the solution is to build on the strengths of free software

KDE Song

2005-05-04T13:56:00.000-07:00

In the interests of building community spirit, I propose that the KDE community adopt a song. I could be sung at the yearly conferences to set the tone, and I'm sure some enterprising programmer will figure out a way to have us all sing together over the internet.

The song would reflect the harmonious relations that exist within the community. The helpful suggestions when someone messes up. The consensus seeking when a decision needs making. The warm feelings we have towards one another.

I nominate the following, and will enjoy the nominations of others:

Sam Hall by Johnny Cash

Cash

2005-05-01T18:33:00.000-07:00

I grew up with my parents playing Johnny Cash and Frank Sinatra. The music of my youth was Cat Stevens and Neil Young. Even when I knew everything and my parents didn't, I still listened to Johnny Cash. There was an honesty and depth to his singing that couldn't be ignored, even if country wasn't my taste.

Since my daughter left home I've enjoyed the opportunity to start listening to music again. I picked up Cash's last album, Cash American IV: The Man Comes Around. It comes with something everyone will dislike until they listen to it.

The title track is a gospel song that Cash wrote. The second track, Hurt, written by Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails begins to show the depth of this work. The original was raw and rough and noisy. Cash is if possible more raw while being quieter. The feelings and hurt from drug addiction portrayed in this song is quietly and powerfully rendered. Cash covers some other very familiar tunes; Bridge Over Troubled Water by Paul Simon, Personal Jesus from Depeche Mode, In My Life, a Beatles tune that Cash redefines. First Time I Ever Saw Your Face was sung by Roberta Flack. Nancie who has perfect pitch commented that his voice seems to go off somewhere from time to time, but you can't stop listening. In Desperado, an Eagles tune, Cash seems to be beseeching a close friend, with Don Hanley doing backup vocals. All these tunes start playing in my mind when I hear the title, but Cash makes them fresh and alive.

The other songs are older, some written by Cash himself, such as Give My Love to Rose, and Tear Stained Letter, Streets of Laredo which are old tear jerkers. He does a beautiful rendition of the Hank Williams classic I'm So Lonesome I Could Die with Nick Cave. Sam Hall is another old Cash tune makes me think that my attitude isn't so bad after all. Quite fun. And one of the most surprising is We'll Meet Again, sung originally by Vera Lynn during WWII, again redefined by Cash.

There is a raw feel to this album. Cash's voice has always been special, never technically perfect but full of feeling. This comes across in the sparse arrangements. Yea yea, I hate that stuff, it's so old, blech. As I said, there is something to hate for everyone on this album, until you listen. Corny tearjerkers that, oops, start you crying. Out of tune harmonies that demand another listen. How could you describe a song where fiddle, dubro and clarinet play incongruously in the background. Huh? I've got to listen to that one again.

Someone had some good sense to just let the man sing. He does.