Google Linux

I just read a column in Inquirer about meetup in Googleplex. There are people from Linux Foundation and FSF, which meet up in goal to discuss the latest Microsoft ramblings about licensing problems in Linux:

Following Microsoft's inking of agreements with Linux hawkers, offering to shield them from lawsuits over the 235 patents it reckons versions of Linux infringe, a gathering of open sorcerers is assembling at Google HQ to debate what is to be done.

According to Reuters report, which helpfully details what a Linux geek is wearing these days (T-shirts and jeans), organizer of the "Collaboration Summit", Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation, told the amassed geeks: "Guys: Be seekers of truth, not finders of contradiction."

Maybe something will come of it, but typically, like the Left in politics, there may be too much squabbling over what society should look like after the revolution that the revolution will be eternally postponed.

I actually agree to this. Its much easier to discuss than get things done. But then, I like this comment:

Google Linux anyone?

Funny isn't it? Not that Google needs such a thing, but I think that while everyone is talking Ubuntu would do the trick and take it all.

-A

Technorati : Gentoo, Linux, Ubuntu

Future of proprietary

Wasn't it like 40 or so years ago when computer users didn't always buy a software?

It is Bill Gates' letter to hobbyists which is considered by many an important milestone in proprietary software concept. This concept, which rules in many software markets today, is essentially alienated by open source software.

What is the difference? There is one major different, and not the one many think.

Proprietary software in Bill Gates' view, is a software product produced by a highly educated team of professionals. As any product made or manufactured it has to be payed for in order to be used. This team will sign you on a binding license (just as a driver permit, which has its rules); this team will not be responsible if this product destroys everything else in your life, and, my favorite, they keep control regarding how you can or cannot use their product.

Open Source software, on other hand, is all about freedom. Not free (by money factor) as many believe to be the main attribute of it, but freedom to use it the way you like. No, it is still not responsible for possible problems in your life, but the actual usage clause is clear:

As long as you're not changing the product, you may do whatever you want with it. If you do change the product, credit those who had created the base version you changed and publish your changes to everyone who requests it. Obligate others to use the same licensing terms.

This freedom is the most important part. Not the price. Not the vendor. The freedom of use.

So why, then, vendors would fear open source concept?

The problem lays in "property" concept. When someone is speaking about private property, such as house or premises, it is well understood what is it about. But when someone is talking about "intellectual property", this is much more complicated. It sounds like someone has "patented" his or her own thoughts and other people are forbidden to think those thoughts. And if they do, they either should pay for it or go to jail - just as thieves would.

So until the law implementations of such "property" use would be clear to all, many vendors would prefer using "real commercial" software products.

And I haven't started talking about DRMed content yet...

Although I prefer Open Source and Free model, I do understand the place of a commercial software products in the world.

Vendors, please, free the use for your products. And you'll be fine.

-A.

Technorati : technology

QA in Gentoo, and Microsoft vs. Linux

Diego,

I'm totally agree with you on the matter. I was actually talking with Patrick about QA awhile ago, and if you hold the same stance as he does on the matter - that is great. I think one should take apart the 2 definitions about application quality: the one is being made with high quality, and the second is being working stable as specified.

The first one is regarded in software as "code style policies" and such, which means the rules and choices made when creating products (such as variables/function names, code styles, etc). It is sometimes even implemented by using automated tools for creating skeletons in code, and running automatic parsers to check the usage.

On the other hand, Quality Assurance means testing created products for bugs, features and stability, and generally speaking has nothing to do with coding policies - as long as product is stable and performs as expected.

So for Gentoo, I would believe that the main things that QA team should always check, are the following:

1. Package can be built.
2. The result can be ran/executed/used.

If 1. doesn't pass in at least some 50%, package cannot be unmasked or even added to the tree.

When 1. is OK, and 2. is almost OK (say, it runs but some problems exist), package can be marked ~.

I only believe there are 2 cases when package can be marked stable:
1. The 1. above has near 100% positive result for all the deps.
2. The 2. from the above is considered positive, when tested by multiple users for given period of time (say at least a week) and no problems are being reported.

Thats the way I think QA issues should be handled in Gentoo.

Regarding your resignation - although I'm sure it is a lost for the official Gentoo, I hope you still stick around and help to people in need. I also believe that everyone is free community is entitled to personal wishes, and if you want to resign - its your right to do so, I don't understand why people bother you to explain yourself (like you own them or something.)

Now, to the Microsoft vs. Linux issue.

As Daniel de Oliveira already mentioned, Microsoft has created a new site, (currently down by the way), where they explain their potential partners and salesforce, how to win the sales case against Linux offerings.

I personally think it is important, because it is not blatant "Get The Facts" campain. It is a very business-case oriented, detailed and organized guide to winning businesses.

You do such guides only when you consider your opponent very serious contender, and that requires you to concentrate on important stuff. It also means, that Linux (I mean OS here, not just kernel), is considered by Microsoft very serious, and its not "only for ..... people anymore" (fill the blanks on your own; may I suggest "supergeeks"?).

So, I'd say that Ubuntu bug #1 set by Mark Shuttleworth, is being slowly but surely resolved.

Wouldn't you ?!

Political Gentoo

So, the last week has been kinda weird.

First, I was sad to witness bitterness and some sort of despair in Gentoo community. Lot of people feel that something isn't right, but at the same time there's a feeling that nothing could be done to fix it.

I'd suggest the following:
All Gentoo developers take the leave from working on Gentoo and have a break to have some fun in their own private lives. Then, in 30 days, council should be brought back to urgent meeting about future of Gentoo, with the following contributors:
1. Project/Subproject Leads
2. Developers
3. Users
Then, decide upon Gentoo's future, both technical (what is Gentoo? where should it be heading?) and social (what is devrel/userrel/userreps? how do they perform? how do they enforce policies? are policies well understood by all parties?)
And then, come back and start making great things together.

I know, I know, it just sounds great to me and will never be implemented.

It is sad, because Gentoo is a great distribution and a great technical effort made by community. I understand, that in free community you can only count on yourself or long-known peers, as it is free, disperse and voluntary. But many such communities choose to follow some sort of netiquette, which explains sort of a etiquette expected from all the members, and also establishes some way of enforcing an appropriate behavior.

Is bad behavior allowed in free community? Yes. It should, as "bad" is only subjective, and being "bad" means saying and/or doing something others do not like or want. But in free society, all things should be allowed.

But what should one do, when these things hurt or insult someone else? Well, in "democracy", there's a concept of decision making. If there's a majority for decision, but the decision itself implies hurting the minority, then the decision is banned as "non-democratic".

Which means, that "bad" behavior can be tolerated but some "objective" countability should be established and sort of "punishment" will have place. Punishment, in general, will be either temporal or permanent removal from society.

So how can all this be done with free community such as Gentoo? I don't know. I just hope, that despair that I feel inside the community is temporary, and soon will be dealt with.

I really love Gentoo, both technically and socially, and I'm ready to provide any help necessary and I will gladly do anything I can (and "official Gentoo" will accept) to make things better.

Second, on a side note: I got a Gentoo T-shirt for my birthday! So geeky....

My week with Gentoo and other stuff

Well, it's kinda a day for my weekly stuff.

In fact, I haven't see much of going on with Gentoo, this week was pretty calm. So few things then:

Non gentoo:

1. I'm twice an uncle now. My sis gave birth to another baby boy last friday, exactly one year after a previous one. So its kinda funny thing in a family now, we still laughing. But it is weird though.
2. Yet another "Is Linux ready for the desktop" type of article. I don't think we'll ever get rid of those. To the date, I think linux is just another OS, which gives you the choice. Because of the kind of a user I am, I do think Linux is better than anything else, because almost everything I do with computers, is either multiplatform (Java-Mono-.Net-Flash, and please don't flame on this - they all the same to me), webbased (gmail) or Linux/Unix oriented (shells, cli's of sorts, etc). Linux is great platform for that.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that Windows is bad, but for the god's sake, why would maximizing Outlook from system tray to a full or opening a "new mail" window takes 15-20 seconds on pretty idle system?

3. I've read an article about OLPC project efforts, and man, I want to work for something like that.
Isn't it great project? I'd quit my current job in an instant if job like that would come up. It's not the money thing, its pure interest and excitement drive - I like challenges and, more important, seeing the result almost immediately of what you did. I already have ideas for what can be done with this kind of laptops, and it doesn't even exist yet!! That alone should show how bored I am at my current job.

Gentoo-related:

1. Userreps are little slow lately because they are busy, but don't let it stop you. If you have anything interesting or important to say, suggest or ask, do it on User Representatives Subforum or drop by #gentoo-userreps channel on FreeNode irc network.
2. Last council meeting logs were published. One thing I noticed, is that Bryan (kloeri) will review Devrel etiquette guide, because the current one has some ambiguities. I did suggest few things for that and it would make me really happy if some of my suggestions would find a way in final document. That would be great.
3. XMMS voes (part 4) - "it ain't over until I say its over"? This subject seem to affect so many people, that many cannot leave it in peace. So, in an effort to help all of those, User Representative kopp (and developers nattfodd, amne, metalgod, nixnut, and if I forgot someone - correct me) has prepared an explanatory article about an issue. Use it to solve your problems and I hope it will be the end of it.
4. "Automatic Tools" department (if I'm starting to resemble John. C. Dvorak here - sorry) - this time its about automatic deletion of an old packages (or rather, their distfiles).
   My stake on this, is that yes, there are unneeded files on you system that take considerable amount of space, and I understand that some people never heard of eclean. But this cannot be the reason to create automatic tools to do so either. As some haven't heard of eclean, what makes one think that people will know about settings in /etc/make.conf for distcleaning? Isn't this the same concept? Besides, you obviously can't delete the files automatically, so you'd default to option in /etc/make.conf, which will not even be set in that file, but in some else, probably in profile/ somewhere. How is that different from eclean? It just means integrating eclean into Portage, not as stand alone package.And if eclean is not good enough, maybe it should be enhanced.

I just don't understand why every time the existing tool doesn't do exactly what one needs, the suggestion for "automatic tools" appear. IMHO, its not always the best way.

Well, thats it for this week. Feedbacks are appreciated (I am usually having them for lunch) and if I missed something (or forgot to mention someone I should've) just let me know and this unfortunate mistake will (supposedly) be corrected.

Policy update suggestion

OK, after writing an apparently controversial essay yesterday, I got some responses. For some unknown reason, most of them were regarding Patrick's retirement.

Although he was given as example, for some reasons this draws too much attention. I don't think it should.

So I had some thinking, and decided that much of the discussion is about performing as developer. Being "inactive" is some kind of definition, which is set in peoples' minds, and which is hard to argue with.

As I'm trying to be helpful (I hope), I would suggest a policy update, so future cases would be much easier for developers and Dev Rel project to deal with.

An existing policy for the matter is here:

1. Developers Handbook, Part I, Ch. 3: What you get
2. Developers Handbook, Part III : Policies
3. Developer Relations Policy guide

All these are nice and good, but I can't find anywhere anything regarding developers tasks. What a developer should do?

So I'd propose the following policy update:

Issue a "Being a Gentoo developer" statement/policy/contract/document, you name it.

Have it structured for example, in following form:

Part I.
As a developer, you are expected to :

1. Make ebuilds and commit them to a tree....
2. Fix bugs...
3. Be a part of one of the following projects and act according their policy:........
   
4. ........

Part II.
In order to perform tasks defined by part I, you will be granted:

1. With Gentoo email account
2. With IRC cloak as a developer and some admin (op) privileges
3. With Forums cloak as a developer
4. Bugzilla high-level access
5. CVS commit privileges
6. Maillists
7. Shell access
8. .......

Part III
Being a developer means representing Gentoo. As such, you're expected to behave according to the following rules:

{ This is greatly explained in etiquette policy }

Part IV
We support developers having a life besides Gentoo. So, in cases when life becomes more important, and you cannot fulfill your tasks as a developer, following actions should be taken:

{ this is greatly described in "leaves of absense" policy }

Part V
If you do not perform you tasks, abuse resources given to you or not behave as described in etiquette policy, this contract will be considered "breached", and the following procedure will follow:

1. You will be notified about you suspected being in a "breach" of this contract, and asked either to sease incorrect behavior or perform your tasks as required.
2. You will be provided with "probation" time to see whether a change happens after notification.
3. If after this period a situation is still the same, a board of chosen developers will vote for you retirement as developer.
4. Some or all granted resources will be taken from you as a result of retirement.
5. You will not represent Gentoo officially from that point on.
6. Your return to Gentoo in any way will be a subject to a decision by a board of chosen developers.
   

I think that such a policy statement will define much better what being developer for Gentoo actually means and will make it easier to solve possible conflicts when something is not going right (purely subjective of course).

I don't want to say that this will solve all problems, but I hope it can help to resolve some and prevent others in the furture.

I would be glad for a feedback on this.