I'm doing too many projects. I need to step back from most of them ASAP. I just don't want them to dwindle, but prosper... I really need to find more contributors for

• LaySVN, Layered Subversion, a svn mod written for storing the configuration of non-identical servers in SVN (read: servers that have some configuration parts in common, some differ) and probably of use for other cases.
  I've recently started a rewrite of LaySVN for speed reasons; you can't work on a per-file base with SVN but need to plan ahead a lot
• Pyroman, a firewall tool featuring a IMHO nice configuration language and which is very fast due to using iptables-restore, and it has rollback on errors
• SSDDiff, a diff tool for XML which can handle complex cases very well. Some say it's doing a "semantic" diff, actually. The "fast" (approximative) mode needs some love, the prototyp app IO needs to be redone (i.e. output filename parameters), XML attribute changes aren't reported yet in all output formats. I've also done some nice HTML diffs with it, that could be made a separate HTMLdiff application.
• Debtags central database needs to be rewritten to fit our newer requirements (e.g. moderation of edits or specific tags), and moved to a new server (old one still being woody)
• musicsquirrel (unreleased), a PyGTK duplicate finding tool using TRM ("musicbrainz") signatures, could need some magic like duplicate album detection (by "clustering"), and a UI to mass-select duplicates accoring to some rules (e.g. kill all duplicates found in the "unsorted" folder, if there is a properly tagged version in some other place)
• SELinux-Basics, a package to help getting SELinux working, has some basic sanity check shell scripts for a fresh SELinux system. These should be rewritten in OOP fashion with python or so, and extended with some extra checks.
• SELinux on Debian needs more adventurous people testing and using it, fixing policy to match Debian needs, writing new policy for new services, writing tons of documentation, doing some pretty install scripts and fixing some upstream bugs (module linking still not working). And making it as easy to use as AppArmor claims to be, because SELinux IS better and should be used instead.
• ISL3893, a wireless AP chip with a linux-based SDK available, is finally receiving some development. Too bad I can't devote any time to it. It would be cool to bring it up to par with famous OpenWRT.

Oh, and half of above projects need a fancy web design and an icon. Anyway, I should basically turn off my computer for the next two months and refrain from going online. :-( I know that I won't have the discipline to do so... And there are oh so many projects still only existant in my head that I'd really love to do sometime. One involving new search technologies with tags, bringing together directories like DMoz, tag based stuff like del.icio.us and "traditional" text search engines. Definitely the stuff the Web 2.0 is made out of (read: hype). But when I'm done with my diploma this new dotcom bubble is probably over, too... :-(

This may be old news to the rest of the world, but I just got around to watching the mashup of the Windows Vista preview presentation audio put to a screencast of a Mac OS X desktop. If you haven't already seen it, I highly recommend taking a look. It's quite funny just to listen to the guy raving about all of these great new features (to be released next year) being demonstrated on a totally different, already released OS. Beyond that, though, the video makers have taken time to inject a bit of extra humour into the video, with the little touches (like their choice of photos).

Given the low participation, it looks like the choice of a DPL is difficult this year. It probably means that the platform of the candidates do no suit everybody… however with DPL teams, there’s more than just the DPL and in theory each member should have their own platform. That’s not the case for me because writing a platform is a big job… which I can avoid since I’m not candidate. However I now do feel the need to tell what I would like to propose (and do) if I’m part of a team so that you know better what to expect if you vote for a team where I’m involved. I’d just like to give a warning, those items are quick notes and are in no way full- and flesched out solutions, they will need to be discussed and refined in all cases, and somes ideas may be dropped of course.

• Discuss with the core teams, ask their opinion on the problems / critics made outside. Make propositions and implement them myself when possible in order to unblock the situation when needed. Communicate the results to the DD.
• Discuss with NM, DAM and ftpmasters how to make the NM process evolve. An example of a possible solution sketched out on the basis of recent discussions could be :
  • Require from candidates entering the NM process to setup a wiki page listing their regular contributions to Debian in the last 6 months.
  • Allow NM who have been successfully sponsored on a package to upload themselves this package (and only this one, no NMU).
  • Implement changes in the LDAP database to differentiate privileges (upload, unix account, vote, email) so that people who are not requesting upload rights can have a simplified NM process
• Ensure that the scripts to help management of keyring-maint have been written.
• Suggest to the press team to work with an associated debian-press mailing list which could review the announces before being sent and which could make proposals of announces as well.
• Make irc.d.o point to OFTC to put an end to the useless split on two networks.
• Discuss with DAM to change the expulsion process: the first step should be a mediation with the DPL (or someone delegated for that task) and not a public call for “seconds”… and if the process goes further, then the message indicating that the procedure continues will be posted by the mediator which should allows for more moderated messages.
• Try to moderate the first message of a new thread on debian-devel in order to redirect misplaced messages to the appropriate list and increase the quality of the list and get back people who unsubscribed because of the noise level.
• Try to document as much as possible from the working of core teams in some wiki pages.
• Ask everyone what decisions they would like the DPL to take (maybe use polls to evaluate suggestions).

This list is neither complete nor definitive. Not all items will be achieved but each of them is a real progress IMO and I’d like to be able to work on them. For people who are concerned by those changes, I’m sorry if you discover my ideas by this post even before I had the opportunity to talk to you… I’m posting those ideas now because they may be considered by people who are currently voting, but it does not mean that I’m not interested to discuss them with you. It’s also true that some of those ideas can be implemented without being part of the DPL team and I’ll certainly try to implement some whatever the outcome of the election, but I really believe that being part of a DPL team helps greatly because you have access to some important informations, and you can effectively discuss with core teams which are otherwise difficult to approach for non-technical discussions when you’re a random DD. And last but not least, the trust of the developers is a big motivation (at least for me) to work effectively on those problems. See this post for my personal vote recommandation and see you in 3 days for the result of the election !

Oh great, the software patent debate is back. After a long and disgusting campaign where pro-software-patents lobbyists employed all kinds of semi-legal and undemocratic filthy tricks in order to introduce software patents in the EU behind our backs, the European Parliament decided by a large majority to reject the directive "on the patentability of computer implemented inventions" (a.k.a. software patents) in July 2005. Rightly so. It is beyond my imagination how a certain pro-software-patents commissioner (Charlie McCreevy) dares to restart the whole debate after such a clear defeat. Consultation and "public hearing" He has organized a "Consultation and public hearing on future patent policy in Europe" which pretends to collect your views on the software patent issue (which he's trying to introduce through the "Community Patent" backdoor). Alas, the "questionnaire" is inaccessible (it's only available in 5 languages, instead of all 25 (+2) languages of the EU member states), biased towards software patents, very obfuscated and unreadable for the general public. There's no independent working group which conducts or oversees the consultation, no independent studies and reading materials, no mentions of the negative implications of software patents, no public debate, nothing. Now, who would have expected that? The FSF Europe has published a response to the Patent Consultation Questionnaire, which highlights many of the problems. Similarly, the FFII has questioned the validity of the consultation procedure, and gives a very detailed explanation of all the serious flaws of the process. What can I do?

• First things first: the DEADLINE for answering the questionnaire and expressing your views is April 12, 2006!
• Answer the questionnaire! The FFII has prepared a short How to answer guide which you can use as a basis for your answer (per email, snail mail, or fax).
• Raise your concerns about the validity of the consultation process!
• Write your MEPs! Tell them what you think.
• Spread the word! I'm under the impression most people don't even know about this issue, yet!
• Put up banners. I know you all like pretty banners ;-)

Software patents suck (in case you didn't already know) Let me quote Donald Knuth on this:

I strongly believe that the recent trend in patenting algorithms is of benefit only to a very small number of attorneys and inventors, while it is seriously harmful to the vast majority of people who want to do useful things with computers.

(via MJ Ray)

Yuck, my pthread-fu has sucked today. In fact, it still does. I'm currently trying to call a library that has a number of low-overhead calls, and two that hog the CPU for undefined amounts of time. Obviously I'd like to call these two from a separate thread. Good, but the spec asks me to not switch threads between calls. Okay, so the master thread does the calls, and another thread checks the sockets. Good, now it can happen that I get an interrupt from a socket. In this case, I'm supposed to invoke a signal handler in the library thread (which calls a function telling the library to shut down), and then jump back into the library and wait for it to return.

For my hispanohablantes readers: this post is written in english since it’s gonna be syndicated into Planet Debian. Expect a post in spanish later in the day. If you can understand spoken spanish, I recommend you to hear the Free Software talk of M.Sc. Ernesto Hern ndez-Novich (Debian Maintainer) which ends noting several benefits of using Debian GNU/Linux. Available here. Update: other posts in spanish are already available in Planeta Linux Venezuela. Yesterday we (SOLVE, a Venezuelan Association of Free Software Users, Developers, Cooperatives and Entrepreneurs) had the opportunity to assist to a Free Software vs. Privative Software forum. This doesn’t sound amazing, indeed. But if you take into account that the Forum was held in the National Assembly (or House of Representatives, anyway I’ll call it AN) it gets better. Now, get this idea: the AN is having a forum to discuss a Law, and it’s listening to the parts involved. Let it sink for a minute. But what if the AN is also bringing this parts to a table to actually write the Law? This is how laws are made in our Country now (Damog always says we are terribly nationalistic. It may be true, indeed.) Anyway, we were there around 10 AM, in the Protocolar Room of the AN. The event was full-house, featuring two thirds of people supporting proprietary software (students between 17 and 20 years from the countryside and big entrepreneurs -and Microsoft, of course-) and one third of people supporting free software, including people working in the Government, students, cooperatives, developers, etc. The session was opened by Representative Luis Tasc n, which once was a great supporter of Free Software (now it seems the same for him, anyway he’s doing a great job changing the law-making roadmap) and the speakers were: Microsoft, the National Center for IT, Cavecom (the association of big software enterprises in Venezuela) in the Dark Side and Felipe P rez Mart (from SOLVE) and Ernesto Hern ndez-Novich (Sim n Bol var University) in the White Side. Kudos for IBM, in the Gray Side with Black Spots. The session of talks was incredibly amusing. The speakers started to change their opinions based on the last talk. So, this way, Berrizbeitia (Director, CNTI) tried to discuss Tascon (Representative), the Microsoft Brazilian guy tried to oppose Berrizbeitia, the guy from Cavecom fighted Microsoft (this guy was a complete moron, by the way: when he was told that a group of venezuelan people had developed translations into wayuunaiki he said that was useless since we only have 800 wayuu - native americans) the IBM-boy tried to say they were the best, Felipe Perez (SOLVE) tried to dismantle Berrizbeitia’s talk and finally Ernesto Heranndez-Novich roundkicked them all. The kids from Microsoft (wearing MSDN and VisualStudio shirts) said that Microsoft is a good company which is open-source and gives the code for free. I argued some of them that they were working free for Microsoft. They “hadn’t see it that way”. They also said the plain-ol’-good excuse that “free software was weaker since everyone can see it’s code”. They were changing their strategies and opinions sistematically as the Forum evolved. They argued no compatibility, security problems, and finally they arrived to their real reason to oppose Free Software. Several girls and boys (Daddy’s Boys, as we say to them) were arguing “no free speech” in the Country (which was amusing since this is the first time the National Assembly is writing the laws with the People) and that the Law was going to make them lose their years of University studies. Then, the most accurate of the interventions came, made by Rogmar Marin from Venezuelan Patents and Author Rights Office. He said that this event was all about the people controlling the State, not the State controlling the people. He cited two articles from the draft and the 3390 decree explicitly saying that Free Software was mandatory for Government (in the Decree it says the “National Public Administration” and in the Law it says the “National Public Power”) so he said that they were not going to lose their “bicoca” (a popular form to say “rivers of money”) since they still can program in whatever they want, just that the State has the right to decie the best for their people, and the best for their people was Free Software. This was the whole quid of the event. This is not about Free Software vs. Proprietary Software. This is not about Linux vs. Windows. This is not about IBM vs. Microsoft vs. Venezuelan Companies. This is about the best for the People (which is the maximum interest of the AN) and, in this case, the People was represented not only by the intellectual-closed-circles of Free and Proprietary Software, but by Ana Maria Morillo, from the Cambalache community in Puerto Ordaz, at the southern part of the Country. She said that their Community had absolutely no access to technology. They were poor and humble, and willing to learn. CVG Telecom, a State-based telecom company, installed a Nudetel (no, it’s not an ethic-relaxed phone operator. It stands for Telecommunications Endogen Development Kernel) in their Community, using Free Software. This was their first approach to technology and computers. They didn’t even know how to turn on a computer. Free Software helped them to approach the reality of computers. They felt prepared to use a computer, and proud of themselves. When they used privative software in other places, they needed to adapt to that technology. This demonstrates that Free Software is as easy as any Software. You need to adapt to it. The difference with Free Software is that you are free when you use it. The people from Cambalache appreciate that. Felipe Perez Marti talk was really good. He slapped Microsoft and opposed very roughly to the “technological neutrality” position of the CNTI Director, Jorge Berrizbeitia. Technological neutrality is a neo-liberal, right-wing doctrine which is the technological counterpart to laissez faire, laissez passer. The problem is that (Felipe is an economist, and a great mathematician) technological neutrality isn’t actual neutral. It happens under the conditions where the Smith’s “Invisible Hand” Theorem is valid, so, in a scenary of technological neutrality, the powerful always wins. So, Microsoft wins. He also noted the recent study funded by the United States Homeland Security and carried on by Carnegie Mellon, Coverity and Symantec, which stated that Proprietary Software had between 20 and 30 bugs per TLOC (thousand lines of code) while FOSS had only 0.434 bugs per TLOC. The Microsoft guy seemed astonished by the “discovery” and the students were offended by this. Great. What next? We brought CD’s for people, made Debian evangelization to several “disident” students, made a great cheer to every Free Software supporter, brought signs and SOLVE shirts. While the Microsoft dudes where more than twice times us, we were a coherent group which stayed until 1930 (they left at 1600, you know, it’s a Micro matter of Soft) and held great arguments, sometimes slapping the student’s moral, but definitely making our voice be heard after tenths of years being discriminated by companies, Universities and the Government. As a Debian Project volunteer, what’s your opinion about this? Is the State violating Free Speech taking this decisions? Does it have the right to take it? Is Free Software the best solution for the corporate environments of the Government, taking into account that it handles the citizen information? What are your general comments about this?

In a fairy castle,
Just beyond my eye
My baby plays with angel toys,
That money cannot buy
Who am I to wish her back into this world of strife?
No, play on my baby,
You have eternal life.
At night when all is silent,
And sleep forsakes my eyes;
I'll hear her tiny footsteps,
Coming running to my side.
Her little hands caress me,
So tenderly and sweet;
I'll close my eyes and
Breathe a prayer,
Embrace her in my sleep.
Now I have a treasure,
I rate above all others;
I have known true glory,
I am still her mother.
Author Unknown

Following my recent posts about SPAM in our wonderful project, Rapha l Hertzog asked me to improve alioth mail configuration to use my suggestions. Thanks to him, the improvements I've suggested are now all in place, since roughly 12 hours. Alioth Exim's configuration had a couple of problems, and was in a not very satisfying shape. Here is the list of the improvements I've suggested, and that now are in place (hopefuly for our best comfort) :

• no check was done on the HELO/EHLO, we now at least verify one was given^[1];
• greylisting has now been made conditionnal: on bad HELO, or blacklisted hosts, we apply greylisting (the method I was talking about previously) ;
• greylisting was applied after the mail was sent (in reply of the DATA command) which is a pure nonsense, because it loads us for nothing. We now check it at RCPT TO time, sparing time, bandwidth and load.

Moreover greylisting has been made more efficient: before, we only greylisted on the pair (sender_ip, sender_domain) which is suboptimal: spammers always forge sender addresses from the same domains (aol, hotmail, ). So in half an hour, aol.com, hotmail.com, were whitelisted, and spammers could just get through, unannoyed. Whereas occasionnal senders on not very widespread domains were always caught. Now, greylisting uses the full sender_address, which is the mildest way to do greylisting. The hard way would be to use the usual triplet (sender-ip, sender-address, recipient-address), but given the fact that alioth does not delivers to that many recipients, not taking it into consideration is a good compromise to avoid a too huge database, with almost the same results. I hope to be able to deliver some nice curves based on alioth's traffic in about 10 days, to see if that worked as expected. Thanks again to Rapha l that made it possible.

---

for those who are interested, the exim4.conf snipplet to do conditionnal greylisting is :

• create a new ACL, defining what you do want to greylist:

    # acl that tell if we will greylist or not
    acl_greylist:
        # Check if EHLO greeting is resolvable
        deny
            !verify = helo
        # Deny if the host is blacklisted
        deny
            log_message = match $dnslist_domain
            dnslists = cbl.abuseat.org : dul.dnsbl.sorbs.net : dynablock.njabl.org
        # Deny if the sender address can't be verified
        deny
            !verify = sender/callout=30s,connect=5s,defer_ok
        accept

• just add that snipplet just before your greylisting rule:

        accept
            acl = acl_greylist

A few weeks ago I published a small HOWTO for using loop-aes to encrypt your hard drive, usb thumb drive etc. As I have bought a new 300 GB external USB disk drive on Friday, I have tried something new this time: disk encryption using dm-crypt / LUKS. It has been suggested to me multiple times that dm-crypt is superior to loop-aes, however I didn't get a real reason. Yes, it doesn't require any kernel patches and is easier to setup. But has any serious cryptographer looked at it sharply, yet? Did it withhold his eye contact? Anyways, here's how I encrypted my 300 GB drive. I largely followed the guide at the EncryptedDeviceUsingLUKS wiki page...

1. Make sure you run Linux 2.6.16 or better. Previous versions suffer from an implementation problem which affects the security of dm-crypt, see Linux Kernel dm-crypt Local Cryptographic Key Disclosure.
2. Enable the following options in your kernel:
   • Code maturity level options
     • Prompt for development and/or incomplete code/drivers
   • Device Drivers -> Multi-device support (RAID and LVM)
     • Device mapper support
     • Crypt target support
   • Cryptographic options
     • AES cipher algorithms
3. Overwrite the whole drive with random data in order to slow down attacks on the encryption. At the same time perform a bad blocks scan to make sure the hard drive is not going to die too soon:
   badblocks -c 10240 -s -w -t random -v /dev/sdb
   Replace /dev/sdb with whatever is correct on your system. If you're really paranoid, and are willing to wait one or two days, do this:
   dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/sdb
4. Install the required packages:
   apt-get install cryptsetup hashalot
   The current cryptsetup in Debian already supports LUKS, which was not the case a while ago, if I'm not mistaken.
5. Create one or more partitions on the drive:
   cfdisk /dev/sdb
   I created one big 300 GB partition, /dev/sdb1.
6. Setup LUKS:
   cryptsetup --verbose --verify-passphrase luksFormat /dev/sdb1
   Enter a good passphrase here. Don't spoil the whole endeavour by chosing a stupid or short passphrase.
7. Open the encrypted device and assign it to a virtual /dev/mapper/samsung300gb device:
   cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sdb1 samsung300gb
8. Create a filesystem on the encrypted device:
   mkfs.ext3 -j -m 1 -O dir_index,filetype,sparse_super /dev/mapper/samsung300gb
   I used ext3 with some optimizations, see mke2fs(8).
9. Mount the encrypted partition:
   mkdir /mnt/samsung300gb
mount /dev/mapper/samsung300gb /mnt/samsung300gb
   That's it. Everything you write to /mnt/samsung300gb will be encrypted transparently.
10. For unmounting use:
    umount /mnt/samsung300gb
cryptsetup luksClose /dev/mapper/samsung300gb

After unmounting, nobody will be able to see your data without knowing the correct passphrase. Drive is stolen? No problem. Drive is broken, and you want to send it in for repair without the guys there poking in your data? No problem. You leave the USB drive at home and some jerk breaks into your house, steals your drive, rapes your wife, and kills your kids? No problem. Well, sort of, but you get the idea ;-) There's more things you can do, thanks to LUKS: have multiple passphrases which unlock your data, change/add/remove passphrases as you see fit, etc. Comments?

Last night, glib 2.8 and pango 1.12 entered testing, as a first step on the GNOME 2.14 quest. The bad news is that the fixed evolution & friends were not ready to go in as well, so now many etch users will be wondering why their evolution doesn't start up, or doesn't show any mail. Until we manage to get a fixed evolution in testing, and it looks like it won't be trivial to get this done in the immediate future, Erich's recipe comes handy again:

My personal hero of the day is Gustavo Franco, for this email to debian-devel. He writes how to get your Gnome/Pango/Glib applications that don't work since yesterday's upgrade like evolution (#358071) working again:

$ G_SLICE=always-malloc evolution

And you should be able to read your email again.

Just FYI, and in case you missed it. :)

I’ve found this photomontage at the Chewie’s blog (hilarious) (the blog also, not only the photomontage) BTW, me and around 6 more people from Venezuela are coming to DebConf 6 in Oaxtepec. That if you don’t count David, of course. Everything can happen. Even some people are waiting for a last-minute Venezuelan government sponsorship… I was originally travelling with Colombian flag carrier Avianca in the itinerary CCS - BOG - MEX, but this was expensive, slow and uncomfortable for me to pay (the travel agency is in a city 2 hours away from Caracas) so I went to my plain-ol’-good travel agency in Caracas and found a special offer from Mexicana with a student fare. I have to wait until April to buy it, but it’s worth the wait. I now have my Venezuelan and Spanish passports, but someone told me that Mexico won’t take my old Venezuelan passport (the Country changed names, from Republica de Venezuela to Republica Bolivariana de Venezuela on 1999) since we have diplomatic problems with them, and also they told me that my Spanish passport won’t do for entering Mexico since I’m not travelling from Europe. So I have to request the new Andean Community Passport (links in spanish). See you in Mexico!

Call For Papers for the 4th. World Forum on Free Knowledge is now released in english (non-official translation, sorry for mine) and spanish. The WFFK is a Community-organized Forum, made possible by the sponsorship of Government Enterprises and Private Enterprises, as well as Volunteers and Donations. The first was made in Caracas, on November 2004, in the installations of the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela, with the sponsorship of the Venezuelan Oil Company, PDVSA. The second WFFK was made in Thiruvananthapuram, in Kerala-India, under the name Free Software, Free Society in May 2005, and the third WFFK was made in Maracaibo, Venezuela, with the support of several Institutions, including PDVSA, CONATEL and serveral others. Impressed by the success of the 3rd. WFFK, a group of people is organizing the fourth, which will take place in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, in October 2006. This is the first ocassion a Call For Papers is being done, because the Forum will have a Congress inside it, as well as selected articles. In the past, we only had selected articles and invited speakers on a certain basis. This time, a Call For Papers will also be done, so we can invite nice speakers to come and share with the attendance. Last time in Maracaibo we had David Moreno Garza with us, as well as several Debian Maintainers and Co-Maintainers with us, from Venezuela and Colombia: Ernesto Hern ndez-Novich, Polkan Garc a, Ernesto Crespo, V ctor P rez, Ana Delgado, Gerardo Curiel, Manuel Garc a, V ctor P rez and myself (am I missing someone?). So this was quite a MiniDebConf! Let’s make the 4th. a complete one

It’s sad to see MJ Ray, our savior and future DPL, engaging in a hate campaign against AJ. It brings a tear to my eye. (Note: the above statement is sarcasm. If you don’t get it, see this, this, this, and this. See, I can claim that criticism I don’t agree w/ is “hate speech” too!)

I have a few small shell scripts that connect podracer and obexftp, so I automatically get the newest podcasts uploaded to my mobile via Bluetooth when I log in. So far, so good, but most podcasts are longer than my average commute, so I need to pause and restart. If I don't turn off the phone or listen to other stuff, this is still fine, but if I ever lose the stream position, I'm boned, because Nokia's music player cannot seek properly. Whenever I seek further than about 30 seconds (the numbers vary, depending on what position I'm at, and how far I have already seeked), it will simply skip to the next MP3. I can see two options at the moment -- Nokia releasing an update, or me porting Linux to the 6230i. I shall be hacking a JTAG connector soon.

Voil ! In                                                       view, a humble
 vaudevillian                                                  veteran, cast 
  vicariously as both                                         victim and
   villain by the                                            vicissitudes of Fate. This 
    visage, no mere                                         veneer of
     vanity, is a                                          vestige of the
      vox populi, now                                     vacant,
       vanished, as the once                             vital
        voice of the                                    verisimilitude now
         venerates what they once                      vilified. However, this 
          valorous                                    visitation of a bygone
           vexation stands                           vivified, and has
            vowed to                                vanquish these 
             venal and                             virulent                   Remember, remember the 5th of November
              vermin                              vanguarding
               vice and                          vouchsafing the
                violently                       vicious and
                 voracious                     violation of
                  volition. The only          verdict is 
                   vengeance; a              vendetta held as a 
                    votive, not in          vain, for the
                     value and             veracity of such shall one day
                      vindicate the       vigilant and the
                       virtuous.         Verily, this 
                        vichyssoise of  verbiage 
                         veers most    verbose
                          vis- -vis an introduction,
                           and so it is my
                            very good honor
                             to meet you
                              and you may
                               call me
                                  V.

Yes, I've seen V for Vendetta today. Very impressing movie, highly recommended! Makes you start to think...

Yesterday, I added Wolfgang Kechel as a committer to the Hecl project, because of the good work he's been doing on it. He's demonstrated consistency and quality over a number of months, and has also shows he understands where I want to go with the language, so it was a natural thing to do. Adding a new committer is not always so clear cut, though, and it's sometimes a difficult decision, especially with smaller projects. I find that it's much more fun to work on projects with other people, so I want to encourage them to get involved, and granting access is something that ought to give people a bigger stake in the project, and reward/encourage them in their efforts. In practice, it doesn't always work out that way, though. Often, after a bit of initial work, they dissappear, which means they weren't really that interested in the first place, and you shouldn't have bothered granting them access to the code - they could get by just fine by submitting patches. The question of openness vs control also plays a strong part in the difficulty of the decision. I think the Apache Software Foundation way of doing things (decisions by consensus of those who work on the code) is pretty successful for well established projects, but I'm also convinced that the "benevolent dictator" model is best in some cases. Design by committee doesn't work very well for projects like a programming language where you really want to have one coherent vision, rather than some sort of frankenstein mishmash of pieces. (As an aside, Larry Wall, has done a fine job of proving that you can have - even revel in - a mishmash, even with a 'dictator'!). The point being that it's a little scary to hand someone the keys to your project, because you take a risk on them working counter to your goals, especially in new projects without a self-propagating culture in place. An established language like Python has a fairly large number of people who can instinctively tell you if a new feature is "pythonic" or not. But for a small, new project like Hecl, the risk is that there is more room for unproductive arguments, or having to back out "bad" changes should someone really take off in a direction you don't like. Of course, with Hecl, I think it is at a great point in its life. There *is* a lot of room to hack, because it isn't used by many people, so we don't have to worry about angry users if we break it while trying to improve it! All things considered, it's a positive step to get more people involved, but it's important to start building a culture in order to keep your code going in a healthy direction. Depending on the project, that culture might include a healthy dose of what is and what isn't within the project's scope, or it might simply regard the quality of code considered acceptable. For instance, Tcl's standard library is pretty open to whatever people want to implement, however you must accompany your code by either tests or documentation, and preferably both. I think the most interesting phase is when you are "bootstrapping" - going from just one person to a group. Judging by the number of small projects that have fallen by the wayside without ever getting more than one person to work on them, it's also the most difficult period in a project's life. What do other people think? What tactics do you use to get people involved, yet still make sure they are the right people?

Today I hacked a few classes that are probably one day supposed to be used by other people. Hence, I'd like them to be mostly foolproof, however there are a few places where I had to make tradeoffs. Two things got stuck in my mind today: using the type system to ensure proper initialisation (basically I return a base class for the "closed" case, and the open method returns a pointer to the same object, but as the "open" subclass). Obviously, the single virtual method call is not that much of an overhead, but it still breaks a few compiler optimisations, and, even worse, has some nasty implications concerning ownership.

From the changelog of cdbs 0.4.37:

  * Automatically add --dbg-package to dh_strip if one debug package is
    defined and debhelper level 5 is used (buildvars.mk, debhelper.mk)
    (closes: #228044); test case in debhelper-2.sh

So now adding a -dbg package is even easier now if you use cdbs. Just add the -dbg package to your control file and build depend on cdbs >= 0.4.37.