Character list for the Amis language We mapped the available glyphs and accents for the Amis language. The letters in alphabetical order:

    a c d f n  h i k l m n o p r s t u w y

Everyone of them can get an acute, grave or circumflex accent on top. Literally on top: i would get the dot PLUS the accent on top. The only exception is for the letter n , which gets the dot on top of the g replaced by the accents. Some accent combinations are missing in Unicode, like accented d, f, h and k, and i with dot and accents. So we need an extension of Unicode. Then we need an input method that would insert n instead of g and allow to type all the accent combinations. Here is the full character set:

    a              
    c       ?      
    d       ?  ?  ?
    f       ?  ?  ?
    n       ? n  n  [1]
    h       ?  ?   
    i       ?  ?  ? [2]
    k       ?     ?
    l       ?     ?
    m       ?     ?
    n             ?
    o              
    p       ?     ?
    r       ?     ?
    s       ?      
    t       ?  ?  ?
    u              
    w              
    y              

[1] the gliph for 'n ' is actually missing, because it needs to be a single character: since it is a letter, backspace and delete need to erase all of it in a single shot. [2] missing because of the accent on top of the dot. Question marks mark where a character is currently missing in Unicode. We have a problem because Unicode would not want anymore latin accent combinations, so we will need to use character combinations and hope that fonts and applications display them well. This raises the issue that hitting delete or backspace on a character built using combining accents would delete only half of it. For consistency of interaction, it can make sense to use combining accents for all the combinations, even if an accented letter does exist in Unicode. This would avoid backspace and delete to have different behaviors, for example, on s-grave and s-acute. The accents are not taken into account when sorting. Uppercase letters are not used.

Dear Lenny,

Since Etch is closer, i would like to see you under my tree before the 07' xmas. I know it will be hard since tanks coming from many different ways will try to stop us from work in something we like a lot. Believe in me, you still have a lot of fans with you regardless what the press is writing about us and our work lately.

They've no idea what's really going on and will do their best to spread FUD. It sells, in a world where lies told many times turns out to be the 'truth'. The real one is that hopefully in a year and some months you will raise the bar again. They will still apt-get into it, trying to understand our acts, trying to explain our community. We can't, they shouldn't.

Sincerely,
Gustavo "stratus" Franco

Emre Sokullu is writing about a hypothetical “GoogleOS” again. As a long time OS guy, let me be the first to say that this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. For one thing, Google already has an “operating system”. It’s the web, and Google dominates the web, so why in the world would they give their main competitor such an obvious advantage by moving into its turf? Furthermore, Google no more needs an operating system in the traditional sense of the word than it needs an office suite in the traditional sense of the word. Releasing yet another Linux distribution isn’t disruptive—redefining what an operating system is is disruptive, and Google’s already doing that. Two predictions for 2007 that I’m fairly sure will hold up: 1. This won’t be the last of the GoogleOS speculation; and 2. there won’t be a GoogleOS.

Creating a new locale I'm currently in Cilamitay, in the east of Taiwan. There is a little meeting of Taiwanese Free Software people and people from the Amis, Taroko and Puyuma tribes, with the idea of starting localisation efforts for some aboriginal languages. These are some of the issues we are going to discuss: Language code A new ISO standard (639-3) will hopefully be formalised in January that will include the language codes for the Taiwanese aboriginal tribes. We'll have to work some temporary solution, but there's good hope that it won't have to be temporary for long. List of characters Because of Christian missionary influence, both Amis and Taroko use a roman alphabet, with accents. We need to work out the complete list of character and accent combination, see if everything is in Unicode, see how they sort. We then need to find a comfortable way to input them using the keyboards normally available here (English US layout): compose key? Dead keys? How about on Windows? Womble2 on IRC tells me that on Windows one can works with MSKLC. Technical terms and country list We need to work out how to map terms that do not exist in the language. Technical terms are usually borrowed from Japanese. Names for all the countries in the world probably do not exist. Translation interface We need to find an easy to use interface to input the translations. There is Rosetta. There is Pootle. (Thanks to Christian Perrier for pointing me at it) There is Webpot.

Although you've not behaved very good, Santa Claus has a present for you: the entire GNOME 2.16.2 desktop in experimental. All core applications are here, only some bindings are still missing. Which means it's time for the most courageous to test it. With the experimental APT source configured, it should be a matter of apt-get install -t experimental gnome-desktop-environment. Be warned, it's still rough around the edges:

• GTK+ makes liferea crash repeatedly;
• there are a few glitches in the file chooser;
• there is only one working icon theme (the default one);
• evince seems to crash on some files;
• the keyboard switching stuff doesn't work at all.

But there are also many pleasant speed and UI improvements in most modules. Unfortunately for many, it is currently only available on amd64. Now, if a group of reindeers could rebuild it on i386, the children would be much happier. Otherwise, I will take some time to rebuild them in an i386 chroot in a few days.

The Lexus GS 450 hybrid petrol/electric car has been given the award for Australia's best luxury car!

The judging for this contest rated fuel efficiency as low importance, because luxury car owners traditionally aren't very concerned about such things. The Lexus won because of it's quiet engine (can't beat an electric motor at low speed), high performance (3.5L petrol engine that outperforms mode 4L engines because of the electric motor assistance), safety, security, and other factors.

There has been an idea that hybrid cars are only for people who want to protect the environment at all costs. The result of this contest proves that idea to be false. The Lexus won by simply being a better luxury car, the features that benefit the environment also give a smoother and quieter ride and higher performance - which are factors that are very important to that market segment! Also it wasn't even a close contest, the nearest rival achieved an aggregate score of 9% less (a significant difference as there was a mere 2.5% difference in score between the 2nd place and 5th place).

This of course shouldn't be any surprise. The high torque that electric motors can provide at low speed is well known - it's the reason for Diesel-electric hybrid power systems in locomotives. It was only a matter of time before similar technology was introduced for cars for exactly the same reasons. The next development will be hybrid Diesel-electric trucks.

Sergey raised the issue of restricting use of software to non-military use, and Alan pointed out how much they've given back to the FLOSS community. However, I'd like to point out that any such restriction violates rules for opensource used by both the FSF and Debian. Debian is pretty clear about it in the social contract:

No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

And in the GNU Free Software Definition:

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

So any such restriction would mean your software is no longer free software. It's not that I'm in any way pro military, but allowing usage restrictions will cause a huge mess. Next we'll have some application which may not be used by religious zealots (of any kind), paedophiles, and at some point end up with a huge licensing mess (maybe even full of discrimination). ("No, I can't sell you a web server, because your brother-in-law is in the military."?) Actually disallowing any military use is some kind of discrimination, too. Military is not only used to kill someone, but it can serve humanitarian purposes, too. Rescue people in flooded New Orleans etc. - if you are unhappy with what your government is using your military for, vote accordingly and do politics. It's fine if you as the author point out that you disapprove of any use of it to harm anybody, or commit crimes; but don't put up restrictions you couldn't verify anyway. (As if the military would care much for any such restriction, anyway.) Always remember: it's only the good guys playing by the rules. There is no use in disallowing use of some software for cracking, is there?

Debian Etch on Asus U5F Model Asus U5F, with Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 Distribution Debian Etch amd64. Summary Video: works, with 3D and everything. Audio: works, with a little config change. Wireless LAN: works, with drivers from non-free. Bluetooth: works. Ethernet: works. SD card reader: works. DVD reader/burner: works. ACPI features: various problems. Suspend: broken. Installation and wireless card To have the wireless card working you need some package from non-free that is not provided with the standard installer. I installed using the binary 1 CD, then I fetched the following packages from unstable:

firmware-ipw3945_0.3_all.deb
ipw3945d_1.7.22-2_amd64.deb
ipw3945-modules-2.6.18-3-amd64_2.6.18+1.1.2-2_amd64.deb
linux-headers-2.6.18-3_2.6.18-8_amd64.deb
linux-image-2.6.18-3-amd64_2.6.18-8_amd64.deb

Once those packages are installed, wireless just works. Video Intel 945GM/GMS/940GML It just works, with 3D and everything. To turn on AIGLX and Compiz, just follow the HOWTO in the Debian wiki. Audio Intel 82801G To make it work add:

options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-eapd

to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base. Rationale: this link gives the quick solution. Note: no need to reboot:

/etc/init.d/alsa unload
modprobe snd-hda-intel

The list of models available for the driver is in /usr/share/doc/alsa-base/driver/ALSA-Configuration.txt.gz A hint about the model to use can be found at the beginning of /proc/asound/card0/codec#0. CPU speed scaling Just modprobe speedstep-centrino. Then the cpufreq_ondemand module works fine. I'm a bit disappointed that it doesn't want to go below 996Mhz (60%) and it has only 3 scaling modes: 1.66 GHz, 1.33 GHz, 996 MHz. It used to display available scaling modes weirdly (it would repeat 1.66Ghz 6 times), then I updated the BIOS to version 304 and now it shows just those 3. The laptop tends to get warm, this disappoints me. I hope things will improve with newer kernels. USB Just works. SD card reader Just works. I put an SD card in and it gets mounted automatically. In the old Asus M2 the card reader was just some unsupported obscure thing. Ethernet RTL8111/8168B Gigabit Ethernet. I'm not sure it was working in the installer, but in the installed system it works out of the box. Very pleasant thing: it can cross the cable if needed. DVD reader/writer Just works. I haven't tried burning CDs or DVDs, but k3b sees it and correctly detects the writing speed. Bluetooth Just works. I connected to the bluetooth GPS just fine. ACPI Still quirky. Brightness control buttons don't work: before updating the BIOS I would get this reaction on syslog:

Dec 17 23:57:35 viaza kernel: ACPI Error (psparse-0537): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.SBRG.EC0_._Q0E] (Node ffff81003e98bd90), AE_NOT_FOUND
Dec 17 23:57:35 viaza kernel: ACPI Error (psargs-0355): [\_SB_.PCI0.P0P2.VGA_.LCDD] Namespace lookup failure, AE_NOT_FOUND

After updating the BIOS I get this reaction instead:

Dec 21 21:17:38 viaza kernel: video device notify
Dec 21 21:17:38 viaza kernel: set_level status: 0
Dec 21 21:17:38 viaza kernel: compiz.real[4013]: segfault at 0000000000000060 rip 000000000040b3b0 rsp 00007fff6c47f4e0 error 4

compiz segfaults and I'm back to gdm, with the brightness unchanged. The LCD on/off button works. Controlling the LCD via software does not work:

# echo 1 > /proc/acpi/asus/lcd
Dec 21 22:22:45 viaza kernel: Asus ACPI: Error switching LCD
# cat /proc/acpi/asus/lcd
Dec 21 22:22:49 viaza kernel: Asus ACPI: Error reading LCD status
0

In fact, asus-acpi complains:

Dec 21 17:08:29 viaza kernel: Asus Laptop ACPI Extras version 0.30
Dec 21 17:08:29 viaza kernel:   unsupported model U5F, trying default values
Dec 21 17:08:29 viaza kernel:   send /proc/acpi/dsdt to the developers

Therefore, I sent the dsdt to the developers. The wireless on/off button turns on and off the wlan and bluetooth leds, and apparently also the wireless hardware. I still don't know how to turn off bluetooth and leave wlan on. Suspend Suspend to ram works, but on resume it does not turn on the LCD display. The LCD on/off button has no effect. Other things work fine, so I can blind-type a shutdown command. I have vbetool installed, but it doesn't seem to help. So far, suspend is still not usable. Modem Not tried.

Hardware sucks. It just totally and utterly sucks. I purchased a 300 GB hard drive (plus a 3.5" USB disk drive enclosure) roughly 8 months ago which I encrypted using dm-crypt and then used it as a backup medium. And now the disk has died. No, this is not a software problem (that would be easy to deal with), the hardware is simply dead (it's making funny "klck" noises all the time). Mounting it via USB (using the USB enclosure) doesn't work at all anymore. I connected the disk via IDE in a PC and was able to mount it just fine (with cryptsetup luksOpen and all). A simple ls works, too (at least in the top-level directory). So I tried to copy the data over to another medium, but when accessing certain directories or files the system simply hangs and I get tons of funny kernel errors (and the disk makes even more and louder funny noises). Great. Stupid as I am, I also put data on the drive which I did not have backups of on other media (mostly because the data is huge, e.g. conference video recordings, large amounts of Creative Commons MP3s etc). OK, so I managed to get at least some small parts of my data, but now the disk is completely dead, I fear. I'll try to convice the vendor to give me a new drive, but I won't let them get their fingers on my data, i.e., I will not send the disk to them (yes, even though it is encrypted; crypto can be broken). Any ideas what else I could do? A professional "data recovery" service is not an option either, they usually cost 1000-2000 Euros (in the best case). What do you do for storing huge amounts of data nowadays? The only viable option I can think of is a RAID-5 (mdadm) with 3 or more disks in a silent PC which I can leave turned on 24/7. Unfortunately that costs non-trivial amounts of money. CDs are too small and they don't last too long either; the same is true for DVDs. Sigh...

Yesterday, Philip Hazel released exim 4.64. I have just uploaded the packages to Debian experimental. If you want to try the lastest and finest exim, please check out the packages. Unfortunately, the release is too late for etch. Debian etch will release with exim 4.63. I mean, unless the release team decides to bend their rules very badly, which I really do not assume.

It's pretty cool to see that Technorati is going to be acting as an OpenID identity provider. That is, you can use a Technorati account as an identity on other sites (like Wikitravel). Technorati OpenID URLs look like http://technorati.com/profile/evanprodromou (say). Nice job, Technorati. tags: technorati identity openid

Encinitas Maj and I finished up our business in Los Angeles this morning, so we picked up stakes from her parents' house in Long Beach and drove down to my parents' condo in Encinitas. There was a time that a big chunk of my family lived in and around San Diego. My dad worked for a company called Peregrine Semiconductor, and my brother went to San Diego State University at the same time. Nate lived in Mission Beach, but my folks bought a condo in Encinitas, near Dad's work. Mom split her time between the house in Los Altos Hills and down here. Times have changed and everybody's drifted back up to the Bay Area (California), but my parents still own a condo on the cliffs over looking the Pacific Ocean. We all use the place for vacation time, although it's a lot easier for my brothers and parents in Northern California than it is for Maj, Amita June, and I in Montreal. Encinitas is a nice town with a really pleasant little main street on Pacific Coast Highway, great beaches, clean air and the sound of waves as you're falling asleep. We spent 4 days down here last winter, and really enjoyed it -- probably the most relaxing time of the year. We're going to spend a few more days here this week. Last year, in the late afternoon, Maj took Amita June into the pool in the condo complex. It's about 20 feet from the edge of a cliff over the Pacific, and as they were swimming around the pool, the sunset was making a red-gold luminous carpet out of the ocean below. We were close enough that we could see dolphins jumping in and out of the water. My baby and wife laughing over a dolphin-dotted sunset; jeez. Mom and Dad are selling the condo -- we're going to have to dodge realtors while we stay here -- so it's unlikely we'll get another chance to spend time in this particular condo again. Good to appreciate the time while we can. tags: encinitas san diego sunsets dolphins

Wikitravel on CNN The AP article about online travel guides made it onto CNN. The last time we had an article about Wikitravel syndicated ( Web Denizens Contribute to Do-It-Yourself 'Wikimania'), originally by Ellen Lee of the Contra Costa Times and published December 2005, it kept popping up for months. I figure this one will be out there for a while, too. tags: cnn wikitravel

Lessig Steps Aside I'm sad to see that Lawrence Lessig will be stepping down from his position as chairman for Creative Commons. As he announced in his latest "Lessig Letter", CC Changes, Joi Ito will be taking over the position. I don't think there's a better person to do the job. I hope that both of them continue to work for free culture in their own ways and through CC. tags: cc lessig joi ito

MyBlogLog TechCrunch is effusive about how great MyBlogLog is. I tried it out a bit, and I have a MyBlogLog account, but I found the user tracking script a little creepy and invasive. So I took it off. I'm not sure the value of the service outweighs the automated click-tracking. tags: mybloglog privacy cookies

Joey and Josselin, I'm calling you childish, not because you "stand" your principles, but because of the way you try to convince others that your principles are better. What you are using is:

• Insults ("lying", and for the record, FUD means twisting the facts and telling only half the story, and you are twisting the facts, as I detailed in my post; "should read constitution", which of course means to imply that I'm trying to deny you some constitutional right, which I'm not, I'm just asking you to stop spreading FUD)
• Blackmail and threats ("I'll stop contributing" [if dunc-bank is paying anyone], "reduced it much less than I could, probably much less than I should")
• Schadenfreude (the libpng mishap of the new maintainer; noone broke libpng intentionally. That is not a nice character trait, and pollutes the community)
• You seriously annoy people by going on and on and on, while everybody has already understood your opinion and arguments (and just happens to have a different opinion)
• Playing big words without actual content ("read the constitution 2.1.1", which btw. also states that you "must not actively work against these rules and decisions properly made under them"; your attempt at a GR failed, and you are working against these decisions on planet; I've however never said that you're oblieged to still work for Debian if you don't like the decision)

Actually, I'm by now convinced that it would have been better for Debian, if you would just have really left. Your behaviour in the last months makes you qualify as "poisonous people" (except these usually aren't big contributors). In my opinion, your infighting has harmed the project, it gives people the impression that being involved in Debian means mostly having to deal with such things. While it's not - Debian is still fun to me, although I have little time, and didn't manage to go to the last few Debian meetings here in Munich - all these fights are a nuisance to me. Even though I'm not actually affected by them (neither Dunc-Tank, because it doesn't demotivate me, nur the powerpc fights, nor some other fights on -private), the way they are dicussed on the Debian lists does annoy me. Again: if anything is cutting on my motiviation, it's your behaviour (this btw. includes the powerpc issue and fighters, too, especially Sven Luther who has probably sent as many mails as all others together, just reiterating the same things again and again). So if you are planning to become a Debian contributor, learn to use the "delete" button in your email clients, and don't be afraid to just delete whole threads. Certain threads are just a waste of time and bring negative emotions. So: Joey, Josselin: grow up, and accept that people sometimes have a different opinion, and you can achieve more by accepting that your opinions differ and just try to make the most of it anyway. Reminding them of your differences won't make them change their mind, nor will it make them like you any better. Fortunately, most people in the project (well, everybody except me?) seem to obey above "poisoned people" recommendations, and just ignored your posts on this issue. I didn't, and one of the reasons it that I feared Joeys first post could grab some media attention, and I felt there should be at least one post saying that, well, the debian-installer and some other RC bugs are probably also a cause of the delay, and it's probably not worth rehashing the dunc-bank issue. So far, I've only seen one news article citing aba that the delay was caused by the debian installer among others, no "the delay is due to dunc-bank demotivating all developers" FUD.

I'm officially on vacation. That basically means there is nobody at my office. This time, though, it does not mean I will be the only sentient being in the building - I'll take most of the three weeks at home. I hope to be able to do some Debian work and catch up with some other projects... Anyway, part of not being at the office means I don't have my usual dose of coffee. At home, I very seldom drink coffee, although I really love to have it home-style (i.e. not made by the easy-to-massify drip coffee machine). In fact, for at least a month, we had not had any coffee.
Yesterday I bought 1/2 Kg of fresh ground coffee at a nearby store. Right away, I drank two large mugs of coffee. Yummy.
Today, I felt a bit more creative. One of the things that my nutriologist taught me in the last year (wow... it's been over a year I started dieting and excercising daily! Around 40Kg less. Not bad, huh? :D ) is that I was eating too little sugar, and ordered me to get at least two portions of sugar a day. So, I'm having today's second coffee. With kahl a (coffee liquor), which would be forbidden at my workplace. And I'm enjoying it terribly.
Hmh... I do hope I don't get too much sugar during vacations! ;-) (including the family dinners over holidays)

Here is a graph showing the number of proposals sent in for XTech 2007 over the last two weeks. The actual deadline date is the highest bar. The Monday after, when everybody realised they'd missed the deadline, is the second highest bar. Of course, it's an open secret that tech conferences regularly extend their deadlines to account for such things. I am probably stricter than most programme chairs in this respect.
This year we got over 200 proposals. That means over three proposals to each slot, so choosing's going to be tough.This graph is one of the bits of helpful eye candy ExpectNation gives me. As the conference organization proceeds I'll publish some other interesting details about the inner workings of XTech.Meanwhile, I'm overwhelmed as usual with the quality of conference submissions, and will enjoy the task of reading each one this week. 

Only six days until 23C3 basically starts. I'm looking very much forward to lots of interesting stuff and much more I guess. (The schedule is made with Pentabarf which we're also using for DebConf7, btw.)

Also this year for the first time there will be a chaotic debian presence where we would very much appreciate your help which will be rewarded with a badge like the one below :-)

Please leave your name on the wiki page or tell Mario or me if you intend to help and that we should prepare a badge for you :-)

I've been sitting on this for a while, gradually adding more bits as I think of them. So it's a bit long and rambly, but if I don't post it now I'll never get round to it. First, the details, for anyone who cares. I got married to my partner of 11 years, Katherine, on 1st December. This was actually our 11 year anniversary. We had a civil ceremony in The Assembly House, Norwich with a wine reception afterwards, then moved on to Wolterton Hall for the main reception, with a magnificant feast provided by Brasteds. Afterwards there was a chocolate fountain courtesy of Digby's and Nero thanks to Milton. The wedding cars were provided by American Dream (we had the Excalibur Sedan and the Lincoln Town Car). The bus to/from the reception was from Dolphin Autos. Robin Phillips brought the band. Wonderful purple jacket + the other suits were from John Field Formal Hire. Next, some photos. Burly Dave Ganesh Paddy Steve Tim (Ceremony) Tim (Reception) Finally, some things I've learned. For guests (I wish someone had told me these - Katherine says I sound stroppy but I don't mean to):

• As soon as you know if you're going or not, let the couple know. Especially if you're not going. They will probably be constrained on numbers and there are very few people who can be invited at short notice if you only let them know you're not coming by the RSVP deadline.

• Don't leave buying your present until the last minute. The couple will have lots more important things on their minds in the final week or two than trying to make sure there's enough left on the gift list.

• People really do mean that they'd rather you turned up than gave a gift. I never fully appreciated this; I'd feel bad going to a wedding without having given a gift. However I know that it's not cheap to get to Norwich and (in most cases) have to spend at least one night in a hotel. I'd much rather people did that and I got to see them on the day than they sent a present.

For couples getting married:

• It costs more than you think. Really. I'd always assumed hotels dug their arm in for weddings and upped all the prices, but actually the hotels we looked at were the cheap options, both in terms of the actual cost and also the fact they'd throw extras like a honeymoon suite in for free.

• Make sure everyone in the wedding party knows the way to the ceremony venue. Really. Don't rely on them to ask you, or assume that they'll have looked at the directions you've prepared.

• People are far too generous. We received many completely unexpected gifts from relatives or friends who we hadn't invited to the wedding, or those who couldn't make it. (As well as many of the people who came to the wedding buying us far too much.) If you gave us a gift, you will get a thank you card - these are already in progress but it probably won't be until after the New Year before they're all sorted and sent.

• Don't leave booking a honeymoon until after the wedding. We had issues regarding not being sure about Katherine's holidays and we ended up not sorting anything until a couple of weeks later. This reduced our options somewhat.

• So far it doesn't seem to have changed anything much. Katherine and I have already been living together for some time which we consider a bigger step. And we haven't seen a whole lot of each other since the wedding, though we have spent the past week together. But really, we don't feel a lot different yet.

For various reasons, Software in the Public Interest (SPI) owned the domains opensource.org and opensource.net, which have been managed by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) for most of their life. This supported various SPI goals and also gave a possibility of community control of opensource.org/net just in case it was ever needed. OSI does not offer much opportunity for community control, as it is a self-appointing board. (Regular readers may remember that the principles of democratic member control, autonomy and concern for community are important to me.) I was watching as the SPI board voted in favour of giving away the opensource domains, proposal 2006-11-18.dbg.mjs.1 on the agenda. The vote happened without any discussion in the meeting. From memory (I guess logs will appear on the SPI site eventually):- David Graham ("SPI must also be involved in the promotion of and education about open source") proposed and voted for this action that stops SPI being involved in this promotion and education about open source; Michael Schultheiss ("I look forward to SPI's future expansion") (amended and?) voted for this action that reduces SPI; Neil McGovern ("achieve a greater degree of involvement [...] from the community in general") voted for this action that lessens SPI's involvement; Jimmy Kaplowitz ("It is important that it continue holding in trust the money and other legal assets belonging to its member projects [...] fulfill some more of its stated corporate purposes, involving education of the general public about free software and about computers in general") voted for this action that drops these assets and reduces involvement in education of the general public; Bdale Garbee ("would like to close this issue one way or another, once and for all") seemed willing to vote for anything which prevented further discussion - of course, only surrendering the domains could close it once and for all, as this is a one-way trapdoor topic - but had apologised for absence from the meeting; Martin "Joey" Schulze had apologised for absence from the meeting; Josh Berkus (nothing obviously relevant in his platform) abstained - consistent but disappointing; I think Branden Robinson was missing. Ian Jackson ("SPI's role is to provide a stable legal entity which can hold assets") voted against this action so that SPI would keep holding these assets. Bravo! Sources: The quotes above are the board's own promises in their election platforms, as listed on the SPI site in 2003 2006 apart from Bdale Garbee's platform which wasn't at the link given in 2004 so that quote is from the minutes of the previous meeting If some board members are willing to give away assets for no good reason, that strikes at one of SPI's core methods: holding assets for the community. What can we trust about this board? Their platforms are full of fine sentiments, but how do their actions reflect their platforms? This may be a mostly-dormant issue until the next election. If you want any of SPI's assets, just ask. If your request is rejected (as SPI rejected the opensource domain give-away before), just keep asking new sets of voters until they agree.

Many people have recently posted in Planet Debian regarding the use, usability and usefulness of having comments enabled in blogs, of using comments as the right way for following discussions, of dealing with spam, and so on.
I'm sorry I'm not linking to more of them, but I'm too lazy to look them up. This is one of the down-sides of not using comments - Ideally, if I were interested on commenting on a topic, I would just leave the comment on the blog that started it. It goes somewhat against Joey's logic of posting both the comment and the posting itself - Of course, we all want everybody and their dogs to read our comments, don't we? And, given we know that (most of) our target readers regularly follow Planet Debian, we continue ranting on our personal blogs (as I'm doing now). Besides, that will rank our page higher. We all want Google to love us, right? Of course, following discussions on a bunch of blogs is not optimal, as it's easier to miss parts of it (hey, would somebody volunteer on writing threading support for Planet? It'd have to be multidimensional, as postings often refer to different threads... Bah :) ). Besides, many of us are syndicated on different planets (and many people read our blogs as individuals as well), so many of my postings start with a stupid amount of background information so the martians understand the terrans. But still, here I am, writing a post that provides nothing but a braindump, serves no purpose, and links to your posting. So there, the world is not ideal. QED.
As always, MJR rants against captchas (and yes, thank you, you have commented on my blog that most captchas are trivially crackable by automated means). They do reduce spam, but they are REALLY not a strong barrier against it. I have thought of some ideas, or thought about implementations for other ideas I've read here and there, but I'm too lazy to implement them on my blogging software. I could switch, but I happen to like Jaws. I would like to contribute to making it better, but have had a permanent lack of time for a long time already :-/ I do get swamped by spam comments, and every now and then mass-delete whatever looks like spam (hundreds to thousands of comments, for crap's sake!), but anyway... It's not too important for me. I like having comments on my entries, but sometimes a long time must pass until I even read them (I read my own blog syndicated via the Planets, on a RSS reader).
BTW, Lucas: I used to have trackbacks enabled. The amount of spam, and the control I have over spam in my blog, makes me favor comments against trackbacks. My trackbacks used to be so wildly abused that it almost made me cry. I hope it is not your case :)

When you are on some abuse list from an ISP you propably know these kind of things: you get copyright/intelectual property/whatever infringement alerts from various institutions every now and then. I won't try to guess if they themself are actually downloading all the data to verify the content, or maybe even put it into the peer to peer networks to see who is going to download it. Nevertheless, sometimes there are quite funny companies with their alerts out there. One of those is the ESA—the Entertainment Software Association. The following is an excerpt of one of their mails stripped down to the relevant parts:

From: esa-no-reply@copyright-compliance.com
Reply-To: esa-no-reply@copyright-compliance.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
[key 0x9E9658B85A10FEEC unavailable]
[...]
ESA believes that its members' rights in such entertainment software products
are entitled to the full protection of the intellectual property law as well as
other relevant laws of your country.
[...]
Please inform us whether you will remove or disable access to the Infringing
Material as requested.
[...]

Given that they say in their headers that they don't want reply, both in the From and Reply-To, they still request information about the actions taken in their mail body. Yes, there is a different mail address listed in the body too, though that's not how mail programs work, do they...
Then for added authentity they pgp signed their message. Though, I wasn't able to find a server on which this key is available, and there is no hint in the mail where to get it from. Quite trustworthy, isn't it. It adds that the whole mail says that it's a template, though states that they are "entitled to the full protection of [...] relevant laws of your country". One starts to wonder if they are at least remotely aware to which countries they are mailing... P.S.: On a side note, their second listed MX record doesn't seem to feel responsible for the domain—it simply sends you a 551 5.7.1 relaying denied when one would try to deliver there. Adds to the impression that the ESA is nothing but entertaining...