The problem: Splitting patches
As a Debian maintainer, I often work with patches (files listing changes to text files), for example when tracking the modification I make to some software before I upload the package to Debian. To manage these patches,
quilt is a nice tool: It helps you maintain a stack of patches on top of the original code and encourages you to keep your variously modifications separate.
One use case is not supported by quilt at all: Splitting patches. One often has a large patch containing several independent changes. This might happen after you fix a few problems in the upstream code and then run
dpkg-buildpackage, which will create one patch of your changes and put it in
debian/patches. Before, I had to manually edit the patch and write the hunks, which are the building blocks of patches, into separate file.
Where it already works
There is no such problem when using a version control system, such as
Darcs. Especially Darcs is rightly famous for its user-friendly interface and powerful hunk-selection features. You can even split a single hunk (which could be a change to one line) into two separate steps! Have a look at the
HunkEditor page on the Darcs wiki to see how that works.
Let s steal a feature
Well, it is not stealing if it is Free Software... Darcs has these nice capabilities and provides them in the context of version control systems, while we need them in the context of patch files. But Darcs is providing an API to its code, so shoudn t it be possible to create a program that uses the Darcs code to split patch files? As a matter of fact, it is possible: You can see that program in action on this
3min Ogg Theora-Video or directly here if your browser supports HTML5:
<video controls="true" height="448" src="http://www.joachim-breitner.de.nyud.net/various/ipatch-demo.ogv" tabindex="0" width="704">Looks like your browser does not support HTML5</video>
Nice, can I use it?
The code is a working proof of concept. What you see works. You do not see how it handles patches that create or delete files, patches that do not apply cleanly or are already applied or any kind of error handling. That does not work yet. If you still want to try it, you can grab the code from the Darcs repository at
http://darcs.nomeata.de/ipatch, but you need to build the latest development state of the Darcs library first.
I think ipatch could become a very useful and powerful tool with applications in areas where nobody would think of using Darcs. I definitely want some integration into quilt, replacing the splitted patch in the series by the replacing patches automatically. Maybe even a git plugin could be created? But I don t think I can push this project far enough on my own. So this is an invitation to join me and make ipatch a great tool. This invitation goes especially to the Darcs developers: Please have a look how the code uses the Darcs API and help to improve the collaboration here. I think we can use the
darcs-users mailing list until there is need for a dedicated mailing list.
I've got a pretty packed August.
I just wrapped the Open and User Innovation Conference at MIT -- the
academic conference on user and open innovation connected to my
research. I organized the program and was MC for the 120+(!) talks and
research updates on the program so it's a huge relief to see it come off
successfully.
On Thursday, August 5th (at 14:30 UTC) I'll be giving a talk on
antifeatures at DebConf (the Annual Debian conference). It was
accidentally listed as "Revealing Errors" until a few minutes ago --
sorry about that! It will be streamed live (details on the DC site)
for those outside of New York City who might want to follow it.
As soon as DebConf is done on August 8th, I'm going to head to
Kor ula in Croatia to relax, read, and hopefully get a bit of
research done, before I head off to Outlaws and Inlaws in Split on
the 19th, a sort of piracy and (vs?) free software summit put on by
mi2 connected to the recurring Nothing Will Happen where, from
what I hear, quite a lot does.
I'm going to have to leave Nothing Will Happen a little early to head to
FrOSCon on the 21st where I'll be doing an antifeatures keynote again
on the 22nd. I tend not to like to do the same talk too many times, or
for more than a year, so this might be one of the last times I present
on antifeatures in this form.
After that, I'm going to head to Italy where I'll be between the 23rd
and the 3rd of September. I'll fly and in and out of Rome and plan to
spend some time in Rome, Tuscany, and Florence, but don't have a lot of
set plans and might travel to Bologna or elsewhere.
My schedule is pretty open. As always, I'm interested in meeting up for
coffee or a drink with like-minded hackers, Wikipedians, researchers,
activists, etc. If folks are interested in organizing talks or
presentations, that sounds fun too. I'm keeping a brief description of
my schedule updated alongside a bunch of ways to get in touch with me on
my contact page. Don't hesitate to drop me a line!
Science and Math Track at DebConf10
This year's 
I took the train from Charlottesville to New York on Saturday.
With this year's DebConf in the USA, I finally have a chance to experience
the conference from a local perspective, without jetlag, or a language
barrier. I'm still working on that. Part of me thinks I am in a foreign
country here. :)
Actually, the neighboorhood around Columbia University is one I have ties
to. Here is my Mom's old apartment, a few short blocks from the main
DebConf venue.
A new release (now at version 0.3.3) of 
I dunno why, but hearing bagpipes always gives me the creeps, probably because their melodies sound like a whole country was just brutally slaughtered and is being mourned.
Sure enough, this morning, on my way to pick up my new national ID card matching my 
Debian always was known for its communication "style". There were even 
In the evening today (Tuesday), the Debconf organizers arranged for a screening of the Creative Commons licensed film "Sita Sings the Blues" by Nina Paley. I went to see it as I had missed it when it was first released among tales of trials and tribulation at the hands of copyright meanies.
So first let me say yay Free Culture!, boo Intellectual Property! etc. etc. Now we have that out of the way...
"Sita Sings the Blues" has two main narrative threads: The breakup of Ninas relationship with her boyfriend and the Ramayana particularly a story from the uttarakanda about how after Shri Rama returned from Lanka, Sita had to undergo the agnipravesha to prove her chastity and even after she passed that test was eventually banished to the forest. I had an adverse reaction to this film. In fact I stayed to the end to be polite but I left afterwards as soon as I could. I had almost a physical feeling of nausea and I was surprised by this. Since then I have been pondering why this is so.
It's not that its blasphemous. Shri Rama is not just a "perfect man", he is God (an avatar of Vishnu Bhagavan as is briefly touched upon in the film) for millions of people so, well, yes it is blasphemous but its more Rowan Atkinson style rather than Norwegian Black Metal style blasphemy. One never gets the impression that the author hates Hinduism or Indian culture the opposite in fact. And in fact it is not uncommon in our culture to speak of Sita and Rama in this way. They are not remote authority figures but as familiar to us as our own friends and family and the Ramayana is not just about events that happened long ago it is relevant to our lives right now. Even the "good woman done wrong by big dumb male jerk" narrative is not unknown. (See the Uttararamacharita of Bhavabhuti for instance.) though I would suggest reducing the Ramayana this way is akin to treating the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as a book about towels.
Even the milder criticism that it is not accurate is offbase because although the Sanskrit poem by Maharshi Valmiki is the canonical rendition of the Ramayana, there are other well-known versions. Not just in Sanskrit, the Hindi retelling by Sant Tulsidas called Ramacharitamanasa is more popular than Valmiki. Also speaking as someone who has preached Ramakatha "professionally" I can tell you that even the priests do not stick to the letter of the text. It is encouraged and expected that they will riff on the basic stories adding or removing details according to the needs and taste of the audience. And the device of the three narrators made me smile as this is exactly the kind of discussions that go on after hearing the Ramakatha. (I must say Paley picked a notably illiterate trio though.) One place where this fell flat was when they discussed the alleged discrepancy between Sita living simply in the forest and dropping a trail of jewellery on the way to Lanka. Although I can imagine someone at some point saying, "Do not question these stories" not at this point. Even the most retarded westernized Indian would know that removing ones ornaments is a sign of widowhood. A married woman would only do that in extremis certainly not just merely because she was a hermit. In a few cases some extra details might have helped the story. It was not explained that Ravana does not just have rakshasas in his command but he is one himself. (And he certainly wasn't a good guy until one day he got up and kidnapped Sita.) Shri Ramas brother Lakshamana accompanied the couple into the forest to Lanka and back but he only pops up (for no apparent reason) at the end. But look at me, I'm turning into one of those people who rant about Star Trek continuity errors or complain that the Romans in a gladiator movie have the wrong helmets for that time period etc. One has to cut a storyteller some slack and I entered the screening determined to be charitable.
It's also not because I don't really see much connection between the two stories. Getting dumped by someone who simply loses interest in you hardly seems equivalent to being trapped by a moral code that doesn't allow for individuals feelings. Paley could have easily made "Princess Leia Sings the Blues" and it wouldn't have changed the significance much. But in India people make far more tenuous connections between the epics and events in their own life so one can hardly complain about that.
Aesthetics are not the problem either. The first version of the Ramayana I ever read was the Amar Chitra Katha comicbook version which partly influenced the visual style of this film. (In fact you briefly see it in one scene when different editions of the Ramayana flash by.) Hindu popular culture is very gaudy. (See Ramanand Sagars '80s Ramayana Hindi TV serial, which was very reverential, insanely popular and tacky beyond belief.) The animation in this film is very good and quite artistic.
"So Jaldhar", you might be asking if you've read this far, "what exactly is your problem with this film?"
I have read the Valmiki Ramayana in Sanskrit with the commentaries from beginning to end. I've read other Ramayanas in Sanskrit, Gujarati, and English. I have read the comicbook, I've read anti-Ramayana polemics. When you learn Sanskrit in the traditional way the first lesson, in the declension of masculine gendered nouns ending in vowels is rAma.h rAmau rAmA.h ... I am well aware there are different emphases, different interpretations in various versions. Why can't I accept this as just another take on a story that has shown its fluidity over and over again? It's just...wrong on a subrational level. How can I put this? Imagine you are flipping through the TV channels and you see your grandparents amongst Lady Gaga's backup dancers. Or you came home one night to find everything that was on the floor meticulously glued to the ceiling. Over the course of my life (to hear my mother tell it my first exposure to the Ramayana was before I could speak.) I have developed a mental bond with this story a certain idea of how it should be. I think so has Nina Paley. And this is the problem. "Sita Sings the Blues" is Nina Paleys Ramayana not mine.
Again, there's been this surreal time warp effect. 3 months has passed, and it
feels like both a long time and a blink of an eye. It more feels like a long
time though. I've mostly forgotten what it was like before Zoe came along.
Zoe is growing well. She weighs around 11 lbs 11 oz (5.3 kg), and I swear she's
getting very long. When I'm holding her in my arms, there's legs everywhere.
She started being able to roll from her stomach onto her back at 2 months, and
her neck strength is pretty good now. I guess her next significant milestone
will be being able to sit up properly. When she's on her tummy, she can prop
herself up on her elbows and look around. She smiles all the time.
We had a few nights of 8 hours of sleep, then everything went completely out
the window, and we had about a week of very disrupted sleep at night. I think
she's starting to settle into a routine now though, with a few 5 hour stints
the last few nights.
Her US passport arrived yesterday. We still need to get everything together to
lodge her Australian citizenship application, which is the first step towards
getting her an Australian passport.
Sarah's back studying now (two subjects this semester), which is proving to be
a bit of a juggling act.
