(This post contains some discussion of rape and sexual assault but does not go into any specifics)

There was a brief controversy at Linux.conf.au back in 2011. The final keynote speaker gave a compelling presentation on online privacy, including some slides containing sexualised imagery. This was against the terms of the conference policies, and resulted in an apology from the conference organisers and the speaker. The situation was unfortunate but well handled, and that should have been the end of it.

Afterwards, there was some pushback on the conference mailing list. Concerns were raised about the policy being overly restrictive and the potential for it to be used to stifle speech that influential groups disagreed with. I don't agree with these arguments, but discussion of why policies have been implemented is completely natural and provides an opportunity for a community to determine what its expected standards are.

And then Ted Ts'o effectively called rape victims liars[1]. At first I assumed that this was just some sort of horrific failure to understand the implications of what he was saying, so I emailed him to check. The reply I got drew a pretty clear distinction between the case of a drunk college student raping another drunk college student in their room and the case of knifepoint rape in a dark park. You know, the difference between accidental rape and rape rape. The difference between the one any of us might have done and the one that only bad people do. Legitimate rape and the "rape" that those feminists talk about. The distinction that lets rapists convince themselves that they didn't really rape anyone because they weren't holding a knife at the time.

Ted Ts'o argues that only a small percentage of rape really counts as what people think of as rape. Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist.

There's an ongoing scandal in the UK at the moment. A well known DJ, Jimmy Savile, died last year. He grew up in a working class family, but through hard work and natural talent was one of the most significant figures in promoting pop music in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and worked in various parts of the BBC for the best part of 30 years. He spent significant amounts of time raising money for charity, and it's estimated that he raised over 40 million for various causes. Since his death, around 300 people have accused him of sexually abusing them. The BBC is desperately trying to explain why it cancelled an expose shortly before it aired. Multiple people who worked there at the time claim that everyone knew he was involved in indecent activities, but saying anything would risk both their career and the charities that depended on his fundraising. Nobody said anything, and he was allegedly free to continue his abuse.

Ted Ts'o is a significant figure in the Linux kernel community. He has expressed abhorrent beliefs that damage that community. Condemnation was limited to a mailing list with limited readership, meaning, effectively, that nobody said anything. Last week the Ada Initiative published a blog post pointing out the damage that did, and I realised that my effective silence was not only helping to alienate 50% of the population from involving themselves with Linux, it was also implicitly supporting my community leadership. I was giving the impression that I was basically fine with our community leaders telling people that it wasn't really rape if you were both drunk enough. I was increasing the chances of members of our community being sexually assaulted. Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.

In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted, I'll be interacting with him to the bare minimum that I'm compelled to as a result of my job. I won't be attending any Linux Foundation events he's involved in organising. If I'm running any events, I won't be inviting him. At a time when we're finally making progress in making our community more open and supportive, we don't need leaders who undermine that work. Support organisations who encourage that progress, not the people who help drag us back.

Footnotes

[1]The original archive has vanished. I've put up a copy of the relevant thread here. Throughout, Ted states that he's actually arguing against the idea that women need to be frightened of sexual assault, and not against the definition of rape. Except saying things like This one does a pretty good job of taking apart the Koss / Ms. Magazine study, which is the source for the "1 in 4" number. For example, it points out that over half of those cases were ones where undergraduates were plied with alcohol, and did not otherwise involve using physical force or other forms of coercion is difficult to read in any way other than "Half of the people you're counting as having been raped haven't really been raped", and favourably referring to an article that asserts that the rate of false rape reports is probably close to 50% is pretty strong support for the idea that many rape victims are liars.

(Update 2012/10/30: Adam Williamson suggests in this comment that this mail is a better example of Ted's behaviour - there's some explicit victim blaming and a lot of "Is that rape" questioning with the obvious implication that the answer should be "no". Ted Ts'o is a victim blaming rape apologist.)

(Update 2012/11/05: It's been suggested that I haven't been sufficiently clear about which of Ted's statements justify my claims. So, here we go.

In this mail, Ted links to and endorses this article. He explicitly links to it because of its treatment of rape statistics. Quoting directly from that article:
the rate of false reports is at least 9 percent and probably closer to 50 percent
Ted explicitly endorses an article that claims that a significant percentage of reported rapes are false. The study that generated that figure is held in poor regard by other researchers in the field - Australian police figures indicate that 2.1% of rape accusations were classified as false. Ted asserts that he was trying to argue against poor use of statistics, so it's a fair assumption that he agrees with the alternative statistics that he's citing. Ted believes that many rape victims are making false accusations. Ted believes that many rape victims are liars.

Again in this mail, Ted argues against a claimed figure that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. One of his arguments is that Also found in the Koss study, although not widely reported, was the statistic that of the women whom she classified as being raped (although 73% refused to self-classify the event as rape), 46% of them had subsequent sex with the reported assailant. Ted disagrees with a statistic because some rape victims subsequently have sex with the reported assailant. This means that Ted believes that this indicates that they were not really raped. Ted is a rape apologist.)

comments

Puppet I've really had it with Puppet. I used to be able to put up with all its downsides

• Non-Unix approach to everything (own transport, self-made PKI, non-intuitive configuration language, a faint attempt at versioning (bitbucket), and much much more )
• Ruby
• Abysmal slowness
• Lack of basic functionality (e.g. replace a line of text)
• Host management and configuration programming intertwined, lack of a high-level approach to defining functionality
• Horrific error messages
• Catastrophic upgrade paths
• Did I mention Ruby and its speed?
• Lack of IPv6 support
• [I could keep going ]

but now that my fourth attempt to upgrade my complex configuration from version 0.25.5 to version 2.7 failed due to a myriad of completely incomprehensible errors ("err: Could not run Puppet configuration client: interning empty string") and many hours were lost in trying to hunt these down using binary searches, I am giving up. Bye bye Puppet.

An alternative But I need an alternative. I want a system that is capable of handling a large number of hosts, but not so complex that one wouldn't put it to use for half a dozen machines. The configuration management system I want looks about as follows: It

• makes use of existing infrastructure (e.g. SSH transport and public keys, Unix toolchain, Debian package management and debconf)
• interacts with the package management system (Debian only in my case)
• can provision files whose contents might depend on context, particular machine data and conditionals. There should be a unified templating approach for static and dynamic files, with the ability to override the source of data (e.g. a default template used unless a template exists for a class of machine, or a specific hostname)
• can edit files on the target machine in a flexible and robust manner
• can remove files
• can run commands when files change
• can reference data from other machines (e.g. obtain the certificate fingerprint of each hosts that define me as their SMTP smarthost)
• can control running services (i.e. enable init.d scripts, check that a process is running
• is written in a sensible language
• is modular and easily extensible, ideally using a well-known language (e.g. Python!)
• allows to specify infrastructure with tags ("all webservers", "all machines in Zurich", "machines that are in Munich and receive mail"), but with the ability to override every parameter for a specific host
• should just do configuration management, and not try to take away jobs from monitoring software
• logs changes per-machine and collects data about applied configurations in a central location
• is configured using flat files that are human-readable so that the configuration may be stored in Git (e.g. YAML, not XML)
• can be configured using scripts in a flexible way

Since for me, Ruby is a downside of Puppet, I won't look at Chef, but from this page, I gleaned a couple of links: Ansible, Quattor, Salt, and bcfg2 (which uses XML though). And of course, there remains the ephemeral cfengine.

cfengine I haven't used cfengine since 2002, but I am not convinced it's worth a new look because it seems to be an academic project with gigantic complexity and a whole vernacular to its own. There is no doubt that it is a powerful solution, and the most mature of all of them, but it's far away from the Unix-like simplicity that I've come to love in almost 20 years of Debian. Do correct me if I am wrong.

Ansible Ansible looks interesting. It seems rather bottom-up, first introducing a way to remotely execute commands on hosts, which you can then later extend/automate to manage the host configurations. It uses SSH for transport, and its reason-to-be made me want to look at it. My ventures into the Ansible domain are not over yet, but I've put them on hold. First of all, it's not yet packaged for Debian (Ubuntu-PPA packages work on Debian squeeze and wheezy). Second, I was put off a bit by its gratuitous use of the shell to run commands, as well as other design decisions. Check this out: there are modules for the remote execution of commands, namely "shell", "command", and "raw". The shell modules should be self-explanatory; the command module provides some idempotency, such as not running the command if a file exists (or not). To do this, it creates a Python script in /tmp on the target and then executes that like so:

$SHELL -c /tmp/ansible/ansible-1350291485.22-74945524909437/command

Correct me if I am wrong, but there is zero need for this shell indirection. My attempts at finding an answer on IRC were met by user "daniel_hozac" with a reason along the lines of "it's needed, believe me", and on the mailing list, I am told that only the shell can execute a script by parsing the interpreter line at the top of the module. Finally, the raw execution module also executes using the shell And there a few other design decisions that I can't quite explain, around the command-line switch --sudo see the aforementioned message In short: running a command like

ansible -v arnold.madduck.net -a "/usr/bin/apt-get update" --sudo

does not invoke apt-get with sudo, as one might like; it invokes the shell that runs the Python script that runs the command. Effectively therefore, you need to allow sudo shell execution, and for proper automation, this has to be possible without a password. And then you might just as well allow root logins again. The author seems to think that "core behaviour" is that sudo allows all execution and that limiting the commands to run is not a use-case that Ansible will support. Apparently, I was the first to ever suggest this. There are always ways around (e.g. skip --sudo and just use sudo as the command, simply ignore the useless shell invocation and trust that your machine can handle it, but when such design decisions remain incomprehensible and get defended by the project people, then I am hesitant to invest more time on principle.

Salt Finally, I've looked at Salt, which is what I've spent most time on so far. From the discussions I started on host targeting and data collection, it soon became apparent that Salt is very thin and flexible, and that the user community is accomodating. Unfortunately, Salt does not use SSH, but at least it reuses existing functionality (ZeroMQ). As opposed to the push/pull model, Salt "minions" interestingly maintain a persistent connection to the server (which is not yet very stable), and while non-root usage is still not unproblematic, at least there has already been work done in this direction. I think I will investigate Salt more as it does look like it can do what I want. The YAML-based syntax does seem a bit brittle, but it's the best I've found so far. NP: The Pineapple Thief: Someone Here is Missing

# Copyright (C) YEAR Free Software Foundation, Inc. # This file is distributed under the same license as the PACKAGE package. # FIRST AUTHOR <email>, YEAR. # #, fuzzy msgid "" msgstr "" "Project-Id-Version: PACKAGE VERSION\n" "POT-Creation-Date: 2012-10-12 11:14+0300\n" "PO-Revision-Date: YEAR-MO-DA HO:MI+ZONE\n" "Last-Translator: FULL NAME <email>\n" "Language-Team: LANGUAGE <ll>\n" "Language: \n" "MIME-Version: 1.0\n" "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8\n" "Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n" #. type: Title # #, no-wrap msgid "Status hos doktoren" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" "**Jonas Smedegaard** [dr.jones at pobox.com " "](mailto:friends%40jones.dk?Subject=Status%20hos%20doktoren&In-Reply-To=1.5.4.32.19971011010004.0067de34%40kaospilot.dk) " "\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text msgid "_Sat Oct 11 15:22:00 CEST 1997_" msgstr "" #. type: Bullet: ' * ' #: msgid "Previous message: [Spamming? ](000001.html)" msgstr "" #. type: Bullet: ' * ' #: msgid "" "**Messages sorted by:** ? date (date.html#2) ? thread (thread.html#2) " "? subject (subject.html#2) ? author (author.html#2)" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid " Hej Patrik (og alle Jer andre )!\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " >_Vad sker med dig det var ett stycke tid diden?\n" " _>_Vad skedde der med ditt arbejde pa cafeet og pa skolen?\n" " _\n" " Lang historie!\n" " (den kommer nu )\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Jeg tror snart jeg har laert (the hard way) hvor dyr jeg egentligt er i " "drift.\n" " Jeg har nu i 3 maneder "ligget med r ven *under* vandskorpen" " " konomisk: minus 15.000,- pa kontoen. Det vender forhabentligvis indenfor " "den naeste maned - ellers pa jeg tage et regulaert lan, hvis jeg fortsat " "skal have firma som fuldtidsbeskaeftigelse.\n" " Det betyder, at jeg for tiden arbejder fra ca. 9 morgen til 0:30 nat syv " "dage om ugen (med enkelte eftermiddage eller aftener fri). Der er faktisk " "opgaver at lave, som ogsa gi'r penge i kassen - men det har der ikke vaeret " "for nogle maneder siden, og nar der var, har jeg taget mig for billigt " "betalt (men du kender mig jo!). Jeg er begyndt mere at involvere min " "storebror, nar jeg udarbejder tilbud, til at hjaelpe mig med en mere reel " "prissaetning.\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid " Her er lidt(?) om, hvad jeg beskaeftiger mig med for tiden:\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " *** Homebase ***\n" " Jeg far forbindelse fra mit kontor og ned til Mejlgade om en lille uge - " "rent teoretisk ihvertfald - derefter skal jeg ha' elektronikken til at " "fungere \n" " Jeg administrerer deres servere og netvaerk, og er "Boss" for Morten " "P. fra Frontl berne, som er blevet hyret til at vedligeholde alle " "arbejdspladserne pa skolen.\n" " Jeg har *intet* at g re med content pa webserveren. Efter i foraret at " "have haft DogSystem (et par nystartede edb-folk) til at udarbejde noget " "smart (som vist aldrig blev rigtigt til noget) har Uffe nu faet samlet nogle " "studerende (vist primaert fra hold 3), som skal hitte pa noget \n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Her er et uddrag af en mail til Rasmus fra hold 3:\n" " >>_Du ma gerne f lge lidt med i arbejdet og sende mig en kommentar " "eller\n" " _>>_gode rad, hvis du f ler for det.\n" " _>_\n" " _>_Jeg har et ambivalent forhold til Jeres arbejde:\n" " _>_ - Jeg f ler for det, Ja. Meget!\n" " _>_ - I sidder og laver mit arbejde \n" " _>_ - Meningen med mit arbejde er ar g re mig selv arbejdsl s - sa det " "er\n" " _>_*godt*, at I laver det \n" " _>_ - I laver det maske bedre, maske darligere end jeg ville ha' gjort " "det -\n" " _>_men helt sikkert anderledes!\n" " _>_ - Min force (og min kaephest!) er grundstrukturer mere end visuel " "(og\n" " _>_anden) indpakning. Det er svaert at kommentere og komme med gode rad, " "nar de\n" " _>_er omkring grundstruktur. Det kraever naesten, at man sidder ved " "roret \n" " _>_ - Hvis ikke jeg kommer med mine kommentarer nu, skal jeg enten holde " "mund\n" " _>_med det (og det er svaert) eller de vil udvikles til bagklogskab og\n" " _>_bedrevidenhed \n" " _>_ - Jeg har egentligt for travlt til at beskaeftige mig med det: Jeg " "har hele\n" " _>_tiden haft "travlt". At jeg har "for travlt" er et udtryk for, at " "jeg er\n" " _>_blevet klar over, at for at leve et liv som selvstaendigt " "erhvervsdrivende\n" " _>_er det ikke nok at arbejde hardt - man skal ogsa ta' penge for " "det Jeg\n" " _>_har derfor ikke for travlt, hvis der er penge i lortet (men det er " "sjaeldent\n" " _>_tilfaeldet i Mejlgade - til gengaeld er der sa meget andet " "dernede!).\n" " _\n" " *** Brugerflade-design ***\n" " Jeg har faet et job ved Frontl berne: VPAE (Virtual Project Assistance " "Environment).\n" " De er med i et faelles-nordisk projekt om at lave en "virtuel " "projektvugge" - altsa et forum pa Internet med en raekke vaerkt jer til " "projektudvikling og administration af gamle projekter.\n" " Konkret arbejder jeg i diss uger pa design af brugergraenseflade " "(dialogbokse osv.) og n dvendige datastrukturer til et system til " "udarbejdelse af en projektbeskrivelse.\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Jeg arbejder taet sammen med Morten P., og det er utroligt spaendende at " "arbejde med en konkret, mindre opgave med stor paedagogisk og funktionel " "vaerdi.\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " *** Praktikant ***\n" " En af mine venner fra gymnasietiden, Henrik, studerer informatik (det " "hedder vist noget lidt andet ) her i rhus, og meget tyder pa, at han " "snart kommer i praktik her hos mig i en maned.\n" " Han skal arbejde meget selvstaendigt. Jeg har brug for hans viden " "indenfor PR, han kan bruge mig som "pr veklud", og jeg kan stille medier " "(webserver o.l.) til hans radighed.\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Jeg har en ide om at vaere meget aben overfor brug af praktikanter - " "ikke bare som nem arbejdskraft (det er kraevende at saette i arbejde, og at " "give opgaver fra sig!), men mere fordi det giver mig en traening i " "formidling af min viden, og erfaringer mht. "s saetning" af mine metoder " "og ideer som tekniker - men det kraever maske lidt uddybning :\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Mit virke er grundliggende at bygge bro mellem teknikere og brugere " "indenfor IT. Det har 2 aspekter - at naerme teknikeren til brugeren, og at " "naermere brugeren til teknikken. Jeg arbejder med undervisning (arketyper, " "paedagogik og kommunikation), brugerfladedesign og almen radgivning for at " "hjaelpe brugeren pa vej. For at hjaelpe teknikeren tager jeg udgangspunkt i " "mig selv og mit arbejde med brugeren, og udvikler herigennem en raekke " "metoder og tankesaet, som jeg vil formidle - gennem praktikanter eller " "evt. decideret undervisning - til andre teknikere, som ikke i det daglige " "arbejder "i begge lejre", og derfor ikke ser de samme problematikker som " "mig.\n" " konomisk skulle "Projekt dr. Jones" gerne baeres igennem " "vha. konkrete projekter - virksomheder og enkeltpersoner, som har behov for " "min viden og mit arbejde, og som er villige til at betale merprisen for " "forskning fremfor traditionelle l sninger (NB! jeg bruger bevidst ikke ord " "som "udvikling" og "innovation" - for mit arbejde f rer til tider " "tilbage til udgangspunktet - det er ikke *altid* n dvendigt at opfinde den " "dybe tallerken igen!)\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Henrik vil ikke give mig de store erfaringer mht. formidling af min " "viden - jeg har for stor en pukkel af opgaver liggende til at kunne gabe " "over ham ogsa. Denne gang er det primaert hans felt - PR - jeg kan drage " "nytte af.\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " *** Undevisning ***\n" " Jeg har nu i en maned undeervist i edb som valgfag pa IDA " "(Idraetsdagh jskolen). Indtil nu har det vaeret 2 timer om ugen, elever i " "alderen 30-60 ar - men om fa uger bliver der yderligere 4 timer om ugen med " "elever pa 20-30 ar.\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Afl nningen er symbolsk (nej, god l n regnet som underviser, jeg far " "samme l n som en uddannet laerer - men ikke sammenholdt med, hvor " ""dyrebar" min tid er som selvstaendig ), men sjaeldent har jeg oplevet " "sa tydeligt et ryk i min paedagogiske forstaelse og opmaerksomhed.\n" " Jeg bliver sandsynligvis ikke haengende ved IDA i mere end et 1/2-1 ar - " "det er simpelthen for tids- og ressourcekraevende - men h ster gode " "erfaringer salaenge (og bader mig i deres positive feedback :-)\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " *** Brugerflade-programmering ***\n" " Samtidig (egentligt burde jeg forlaengst vaere faerdig, men opgaven greb " "om sig) arbejder jeg pa mit eget projekt: BOS (BrugerOpdateringsSystem).\n" " Det er et CGI-script (lille program pa en web-server), som muligg r " "redigering af indholdet pa websider uafhaengigt af sidens grafiske " "opsaetning, og - vaesentligst - UDEN AT SKRIVE EEN ENESTE KODE!\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " 1. udgave af BOS betalte jeg en programm r 15.000,- for at udvikle. Jeg " "havde brug for det til en opgave for AC (Akademikernes Centralorganisation), " "som skulle bruge det til bl.a. pressemeddelelser og publicering af et " "manedsblad pa deres 200+ siders websider (som jeg ogsa har lavet!).\n" " Da AC i sensommeren kom med rettelser og udvidelser til deres website " "blev der brug for forbedringer af BOS, og jeg erfarede, at min programm r " "havde lavet meget u-fleksibel kode, som var umulig at bygge videre pa.\n" " 2. udgave af BOS er nu naesten faerdig. Jeg valgte at skrive det om fra " "grunden selv (med hjaelp fra en god ven, som studerer datalogi), og har " "efterhanden skrevet ca. 750 linjers kode i programmeringssproget Perl \n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Jeg havde ikke troet, at jeg nogensinde skulle kunne programmere. Det " "kraever disciplin og god forstaelse for grundliggende datastrukturer, som " "jeg hidtil troede n dvendiggjorde et mangearigt universitetsstudie " "(datalogi).\n" " Jeg vil ikke sla mig ned som programm r, men kan nu bruge det som ekstra " "fjer i min vifte af erfaringsomrader, i min rejse mod "At vaere det ledende " "radgivningsorgan i Danmark indenfor anvendt edb"!\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " *** Internet-Cafe ***\n" " Jeg har jo kontor i 2 lokaler hos NETLAB, en spillecafe (computerspil i " "netvaerk). Det tog ikke mange jeblikke at slutte deres og mit netvaerk " "sammen, sa alle spillecomputerne ogsa kunne komme pa Internet - desvaerre " "fungerede det ikke med store computerspil (lang teknisk forklaring ), kun " "med alm. ting som e-mail og at "surfe" pa nettet.\n" " Jeg far snart (indenfor fa uger) "aegte" adgang til Internet, via fast " "forbindelse d gnet rundt. Sa kan der spilles computerspil via Internet, og " "spillecafeen er reelt blevet en Internet-Cafe \n" " Den kommende Internetforbindelse er dog ikke saerligt kraftig (64kbit - " "2-4 x modemhastighed) til deling mellem 20 kraftige maskiner, og har lagt en " "f ler ind hos Telia: Om ikke de har lyst til at sponsorere stedet. Give os " "en kraftig forbindelse til Internet, og til gengaeld fa reklamevaerdien af " "en stabil og hurtig forbindelse Folk der bliver rigtigt bidt af det vil " "jo f r eller siden k be en maskine selv, og sa far de jo brug for en " "Internet-udbyder \n" " Min rolle bliver at administrere "hullet" (eller "hullerne" til " "Internet, og evt. ogsa at strukturere og administrere mail-adresser til " "bes gende pa cafeen.\n" " konomisk forestiller jeg mig en fast procentdel af indtaegterne i " "cafeen - eller evt. simpelthen en billigere husleje?!?. Det gaelder om at " "finde en prispolitik, som spiller sammen med den grundliggende holdning ved " "bade dr. Jones og NETLAB om et indbydende, seri st (uden at blive kedeligt!) " "milj fremfor "flest muligt forbi kasseapperatet".\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid " -\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Det blev et laengere brev - og jeg tror faktisk, jeg vil genbruge det " "til ogsa at fortaelle familie og andre venner, hvorfor de har h rst sa lidt " "til mig pa det sidste \n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Hej allesammen!\n" " Haber I nyder tilvaerelsen. Det g r jeg - men traenger ogsa snart til et " "lille pusterum - juleferie i Sydfrankrig, regner jeg med!\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text #, no-wrap msgid "" " Ha' det bra!\n" " Jonas\n" " :_-)\n" " _\n" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text msgid "" "[More information about the Friends mailing list](http://mail.jones.dk/cgi- " "bin/mailman/listinfo/friends)" msgstr "" #. type: Plain text msgid "This text is part of my friends scriblings." msgstr ""

Credit Unions are financial co-operatives where a community s savings are used to fund other community borrowing and both savers and borrowers can become members. Thursday 18 October 2012 is International Credit Union Day, as well as being in the United Nations International Year of Co-operatives. This year s theme is Members Matter Most which was suggested from Ireland. In the UK, there will be events including one at Westminster with speeches from Damian Hind MP, Chair of All Party Parliamentary Group on Credit Unions and Simon Hughes MP, its Vice Chair. I m a member of my local credit union. I can pay in at my bank or any PayPoint and withdraw by bank transfer. If you re fed up with the fat cat plc bankers, there s no better time to Move Your Money in general and Find Your Credit Union (international visitors, start at WOCCU) in particular, is there?

So you ve got lots of shiny spam-detection software (not eyetests or similar rubbish) installed but are still getting some spam on your email and your website? Why aren t your spam detectors and preventative measures effective at dealing with it? Basically, the spam detectors are pretty effective, but it s a problem of scale. The underlying problem is that there s so much spam now something like 73% of email is spam just now (I suspect the web is worse). I expect much of the rest is legitimate robots too, like newsletters, automated billing, or notifications about social network activity. So, we want to trap the spam, while letting humans and good robots through. We can t use physical ability tests because there are both human spammers who are paid to spam trickier sites manually, and people like me who fail things like Google s human test because we use technology to overcome our physical limitations: there are now robots that are better than me at voice recognition or passing eyetests! We try to design websites so that the return on investment for spammers is too low (don t give untrusted users outgoing links automatically, basically). Even so, when we re using some popular software like WordPress, our site settings don t give them a return, but most stupid automatic spammers don t bother to check and still have a go. After that, the main things we re trying are rules of thumb to trap spammers (which is usually enough to filter out 90% or so) and to group sites together in informal co-operative spam-fighting networks like blogspam.net, so that once a spammer is spotted, they should get blocked on lots of sites (which blocks a bit over half of the remaining 10%). Sadly, the rest gets shown to humans for decision. Real comments are so few and far between now that we really don t want to risk turning real people away and killing discussions. We used to go after spammers who got shown to humans, but there are now too many spammers and too many service providers who won t kick spammers off their services: the spammers pay them and we don t: all we could do was waste their money in support, so they stopped offering any support to non-customers. Is that a flaw in the co-operative nature of the Internet? Can we overcome it? Wish I knew

There may be a situation where you want to create a Debian source package without having to unpack the upstream source. One case is where you store your debian/ directory in a version control system of its own and to build your package, you pass the .dsc file to a tool like pbuilder or some remote builder. Now a modern debian source package is just a text file (the .dsc file) that references two tarballs, one being the upstream source and the other being the Debian directory. Thanks to Niels Thykier on #debian, I found the magic invocation of dpkg-source that allows you to create the .dsc directly from the two tarballs, the control file and the changelog:

> apt-get source --download-only -t experimental haskell-mtl
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
NOTICE: 'haskell-mtl' packaging is maintained in the 'Darcs' version control system at:
http://darcs.debian.org/darcs/pkg-haskell/haskell-mtl
Need to get 18.8 kB of source archives.
Get:1 http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental/main haskell-mtl 2.1.2-1 (dsc) [1616 B]
Get:2 http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental/main haskell-mtl 2.1.2-1 (tar) [13.7 kB]
Get:3 http://http.debian.net/debian/ experimental/main haskell-mtl 2.1.2-1 (diff) [3509 B]
Fetched 18.8 kB in 0s (22.3 kB/s)    
Download complete and in download only mode
> cp ./haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc ./haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc-orig
> tar xzf haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.debian.tar.gz
> dpkg-source -cdebian/control -ldebian/changelog --format="3.0 (custom)" --target-format="3.0 (quilt)" -b / haskell-mtl_2.1.2.orig.tar.gz haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.debian.tar.gz
dpkg-source: info: using source format  3.0 (custom)'
dpkg-source: info: building haskell-mtl in haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc
> diff  -u haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc-orig
--- haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc	2012-10-13 15:09:00.031695856 +0200
+++ haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.dsc-orig	2012-10-13 15:08:47.267696329 +0200
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
+Hash: SHA1
+
 Format: 3.0 (quilt)
 Source: haskell-mtl
 Binary: libghc-mtl-dev, libghc-mtl-prof, libghc-mtl-doc
@@ -23,3 +26,11 @@
 Files: 
  943c110524d96126bfa0e61f7df1ebcd 13723 haskell-mtl_2.1.2.orig.tar.gz
  dda5ded58a8d009ecddeed68058ca787 3509 haskell-mtl_2.1.2-1.debian.tar.gz
+
+-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
+Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)
+
+iEYEARECAAYFAlBzRQIACgkQ9ijrk0dDIGwymwCfW87jwCv5ZvAXPBwh0LbvYLP9
+n+wAn3TCJwPRuBDEWRYmcv3Opn1Kb9+F
+=/Llc
+-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

As you can see, the resulting .dsc file is identical to the original one, so this approach works. The parameter to -b does not matter as long as it is some existing directory. Of course you can easily shoot yourself and others in the foot, almost as easily as hand-editing the .dsc file... but if you know what you are doing, then this can be quite handy. Next to do: Write a tool that takes an unpacked Debian directory as an argument, packs it, finds the original tarball using uscan and creates the .dsc file. Would this be something that people would want in the devscripts package?

Thank you to the co-operative group Cambridge and East Anglia area for electing me as their member delegate to the national half-yearly meeting and annual general meeting. Please tell me what you d like me to do (such as comment here or there s a private contact form on my website), else I ll do what seems best at the time. Thanks also to our co-op for allowing me the time to do this and for helping with the process. Co-ops do different.

Here s a summary of what happened at this conference. Opening address. Keynote from Nick Hurd MP, @minforcivsoc. Lot less money around. Called canals and rivers trust the biggest social enterprise. Blames lack of large social enterprises on culture, leadership and access to capital. First Big Society Capital investments announced tomorrow. Questions (and responses) about what had changed in commissioning (determination?), something about accountability in health I think but I didn t hear (more public scrutiny), other models besides worker-led (gov is agnostic, but that s just the type of mutuals so far), and capital renewal (gov is challenging the banks with Big Society Bank). This is going to get a bit long, so click through to our site to read what the other the speakers had to say and what that block of flats in the picture has to do with it Still here? Good! Harriet Hounsell from John Lewis Partnership was next. What s the Right level of profit? Structure of the partnership. The registry seems like the member services function and a bit more. Partner suggestions make a real difference. Beliefs have been tested. Recession hit us. Vivian Woodall, the co-operative phone, back to how it started. He knew people working for NGOs with high international phone bills. Bulk buy. Solid steady growth. Paid all tax. Living our cooperative values. Employee council and profit-shared. Adoption of new brand. Questions to both on redundancies (debate openly, try to redeploy, ultimately division of responsibilities: managers manage staff levels, not members), and being rejected as too small to help other social enterprises (ask why? Try local level instead of head office?), plus praise for John Lewis. Then there was coffee, workshops, lunch, workshops and coffee. I don t think I should report all of that, so a quick comment on the venue at Anglia Ruskin Uni Cambridge: is the Lord Ashcroft it s named after the same one who said it was legal to attack Iraq? Anyway Based on the workshops, I don t think our co-op will do SROI accounting any time soon (needs too much people time) and I m little the wiser on leadership. Some people are intrigued by collective management and cooperative working, though. The closing keynote was Wayne Hemingway, formerly of Red or Dead and now of Hemingway Design. He gave a quick history of himself and of those two enterprises and a bit of an entertaining ramble around. He seemed very much from the business end and how to use business to benefit society, but I ve not really looked at his companies before. I probably should do, as they ve a regeneration project in Lynn (pictured: before Wayne). Then it was the closing address, the thanks (yes, thanks to the workers and sponsors) and then time to head for the exit. It s a shame that some people who made good points during the keynotes (coop party!) left quickly instead of staying to chat.

What, haven't you heard about the WikiLovesMonuments photo contest around cultural heritage? Copying from its web page,

Wiki Loves Monuments is an international photo contest around cultural heritage monuments in September. Starting from the Netherlands in 2010 and organized on a European level in 2011, we go global in 2012!

I heard about this initiative in Iv n Mart nez's Wikimedia talk at COSIT 2012, held last week in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz (I intend to write a bit more regarding COSIT later on). I loved the idea, and intend to participate Not because I take great pictures (I don't, and I usually take them using my aging phone, which gives decent results but nothing beyond that), but because I love to move by bike in the city, and it's one of the best ways to roll in front of some of them. But more on me later Back to the topic! WikiLovesMonuments aims to improve on Wikimedia's (the organization behind Wikipedia and several other Free Culture reference projects) coverage of important landmarks all over the world. To do so, they are offering a trip to attend WikiMania 2013 in Hong Kong to the first place winner, and other "photography-related" prizes to the other winners. So, back to me: My motivation to enter the contest is to help Wikimedia. I know my shots won't be top-notch (although they will be the best I can do). I enjoy biking in my city, and often go not too far from many of the listed monuments. I am amazed at the number of monuments still pending in my area (of course, it's not by mistake this is called "La ciudad de los palacios", The city of the palaces) Surely some of the readers of this post will have (or will find easy to take) some photos to add. Of course, I'll try to focus on the missing monuments, but if you are a good photographer, you might want to submit a better version for a monument that's already there. So, some pointers, from what's closest to what's farthest from me:

• List of monuments in Mexico city
• Map with the list of monuments (Centered in Mexico City; other places in Mexico and other countries in the contest are a click away)
• Links to the monuments listing by state in Mexico
• GoogleMaps-based map with the monuments for Mexico City pin-pointed (similar maps are found at the other list of monuments pages)
• Android user? Android application pin-pointing you the nearest monuments

At least for Mexico, the listings are taken from the National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH)'s Public registry of archaeological zones and monuments. So, I cannot wait to start my biking session today to get some good end-of-summer evening sun and get some pictures taken! :-D

Google are providing some really good employee benefits including benefits to a life partner of a deceased employee [1]. It s not known if all those benefits are available outside the US, in any case the US is the first world country with the least social security so they need it most there. A recent Australian legal case had a father petitioning the court to have his kids take his family name [2]. According to the news report no good reason was given for renaming the kids, merely tradition. The mother won. GlassDoor.com is a site for reviewing companies [3]. It also has job adverts, it seems that they get people in to read the reviews and then advertise jobs. Sarah Resnick interviewed Jacob Appelbaum (of Tor fame) about privacy issues and published the article as Leave Your Cellphone at Home [4]. It s very interesting and references some resources such as riseup.net that I have to try using. Systemd in Fedora 17 has multi-seat support [5]. They support plugging USB terminals in at run-time to dynamically add new consoles for GNOME sessions. The Coding Horror blog has an amusing and informative post about why people shouldn t learn to code [6].

• [1] http://www.news.com.au/technology/death-benefits-google-workers-get-sweet-perks-for-life-and-death/story-e6frfro0-1226447351009
• [2] http://www.news.com.au/national/mum-wins-the-right-to-name-kids/story-fncynjr2-1226447058665
• [3] http://www.glassdoor.com
• [4] http://nplusonemag.com/leave-your-cellphone-at-home
• [5] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/multi-seat.html
• [6] http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to-code.html

Related posts:

1. Links June 2012 This Youtube video is an amusing satire of EULAs and...
2. Links January 2012 Cops in Tennessee routinely steal cash from citizens [1]. They...
3. Links August 2008 Michael Janke is writing a series of posts about estimating...

I feel a sense of pride when I think that I was involved in the development and maintenance of what was probably the first piece of software accepted into Debian which then had and still has direct up-stream support from Microsoft. The world is a better place for having Microsoft in it. The first operating system I ever ran on an 08086-based CPU was MS-DOS 2.x. I remember how thrilled I was when we got to see how my friend s 80286 system ran BBS software that would cause a modem to dial a local system and display the application as if it were running on a local machine. Totally sweet. When we were living at 6162 NE Middle in the nine-eight 292, we got an 80386 which ran Doom. Yeah, the original one, not the fancy new one with the double barrel shotgun, but it would probably run that one, too. It was also totally sweet and all thanks to our armadillo friends down south and partially thanks to their publishers, Apogee. I suckered my brothers into giving me their allowance from Dad one time so that we could all go in on a Sound Blaster Pro 16 sound card for the family s 386. I played a lot of Team Fortress and Q2CTF on that rig. I even attended the Quake 3 Arena launch party that happened at Zoid s place. I recall that he ported the original quake to Linux. I also recall there being naughty remarks included in the README.txt. When my older brother, Aaron turned 16, he was gifted a fancy car. When asked what type of car I would like when I turned 16, I said that I d prefer a computer instead. So I got a high-end 80486 with math co-processor. It could compile the kernel in 15 minutes flat. With all the bits turned on on in /usr/src/linux/.config. But this was later. I hadn t even heard of linux when I got my system. I wanted to be entertained by the thing. I made sure to get a CD-Rom and a sound card. I got on the beta for Ultima Online and spent a summer as a virtual collier. Digging stuff out of mines north of Britannia and hauling them to town to make weapons and armor out of them. And then setting out in said armor only to be PK d because I forgot healing potions and I was no good at fighting. While I was in the middle of all this gaming, my friend Lucas told me that I should try out this lynx thing that they run at the University of Washington. He heard that it was reported to run doom faster than it ran on MS-DOS. It turns out that it did, but that it was not, in fact, called lynx. Or pine. The Doom engine ran so fast that the video couldn t keep up. This was probably because they didn t use double buffering for frame display, since they didn t want to waste the time maintaining and switching context. I think I downloaded the boot/root 3.5 disk pair and was able to get the system to a shell with an on-phone assist from the Rev. I then promptly got lost in bash and the virtual terminals (OMG! I GET SIX CONSOLES!?) and bought a book on the subject. It shipped with slackware. Which I ran. Until Debian came along. Lucas also recommended that I try out this IRC thing, so I did. And I m still doing it on #linpeople just like I did back then. I learned to write Pascal on dos. Then I learned c while they were trying to teach me c++. I learned emacs and vi when I was attending North Kitsap High School. I learned sed and only a little awk when I took Running Start classes in Lynnwood at Edmonds Community College and perl & x.509 while attending Olympic Community College and simultaneously jr-administering Sinclair Communications. I studied TCP/IP, UNP, APUE, C and algorithms & data structures while preparing for an interview with a company whose CEO claimed to have invented SCSI. I learned PGP and PHP while writing web-based adware for this company. I didn t want to write ads and instead wanted to work in security, so took a job with Security Portal. While there, I wrote what one might call a blogging platform. It worked and made it possible for authors to write prose and poetry. Editors didn t have to manage a database in order to review and publish the posts that were ready. Everyone but me was able to avoid html and cgi. Then I sold pizza. Then I helped bring the bombay company onto the interwebs using the Amazon ECS (now AWS) platform. Then I helped support MaxDB. Then I helped develop and maintain the Amazon blogging platform. And then attempted to reduce the load on the Amazon pager system by doing and enforcing code reviews. It turns out that they prefer to run their support team at full bore and a load average of 16. I am now, still, fully employed in an effort to make hard things possible. The hard thing we re working on now is the implementation and ongoing operations of distributed x.500 infrastructure. This includes request handling, processing and delivery of response ( la HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, SIP, RTP, RTSP, OCSP) including authentication, authorization and auditing (AAA) of all transactions. It s a hard thing to get right, but our product development team gets it right. Consistently and reliably. We make mistakes sometimes (sorry Bago), but we correct them and make the product better. I m the newest member of an R and d team (note: big R, little d) called NTR, which sits behind the firewall that is Product Development, out of production space. In a manner that reminds me of Debian Testing. We try new things. Our current project is to allow users to compare their current (cloud-based or iron-based) IT system with what their system would be like with a BIG-IP in front of it. I can probably come up with a demo if anyone s interested in checking it out. I ll go work on that now.

I feel a sense of pride when I think that I was involved in the development and maintenance of what was probably the first piece of software accepted into Debian which then had and still has direct up-stream support from Microsoft. The world is a better place for having Microsoft in it. The first operating system I ever ran on an 08086-based CPU was MS-DOS 2.x. I remember how thrilled I was when we got to see how my friend s 80286 system ran BBS software that would cause a modem to dial a local system and display the application as if it were running on a local machine. Totally sweet. When we were living at 6162 NE Middle in the nine-eight 292, we got an 80386 which ran Doom. Yeah, the original one, not the fancy new one with the double barrel shotgun, but it would probably run that one, too. It was also totally sweet and all thanks to our armadillo friends down south and partially thanks to their publishers, Apogee. I suckered my brothers into giving me their allowance from Dad one time so that we could all go in on a Sound Blaster Pro 16 sound card for the family s 386. I played a lot of Team Fortress and Q2CTF on that rig. I even attended the Quake 3 Arena launch party that happened at Zoid s place. I recall that he ported the original quake to Linux. I also recall there being naughty remarks included in the README.txt. When my older brother, Aaron turned 16, he was gifted a fancy car. When asked what type of car I would like when I turned 16, I said that I d prefer a computer instead. So I got a high-end 80486 with math co-processor. It could compile the kernel in 15 minutes flat. With all the bits turned on on in /usr/src/linux/.config. But this was later. I hadn t even heard of linux when I got my system. I wanted to be entertained by the thing. I made sure to get a CD-Rom and a sound card. I got on the beta for Ultima Online and spent a summer as a virtual collier. Digging stuff out of mines north of Britannia and hauling them to town to make weapons and armor out of them. And then setting out in said armor only to be PK d because I forgot healing potions and I was no good at fighting. While I was in the middle of all this gaming, my friend Lucas told me that I should try out this lynx thing that they run at the University of Washington. He heard that it was reported to run doom faster than it ran on MS-DOS. It turns out that it did, but that it was not, in fact, called lynx. Or pine. The Doom engine ran so fast that the video couldn t keep up. This was probably because they didn t use double buffering for frame display, since they didn t want to waste the time maintaining and switching context. I think I downloaded the boot/root 3.5 disk pair and was able to get the system to a shell with an on-phone assist from the Rev. I then promptly got lost in bash and the virtual terminals (OMG! I GET SIX CONSOLES!?) and bought a book on the subject. It shipped with slackware. Which I ran. Until Debian came along. Lucas also recommended that I try out this IRC thing, so I did. And I m still doing it on #linpeople just like I did back then. I learned to write Pascal on dos. Then I learned c while they were trying to teach me c++. I learned emacs and vi when I was attending North Kitsap High School. I learned sed and only a little awk when I took Running Start classes in Lynnwood at Edmonds Community College and perl & x.509 while attending Olympic Community College and simultaneously jr-administering Sinclair Communications. I studied TCP/IP, UNP, APUE, C and algorithms & data structures while preparing for an interview with a company whose CEO claimed to have invented SCSI. I learned PGP and PHP while writing web-based adware for this company. I didn t want to write ads and instead wanted to work in security, so took a job with Security Portal. While there, I wrote what one might call a blogging platform. It worked and made it possible for authors to write prose and poetry. Editors didn t have to manage a database in order to review and publish the posts that were ready. Everyone but me was able to avoid html and cgi. Then I sold pizza. Then I helped bring the bombay company onto the interwebs using the Amazon ECS (now AWS) platform. Then I helped support MaxDB. Then I helped develop and maintain the Amazon blogging platform. And then attempted to reduce the load on the Amazon pager system by doing and enforcing code reviews. It turns out that they prefer to run their support team at full bore and a load average of 16. I am now, still, fully employed in an effort to make hard things possible. The hard thing we re working on now is the implementation and ongoing operations of distributed x.500 infrastructure. This includes request handling, processing and delivery of response ( la HTTP, SMTP, IMAP, SIP, RTP, RTSP, OCSP) including authentication, authorization and auditing (AAA) of all transactions. It s a hard thing to get right, but our product development team gets it right. Consistently and reliably. We make mistakes sometimes (sorry Bago), but we correct them and make the product better. I m the newest member of an R and d team (note: big R, little d) called NTR, which sits behind the firewall that is Product Development, out of production space. In a manner that reminds me of Debian Testing. We try new things. Our current project is to allow users to compare their current (cloud-based or iron-based) IT system with what their system would be like with a BIG-IP in front of it. I can probably come up with a demo if anyone s interested in checking it out. I ll go work on that now.

(This blog post is a more firm version of a series of tweets and forum posts I made a few weeks ago. This should also be considered a refresh of this post by Mirco Bauer a few years ago) It has been said that Mono is bloated, and that people should use lighter frameworks that don t pull in hundreds of meg . How much basis in reality is there for those comments? Well, let s do a little thought exercise. How much space is the minimum space needed for several languages to work? For this experiment, we will be looking at the required installation size on disk of several language frameworks, each time installing the bare minimum for a command-line hello world app in that language to run. For example, the Ruby result is the minimum install required to run:

puts 'Hello world'

and the Mono result is the minimum install required to run the following code, which has been compiled on a different machine using dmcs :

public class Hello1
 
   public static void Main()
    
      System.Console.WriteLine("Hello, World!");
    
 

Obviously, for dynamic languages like Ruby and Python, there is no compiler step needed. For languages like C# and Java, it is fair to compile these on a different machine as end-users of packages running these frameworks receive binaries, not source they do not need a development environment. So, on to the test environment. This is a bare bootstrapped AMD64 Debian Unstable system, as of today (i.e. debootstrap sid /tmp/badger ). Its install size is 275MB. So how much space? Ruby 1.9 Test code is as follows:

puts 'Hello world'

Install requirements are as follows:

root@dream:/# aptitude install ruby1.9.1
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libffi5 a  libruby1.9.1 a  libyaml-0-2 a  ruby1.9.1 
0 packages upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4703 kB of archives. After unpacking 13.1 MB will be used.

OpenJDK 7 Test code is as follows:

class HelloWorldApp  
    public static void main(String[] args)  
        System.out.println("Hello world");
     
 

Install requirements are as follows:

root@dream:/# aptitude install openjdk-7-jre-headless
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  ca-certificates a  ca-certificates-java a  dbus a  fontconfig-config a  
  icedtea-7-jre-cacao a  icedtea-7-jre-jamvm a  java-common a  
  krb5-locales a  libavahi-client3 a  libavahi-common-data a  
  libavahi-common3 a  libcap2 a  libcups2 a  libdbus-1-3 a  libexpat1 a  
  libffi5 a  libfontconfig1 a  libfreetype6 a  libglib2.0-0 a  
  libglib2.0-data a  libgssapi-krb5-2 a  libjpeg8 a  libk5crypto3 a  
  libkeyutils1 a  libkrb5-3 a  libkrb5support0 a  liblcms2-2 a  libnspr4 a  
  libnss3 libnss3-1d a  libpcre3 a  libpcsclite1 a  libsystemd-login0 a  
  libxml2 a  openjdk-7-jre-headless openjdk-7-jre-lib a  openssl a  
  sgml-base a  shared-mime-info a  ttf-dejavu-core a  tzdata-java a  ucf a  
  xml-core a  
0 packages upgraded, 43 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 51.5 MB of archives. After unpacking 137 MB will be used.

Python 3.2 Test code is as follows:

print ("Hello world")

Install requirements are as follows:

root@dream:/# aptitude install python3.2-minimal
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  file a  libexpat1 a  libffi5 a  libmagic1 a  mime-support a  python3.2 a  python3.2-minimal 
0 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4853 kB of archives. After unpacking 17.7 MB will be used.

Mono 2.10 (C#) Test code is as follows:

public class Hello
 
   public static void Main()
    
      System.Console.WriteLine("Hello world");
    
 

Install requirements are as follows:

root@dream:/# aptitude install mono-runtime
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  binfmt-support a  cli-common a  libmono-corlib4.0-cil a  libmono-i18n-west4.0-cil a  libmono-i18n4.0-cil a  
  libmono-security4.0-cil a  libmono-system-configuration4.0-cil a  libmono-system-security4.0-cil a  
  libmono-system-xml4.0-cil a  libmono-system4.0-cil a  mono-4.0-gac a  mono-gac a  mono-runtime 
0 packages upgraded, 13 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4383 kB of archives. After unpacking 11.5 MB will be used.

Of course, every time I try to make the argument that Mono is much leaner than what people propose as an alternative, the anti-Mono brigade go on the defensive and insist that nobody in their right minds uses Python or Ruby either everything ever should be written in Qt. So, hypothetically Qt 4.8 (C++) Test code is as follows:

#include <QTextStream>
int main(int argc, char **argv)
 
   QTextStream s(stdout);
   s << "Hello, world!\n";
   return 0;
 

Install requirements are as follows:

root@dream:/# aptitude install libqtcore4
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libffi5 a  libglib2.0-0 a  libglib2.0-data a  libpcre3 a  libqtcore4 
  libxml2 a  sgml-base a  shared-mime-info a  xml-core a  
0 packages upgraded, 9 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.3 MB of archives. After unpacking 27.8 MB will be used.

Presented without comment for your consideration. Edit: There are complaints that these numbers are misleading, because they show default package manager behaviour, rather than what happens when passing extra flags or config file settings to Apt. When disabling installation of Recommends: packages, the numbers change as follows:

• openjdk-7-jre-headless 137 MB -> 116 MB
• ruby1.9.1 13.1 MB -> 13.1 MB
• python3.2-minimal 17.7 MB -> 6.1 MB
• mono-runtime 11.5 MB -> 10.9 MB
• libqtcore4 27.8 MB -> 13.7 MB

BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE
Hash: SHA256 , During the month of June, we experienced a service interruption which
has caused our mutual customer, School, an
inability to initiate outgoing calls. CenturyLink has also caused the
interruption of the school s DSL Internet service. During the interim
period, I have installed a VoIP phone and tied in to one of my backup
providers so that the school can function during the CenturyLink outage. My understanding is that will begin paying CenturyLink
directly for its service again due to the service interruption. Until
such time as I receive acknowledgment from you, we will continue paying
roughly $27/mo for the school s phone service. Once the transfer has
been completed to the satisfaction of the school board, Collier
Technologies LLC will discontinue payment for the DID - - ,
leaving a single DID, - - . I expect that the DID will be
moved back into the school s name within the next week. Please confirm
this or provide information as to why this will not happen. I have CC d
and , who represent the school board on this
email. Please include them in the reply. Since the DSL service has been interrupted at both the School s address
and at ours, and since CenturyLink has failed to provision the remaining
two $14.99/mo 10Mbit DSL circuits which Collier Technologies LLC has
been paying for despite their un-provisioned state, we will be reducing
the monthly payment from $150 to $70. My understanding is that $70 will
be more than sufficient to cover the two voice lines, inside wire
maintenance and regulatory fees. If this is not the case, please keep
us appraised of the situation. Do note that our decision to stop payment for service which is not being
provided does not, in our estimation, relieve CenturyLink from the three
year contract period negotiated verbally by you on its behalf on October
4th 2011. We currently consider CenturyLink to be in breach of
contract. Sincerely, C.J. Adams-Collier BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE
Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJP3TqdAAoJEEyimPmPQm23qqoH/jRmiIVHNCnH8EqgzsNQiUIm
LVrFg7kvpRIM692mzrGgkZTxG9KlVK+1/dZl1aPsmMP5Q6ni3NigzRDnywJZI53a
yTwTZhid8B4Tf+JOrhUhKPpmm+2YoHTYaobwgxk+rRgUGUHEMCZMPnjKNGGPDCgO
2jNz5fSnI6IinRz4nXwhAtGQRUXVJWXGrUCX1kQXGH4pNvjbgE8n6yAsC6sixlPa
ljDaNjxUEjUY4PmQdKNetkzQLxlq/OGJgRHZXHzfg37cJEF4L28DJBYvf8CHbt2K
87ELXGs6nDn54yI4q4ojODln9k/GzC+NY6MDXYdof7dNbeEPujvjQCiyRgjLc9E=
=uLKs
END PGP SIGNATURE

Well this isn t Edinburgh. This is London calling. More from kohacon later. Today I was at OKFN s bibliohack . There were several interesting projects there and it was a good opportunity to get back into coding, metadata and APIs after thinking about conference practicalities for too long. BibSoup and its biblioserver software was my chosen hack. I didn t really make the most of it because I had to workaround broken wifi drivers that I hadn t noticed before, and I had to fix a broken java install that I did know about. BibSoup is mostly python and I think web.py, but it uses elasticsearch which is java. Oh and it s python 2.7 with virtualenv which is, erm, entertaining to get working on debian 6.0, as far as I can tell: I installed python2.7 from testing, backport python-virtualenv and I don t think anything broke. The approach to a hackfest was very different to kohacon s. Whereas people at kohacon hackfest were gathered around tables, moving to the talks table(s) when there was a talk they wanted, bibliohack started off classroom-style and didn t gather into workgroups until after coffee. The so-called non-coders were shunted off elsewhere after the welcome to do I-don t-know-what (maybe Library Co-op will write about it) and weren t seen again until the day s end. There were some nudging comments about being able to hack late into the night, which I m not sure is healthy if you ve done a full day. I left feeling a bit unsettled and disconnected from reality, although I got what I wanted from it playing with some new tech that we can maybe do good things with: thanks OKFN!

Probably by the time you read this, I ll be on the road to kohacon12. It s been a fun week or so with the final arrangements on top of our other planned work and some unexpected work too, but I think we ve done enough and it will all come together. (There are still a few places left if you d like to register, but not lots.) The most nerve-wracking bit has been the sponsorship. Kohacons are free to attend and funded entirely by sponsors, which is great in so many ways. It s a bit scary for the host organisation(s), but I think the community has helped so much that it ll break even. We won t know for sure until the final reckoning in a month or so. One unneeded worry was Paypal freezing our account for a couple of weeks and sending us contradictory and absurd demands for information. Why isn t there an easier way to get money out of the USA (and Australia and NZ, actually) that isn t either slow (cheques) or expensive (wire)? Once again, I m left feeling that banks are being a big problem for business. The best bit has been the spirit of the volunteers. Our co-op couldn t have done this without them. Some of them have gone a really long way to help metaphorically, bailing us out while Paypal was chewing up our time, and sometimes physically, flying around the world I ll be raising a glass to all of them, whether they re in Edinburgh or not. So, next update should be from Edinburgh!

I've been using a Google account since years, but having a "more serious" one along. The time has come to make the switch and elect the other as main one.

Google has a lot of services, and I'm using several of them, so changing the main account requires to migrate data of those services to the new account, given it's not possible to merge two accounts. To know the full list of services your account is signed in, go to your Account Product page. Some migrations are easy, others hell no: so I'm writing this post to keep track of the migration as it's going on.

First of all, there's a really good post about this migration at LifeHacker: it contains a lot of info I'm using here, but not all the services I need. Additionally, Google has a list of services and methods to migrate from one account to another.

Just to be generic, I'll call AccountSRC the original account and AccountDST the one I want to migrate to.

Migrate GMail

GMail is probably the most important service I have, and also the most difficult one to migrate. I have a lot of filters, so the first step is to migrate them:

1. Login into GMail for AccountSRC
2. Gear icon > Settings > Labs
3. Enable the "Filter import/export" plugin
4. Reload GMail to enable the plugin (if not done automatically)
5. Gear icon > Settings > Filters
6. At the bottom of the page, Select all
7. Export: this will download an XML file with the filters in it
8. Login into GMail for AccountDST
9. Enable "Filter import/export" plugin
10. Load the file containing the saved filters
11. Import all (or select which one) filters; this will also create automatically the labels defined in the filters.

I currently have a forward rule from AccountDST to AccountSRC: so let's revert the forward direction: from AccountSRC to AccountDST. This will allow the new account to receive the mails sent to the old one.

1. Login into GMail for AccountDST
2. Gear icon > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > Disable forwarding: this will stop redirecting mails from AccountDST to AccountSRC
3. Login into GMail for AccountSRC
4. Gear icon > Forwarding and POP/IMAP > add a forwarding address
5. Enter AccountDST as the address to forward mails to
6. A verification code is sent to AccountDST and you'll need to enter that code in AccountSRC to verify you have access to both mailboxes
7. Once verified, select "Forward a copy of incoming mail to" to AccountDST and to delete the GMail copy on AccountSRC

Migrate Contacts

Contacts are available inside GMail:

1. Login into GMail for AccountSRC
2. On the combobox on top-left, select Contacts
3. More > Export
4. Export all the contacts in Google CSV, since it's specific to be re-imported
5. Login into GMail for AccountDST
6. Contacts > More > Import
7. Select the previously saved file and import it

Migrate Reader

Migrating Reader subscriptions is easy:

1. Login into Reader for AccountSRC
2. Reader Settings -> Import/export
3. Export your subscriptions in OPML format
4. Now login into Reader for AccountDST
5. Reader Settings -> Import/export
6. And import the saved OPML file

Migrate Blogger

Login to Blogger for AccountSRC; then, for each blog you have there do this dance:

1. Select the blog
2. Go into Settings > Permissions
3. Add AccountDST as a new author: this will send an email to AccountDST GMail account
4. Accept the invitation (this will ask you to create a new Blogger account for AccountDST if you don't already have one)
5. Go back to to Blogger with AccountSRC
6. Blog > Settings > Permissions
7. Grand admin rights to AccountDST

Stop using CAPTCHAs. It s time to switch to DLT: Design, Limit and Trapdoor.

[a certain website] has the evil bad wrong Google reCaptcha on the edit page to stop disabled users, so screw it. Google s reCaptcha seems to be spreading again, obstructing more people when accessing more websites. Is there a reason for that? The re in reCaptcha stands for replace with real anti-spam, please!

I wrote the above about two years ago and it s not getting any better. I ve written similar things over the last ten years, as have many others, and I ve always sought to avoid using physical ability tests as a way to cut down spammers. Why do people keep reaching for the reCaptcha non-captcha or things that use similar bad eyetests like Mollom? So most online messages may be spam, but those physical ability tests do nothing to test for spam. They re trying to detect computer submissions (the TCHA in CAPTCHA is meant to be Telling Computers and Humans Apart), but that s really bad when the computer is helping someone with a disability to access the internet. People from the home of the CAPTCHA describe access for sight and hearing-impaired users as an important open problem for the project (Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum and John Langford. Telling Humans and Computers Apart Automatically. In Communications of the ACM). Until that problem is closed, CAPTCHAs should be considered defective and removed whenever possible. What webmasters should do instead is DLT:

1. Design it well: Set up sites so the spammers cannot get a quick win in the first place. Configure permissions and things like that so people have to do some work before they are trusted to post links. This is similar to the basic theory behind my Open Activism paper Fighting in the Shadows. This is much easier to do if the system is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), too.
2. Limit the damage: include rate limits to stop one person causing you lots of work: even with computer-assistance, few people need to post 10 forum messages every minute. Join up in co-operative anti-spam networks like blogspam.net so if they hurt you, others can see them coming. Again, it s easier to hook into a network if you re using FOSS.
3. Trapdoor: keep a way for people to contact you if they are really blocked by your design decisions and limitation and keep a way to exempt them from the limits if needed. Make it welcoming because disabled users are tired of reporting barriers to webmasters who don t care and will never fix the web. A good multi-step eyetest-free contact form is a basic way to do this.

Have you tried this? Have your experiences been as good as our co-op s? Are there sites you don t think it would work for? A comments form is on the original of this article, as ever.

Voting is open in the Debian Project Leader Elections 2012 So now I need to figure out who to vote for. This year I didn t take part in the discussions (all my spare time was bought, basically). The platforms are linked from the Debian Project Leader Elections 2012 page above and the key discussions were:

• Questions to all candidates
  • discouraging discussion styles any cure? I think this is vital. I like Gergely s answer best, but there s not much between his and Wouter s. I m not sure about Stefano s.
  • More votes in Debian? Any idea for improvement? Another vital issue to me, as democracy is a point of principle for me and our co-op. Wouter s answer sucked and there s not much to choose between the others.
  • Finding sponsors for Debian
  • Raising money for Debian I didn t feel that any candidate distinguished themselves on this or the previous question. No financial revolution looks likely.
  • About debian-companies Wouter s answer is pretty much identical to my view so I m disappointed he won t interfere if elected.
  • how informed should a DPL be? I ve a slight preference for Gergely s answer, but all are good again.
  • Debian s trademarks and logos, and their terms of use. Sadly, I suspect this is most likely to divide three good candidates for me (reads) or not. Basically the same positions, with Gergely expressing interest in delegating it to Stefano to finish what s been started.
  • Question to all candidates: In eight years Seems only Stefano has a vision?
• Questions to some candidates
  • Gergely and Wouter: on the need of becoming a DPL It seems they mainly want the freedom and a few style changes, but I feel Wouter makes a bit of a pig s ear of this discussion, seemingly insulting Stefano at one point and even defending the broken Mail-Followup-To because it would help him use reply-all for everything.
  • Gergely and Wouter: the level of independence from other distributions It seems that both want to decide first but share more if we reach the same decision as others.
  • Wouter and Gergely: software monopoly vs diversity both seem pro-choice, as long as it s maintainable.
• Questions to one candidate
  • Stefano Zacchiroli: What would you do different no big changes.
  • DPL practicing
  • Gergely Nagy: enough packaging manpower? This becomes about reforming the mentor/sponsor system, which I feel is needed.
  • Gergely Nagy: how will you search for talent and passion has more good ideas on similar themes.
  • Gergely Nagy: Disappearing? No, won t happen, based on experience.

Thanks to everyone who asked these great questions. So, what do you think?

We, the undersigned, hereby state that we expressly and unequivocally oppose the advertising of proprietary software products on government websites. Such advertising breaches impartiality and encourages citizens to employ technologies that unnecessarily restrict their freedom. The role of government is not to support certain market participants and not others, particularly when doing so works to maintain the monopolies of global software companies. In explanations of how to use digital resources that they provide, government agencies should clarify that multiple methods are available, and favour technologies which do not restrict users digital rights; by linking to PDFreaders.org, for example. Free Software guarantees the users right to use (for any purpose), study (without secrets), share (with anyone), and improve the software that they use. Public institutions should publish their documents in formats that can be read with Free Software. Indeed, many Free Software applications exist for reading such documents. Governments should lead citizens to freedom, and encourage them to make use of these applications. Sincerely,

Our co-op and 56 other businesses, 69 organisations and over 2200 individuals so far. How about adding your signature? Surely it s time for our governments to stop giving free adverts to Adobe? It was particularly annoying in the Digital Britain report, I thought.