On Self-Reflection I have a need to write some things down recently, I don’t really know why or so. I have acquired a few new (and great) friends recently, mostly here in Brno. Also, I have more motivation than ever to try hard to live a good life. It has always been a hard way to follow for me, to be all those things that I find great in other people. How they can handle situations smoothly, what they know and what they can do. And it is great to see such people, and yet it is hard to not envy them. But envy not, since it is a great evil. One never knows what the other people have to go through, and it is just plain unfair to envy them. But I am drifting away from the subject at hand. What I have noticed as well, that I have changed in subtle ways, patterns of thinking. Self-reflection is somewhat cautiously sneaking into my mind. Two independent events have reminded me of that today. Recently, I have been participating in online discussion more than I have used to, especially with people I do not know, and with which I often tend to disagree, and this is putting me in a new kind of situation. And to be honest, I am not really handling it all that well. What has made me think about this was Boudewijn Rempt’s comment on the dot. He handled the task at hand so much better than myself, even if it was his ego that was in the line, that has made me actually stop and think about it. And as I have written in that thread, I admire Boudewijn greatly for that calm reaction, of which I would be almost surely not capable. So here I am, trying to learn from that. My memory is indeed very short, but I also take this writing as a way to train that. The second event was that a friend of mine (I do not know him long, but I call him a friend nevertheless, although I know not whether I actually deserve that) has told us something to the effect that one should learn. Meaning that one should learn from own mistakes, and no, I no more see the empty phrase behind those words. There is something in that, and it is a very interesting experience. Going through situations you have encountered and realize where you have made mistakes and what you could have done better. Actually admit, that even though the outcome was fairly good, that you have made some silly things. It is indeed a very interesting experience, to admit a failure when you are not pressed to by any external means. Liberating, maybe. Same goes for things long forgotten. Where you have made mistakes, even though you have been always righteous and positively convinced about always doing the right things. You may be wondering whether I have been on crack all the time, but, well, that is not the case. I cannot tell how this came about, and yes, I have realized those mistakes and again forgotten them and so on and so forth. But hey, I think it may be better this time. If only a little…

I have created a couple of packages trying to implement a way to have debian themed splash screens and other images for a group of applications. I have tested it a couple of times in different computers, trying to make it break and such - and I think it is more or less working now. So - I am looking for brave test persons wanting to test it/screw up their systems. Requirements:

• Able to recover from messed up dpkg-diverts
• Able to recover from messed up alternatives

As the average reader probably have guessed it involves dpkg-diverts and alternatives. To be a bit more detailed, I have a list of splash screens, divert them, set up alternatives and register the new images. Comments? Testers? feel free to speak up.

Oath of Gold rounds up this excellent fantasy series from Elizabeth Moon. It is a pity that she never came back to this character (though she wrote a couple of prequels), despite the fact that the ending paragraph leaves ample room for sequels when the call of Gird came, Paksenarrion left for other lands. This is high fantasy in true Tolkien manner, but faster paced, more gritty, and with characters one could relate to. I am already looking forward to my next re-read of the series.

After a really crazy weekend in which it looked like I wasn't able to set up NAT[1], I went to work with the gear and tested the exact same thing I did at home and it worked without a glitch.

So, now I suspect that there might be something wrong with my ISP or the DSL modem, while ritter (my NSLU2) is fine. As a bonus I just installed Debian armel on it (installation report to arrive soon).


When I got home, after the laptop came back from hibernate[2] I saw these messages on all my terminals:

Message from syslogd@bounty at Mon Nov 12 23:57:04 2007 ...
bounty kernel: Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason b0.

Message from syslogd@bounty at Mon Nov 12 23:57:04 2007 ...
bounty kernel: You have some hardware problem, likely on the PCI bus.

Message from syslogd@bounty at Mon Nov 12 23:57:04 2007 ...
bounty kernel: Dazed and confused, but trying to continue

Is this a good time to panic?
I guess I'll have to dig into this, too.


In other news, svn-buildpackage 0.6.23 has been uploaded to unstable and it fixes yet another 7 bugs, which brings svn-bp's bug count down to 19 open valid bugs (2 more if you count wontfix bugs, too). This is the lowest bug count of svn-buildpackage since at least the end of April, according to the bug count graph.

Also, oolite 1.65-6 was also uploaded to unstable and fixes the breakage due to the gnustep build tools changes. Unfortunately, on arm is dep-waiting for libgnustep-base-dev which is broken on this arch.


Thanks to my sponsors, you know who you are ;-) .

[1] I have been trying to set up a simple NAT machine for more than 6 hours and, although everything seemed to be OK, checked and double checked it didn't work
[2] which works now only if I don't use fglrx which is broken from this PoV (bug 449095)

Disclaimer: splashscreens should be avoided and programs should start faster. Some programs are just too slow so a splash screen is needed. Wouldn’t it be cool if all programs that showed splashscreens actually showed a splash matching the same theme as your desktop environment and your display manager? This might going to happen. Besides OOo, amarok and the gimp, which other programs uses splash screens? And where do they store their splash screens? Artists: This is also your clue to consider it. I don’t have much artist skills, but I have some ideas for the implementation. To show off something, I can start here: The plan is of course to make it as easy as apt-get install debianized-splashscreens to get debianized splash screens - and apt-get remove to get the original splash screens back. Oh - and of course easily to change for derivatives who wants some other styling.

Divided Allegiance is the middle of the trilogy, the one that I hate reading. Not because Ms Moon s book is bad, which it is not, it is still as gripping as the others, and comes closer to the high fantasy of Tolkien it is just that I hate what happens to Paks in the book, and the fact that the books ends, leaving her in that state. I guess I am a wimp when it comes to some things that happen to characters I am identifying with. However, it has been so long since I read the series that I have begun to forget the details, so I went through and read it anyway. This is a transition book: the Deeds of Paksenarrion was about Paksenarrion the line warrior, and the final book is where she becomes the stuff of legends. I usually read the first and last here.

Yesterday, when I posted the list of talks that I'll be giving this week, I forgot to mention that I will be giving a Cluedump at MIT tonight organized by SIPB. It will be in the form of a simple hands-on workshop to teach folks how make Debian or Ubuntu packages. The session is not aimed at teaching folks to make policy compliant packages or how to pass Debian's NM process but rather to be more of an, "Everything a Sysadmin Needs to Know about Debian and Ubuntu Packages," style introduction. The talk is tonight, November 12, 2007, at 20:30 at MIT in room 56-114. Feel free to read the longer description and to show up if you're interested.

Kicking ass in an unflat world is The Economist's take on recent efforts in the world of business books. As the creator of Squeezed Books, their opinion was of interest to me. As is often the case, they don't disappoint, with lines like

Things to bear in mind as you do, he says, include the need for your company to have purpose, to seek out ideas from the fringes, and to embrace the democratising power of the internet none of which will be news to anyone who has been in business for more than a few minutes.

What really caught me eye, though, was this:

There is also growing demand from overloaded executives for shorter books. So in January Harvard will launch a new hardback series, Memo to the CEO , covering subjects such as lessons from private equity and the future of strategy. Each book will be about 100 pages long and will cost $20. In a similar vein, Harvard has adopted the approach taken by iTunes to pop albums, and has started to sell individual chapters of books online an idea that has been a hit with academics in particular.

A lot of good business books take a sensible central idea, and then proceed to fluff it up to a length where it can be published as a book. Often, this makes for a good read, as the anecdotes and case studies and whatnot are interesting, but for those in a hurry, or simply wanting to know what the basic point of the book is about, it's just padding. So, it looks as if the idea behind Squeezed Books is a good one, now I just need to get better at attracting more people to contribute summaries, and discuss the books on the site. One thing I've done to that end is stipulate that the summaries are available, unless otherwise noted, under a creative commons license.

I'll be in New York State for the second half of this coming week. On Thursday, I'll be in New York City giving a talk as part of a interdisciplinary colloquium discussing free software and structured around Decoding Liberation, the recent book by Brooklyn College professors Samir Chopra and Scott Dexter. The talk will be Thursday, November 15, 2007 between 10:50 and 13:30 in the Glenwood Lounge in the Brooklyn College student center. See this flier for details. I'll be heading straight to Ithaca where I'll give a talk the next day at Cornell for the Code Review student group. My talk will try to introduce and discuss free software issues in the context of the OLPC project. The talk will be on Friday November 16th at 17:00 in Rockefeller 115. There's some more details on the Code Review website. Folks should feel free to attend either event. I'll be leaving soon after on a bit of a Balkan tour being organized by some of my friends from mi2 and will be spending a couple weeks in or based out of Zagreb. The details are still being ironed out but I'll be sure to post them here once I know dates, places, and times.

I bought this book by Daniel Silva last week at SFO, faced with a long wait for the red eye back home, since I recalled hearing about it on NPR, and reading a review in Time magazine, or was it the New Yorker? Anyway, the review said he is his generation s finest writer of international intrigue, one of America s most gifted spy novelists ever. I guess Graham Greene and John le Carre belong to an older generation. Anyway, everything I read or heard about it was very positive. Daniel Silva is far less cynical than Le Carre, and his world does not gel quite as well, to my ears, as Smiley s circus did. The hero, Gabriel Allon, does have some super human traits, but, thank the lord, is not James bond. I was impressed by Silva s geo-politics, though - paragraphs from the book seem to appear almost verbatim in current event reports in the International Herald Tribune and BBC stories. I like this books (to the extent of ordering another 7 from this author from Amazon today), and appreciate the influx of new blood in the international espionage market. Lately, the genre has been treated by lack luster, mediocre knock offs of the Bourne Identity and the engaging pace of the original has never been successfully replicated in the sequels. And Silva s writing is better than Ludlum s.

I have just come back from a half week stay at the Hilton Indian Lakes resort (which is the second time in a month that I have stayed at a golf resort and club and proceeded to spend 9 hours a day in a windowless conference room). On Thursday night, an ex Chicago native wanted to show us the traditional Chicago pizza (which can be delivered, half cooked, and frozen, via Fed-Ex, anywhere in the lower 48). Google Maps to the rescue! One of the attendees had a car, and we piled in and drove to the nearest pizzeria. It was take out only. We headed to the next on the list, again to be met with disappointment; since making the pizza takes the best part of an hour, and we did not want to be standing out in a chilly parking lot while they made out pizza. So, I strongly advocated going to Tapas Valencia instead, since I have never had tapas before. Somewhat to our disappointment, they served tapas only as an appetizer, and had a limited selection; so we ended up ordering one tapas dish (I had beef kabobs with a garlic horseradish sauce and caramelized onions), and my very first paella (paella valencia), with shrimp, mussels, clams, chicken, and veggies. We ate well, and headed back to the hotel. As we parked, and started for the gate, I realized I no longer had my wallet with me so back to the restaurant we went. The waiter had not found the wallet. Nor had the busboy. The owner/hostess suggested perhaps it was in the parking lot? So we all went and combed the parking lot once, twice. At this point I am beginning to think about the consequences I can t get home, because I can t get into the airport, since I have no ID. I have no money, but Judy can t wire the money to me via western union because I have no ID. I need money to buy greyhound tickets to get home on a bus and then there is the cancelling credit cards, etc. Panic city. While I was on my fourth circuit of the parking lot, the owner went back and checked the laundry chute. I had apparently carelessly draped the napkin over my wallet when paying the tab, and walked away and the busboy just grabbed all the napkins, wallet and all, and dumped it down the chute. Judy suggests I carry an alternate form of ID and at least one credit card in a different location than my wallet for future trips. If that was not excitement enough, yesterday, I got on the plane home, uneventfully enough. We took off, and I was dozing comfortably, when there were two loud bags, and the plane juddered and lister to the port. There was a smell of burning rubber, and we stopped gaining altitude. After making a rough about turn with the left wing down, the pilot came on the intercom to say We just lost our left engine, and we are returning to O Hare. We should be in the ground in two minutes . Hearing the in , a guy up front started hyperventilating, and his wife was rubbing his back. My feelings were mostly of exasperation, I had just managed to get myself situated comfortably, and now lord only knows when we would get another aircraft. When we landed, the nervous dude reached over and kissed his wife like he had just escaped the jaws of death. And he asked if any of us knew statistics, and if we were fine now. (I was tempted to state that statistics are not really predictive, but hey). It was all very pretty, with six fire engines rushing over and spraying us with foam and all. When we got off the plane the nervous dude headed straight to some chairs in the terminal, and said his legs would not carry him further. He did make it to the replacement plane later, though. Turns out it was a bird flying into the engine that caused the flameout. Well, at least I have a story to tell, though it delayed getting home by about three hours.

Ian Lance Tailor started a discussion that has in the meantime reached Planet Debian via Miry and Giacomo. The single-threaded memory model is the only sane choice for languages that are as close to the "metal" as C and C++ are. For a multi-threaded model to work, the compiler needs to have intrinsic knowledge of "locking", and it needs to emit the appropriate code around all accesses to variables that cannot be accessed atomically (which also means that signal handling does not work — the signal might arrive in a critical section). Java uses such a model. In the language, there is the "synchronized" keyword, which can be used either as a modifier on a method definition (locking the object the method is called on), or before a block (locking an explicitly specified object). The lock is recursive, so calling another "synchronized" method on the same object works fine, leaving the last one finally unlocks the object. Memory consistency is achieved by flushing the object before unlocking (so accessing an object that another thread may use without locking it is still undefined behaviour — but class authors can avoid that by allowing access only through "synchronized" methods). I doubt we want the same in C/C++. For one, it adds a recursive lock to each instance of a class or struct, whether needed or not, since the compiler cannot rule out that some code might want to use this object as a lock. Also, the object inclusion and inheritance rules are quite different, as Java does not have inclusion, and only allows simple inheritance. Basically, if I were to emulate Java's rules, I'd need a "virtual" base class to provide the lock, which is a lot of extra overhead since every derived class now needs to keep the offset to the most derived class. The other two big show stoppers are the "intrinsic" knowledge of locking that the compiler must have (it needs to know how to embed a recursive lock into an object, which is an operating-system dependent structure as it stores some thread identifier for the current holder of the lock) and that it becomes a lot more difficult to write signal handlers, as you need to avoid any code that might implicitly lock some object (which is true already, but there is no implicit locking). Java can do that, as they have a virtual machine that provides locking primitives and object lookup (so they can keep the lock separate). There is a change to the memory model I'd like to see though: the concept of an I/O buffer that behaves like regular memory (so load/store coalescing/reordering is allowed), but will be flushed before volatile accesses and re-read afterwards (optionally, with finer grained control). This would work for both hardware accesses (where the volatile access triggers some hardware) and for "hosted" environments (where the compiler assumes that system calls perform volatile accesses), and still allow most optimisations like writing in the hardware's natural bus width. If you want to write reliable multi-threaded code with current compilers, there are two simple rules:

1. any data structure shared by multiple threads needs to be marked volatile
2. any access to a shared data structure needs to be guarded by a lock

The accesses to the shared data structure are ordered with regard to the locking functions and cannot be optimized out, which is exactly what you want. The appropriate mental model is that anything that is not declared volatile (or handled by a platform locking primitive) cannot be seen by the other threads.

The search for the ideal mobile text editing device is over. While the price was well over my original budget, we’ve since gone ahead and splurged on two new Eee PCs: one for me, one for my wife. In the end, I think it will be worth it because these systems are capable of far more than just editing text. Now comes the challenging part. Xandros is the default OS and we want Debian on it instead. I have started supplementing the system with packages from Etch and Etch-backports using apt pinning, but already I have noticed some cracks beginning to develop: with pure Xandros, an SD card was automounted when it was inserted. Now it fails. Also, the Network utility no longer launches. I can work around these glitches for now, but it is plain that in the long term this Xandros/Etch hybrid is going to be more grief than it is worth. To that end, enter Debian-eeepc. Building on the work started by timbobsteve and drawing from the collective experience of the Eeeuser.com community we will make a debian-live cd + debian-installer to install Debian (as pure as possible—obviously the kernel is going to be our most contentious issue) on the device. So stay tuned for more articles on that work-in-progress. And how does my new toy shape up for mobile text editing so far? I’m delighted! For starters, this article was drafted on the bus home from work. The keyboard, while small, is still quite usable for touch-typing, the display is crisp and bright, and the size is just perfect for the cramped quarters of a public transit bus seat. But beyond just editing text, I have loaded up the system with all of the tools that go around it: subversion, git, ruby, gcc, meld, etc. I’ll be able to manage a fair amount of development on the bus, with the exception being really large builds that will continue to be done on remote build systems.

Christian Perrier blogs about how he uses public transportation to go to work, how that works well, and how that has positively affected his Debian productivity. Personally, I couldn't agree more. I've graduated from school in 2001; and the only time when I commuted to work by car was when I worked at template, where I had a company car because I had to make customer visits. Today, as an entrepreneur, I do everything by public transportation. It is my intention to, eventually, make sure I have a car because doing customer visits by public transportation isn't easy; but it's not impossible, either; you just need to make sure you're prepared. If I have an appointment at a customer, what I usually do is to go to the de lijn website, of the flemish public transportation company that handles buses and trams; they have a schedule online, and a route planner that allows me to do much of what Google Maps does for cars, but then for public transportation—including trains. If I do that on time (that is, earlier than half an hour or so before the appointment), I hardly ever have problems reaching my destination in time. Of course there are days when the system fails, and I'm stuck in a train station for longer than I'd like; but these are the exception, not the rule, especially outside rush hour. And like Christian mentions, the absense of having to pay attention to the road while commuting is a real bonus, in that it allows you to actually get some work done. Or sleep, if it's been a short night. Or look outside the window, if you have nothing better to do. Or hack. In fact, at DebConf7 in Edinburgh, I had a little discussion with Ian Jackson about how the train provides the perfect environment for hacking: nobody around to disturb you (except, occasionally, people to check your tickets, but you can just put your ticket in plain view all the time and they'll be happy without you getting out of deep hack mode), and the view out the window is just perfect to stay concentrated: no still image to get distracted by, but nothing boring either. We theorized that it'd be nice if you could just go to the train station and state "I need a ticket. The destination isn't important, but I want to be waiting as little as possible and end up here again in about 2 hours". The only problem with that, of course, is that train rides aren't free, and that office rent is much more affordable...

Sheep Farmers Daughter is an old favourite, which I have read lord only knows how many times. Elizabeth Moon has written a gritty, enthralling story of the making of a Paladin. This is the first book of a trilogy, and introduces us to a new universe through the eyes of a young innocent (which is a great device to introduce us to a universe from the viewpoint of someone who is not seeing it through eyes jaundiced by experience). For me, books have always been an escape from the humdrum mundanity of everyday existence. Putting myself in the shoes of a character in the story is the whole point; and this story excels there: it is very believable. Not many people can tell a tale that comes alive, and Ms Moon is one of them. An ex-marine, much of the detail of the military life of Paks has been drawn from Moon s own military experience. More than just that, the world is richly drawn, and interesting. I read this book in a hotel room in Chicago, since, as usual, there was nothing really interesting on TV, and I don t get the whole bar scene.

python-application … is what I'm in love with since a few days. Although I had no real use for it when I packaged it, I'm more than happy to have it now. It comes with the following features:

• UNIX process management (forking, signal handling, pid file creation)
• A very simple to use interface to handle configuration files.
• An extensible system logger for console and/or syslog.
• Miscellaneous utilities and helpers.
• Memory troubleshooting and execution timing.

Have a look at the examples in /usr/share/doc/python-application/examples to see how simple common things become if you use python-application for them, or just read trough the code, it's well commented and easy to understand.

After Argentina-France on the first day, that one was planned to be one of the few big matches of first round. Of course, after the game won by South Africa (36-0), that seems pretty silly to say... The Springboks were definitely better than England, in all parts of the game. What stunned me, particularly after watching South Africa live , is their complete control on the game, which is a great improvement over their match against Samoa. South Africa scored three tries all of them great examples or organized attacks by the rear lines. Two tries for JP Pietersen, after 3 by Habana on first game: the South-African wing players rock. Despite this, the player of the game was definitely Jason Du Preez, the scrum half (hope this is the correct term in English) who organised all attacks from RSA. England was missing too many key players (several injured) to be able to be a menace for South Africa. They never were really dangerous, except maybe when the magic Jason Robinson has the ball in his hands (what a player!). I was particularly disappointed by their center back players, and even more particularly by Farrel. Ditto for Andy Gomarsall as scrum half. So, South Africa is now probably qualified with two quite easy games against USA and Tonga. England will have to fight to qualify and noone can tell if Samoa or Tonga can surprise them. Watching Samoa-Tonga on Sunday will be interesting and Samoa-England or Tonga-England are already key matches. A great rugby week-end is about to begin, again. Today, Wales-Australia is the match of the day, for sure, with wales playing home (some matches are not in France, but in Cardiff and Edinburgh). New Zealand-Portugal will be...interesting, though the only incertainty is the number of scored tries. And finally, Ireland-Georgia is of some interest for the French. Tomorrow, France could have hard times against Namibia. Of course, the challenge here is winning *and* scoring the bonus point. That match is 5 days before a key France-Ireland, so the challenge is also not wasting too much energy. Of course, tomorrow's top match for me is Samoa-Tonga while I whileprobably skip Fidji-Canada (too bad, I haven't seen those playing yet). BTW, if someone has a recording of the most intense match as of now (Japan-Fidji), I'd be delighted. Rugbystiquement v tre,

Up until recently, I’ve been supporting John Connolly as candidate for city council. In addition to the recent concerns about anonymous mailings, I’m now getting hammered by his auto-dialer. I’ve received four prerecorded phone calls today and yesterday reminding me to vote for Connolly. (By contrast, I got one real human phone call from a Michael Flaherty supporter.) Now with a few hours left to vote, I’m on the fence. I wish this guy would leave me alone. In the meantime, a WBUR interview claims that Felix Arroyo is the most vulnerable candidate (something I’ve never heard elsewhere). If that’s the case, I’m tempted to just bullet-vote for Felix. I hope this last-minute vacillation doesn’t make me an idgit voter. 5pm update: three more automated phone calls! One for Murphy from Consalvo; and two for Connolly (one from Tobin, the other I forget). They’re pulling out all the stops, only at the last minute. I wonder who the dismal weather (and poor turnout) favors. 7pm update: three or four more calls, now including real humans! My wife figured out part of the reason we’re getting so many — separate calls each for her and me, even though it’s all on the same phone number. In any case, we’ve all voted now. I did end up including Connolly in my votes despite these over-the-top tactics. I guess it shows, at least, that he’s well organized. Technorati Tags: Boston, City Council, Felix Arroyo, John Connolly

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One of the things I have been tasked to do in my current assignment is to create a dashboard of the status of various software components created by different contractors (participating companies) in the program. These software components are built by different development groups, utilizing unlike toolsets, languages and tools though I was able to get an agreement on the VCS (subversion yuck). Specifically, one should be able to tell which components pass pre-build checks, compile, can be installed, and pass unit and functional tests. There should be nightly builds, as well as builds whenever someone checks in code on the release branches. And, of course, the dashboard should be HTTP accessible, and be bright and, of course, shiny. My requirements were that since the whole project is not Java, there should be no dependencies on maven or ant or eclipse projects (or make, for that matter); that it should be able to do builds on multiple machines (license constraints restrict some software to Solaris or Windows), not suck up too much time from my real job (this is a service, if it is working well, you get no credit, if it fails, you are on the hot seat). And it should be something I can easily debug, so no esoteric languages (APL, haskell and Python :P) So, using continuous integration as a google search term, I found the comparison matrix at Damage Control I looked at anthill, and cruisecontrol, and the major drawback people seemed to think it had was that configuration was done by editing an XML file, as opposed to a (by some accounts, buggy) UI is not much of a factor for me. (See this). I also like the fact that it seems easier to plug in other components. I am uncomfortable with free software that has a commercial sibling; we have been burned once by UML software with those characteristics. Cruisecontrol, Damagecontrol, Tinderbox1 & tinderbox2, Continuum, and Sin match. I tried to see the demo versions; Sin s link led me to a site selling Myrtle Beach condo s, never a good sign. Continuum and Damagecontrol were currently down, so I could not do an evaluation. So, here are the ones I could get to with working demo pages: http://cclive.thoughtworks.com/ and http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/showbuilds.cgi?tree=SeaMonkey Cruisecontrol takes full control, checking things out of source control; and running the tests; which implies that all the software does build and run on the same machine this is not the case for me. Also, CC needs to publish the results/logs in XML; which seems to be a good fit for the java world; but might be a constraint for my use case. I like the tinderbox dashboard better, based on the information presented; but that is not a major issue. It also might be better suited for a distributed, open source development model; cruisecontrol seems slightly more centralized more on this below. cruisecontrol is certainly more mature; and we have some experience with it. Tinderbox has a client/server model, and communicates via EMAIL to a number of machines where the actual build/testing is done. This seems good. Then there is flamebox nice dashboard, derivative of tinderbox2; and seems pretty simple (perhaps too simple); and easily modifiable. However, none of these seemed right. There was too much of an assumption of a build and test model and few of them seemed to be a good fit for a distributed, Grid-based software development; so I continued looking. . I finally decided CABIE

Continuous Automated Build and Integration Environment. Cabie is a multi-platform, multi-cm client/server based application providing both command line and web-based access to real time build monitoring and execution information. Cabie builds jobs based upon configuration information stored in MySQL and will support virtually any build that can be called from the command line. Cabie provides a centralized collection point for all builds providing web based dynamic access, the collector is SQL based and provides information for all projects under Cabie s control. Cabie can be integrated with bug tracking systems and test systems with some effort depending on the complexity of those systems. With the idea in mind that most companies create build systems from the ground up, Cabie was designed to not have to re-write scripted builds but instead to integrate existing build scripts into a smart collector. Cabie provides rapid email notification and RSS integration to quickly handle build issues. Cabie provides the ability to run builds in parallel, series, to poll jobs or to allow the use of scripted nightly builds. Cabie is perfect for agile development in an environment that requires multiple languages and tools. Cabie supports Perforce, Subversion and CVS. The use of a backend broker allows anyone with perl skills to write support for additional CM systems.

The nice people at Yo Linux have provided a Tutorial for the process. I did have to make some changes to get things working (mostly in line with the changes recommended in the tutorial, but not exactly the same. I have sent the patches upstream, but upstream is not sure how much of it they can use, since there has been major progress since the last release. The upstream is nice and responsive, and have added support in unreleased versions for using virtual machines to run the builds in (they use that to do the solaris/windows builds), improved the web interface using (shudder) PHP, and and all kinds of neat stuff.