The 2nd Shogi Denousen has began. This is the first cut-throat match between top-notch professional Shogi players(yes, there are such people) and the best crop of computer Shogi engines, 5 on 5. Shogi is a distant cousin of Chess. Unlike Chess, you may re-use captured pieces anywhere on the board anytime. It brings quite lot of additional complexities, and even after the defeat of Garry Kasparov in 1997, many considered that (at least top-level) human Shogi players have a great lead on computer Shogi engines. The situation had changed dramatically when a newcomer Shogi engine called Bonanza, developed by a Japanese chemist Kunihito Hoki, won the 16th World Computer Shogi Championship. Bonanza appeared totally out of the blue Hoki incorporated some new ideas developed in the field of computer Chess, and Bonanza beated existing engines with no mercy. Bonanza could even corner some professional Shogi players in 2007. Later Hoki released(but not strictly open-source) the source code of Bonanza, and the standard of computer Shogi has risen considerably since then. Finally, in the 1st Denousen last year, Kunio Yonenaga, long retired but possibly one of the greatest Shogi players in the history, was defeated by Bonkras, a clustered version of Bonanza developed by Eiki Itoh of Fujitsu. The first match of Denousen this year was held yesterday between Kouru Abe, an 18-year old prodigy from Aomori, and Shueso, which finished in 5th at the 22nd World Computer Shogi Championship. I hoped a close game, but Abe could beat Shueso quite easily. Shueso somehow could not bring its ability into full play, to my great disappointment. Next weekend(Mar. 30), we will see the second match between Shinichi Sato, another young pro, and Ponanza, developed based on Bonanza by Issei Yamamoto of The University of Tokyo. BTW, Debian already has the package of GPS Shogi, which won the 22nd World Computer Shogi Championship and considered by many the strongest Shogi engine available now (there is also gnushogi in Debian, but gnushogi is quite weak). You may have fun with

    $ xshogi -fsp gpsshogi

Unfortunately, we don t have good modern GUI for Shogi yet

The following is what I usually do when I want to debianize a Haskell stuff from Hackage. This is a personal recipe, by no means official procedure or such. I may be wrong, badly at that.

1. Check pkg-haskell repository whether your intended package already exists or not. Somebody might work on it already.
2. Find the webpage of your intended package at HackageDB, then download Cabal source package . Untar it. The tarball filename should be changed to fit the Debian source package convention. For example, if the original name is something like foobar-1.0.tar.gz, then it should be haskell-foobar_1.0.orig.tar.gz.
3. File ITP. reportbug is your friend.
4. Run cabal-debian in untared dir:

    $ cabal-debian --debianize --quilt
   

   We do have the upstream tarball, so use quilt. See http://wiki.debian.org/UsingQuilt. It might give you warnings about changelog. debian/changelog doesn t exist yet, so ignore it.
5. Now read http://wiki.debian.org/Haskell/CollabMaint/Processes and http://wiki.debian.org/Haskell/CollabMaint/PackageTemplate carefully. Then do things as they say. These two are short, but well-written instructions. Edit the generated debian/control appropriately. Do not forget to make your debian/copyright machine-friendly. See http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/.
6. Test whether your package is flawless and really buildable. Do lintian. Use pbuilder.

    $ lintian haskell-foobar_1.0-1_amd64.changes
    # pbuilder --build haskell-foobar_1.0-1.dsc
   

7. Read http://wiki.debian.org/Haskell/CollabMaint/DarcsBasic. Darcs is quite easy to use, and you don t have to be the master of Darcs to merely debianize things anyway. Basically, what I usually do is

    $ darcs record -a; darcs push --repo=debian
   

   Darcs is well-suited to Haskell-related development, but seems you can use Git, too.
8. Change debian/changelog. UNRELEASED in the first line should be unstable or experimental . Do not forget to close ITP.
9. Finally, do

    $ debuild -tc; debcommit -r; debrelease; darcs push --repo=debian
   

   That s all folks!

The recent development of the situation in China or Iran reminds me of the importance AND fragility of the freedom of speech on the Net. As the influence by the Net on the general public grows, attempts by governments to control and tame the Net will be aggravated, in a more sophisticated, crowd-pleasing way (for example, by claiming a need for Internet Driver's Licenses). How can we deal with this? Freenet can be a key to solve this problem. After almost 10 years of continuous development, it seems that it finally became an usable product(I don't say it's perfect -- there are still a lot of things to be done, especially around its UI). Freenet has its own dark side and I don't expect that it will become the standard way of the communication over the Net, but we always need the last resort to enjoy our everyday life. Unfortunately, most of Freenet-related information on the Net, especially about the installation method on GNU/Linux, are severely outdated. Freenet is a Free Software(GPL'd), and Debian did have a .deb package for Freenet long long ago, but it's basically gone and defunct. Since the pace of current development is quite fast and sometimes the backward compatibility is broken, it's not really a good idea to ITP and upload Freenet to the main Debian archive for now. Thus, I cooked up up-to-date .deb packages of the modern Freenet and publish them by myself on people.debian.org. I tried to follow the Debian packaging convention as much as possible, so at least they can be installed & uninstalled cleanly ;-) Also, Build-Deps are carefully set, so you may rebuild it without much hassle if you need. Add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/freenet ./
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/freenet ./

Then run "apt-get update" and install "fred" package. This is basically all you need(you might also want jSite or FMS). Then take a look at /usr/share/doc/fred/README.Debian. You might need to copy seednodes.fref into /var/lib/fred if you want to use Freenet's Opennet mode for the first time. After that, access http://localhost:8888 and follow the instructions. Recommended readings on the modern Freenet:

• The Wikipedia entry for Freenet is surprisingly rich and informative(and not so obsoleted).
• The dark side of the internet, a recent featured story on Freenet from The Guardian. As the title indicates, it inclines to emphasisize the negative side of Freenet, but it's a good read anyway.
• The Gurdian writes about Freenet, a quite well-balanced response to The Gurdian article by Ian Clarke, the originator of Freenet.

Enjoy.

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Finally I uploaded the new ghostscript package. Now CJK languages are fully supported, so if you install the needed CJK TrueType font packages(suggested by gs-cjk-resource) along with it, you should be able to see the following examples properly:

• Chinese (Traditional) sample PS
• Chinese (Simplified) sample PS
• Japanese sample PS
• Korean sample PS

Of course, you can use ps2pdf etc. too. Also, I prepared the current SVN snapshot package w/ CJK support. Try it if you wish. The apt-line is as follows:

deb http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/ghostscript/ ./
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/ghostscript/ ./

I still need the inputs from Chinese or Korean users. Please tell me if you experience any problem, or your idea for improvement.

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Finally I uploaded the new ghostscript package. If you install needed CJK TrueType font packages(suggested by gs-cjk-resource) along with it, you should be able to see the following examples properly:

• Chinese (Traditional) sample PS
• Chinese (Simplified) sample PS
• Japanese sample PS
• Korean sample PS

Of course, you can use ps2pdf etc. too.

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Adobe CMaps for CJK CID-keyed fonts (cmap-adobe-cns1 for Adobe-CNS1-5, cmap-adobe-gb1 for Adobe-GB1-5, cmap-adobe-japan1 for Adobe-Japan1-6, cmap-adobe-japan2 for the obsoleted Adobe-Japan2-0 and cmap-adobe-korea1 for Adobe-Korea1-2) have been updated to the latest versions from Adobe. I don't (or actually can't) test those for Chinese or Korean enough, so please send bug reports if you have any problem.

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I've released new upstream release, but I forgot to upload the Debian package. It's kinda weird that I'm now the Debian maintainer AND the upstream author... Seems the gnuwin32 project already made A2Ps for Windows 4.14. Thanks! Also, please send me any patches if you have.

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Once again Techdirt carries an excellent summary for the situation we Japanese are currently facing. Also I recommend the original article Techdirt refers.

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I went to Hatsu-moude. Hatsu-moude means New Year's visit to a shrine. I went to a shrine nearby my home. Pretty much crowded. This was (and still is) basically a Shinto ritual, but most people don't care and simply want some fun. I'm not really a Shintoist too, but I love that festive atmosphere.

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Dr. Hideaki Shirata is one of the foremost scholars on Japanese copyright law, and he is also a member of the advisory board for our organization, MIAU. One of his hobbies is disguise, or so-called "Cosplay". He is prudent enough not to dress himself like Sailor Moon, and this time he chose to become a Samurai. The result is hilarious. Other great pictures can be found in his profile page, if you could read Japanese.

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I just came back from Taiwan(went there basically for TWDebCamp2007) tonight. I met lots of great people down there and had lots of fun. I'll write about it later. Theoretically speaking, I was supposed to have decent Internet connections everywhere, but in most cases it didn't work or I was away from it anyway(and we had busy schedule!). So now I'm kinda catching up things quickly, especially what happend on the Net lately. Anywise, it would be a good time to look back 2007 and foresee 2008. Personally, these things were significant for me in 2007:

Finished GPLv3

GPLv3 is finally out, and I'm proud I took part in the revision process. Also I could manage to finish my Japanese translation of GPLv3/LGPLv3. Now my translations are being reviewed by lawyers and other legal professionals, so it will be more sophisticated soon.

Establishing MIAU

As I wrote before, we founded a little organization called MIAU, in hope of becoming a Japanese version of EFF. At the copyright war front in Japan, we are partly losing the battle since the Japanese government essentially ignored our 1800+ unique public comments and seems dare to go the wrong direction somehow. However, we are not going to give up easily -- next year, we will sophisticate our tactics and try to get more people involved. Chris Salzberg wrote up a series of great articles on these or related issues in English, and also submitted his story to Slashdot.

Joined Wikimania 2007

This was also a great fun in Taiwan. I gave a talk at there and also met many great people.

Released GNU a2ps 4.14

Well, this is far less significant, but the new release is now out. I hacked up this release in my hotel room just before I left, so may contain stupid bugs. anyway, as usual, enjoy.

So, now we seem to be in 2008 now. Happy New Year or whatever. I'm gonna do the following this year, at least:

Finish my PhD thesis

This will be the highest priority, of course. I'm planning to make it be a comprehensive study on FLOSS from management/organizational theorists' view. Will contain some math. Maybe not.

Finish my book

I'm still writing a book on Open Source licensing. This was supposed to be done within 2007, so it's long overdue now.

Finish translations

I'm still translating Peter Seibel's great book Practical Common Lisp into Japanese. Also, I guess I should update my Japanese translations of www.gnu.org.

Reduce weight

I'm obviously overweight. I'm gonna go to swim, cycling, or even jogging, and do my best not to eat too much. I'm serious!

Anyway, again I'd say Happy New Year to all, and enjoy your life.

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Some of you might notice that I've been somewhat inactive as a Debian developer or hacker in general for a while. There were several reasons, but at least one of my free-time-suckers these days has been MIAU (Movements for the Internet Active Users). I'm one of the founders, and recently we held the kick-off press conference and are steadily gaining supporters. Oh yeah, we know this acronym is quite awkward...we simply love that sound (in case you don't get, see our symbol mark). Our organization is intended to be a Japanese counterpart of EFF or ORG, and possibly includes some elements of what Prof. Lessig & Co. are doing in the U.S. We would like to defend our freedom and build/preserve the nurturing environment for innovation, especially in the Net. We would also like to be a political voice for Japanese Internet users. Currently we are focusing to fight with (IMHO) ill-conceived Japanese copyright "reform"s, such as extending the copyright term to 70 years or making downloading (in a sense) questionably-uploaded materials (like BitTorrent downloads) illegal. In case you want to know what's going on in the Japanese copyright war front now, I recommend this recently-published Techdirt article: Japan Is The Latest Country To Explore Copyright Term Extension. Unfortunately, for the time being, most of the MIAU Web contents are available only in Japanese. Yes, *I* got to translate the MIAU articles into English but need some more time...and I should admit MIAU as an organization is still tottering in many aspects. I'm not sure how we can gain greater momentum. If you have some experience to run this kind of initiative in your countries, please share your experience with us.

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So, brand-new packages are now in the NEW queue. Sorry it took soooo long time(my life has been hectic these days). I guess it might take another long time to make them entered into the archive, so I give you some apt-line:

deb http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/ghostscript/ ./
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/ghostscript/ ./

Tell me if something goes wrong in the process of transition. One of the reason I was reluctant to upload them (while Ubuntu has already did almost 2 month ago) was, the CJKV support in GPL Ghostscript 8.60 is notably regressed from the level of ESP Ghostscript 8.15.1. Seems Till Kamppeter once merged some key CJKV patches into the mainline SVN repository, but later they were revoked. Until recently, I didn't realize why Till used a rather peculiar old SVN snapshot 8187 for Ubuntu (the current SVN revision is something like 8249), but now it's clear for me. I could choose to apply those revoked patches to the 8.60 source by myself, but as you might know I'm a lazy bastard, so I simply follow the Ubuntu path, with some Debian-specific tweaks. Well, let's hope this issue will be fixed before the official 8.61 is released...or I'll try, hopefully.

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Kevin Shanahan asked me to provide gs-gpl package based on the bleeding edge Subversion snapshot. Some of you might want it for your own enjoyment, too. At least I wanted it, since the merger of gs-esp/gs-gpl is now going on in the upstream (Kudos to Till Kampetter). So here it is. Add the following to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/gs-gpl ./
deb-src http://people.debian.org/~mhatta/debian/gs-gpl ./

Note that this is really FOR TESTING PURPOSE ONLY, and you should use this with caution. Or, you might waste not only your precious time but also equally precious inks and papers ;-) Needless to say, do not report any bugs to the Debian BTS. Also, I'll use this repositry to test the reorganization of Debian Ghostscript packages. Currently I plan to divide the current sumo gs-gpl package into several subpackages (like gs-gpl-x, gs-gpl-doc, libgs and so on). So, maybe I'll blow up and some dependency tangling or such will happen. You are warned.

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ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/a2ps/a2ps-4.13c-rc5.tar.gz

Yet another RC release. I think now it builds on *BSD (including MacOS X) nicely. Enjoy.

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libgucharmap4 is gone, so I rebuilt this to link with newer libgucharmap6. It was a straight rebuild. I guess I should investigate other bugs, but don't have enough time...

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GNU sysadmins gave me permission some days ago, so I uploaded my work to alpha.gnu.org for the first time. You can obtain it from:

ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/a2ps/a2ps-4.13c-rc4.tar.gz

I uploaded new Debian a2ps package to ftp-master, too. Let's see what buildds are gonna say... BTW, it seems Gentoo people have already "released" 4.13c (for example, look here) somehow. Hmm...I might have to number the new one as 4.14.

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Jazz pianist/composer extraordinaire Andrew Hill died yesterday. He was 75 years old. I love his music. I even gave a lecture on his music several years ago. I have a great regard for someone who follows his own logic, challenges the mainstream mode AND achieve artistic excellence. In many cases, so-called "avan-garde" are hard trying to do things different, but their results are not impressive aesthetically. Hill achieved both. And boy, he swang hard when he wanted. I'll miss him.

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