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One Week Left

Six months ago we were unpacking in Exeter, and in less than seven days, we’ll be packing again. We’re leaving Exeter and Devon, and after the 15th of August we’ll be settled in Reading (Berkshire).

Our reasons to move are professional, because I have a deal with my current company to start doing business stuff in UK, and that means being near of London.

Moreover Alex is looking for a school for the next course, and for some reason, Exeter isn’t the best place to find a job. May be it’s the good weather or the high quality of life, I really don’t know.

In those six months I’ve tried to get involved with the Linux local communities in the area, going to D&C GNU/Linux User Group meetings (although we just went once, because one hour train isn’t what I call local) and E-Space meetings (in Exeter, but unfortunately not really Linux/OSS related); but I somewhat failed.

Moreover I’ve lost track with the Fedora ambassadors list, mainly because it isn’t that easy to start in a new country, and when things started to stabilize, the ambassador list got lost in my TODO list. Shame on me.

Anyway, not everything’s lost. I’ve been planing different initiatives that, because I ran out of time, I won’t start in Exeter, but hopefully I’ll manage to run in Reading.

One of them will be based in the public library. From my experience in Exeter (and I believe this applies to all public libraries in Devon), they have some spaces where you can put non-profit advertisements, and it can be a good start for a Fedora/OSS information point.

I can be in the library for one hour every week (Saturday morning, for example), and give lightning talks about Fedora and OSS to anyone interested, and it could even be a good start point for a release party for the upcoming Fedora 14.

So, I want to catch up with the list and my local ambassador activities, and get in touch with the local users group in Reading (SCLUG). I really want it to work this time, because I’m going to stay in Reading for a long while.

Tags: Fedora FOSS Community Reading Exeter Ambassador
August 07, 2010
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"I actually quite like the model of a free* version of software and then a paid-for pro version with extra coolness. It’s a model that works well. But when you combine that with Open Source, it becomes a little more dubious (maybe) because there’s the possibility that you use the name of Open Source but create a system where in practice, people can’t meaningfully participate and it’s primarily a hook into the paid version."

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From Slashdot comment on ‘SugarCRM 6 Released, But Is It Open Source?’ (* I think he meant free as in free beer).

Very insightful and worth reading comment that sums up all the downsides I’ve seen in open core based products.

You may argue that the open core model helps the company use an open source development model while keep making money in the old-fashioned-way just selling licenses, but it won’t happen: there won’t be an open source community, because it would be enemy of your business model (which is selling licenses!).

Tags: open core SugarCRM open source community
July 14, 2010
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"Why would StarDivision want to draw attention to their traditional feature gap, by making noise about shipping multimedia support four+ years late? while simultaneously alienating valuable contributors and continuing to tear down its developer community (that would love to help close OO.o’s feature gap)?"

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From OpenOffice & GStreamer, by Michael Meeks.

Very good question, and a worth reading post.

I really enjoyed the quality argument part, because you know how pleased I am with OpenOffice.org’s quality (just in case: I’m being sarcastic).

Tags: OpenOffice.org GStreamer multimedia community Open Source
July 08, 2010
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"No. This is not a democracy. Good feedback, good data, are welcome. But we are not voting on design decisions."

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From Mark Shuttleworth comment on bug #532633 (about the position of the windows buttons in Ubuntu Lucid).

These are the shocking words of the comment, quoted here to attract your attention, but please: read the comment entirely. Why? Because I think it enlightens some points that are widely misunderstood in the way the Ubuntu community works.

Ubuntu community is open, but being an open community is not the same as saying everybody has a say in everything. So it’s open to a certain level of openness.

I’m not saying that this is wrong, just it’s better to be clear about it.

Tags: Ubuntu community Lucid community management
March 19, 2010
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"So, what happened with the Android kernel code that caused it to be deleted? In short, no one cared about the code, so it was removed. As I’ve stated before, code in the staging tree needs to be worked on to be merged to the main kernel tree, or it will be deleted."

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From Android and the Linux kernel community, by Greg Kroah-Hartman.

The whole post it’s worth reading, lemme quote another sentence Google shows no sign of working to get their code upstream anymore. That’s important, IMHO.

It reminds me the complaint on the way Google is developing another open source project: Chrome (er, Chromium browser); they use several open source libraries, including them in the source tree, and forking existing FOSS code bits for Chromium like a rabbit makes babies: frequently, and usually, without much thought.

So if you want, you can find a pattern here. Google isn’t playing the open source community rules, they’re just using (abusing?) open source. Come on Google, give something back!

Tags: Google Open Source Linux Chromium fork community
February 03, 2010
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Moving to Exeter, Devon (UK)

It’s been two years since I moved to Valencia from Bilbao. That was a very important change for me, not only because Valencia is geographically closer to my hometown but because I was heading a new and challenging project.

Now it’s time to change again, because the join of two different factors:

  • Alex is going to stay in UK until the end of 2011, and his next destination in the midst of Februrary will be Exeter.
  • I’m getting old, really :), and I feel that this is the moment to go abroad for a season, or never.

So I’m moving. I’ll end my work here in January, and I’ll start telecommuting from Exeter for my actual company ASAP.

Overall I think this 2 years story in Valencia has been a very enriching experience profesionally, I’ve made friends, and I’ve met Alex (important!).

It would be impossible to summarize here 2 years, so let’s focus in the immediate problems: we’re looking for a house to live in Exeter!

I’m looking also for any kind of FOSS activity in the area (btw, I won’t be Fedora Ambassador in Spain for a long while), so dear lazy web, feel free to post any comment about it. Thank you!

Tags: Exeter Valencia Fedora Ambassador FOSS Community
January 12, 2010
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Weird Things on Fedora 12

Not a big deal because both things can be fixed (please notice I don’t mean these are broken features, but restore the behaviour I’m used to and I like).

There are two things I’d like to mention here:

  • I bet the people behind those changes are doing them with good will, with a neat rationale, and willing to make Gnome/Fedora better. The overreactions from some people are not.
  • Those are defaults. You don’t need to stick to them, and everybody has an opinion about what looks better or what’s more secure.

I have an opinion too. Just stay calm and let others know what you think, respecting the hard work of other people, even when you’re convinced that they are wrong.

In other news, Fedora 12 it’s a rocking release. The upgrade didn’t work as smooth as I would have expected, but I survived heh.

Update: the authentication stuff will be fixed today, please read PackageKit policy: background and plans.

Notice that I would have liked the idea if any local logged user was any local and trusted logged user. I mean, it’s like using sudo for PackageKit, but without the user entering his password twice.

Tags: Fedora Fedora 12 open source community icons PackageKit policy
November 19, 2009
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Get to know a Fedora Ambassador or User

My two cents, following MooDoo’s meme.

Name: Juanjo Martínez
IRC Nick: reidrac (although I’m a casual user)
Channels: #fedora, #fedora-es, #fedora-qa, #centos
Location: Valencia, Spain

For further contact info, check my wiki page, and if you’re in my area, may be we can meet in next Fedora release party in Valencia.

PS: the photo was taken yesterday in the British Museum (we were in a break), and I’ll still be in London tomorrow morning (without plans!).

Update: I’ve connected to IRC, because I’m on holidays and I have some extra free time.

After joining #centos I’ve noticed one thing: every time I’ve joined this channel there’s an hostile set of users that say what you can discuss there, and even when answering questions… there’s too much RTFM.

I don’t feel like spending my free time to help providing support in this kind of channel, do you?

Tags: Fedora Community Meme
November 09, 2009
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Open vs. open vs. open: a model for public collaboration

Very worth reading, and I would like to add some comments from the organization/enterprise point of view.

I agree that most enterprise based projects stop in Open (available) model, and some of them even fail on that (old link but current, IMHO). Because of this, they never get full advantage of a open source development model. I call this we release code because it’s cool (I know it’s reducing too much, but open source nowadays it’s not only a development model but a marketing strategy).

This kind of openness is very often confused with the Open (for participation), and obviously it doesn’t work as expected (oh!).

I mean, just because it’s available it’s not enough to make people participate, because releasing the source code it’s only the first step to make a community grow. It can grow without help, but you won’t get all you could from it. Sometimes you’ll get free support, sometimes you’ll get bug reporting, and it’s nice when it works.

I’m not a community manager or something like that, but I don’t understand when a company wants to open a project just because the open source flag it’s cool, and after that they don’t care enough to build a community around this release.

Zimmerman explains a third model that, in my opinion, it’s the most difficult to achieve in the enterprise based project: Open (transparent). That model may lead to a a community driven project, and it’s the ultimate kung-fu of public collaboration, but it doesn’t fit very well in a enterprise driven project. In fact, some big projects have suffered this.

My two cents.

Tags: Community models collaboration openness open source
October 26, 2009
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Photo by Kiko Alario, some rights reserved. Fedora Community Talk at BarCamp Valencia Yesterday I gave my talk at the first edition of BarCamp Valencia (you can check the slides, in Spanish, and there’s a pool of photos in Flickr). The event was a great success: we had 68 attendees, not bad for Valencia (seems that it’s hard to gather people for this kind of events). I was a member of the organization, and we had one room dedicated exclusively to Open Source talks (the other one was bigger, and just for web 2.0 and social media stuff) . My talk was oriented to making a lightweight introduction to what’s a Linux distribution and hence what’s Fedora, followed by a brief description of how Fedora community is organized and how easy is to join a sub-project or group to start collaborating. I described the different user roles and skills, what is mentoring, and the main tools (FAS, wiki, mailing list, and the brand new community website). When I finished my talk, in the subsequent questions/debate, I realized that most of the attendees where quite amazed by how well organized is the Fedora community. They had a previous picture of Fedora being the toy of Red Hat, and I think they were sort of reluctant about Fedora because of it. I’m not sure if I know where this picture comes from, but despite this, I awaken their curiosity about our distribution (well, unless the Debian guy in the room, but I can live with that). And then the question popped up: How Fedora differs from Ubuntu? You know I’m the kind of guy that thinks any software it’s OK as long as it is free software, and I don’t like the useless discussions about branding in open source projects (Fedora vs Ubuntu, Gnome vs KDE, and the like). So my answer was easy. You know, both are distributors and, to some extent, they’re distributing the same software. In fact I updated my Fedora right there, and the attendees agreed that the GUI program it’s almost the same that Ubuntu’s. You know that’s not 100% accurate, but I think they got the message about what’s a distribution. So far, so good. I liked the experience. That was my first event as Fedora ambassador, and I survived! Yay! Update: if you want, you can download the ODP of the talk.

Photo by Kiko Alario, some rights reserved.

Fedora Community Talk at BarCamp Valencia

Yesterday I gave my talk at the first edition of BarCamp Valencia (you can check the slides, in Spanish, and there’s a pool of photos in Flickr).

The event was a great success: we had 68 attendees, not bad for Valencia (seems that it’s hard to gather people for this kind of events). I was a member of the organization, and we had one room dedicated exclusively to Open Source talks (the other one was bigger, and just for web 2.0 and social media stuff) .

My talk was oriented to making a lightweight introduction to what’s a Linux distribution and hence what’s Fedora, followed by a brief description of how Fedora community is organized and how easy is to join a sub-project or group to start collaborating.

I described the different user roles and skills, what is mentoring, and the main tools (FAS, wiki, mailing list, and the brand new community website).

When I finished my talk, in the subsequent questions/debate, I realized that most of the attendees where quite amazed by how well organized is the Fedora community. They had a previous picture of Fedora being the toy of Red Hat, and I think they were sort of reluctant about Fedora because of it.

I’m not sure if I know where this picture comes from, but despite this, I awaken their curiosity about our distribution (well, unless the Debian guy in the room, but I can live with that).

And then the question popped up: How Fedora differs from Ubuntu?

You know I’m the kind of guy that thinks any software it’s OK as long as it is free software, and I don’t like the useless discussions about branding in open source projects (Fedora vs Ubuntu, Gnome vs KDE, and the like).

So my answer was easy. You know, both are distributors and, to some extent, they’re distributing the same software.

In fact I updated my Fedora right there, and the attendees agreed that the GUI program it’s almost the same that Ubuntu’s. You know that’s not 100% accurate, but I think they got the message about what’s a distribution.

So far, so good. I liked the experience. That was my first event as Fedora ambassador, and I survived! Yay!

Update: if you want, you can download the ODP of the talk.

Tags: Fedora Talk Community BarCamp BarCampValencia Ambassador
July 26, 2009
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About

portrait

"Leaves are fallin' all around, time I was on my way. Thanks to you, I'm much obliged for such a pleasant stay but now it's time for me to go, the autumn moon lights my way."


I like to talk about Open Source, Free Software, Music and Life.

Contact: reidrac *at* usebox dot net

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