If anybody can help me get my touchscreen working in Mint9 again, I would be eternally grateful!

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/dude-youre-35-year-old-with-neck-beard.html

I read the above article with some interest on the day it was published. To Benjamin’s credit, he’s not only apologised http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/i-said-few-things-wrong-lets-move-on.html , I think he can see what was wrong. That is a step forward from other spats I can recall in the Open Source and Linux community.

It reminds me of various arguments about Mono, Lefty Buttons, Emacs vs Vi etcetera ad nauseum.

Unbelieveably, I think we can learn something from politics here. Political parties have a tool they use to refine their arguments which could be a lesson to us. The tool is a “Position Paper”. Basically, they get their best people to construct the argument from the opposing point of view. The aim being to try to understand the other side’s argument better. They then use the position paper to test whether their proposals might stand up to opposition.

I’ve always believed that one of the greatest strengths of Linux and Open Source is that there are so many competing elements of the community. However, a downside to that is the frequent factionism and bruising way we debate issues.

My suggestion comes from deep within my Hippie sensibility. Nonetheless, I think the thought is valid. Why think of of distros as teams, or territories or tribes? Instead why not think of Distros and Projects as Position Papers?  Wouldn’t that be a more productive way to approach disparities of opinion?ey

Unless we learn to do something like that, then what we’re doing is ultimately pointless. While I’m a lifelong Atheist, I can see that one of the central beliefs of Islam has lot of value. Their teaching is that it’s not enough to convert non-believers to Islam. It is as important that if somebody converts to Islam, it must be of their own free will and because they have chosen the faith because they have seen the benefits if living as a good Muslim. I’m not suggesting that the consequences of poor communication in Open Source will be radicalised geeks strapping themselves to servers and blowing themselves up. But I am suggesting that we learn not be so decisive and partrician in our debates.

Essentially, my thought is this. We as individuals within a community have got to be able to lose an argument with some grace. If we don’t, the progressive evolution we all crave from our software communities will stall. And worse still, we won’t be able to enjoy the fight!

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

voice_162ed91

I got a really weird wrong number the other day – catch a listen…

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

I’m peeved. I saved up some money so that I could treat myself to something nice during the week I took a week off. I finally decided to get an Archos 5 ( http://www.archos.com/products/imt/archos_5it/hdmulti.html ) Expansive, but then I work for it!

I placed an order with a company called PCBuyIT ( http://www.pcbuyit.co.uk ). They had a good price on it and had the exact model I was looking for. They seem to recommend Google Checkout. You can place payment by credit card directly with them. But for some reason I thought “why not place the order through Google?”. I think it was because I like the work Google do with supporting Open Source. Whatever, there was some brand loyalty.

It turns out that using Google Checkout was a big mistake. Everything suggested on the website that If I placed my order, I’d get my goods today. WRONG! What neither Google Checkout nor PCBuyIT don’t tell you, is that for reasons they don’t mention, it can take up to 24 hours for them to clear your payment. And this happened to me.

So, it’s now Friday, the last working day of my Holiday. I only found out about the delay this morning when I was basically expecting to receive my goods. I phoned PCBuyit this morning. Their attitude was pretty much that now they have my money, I can whistle for my stuff. When I suggested (politely I might add) that it would be really cool it they could do a Saturday delivery, I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before they stopped me and basically told me to stop kidding myself.

So there you have it, City Link will try to deliver the goods I paid to have delivered today on Monday. I’ll be back at work on Monday so I won’t be in to receive them. So after paying for next day delivery, the First chance I’ll have to get my goods is Tuesday, from City Link’s depot in Bristol. Meaning that because I’m working in Bath on Tuesday, my drive home will be across three counties. Thanks PCBuyIT and Google Checkout. You’ve made what should have been a pleasureable experience, horrible. What would it have cost to get it delivered to me tomorrow and kept a new customer happy? A few quid. I hope the few quid you saved will be very happy together.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Because I’m working in Bath not Bristol this morning, I can take the high speed train. There is no doubt about it, this is positively the only way to travel. Air Con, Power Sockets at the seats, seats that don’t require you to remove your knee-caps with a Katana to sit down, there’s a buffet car and the carriages are so quiet, you could hear a mouse fart from the other end of first class. In fact the noisyest thing in this carriage is me hammering away at my keyboard.

Anyhow, I just wanted to say that an attractive standard of travel is possible on public transport. Even from the company I usually dub “Shit Trains” (First Great Western).

There is only one downside to all this as far as I can see. If you want to fart on a quiet train, it’s a damn site harder to conceal the tell tale noises.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Last week, train cancelled then un cancelled. This week, let’s have a magical mystery tour of Temple Meads.

Just…… Arrrggghh!

The guard is just trotting out the apologies now. The muck up is due to yet another train failure. Shit Trains really is what First Great Western should be calling themselves. Sent from my BlackBerry

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

There are a myriad of reasons for using Free Open Source Software. They range from the technical to the political with a bunch of ethical, moral, strategic and functional reasons mixed in along the way.

But I think I’ve found a whole new type of reason for using FOSS/Linux. Medical.

As many might know, I have Bi-Polar disorder which has dogged me for many years. Many of the symptoms occilate with mood. However, one persistant danger never seems to go away, financial ruin. It’s an horrifically simple problem. In high (or “hypo”) moods, Bi-polar people tend to suffer from a need to go on spending sprees. Fueled by a destructive narcissistic deulsion that they have much greater resources than they have, mixed with heightened desires, the sprees can easily become self destructive. When the mood collapses, and the bills and extent of the folly kick in, it can terribly trigger or aggravate depression and often plays a major role in the suicide of Bi-polar sufferers.

One very well known sufferer of Bi-Polar, Stephen Fry, can attest to the power of this self-destructive complusion. Not to mention how often computuing and expensive gadgetry are one of the addictive causes of spending beyond means. Indeed, proprietry soft and hard ware anr almost ideally designed to take advantage of the downward spiral of the Bi-polar spending problem. You must have the latest shiny operating system. To run it, you need the latest shiny new hardware. While you’re in the shop, why not get the new games because they’ll run a treat on your new hardware. And so on until you’re too busy on Company of Heroes to answer the door to the bayliffs.

Luckily for me, a cure for this tech spending madness has found me. Linux. The amount I’m now sending now that I exclusively use Linux, compared to my Windows days, has plummeted dramatically. It’s a weird, but nonetheless welcome phenomenon. The OS itself costs nothing. If I get bored with one flavor, I just download a whole new one. That in itself is an epoch. A whole new bunch of shiny for no money. All the supporting software is free. You can buy expensive books for Linux, but it’s pointless because all the knowledge needed to do virtually anything (and I do mean pretty much anything) is also free online.

Then there’s hardware. Since getting Linux on all my machines, I have stepped off the upgrade treadmill. I do buy the occasional treat. But it’s much less frequent, and it doesn’t have to be the latest and greatest because an inbuilt trait of Linux is it’s frugality with resources. I’ve started getting 2nd hand stuff off ebay and re-using it rather new stuff.

I find it difficult to express how much escaping from that spending trap means to me. The next time I have a mood crash, it could even be the difference between life and death. If you contribute to FLOSS/Linux in any way, you have my sincere gratitude and thanks for this.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

This morning I saw a tweet from Jan Wildeboer of Fedora. He was one of the first people to spot that Novell are facing an unsolicited takeover bid by bigtime hedgefund breadheads, Elliott. A quick Google shows that Elliott specialises in buying into struggling companies and enforcing radical changes in order to bring the price of their investment up.

I have to admit, i’m mostly ignorant about how these bid and takeover deals work. What I do know is that Novell is listed on the US stock exchange, and that means they are legally bound to look after the financial interests of the shareholders. Even if that is at the cost of the company, it’s values, employees or products. I’ve read about the valuations of the Elliott offer being in the Billions of dollars. An offer of that magnitude is definitely going to be a catalyst. The company is “in play” as the Americans might put it. The thing is, with one offer on the table, Novell’s management are obligated to consider rival offers. Which naturally leads you to consider the simple question, who?

HP have interests in Open Source and Infrastructure, and they could bid. Oracle are still digesting Sun, so are not in such a strong position, but IBM might try. I have wondered about Google, but somehow I can’t see it.

There is one possibility that gives me the shivers though. Microsoft. It would be a lot of hassle for them to get a deal past the US Anti Trust Laws. It would cost them a lot of money in an area of business that would be a nightmare to intergrate into their own. So much so that I wonder if they would bother. The answer that’s forming in my mind is they wouldn’t. SO where’s the logic? Well, despite what Boycott Novell might say, Novell push a lot of usefull stuff into Linux. I’m sure that if they weren’t contributing, the overall pace of Linux development would be slowed significantly.

So, is that what we might be looking at? Would MS spend a Billion Dollars to trip Linux up and slow it down? I think they just might.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.

Feel free to Flattr this post at flattr.com, if you like it.