Why I chose Linux!

Another podcaster in the linux community has been doing a series of shows called "How I found Linux" that contains user contributed audio clips of people telling the story of how they found their way into the free software community. It's very likely when I get the time I will record my story and submit it and I hope you do the same.

Thinking about this it led me down the path of thinking not just about how but about why.

I have a firm belief that one of the strongest human emotions is the need to feel like you belong to something that is greater than yourself. I think that this need is more intense for some than others and is a driving force for good and evil. It could even explain some of the darker times in human history. But, that's a discussion for another post, or maybe not.

For me, I've always had deep need to feel like I belong and am accepted. I can think back on many periods of my life where this has had a profound effect on the trajectory of my life. I think it's the human need to be a part of the community that draws most people into the Linux/free culture. Not the geekyness of it or the software itself. Computers are cool but I don't think that is why free software is successful. Further more, I don't think the thing that will win people over to Linux will be more or better apps. I think it will be the draw that everyone has a place in the community and everyone is important to its success.

What people don't use as an argument for free software enough is:

1. No matter what your interest there is a sub-community that is dying to have you as a member.
2. No matter how insignificant your contribution to free software might seem, it's the rich tapestry of different abilities that make Linux great. We will always need wide diversity in the community.
3. Free software people are not just friendly, they take great pleasure in helping you find a place in community. We love it when some one new finds that feeling of acceptance that we do.
4. Black, white, skinny, fat, pretty, ugly, rich, poor, genius, average, cool, geek, religious, agnostic, political or not? No one gives a crap. I've never heard anyone not getting accepted because of their background.
   

So, If you feel like you need to find some where that people not only accept you but need you. Where you can find people just as exited about your interests as you are. We would love to have you as one of our own. We want you! We need you! Jump in, the water is just fine. What are you waiting for?

Conversational Kung Fu

Do you suffer from holding an opinion that you have no real argument for?
Do you lose debates simply because there are no fact to support your case?
Are you sick of your stupidity not being listened to by "main stream media"?

By following my special brand of Conversational Kung Fu you can be sure to take over any debate your idiotic mind can dream up. Why have a sensible argument when you can kick someone in their metaphorical nuts! Put them in a soliloquy choke hold till they tap out from intellectual exhaustion. Beat them about the brain till they can't help but accept your poorly thought out conclusions and ignorant illogical positions on popular topics.

For example:

If someone has a well thought out and researched opinion about a popular social issue that differs from your crack pot sensibilities. Just use what I call the "spoken round house!". It's a simple maneuver that even the most uneducated illiterate back woods yokel can pull off. Call them a "Nazi!". Sure it might sound a little harsh to compare their compassion for the homeless, concern for the future of human existence or want to provide basic human rights to all people to an icon of hate who orchestrated one of the worst acts of democide in recorded history. But hey, you don't have any rational at all so anything goes. Right? This also works by inserting any other demonic historic figure, Joseph Stalin(more on him in a moment), Pol Pot and if you want it to give a slight impression you might actually know what you are talking about use more obscure dictators like Genghis Khan or Mao Zedong.

Once you have launched your initial attack it's time to move into what I call "annoying chop". Here you try to drown out their rational arguments by making references to the initial attach such as....

Where are your Jack Boots?
Typical Nazi rhetoric!
You want to send us all to work in the Gulag?

If they haven't shaken their heads and walked away in disgust it's time to pull out the big guns. This is the "rhetoric leg sweep" stage and should at the very least halt all progress in the discussion and put the spot light on you and your brain dead point. This technique is the hardest to master and may take some time since you obviously haven't mastered any of the other learned arts. In this stage we try to string as many of the following words into a nonstop rant that is impossible to counter.

Pinko, Commy, Nazi, Unpatriotic, Fascist, Bastard, Socialist, Tree Hugging, Liberal, Nut Job, Wacko.....ect.

For example: "You pinko, commy bastards just don't get it. You're too busy hugging trees with your other liberal, wacko, nut jobs to see you unpatriotic, fascists are turning America into the Soviet Empire." (Note: If the person you are arguing with notices that you can't be both Communist and Fascist pay them no mind and keep on trukin'. You're almost there!)

If none of these tactics work then there is probably no hope for you and your fellow dumb asses so you might as well go watch NASCAR.

Announcing Django-Krupa!

I've been working on a website for my music for a while now. It's been slow going and I haven't had as much time to work on as I would like. So, I thought this is silly. I was all ready going to open source the code when I finished. Instead of waiting I figured I would just create a project and upload what I have so far and hopefully I can solicit some help to finish the project. So, if there are any experienced Python/Django developers reading this that are interested let me know. The git repository for the project is located at here. The web repository is here. You can e-mail me at dworth@pipemanmusic.com. I'm exited and hope others are too.

Mono, No No?

With all the recent infatuation within the Free Software community over the potential threat posed by the free implementation of the .net framework Mono, I've tossed around the arguments on both sides and drawn my own conclusions. This isn't a topic I would normally comment publicly on however I've drawn some different conclusions than I've heard talked about and I want to throw them into the public debate.

I don't consider myself a Free Software zealot but I want nothing more than a world where there is no restrictions on the technologies we use. I am a believer in the philosophy of free culture and it's ability to unite in a way that nothing else can. So in short, I'm a pragmatist who leans towards being a fundamentalist.

I won't go into all the pros and cons of Mono as they are better covered by much more intelligent people than me. My purpose is to raise a few considerations that I haven't heard talked about.

Firstly, My dear ol' Mom, for a long time, was the President, and now Vice President, of the Wheat Ridge Historical Society. As such she instilled in me a reverence for history and our past culture. I am a sentimental guy at heart and feel there is a deep purpose to preserving the relics of the past. To that end I think having free implementations of technologies is important in preventing parts of our culture from being unrecoverable. I have an affinity for projects that allow me to relive my youth like DOSBox. Similar projects like Freedos, ReactOS, and Haiku are important to preserve the technologies of our computing past. I would hate to have Mozart's Symphonies or DaVinci's journal locked in DRM or in a technology that is lost or abandoned. So, I consider Mono as an important tool for preserving the ability to use .net software.

Secondly, On coat tails of Google's announcement of ChromeOS, witch brings the hope of greater Linux desktop adoption, I think a tool like Mono is necessary to entice developers to support Linux as that market emerges with a greater presence. In fact, I'll bet that just the announcement of Google CromeOS will get software companies to re-evaluate their Linux support. Also, it allows company's who didn't have Linux on their radar 12 months ago stay competitive by offering their software cross platform. It also has the benefit of allowing businesses that use .net software and want to migrate the opportunity to make the transition to Linux without extra development.

Third, if you can except that Mono is important to support freedom then I would argue than in order to have a usable implementation the .net framework you need developers who are using the tool to create software. Otherwise you risk an incomplete implementation that will turn companies away from Linux. In order for developers to use Mono you need users to use their software. So, active Mono projects are necessary to insure Linux is competitive with the Windows .net implementation.

Lastly, we all live in a world of compromise. Many of the people who are the most against Mono programs have been using MP3 playback and DVD playback and many other technologies with similar or worse potential for patent lawsuits. Very few people don't use other software that is certainly not free like Flash and the non-free Nvidia drivers without so much as a blog post or a tweet. That being said most of those are not install by default in the major Distributions. I don't think that the major Distros should install Mono apps by default but I take no issue with people who want to install them on their own. That being said, the popularity of Distos that do install software that posses a patent risk such as Linux Mint and the prevalence of using the ubuntu-restricted-extras package proves that most people don't care about the risk they just want a feature full and rich desktop experience. In the end choice is always better then the alternatives and using Mono apps doesn't make you any less of a lover of freedom.

Cheap and Easy..Just the way Dad likes it.

So it's been a while since I updated the ol' blog here. But I finally have something to say and damn it you're going to listen!

So fathers day is comming up and I have an idea for those of you that want to give an inexpensive gift that involves Free Software.

Step one:
Buy a Sandisk Sansa e250 for $30 from here.
Step Two:
Download the Rockbox installer here.
Step Three:
Use the utility to install the specific build for the Sansa e200 seiries. (This step is so easy!)
Step Three:
Pick a really cool theme you think he will enjoy.
Step Four:
Wrap it up and give it to your father for fathers day!
Step Five:
Download WinFF for his computer to convert video to the correct format for the player. It is a simple gui tool that is a front end for FFMPEG and has presets for Rockbox Sansa e200.
Step Six:
Download gPodder and set him up with some cool podcast about whatever your eccentric father is into...model airplanes, stamp collection even crazy conspiracys. Now you've connected him to the immense content that the internet provides.
Step Seve:
Download and settup Amazons mp3 downloader. This will give him access to all the music he wants.

What will he get?

A cool player:
The player has a microSD slot to extend it's capacity, an FM tuner to catch his morning radio shows and a voice recorder to help him remember things.

Extended media support:
Rockbox includes support for more media formats than it did out of the box meaning when your Dad downloads something off the internet to listen to on the player there is a better chance of it working without bugging you to convert it.

More functionality:
The Rockbox firmware provides a much plesenter user experience with faster fast forwards, video resume points, fade in/out on pause, more information on the now playing screen and much, much more!

Applications:
Rockbox comes with great applications that are helpfull everything like Calculator, Calendar, Clock, Stopwatch, lamp(turns the screen all white to help navigate the dark), and more.

Games:
Rockbox comes with quite a few time killers like Solitare, Blackjack, Roxblocks(Tetris Clone), and even Doom.

DRM free music:
You won't have to explane to him why the music he bought won't work when the next generation of players comes out.

It might not be as expensive as an iPod and some might argue not as cool looking, however, this baby does a lot with a little and will bring your father into this century with style.

What do you get?
The satisfaction on introducing dear ol' Dad to free software without turning his world upside down and getting him a cool gadget that he can use.

P.S.
All Apps listed are Windows and Linux compatible so if you turned him into a convert or not it will all work and make him a happy pappy.

Little Girls Secretly Plotting World Domination

I'm generally not one to believe in conspiracy theories. In fact, one could say that I'm a skeptic who generally looks at wild theories with a critical eye. However, a recent conversation with a friend of mine now has my head reeling with the possibility that little girls are about to launch some sort of attack on me.

In retrospect my first suspicions of little girls began with the birth of my first daughter. Her ability to control my emotions with nothing more than a flippant look should have alerted me early on to the mounting storm that, I now suspect, is on the horizon. Now that I have two more daughters I know that the powers that infant girls hold over me is nothing compared that of a more experienced toddler who has honed her skills at captivation to the precipice of breaking point and even that is but child's play compared to their denarian counterparts. My oldest daughter, now ten years old, has achieved grand master status in exerting her will over me.

Now, until last night I was blissfully unaware of the scope of this problem. In a seaming innocuous conversation with a friend, that was purely innocent, the proverbial wool was removed from my eyes. Walk with me now down the road that led me to my current state of paranoia.

My daughter is, among other things, a girl scout and in that capacity she has recently been peddling cookies which arrived in their packaging to my house last night. This not so unexpected event sparked what I like to call "The Thin Mint Conversation." If, like me, you have a particular affinity for these little culinary wonders you have invariably had this conversation. It goes some thing like this:

Person 1: "Hey, I see you have procured some Thin Mints"
Person 2: "Indeed, they are a favorite of mine!"
Person 3: "I as well list these among my favorites. However, When consuming them I am unable to limit myself and invariably eat an entire sleeve."
Person 4: "I also find myself in a similar predicament."

or some variation and the two people continue there lives unaffected. I myself would have not given this common conversation any more though if this particular conversation hadn't included an addenda that include how Thin Mint's plastic sleeving splits all the way down the middle no matter how much attention and care is given to opening the packaging. This phenomena leads one to not risk wasting any that might have spilled out let alone those now unprotected cookies that will probably go stale if placed back in the box. As such, one finds themselves in a position of eating the entire sleeve to save them from an unfortunate loss of flavor. Having finished this conversation my friend left and probably didn't give it any mind. I however couldn't help contemplating the fact that this design might be intentional and part of a greater plan for little girls to advance some agenda I was unaware of.

I still do not know their demands, probably something to do with ponies, and I don't know if they will be forgiving overlords, but the execution of their devious plan is brilliant. Every facet is carefully crafted to make me completely docile and in their control. They leverage their cuteness and charm to get me to buy a frightfully addictive product who's very packaging is designed to coerce you into eating and buying more, all the while pacifying you and fattening you into complete complacency. If they apply these tactics to any other industry, well, god help us all. I can only hope that they remember how good I was to them when their regime finally gains control.

SAE Ends Financial Support For Ardour

Unfortunately it was recently announce soon after the release of Ardour SAE Edition that SAE would no longer support the development of Ardour financially. That has placed the lead developer of the project, Paul Davis, in the position of considering how to supplement his income to make up for the shortfall. According to the main page for Ardour, he is considering consulting to other open source projects. This, of course, would leave him with less time to work on Ardour development. For the community around Ardour that would mean slower releases and implementation of new features.
Currently the project receives $1632 per month from 195 subscribers using their PayPal accounts to show continued support for Paul's work. However, Paul is making a plea to the community to increase the monthly contributions to the project to $4500 per month($54,000 per year). This would allow Ardour development to continues as it did with SAE's financial support.
I have to admit that, although I use Ardour nearly daily, I hadn't contributed to the project financially. As soon as I heard the news though I went to the site and subscribed at the $10 per month level. Shamefully, deep down I know the reason I didn't support the project financially before was most likely because of SAE's financial contribution. I guess I had the attitude that the project was doing all right and didn't need any of my hard earned money. I also think that this was pretty common among Ardour users.
So, in a strange way, albeit bad for Paul in the sort term, this might just be a catalyst in the community to take more responsibility for the project. It's just not acceptable to sit back and hope that another SAE is going to come along an make everything right. I don't use free software because I'm cheap, maybe complacent sometimes but not cheap. I use it because it's what is right.
It's scary to think that the music that is being recorded right now is held in proprietary formats and in 50 years from now, when the next great development in music technology comes down the pipe, we won't be able to work with that material in it's native format. Think about digitally re mastering audio for CD. Sure, Pro Tools might be an "Industry Standard" but the format is not a Open. There is no competition or alternatives that read all the info contained in a Pro Tools session. That means that very talented producers and mixers work is going to be forfeited to the history books because we won't be able to read automation data, what plug-ins they used, etc. Instead of taking advantage of digitals ability to preserve data we are trapping our data into undocumented file formats and doing nothing about it.
This brings us to the heart of "Free Culture". Enabling creators to create by giving them the tools to develop their art freely. Not based on how much money they have, but by how much skill they have at their art. Eventually art becomes public domain and I would hate to think that the works of Mozart or Bach would be lost to eternity because we couldn't read the paper it was printed on because of proprietary ink technology or even works some type of DRM that coded the music so it could only be read by special glasses that aren't made any more.
Art should not be about elitism, as Apple would wish, it should be about expression of anthropomorphic ideas and of the human experience. Supporting projects like Ardour breaks down barriers that are being forced on us by our technology. I urge everyone to step up to the plate and make the continued development of Ardour a reality.