J5’s Blog

D-Bus version 0.60 – “In a Queue of its Own” has just been released. This release takes care of most of the major API/ABI changes needed before we go 1.0. The focus has been on the latest change to the RequestName queuing system. Details of the new system can be read in the D-Bus specification distributed in the docs directory of the tarball.

The reasoning for moving to 0.60 instead of jumping to 0.90 is that the new queuing system is a major change and has not been thoroughly tested in real world applications. I encourage people to play with it and give their opinions. If there are problems with the system we are still open to changes but if all goes well this will be the 1.0 API. About the only other ABI change on hand is increasing the limit on the size of a signature. The previous patch was inadequate to make it into this release.

As of right now all D-Bus development should focus on fixing bugs, writing documentation and getting the bindings into shape. Sans changes in the RequestName API I don’t expect to see any more API changes to the core library. I want to aggressively push for the end of December to be when we release 1.0. D-Bus has proven to be a great development platform, now it needs to be a stable and supported one.

As usual:

http://dbus.freedesktop.org/releases/dbus-0.60.tar.gz

I just finished reading Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11 by Thomas Friedman, a New York Times Op Ed columnist and Pulitzer Prize recipient. It was given to me by a co-worker at my former place of employment. I was hesitant to read it until now given some of the views held by said co-worker.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find a moderate voice who had tough views on all sides of the isle. Reading through the collection of articles, which is what this book was, gave me a sense that Mr. Friedman knew what he was talking about and didn’t try to come to a simple conclusion of why thing are the way they are.

A lot of the things he talked about, in terms of the modern world, are evident on not just the scale of global politics but also recurse down to our own communities within FOSS and how we developed. Take for instance his view of the transition of the balance of power between super powers (essentially the nation states of the US and USSR) to the modern trinity of nation states, corporate interests and super empowered individuals. A lot of this is fueled by globalization, the Internet and a broader reach of the media. Now look at FOSS. It began because of super empowered individuals with the reach of the Internet and expanded to include companies and even governments as they debate laws mandating FOSS and/or Open Standard software usage.

One of the things that heartens me about our communities is that if you look around you see a wide range of people from different background and nationalities. Some of us work for companies, some of us are students, others from government agencies and still others who’s social circles have nothing to do with FOSS. We don’t always agree but that is usually a clash of personalities or technical direction and not as a direct result of clashing cultures. So, what is the special sauce that allows such a diverse community work together towards common goals? I would like to think it is in the way we work, in the open and competitive, not closed off and adversarial. It is an environment where anyone is allowed to follow their own desires and voice their own opinions.

There is an interesting parallel from the world at large and our little piece of it. The book, while looking at the world at large, just sort of spoke to my experiences working in and with the community.

I think people are misconstruing Havoc’s post as an endorsement of the iPod. They miss the point that it is a successful product and has breath new life into Apple as a company. There is a lesson to be learned there and Havoc seemed to be mussing on finding out what that lesson is. We can go about ignoring the question of why things that are the antithesis of the ideals of Open Source and Open Standards hold such mass market appeal or we can be introspective and ask ourselves what are we not doing that they are doing right. If someone could find the answer to that you will start to see mass market iPod killers that support open formats in more than just geeks hands.

Perhaps in the device arena Nokia can make big wins here. It is making good first steps with the 770 but I hope we see future generation ask those questions and refine themselves beyond the “it runs GNOME” appeal.

Of course there is much more to those questions than just devices. iPod was just an easy target to comment on. Especially in light of add campaigns like “Music is Just Better in Color”. Whaaat?

There is nothing like driving up a long windy road with a babbling brook flowing along side. It was an amazing drive up rt-4 to get to Killington this Saturday. I wasn’t going to go up since there was no snow but I wanted to get things done and see the house so I ended up waiting until Saturday afternoon to make the drive. I’m glad I left in the daytime because the scenery is something to behold. Too bad I found out my camera had no charge or I would have stopped to take pictures.

I was just going to go up, get my season pass and then come right back down but a couple other people made it up for the weekend so I decided to hang out with them. If it was any indication on how good the season is going to be I’m going to have a blast. Even without the snow we all had a really good time and I made some new friends who I am looking forward to ski with this winter. I can say it is one of the best recreational decisions I have made and I highly recommend it to people even if they are not expert skiers or snowboarders. Our house is supposedly a good mix of beginners to experts.

It really is about the social aspect of meeting people who are into the same activities, be it going down the slopes or dancing at the club. We all went to dinner at the Wobbly Barn, which was excellent if a bit on the expensive side, and then went upstairs to hear some cover band from Connecticut. We got comped from dinner so it was free. The band was decent but nothing special. They kind of lost us when they started playing some of their own songs which didn’t have the energy of their covers.

We then went to the Pickle Barrel which is the other bar and the one we all have season passes to. That place rocked. They had a band on called Go Go Gadget which just blew me away. They took the covers they did and just owned them and they did everything from Brittney Spears to Bell Biv Devoe to the Black Crows. I mean some songs I cringe at when I hear them on the radio they actually made sound good. It was an all around mixture of Funk, Rock, Rap and Pop and was loads of fun to dance to, which we did in abundance.

I was all a great time and I am looking forward to next weekend. Hopefully there will be some snow but if not it should still be fun.

Well this goes for any projects with strict checkin procedures but I wanted to outline this in the context of D-Bus. D-Bus has a pretty strict approval process for code checkins. Most patches to the core library need to be reviewed and ok’ed by an approved reviewer before it can be checked in. This is an attempt to catch bugs before they are introduced into CVS and also to allow people to comment on the direction before we commit to it.

The biggest problem with this process is those who are not on the approved list tend not to comment and as those on the approved list get distracted elsewhere patches will start to block progress. The solution is to place more people who know the code well enough on that approved list. The problem there is if they are not vetting patches already it is hard to gauge if they will be a good patch reviewer. The problem for those not on the list is they might feel timid about reviewing someone else’s code specifically because they are not on the list.

Patch review is probably one of the best ways to learn a project (well, that and implementing TODO items that are not necessarily ones area of expertise). People should not be afraid of being corrected if they miss something or feel that they should not offer their eyes to the problem if they are not on some list. The more eyes the better. Many people feel right at home commenting on the bigger issues and it should be the same when it comes down to the code.

Anyway, right now some other patches and a release are blocking on this one big patch. Since it is my patch I can’t review it. Havoc has reviewed the majority of my patches but lately he has been busy with his own projects and this one requires more than just comments on the code but also a discussion on if it is the correct behavior we wish to see on the bus. The patches and issues involved can be seen by following this thread – [PATCH] First pass at finishing the last major feature on the TODO list (RequestName) (note that the final patch is in this mail). Feel free to review it, ask questions, and comment. As other patches come down the pipeline please feel free to do the same.

After my last blog post Murray Cumming asked me to replace him on the release team. I said I wanted to help and Murray showed me where I could be helpful and where I could learn a great deal. Hopefully there will be others who wish to get involved in some of the other aspects of GNOME. I am going to use this opportunity to learn more about the inner workings of the machine we call GNOME. It is after all about more than just the code we write. Hopefully I can glean enough insight to use towards being helpful in getting others to join these efforts. I hope I have also empower those who wish to help out but don’t know where to start to ask around.

So I talked myself out of running for the board this year. Why? Because I really don’t know what they do. I want to get involved with GNOME in places other than the technical aspects. but it is hard to figure out where to start and I am already part of the community. Imagine the people who aren’t yet integrated into the whole flow of GNOME.

I really want to run some day as I have experience in the form of being the treasurer and then vice-president of LILUG in the past. One of the greatest compliments payed to me was the fact that initiatives I spearheaded were actually followed through after my tenure. Of course I left my post in the very capable hands of Mark Drago and others.

The thing I found most comforting about LILUG was that I didn’t just jump into the fray, as I don’t want to jump into the fray of being on the board. I gradually evolved into running the day to day responsibilities of LILUG. At first my biggest choices I needed to make were where to get the donutes for the next meetings. Should it be Krispy Kremes or Dunken Donuts? Eventually I figured out a way to get Krispy Kremes at a lower overall cost to Dunken but with an overall higher satisfaction rate of the members of LILUG. I grew into roles such as making sure our rooms were booked and that we had enough money for the future. Believe me it was not easy as there were many hiccups along the road that I had to take time out of my day to deal with. The point is LILUG gave me a chance to grow without burying me before my time.

The problem I see within GNOME is that I don’tknow where to begin. I wouldn’t be an effective Board Member. Not this year at least. I am sure it would take me at least a year to get comfortable with it. But then there are other ways I can be involved and be able to develop those skills, I just don’t know where they are.

Are we so afraid as a community to have real structure? To delegate tasks to a hierarchy of people who commit to getting things done? Give me work to do and I will tell you if I have time or not to complete it.

So I guess this is all a long winded way to say, I am ready, show me what needs to be done, delegate tasks to me, don’t tiptoe around the fact that things need to get done. We are a powerhouse but to keep that momentum people need to be willing to do the work. I encourage others to stand up and say, “I’m afraid to be part of the board until I know how I can be effective but I can be effective now and help out in my own ways”. Just ask and we will see what can be done. Create a legion of people who are responsible for specific tasks. And I mean responsible, not , “I’ll get it done if I can”. I mean people who are willing to say yes or no on specific tasks. There is where your diversity will come from while breeding a new batch of future board members ready to take on the tasks that GNOME throws at them.

Our future board members need to be as introspective as they are extrospective. I want to see platforms with equal value between where we can grow GNOME and where we can foster the strengths that we have. I will only vote for those who have that insight and courage to lead us in that direction.

My friend Helena is a smart person but by no means a tech whiz. To her a computer is just something she uses to get work done and stay in touch with people. I met her when we were both interning at E-Trade about seven years ago in California. She was on the business side and I was on the tech side. After our stints were over she went back to Sweden and I went to New York.

Over the years and through a litany of e-mail address changes we barely managed to stay in touch. While the first part of my day is often spent e-mailing people this is not the case for her. Often it took months to get a reply from her, which were all prefaced by her stating how sorry she was for not getting back sooner. E-mail to her is just not the best way to stay in touch. She uses other methods that work better for her to keep in contact with her many friends. One of those is Ringo which is a social network based around sharing photos. Now I have been part of social networks like Orkut but to me it was simply a fad which I never log into anymore. I never really saw the potential of such services until now. Not only has she shared her vacation photos with me, which can say a lot more than some words on a white background, but Ringo has all her contact info, so if she moves or changes e-mail addresses I am updated immediately.

To me e-mail is how I stay in touch with people. If I lose someone’s address, which I have done a couple of times in the past between crashed hard drives and new computers, I simply don’t talk to that person again. Same goes with telephone numbers. Perhaps in the light speed of Internet time I am just old fashion.

She also uses Skype which I would use if they allowed third party clients (like the excellent GnomeMeeting) to connect.

One bad thing I can say about all of this is that unlike phone and e-mail, these networks will tend to segregate people along service lines but they seem to be giving, at least my friends, what they want.

Other things I have noticed about my nontechnical friends
– they all use web mail or AOL though the AOL usage has been dropping recently
– they tend to send those annoying chain letters around
– Evite is their way to organize large get togethers

Met with some of the people whome I will be sharing the ski palace with. We had the kick off party tonight where we got some more info and were able to get to know each other. I am really excited as they are all a bunch of great people and so far it looks like it was a good choice. There is still a group of people from NY and I think one person from PA that had their own kick off party. As it is Killington was open last weekend though they closed for the week. Tomorrow we start the first round of picking our weekends and then on Friday we will have the second round. The cool thing is that the picks are just to garuntee a bed for that weekend. If someone is willing to sleep on the floor or lug up an air mattress they are more than welcome to go up on their off weekends. I might just take advantage of that.