J5’s Blog

Colin, wrong way around.  I don’t think D-Bus wants a dependency on upstart.  For various reasons we strive hard to not have complex external dependencies with the exception of some security models which is just out of necessity.   The other way around is more fesable.

I’ll be in various places other than the Boston area for most of November.  Starting this coming Friday I will be driving down to NY where I am catching a flight to Florence, Italy for a friend’s wedding.  I’ll be there for a week and then am going to work from Atlanta, Georgia while visiting my best friend who is getting married next spring.  To round things off I will be working from NY through Thanksgiving.

The Italy trip is pretty booked but I should be visiting the ATL and NY Red Hat offices to say hi since I will be there anyway.  If any Fedora or GNOME folks want to grab a beer or just meet up let me know.

It is good to see other distributions are picking up the eggcups printer autoconfiguration interfaces which I had started and Tim Waugh had perfected. It was more than three years ago that GNOME had a dream of making USB hardware ‘Just Work’ when plugging them in. Today one can’t imagine a desktop distribution which doesn’t have this. A key agenda at the next GUADEC should be getting a lot of this work accepted upstream and figuring out how last mile items like PolicyKit will add polish to great stack we have built up.

For the past week I have been leaving work with a killer head and stomach ache. At first I attributed it to just being hungry combined with not getting enough sleep and leaving work around 8pm. As it built up more and more and happened sooner in the day I realized it was the same feeling I got when playing 3d games for an extended period of time. I also realized that at the beginning of the week I had upgraded to Rawhide and turned on compiz desktop bling. Turning off Compiz instantly reduced my eye strain and my headache subsided.

This sucks for me because besides Compiz being very visually appealing, 3d effects and composition is the future of the Linux desktop not to mention a myriad of other consumer devices with displays. The biggest problem is, it is not just the 3d effects which cause an issue but a static screen where no animations are happening seems to trigger vertigo. However the worst offender was scrolling in Firefox. I wonder if anyone is doing research in this area because I hope it is fixable.

I know you don’t want to comment on specifics of recent US law news but what might be useful to the community is a discussion on what patent law really says. There is a disconnect (often emotional) between the true nature of such laws and the laypersons understanding. I for one would like to know why patent law isn’t more like trademark law where one has to actively defend a trademark or risk losing it. Obviousness of a method is hard to prove over the lifespan of a patent. As time goes on and more people start accepting a certain method as being commonplace (and hence obvious to those concerned) does that factor at all into the law? What is the metric for obviousness?

The reason I have to ask here is there really are few resources a person has access to to research these issues without going to law school – something I personally have considered and then rejected at this point in life. This is not a desire to create some sort of grass roots campaign against cases in the court system. I’ll leave the lawyering to the lawyers. This is more of a hacker’s desire to understand the rules that govern the world around him. So far, where the law is concerned, it seems an unobtainable goal for your average Joe citizen.

I won’t be at the Gnome Summit on Saturday because of prior engagements (literally, I am going to a wedding).  We were however fortunate to get money from Google to host a Beer Summit on Sunday night starting at 7:00pm at Flat Top Johnny’s.  There are a couple of pool tables reserved and free beer available so hackers can exchange ideas, build friendships and hustle each other in an enjoyable setting.

Now for a small update on the Cookbook.  I haven’t had much progress since a large number of unexpected distractions have popped up.  The good news is Lulu.com updated their site and one of the options is a wizzard for cookbooks.  Of the three designs for page layout submitted by,  Vinicius Depizzol, Silvia Miranda, and Diego Escalante Urrelo, I liked them all and they all fit very well with each other so you all are going to be the first to get a book, payed for by me, once it is published.

As for my name on this list, I would like to thank the Acadamy, my Mom – hi Mom – Roderick’s Mom, and…what I don’t get to make a speech for being on the “B” list and I still have to wait in line at Spagos?  That’s it, I’m firing my agent.