J5’s Blog

For those of you who haven’t seen Tomeu Vizoso’s blog on the hackfest we are trying to pull together this is a second call to PyGObject, Python 3 and GtkIntrospect hackers who might want to join us in getting the future of the Python bindings to GTK sorted out.

At issue are a couple of roadblocks to the continual maintenance of the the bindings. First is the lack of support for Python 3.0 and second is the unclear picture of how GNOME 3 effects us. The current plan is to finish the work done on PyGI (Python GObjectIntrospect support for PyGObject), at the same time making sure it all works under both Python 2.x and Python 3.x. Moving to the PyGI bindings should make the maintenance burden somewhat lighter for our busy maintainers.

If you have something you can contribute and are interested in attending our hackfest please take a look at the wikipage and e-mail myself or Tomeu. While this is being sponsored by the GNOME Foundation, you don’t need to be a Foundation member to be considered for an invite. We hope to be finalizing things soon and getting a budget to send to the board for approval.

Well, I’ve gone and done it. Thanks to David Malcolm’s excellent 2to3c tool and some hand wrangling with PyUnicode objects I was able to get D-Bus Python compiling and working on Python 3. Grab the patch and start testing it out.

I’ve also tested this under Python 2.6 but it would be nice to see if it also works under Python versions < 2.6 since 2.6 has a couple of compatibility layers built in.

Many people feel that in the open source/free software community openness is about letting everyone become privy to any comment/decision/situation that may happen within a project. For the most part this is the goal we strive for but at the end of the day there are things that should remain private until they become real concerns for the public at large.

The issue is we have diverse communities that rarely agree 100% even among the best of friends. It becomes counter productive when these disagreements become the source of misinformed news articles without general consensus allowed to form within the community itself.

Forget the community for a minute. As individuals we often need to think before we speak in order to make sure we say exactly what we meant to say. The same goes for diverse groups. They must work out the directions they go in in an atmosphere that is free from the chilling effect of having to watch what they say because their intentions may be misinterpreted.

There is also the point of being able to freely express an opinion without fear of outward reprisals. There is a reason Democracy subsists on the concept of private ballots. It allows even the most unpopular opinions to at least be registered while individuals can be sure they won’t be ostracized. The openness comes from being free to dispute results, protest and influence them through public action, not from knowing the individual’s specific vote.

We strive to be inclusive with everyone who has a stake in what we do but when it becomes counter productive one needs to redress the situation so that we continue to move forward. It does no one any good to dwell on speculation from quarters which are ill informed and just looking for traffic grabbing sensationalism. It is perfectly fine to exclude them from discussions they have no stake in and let them feed on the results, judging the community based on its final actions and consensus.

Will over at the Miro project, that super cool Open Source media player, sent me a link today of their Miro Community site. It is a video aggregation site that allows for communities to collect all of their video in one place even if they were originally posted elsewhere.  To that effect he has also set up a GNOME Miro Community site.  I know we have a bunch of great videos talking about GNOME and showing off its features.  This is a shout out to people who have great GNOME related video content to go ahead and start aggregating those videos so others can find them.  Let’s start building a community of open video showcasing our favorite open desktop!!!

GNOME's Miro Community Site

I popped down to Boston today to see Litl’s internet computer and catch up with friends who now work for Litl. Unfortunately I did not see Havoc there (probably release partying too much or more likely coding) but a number of GNOME folk and others who I worked with at OLPC did show up. (I’m not going to name names because I will inevitably leave someone out).

In any case the Litl webbook looks promising. Finally someone has looked at what a target group of consumers wanted and designed a simplified interface around services instead of just dropping a Linux distribution in and saying here you go. Did they hit the mark, only time can tell but for Linux on devices to win in this area we need this sort of targeted design instead of chasing the windows generic computing market. It is how Apple won with the iPod and iPhone. Anyone who reads my blog should know my stance on this issue so I won’t beat it to death.

Some key innovative features here are

• Browser centric design
• Easel mode in which the UI accommodates the device’s configuration
• Instant sharing and mobile configs – if one breaks you can log in from another and continue whatever you were doing
• Almost zero maintenance and setup (you still need to tell it who your friends are)

Sure we have some of these features being developed in GNOME (it doesn’t come as a surprise since a lot of the UI is based on work done in GNOME and other GNOME related projects like the OLPC) but this is the first complete commercial offering which brings those features into one consumer friendly device with a laptop form factor.

As someone who is proud of GNOME’s accomplishments I wish Litl the best of luck and thank them for the code they have contributed back to the community.  As a Foundation member I hope to see even more collaboration between them and the foundation in the future.  Keep up the awesome work!!!

I managed to make it to the Beer Summit and the last day of the Boston Summit before succumbing to the inevitable jet lag. From what I heard the summit was again a success and I would like to thank Jon Mccann, Colin Walters and Ajax for pitching in and running the various aspects of the Summit and everyone else who came to make GNOME rock. As always we thank Henry Holtzman for being the MIT faculty backer of the conference and Walter Bender of SugarLabs for doing some leg work for us. The delegation worked so well I think I will save some of my stress levels next year by finding others who would like to help out.

Where scheduling was concerned, we had a little hiccup this year with other GNOME related conferences scheduled at the same time. Let me end the confusion and state emphatically that we will be having the Boston Summit next year at the same time, Columbus Day Weekend, October 9th, 10th and 11th. Further more, there is a chance we may be able to hold it in the newly built Media Lab building. No promises but there are those with some pull who would like to see this happen.

As for avoiding conflicts in the future, the board and ad-board should coordinate more instead of relying on a “who announces first” race condition to dictate scheduling. The board knows the dates of all the conferences they are going to run or sponsor well in advance, as well as having the dates of a number of other conferences readily available due to the fact that they often fund a number of members to attend these events. Utilizing this community resource is a good way to avoid future conflicts. I am also sure the community run travel committee would be happy to coordinate travel funding activities with other conferences that are related to GNOME but not run by the Foundation.

See everyone next year.

For those attending the Boston GNOME Summit this year the open bar social, affectionately known as the Beer Summit will once again be held at Flat Top Johnny’s with four reserved pool tables from 8:00pm-closing on Sunday October 11th. Chat about the latest GNOME technologies over some beers and a friendly game of pool. It is our way of saying thank you to our contributors and community.

I myself will be in Italy until the 11th so I may or may not be able to make it out depending on how I feel but I have left the conference in the capable hands of Colin Walters, Jon McCann and Adam Jackson. They will be there to make sure you get your coffee, find your hacking room and enjoy yourself during the summit.

Thinking Outside The Box: Bringing the Network back into G(N)OME

Thanks to Paul Cutler’s excellent work on GNOME Journal we have a great stream of articles to keep us up to date on the happening of GNOME. Please consider helping him out if you have time on your hands. It is a great way for those who don’t program but still love GNOME to become a producer instead of just a consumer in the GNOME ecosystem. The potential for making an impact with contributions such as these is just as important as those who contribute with code.

On the heels of Paul’s interview with myself I thought I should post the slides of my talk. Unfortunately the video of my talk did not seem to make it with the numerous other published videos. I’m not sure why that is but it is something we should improve on next year. Being able to reach those who could not attend the conference is just as important as presenting to those in the conference hall.

This is a reminder to all you GNOME hackers that the 9th annual Boston GNOME Summit is only one month away. On October 10th through the 12th join your fellow GNOMies at the MIT Sloan building E51 for a grand hacking event. I don’t have to remind people that GNOME 3.0 is just around the corner. Come and be part of the effort to continue GNOME’s excellence as the premier Open Source Desktop Environment and application platform.

Details
October 10th, 11th and 12th

MIT Sloan Building (E51)
Cambridge, MA
Rooms 315, 325, 335, 345

Tell us you are coming

Please go to the Boston Summit wiki page to find out more information and let us know you are coming.

Travel Sponsorship

For the first time the Travel Committee has been given a modest budget to send people to the Summit. If you feel you have something to contribute but don’t have the funds to get here please go to the Travel page to find out how you can apply for sponsorship.

Travel Visa’s

If you are coming from a country from which the US requires you obtain a visa please contact the Travel Committee so that they may send you a letter inviting you to the conference. You will need this to apply for a visa.

What is the Boston Gnome Summit?

The Boston Summit is a three-day hackfest for GNOME developers and contributors. It is not primarily aimed at users or new contributors, but if you want to jump right into the deep end, it’s a fantastic way to meet everyone and get involved. Unlike traditional conferences, the Boston Summit is all about getting developers together and getting things done. While there are some non-hacking sessions, they are geared heavily towards many-to-many, interactive discussion and planning, rather than one-to-many presentations.

For those not at the AGM during GUADEC I had announced confirmation on this years GNOME Boston Summit in October at MIT.

Details

Dates
October 10th, 11th and 12th

Location
MIT Sloan Building (E51)
Cambridge, MA
Rooms 315, 325, 335, 345

Hackfests

As of right now we have funding thanks to Novell to hold one hackfest the week before the Summit. The content of that hackfest is yet to be determined. As always since hackfests are focused on getting specific teams together so that they may plan projects face to face, travel sponsorship will be done via invite and handled by the specific hackfest organizers.

If you are a company or organization which wants to organize and sponsor a second or even third hackfest please get in-touch with myself (J5 on irc) or the GNOME Foundation Board.

Event Sponsorship

We will be looking for companies to sponsor events such as a lunch, a snack hour and the ever present Boston Beer Summit. These events help people unwind and socialize between the intense hack sessions and BOFs. They have also been used by the sponsoring organizations as a thank you to developers and to make significant announcements of work being done by the sponsor.

Last year saw Litl throw a snack hour catered by Sel de la Terre where they announced their work on JavaScript bindings, now being extensively used to build the shell for GNOME 3.0. They also answered questions and reveled small bits of the project they have been working on.

Novell had budget left over from their hackfest and cosponsored with the Foundation an open bar at our annual Boston Beer Fest. Over pool, drinks and food GNOME hackers got to discuss numerous subjects and make new friends in a relaxed atmosphere.

On the last day of the Summit the GNOME Accessibility team through Sun sponsored a pizza lunch as a thank you for the support the Foundation members and hackers have given the Accessibility team (though I really think we should be thanking them for the work that they do).

Again if your are interested in sponsoring one of these events please get in-touch with myself (J5 on irc) or the GNOME Foundation Board.

Travel Sponsorship

Traditionally the Foundation has not sponsored travel to the Summit, relegating that to our flagship conference, GUADEC, and several regional conferences where we felt GNOME needed a presence. Unlike GUADEC which is a meet and greet for users and developers of the GNOME platform and related technologies, the Summit is a more intimate working event with specific goals in mind.

This year however, we do want to start sponsoring specific people to attend the conference who would otherwise not be able to attend. The difference is, anyone applying for sponsorship must have a specific reason for coming and detail concrete goals which they aim to accomplish at the Summit. The Board and Travel Committee are still working out the details so look for more announcements in the future.

Make your travel plans now and start getting psyched up to have another successful Boston Summit come this Fall. If last year’s Summit successes continue their momentum, look to see even greater things to come out of Boston come October!!!

Notes

It is unfortunate that the dates, October 10th-12th, conflict with the Maemo Summit but should be noted that we have for the most part always had the Summit on the second weekend of October (Columbus Day Weekend). Those plans were set in motion well before we were able to get a definite confirmation on the venue and make a formal announcement. We should perhaps use the Foundation as a way to coordinate all GNOME related gatherings in the future.

–
John (J5) Palmieri