J5’s Blog

In an effort to recreate “The Hangover” I am heading to Vegas tomorrow morning for one of my closest friend’s bachelor party.

I’ll be back Monday with some pretty cool announcement involving JavaScript and native messaging support. Let’s put it this way – if this works out implementing D-Bus in pure JavaScript might be a fun side project.

Until then I’m going to be incommunicado except for my cell phone. Get in touch with me only if there is an emergency, otherwise I’m pretty much stepping into the alternate dimension that is Vegas.

The Open Video Conference just ended yesterday. I attended the first two days and just stopped in briefly during the hack-fests yesterday before having brunch with some old highschool friends and heading back to my parents house where my dog and car were stashed.

I can say without a doubt the turnout was amazing and even though not everything I heard all weekend was positive it was a giant leap forward in then understanding of the importance of Open Video and culture. I won’t put a figure on how many people attended but some of the upstairs talks were standing room only and after the first day some of the organizers were lamenting that then needed to get bigger rooms (consequently some of the talks were swapped the next day). Speaking about the organizers, they ran an incredibly smooth ship and should be thanked and praised for their efforts.

The Good

Apps

I was mainly there looking to see what video producers wanted from FOSS application developers and to support the PiTiVi/GStreamer teams on behalf of the GNOME Foundation. It is amazing to see the PiTiVi non-linear video editing app at such a usable state. While Edward Hervey (bilboed on irc) gave his mini presentation on PiTiVi I was busy hacking up a “How To Make Chocolate Truffles” video from pictures and clips I had laying around.

Afterwards I showed him some of the bugs I encountered in the 0.13.1 release and he just rattled off, fixed in git, fixed in git, fixed in git…etc. Sadly the releases are tied to GStreamer releases (which is a good thing from a development/bugs standpoint but not so good from a user standpoint given the early stages of PiTiVi) so we won’t see an official release soon. I plan on trying to automate a Fedora Repository at some point just to be able to view the progress without breaking my system.

The point is PiTiVi is about 90% there (and perhaps 100% in git) to be able to support my needs for basic video editing in terms of stability and basic tools. That should be pretty reflective of those who need to do things like screen casting and interview style video blogs. Some advanced features like effects (look at Cheese for some examples of this already working in an app) already exist in GStreamer and just need to be integrated in PiTiVi’s UI and rendering pipeline.

There was also a show of Cinelarra but more interesting is the GTK+ fork Lumiera which unfortunately is not usable yet but the direction they are going in (GTK+ interface and some GStreamer integration) looks like a great re-start in the case of pro level editing tools.

Also of interest in the pro level space was Blender which seems to be the pro project with the most momentum and features for pro’s. At least that was the initial reaction from some on the Red Hat media team. The dev’s did admit that the functionality is limited to what they needed during production of Big Buck Bunny (and other productions currently in the queue) but that in those areas it is rock solid. It is interesting to see a UI designed with different usability profiles. For instance one of Blender’s usability criteria is the avoidance of repetitive strain injury. To combat RSI mouse clicks are evenly divided between left and right mouse clicks.

Bassam Kurdali, one of the Blender developers and animators, came up to me later in the conference and said he had noticed me using PiTiVi to edit my video. He was impressed at the simplicity and slickness of the interface and how far along it is. There is plenty of room for different approaches and a real potential for cross pollination between the pro tools and the every day end user tools.

What Content Producers Want

Speaking of end users we got to hear from a bunch of them who let us know how we could support them. One of the biggest themes was that Windows tools suck and those who taught others couldn’t just tell them to go out and buy a mac (praises were heaped on iMovie and Final Cut Pro). They really want an easy to use tool, with the unfortunate note that it would have to run on Windows. One really good thing is that a lot of the non-tech content producers understood the need for free codecs. However in the end they just want a simple way to render down to DVD, You Tube, Daily Motion, iPhone, etc. and don’t want to deal with formats.

I ended up collecting a bunch of buisness cards and am toying with the idea of starting a feedback group with content producers which would get them involved in improving GNOME App usability from the perspective of those who are not yet familiar with the GNOME workflow. If we are serious about expanding our reach we need to go beyond our current self selecting internal feedback loops. The goal wouldn’t be to get these people using GNOME (though giving them a way through the apps wouldn’t be a bad thing). It would be more about getting groups outside of GNOME/Linux to be part of the process of improving GNOME. Will it be fruitful? I don’t know but it is an interesting experiment with a potential huge payoff for a little bit of effort.

Sita Sings the Blues

This good section wouldn’t be complete without the mention of Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley which is a feature length (82 minutes) animated film released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. You have complete rights to watch, screen, remix and redistribute the film as long as you abide by the license. I do suggest you watch it and if you like it buy the DVD or simply donate to encourage more works like this (I bought the DVD for $20). Not only is Nina a content producer but she is heavily involved in advocating her distribution methods, going as far as documenting the process that went into releasing Sita under a creative commons license and in her work with QuestionCopyright.org.

Mozilla and the Open Video Contest

I was very impressed with Mozilla’s involvement and their push for Ogg Theora to become a base line codec for the HTML 5 video tag. They are also helping launch the upcoming Open Video Contest which would see the winner flown to the 2010 South by Southwest conference. We should probably run some sort of sister contest to encourage GNOME users to submit entries.

The Bad

It wasn’t all roses. While I feel we are reaching independent content producers way more than I would have though at this point, some of the big companies still don’t get it or are afraid of Open Video implications.

Adobe

It must be said that Adobe has been somewhat good at working with the community over long periods of time but that they just never get around to resolving key issues. What really surprised me was when on one of the industry round tables the Adobe representative pointed to their release of the Flash documentation as a shining example of this relationship. After checking with a developer of an alternative flash implementation I was told those documents are pretty much useless. Due to bugs, some of the spec just doesn’t work as written and other issues makes it impossible to write a third party Flash player.

YouTube/Google

While reportedly Chrome will ship with Ogg Theora support their flagship video site YouTube seems afraid to do so. Their rep at the round table stated some pretty audacious things such as continuing the myth that Theora wasn’t good enough when clearly that argument was directly debunked (the side by side comparisons were even playing on HDTV’s at the conference).

Even more of an issue was the representative’s idea on what Open Video meant. He declared that they would love to support Open Video but that it meant letting anybody do whatever they wanted and that doesn’t work from a buisness perspective.

Open Video isn’t about wild west, trample on rights. If anything it is about balancing the rights of content producers, end users and fair use. From what I read, YouTube’s position is that they are the 1000 pound gorilla in video distribution and at the end of the day they only believe in a user’s and content producer’s freedoms if it is walled behind their own servers. “All the world’s video” indeed.

The solution there is to drive traffic to sites like Daily Motion and Blip.tv which understand the issues involved.

Conclusion

Nothing is perfect, but we are off to a really good start. In the end it is up to us to keep the momentum going and eventually produce a better experience within the complete Open Video stack, from content production to delivery. The web was built and exploded around the concept of open technology. Let’s continue to make sure this is the case going forward. The last thing we want is the web to become the domain of a few, with creativity being stifled by restrictions in the non-open parts of the stack.

The Beer Summit was a smashing success last night and I even managed to still wake up at 6:00am today.  It was even better than last year which I partially attribute to being closer to the venue.  What really made it better though was people were interacting a lot more this year both with shop talk and community building small talk (no not Smalltalk).  I thrive on community and every time I get to hang out with people in the community that I love, it reminds me why I do this whole Open Source thing and motivates me to try to do more. I hope that others feel the same and find our conferences and the surrounding events bring some measure of value to the work they do.

I’m going to be at Tommy Doyles in Havard tonight around 9pm.  The Josh Dion Band - a local NY band my friend just got me into – is playing a two set show for free.  Best of all it is around some favorite hacker haunts such as Grendels Den and Charlies Kitchen.

OMG HSFC!!!  Today I went to Enfield, CT to pick up my adopted dog Ty.  Adopting Ty was sort of a impulsive 3 year decision.  After moving to Porter Square I had always said my next apartment would have to allow dogs.  When Bryan Clark needed a third roommate and asked me to move in I jumped at the chance.  Part of the reason for that was his dog Moose who was and still remains to be awesome.  When Bryan went to Mozilla Messaging in Vancouver, Moose went with him.  With no dog to greet me when I came home from work it started getting pretty lonely at the apartment so I started looking for the perfect dog to fill that void.

While on vacation in Aruba I spotted Ty at Pet Finder and instantly fell in love. After getting back I called up Adopt a Lab and found out that Ty was still available and that they were coming to New England that Saturday. The catch was I had to agree to adopt Ty, sight unseen, for them to go through the process of getting him checked for transport and bring him from the midwest to the east. The way it worked they explained, is that I had to commit to at least two weeks with the dog and if it did not work out they would arrange foster care and refund my money. After a day of deliberating I called them up again and started the process rolling. That is when the adventure began.

My friend and resident dog expert Sara agreed to venture two hours out of Boston with me to the agreed upon meeting place where 22 other adopters were gathering to pick up their chosen dog at 11am. All was well when we pulled into the parking lot of Enfield’s Town Hall fifteen minutes before the pick up. Whole families had come to get the first glimpse of their future pets. This is when one of the volunteers notified us that the air conditioner on the transport vehicle had broken down and that they were delayed until 1 o’clock because they had to replace it. This was no big deal as Sara and I were hungry and it would have been hard to get lunch once we had a nervous dog on our hands.

Coming back at 1 brought new troubles as the skies opened up and proceeded to deluge us. On top of that, the transport only made it around 3 o’clock.

I didn’t mind the rain or the delay.  I was just anxious to finally meet Ty.

When Ty finaly came out of the truck, he was a bit excited.  I could hear oohs and ahhs from my fellow adopters which was the chant recited whenever a particularly cute dog came out.  I walked him around a bit on his lead away from the crowds to calm him down.

A quick drink and bathroom break later, we were finally on the road to Ty’s new home.

To calm Ty down even more Sara gave him the plush mole toy she had bought him as a gift.  The funny thing about that mole is that Ty seems completely indifferent to the Kong with a snack in it and the tennis ball I had gotten him.  He loved that mole though.

It was pouring outside which made our way home slow going.

Ty didn’t mind though as he darted his head from window to window taking in all of the new sights he was experiencing.

After dropping off Sara in JP we made our way back to Cambridge and Ty’s new home where he drank a couple of bowls full of water.  When the rain died down I took him for a run and he finally settled down enough to eat.  Even after the run he was still a bundle of energy and even though he kept nodding off he would quickly wake up and nudge me to play some more.  Finally around 8 he fell asleep for an hour and a half.  Right now he is calmly watching me write this blog and perking up every time I look his way.

Oh ya, J5 and Ty – I think I’m going to keep him!!!

All in all pretty good for a last minute event.  It ended up being a night at the good life bar as it was too much fun to leave.  People ended up rotating in and out all night and we all had a blast.  My dinner was pretty good.  The spinage was amazing but the steak was a little overdone.  The vodka martinis were also good but I would stay away from the mixed drinks as they didn’t seem to be of the same quality.  I still prefer Om for martinis and cocktails but overall Good Life was pretty good.  Dancing was fun on such an intimate dance floor and we even had a show of the local hip hop dance crew showing off their moves. Well it is 4 o’clock here – a bit late for this old man. I need to pack for my trip to Aruba on Sunday and am meeting someone for dinner tomorrow night. I will be mostly absent for the next week as I try to relax and soak in some sun and beach but I will be checking e-main every once in awhile and my phone will still work for emergencies.

I thought I was going to be on vacation for my birthday this year but it turns out I’m leaving the day after so I decided to do something this Friday to celebrate with people in Boston.  I’m going to have a small dinner with close friends at Good Life Bar around 8:00 and then perhaps some drinks at Jacob Wirth.  In any case I’ll be microblogging my whereabouts on identi.ca so use it as an excuse to come down, drink a few beers and have a good time.

Well perhaps not but I am taking off this weekend to a place I have been in spitting distance of but have never crossed the border. I find it strange that I have been all around the world and to almost every state in America and still have not bothered to visit our kind neighbours to the north. So with my roommates Bryan and Chris leaving this summer for far off jobs we decided to take a trip with a bunch of friends up to Montreal. I went down to NY last weekend for mothers day and to swap my car for my parents van just for this trip. It should be fun.

Oh and Les Halles, Anthony Bourdain’s home base, is fantastic. If you are down in New York City and in midtown I highly recommend it

Fedora is community and no where is it more evident than at FUDCon, a gathering of Fedora developers from around the world. Catch the Linux.com video feature taken on day one of FUDCon;. I have a small section at the end talking about the community with Karsten Wade.

Just a quick observation, gobby + git + turbogears make for a hugely successful hackfest.

Davis Square is opening up a new Boston Sports Club and I finally decided to join. The tipping point came last week during the snow storm when I slipped and fell down a couple of stairs at the Porter T stop. Usually I would walk away pretty embarrassed but non worse for ware. This time I thought I actually might have injured myself. In the end I slept it off and felt fine the next day, if a little bruised, but I realized sitting in a chair programming every day wasn’t getting me any healthier. We already have a fitness room at our office but I figured having trainers around and a place to go when I am home and on weekends will get me a bit more motivated. We will see how long this lasts but as things go these days I had to sign a contract so they’ve got me for a year. Being the type of person who skips the ‘fillers’ at a buffet just so I feel I got my money’s worth, I think I will be utilizing the gym quite a bit.