NIN Ghost, FLAC, and Songbird; Oh my!
I've been a big Xiph fan since their beginning. When I wrote ePlayer, which became Euphoria, I opted against the popular multi-CODEC libraries and instead developed directly against libogg, libvorbis, and friends. The folks at Xiph just write beautiful code and know how to make developer friendly APIs. With the revolutionary release of Nine Inch Nails: Ghost I-IV I can't tell you how excited I was to see a FLAC option! Armed with ...
OGB Election: Bio & Positions
Here we are again, its election time in the OpenSolaris community. I've been nominated again and the playing field is larger this go around, so I'm going to provide a bio and some positions here so that voters know what their voting for. Historically I've not been a big campaigner, I don't ask anyone for their vote, the OGB is a representative body, and as such you should vote for those persons that you feel most adequately reflect your own ...
Governance Talk at SVOSUG
On Thursday night I presented a talk on OpenSolaris Governance at the SIlicon Valley OpenSolaris Users Group. When I arrived I was shocked to find a full parking lot, "sweet!" I thought... I then realized that Dr. James Gosling was downstairs presenting to the Java Users Group... doh. Still, the presentation was well attended and I was happy with the reception. Dr. Tim Marsland presented first regarding Virtualization (VirtualBox and Xen... ...
Kids, Lying, and Virtue
Bruce Schneier's blog has an interesting post pointing to a New York Magazine article on kids and lying. Its a thought provoking article but some people (based on comments and such) seem to come away thinking that somehow punishing children for lying leads them down a yet more destructive path than simply guiding it, and that lying actually requires more intellegance than honesty. Now... I normally don't comment on other articles or ...
My first column
In all my years of writing the only "professional" (as in, compensated) I've done was the SAGE Short-Topics Oracle book that I wrote (which was originally written as a free, as in, consistent with the ideals of free software, sharing and helping others, book for cuddletech). The editor of SearchDataCenter.com found my blog and asked me to write some columns for them, and the first one is now up: find it here. I'm really proud to have an ...
OpenSolaris Meeting of the Members: PLEASE READ
Calling all Core Contributors!!! The OpenSolaris Constitution stipulates in article 5 that there is to be a "Meeting of the Members" annually. If we do not get quorum during that meeting we can not have an election. If you are an OpenSolaris Core Contributor you are a "member" per the Constitution. All members should connect to the #opensolaris-meeting IRC channel on irc.freenode.org AS SOON AS POSSIBLE... like, TODAY. Need an ...
Guardian Quote; A little clarification
I was congratulated on getting quoted in the Guardian today, Giving away software makes good sense for Sun. Given that I was unaware of this I was thrilled.... and then I read it. The article quoted a previous blog entry but didn't provide that context, so it looks like I'm trying to counterpoint or argue with Jonathan. Eek. I just want to clarify the point that I, myself, am part of the problem; note that I say "we" instead of ...
Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 for Solaris
Don't be left out... Firefox 3.0 Beta 3, released on the 14th, is available in PKG format and Tarball. Download it now!
FOSS Legal Primer
Thank you /., the Software Freedom Law Center has released a A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects. Sections include: Common Copyright Questions (Including breakdown of various styles of licenses) Common Organizational Issues (Of particular interest to OpenSolaris right now) Patent Defenses for FOSS Developers Common Trademark Issues (Also of great interest to OpenSolaris) The paper is an excellent ...
Sun Confirms Inflexability & Community Disregard
On Monday OGB Chairman Rich Teer posted Sun's answer (crafted by Mr Bill Franklin with the assistance of Mr. Simon Phipps) to the OGB's request for clarification regarding the highly controversial decision to name Project Indiana "OpenSolaris". The issue is highly mixed, on one hand you have Sun Microsystems looking for a way to monetize OpenSolaris, on the other hand they are redefining the term "OpenSolaris", around which everything is ...