Technology

On Open Source

An excellent comment in regards to Open Source and SugarCRM. Not one, but two awesome quotes. One:

In my eyes (and those of the open source community), the “high value” stuff is the stuff you can improve, and the “low value” stuff is the stuff you cannot.

and two:

I should also correct John Mark’s perception that slashdot is the be-all, end-all center of gravity for open source development. The beauty of the open source model is precisely that there can be many centers that collectively interoperate. Thus, Red Hat and Fedora, as two separate centers, both draw strength and network effects from the centers that are GNOME and Mozilla and Python and of course, Project GNU. None of these projects needs to “own” the others in order to create true value within its own center. Red Hat chose a path of letting 1000 flowers bloom, and that strategic decision allowed both a richer field (for the community) and a greater harvest (for Red Hat). SugarCRM can be successful without creating a monopoly of open source development. But it can also fail if it divorces itself from the open source values that make it one of the best alternatives to other proprietary solutions today.

On citizen journalism

Cyprus Mail has an interesting article on the rising role and side effects of citizen journalism.

Throughout the social media – from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube – photos and film are posted every minute that breach codes of conduct, laws of copyright, personal privacy and government laws. From pornography to celebrity parties, from inside Guatanemo Bay to soldiers on the frontline telling it how it really is: images are escaping censorship and regulation.

I think that censorship is not an option anymore, at least in global scope. Cameras are everywhere – cheap semi-professional equipment, camcorders, webcams built-in into every notebook, mobile phones, etc. Also, free or cheap Internet access is pretty much everywhere. And on top of that, technology got really simple – one doesn’t need a Computer Science degree and years of experience to capture a video, upload it to a social network and share it with the rest of the world.

And when the censorship option is gone, the only reasonable option that I can think of is education. If governments, companies, parents, societies, etc. will start educating people, focusing on the “good” instead of “bad”, if appreciating conducts, laws, and ethics will be encouraged, then we’ll see more of the “better” content. Of course, nothing will prevent us from a few “bad apples”, but once the appropriate values will be set, a lot of people will follow.

In some sense, this issue is similar to tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption. While there are certain legal issues – licensing, age limits, advertising, driving, etc – the major control over population’s behavior in regards to tobacco and alcohol is, IMHO, done via education. It is when you show people over and over again what are consequences of tobacco smoking and alcohol abuse, when you educate them on the side effects, and so on and so forth, that’s when they start thinking and reacting in the way that you would want them to think and react.

Of course, legal consequences can be implemented to some degree. For example, for showing the moment of death and such. But those would be very difficult to enforce, due to the global nature of the Internet, digital media, and such.

Linux, Skype, and web camera

I’ve been using Skype for a few years now, but mainly for chats. Occasionally, I’d do a call, but that never involved video. Until recently. A couple of days ago my dad got online (finally!). And now there is a good reason to use Skype with a web camera for video calls.

One of the key points in Fedora 12 release notes was about improved support of video cameras. That I was glad to hear. I got my hands onto several web cameras and all of them seemed to work just fine in Cheese – a video capture application. However, none of these cameras worked in Skype. Either they were not recognized by Skype, or Skype was crashing, or I was getting really weird green-screen output, or something else.

It turned out, that there is something I had to do. First, check if libv4l package is installed, and if it isn’t – “yum install libv4l“. That’s a video for Linux library. Second, start Skype like this: “LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype“. Once I did that, Skype / Options / Video Devices confirmed that video is working fine.

Skype video

Disable touchpad while typing

I came across this blog post, which, among other things, has this excellent tip for us, laptop and netbook users – how to disable touchpad while typing. The tip is specific for Gnome desktop and is rather easy to follow. Navigate to System / Preferences / Mouse menu, switch to Touchpad tab, and check “Disable touchpad while typing” box. Then close dialogue window and enjoy. Here is a screenshot to make you life even easier.

Gnome : System / Preferences / Mouse / Touchpad

Fedora 12 and IntelliBook (rtl8187se)

I recently got my hands on an IntelliBook netbook (site in German, but the machine is actually Clevo M810L). It’s a really small, light, and simple machine, which I got for nothing, and which, I haven’t got it for nothing, would cost me around 400 EUR. The truth is, if I wouldn’t have bought it for 400 EUR.

intellibook

The good things about it are: small, light, built-in WiFi and a rather large 160 GB hard disk. The bad things are: non-standard keyboard layout (I touch type, so I don’t mind, but the other people in my home do), non-Linux-supported web camera, and really low battery life (around 2 hours or so). Also the touchpad always gets in the way, and the whole case has this cheap plastic feel to it.

When I first got the machine, it was running Ubuntu 9.10. While I have nothing against Ubuntu, I am a Fedora person. I want a regular desktop, and I want my commands and configurations to be where I am looking for them. So I replaced Ubuntu 9.10 with a recently released Fedora 12. The Live USB installation was as simple as it can possible be – boot from USB stick into a desktop, click “Install to hard disk“, and click Next three or four times.

Once the Fedora 12 Gnome desktop booted up, I was slightly disappointed to find out that wireless wasn’t working. Since it was working just fine in Ubuntu, I was pretty sure that fixing the problem won’t be hard. And I was right.

First, I established that the wireless card uses RealTek chipset (rtl8187se). Secondly, I Googled for rtl8187se and Fedora 12, which led me to this blog post, comments to which suggested that I need to add RPMFusion to my yum repositories and install kmod-staging* packages (there are two of them, one generic, and one with specific kernel version). Once the packages are installed, loaded up the driver with “modprobe rtl817se“, and restart both network and NetworkManager servers. Not even a reboot is needed – NeworkManager picks up the wireless network adapter and connects to the network. A test reboot confirmed that nothing else needs to be done and everything is just fine.

With that, I now have a little computer, which is easy to move around, and can even be given to my kid to play with. If it wasn’t for the short battery life, it would be perfect for travelling. So, either I’ll find an extended battery for this thing (which I doubt), or I will get myself another netbook for all the travels that I do. Carrying around a full fledged laptop becomes heavy and ridiculous.