for the last time, i’m not at Sun anymore

From Dave Neary’s nicely written blog… to Theodore, I’m not at Sun anymore.

I left 7 months ago, while still in my first term on the OGB, and I was re-elected as a community member who does not work for Sun.

I did drink the kool-aid for 4.5 years… but I’d like to think I still think for myself and have independent thoughts.

kthxbai!

Add comment April 29th, 2008

DemoCampSanFrancisco

I was just talking to a couple of fellow Birders who are going to DemoCampVictoria tonight, which got me wondering….

… why isn’t there a DemoCampSanFrancisco? I’d love to have one. Anyone in the Bay Area interested? This place is such a hotbed of innovation, surely we can get people together for 10 minute real-world demos of stuff, no?

Leave a comment if you’re interested. This should be something complete open - no restrictions, focus, etc. software… hardware… world-conquering robots… artwork… music… whatever. What do people think?

Add comment April 3rd, 2008

10 years old!

happy 10th birthday mozilla!

i’d write something more meaningful, but why bother? mitchell already did that

Add comment March 31st, 2008

Songbird at OSCON

I got my talk, “Integrating Media & Web Experiences with Songbird” accepted for a 45 minute conference session at OSCON 2008.

woot! (it’s not often I get to blog ‘woot’ twice before 6am, but hey)

2 comments March 19th, 2008

Tired of it all.

I was going to write a long-winded response to the ongoing trademark, naming cluster-fuck that is Indiana OpenSolaris, but frankly I’m tired. Instead I’ll give a +1 to benr’s response (yes I know it’s a cop-out, sorry).

I’m tired of Sun’s continuing ignorance in how to treat its open source community with some modicum of respect, I’m tired of Sun’s arrogance in taking upon itself to determine what’s best for the community (a community which Sun’s current executives are completely out of touch with). I’m tired of Sun executives not listening to the people in the trenches who work for them, who quite frankly, know a helluva lot more about this whole “open source” thing than they do. I’m tired of Sun not acting within the framework of the governance and constitution that it helped setup. I’m tired of Sun telling me it knows what’s best for me.

But on the flip side…

I’m tired of all the armchair-lawyers on ogb-discuss asserting they know more about trademark law than Sun’s lawyers, I’m tired of all the trolls who agitate for immediate heavy-handed responses without thinking through the ramifications of their actions. I’m tired of so-called user experts telling me they know what’s best for me too. I’m tired of idiots on the mailing lists painting Sun employees with a broad brush and slagging the very people who backed them up and supported the same ideas as them.

Yes. Sun fucked up (and continues to). Who hasn’t? Is a response warranted? Yes, I think so. Should that response be petty and childish? Sure, if we (the OGB and the OpenSolaris community, by extension) want to be perceived as petty and childish too.

So my general plea to Sun executives is: Listen to the very people you have tasked with helping you to understand what open source is, and how to develop an open and transparent developer community. You have smart people working for you and with you.

My general plea to the rest of the OpenSolaris community is: Have some empathy and take 30 seconds before you hit Send or Reply All and try to understand the other side’s view. Personal insults and accusations are unwarranted.

Okay that was more long-winded than I wanted to type. I’m off to recuperate with a bowl of pho, and a pint.

1 comment February 14th, 2008

catchup rambling

i propose starting a new trend in web 2.0. first there was blogging. then there was microblogging (aka twitter’ing). i propose to start time-batch concatenating micro-blogging, or twitter with a touch of both diarrhea and constipation if you will.

so here’s my spew of random micro-blogging-type thoughts, concatenated into one post.

• psyched to be going to London for a week. looking forward to hopefully dropping by the LOSUG meeting while i’m there. would give my left nut to get tickets to the Arsenal/AC Milan Champions League game.

• super-psyched about FOSDEM. little bit nervous to be presenting my first conference preso about Songbird. looking forward to moules et frites with timf, catching up with other various OpenSolaris folk, and meeting more of the Mozilla Community.

• steak and bj day. seriously. i’m so in.

• i’m so desperate to go up to the sierras. i haven’t gone snowboarding at all this winter, and its been dumping lately. sigh. brand new snowboard and everything.

• work is keeping me so busy. feel like every day i finish 5 tasks only to add 7 more to the plate. i was expecting as much when i left Sun… and i love the work and my coworkers, but wow i could use a few days off.

• had a shite day at the gym yesterday, couldn’t get up the V2 & V3 routes i was able to do two weeks ago. ugh. starting to get really psyched about climbing Cathedral Peak with jesse in june though. i think my strength is there, but i could definitely do with some sustained route-climbing to build up the endurance. should probably go out somewhere (diablo maybe?) to practice some trad placements in case my rusty.

• isis is definitely getting worse. we’re taking her to the vet on saturday, but i suspect her time is near. she’s eating slower, and starting to strain so hard her body shakes a lot of the time she’s awake. her 10th birthday is in 10 days. bumming me out.

• great to see benr, tamr, and to finally meet derek c at redmonk’s party a couple of nights ago. cheers to sogrady for a great party and for the beer.

• i feel like i’m spending so much time in front of my computer lately, and not nearly enough time outdoors or with the dogs. gotta figure out this work/life balance thing.

3 comments February 8th, 2008

indulge me

… just finished my 11th day at work. between the customer preso, getting (and being present at) the songbird devcamp, a partner deadline, and getting OSCON/FOSDEM proposals submitted i’ve started to lose track of what day it is. this whole week i keep thinking it’s been friday everyday since i haven’t had a day off yet.

it seems like ages ago (when in fact it was only last week) that i did this interview with Agile Ajax about Songbird, so indulge me while i link it here.

i’ll pawn it off as claiming i want to link it here so i won’t lose it.

but i’d be lying. it’s the first interview i’ve done on Songbird, and i like Brian (the interviewer), so i’m linking it.

just found out some of the OpenSolaris crew (Sara, Patrick, and Joep) will be at FOSDEM as well, so it’ll be nice to see some familiar faces. it’s not obvious that there will be an OpenSolaris presence at FOSDEM - so that was nice to hear.

1 comment January 24th, 2008

FOSDEM 2008

Anyone going to FOSDEM this year? I’ll be presenting Songbird in the Mozilla DevRoom (and hopefully giving a lightning talk if it gets accepted). Anyone wanting to meetup to talk about Songbird, Mozilla, OpenSolaris - or just to go sample some awesome Belgium beer - drop me a note! Would love to meet up….

Add comment January 23rd, 2008

trademark and branding

sigh. it’s the issue that i never get to escape. it came up in OpenSolaris, and its starting to rear its head with Songbird.

basically i’m trying to figure out how third parties (e.g. distributions such as Ubuntu or Debian) can have a package called “songbird” with our branding, logo, and artwork while protecting our trademarks from dilution, and potential infringement or malicious use.

i’m having some good discussion with various people from said distributions as well as POTI’s lawyers and hope to have something figured out soon… it’s definitely a thorny issue, as evidenced by Mozilla & Debian’s spat with Firefox^WIceweasel

thorny issues from all sides…. and really, at heart, it’s such a simple issue. our fans/users want to run a program called “songbird”, that has cute farting birds as its logo.

right now i’m leaning towards a policy allowing use of our logos/branding if a certain set of basic smoke tests pass successfully. but i haven’t yet vetted that with the lawyer - so i’m crossing my fingers hoping that’s strong enough.

3 comments January 23rd, 2008

a good day is….

… having a double espresso and then going to give a 3 hour customer/partner presentation without screwing up.

of course anytime you can give a 3 hour preso incorporating farting birds as your graphics should be considered a win.

after that, i endured a painful reminder of how much i don’t miss the 880 commute before i hit the rock gym where i finally nailed a V3 i’d been working on the past couple of times. in fact, i managed to sink two V3’s, making them the first two V3’s i’ve bagged! the first one involved a wicked dyno which i thought was going to wrench my right shoulder out of my socket, and second involved latching onto a little crimper with one fingernail and squeezing every millimeter of reach out of my armspan.

well i’m sore and starving - but feeling pretty good. t’was a good day indeed.

Add comment January 22nd, 2008