Linux FUD in College Education

My fiance started a new class this week - an MIS (Management Information Systems) class. While we were having dinner tonight she brought up the fact there are some - lets say - colorful definitions of Linux in her wonderful "Experiencing MIS" text book.

Under a section titled "What Does a Manager Need to Know About Software?" there are a number of things presented to the reader as "facts" that I just have to disagree with. It starts with a nice table describing that describes typical users for Windows, OSX, Unix and Linux desktop users. What is the description of a typical Linux user you ask?

"rare - used where budget is very limited"

That is right - the only reason to use Linux on the desktop is when you are strapped for cash. I guess Google never got that memo. The extra kick in the pants? Apparently the only commonly used application Linux has is:

"Open Office (Microsoft Office look-alike)"

Never mind that Open Office contains a sane menu interface instead of "ribbons".

In case the avid reader is curious about who created Linux - that information is here as well. Linux is developed by the "open-source community" which is described as:

"a loosely coupled group of programmers who mostly volunteer their time"

I guess they never got the memo that nearly 75% of kernel work is done by paid developers.

This is what is holding Linux back on the desktop folks. Not a lack of hardware support. Not a lack of user friendliness. Just good old fashion Linux FUD. The best thing you can do to fight things like this is to speak up and let the people spreading the FUD know it is not OK to spread misinformation. Although I must say it really irks me seeing information like this appearing in a higher education setting.

What is this wonderful text book you ask? As mentioned above it is titled "Experiencing MIS", written by a man named "David Kroenke", and published by none other than Pearson Education.

~Jeff Hoogland

Giving Android a Chance...

It has been about six weeks since I have posted anything - and even longer than that since I posted non-Bodhi related content. I'm currently working through my final semester of graduate school and what little time I have extra has been going towards working on Bodhi things of the late.

Today however, I am bothered enough by something to share my feelings about it. If you have been by my blog here before then you might know that I am not a fan of Google's Android operating system. In fact in the past I have written why I feel it is removed from other Linux operating systems. As of the Linux 3.3 series kernel though a pile of the Android changes where merged back into the main line kernel.

Because of this re-merging and the fact that it had been sometime since I last tried Android in any form I felt I should give it another chance. I know a good amount of people that tout it's virtues and would not use anything else on their mobile devices. The recent death of the computer I'd been using as a media PC for the last three years sent me searching for a new toy. The combination of my wanting to try a recent Android release and the need to replace my media PC lead me to pick up a MK802 Android PC.

I got my little device in the mail today. I ripped open the box, plugged in all the cables and soon had Android booting on my TV! I have three needs from a media PC:

1. Light Web Browsing
2. Pandora Internet Radio
3. Play Media from my External Hard Drive

The MK802 did the first two with ease - the web browser loaded right up and I was soon viewing the Bodhi forums without issues. To take care of my second need, I popped open the Google Play store and installed the Pandora application. 

The issues started when I attempted to play some media files from my external hard drive. I plugged in my drive to the USB port and popped open the file manager - I poked around in all the options but the drive was nowhere to be found. Then I noticed a notification in the lower right corner of the screen, it read:

Damaged USB Storage - You may have to reformat it.

I'd never seen this message on a system powered by a Linux kernel before. I'd seen it a couple of times when friends had tried using my external on their Windows or OSX PCs. My drive is formatted to EXT4 you see. Apparently this file system isn't support on my Android device. That is right, this "Linux" PC doesn't support my Linux file system.

The solution to this issue? I've been told I need to compile a custom kernel module to add ext4 support. If I am going to spend that much effort getting Android to work I would rather devote that effort towards getting Debian to boot on the MK802 instead. So much for Android being easy.

~Jeff Hoogland

That Good Old Linux FUD

Who doesn't love a good Monday morning rant?

I caught this article on the news feed of my favorite Linux news site this morning and I must say it upsets me a lot. The too long/didn't read version of this guy's article is that Android is "usable" for most users, while he finds desktop Linux lacking in the usability department. He cites a number of reasons why the distribution he selected (Fedora) isn't "usable" compared to Android. Honestly all of them are your normal anti-desktop Linux FUD and I am tired of it.

Oh man - all your hardware doesn't work with the distribution you are using, but your Android device works great? Let me guess - you bought a device with Android preinstalled. Your "Linux computer" on the other hand you installed yourself. You also didn't research the hardware. You just expected Linux to work with every piece of hardware that exists. I'm not sure who told you Linux worked with 100% of hardware, but guess what? They lied. Linux works with a great deal of hardware, but not all of it. If you bought your own copy of Windows or OSX and tried to install it on non-supported hardware you better believe their parent companies would tell you to get supported hardware. Why are you treating Linux differently?

Next he goes onto to complain about the difficulties you have to go through when setting up a Linux PC.

Oh man - you downloaded an operating system that has free software principles and you expected it to utilize closed source tools by default? This surprises you? In under an hour on distrowatch you can easily find a distribution that comes with such tools by default. Instead this guy choose the wrong tool for the job he wanted to do and then opted to complain when it didn't work properly.

Next he moves on to complaining about bugs in the operating system.

Oh man - the giant piece of complex software (that you got for free mind you) isn't perfect? Not only that, but instead of having to pay of updates like some operating systems these bugs can often be resolved automatically via the package manager after reporting them? Windows and OSX aren't bug free either. Why are you expecting Linux to be?

Finally he complains about the release cycle of the distribution he is using.

Oh man - you selected a distribution with a six month release cycle, but you don't like updating/reinstalling every six months? I am simply going to make a distrowatch reference again here. There are easily dozens of active projects that this won't happen with. Sadly, you can only lead a horse to water, you can't make it drink.

In closing today I would like to share one last thought of my own regarding desktop Linux. We have not yet gotten to a software world where everyone is ready to install and configure their own operating system. Expecting this to be true is a folly. I would be willing to bet that almost every user that has issues installing Linux (on Linux friendly hardware) would also have issues installing Windows or OSX.

Installing an operating system requires a user to make at least some technical decisions - it is the nature of the beast. Expecting desktop Linux to transcend this is just foolish.

Finally - no matter how good a given piece of software is you can never account for all the carbon based issues that are bound to occur. You know what they say - every time you make something idiot proof they go and make a better idiot!

~Jeff Hoogland

Is Blizzard banning Linux Users?

While some companies like Valve are working on porting their software to run natively on Linux, it appears some other large companies are going to the extreme to prevent users from running their software on free operating systems.

The company I am talking about? None other than Blizzard Games. Late last month users started reporting on the Wine APPDB page for Diablo 3 that their user accounts where getting banned simply for running their games using Wine! So this is me providing a fair warning to everyone else out there running Diablo 3 via Wine - don't. Unless of course you feel like having wasted 60$ spent to buy the game.

To quote some of the frustrated Linux gamers:

"Well I've had Diablo running on my FreeBSD machine now for a couple of weeks and have a level 53 Wizard.

I just got notice while trying to log in last night that I was banned, and when I checked my email, I hadn't received anything from Blizzard.

After I opened a support ticket with them, a short while later, this is what I received in email:

Account Action: Account Closure
Offense: Unapproved Third Party Software
A third party program is any file or program that is used in addition to the game to gain an unfair advantage. These programs may increase movement speed or teleport heroes from one place to another beyond what is allowed by game design. It also includes any programs that obtain information from the game that is not normally available to the regular player or that transmit or modify any of the game files.

I don't run any programs as described above.

I kite, I die, and then I repair. But hey it's fun."

And a second:

"I got banned last night as well. Other than running under Wine I can't imagine why. Level 30ish char and not so much as a gaming keyboard.

I also have a ticket open. We will see..."

And a third:

"Ditto. I suddenly got a banned email last night, and I'm more or less in the same position. I think they're getting a bit trigger-happy with this, considering I've been running WoW for years under WINE, too.

Ah well, ticket's up."

Please stop the madness Blizzard. You should try focusing your banning efforts on people actually cheating instead of those simply trying to play your games on their OS of choice. If you are looking for more information on this topic there is a fairly good write up about it here.

~Jeff

People in Closed Source Houses Shouldn't Throw Stones

I wrote a post late last year when all the news first started being posted (pretty much everywhere) about the Windows 8 "secure boot" support. Well folks, the open source news media is at it again - Microsoft has announced they are doing exactly what we thought they would - they are implementing secure boot on Windows 8 ARM devices. There have been various blogs and even decent open source websites posting foolish notions such as:

Microsoft ready to war with Linux

or

Did Microsoft Just Kill Ubuntu Tablets?

I say these notions are foolish because they imply that Microsoft is doing something that isn't already being done.

Do these people have any idea how many Linux based ARM devices don't allow dual booting? Do they have any idea how many Linux based ARM devices exist, were even if you can dual boot them they lack hardware functionality in alternative operating systems due to closed source drivers?

Before you tar and feather me for not jumping on the Microsoft bashing bandwagon - please stop and count the number of ARM devices you've tried to install an alternative operating system (such as Debian) on. Personally, the number of different pieces of hardware I've worked with is into the double digits now. Do you know how many devices I've managed to get full functionality out of?  

Exactly one. 

Thats right, until I'd recently started working with the Genesi Smartbook alternative operating systems were always crippled on the various ARM devices I owned. If you can prove me wrong here - really, please do! I would love to have more ARM devices that I can run Linux on fully.

So maybe, just maybe, the open source news media needs to stop and take a deep breath and realise that the ARM platform as a whole is a giant mess with regards to software freedom. Microsoft isn't doing anything new here - they are simply following in the footsteps of companies everywhere of creating locked down mobile devices. So please, if you are going to continue calling out Microsoft as the ARM anti-christ please be sure to include all those other companies involved with ARM that also hate software freedom.

~Jeff Hoogland

Dear Open Source Free Loaders

This is an open letter to all the open source free loaders out there - you know who you are.

One day you heard about this awesome thing called free software. You didn't know about the difference between free as in freedom and free as in beer - nor did you care. You came here simply because you heard you could get something for nothing.

As soon as you have your something, you are content - for the moment. Then something does not behave as expected, you can't figure something out or a true issue occurs.

You don't ask for help. 

You don't report there is an issue.

You don't help fix the problem at hand.

You know what you do. We all know what you do. You proclaim loudly for all to hear that the thing you got for free doesn't work properly. You call it garbage. You call it trash. You walk away from the product, leaving it worse for wear. You won't be missed.

In fact, check your Paypal - there is a full refund sitting in your account. Don't come back.

Today, I implore you - don't be an open source free loader. Free and Open Source Software is software written by a community, for a community. Without give an take on both ends (developers and users) things will never improve. The developers have given you software to use, the least you can do is give valid feedback. Remember - if you aren't part of a solution, then you are part of the problem.

A short rant from a sometimes tired developer,
~Jeff Hoogland

Whats good for the Goose should be good for the Gander

I think many in the world of FOSS take for granted that a good deal of our x86 compatible hardware works with their operating system of choice. In fact all the fuss about a possible lock out with the coming of Windows 8 attests to this fact. x86 hardware has always been fairly free and it should remain as such right?

Yes it should.

Something that really bothers me though is the fact that ARM hardware is treated in a very different way. What do I mean by this? Well as someone who has worked with over a dozen different pieces of ARM hardware from many different manufactures I can tell you installing an alternative operating system on such a piece of hardware is almost never a pleasant experience.

Before I go on I would like to clarify that by "install" I mean physically run the operating system on the hardware. Not just running it inside a chroot like so many Android users seem content to do on their hardware. In my opinion being told to be content with a chroot setup is just like being told I should be happy simply running Linux inside of Windows via a virtual machine.

Even devices that advertise themselves as open source loving (such as my beloved N900) are a nightmare and a half to install something such as Debian on. Don't be fooled by devices that ship things like Ubuntu Linux by default either. I recently purchased a Trimslice with the hopes of installing Debian on it and it has been an up-hill battle to make it work (one I still haven't won). Once you manage to get the operating system installed even that is only half the process - next you have to hope you can somehow get all your hardware functioning.

Why does all this headache happen? Well, partially it is because of lack of standards in the ARM world. A vast variety of hardware that all have different external components make this task difficult. This difficultly is multiplied two fold when you take into account that most of this hardware has no open specifications. 

In the end my question to the open source community is why is this acceptable for ARM hardware? Why do you continue to rejoice about every new Android device that gets released riddled with closed source modules that are next to impossible to make work under actual Linux.

Just as many of you would be upset if you where told that desktop (or laptop) you bought had to keep it's default operating system I am more than a little annoyed that a good deal of the ARM hardware out there comes with this stipulation attached.

~Jeff Hoogland

Losing work because I use Linux

I am starting graduate school this fall. New school, new town and this means I am looking for a new job. My girlfriend saw a mention of the website Tutor.com. They offer a web based tutoring service for high school students. I have a fair bit of tutoring experience (and I am a certified high school teacher for mathematics in Illinois) so I figured I was more than qualified for their online tutoring position.

While I was filling out their online application I met all of the requirements except for one:


Their online application was three pages long. Even though I saw the above block on the first page I had a small hope it wasn't a strict requirement because after I checked "no" to having Windows I was able to select that I used "Linux" from a drop down menu. Tutor.com then proceeded to waste another ten minutes of my time while I filled out the next two pages. Immediately after hitting the "submit" button I was informed that my application had failed.

I understand they have certain system requirements, but why they felt it was necessary to waste my time filling out the last two pages after I already marked that I did not use Windows is beyond me. What is also beyond me is why they choose to develop their browser based software for the Windows only Internet Explorer instead of any of the cross platform browsers that exist. Oh and did I mention that they opted to support iOS before they added support for non-Windows desktop operating systems?

I guess I should be used to this by now. I mean it is far from the first time educational software has rejected my operating system of choice. I thought about simply dual booting so I could apply successfully, but then I realized that sticking to my software values is more important than some crummy part time job. If you are a free software supporter I would recommend strongly against using Tutor.com and spreading that same advice to others that you know.

~Jeff Hoogland

#fedora - You are always wrong

EDIT: Please note that obviously the people in #fedora are not representative of the fedora community as a whole. This is just me blowing off steam late at night after hardware failure and a poor experience.

Fair warning - I am about to go off on a rant here.

I discovered this evening much to my dismay that the year and a half old western digital hard drive in my main laptop is dieing. All three of the Linux installs on the system failed in various ways (typically a sign of a hardware issue) so I grabbed the closest live CD and popped it in. Now, it's been awhile since I've burned a live CD so the top disc in my spindle was an old Fedora 13 disc. After the system booted up, I connected to my wireless internet and was on my way.

There was a few gigs of data on the drive I didn't have backed up, so I opened nautilus and navigated to my files.

Ahh right - the permissions of the hard drive made it so I could not read certain folders I needed access to. Not a problem, I'll just launch the file manager as root. I opened a terminal, typed in su followed by nautilus and was greet by a crash message.

Ahh right - nautilus doesn't like to be opened as super user if I recall correctly. It had been awhile since I had used a non-sudo distro, so I hopped into #fedora on freenode to ask how I could go about launching the file manager as super user.

Dear lord was that a mistake.

Less than a minute in the #fedora channel was enough to remind me why Fedora 13 was the last Fedora revision I had burned. I've found that whenever I am foolish enough to ask a question in #fedora, instead of getting help with what I have asked, I am bombarded with questions on why I am trying to do what I am doing. Even after informing them that I would just like to accomplish what I have asked, I was informed I was wrong and that I should do something completely different (and that would take far longer than I wanted with a dieing hard disc).

I would just like to take a moment to say to all the self proclaimed Linux help nazis out there:

You are not God's gift to your Linux help channel.

When a person asks a question, if you are not going to help - then don't. When someone seems to be asking an odd question - odds are you don't know everything about their story. If their question is truly odd, perhaps just throw a mention of warning after helping them accomplish their task.

Needless to say I left #fedora after a few mind numbing moments and simply installed pcmanfm (which launched as super user just fine).

Whew. I apologize if you are a decent person who really tries to help (instead of criticize) in #fedora on freenode. It just seems more often than not in the four years I've been using Linux as my primary operating system I have always met with resistance in that channel.

My data is all recovered from the drive now and I am happily headed back to apt-get land. If I ever give yum a try again it will definitely be with Fuduntu or Fusion and not with normal Fedora ever.

~Jeff Hoogland

Many a Tux Do Not Exist

So I was reading a review of the latest Zorin OS posted over at the Dark Duck blog and the title of it is rather interesting:

"Tux Which Does Not Exist..."

The reason Dark Duck gives for his curious title is the fact that Zorin OS does not exist on what is respected by many as the one stop shop for most all information on the internet - Wikipedia. Now I am not sure as to why Zorin OS does not have a page there, but I would not be terribly surprised if it was for a similar reason Bodhi Linux still does not have a Wikipedia page.

Wikipedia moderators are inconsistent and sometimes just jerks!

A couple months after I first release Bodhi Linux into the wild, one of our many users erected a Wikipedia page about Bodhi. It was promptly taken offline due to a citing for lack of notability. At that point, this was a 100% fair assumption - our project was only a couple months old and really the only place that had mentioned it was my own blog here.

About a month ago one of our users put up a page for Bodhi again. This time we where listed on distro watch, had write ups on ghack, webup8, omgubuntu, techrepublic, and about a dozen other Linux/tech orientated websites. We are quickly attaining our goal - becoming the standard for what people think of when they look for an Enlightenment distribution. This time the page stuck - success! We had achieved a noteworthy status.

In case you didn't know, Wikipedia articles are case sensitive. The page that had stuck around for about two weeks was located at Bodhi_Linux. Another of our users (not realizing we already had one) put up another page with the title Bodhi_linux. This page was correctly flagged as a duplicate and promptly deleted - the issue? The moderator that deleted the duplicated page also took a look at previous page and this moderator decided there was not enough about the project there for the page to exist. Never mind the fact that it had already been up for two weeks and had already been approved by another moderator.

The kicker? There are at least a dozen or so other Linux distributions listed on Wikipedia that have seen far less attention than Bodhi has or have been around for just as long (or less) time. Yes I know Wikipedia is a volunteer service it is just a shame that we cannot get some consistency among the decisions those volunteers make. We will have a page eventually I am sure, but at this point I am not terribly worried about it.

~Jeff Hoogland

Tiny Core Fraud on Source Forge

If you watch new projects that are added to source forge then two weeks ago you might have noticed that Tiny Core Linux was added to their projects.

I thought this was a little bit odd as I knew Tiny Core had been around for a couple of years now. Typically if a FOSS project is going to use source forge for hosting they do so from the start. Still, I let the thought drop and went on with my day.

This evening it was brought to my attention that the Tiny Core page on source forge was not added by anyone from the Tiny Core project itself - but simply by someone trying to solicit donations from themselves with someone else's work! Roberts, the founder of Tiny Core, tried to contact source forge, but did not receive any good news from them:

"When I contacted Sourceforge with a take down notice, I was told that if it is copyrighted material that I need to contact legal and prove it"

Check his post here for his full scoop on the matter. In short - the md5 sums on the source forge page match the md5 sums on the Tiny Core main downloads site - it is the exact same disc. I think it is horrible that source forge is refusing to take down this obvious fraud without first being called into legal action.

This is a slippery slope and I think if this issue is not resolved swiftly and properly we are going to see more of these copied projects appearing on source forge trying to solicit donations for greedy people. If there anyone out there with some legal background that can lend a hand - please get into contact with the Tiny Core folks and help them get this resolved!

For those that are not familiar with Tiny Core it is a super minimalistic Linux distro that runs on the 2.6 kernel and weighs in at 10megs. It uses Busybox, Tiny X, and Fltk. Check it out if you haven't already.

~Jeff Hoogland

No FAFSA for FOSS Users

I'm a student in my last semester of undergraduate school currently. I've written twice now about various pieces of online software that restrict your freedom to use the operating system of your choice to access them. My girlfriend is also a student and as many of you may know - college is expensive. This weekend she went to fill out her FAFSA application online, for those of you unfamiliar "FAFSA" stands for "free application for federal student aide", and was annoyed when she found out she couldn't!

You might share in my shock when I found out that this free application cannot be filled out from a free operating system. When clicking the "start here" button on the FAFSA main page from a Linux based operating system you are kindly redirected to the incompatible browsers page. Just like with blackboard "supported browsers" really means "supported browsers and operating systems". The FAFSA website supports:

• Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8
• Firefox 3.5 and 3.6
  
• Google Chrome 6 and 7
• Opera 10.x

Now even though three of these browsers are cross platform, the only operating systems you are able to use with these browsers are Windows and OSX. The kicker at the end of all this? At the very bottom of the page there is a citing of standards compliance as the reason for certain browsers being redirected:

"For the past few years, every major Web browser released has been built around a set of open standards designated by the World Wide Web Consortium, a non-profit organization charged with overseeing the continuing development of the Web. What this means is that one piece of code now looks the same on every modern browser, whether it be Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, or others. The majority of our users are using these modern browsers, so we can present content which is optimized for them. "

While that is all fine and dandy, last I checked browsers on Linux where not any less standards compliant than those on Windows or OSX. At the end of the day I guess this is just another example of a large organization ignoring the FOSS ecosystem. I wonder how much longer it is going to be that Linux users are going to have to deal with this sort of ignorance.

~Jeff Hoogland

The Quality of FOSS Blogs

You may or may not be aware that I am the current project leader for Bodhi Linux. As such, in addition to developing the distribution I've also done my best to contact various websites that do write ups about Linux related things to do write ups about Bodhi. After all, what is the use of developing something if no one is going to use it? Up until now most everything that folks had written about Bodhi had been, fair, decently objective, and at least a small bit researched.

This evening I read an article that struck a bit of a nerve with me. I had contacted the author of Dedoimedo a couple months back to see if he would be willing to take a look at Bodhi. He said he was interested and then sent me an email back letting me know:

"Just an early FYI, I started testing the distro. It's got lots of issues,

I'm gonna release that in the review, but I wanted you to know up ahead, it's only fair"

Great, I love constructive user feedback. Find an issue? Let us know and we will get it fixed - we are still in a "release candidate" stage with the Bodhi project so we know issues are bound to occur.

I had been wondering exactly what "lots of issues" he had encountered, we have a decent user base now and no one else had reported anything more than a few minor things. Earlier this week he finally posted his thoughts about Bodhi - I was a bit turned off that he had completely missed the point of the project. We are not trying to be Pinguy OS or Zorin. We do not think it is necessary to install "everything and the kitchen sink" for all users. In fact quite the opposite, we pride ourselves on the exact opposite - user choice by allowing them to easily customize their own system.

He spent most all of what he wrote complaining about the lack of pre-installed applications found in the minimalistic distribution. This is like purchasing a fork and then complaining that it is difficult to eat soup with said utensil - just utter non-sense.

He then goes on to complain about a few configurable features of Enlightenment, including how it handles window focus and the behavior of maximized applications and your shelves. Towards the end he also says:

"Getting the extra stuff requires a liberal use of the package manager, turning minimalistic into a saga of hard work"

Which further proves how little he actually looked into the project itself because installing software from our online software center is about as easy as it gets.

At the end of the day he did come across one actual bug with the distro - the fact that the default home page in Firefox was a "restore last session" message, a small oversight before building the disc image. This has been corrected in our latest release and we extend our apologies to all those out there than had to click the restore button before going on with their webrowsing on Bodhi 0.1.5

Odds are you have heard the statement "Linux is not Windows" before. This isn't a bad thing, in fact different is good - it is however a fair warning that if you try to use Linux thinking it is going to look and feel the same as Windows you are going to be sorely disappointed. In the same respect - Bodhi is not Ultimate Edition or Pinguy OS and we are not trying to be. We advertise what we are, so the user (should) know what they are getting before they download our latest release.

I guess all in all I am just a little disappointed that some where as popular as dedoimedo gave such a biased post with obviously little research into what the project was about. I guess in the end it is a healthy reminder that you need to take everything you read on the internet with a (sometimes huge) grain of salt. Why am I posting this rebuttal here? Because Dedoimedo is kind enough to have any form of commenting disabled on his website (I could guess a few reasons why). At the end of the day I guess "any advertising is good advertising" - Right?

What do you think? Was dedoimedo objective in his post and I am just overacting because I am personally involved in Bodhi or am I right in my annoyance with his post?

~Jeff Hoogland

Open Source Software is not Free

When you have been suggesting free open source software to people as longs as I have you are bound to run into at least a few people believe FOSS is only for "cheap" people (I've found typically these people have Microsoft Certifications). They accuse you of only using free software because it comes at no cost to you. Even if this was the first reason you gravitated towards FOSS, odds are if you are still here after some months there is now more to it than just "free of cost".

One of my favorite quotes is:

Nothing is ever free.

I believe this statement to be true for a number of reasons. The important thing to recognize is that I believe the "free" in this quote and the "free" in FOSS are two different types of "free". In the quote the "free" refers to a monetary value. Even if you pay no monetary value for software - that software cost someone, somewhere, something. Whether that something is a paycheck for the software developer coming from a company backing the project or it is simply a dedicated individual hacking at code during his spare moments - that "free" software comes at a cost to someone.

Now - what do I believe the "free" in FOSS means? Freedom of course! The code is open - you are allowed to change and redistribute it as you wish. Add features, fix bugs, or fork a project all together. You are not tied down in messy, restrictive EULAs - your computer is truly your own. You are not "renting" your software. Because this software is free of cost to the end user you also have the freedom to change at any time. Don't like KDE? Try Enlightenment. Don't like Fedora? Try OpenSUSE. Don't like OpenOffice.org? Try LibreOffice. (This list never really stops)

I've found that the longer most people use FOSS the more likely they are to contribute back to the projects they enjoy. We can all help in different ways - if you can spare a few dollars for your favorite project I'm sure they won't say no - if you cannot there are plenty of other ways to help - code, support, art... If you haven't already drop a message to your favorite open source project and do so to find out how you can help! Without community backing the world of FOSS would not be the thriving ecosystem it is today.

~Jeff Hoogland

Nokia kicks FOSS to the Curb

If you have been by my blog here before then you might know I really like my Nokia N900. It is one of the most flexible, powerful, open source friendly devices on the market. I bought mine and carry it with pride everyday (because I am an FOSS advocate). When Nokia announced they where merging Maemo into the MeeGo project I openly voiced my support. With a corporate backer like Nokia, Meego was sure to quickly become a forerunner in mobile technology.

Today Nokia revoked that backing.

In one swift move Nokia brought Meego from a potential revolutionary piece of technology to being simply the red headed step child of mobile operating systems. To quote Nokia:

"MeeGo will place increased emphasis on longer-term market exploration of next-generation devices."

I believe this is a kindly worded death sentence for the platform - not many developers are interested in writing software for a "longer-term market exploration" operating system. Long term means less profits, less profits means less applications, less applications means less users... It is a vicious path they have started down. One that eventually leads to the discontinuation of a short lived operating system.

What is the cause of this back seating of Meego? Nokia announced today that they struck a deal with Microsoft that will make Windows Mobile 7 the operating system on a majority of their handsets in the future. It seems some of the doubts I had when Stephen Elop, a former Microsoft employee, took over Nokia where correct. Windows Mobile 7 on Nokia devices means they will be just as restrictive as other propitiatory devices such as Apple's iPhone and RIM's Blackberry. Restricted technologies are not the way of the future and Android's explosive growth is proof of this.

I am not just blowing smoke here, lots of people are upset by this. Including many Nokia employees. In fact Geek.com estimates that close to 1,000 Nokia employees staged a walkout today, opting to use their flex-pay days to take the day off work. Consumers also appear to be taking note of this exchange as well and are responding in a similar manner. Nokia's stock dumped nearly twelve percentage points today:


Speak with your wallet folks, the N900 will be my last Nokia product unless the company does (another) serious 180 some time soon.

The biggest joke at the end of all this? We don't even have a set release date for Nokia Win7 devices (and if Nokia's stock continues to dump at this rate we may never see one). Odds are we will not see them till next year, if not later. Remember Meego handsets where first predicted to release Q4 of 2010, which turned into Q1 of 2011, which has now turned into "some time this year".

What is your take on all of this, is Nokia shooting themselves in the foot with this union or could is possibly yield something good?

~Jeff Hoogland

Listen to your Package Manager - It Knows what it is Talking About!

Many people instinctively click through any popup window that appears on their screen when they are trying to accomplish a task. A good deal of these people do not even read the message that is presented to them, they simply look for the Close/OK/Next/Yes button so they can move on with what they are trying to do on their computer. I am fairly certain this behavior has been ingrained into the minds of the masses from having to deal with popup windows when surfing the internet, popups are distracting and are almost never useful.

Almost never.

There was an issue with one of the repositories that Bodhi uses this week. Even thought we are based around Ubuntu 10.04, some of the backporting the team does causes some core Ubuntu packages for 10.04 to no longer be compatible. Not a big deal, we roll our own for these few packages.

One thing we had not counted on was the few backports Ubuntu provides to it's LTS releases and this week one of these backports was the package xserver-xorg-video-geode. As you might have guessed this is one of those packages that is no longer backwards compatibly with Bodhi. In fact, if you went to upgrade this package via apt-get or one of it's GUI front end such as Synaptic you would be presented with a warning message telling you that installing this new package may break your system along with a list of conflicting packages that would be removed (nearly the entire system).

Thats a pretty good warning message, I wasn't terribly concerned about getting this one package corrected right away - I had other more pressing things to work on.

Boy was that a mistake!

Even with the cryptic message about the package possibly breaking your system and only to proceed if you knew exactly what you where doing - I was contacted by half a dozen people who where all wondering why their system was no longer functioning. I didn't realize what they had all done at first, but once I pieced it together I decided it was worth the half hour it was going to take for me to get a Bodhi compatible version of this xorg package into the repository.

The moral of my little story here? Listen to your package manager! (that and I need to stay on top of the lucid backports a little bit better) Whenever you are doing anything on a GNU/Linux system that requires the root password you should be sure to understand everything that is going to be done to the system before agreeing to it. This can save you a lot of headaches and broken machines down the line!

~Jeff Hoogland

User Familiarity != Software Superiority

Most anyone that has really used Linux, on the desktop, in the last few years knows that it is ready for the average user. The same is true for a number of other open source projects. Many FOSS projects are on-par with (or better than) their closed source counter parts when it comes to the number of features and functionality. Why is it then that FOS softwares are (typically) less commonly used by the general public? Simple:

User Familiarity

It is the sad fact that in our current society (mostly) only closed source softwares are used (and taught) in schools - at least in the US. This fact, combined with the resistance to change that is inherit to most people, means people are more inclined to click on that big blue E when going to surf the Internet as opposed to my favorite fox. Many users simply use the software that comes pre-installed on their computer or what is recommended by the sale's person. For example Microsoft Office.

In many FOSS vs Closed Source project comparisons I have seen to date this "user familiarity" is often referenced as a point of "software superiority". Not only is this a flawed form of logic, but it is really borderline FUD. The familiarity the users have with a given piece software is not something that they where born with (or was even developed over night). It is something they learned over an (often extended) period of time.

Do you think a time will ever come when users will realize that just because you know how to use a piece of software doesn't automatically make it the best software for completing the task at hand?

~Jeff Hoogland

Netflix and FOSS Hypocrites

Perhaps you saw a couple weeks ago Netflix's post touting their advocacy of open source software. They provide a hefty list of projects they utilize and contribute back to:

Hudson, Hadoop, Hive, Honu, Apache, Tomcat, Ant, Ivy, and Cassandra

It's a shame there aren't any video streaming programs on that list. If you use Linux and are familiar with Netflix then odds are you are aware of (what at this point feels like an age old argument) the issue of getting Netflix's instant stream functional on your Linux system. In case you are not aware of this dilemma, in short:

It does not work

You see, even with all of the FOSS projects Netflix supports they choose to use the DRM ridden Silverlight plugin to stream video over the Internet. This prevents the streaming service from functioning on FOS operating systems (Linux, BSD, ect.) at this current point in time. Why the lack of support? Some will say Linux has a small market share so is not worth the extra time it takes to support the platform.

Personally, I find it a bit absurd that they can find the time to support Windows, OSX, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, iOS, and now even the Linux based Android and still not provide a general streaming solution that would work across all PC platforms. As Netflix themselves stated, it is often cheaper to employ an FOSS solution to remedy software needs - so why they do not use an FOSS medium to stream their media is beyond me (or heck even a closed sourced solution such as flash that is cross platform).

In my opinion, Netflix loves FOSS just about as much as Microsoft does. They see it as something that can help their bottom line and nothing more. Don't get me wrong, I understand companies need to make money - but in my opinion if you are only utilizing FOSS to turn a larger profit, then you are falling far short of realizing the true reason this type of software exists.

~Jeff Hoogland

Ubuntu PPA Problem - Reason for Concern?

With the release of Ubuntu 9.10 late last year Canonical introduced PPAs, which is short for Personal Package Archives. A PPA allows anyone that has signed the Ubuntu Code of Conduct to easily distribute software they have packaged to Ubuntu users. This revolutionary idea allows those who do not have the capability to establish their own repository to easily provide package updates to their users. Want the latest version of Openshot or PiTiVi? Then simply add a PPA to your system that packages up to date versions of these softwares and you will be set to go!

The problem with this system you ask? There is namely one issue: Canonical does not review any of the packages that are uploaded to PPAs. Because of this adding software from various PPAs wily nilly in reality is more dangerous than installing software on Windows. I say this because not only are you giving root access to the software upon installation, but also every time you run a system update from then after. Meaning even if a PPA provides trusted packages at first, this could change later on.

While it has not happened yet (as far as I am aware), I feel it is only a matter of time before some form of malicious code makes its way into a PPA that is used large scale. If you are comfortable with having software installed on your system from many different sources - that is your own choice (one of the many great things about FOSS). However, if you always need the latest up to date software maybe it is worth considering a rolling release distro such as LMDE or Chakra.

What is your take on this? Am I just blowing hot air and worrying for nothing or could having piles of PPAs on your system cause a potential risk down the line?

~Jeff Hoogland

T-Mobile "4g" Failure

"4g" is very hot-button advertising term with mobile Internet providers in the United States right now. Sprint, Clear, and now T-Mobile are all advertising various forms of "4g" networks. What exactly qualifies as "4g" you ask? According to the ITU Radio Communication Sector the definition of "4g" is as follows:

"A 4G system is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based solution where facilities such as ultra-broadband (giga-bit speed such as 100+ MiB/s) Internet access, IP telephony, gaming services, and streamed multimedia may be provided to users."

By this definition, none of the before mentioned companies actually have a "4g" network. Sprint and Clear offer "WiMax" networks and T-Mobile really has "HSPA+". Both of these types of networks current max out around 10MiB/s - falling far short of the denoted 100+MiB/s required of a true "4g" network.

Currently advertised on the front page of T-Mobile's website is


That small text at the bottom you ask? It states the network is really HPSA+, also known previously as "3.5g". Between October and November of this year (2010) T-Mobile rolled out HSPA+ in a good number of new towns around the United States. So while their network isn't really "4g" this faster "3g" connection is now more readily available than before.

Something T-Mobile hasn't advertised quite as much as their larger, faster network is that, without notifying any of their customers, in October they cut the amount of data each user is allowed per-month from 10gb down to 5gb. In case you didn't know your "unlimited" data plan from T-Mobile has a limit to how much data you are allowed at "4g/3g" speeds each month. Once you go beyond this limit the service to your hand held is cut down to "2g" for the remainder of the month. So while T-Mobile's HSPA+ is on par speed wise with Sprint's WiMax network, with Sprint you will enjoy your fast mobile internet as much as you want - while with T-Mobile you are decently limited.

At any rate, even though I love my N900 I think it is time I start looking into "4g" hand-helds with Sprint.

~Jeff Hoogland