coffee.geek.nz

Thoughts on today's "un-conference"

It came outta the blue this conference. The topic is Open Government. There was another Open Government un-conference in Wellington last year. The organisers of today's event seem to have announced their event without any conversation of any kind with the previous organisers, nor with those already working hard on open government in New Zealand.

All was not lost - quite a few of those who give sweat and blood to the open government mission were able to come today.

But I am struck by the contrast between the groups. The biggest filter of who attends is the day of the week. The first open government un-conference in Wellington was on a Saturday and Sunday. Those that came were those who really do give a damn. They were all willing go give up their weekend to attend, which immediately tells you they care beyond a pay check.

The attendees today, may also really care about the subject, but they also need to have the ability to spend a monday at an open government barcamp. It immediately removes those who work in other fields, and/or cannot get permission from employers. It is a different crowd. It attracts those looking for funded work, which is all okay with me, but it excludes many those who build on open government data because they see a problem that needs solving, and not for their own monetary gain.

Story on stuff:
"SSC specifies open source software in tender process"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/3703572/NZICT-says-wah-...

Has a splatter of quotes from NZICT crying sadness over SSC requiring open source
Like this:

"I would hope that any customer is going to pursue the best solution and I would have thought that you wouldn't want to be too prescriptive about what that solution is.

The question is, have NZICT, and will NZICT, cry the same sadness when a government department declares a project must be built with microsoft technology?

p.s. anyone know what purpose NZICT serves that NZ Computer Society doesn't? I've heard a few cynical answers only so far.
Dave Lane has some research on who/what NZICT are and concludes they are mostly foreign corporates (at least by voting power) and really don't deserve to have NZ in their name. I'm inclined to agree.

btw, i won again.. i wouldn't mind being defeated by Jo, but couldn't let myself lose to mauricio.

It was my first evening out on my own since Casey was born - i was mega tired, and i had no time to prepare. basically had to make it up. sadly I missed out a bunch of stuff i wanted to say about OLPC and ACTA.

my summary of the other speakers:

Miraz: apple will take over the world
Mauricio: microsoft will take over the world
Me: robots will take over the world
Jo: non-geeky people will still not take over the world
Phillip: you're all predicting the obvious

this was organised by the ppl at http://up.org.nz, who alas haven't updated their website with anysummary 2 weeks later. there was someone filming the talks, but these never seem to make it to the web either.

so, you'll have to take my word for it

Mono is a free/libre/opensource implementation of C#.

C# is a programming language that came out of a closed source software company named Microsoft. - and Microsoft own patents on C#.

Thus there's a threat hanging over any free software that relies on mono/C# - what if Microsoft suddenly decides enforce their patent.

Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation have released a Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#.

The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue. The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. (See http://swpat.org and http://progfree.org.) This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it until the day it actually happens. We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this future danger.

Let me add my voice to this - don't write programs in C#.

Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO, 1991:

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today... A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."

P.S. The New Zealand government has proposed allowing unlimited software patenting. Submissions due 2nd July.

The NZ government is in the process of negotiating supply of software from A SINGLE VENDOR. NZOSS calls for an immediate halt and investigation by the Auditor-General.    

Press Release from the NZOSS - STOP G2009 | The New Zealand Open Source Society

The New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) is calling for an immediate halt to the G2009 “All of Government” negotiations currently being completed with Microsoft. The Society will be seeking a complete review of the G2009 procurement process by the Auditor-General.

“Government procurement prac...

a fairfax reporter (or editor) bewildered much of New Zealand with the headline "Shift, alt, delete for internet copyright law".

Today you'll note the headline as been updated to ctrl, alt, delete -- the key sequence that Microsoft made famous.

Ctrl, alt, delete for internet copyright law | Stuff.co.nz
Source: www.stuff.co.nz

LOL!

I was up at Vic last Thursday, trying to enrol, and I had some time to kill, so I went into Student IT to see if they had any decent systems with Linux pre-installed. The answer was that they only had the Acer Aspire One, but the price-list they gave me is interesting in its own right. I apologise for the quality; apparently they had difficulties with their printer that day.

Compare the first two systems listed in the attachment. The first one has twice as much RAM as the second, twice as much storage space (with the SD card), and a more expensive OS, but it's $20 cheaper. Does this mean that Microsoft is so desperate that they'll effectively pay students to use their software (or rather, pay them not to use competing software)? For many people, this might be their first computer, so Microsoft has an incentive to get them addicted to
their software, never letting them find out that Linux is much easier to use than the general public seems to believe.

You may already know more about this than I do, but the guy in the shop seemed surprised when I pointed out the difference to him.

Tim

Interesting world where the non-free (as in $$) OS costs less than then free (as in freedom and $$$) OS.

Of course there are other explanations: Possibly it's just someone else in the supply chain (not necesarily MS) who want you to not pick linux.

or perhaps they charge more for linux because people are willing to pay more.

Full size image

Slashdot | Microsoft's "Dead Cow" Patch Was 7 Years In the MakingSource: tech.slashdot.orgNow, a mere seven and a half years later, Microsoft has released a patch. 'I've been holding my breath since 2001 for this patch,' said Shavlik Technologies CTO Eric Schultze, in an e-mailed statement.

HP giveaways | coffee.geek.nzSource: coffee.geek.nzThis was given out to every single attendee at Microsoft Tech Ed- it contains nothing but info on how to enter a prize draw to win a real game console

IMG_0293.JPG, originally uploaded by Br3nda

Check out this box - it's make of shrink wrapped polystyrene.

This was given out to every single attendee at Microsoft Tech Ed- it contains nothing but info on how to enter a prize draw to win a real game console

IMG_0293.JPG, originally uploaded by Br3nda

Check out this box - it's make of shrink wrapped polystyrene.

This was given out to every single attendee at Microsoft Tech Ed- it contains nothing but info on how to enter a prize draw to win a real game console

WAY TO GO HP!! talk about environmental awareness. Fail wagon.

hurrah for Mauricio - who arrived with a cdma <-> wifi router thingie and provided us with intartubes at the hotel.

Sunday involved lotsa slide preparation for my colleague (there really is nothing like the last minute) - for me i meet a lot of people, some i've only known online.

We picked up loot - the usual conference bag and paper spammage - a bottle of wine - shirts (not t-shirts, first noticable opensource/microsoft difference).

Two opensource riots nerds are off to microsoft tech ed. It began wonderfully with us arriving 15 minutes late for check in and the airline saying no way can we get on the plane now...

I had to reach for my wallet to buy new tickets - so it's not a free trip no more. Hurrah for free wifi in Wellington airport o ri'd have lost my calm.

Arriving in Bucklame just in time for dinner, we both checked into our swanky 5 star hotel rooms (thanks microsoft).. alas the internet is 70cents per minute. there were tears.

in the first week of September, i'm flying up to Auckland. There's a Girl Geek Dinner there as part of Microsoft Tech Ed. It's free if you have a tech ed ticket, or $90 if you don't.

I'm doing master-of-ceremonies duty along with Amanda Jackson -- Microsoft were kind enough to give me a free ticket to the whole conference, so i'm checking them out.

First bit of culture shock was this statement:

I've uploaded a perl module to cpan - Net::Twitter::Search

i needed it to fix up my twitter bot script - the first twitterbot to start using it is @tenz8 (Microsoft Tech Ed 2008).

The whole perl script that calls thIs module and powers the bot, it available in my git repo. To get a copy do this
1. install git (it's called git-core in debian distros)
2. git clone http://git.shiny.geek.nz/twitter/searchbot/

after doing the budgets again, i realised we were several hundred dollars short of the target for girl geek dinners. I really wanted to make the tickets less than $30, and for 70 people.

So, i put out the distress call.

Four very very awesome Wellington companies responded and joined our sponsors.

The new sponsors are:

I'm not sure what to make of Microsoft's recent intention to support Open Document Format 1.1 in their office suite. It appears to be a good thing yet their track record leads me to look for the catch - what are they planning?

They've just got their OOXML standard voted through ISO (i'm proud to say New Zealand voted No). Many critics of OOXML see no value in OOXML format because the ODF already exists.

Last night I asked some of the tech companies of Wellington to sponsor the next Girl Geek Dinner in Wellington, alongside Microsoft and Adobe.

Pretty much all of them said yes already! :-D Hence my smile all day.

Our newest sponsors are:
Silverstripe
Sidhe
3months.com
Provoke

Logos are going up on the website as I get them: http://wellington.girlgeekdinners.co.nz/

We still need 2 more sponsors to sit comfortably for selling 70 tickets.

at last night's geekzone pizza evening. i failed to win a copy of microsoft vista, despite Darryl's est efforts. I did meet a Josh, a John, a James, 2 guys named Al and I met a geek lawyer named Stuart.I got to thank Hamish for mentioning geekspeakr.com on national radio, and discuss the very very little i know about open id.oh, and there was pizza.

The FAT filesystem used by devices and microsoft os computers has a 2GB limitation. FAT32 has a theorectical 8TB limit, but becomes a bottleneck. The FAT32 system was not designed with flash cards in mind. Some devices show significant delays writing to FAT32 filesystems compared to writing FAT

Flash cards are not random access. To read a sector of a flash card the device must start from the beginning and read everything before it. There is no ability to "seek" to the sector you want to read.