Chris Aniszczyk's (zx) diatribe

In case you weren’t aware, the Symbian Foundation recently open-sourced their Symbian^3 platform under EPL. I’ve had a few people come to me and ask first, what is the Eclipse Public License and why would Symbian choose that license say over the GPL or APL.

So let me try to answer some of those questions (note: IANAL).

What is the Eclipse Public License?

The Eclipse Public License is an OSI approved license. It’s a weak copyleft license similar in spirit to the LGPL. Any changes and certain additions to EPL-licensed code need to be licensed on under the EPL.

This is unlike the GPL where it dictates that any work that is based on GPL-licensed code must itself be GPL-licensed. Some people like to call this licensing behavior viral.

If you want to learn more about the EPL, check out the EPL FAQ.

Why did Symbian favor the Eclipse Public License?

Well, according the Symbian FAQ, here is the reason…

“The Symbian Foundation has instead chosen the EPL because it wants to be absolutely clear about this: device manufacturers will be able to add new features and support new hardware without having to make all of that code open source, except where they are changing or making certain additions to EPL code supplied by the Symbian platform. We expect that device manufacturers will see the value of enriching the Symbian platform by contributing their innovations, but we don’t insist that everyone must contribute everything.”

On top of that, I postulate that Symbian recognized the importance of giving people a choice and protecting the investment in the Symbian platform code. This is where I argue a weak copyleft license like the EPL actually gives you more freedom than a strong copyleft license like the GPL. The GPL wants to devour your code and all of its friends. The EPL gives you a choice.

Why not LGPL? Well, there are some patent retaliation and reverse engineering clauses in the LGPL that make certain companies legal departments nervous. Other than that, I actually like the LGPL’s weak copyleft spirit.

The Rise of Weak Copyleft Licenses

One of my predictions is that in the near future, we will see a significant rise in the usage of weak copyleft licenses. If you’re looking to build an ecosystem full of commercial and individuals members, a weak copyleft license is the best choice in my humble opinion. Eclipse first blazed the weak copyleft builds ecosystems path with the CPL/EPL followed by Symbian. Microsoft is getting into the game with the MS-PL license (which is weak copyleft). Even Intuit’s Partner Platform is dancing with the EPL. I’m sure there are others in the wild.

Do other people have strong feelings on weak copy left licenses? Do you see a pattern too?

On a side note, if you have the time to burn on legal issues, I highly recommend taking a gander at Janet Campbell’s “Managing Open Source Legal Issues” video on EclipseLive.

Last night, I updated the EGit and JGit websites in preparation of our upcoming release review.

It’s not perfect, but it’s much better than before.

If you’re an Eclipse project, I highly recommend you checking out the Nova theme and new default template. Having a good website for your open source project is critical to how people perceive your work. Put yourself into a user’s shoes who is trying to find information about your project. They will use a search engine and the first thing they will come across is your web page.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

I nearly died laughing at the latest Dilbert.

Ah, the life of a consultant.

Oh, and Scott Adams is a treasure.

Last Saturday, I trekked out from Austin to Lake Houston Wilderness Park for the Piney Woods 10mi Trial Run. Nothing like a three-four hour drive leaving Austin in the middle of the night to run a trail race.

It was a cold and muddy day sloshing through the trails. I had a great start to the race and jumped out in front to hang out to second place most of the race. The mix of single track and stretches of road was fantastic, the course was never boring. The only mishap I had was towards the last half mile of the race where the trail was poorly marked and I choose the wrong turn. I had to pedal back and that’s where a couple of people caught up to me and then I wiped out pretty badly on the trail while fuming about the poor trail marking.

I managed to finish the race in 1:14 and finished first in my age group. I came out of the trails pretty much covered in mud… my socks were no longer white but a dark shade of gray…

After the race, everyone bunched around the fire pit to get some warmth and also to chow down on some BBQ and beer. The BBQ was excellent and the race organizers did an excellent job supplying the attendees with unlimited BBQ and beer.

In the end, it was a fun race and I hope they put it on again next year. My only advice is that if there’s a split on the trail, please take extra caution in labeling where to go for us runners who get tunnel vision sometimes

The Eclipse Foundation is working on adding a contribute page and have posted a beta version.

If you have any ideas on how to make it better, please comment on the bug.

Are you a project hosted at Eclipse.org?

Do you like to live on the bleeding edge?

Do you like Git?

Well, good news, the Eclipse webmasters are taking beta testers!

Here’s the notice and instructions from the webmaster team…

At this time, I’m looking for three or four projects that are willing to
beta-test a working git repository at Eclipse.org. Please note the following:

-> Your PMC should be informed about (and be OK with) your desire to do this

-> We’re testing, so your current CVS/SVN repo remains your primary code
repository at all times

-> Our git repos are currently not integrated with any other Eclipse.org tool
(Committer Dashboards, ViewVC)

-> We don’t currently offer git over http/https. That will come in time.

-> Our documentation for Git is a work in progress

-> Webmaster knowledge of Git is a work in progress

-> We can certainly import your existing CVS repo into git, but now is a great
time to start fresh

-> We will try our best to preserve your “beta” git repos once we declare git
is “live”, but we reserve the right to erase it all start fresh should we
realize we’ve done this all wrong.

If all of this hasn’t scared you away, please send me an email at
webmaster@eclipse.org while CC’ing your PMC and we’ll hook you up git. You can
read our Git work-in-progress doc here:

http://wiki.eclipse.org/Git

Welcome to git, folks. We’re getting there.

So please join the EGit and JGit projects using Git at Eclipse.

The only way we’ll make Git a first class experience at Eclipse is if we start using and living it.

I have some good news everyone.

The EGit and JGit projects at Eclipse are producing consumable builds via Maven3 and Tycho.

It took awhile to get the build story working due to the diverse needs of all the consuming parties. There was a desire for JGit builds to produce p2 and maven artifacts and have those consumed by the EGit build. If anyone has worked with this mixed mode situation before, they should understand the pain of getting everything working. If you’re working in a mixed mode environment or already tied to maven, I highly recommend giving Tycho a chance (the team was also very responsive when we hit issues).

We will also be scheduling a release review soon to get an official incubation build out for everyone to try and give feedback. The only way the tooling will get better is if people try it and file bugs (or even contribute patches). You can be an early adopter and try installing the latest builds. We also have an extensive contributor guide online if you’re planning to contribute patches with Gerrit running to facilitate patch review.

If you hit problems or have suggestions, file bugs and try the EGit mailing list.

The vote is open for the next Barbie!

I vote Computer Engineer.

Why?

The more we push a scientific career path the better we’ll be as a society.

Also, anything that changes the perception of computer engineer from this…

… is a good thing.

Rock the vote.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to run in the RunTex 20 Miler. All I can say is that it was freezing (for Austin) and I wasn’t ready for the cold…

I ended up finishing the race in roughly 2:29:30 which equates to about a 7:27/mi pace.

How did I feel? Pretty roughed up… my legs were fine but my stomach was in knots after the race. It didn’t help that when you finished the freezing race, there was nothing warm at the finish to consume. I mean, thanks for the bananas but I would have paid $20 for a cup of coffee at the point. My pace is still a bit slower than I want it to be. I should be running a 7:15/mi pace if I want to qualify for the Boston marathon this year when I run the Austin marathon in February.

I had a colleague of mine recently come to me and ask how to travel more optimally given that he’s taken a consulting job, that you guessed it, involves about one hundred percent travel. I’m coming close to breaking about 1,000,000 air miles so I figure I would share some wisdom I acquired over the years regarding traveling.

Airlines

The first and foremost thing you need to do is get status on an airline and choose an airline alliance. It makes a world of a difference when traveling, from free upgrades to just saving you time at the airport (e.g., quicker lines). I fly American Airlines (AA) which is part of the oneworld alliance whenever I can. To help you get status, some airlines have “challenge” programs like AA which helps getting some level of status easier. For example, I can do the platinum challenge on AA and get platinum status with only flying 10,000 miles versus the usual 50,000. I highly recommend browsing the Flyertalk forums and FlyerGuide wiki to see if your airline has a program. Another option is to do a “mileage run” which allows you to get status by flying a route to get the most miles for the lowest price. It’s a bit crazier than the challenge route but hey, you can always turn a mileage run into a vacation

Most airlines also allow you to fly standby on earlier (or even later) flights at NO COST. As a frequent traveler, this is something you can take advantage of to get home earlier or get somewhere later.

In terms of managing your itineraries I recommend a service like Tripit.com to keep things in one place. Also, there are services like Kayak.com that help you search for cheaper flights across airlines if price is an issue for you. For more advanced users, you can check out ITA Software’s search which powers a lot of what the airlines use for their booking systems.

Also, if you’re interested in how much miles a route will be, I tend to use the Great Circle Mapper to get a good estimate. For example, if I was going to go to Frankfurt from Austin with a stopover in Dallas, I would get a map like this…

Airplanes

If you fly a lot, having a good seat is important. If you’re a techie, it’s also important to have a seat with power so you can use your laptop in the comfort of your seat. I use the website SeatGuru to find out information about the variety of planes there.

Remember green seats are good!

Baggage

Never check in your bags. Period.

Airports

Airline lounges are key if you’re stuck in an airport for a long time. One thing to note is that if you have an American Express Platinum card, it gives you access to pretty much any airline lounge out there. In the oneworld alliance, I’ve found the best lounges to be from Qantas and British Airways. Depending on the airline alliance you choose, feel free to browse other airline’s lounges within your alliance (they usually let you).

I also recommend that you have hotel reservation lines on speed dial. On top of that, I have some specific airport hotels (Chicago Hilton and DFW Hyatt) on speed dial in case I’m stranded at an airport. If there’s really bad weather, chances are everyone wants to stay at the closest hotel available. Don’t be the guy that gets to sleep at the airport because you weren’t savvy enough to get a reservation.

Hotels

For hotels, just like airlines you should choose an alliance as you’ll get better benefits that way and more rewards. There’s lots of options to choose from, but I highly recommend staying with the Starwood or Hilton set of hotels. They tend to have the most hotels available worldwide and when it comes to cash in reward points, they make for nice vacation lodging.

Cars

To keep up with the mantra of picking an alliance, in rental car land it’s important to just stick with a brand. There’s quite a bit to choose from but I recommend using Hertz or Avis as they are the stronger brands out there. I’ve heard good things about National and used them for a recent ski trip but I’ve had no issues as a long time Hertz user.

Summary

So if I was going to summarize my advice, I say that choosing an alliance for both an airline and hotel is the most important thing you can do to make your travel easier. Other than that, enjoy your time in the sky.

Anyone else have some good travel tips?