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February 22, 2010
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203.20 Miles… Again

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I’m running the Texas Independence Relay again.

203.20 miles and 40 relay legs of running goodness…

This time I have the honor of being team captain and organizing the logistics of the race. After calculating our current leg times, I’m predicting that we will finish under 24 hours which is my goal. Last year the team finished just about 24 hours and we received 3rd place in the open mixed division.

My goal is to best that time from last year and hopefully finish in the top three again. I will take pictures and document the journey as much as I can!

February 15, 2010
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Open Source Bug Reporting Etiquette

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Over the weekend, I noticed a bug trickle in…

I first thought… wow what a !@#$, this is not a way to win friends and influence people…

I was thankful my team responded correctly with the mantra of killing people with kindness.

As open source developers, we have to remember to have some restraint when interacting with our consumers. The old adage of killing people with kindness should apply to most of the cases we deal with. As consumers of open source software, it’s important to follow some basic etiquette rules when hitting a problem and reporting a bug:

  • Be civil and positive when reporting bugs. Saying the !@#$ing software sucks isn’t going to help.
  • Be patient when reporting bugs. Some people work on projects on a volunteer basis (if you need better support, some open source projects have commercial support offerings).
  • Don’t double post and spam all the open source project’s communication channels.
  • Read “How to Ask Questions the Smart Way” and live by it

In the end, it’s all about interacting with people. Over the net, it’s easy to forget that we are actually dealing with people; not autonomous robots without any emotion.

February 15, 2010
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Austin Marathon 2010

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Yesterday, I participcated in the Austin Marathon which happened to be on Valentine’s Day.

The weather was beautiful in the morning, albeit chilly for Austin. I had a great start, hitting the 5K mark at about 22:27 with the 3:10 pace group. I continued on and hit the 10 mile mark at 1:12:21 with the 3:10 pace group. Just before the half marathon mark, I had to take a pit stop due to some stomach issues and tried to catch up to the 3:10 pace group. The pit stop was longer than I wanted it to be as I ended up crossing the half marathon mark at about 1:35:46 which was slightly behind my goal pace. I kept trying to chase the 3:10 group but couldn’t catch it after my pit stop. I crossed the 20 mile mark at about 2:30:03 which in my definition, equates to dragging ass. I managed to finish the marathon in 3:21:50…

My goal was 3:10 but I obviously missed it this time around. My stomach never felt the same after the pit stop and I had trouble catching up. If I take any lessons from this race, it’s to avoid pit stops at all costs. It breaks your rhythm.

My next marathon will be the Chicago Marathon where I will run a sub 3:10 🙂

February 8, 2010
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Eclipse, Symbian and the Rise of the Weak Copyleft

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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.

February 3, 2010
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EGit and JGit Website Updated

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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.

February 1, 2010
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Consulting and Eating Old Soap

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I nearly died laughing at the latest Dilbert.

Ah, the life of a consultant.

Oh, and Scott Adams is a treasure.

February 1, 2010
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Piney Woods 10mi Trail Run 2010

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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 🙂

January 29, 2010
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Contributing to Eclipse?

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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.

January 29, 2010
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Calling Eclipse.org projects interested in Git…

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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.

January 25, 2010
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EGit and JGit Builds Available

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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.

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