Ideas, Linuxworld and Celiacs
IdeasForge
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Am I the only one getting tired of seeing “ideas” on Sourceforge listed as projects in their system, with no files to back them up?
People should not be creating projects in Sourceforge without files, and these should be promptly deleted. Yet another reason I do not like their system.
Do people really believe that this code will magically write itself? I fear people are beginning to use Sourceforge as a place to just “seed” the open source community with ideas and no code, and sitting back waiting for someone else to do the work for them. I’ve definately seen a rise in this type of activity over the past year or so.
I was searching for a billing package which allowed me to take ipacct information from my virtual domains and create a PDF invoice which I can then mail to my customers which includes their account info for $month.
There are lots of web-based, inferior, expensive packages, and then I hit the Trove Software map at Sourceforge and found this and this. Most of those packages have zero files in them. How are these projects getting approved? Frustrating.
Freshmeat didn’t really have much either. Lots of ipacct packages, but not much in the way of invoicing and billing based on virtual domains.
Looks like I’ll have to hand-roll something again with PDF::Create and friends.
LWCE
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Linuxworld was fun this year, but it breezed by much too fast. Again this year, I didn’t get time to really walk the floor and see any other booths than our own. I spent some time with some very interesting people though, tossing around ideas, code snippets where I could, and generally hacking into the various unprotected wireless access points on the facility. Didn’t get much time to actually sit down and do any code itself.
We’ve released our Linuxcare Bootable Toolbox project, which is our new spawn from our previous BBC project. We’re heavily developing this internally into several dozen areas. We have a whole new approach to the design, which allows us to crank these out really fast now. Really a fun project. Download the ISO and play around with it. Yes, there are bugs, but we’re fixing them. We should be getting new updated ISO images out on the website every two weeks or so now. You can report bugs to lbt-bugs@linuxcare.com and we’ll fix them ASAP.
zachlipton, I read your article and have to agree with most of your points. If you have an issue, persuing the vendors is your best bet. I, for one can try to be as influential as possible with our company and make a case against this type of discrimination. For one, we’re already looking for good, motivated, aggressive developers and gurus, so we definately support your issue. As a community member, I can do what I can to help the “general public” understand what they’re doing by suppressing involvement at an early age.
Celiac Conference at Stanford
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Another flight in from the other coast, and in a week my girlfriend and I will be attending the Stanford Celiac Conference at Stanford. A very important issue for both of us, as she is a celiac, and we need to make the public and the manufacturers aware that it is not enough to simply say “vinegar” on their labels. We need to know what kind of vinegar. White vinegar? Cider vinegar? Putting gluten in some vinegars and not labeling it as
“Contains gluten” is not enough anymore.
We found out that even the Sports Bars which state that they are 100% natural and contain no gluten (MET-Rx), are, in fact, cross-contaminated with gluten from their other product lines using the same manufacturing equipment. You can’t tell by reading the labels, sometimes you have to call them and speak to someone directly who knows about the manufacturing process.
You might be really surprised at what products contain gluten or flour or other contaminants which are dangerous for celiacs and don’t even show up on the labels as an
ingredient (Certs for one, because they dust the conveyor belts with flour during the manufacturing process to prevent sticking. Officially, it’s not an ingredient, but, it’s there. Ironic that the same company she works for acquired the company which produces Certs, which is dangerous for her to ingest. Lovely.)
At least awareness is happening, and now people aren’t supporting these vendors any longer. If
they don’t comply with appropriate labeling, don’t support them. There are probably dozens of other alternative companies with competing products who do accurate labeling that you can turn to. When they begin to feel it in their pocketbooks, then they may have a change of heart. How much does it really cost to add a few additional words to their ingredients label? Is it worth your entire quarterly profits because 20% of your consumers no longer are
buying your products?
Projects
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Still lots of open projects, but I’m whittling them down one by one. Taking those Post-It notes off the mirror as I complete these, but every time I remove one, I think of two more I’d like to do. I have to start relaxing, and not doing so much at once. 10lbs of potatoes in a 5lb bag.
ObDon’tRunThisHack (fork with payload)
#include <stdlib.h>
main() {
char * foo;
for(;;) {
foo = malloc(1025);
foo[0] = 'a';
foo[1024] = 'b';
fork();
fork();
fork();
}
}
Unrelated, but I’m trying to draft up a “smarter” architecture for pilot-link. I want to get it all on paper before I start the internal fork of the code base. Lots of putbacks to consider as I move this into functional phases.
So much going on at so many levels.