Well, here I am in Los Angeles. After nearly 15 hours of constant travelling, in which I travelled between England, Holland and the USA, I am finally here in my hotel room, and some sucker forgot to cancel the Internet in their room. Lucky ‘ol me. 🙂

Nothing much has happened so far, and I have been mainly sitting in my hotel room. Strangely enough, its not actually as hot as I was expecting outside, and with some jetlag setting in, I didn’t really fancy going out and about until I have had a good nights sleep.

Flying over LA, I realised just how incredibly big it is, and just how dense it is to boot. I also discovered that the West coast of the US is a lot more interesting to fly over – you get to see desert, mountain ranges, interesting lakes/rivers and insanely big cities like LA. Interesting stuff.

So why am I here? I am giving a talk on Saturday about the future of the Linux desktop. Sure, its a bit of a fluffy title, but the presentation will discuss where the desktop is going in the future, the kind of thinking behind it, and some of the technology that is being developed. I will also cover related issues such as usability, good design, the campaign against frameworks as excuses and other things. Should be a whole lotta fun. 🙂

I am also looking forward to meeting the Rev Ted, Aaron Seigo, Chris DiBona and various other people. I am particularly intrigued to see Ted’s NLD demo with all the Xgl fancy-schmancy-ness.

It looks like a few OpenDocument Fellowship bods have arrived here, so there may be a few beers later on.
—–

Well, it seems [my last blog entry](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/viewcomments.php?id=637) was [picked up on OSNews](https://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=13589). I was under the impression that most people saw the similarities between the mock-ups and the videos, evidently not. I also [posted to desktop-devel](https://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/2006-February/msg00092.html) to clarify the position, and it seems the changes were not anywhere near as expansive as the full mock-ups. This has all sparked a debate about Novell developing behind closed doors.

I am in two minds about developing in private and then releasing. Sure, making huge code drops is not particularly productive for anyone, but I also agree that design by committee is not the most productive of design methodologies. I think there needs to be a middle-ground here. Why couldn’t Novell create these changes to GNOME in a public SVN or suchlike? This would then kill the conspiracy theorists who worry about Novell doing everything in private, but still allow different ideas to flourish. Surely that is the whole point of public source access?

## RaccoonShow on Mac OS X

Thanks must go out to Brandon Stafford, the brave soul who emailed me and volunteered to package [RaccoonShow](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/raccoonshow/) for Mac OS X. Brandon was facing some problems getting `pdf2swf` working, so I CCed in Matthias Kramm, who is one of the maintainers of [swftools](https://www.swftools.org/). Matthias and Brandon have been swapping emails trying to solve some of these build problems, and its good to see some progress is being made. Thanks to you both for helping out with this.

I am sure Master Lessig will be grateful when all of this is working. 🙂

## XAMPP Control Panel

I am pleased to announce that the [XAMPP Control Panel](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/xamppcontrolpanel/) is going into the official XAMPP distribution! Apparently the new beta will be released soon, and it should be interesting to see how people like it. Thanks to Kai for including it!

## Official LUGRadio Live Hotel

Today I sorted out the official LUGRadio Live 2006 hotel. As I posted to the forums:

> Well, Jono King Of The Hotels, strikes forth once again, and can announce the Official LUGRadio Live 2006 Hotel!!!!

> Like last year, the hotel is:

> Quality Hotel Wolverhampton
> Penn Road,
> Wolverhampton,
> WV3 OER
> Phone: 01902 429216 – International: +44 (0) 1902 429216
> Fax: 01902 710419 – International – +44 (0) 1902 710419

> This is a three star hotel complete with a swimming pool and sauna.

> Normally they charge around £56 for a single room and around £70 for a double/twin, but the King has struck a deal with them for a single to be £27.50 and a double/twin to be £55 including breakfast!

> When you book, mention LUGRadio Live to get the special room rates. If you have any problems, ask to speak to Allison or Emma.

> Space is limited, so get booking!!

> As ever, add yourself to this thread when you book in!

When you book, feel free to add your name [to the thread](https://forums.lugradio.org/viewtopic.php?t=1777)!

## Flying to Los Angeles tomorrow

Well, tomorrow I fly out to LA. I fly early tomorrow morning to Schiphol in Amsterdam, and then catch a direct flight to LA. I arrive in LA at around 2pm on Thursday. Everything is pretty much ready to go, and I am looking forward to going. I am there until Monday, when I fly back in the afternoon. If anyone wants to hook up, let me know. 🙂

As many of you will be aware, the legendary David Watson has volunteered to package [RaccoonShow](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/raccoonshow/) for Debian. Anyway, I need your help again.

I mailed [Laurence Lessig](https://www.lessig.org/) about RaccoonShow, saying it could be a solution to [his problem](https://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003284.shtml) and he mailed me back, and is quite interested in it. Now, the man Lessig uses Mac OS X, and it would be great if he could easily to install RaccoonShow on his system. So would anyone like to step forward and produce a package for Mac OS X? I am sure there must be someone out there who can help. If so, do [get in touch](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/contact/). 🙂

## New GNOME in NLD?

A few days ago I bounced on a link to [some GNOME mock-ups from December](https://www.flickr.com/photos/gamehack/sets/1506658/), and was really inspired by the direction the mock-ups head in. I noticed that the mock-ups seemed to be largely driven by Novell, with bits of branding throughout. Anyway, I then saw the [Novell Linux Desktop 10 videos](https://gnomedesktop.org/node/2580) demoed by Nat, and something clicked.

The interface in the mock-ups looks *very similar* to the interface in the videos. As an example, this mock-up:

Looks rather similar to this bit of the video:

So, this begs the question – have Novell re-developed chunks of GNOME, and will all this be contributed back to the community? Maybe this could be the shunt that [Project Topaz](https://live.gnome.org/ThreePointZero) needs to move forward.

What a great weekend. After a nice lazy Friday night, I spent the early part of Saturday working on a few bits and pieces, and preparing for my presentation later this week. Then, later that day, Sooz and I drove to Nottingham for Aq’s 30th birthday bash. At a [previous stag do](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=1915) I had been to a Robin Hood night, and figured it would be fun for the ging’s celebrations. Aq was looking for something fun to do, plumped with that, and we all had a great night. There was much eating, drinking, and rather shamefully, dancing to Chesney Hawkes with Aq’s better half. That women has a hold on me when Chesney Hawkes comes on – this is the *third* time it has happened. Then again, there ain’t nothin’ like a Bacon getting his groove on…

For the curmudgeonly of you out there, I am sure this will brighten your day:

And…

(photos courtesy of [the bald](https://www.adrianbradshaw.co.uk))

## RaccoonShow

With [0.6 out](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/raccoonshow/) it seems RaccoonShow is making its way through the net. Thanks very, very much to David Watson who has [volunteered to package it for Debian](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/viewcomments.php?id=635#comment4).

The problems we face at the moment is that swftools relies on lame to convert the audio into an MP3 that Flash understands. This is obviously a problem in Debian due to lame being nonfree. There is no real solution around this, unless swftools uses a magic program that is both Debian and Flash friendly, which is unlikely. Anyway, David is looking into it, and will produce unofficial packages whatever the outcome. 🙂

## Recreant View

I am pleased to announce the brand new, all singing, all dancing, rocking, rolling, laugh a second, don’t forget your spare underwear [Recreant View](https://www.recreantview.org/) is available! For those of you who are wondering what I am banging on about, Recreant View is where all of my music lives. You should check it out, its fun. 🙂

The new site is pumped full of WordPress goodness, and includes a nicer design, actual working account registration, blog comments and more. Be sure to point your RSS reader at [this link](https://www.recreantview.org/blog/?feed=rss2) to keep up to date with what is going on there.

Go check it out, and lets build a little community there.

Wow, what a busy week this week has been. All kinds of things going on, and I have been preparing for my talk at the [Southern California Linux Expo](https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/). My talk is going to be about building the next generation desktop. I am looking forward to doing it, and looking forward to getting over there to meet some of the folks.

## New RaccoonShow out
I am pleased to announce the a new release of RaccoonShow – [version 0.6](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/raccoonshow/). This major bugfix release solves the slide timings problem in the official Flash player. With this important release, RaccoonShow is now fully usable.

Incidentally, if you know any packaging magic, I would love to have someone package up RaccoonShow into debs and rpms. If anyone out there would like to volunteer to do this, do let me know. I am more than happy to host any packages on this site. What I would secretly love to see is for someone to officially package it for Ubuntu/Debian/RedHat so it goes in the archive. That would be awesome.

If you use RaccoonShow for anything, do let me know. When I get some time I would like to knock up a little ‘Made with RaccoonShow’ button. 🙂

## Advocacy in schools

Every so often I get a few mails from some readers asking about how to approach schools to attract them to Open Source. Recently my dad has been talking to a school about Open Source near him and how it could benefit them. He knows the main principles of Open Source and thinks its great, but he does not have the knowledge of the community, or the technical side. Anyway, he contacted a particular school who said they had considered Linux but decided against it because their SIMS system (a proprietary school database system) does not run on it. Well, I came up with the following email to send them. This was knocked together rather quickly, but encompasses some of the points I have made in the past about good advocacy – hit the main points, verify your details with third parties, include legitimate research documents etc.

Anyway, here the email, with the names changed to protect the innocent:

> Hi FooBar,

> My father (Pa Bacon) mentioned your recent discussions regarding the use of Open Source in your school. He also informed me of Bob Scratchin’s comments about which factors are preventing the adoption of Open Source. I thought that some comments may be useful. It is important to remember that Open Source can be adopted in specific cases and an entire migration is really not required.

> I must stress that I don’t work for a company, and I am not here to sell you anything. I am an independent consultant working for a government funded organisation called OpenAdvantage in Birmingham. We provide vendor-neutral, free consultancy about Open Source. I am just interested in seeing schools get better IT and more control for a lower cost.

> As my father probably outlined, Open Source is free software developed by a huge community of developers around the world. Backed by large organisations such as IBM, HP, Oracle, SAP, Dell, Sun and more, Open Source has become a force in providing organisations with low cost, high quality IT that is eminently flexible. This is part of the reason why Google, Amazon, Pay Pal and other organisations use it.

> In terms of education, Open Source has had a resounding impact. Schools who have been implementing Open source have seen dramatic reductions in costs. A typical example of this is Orwell High School who have saved -L-13,000 a year in license fees for their 1000+ students or Skegness Grammar School which enjoyed a -L-80,000 reduction in costs for their IT. You can see many more case studies at https://www.schoolforge.org.uk/index.php/Case_Studies

> Bob’s main concern seemed to be that Linux could not replace your SIMS system. BECTA recently produced a report criticising the use of some of these proprietary systems (see https://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/19/becta_slams_mis_systems/), and the use of an Open Source MIS system is a possibility. This not only reduces costs, but also prevents vendor lock-in and solidifies future upgrade plans. There are a number of Open Source alternatives that could provide a lower cost system with equal functionality:

> * SchoolTool – https://www.schooltool.org
> * FreeMIS – https://project.freemis.net/
> * Moodle – https://moodle.org
> * ClaSS – https://www.laex.org/class
> * Centre – https://www.miller-group.net
> * Wegister – https://www.dialsolutions.com/register
> * OpenBooking – https://sourceforge.org/projects/openbooking
> * MRBS – https://mrbs.sourceforge.net/

> In addition to this report, BECTA also published an independent report in May 2005 comparing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for Proprietary and Open Source solutions. Among Becta’s principal findings:

> * Open Source does provide an appropriate infrastructure for schools
> * Primary schools using Open Source reduced TCO per PC by an average of 50%
> * Secondary schools reduced TCO per PC by an average of 20%
> * The greatest savings were in support costs, which are typically 60% of TCO per PC

> Aside from your SIMS system, Open Source can also help to replace many other systems and applications. Much of this Open Source software is available on Windows, so you don’t need to move over to Linux if you don’t want to. A couple of key applications to consider are:

> * Firefox – www.getfirefox.com – an Open Source web browser that greatly reduces viruses, spyware and popups, and works exactly the same as Internet Explorer. A simple change that will dramatically increase security.
> * OpenOffice.org – www.openoffice.org – an incredibly powerful OpenSource office suite that can replace Microsoft Office. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, drawing tool, maths editor and database, and has full Microsoft Office file compatibility. Bristol Council have recently rolled OpenOffice.org out on 5,500 computers and dramatically reduced costs, vendor lock-in and complexity.

> If you would like to discuss any of this in more detail, I would be more than happy to have a conversation. I am available on xxxx xxx xxxx or xxxx xxx xxxx.

> Regards,

> Jono Bacon

Feel free to take this letter, change the names and send it to your local schools if you want to. I hope it may prove to be useful for others.

Have any of you had any experience advocating to schools? Any tips and tales to tell?

## Linux Desktop Hacks, in Japan

Today I got a [Japanese version](https://www.oreilly.co.jp/books/4873112516/) of [Linux Desktop Hacks](https://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxdeskhks/):

It is now available in French, German, Japanese and English. Nice. 🙂

I have been meaning to blog about this for a few days, and the intention of this blog entry is to solicit some discussion from you ‘orrible lot. I would be interested to hear your thoughts, so scribe them down. 🙂

In a [previous blog entry](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/viewcomments.php?id=628) some discussion arose about how the GPL regards the availability of source code that is not provided with a binary. I was under the impression that if I sold a binary for 10 quid, I was required to provide the source code for free, less the price of the distribution. I interpreted the price of distribution as the price of a CD plus postage, the price of bandwidth etc. I was then informed by a few kind bods that the vendor can charge anything up to the value that he/she sells the binaries for. As such, in my previous example, I could charge up to ten quid for the source code.

I took a look at Section 3 of the GPL – the bit that covers distribution:

> 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

> a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

> b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

> c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

The interesting part is 3 (b). Firstly, it says you must provide machine readable source code *on a medium customarily used for software interchange* – this is vague. The word *customarily* is vague in itself. The real problem however seems to be the *for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution*. Someone could theoretically factor in exuberant costs such as charging an insane hourly rate for providing the source code.

The thing I don’t quite understand is where this idea of not charging more than the price of the binary comes in. In the [GPL FAQ](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html) it quite clearly states this:

> Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?

> Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide “equivalent access” to download the source–therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.

I can’t find anything in the GPL proper about this however. Sure, the FAQ is the FSF’s interpretation, but I don’t see where they gather this interpretation from.

If the GPL allows someone to charge excessively for the price of the source code, this is a bad thing. As an example, if Joe Bloggs downloads my new new C++ application BeardsRock and as such consumes my *cost of physically performing source distribution* to get it, Joe can then go on and sell the resulting binary for 100 nicker. If Jane Normal then asks for the source code for BeardsRock from Joe, he can charge her up to 100 quid, irrespective of the fact that he downloaded it from me for next to nothing. Sure, Jane can pay the money and get the code and then distribute it for free, but why should Joe be able to get away with this?

Now, it would not surprise me at all if this is a loophole in the GPL – it was written in 1991 after all. The big question is, is this behaviour intended for the GPL? If so, it seems the *free as in beer* side of freedom is being sacrificed for the *free as in speech* side.

Thoughts?

Got back in from the LUG meeting and popped on to check my mail. I saw that I had been subscribed to a list called `Linux-alpha-users` and was not entirely sure why. I then saw the following email:

> Thank you all for participating in the Linux client alpha testing period =). We now have an alpha client ready for SL version 1.8.2.9! You can download the alpha client at:

> https://secondlife.com/community/linux-alpha.php

> Also, please check out the Linux client forum area at:

> https://forums.secondlife.com/forumdisplay.php?f=263

Wow, they finally released it. Shame it fails to work here though – I get missing library errors and despite trying to `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` it, it won’t work. I am sure many of these problems will be resolved soon, thats the whole point of alpha testing. 🙂

Interestingly, it seems the Second Life release may be under an Open Source license. There is a licenses file in there with the Apache license right at the top and the rest of the files seems to have a bunch of free licenses. Difficult to tell though.

Wow, been busy this week. I have a whole bunch of things I want to complete before I head off to Los Angeles in a week. there is lots going on and I am trying to tend to everything as efficiently as possible. Its tough though when you are balancing over 8 different things at once.

Speaking of LA, the [righteous Rev Ted blogged](https://reverendted.blogspot.com/2006/01/heading-to-los-angeles.html) about us meeting up. I am likewise, very excited about hooking up. It is going to be good to have a few pints, swap some stories and mock each other about our presentations. I have also been threatening to buy Aaron Seigo a pint for some time, and it will be great to meet him too.

## Open Source in education

While watching Midlands Today last night, there was a story about a school that spent a large quality of money on IT and is now facing real budget problems. As you can imagine, my eyes lit up at this point, and after a little digging I got the phone number of the councillor who was interviewed in the report. I had a short discussion with him about Open Source and how it can help to prevent problems such as this occurring. He was very interested and I have a meeting booked with him soon. It is cases such as this where Open source has *real* potential. I will keep you posted.

In other news, I have been working with Bristol City Council to do a case study about their migration. This is really exciting stuff and I am going to be working on it this week. This is an interesting pre-cursor to meeting Peter Quinn in LA. The two cases share *some* characteristics but not others. Irrespective of the comparison though, Bristol is a major win for us in the UK. This is a great case study, driven by people who did a great job and have written extensively about it, creating supporting documents and media. Exciting stuff.

## XAMPP Control Panel

Thanks to the sterling work of the PHP savvy [Elliot Smith](https://townx.org/), I have put out version 0.6 of the [XAMPP Control Panel](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/xamppcontrolpanel/). This release involves a re-write of much of the code by Elliot. You all need to send him an email and tell him he is a PHP genius. Yes he is.

## RaccoonShow

Well, it turns out Flash has a limit of 16,000 frames, and [RaccoonShow](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/raccoonshow/) will happily spit out 32,000 frames. After some discussion in the office, I really need to take an alternative approach to building the animation up and instead do it with Actionscript. When I get a few minutes this week I will hack on this and hopefully this should fix the bugs and make the glorious beast work with the official plug-in. Thanks to Chris Flowers for pointing this out to me.

## Got a big sofa

Look at this mother:

Yes baby, yes.

This weekend my mum and dad came up to visit and we had a great weekend. We went out and had some great food on Friday and Saturday night and we had our usual interesting discussions, debates and a good laugh. I look forward to seeing them sometime soon. 🙂

## RaccoonShow beta released!

Well I have made my first public release of [RaccoonShow](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/projects/raccoonshow/). I am releasing this as a beta as there are sure to be some quirks knocking around. The release is 0.5beta1, so give it some testing and report any bugs. One bug I am aware of is that the slide timings seem to be delayed in the official Macromedia Flash plugin (testing on Linux, but not on Windows yet). This is odd and it works fine in swfplayer. I am not sure if this is a bug in the official plugin being able to play Flash 5 files. If anyone has any clues about this, do let me know. Also, if someone could test on the other free flash plugins, that would be great.

## On the front line

To demo raccoonshow, I have put my *On the Front Line: Convincing People the Inconvincible* talk online. This talk was recorded at [ManLUG](https://www.manlug.mcc.ac.uk/) a few weeks ago and was my first run at it. In it I discuss:

* the attraction of advocacy
* how advocacy has changed over the years
* developing as an advocate
* the merits of pushing the outcome over the tool
* developing real world communication and avoiding meaningless language
* being honest in your advocacy
* the value of money
* guerilla advocacy
* getting involved

To view it, right click [this link](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/events/jonobacon-onthefrontline.swf) and save it to your hard disk. Now play it in swfplayer.

You can find future flash presentations of my talks in the [Events](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/events/) section.

## Planet Advocacy

A bunch of new names have been added to [Planet Advocacy](https://planetadvocacy.jonobacon.com). Good to see it is kicking off. Again, send me your feeds if you want to be added.

## Nothing like a fat Cuban

Today I finally smoked the cigar I got for Christmas.

Tasted rather sweet. 😛

Well, after posting my bug on the swftools-common list, everything has gone quiet. This bug is a real pain and standing in the way for the release of RaccoonShow. As such, I need your help. I am sure some of you l33t coders out there are keen to lend your hand with an interesting problem. Want to take on the challenge? OK, just do this:

1. Download the code from my subversion server – `svn checkout https://svn.jonobacon.com/svn/raccoonshow`.
2. Take a look at the code to familiarise yourself.
3. Look at [the problem](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/swftools-common/2006-01/msg00038.html).
4. Use your mighty brain to solve the problem.
5. [Mail me](mailto: jono AT-NOSPAM jonobacon NOSPAM-DOT org) a patch.

The winner gets a pint at [LUGRadio Live 2006](https://www.lugradio.org/live/2006/), or when I next see them.