Book Meme
“*Remix is an essential act of RW creativity*”. – [Remix: Making Art And Commerce Thrive In The Hybrid Economy](https://remix.lessig.org/), Lawrence Lessig.
From [Ben](https://www.jedimoose.org/archives/2008/11/05/i-didnt-meme-to/), the latest meme:
* Grab the nearest book.
* Open it to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
* Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
In the interests of meme-ability, I would like to ask the following to do this:
* [Matt Zimmerman](https://mdzlog.wordpress.com/)
* [Michael Meeks](https://www.gnome.org/~michael/blog/)
* [Miguel de Icaza](https://tirania.org/blog/index.html)
* [Lawrence Lessig](https://lessig.org/)
* [Daviey Walker](https://daviey.mooo.com/)
On Change
There has been a lot of talk recently about change. One or two of you may have noticed that some new guy has been voted in as President Elect. There is no doubt that this is a momentous time for the United States to have the first African American president voted in with such enthusiasm, but we should not get too obsessed about the racial connotations of his victory. The reason why the American people voted him in was not because he is black, it is because he enthused and inspired a nation that has felt pretty uninspired for the last four years or so.
I love it when things like this happen, and these moments are significant in our culture and our history – they send out strong messages of potential to a new generation to demonstrate just what is possible. Someone has stepped above the plate and inspired change, and inspired others to be as bombastic and adventurous in their own endeavours.
This reminds me of a story of change that has occured within the much smaller extent of the metal world. As even non-metal fans will imagine, the heavy metal world is something of a sausage-fest. The vast majority of bands are filled with twenty-something males, getting on stage to do what they do and generally beating their chests. There are clearly exceptions, but even in the exceptions, the place of women has often been more receded – playing bass or backing vocals. Few bands have had women up front, kicking it out like the guys.
Then [Arch Enemy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_Enemy) came along. As a pretty ripping melodic death metal band founded from the ashes of Carcass, they originally had Johan Liiva on vocals who was then replaced by Angela Gossow. Now, Gossow was not performing the angsty yet angelic singing that other female vocalists in metal had traditionally performed – instead she got out there and growled in as gnarly and visceral fashion as anyone else. In fact, when Wages Of Sin (the first album with Gossow) was released, many didn’t actually believe it was a woman on vocals, and those who were aware assumed that the vocals were processed in some way. Not at all. Everything was as pure and unfettered as her male counterparts, and every time I saw Arch Enemy play (around four or five times in two years), she delivered an uncompromising vocal and live performance.
Gossow probably never imagined what this would trigger. Not only were we treated to some pretty rocking music, but she sent out a hugely positive message to women who loved rock music but struggled to find their place in such a male dominated world. Although the metal world is an incredibly inviting, close-knit, proud community of people, the nature of the music is intense and physical. Gossow stepped up and showed women everywhere that they could do it too. Since then we have seen a wealth of female fronted metal acts, with the most recent I have been getting into are [Walls Of Jericho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walls_of_Jericho_(band)), with Candace Kucsulain providing an even more ripping vocal performance than Gossow.
Getting back to Obama, what Gossow proved was that the theory was possible. Before she came along, and before Wages Of Sin was released, anyone with half a brain knew full well that women could get up there and perform vocals just like the guys – there was no physical or social reason why not. What Gossow did was the inspire a new chapter in our culture, to inspire a new generation of musicians to get up there and realise their dreams.
And this is what is important from my perspective – communicating the theory of what is possible does not cause change, it still remains simply theory. To make real change, we need inspirational figures to really show what is possible. Whether that happens in the White House or in a tiny club in London, the sense of inspiration is still the same.
Ricky Martin. Metal King.
In the tradition of showcasing amusing metal-related videos, Mighty Mike Basinger sends me this nugget:
*See the vid [here](https://www.collegehumor.com/video:1886495)*.
Mike, you have to much time on your hands, brother. 🙂
Intrepid Is Out! San Fran Drinks Tonight.
I am going to keep this fairly short as today has been a super-hectic day. Well, today Ubuntu 8.10 hit the tubes, and it is a proud moment for everyone in the Ubuntu community. A lot of people have mut a lot of hard work into every facet of the distribution, from writing the upstream applications, to packaging them, writing documentation, translating, spreading the word, testing and so much more. Thanks to everyone involved for everything you have done to bring Inrepid to the world.
Soon we will be kicking off development of Jaunty and much of this will be starting at our [Ubuntu Developer Summit](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDS) from Monday 8th – Friday 12th December 2008 in Mountain View, California. I hope to see a bunch of you there.
In the meantime, tonight Tom Haddon and I are getting together for a few pints at [The Thirsty Bear](https://www.thirstybear.com/) in San Francisco at about 7.30pm to celebrate the release. Why not come along and join us?
On Lessig
Last night I went along to the launch party for Lawrence Lessig’s new book, [Remix: Making Art And Commerce Thrive In The Hybrid Economy](https://remix.lessig.org/). This book is the bridge between Lessig moving from his studies in Free Culture to his work on reform in Congress. It was an excellent evening, and it was great to catch up with Lawrence himself, the Creative Commons folks, and other friends.
I find Lessig such an inspiration. He has an incredible ability to understand, reason and articulate complex topics in such a way that not only shares his insight, but inspires the listener or reader of his work to aspire to a similar sense of objective, reasoned approach. Over the years he has written a number of books, and a flurry of essays and blog entries, touching on a wide range of subjects. Most widely known in our world for his contributions to Free Culture, Copyright issues and the Creative Commons, Lessig is now setting his sites on what he considers the more fundamental problem – corruption in government. Last night in his speech, he expressed that the problems that we have faced with Copyright are because government does not make decisions based upon sense and reason, but is instead heavily influenced by significant commercial entities. Money talks. Lessig has deduced that this is a problem that not only affects Copyright, but a wider range of more fundamental issues. With this in mind, he has decided to step back from his work on Free Culture and focus on his [Change Congress](https://change-congress.org/) mission.
In our world we have many celebrities, but what I admire most about Lessig’s work is that he does not seem to let religious ethical zeal for the topic affect his judgement. Lessig feels very strongly about the issues that he studies, but in every one of his works I always take away a calm, reasoned, measured approach, and one that uncovers the nuances in the debate that are articulated and communicated with inspiring precision. I will always hold him in high regard for his incredible contributions to Free Culture. The Free Culture train is really only just starting to roll, and Lessig but the rails down on the ground for us.
Over the last few weeks Lessig and I have been exchanging some emails regarding Severed Fifth, and he is excited about the project, which as you can probably imagine, makes me rather excited too. With Severed Fifth off to a fairly ripping start I am concious to do things the right way and asked for his thoughts and advice , and when he is back from his extensive travelling spree, we are going to meet up for lunch and discuss it. I look forward to having his input on the project.
So in a nutshell, a great evening, and lets not mourn Lessig’s move away from Free Culture issues, and welcome his insight into how we can change congress. As he said last night, we have an opportunity right now for this kind of reform, and I can’t think of anyone better to drive it forward. 🙂
Mint
I just want to spend a few minutes sharing a wonderful story that Stani Michiels emailed me about earlier and which he [blogged about here](https://pythonide.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-make-money-with-free-software.html).
Stani entered a competition in Holland to design a commemorative coin and produced an absolutely astonishingly beautiful entry, and one with aesthetics, class, metaphor and meaning. This in itself is incredible, but the whole shebang was achieved using Free Software and all running on Ubuntu.
See, you can make money with Open Source. 🙂
Folks, head over to Stani’s blog and tell him how cool he is. 🙂
Ubuntu Open Week for Jaunty. Rock On.
Folks, we are really pleased to announce…[Ubuntu Open Week](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek)!
Ubuntu Open Week is a week of IRC tuition and Q+A sessions all about getting involved in the rock-and-roll world that is the Ubuntu community. We organise this week for the beginning of a new release cycle to help new contributors get involved. Thanks to Jorge for helping to get the week together and for everyone who is helping to run sessions. Its going to be a fun week!
So, the most important details first – Ubuntu Open Week happens from **Mon 3 Nov – Fri 7 Nov** and takes place in `#ubuntu-classroom` on the [Freenode](https://freenode.net/) IRC network. You can use a program such as XChat-GNOME in Ubuntu to connect and get involved.
So which sessions are scheduled? Well, the [timetable is available here](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek) and the sessions include:
**Monday**
* **Introduction and Welcome** – Jono Bacon, the Ubuntu Community manager, will kick off the week with a short welcome and give you a quick tour of what to expect during OpenWeek.
* **Ubuntu behind the Scenes** – You have some ideas and want to see them included in Ubuntu but don’t know how or just wondered how the ubuntu developers make this awesome distro, this is the right place to know what happens under the hood.
* **Reporting and Fixing Kernel Bugs** – Leann Ogasawara will touch on kernel bug reporting best practices and getting fixes incorporated into the Ubuntu kernel.
* **Ubuntu on Ultra Mobile PCs** – Oliver Grawert will explain the ins and outs of getting Ubuntu on UMPCs
* **Version Control with Bazaar** – The very basics of using Bazaar. Learn how to take “snapshots” of your most important code and files..and how to roll back time to undo those changes.
* **Bazaar: Beyond The Basics** – Following on from Emma Jane Hogbin’s Bzr basics, DavidFutcher guides you through some of the more “advanced” Bzr topics.
**Tuesday**
* **Edubuntu** – Overview of the Edubuntu project, its purpose, and how you can get involved with this small, but vital community. “Do it for the kids”
* **Packaging 101** – Daniel Holbach, who is very interested in the growth of the Ubuntu Development Community, will talk you through the bare bone essentials of Ubuntu’s source packages.
* **Debian and Ubuntu** – What is Debian? What is the importance of Debian to Ubuntu? How you can contribute to Debian?
* **An Intrepid journey in Ubuntu Server land** – a retrospective of the features that the Ubuntu Server team worked on during the last release cycle and an outlook on what will follow.
* **Media Prodution on Ubuntu** – A look at how Ubuntu can be used for all sorts of media, including photo processing and management, video capture and editing and audio recording and processing. This session will include a Q&A.
**Wednesday**
* **Polishing a Package** – Lots of packages in Ubuntu have outstanding bugs, and outstanding available patches. Emmet Hikory will demonstrate the process of ensuring that a package is the best it can be, including a review of available resources for package improvements.
* **Ubuntu Netbook Remix Overview** – Learn about Ubuntu’s offering for netbooks, with UNR Product Manager Pete Goodall and Engineers Bill Filler and Neil Patel.
* **Upstreaming Bugs** – Ubuntu is a collection of software from a multitude of upstream projects (Like GNOME, KDE, Linux, Xorg) that is put together and released every 6 months. In this talk I will talk about how you can help be a bridge between Ubuntu and these projects by ensuring that bugs, patches, and feedback gets from Ubuntu to them.
* **Ubuntu Brainstorm Q+A, becoming moderator** – You have some question about Ubuntu Brainstorm? You want to become moderator? This will be the right time to ask!
**Thursday**
* **sabdfl Question and Answer** – Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu will take questions from attendees in this two hour block.
* **Wine** – How to help with Wine, converting Windows applications into packages, Integrating Wine into the desktop.
* **Verifying Stable Update (SRU) bugfixes** – Walking through the process of verifying an update for released versions of packages.
* **Cruft. What is it and why it sucks** – An overview of cruft, how its made, how it is handled, what NBS is, how to do a removal
* **Cruft Removal 101 Workshop** – A crash course in removing cruft with actual packages staged in a PPA. Learn how to do from the pros.
**Friday**
* **Fixing a bug in Ubuntu – it’s easier than you think** – You want to get involved in Ubuntu, you’d like to fix a few bugs? Excellent, Daniel Holbach will show you how push the right buttons, talk to the right people and be part of the team.
* **REVU Q+A** – Open Q&A about https://revu.ubuntuwire.com (the website where new packages are reviewed for inclusion into Ubuntu).
* **Translations and Internationalization with Launchpad** – MikeRooney – A guide from start (an English-only application) to finish (a translated localized application) using Launchpad to coordinate and gather community translations.
* **Kernel: From Intrepid to Jaunty** – Ben Collins – A review of what the kernel team did different during intrepid’s development cycle, what we learned and what we plan to change in jaunty.
* **Open Week Questions and Feedback** – Jorge Castro – In this session we will get feedback from attendees on things you’d like to see in OpenWeek; what types of topics you would like to see next time and recommendations on how to make OpenWeek better.
I look forward to seeing you all there!
San Francisco Events This Week
Just wanted to mention a few events I will be at this week in San Francisco:
* Wed 29th Oct – Larry Lessig’s book party – W Hotel, 181 Third Street, San Francisco, CA – 6.30pm – I will be there to celebrate the release of Larry’s new book, and meet other Creative Commons people.
* Thu 30th Oct – Ubuntu Release Party – The lower bar as you walk in on the left, The Thirsty Bear, 661 Howard St, San Francisco, CA 94105 – come along and hang out with at least Tom Haddon and myself for a few pints to celebrate the release of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.
Hope to see a bunch of you there. 🙂
Denied By Reign: One Day Old
Well, [Denied By Reign](https://www.severedfifth.com/releases/) has [released](https://www.severedfifth.com/news/2008/10/denied-by-reign-now-available/) for about a day now, and I want to thank everyone for their kind comments and support behind the project.
I am pretty tickled-pink with the response so far. I have been trying to keep track of write-ups of the project and the album, and so far I have seen the following:
* [Creative Commons Weblog](https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/10174)
* [Creative Commons Features Commoner](https://creativecommons.org/commoners/)
* [Ars Technica Write-up](https://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081022-ubuntu-community-manager-releases-cc-licensed-metal-album.html)
* [GearDiary](https://www.geardiary.com/2008/10/21/musicdeal-severed-fifth-debut-album-today/)
* [Stephan Hermann’s Blog](https://www.sourcecode.de/content/severed-fifth-denied-reign-jono-da-house)
* [Linux Outlaws](https://linuxoutlaws.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=882)
* [Rich Johnson’s blog](https://blog.nixternal.com/2008.10.21/jono-you-rock-dude/)
* [My Science Is Better](https://www.myscienceisbetter.info/2008/10/the-debut-severed-fifth-album-denied-by-reign-is-out.html)
* [CLibra’s Blog](https://clibra.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/introducing-severed-fifth/)
* [Joaquim Rocha’s Blog](https://www.joaquimrocha.com/2008/10/21/severed-fifth/)
* [lummie.co.uk](https://lummie.co.uk/its-severed-fifth-release-day/)
* [Mean Machine](https://meanmachine.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/severed-fifth-denied-by-reign-released/)
* [Singpolyma’s Blog](https://singpolyma.net/2008/10/severed-fifth-denied-by-reign/)
* [Alternating.net](https://spider.alternating.net/blog/?p=207)
* [Cesarius](https://www.cesarius.net/severed-fifths-denied-by-reign/)
* [Locohygynx](https://locohygynx.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/denied-by-reign-severed-fifth/)
* [simsus.de](https://blog.simpsus.de/?p=13)
* [Nicubunu’s Blog](https://nicubunu.blogspot.com/2008/10/denied-by-reign.html)
* [Dave Neary’s Blog](https://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2008/10/22/congratulations-jono/)
* [Der-Lehmann](https://www.der-lehmann.de/?p=54)
* [Mediterranei’s blog](https://mediterranei.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/severed-fifth-il-metal-sposa-la-free-culture/)
* [Linux Today](https://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-10-22-016-35-PR-RL)
* [Newsvine](https://dturnbull.newsvine.com/_news/2008/10/22/2028236-ubuntu-community-manager-releases-cc-licensed-metal-album)
I also noticed some good Twitter and identi.ca action going on, and there has been lots of chatter on the [Severed Fifth Forums](https://www.severedfifth.com/forums/) and in the #severedfifth IRC Channel on Freenode.
In terms of downloads, I have been reliably informed by Neuro, king of the BitTorrents, that it is blazing pretty hard with over 500 BitTorrented downloads in the first day. I estimate that in terms of downloads from the Bytemark mirror that there have been about 280 downloads and I need to check with Adam about how well his mirror has done, but I think it is reasonable to suggest 1000 copies of the album have been shifted in its first day. Nice. 🙂
As I mentioned in my [last post](https://www.severedfifth.com/news/2008/10/denied-by-reign-now-available/) the next step of the project is to spread the word and build exposure. I am pleased to see that the [Severed Fifth Street Team](https://www.severedfifth.com/streetteam/) is growing and a bunch of street teamers are getting out into the trenches to spread the word. We have heard of people printing out posters to put up at schools/colleges/stores, contacting local radio stations, posting on discussion forums, sending messages on IM and various other activities. If you put up a poster, give out fliers or whatever else, do take a photo of it and send it over – I would love to feature some of these in the [Severed Fifth News](https://www.severedfifth.com/news/). 🙂
Another key element here us growing exposure of Severed Fifth and Free Culture in social networking websites. This is kicking off in earnest, and check the following:
* [Severed Fifth Facebook Group](https://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60451700536)
* [Severed Fifth MySpace Page](https://www.myspace.com/severedfifth)
* [Severed Fifth at Last.fm](https://www.last.fm/music/Severed+Fifth)
More coming on [MuseAmp](https://www.museamp.com/home) (a rocking website by a friend of mine, Dan) and [Jamendo](https://www.jamendo.com/en/). If you know of more which need attention, do let me know.
More later… 🙂
Debut Severed Fifth Album Now Available
[Digg The Release](https://digg.com/music/Severed_Fifth_s_Denied_By_Reign_Released)
I am proud to announce the final release of the debut [Severed Fifth](https://www.severedfifth.com/) album [Denied By Reign](https://www.severedfifth.com/releases/). You can go and download it in its entirety [here](https://www.severedfifth.com/releases/). There are download links for both Ogg and MP3 as well as BitTorrent links. Thanks to Adam and Neuro for providing mirrors. The full album is available under a [Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/) license – you are free to copy, share, remix and sell the album if you like. 🙂
When I started working on Denied By Reign, I intended it to have two primary purpose. Firstly, I wanted it to be a good representation of my own creativity, as any musician would want. With this goal in mind, I have worked to produce a pretty thumping metal album, and I am really proud of it – I hope some necks ache out there. 🙂 But the second purpose is more important – to explore what is possible when an independent artist releases their work in the new music economy.
Today the next phase of Severed Fifth begins and in this critical time, our focus shifts to exposure. To build success around Severed Fifth, we need to get Denied By Reign in the hands and ears of *everyone*. The goal here is to spread the word about the album and strongly celebrate its free culture foundation. I am hoping Denied By Reign will be an example of how a free culture album can gain critical exposure and success, and how this can open up other opportunities for artists.
With this in mind, we have the [Severed Fifth Street Team](https://www.severedfifth.com/streetteam) – a collection of Severed Fifth fans around the world who are going to help with this goal of getting the album oodles of exposure. I have heard of people who are going to print out posters and put them in music shops, burn Denied By Reign to CD and play it in clubs and venues, and one guy even talked about taking a Denied By Reign CD, putting it in a boombox and walking down his town high street.
So now this critical phase kicks off. How can you help? Well a few ideas to start with:
* [Download Denied By Reign](https://www.severedfifth.com/releases/) and review it. Put it on your blog, and talk about the project.
* Join the [Street Team](https://www.severedfifth.com/streetteam/) and come and join us spread exposure behind the album. Put up posters, tell your friends, tell local music shops, show it to local bands, post on forums, send it to established artists that you may know and anything else that can help. 🙂
* Come and join the Severed Fifth community. Check out our [Forums](https://www.severedfifth.com/forums/) and log onto #severedfifth on irc.freenode.net
With the focus shifting to the Street Team, I will be posting more about this soon. Thanks everyone for all of your support. 🙂