Pacific Connection(英語)
Keeping it Loose at LugRadio Live USA
2008年6月18日
“Would you like a beer?”
That offer came on a Saturday morning at the entrance to LugRadio Live USA, a San Francisco gathering hosted last April by four guys from the UK, whose LugRadio podcast combines the community of open source and the anarchy of Monty Python. The “Live” event was the first held outside Britain, and took place on the upper floor of the Metreon, an entertainment/
The idea behind LugRadio is to take some of the starch out of the open source movement by loosening it with British humor. “We would go to these shows and realize that the most valuable bits were after the show at the pub,” said Stuart Langridge, aka “Aq,” a web and JavaScript developer, who has written two books about JavaScript and AJAX, as well as various JavaScript libraries. Aq’
“We’
In both its podcast and “Live” form, LugRadio shows just how decentralized and democratized open source has become. “Headquarters” for the podcast is not in London, but two hours north along the M54 in North Wolverhampton. LugRadio’
LugRadio Live USA was not entirely loopy, but rather alternated between the conventional and decidedly not. Among the speakers were Miguel de Icaza, founder of the GNOME desktop and current Novell employee; Ian Murdock, who founded Debian and now works for Sun; Robert Love of the Android project, and Jeremy Allison, the lead developer for Samba. These and other denizens of the open source movement gave straightforward presentations and fielded questions
The Gong-a-Thong
Other parts of the weekend defied convention. There was the “Gong-a-Thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza,” a variation on a standard conference theme: you can say anything that’
The audience Gong-A-Thong favorite was Solomon Chang, a certified SQLserver administrator and acting director of LAMPsig, the Los Angeles Development User Group, who sang his satirical Irish ballad, “Coder McKinnan o’ The Cubicles,” whose chorus describes the doomed love of a software developer:
“No lass as she could ever be with nerdy geeks like ye.
Oh, thy lot in life is loneliness as far as I can see.
McKinnan you’
Now get back and patch our clients’ PHP.”
But for LugRadio member Jono Bacon, getting the girl is exactly what open source developers should be doing. “You don’
“When we started doing it four years ago, there was not really any podcasts around,” Bacon said. “The idea was to put together a collection of friends we thought were interesting and amusing and produce something that people will enjoy. From day one it has always been about entertainment?it’
Another LugRadio trademark is the spirited disagreements. “LugRadio is very, very opinionated. I’
Bacon said that LugRadio, both the podcast and the event, also reflect the changing nature of open source development. “The community is more diverse than we used to be. Ten years ago, you had to be a programmer to be involved. That was true even to do documentation: you had to learn a programming language. Nowadays you can get involved in so many different ways. You don’
“Everybody in the open source community is on a crusade?we all believe in free software. And when you are on a crusade, you want to make sure that every contribution benefits everybody else. That’
Bridging worlds: Sun and Moonlight
Bacon’
Two other presenters, Ian Murdock and Miguel de Icaza, are prominent members of the open source community who now work for technology companies. Murdock is the man behind Debian Linux and was chief technology officer at the Linux Foundation before joining Sun as vice president of developer and community marketing in March 2007. De Icaza co-founded the GNOME project and now heads up the Mono project at Novell, where he is vice president, open platform solutions.
“One of the big lessons of open source and communities is you can cooperate and compete at the same time,” Murdock said. “Linux is a great example. Look at all the companies that are involved in Linux development, including IBM, Intel, and AMD. Some of these companies are fiercely competing with each other, but by collaborating as well, they can create a broader ecosystem that ultimately benefits everyone.”
Murdock said that open source has done for software what Moore’
A startup company, with more time than money, may see open source software as an opportunity to keep expenses down. But as that company grows, priorities shift, and at some point, it’
At Novell, Miguel de Icaza is heading the Mono project, whose aim is to allow Linux, Solaris and other developers to build cross-platform .NET applications. De Icaza was at LugRadio Live to talk about Moonlight, a Mono-based implementation of Silverlight, Microsoft’
“The project is important to us because if Silverlight takes off without being accessible to Linux users, Linux would again be a second class citizen,” he said, referring to the long period when the Adobe Flash player had no Linux version. “There’
De Icaza has been working to keep a smooth working relationship between his company and Microsoft. “Like the Dalai Lama said, the best way of changing your opponent’
On his blog, de Icaza wrote that Moonlight is part of a broader Microsoft move to become more open. He cites the open sourcing of IronPython, IronRuby, the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR), and the JS library for ASP.
- LugRadio Live USA: a Podcast Excerpt
- The LugRadio Live event also included the recording of a podcast, filled with the usual verbal jousting?amplified for the stage--plus tamer comments from the American audience. The following is a cleaned-up excerpt on the topic of software usability. I didn’
t catch who said what, but I’ m not sure it matters. The podcast itself can be found at the LugRadio site: April 21, 2008, season 5, episode 16?spoken in a language resembling English. - “We were going round and round about the obvious need to make software more useable so that people can use it. And eventually Chris and I snapped and asked: is there not a base limit below which you can say: ‘you’
re too stupid to own a computer.’” - “From an open source point of view, we want people to use our software. If you believe that open source is the way forward to produce better software, I think it’
s hard to justify that point of view.” - “But a central processor has more parts to it than anything else ever made. It’
s the most complicated thing you can build. Why should they be so easy to use?” - “Do you think it’
s reasonable for people to drive a car without passing a driving test?” - “When I started using Linux, my dad came in with one of those books and said: ‘I’
m going to learn Linux in 10 minutes.” And I thought? ‘No you’ re not. You are going to fail at Linux.” But he came through. At the time, I thought?you need a license to drive a car. You should need a license to use a computer.” - “This is the man with whom you share genes.”
- “Yeah, and you’
re mom’ s the other half.” - “But Linux has gotten easier. He uses Ubuntu on his laptop.”
- “But there should be a cutoff point.”
- “But your cutoff point is basically: anyone who is not you.”
- Audience member: “Don’
t throw anything at me, but Microsoft Visual Studio is so smart, you don’ t even need to know how to program.” - “I don’
t understand that. My dad wants listen to MP3s. I can’ t tell him?here’ s Visual Studio, go build yourself a player. My point is that anyone who does any programming at all is clearly above my baseline. I’ m talking about really stupid people.” - Audience member: “In the long term, computers will be smart enough to read people’
s minds.” - “It will be funny when a computer reads somebody’
s brain?and then crashes.”
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Pacific Connection(英語)
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- Keeping it Loose at LugRadio Live USA