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Archive for the 'Open Source' Category

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BarCamp Melbourne

Published on August 24, 2007 in BarCamp, Conference, Education, Open Source and Work Life. 0 Comments

BarCamp Melbourne 2.0

BarCamp Melbourne 2.0 planning is now well under way, and the event is slated to run on the 1st and 2nd of March 2008. The first BarCamp Melbourne had 10 participants, which isn’t bad considering the venue was over 2 hours from Melbourne! This time, we’re looking for a venue in, or very close to, the centre of Melbourne, and hope to get 50 to 100 participants.

Described as “an intense event with discussions, demos and interaction from attendees”, anyone is welcome to come along for free. Everyone is asked to participate by giving a presentation or leading a discussion, essentially forcing the sharing of ideas and knowledge. You might like to check out the BarCamp web site for more general information. Wikipedia’s entry on BarCamp might also be of interest.

I’ll post more updates as things progress, but in the meanwhile, sign up as a participant if you’d like to come along, spread the word about BarCamp Melbourne 2.0, and if you want to, or know someone that wants to sponsor this event, please check out or point them to the sponsorship page.

OpenMoko’s open source mobile phone an iPhone alternative?

Published on July 9, 2007 in Hardware and Open Source. 5 Comments

OpenMoko Neo 1973Announced in November 2006, the Neo 1973, named after the year in which Marty Cooper invented the mobile phone, was released to the public today.

Unlike other mobile phones on the market, OpenMoko actively encourage owners to hack away on the device, going so far as to provide an advanced kit for an extra US$150 including a debug board, tools, an extra battery, MicroSD card and USB cable, and a rugged carry box to put them all in.

If you opt for the standard phone at US$300, you’ll get a similar package to any other phone on the market today: a battery, carry pouch, lanyard, 512Mb MicroSD card and USB cable. Standard features of the phone include:

  • 2.8″ VGA TFT color display (640×480 @ 283 dpi)
  • Touchscreen, usable with stylus or fingers
  • USB 1.1, switchable between Client and Host (unpowered)
  • Integrated AGPS
  • 2.5G GSM – quad band, voice, CSD, GPRS
  • Bluetooth 2.0
  • Micro SD slot
  • High Quality audio codec
  • Built-in 128 MB RAM and 64 MB NAND Flash

While their site currently only shows a handful of screen shots, the interface seems slick. There are a number of “commercial” type videos featuring the Neo 1973, but none seem to show off the interface in action. Hopefully this will be available soon.The most interesting aspect of the phone, however, is the way OpenMoko support an open source philosophy. The hardware has been specifically chosen based on availability and completeness of documentation, and the phone comes with a debug port with complete access to JTAG, and a serial console!

This, coupled with the above mentioned encouragement to “take the casing apart and get at the PCB” shows a manufacturer that embraces and encourages a community of users that will hack and improve on the device, both offering hardware and software related contributions. To aid the creation of software, the device runs on a Linux kernel, uses the GNU C library, the X window system, and the GTK+ toolkit.

In a nutshell – it’s based on open source software and hardware, so the possibilities are, quite probably, endless! Or in the words of the creator: “OpenMoko is Mobile FOSS“.

To those of you that are hopping up and down itching to get your hands on one, there is one caution on OpenMoko’s wiki: “Currently it is not suitable for users. The state of the software at the moment is pre-alpha. If you order a Neo1973, DO NOT expect to be able to use it as an everyday phone for several months.”

For that reason, and because the consumer release version (the GTA02) includes 802.11 b/g WiFi, SMedia 3362 Graphics Accelerator, 2 3D Accelerometers, 256MB Flash and and upgraded processor, I’ll be waiting until October to try one out.

OSDC 2007 Call For Papers

Published on May 14, 2007 in Conference, Open Source and Work Life. 0 Comments

The call for papers is now officially out for the Open Source Developers’ Conference 2007. This year is the first non-Melbourne year, with the event being managed by a new organisational committee in Brisbane!

So add the 26th – 29th of November to your diaries, and get your papers submitted by the 30th of June, and I’ll see you in Brisbane in 6 months!

Environment Profile WordPress Plugin

Published on May 1, 2007 in Open Source, Plugins, WordPress and Work Life. 0 Comments

I’m configuring WordPress to work with an external authentication system and need to automatically log in a user and create a new user in WordPress if none exists. The user’s details are available to WordPress in environment variables.

To do this, I’m using three plugins:

Firstly, I’d like to thank Daniel for accepting (with changes) my patch to facilitate the creation of non-existent users, an option that can be disabled if you don’t want this feature.

The first two plugins solved nearly all of my issues, with the exception of using environment variables to fill in the user data on user creation, and in true open source fashion, these three distinct plugins now do a job particularly well, and can be used in conjunction with or separately from each other.

[Update 6th August] I’ve now had approval from the powers that be, and this plugin is now available for your enjoyment.

Winning Against Linux The Smart Way

Published on March 20, 2007 in Open Source and Security. 2 Comments

Microsoft have launched a web site that helps its partners identify Linux “Personas” (i.e. the types of people that use Linux). This list of five personas helps Microsoft partners identify and target these people with a view to forcing persuading them that Microsoft is better.
For example, a Linux Experimenter is defined as “largely a Microsoft shop experimenting with Linux” who is “looking to lower his total cost of ownership by experimenting with open source software technologies”.

Here’s what a Microsoft partner is persuaded to do:

Question the need for experimenting in light of third-party evidence/studies demonstrating that Windows Server 2003 has lower TCO than Linux. Also emphasize Windows’ growing leadership in business Web and intranets.

Well, I’m sold. Are you?

http://www.linuxpersonas.com/