Organic Linux at the Farmers Market

Among the strawberries, nectarines, kettle corn and other fresh fruits and vegetables — and since when is kettle corn NOT a fresh vegetable? — the Felton Linux Users Group has set up a table offering Organic Software each Tuesday afternoon at the Felton Farmers Market; Linux, GNU/Linux and other Free/Open Source Software programs and information about FOSS, all with no artificial colors or preservatives, and software that’s healthy for the well-being of your computer.

In the first installment of this endeavor last Tuesday, we introduced Fedora, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE to a number of people who ranged from unenlightened to Linux-curious to the most experienced. We also had on hand the OpenCD from last year’s Software Freedom Day, which has Windows versions of FOSS programs on it.

Something significant occurred during the first tabling event last week: Most everyone curious enough to stop at the table knew what Linux is (one woman, an engineer for Google just over the hill in Mountain View, said that she had better know what it is. “Google . . . interesting name. What do they do?” I asked in mock curiosity). Those who were just curious — “How can software be organic?” — went away with a little more knowledge, at the very least, and some with a live CD to try out at home.

This was done a couple of times in 2008 and in 2009; in 2008 it was a lead-up to Lindependence 2008 that year in July. It seems the seeds sown in Lindependence 2008 are beginning to bear fruit.

Special thanks go to Bob Lewis for the table and for the time he spent; Frank Turner for the excellent signs, the Linux Journals and time he put in at the table; and Karsten Wade, who brought a significant amount of OpenSource.com items to help explain what it is we’re all about.

If you’re in Felton on Tuesday, come over to the Farmers Market at St. John’s Church, which is about a mile south of the light on Highway 9 (which is all the directions you need in Felton).

(Fedora ambassador Larry Cafiero runs Redwood Digital Research in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

Coming up in 2009

A lot has been written so far about what to expect next year — some valid, some not.

But has that ever stopped me from joining the year-end pile-on? Perish the thought.

So here are 10 things to expect in 2009.

Or not.

Remember, objects may be closer than they appear, and your mileage may vary.

10. 2009 will be the year of Linux. But so will 2010, as well as 2011 and 2012. In fact, by 2013, the last pair of eyes on the planet will finally glaze over when a Linux writer proclaims the following year to be the year of Linux, and the more thoughtful pundits will just know that it’s now understood that the next year will be our year, for whatever reason, and they’ll write about something a tad more significant.

9. Fedora 11 will outshine Fedora 10. As hard as it may be to believe — and after a month I still can’t find a flaw with Fedora 10 — Fedora 11 will be an encore performance of what can best be described as a rock-solid distro, even for machines that go back a few years (in my case, a Dell 5000 Inspiron laptop and a Dell Optiplex desktop). Sadly, people will continue to be under the mistaken impression that Fedora is too “cutting edge” for anyone other than the most experienced superuser who might be too lazy to negotiate the Gentoo labyrinth (yes, that’s a gauntlet thrown at the feet of my Fedora colleagues to work next year on dispelling that stupid myth . . . ).

8. The UFC pits Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman against each other in a feature bout. What happens though is not one of those ridiculous near-death experiences for some poor troglodyte who normally gets suckered into the ring, but an epiphany for the entire FOSS community: Stallman and Torvalds meet at mid-ring and circle each other warily. Stallman opens the bout by saying maybe he was a little hasty in demanding GNU be stuck on the front of Linux, but Torvalds comes back with openly welcoming the option of joining the two names. Barriers between open source and free software dissolve. GNOME and KDE advocates embrace in a worldwide “kumbaya.” Planets align. Then I wake up.

7. Zenwalk increases the pace of its development. It becomes Zenrun, and in finding that they can add and release improvements to an already above-average distro at an even faster pace, they rename it Zenfly in 2010.

6. Lindependence comes to Redmond, Wash. The hall is rented, the fliers posted, and the riot police stand at the ready, but they remain wary since they don’t want to repeat the WTO fiasco in Seattle a decade ago. Nevertheless, yours truly — in a tribute to another overweight bald guy in the digital industry — opens the event with an insane onstage monkey dance that also brings him to within inches of a heart attack while Ken Starks unsuccessfully diverts the press’ attention. The Digital Tipping Point’s Christian Einfeldt, however, gets it all on video. Meanwhile, Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu reps — along with others who choose to join Lindependence in 2009 — hand out live CDs and demonstrate their distros. Yes, that’s Red Hat’s “Truth Happens” video (click here for Quick Time fans) looping in the background all the while.

5. Mandriva gets in touch with its feminine side. This distro renames itself Womandriva and becomes a more reasonable, nurturing distro, finally dropping the adolescent Mandrake zeitgeist from its early days. The distro’s leadership also realizes what a huge mistake it was to let Adam Williamson go and rectifies that situation, adding a huge bonus to his salary.

4. The Madagascar Penguins join Tux as the Linux mascots. Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and the Private make Tux one of their own in their commando unit. Incidentally — this is true (you can look it up) — on the Madagascar DVD, the penguins provide their own commentary on their scenes. When Private is struggling to operate a computer while taking over the ship, Skipper comments, “What are you doing up there, playing Tetris? You told me you knew Linux, Private!” Just smile and wave, boys, smile and wave.

3. Windows 7 will be worse than Vista, as hard as that may be to believe. This development will result in yet another $30 million Microsoft ad campaign diverting attention from this latest offering. Realizing they picked the wrong Seinfeld character in their first campaign, the ad agency casts Jason Alexander with Bill Gates, making Gates look like the “cool one” in comparison.

2. Everyone joins the Ubuntu family. In an effort not to confuse brand new GNU/Linux users with the daunting tasks of trying to wrap their minds around 350 different distributions, distros give themselves new names: Fedbuntu, Debuntu, openBUNTU, Sabayuntu, Damn Small Buntu, CentBuntu, Dreambuntu, Slackbuntu, Pupbuntu, Mepbuntu, gNewBuntu, among others. Solbuntis and OpenSolbuntis also join the ranks.

1. Linux Foundation’s “I’m Linux” video contest’s winning entry grabs an Oscar. After Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ad campaign, and Microsoft following with a painfully original “I’m a PC” theme, the Linux Foundation garners thousands of entries in its “I’m Linux” video contest. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences nominates the winner, which ends up awing those judging and the statuette for Best Short Film goes to the winner.

There are other developments, like the conflicts that the new OpenBSD Christian Edition causes, which may be addressed in a later blog.

Have a happy and prosperous new year.

(Fedora ambassador Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)

More miscellaneous ramblings

On a day when it’s 38 degrees F (that’s 3 Celsius to those of you keeping score in metric) at midday in Felton, I’ve locked myself in my office, turned on all the routers and switches and I’m mercilessly making the coffeemaker spew out gallon after gallon of hot water while making gallons of green tea.

Unlimited bathroom breaks — check.

So while I keep my keyboard warm with rapidly flying fingers, I wanted to bring up a couple of things, like

My good friend and former Santa Cruz Sentinel colleague Tom Dunlap has written an interesting blog item on Social Networking. It’s worth a read — go ahead and click on the link. I’ll wait. Tom touches on the point that social networking is not just for arranging parties anymore — the organizational and, yes, corporate element of social networking shouldn’t be ignored, and some of the larger distros like Ubuntu and Fedora realize this.

Distro reviews are not movie reviews, thank you very much. Unlike the latter, which can be done as soon as the film ends, road testing a distro takes — or should take, anyway — a little more than a couple of hours. Hence, the reason I haven’t given my review of Fedora 10 yet is that I’m not finished with it. Suffice it to say in a preview of the review that I have it on two machines and I have yet to find any flaw with it — this could be the best distro I’ve ever used. Ever. But then you’ll have to wait and see why when I write my review.

Lindependence goes overseas: Okay, save all those outsourcing jokes, but I’ve gotten an inquiry about holding a Lindependence event in Mumbai, India, which I am pursuing with all diligence. I’m not going there, but it would be great to have an event outside the confines of the U.S. of A., as well as a testament of the reach of giving people a choice in their digital pursuits.

Watch this space.

(Fedora ambassador Larry Cafiero runs HeliOS Solutions West in Felton, California, and is an associate member of the Free Software Foundation.)