BBBlog

It has been exactly two weeks now that my little “4
people 1 rope”-competition has been going on. Let’s see how google is
picking up on this:

summary="this table shows the respective amount of google results for x people y ropes">

Number of google.be (pages from Belgium) results for
“<x> people” “<y> ropes”

		ropes
		0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
people	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
	2	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	0
	3	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0
	4	0	34	1	0	0	0	0	0
	5	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0
	6	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Hmm, mediocre success, I’d say. Isn’t the Belgian blogosphere more powerful than that? :-)

Two nice reactions come to mind though: bnox with her Swedish thing and Imke Dielen’s nasty Rick-Roll.
The dinner is still to be won, however!

So what all this about having four people but only one rope?

Yesterday, I and many other people had a great time at #mwbbq. During the
performance of one of the stand-up comedians that night, I was asked to share
my most kinky, truly-happened story with the audience. So I started off:
“There were four people, but only one bit of rope…”, but before I could
say another word, the microphone got taken away!

Apparently, this spurred some interest:

Now, here’s a small competition: the one who can write the most
“interesting” blog post starting with “There were four people, but only one
bit of rope…” (any language is fine) within the month of February will be treated to a
nice dinner by me personally. Moreover, I promise to finish the actual story
during that dinner! ;-)

In true xkcd-style, I started the following
graph. Let’s see how it evolves over the coming month. :-D

Number of google.be (pages from Belgium) results for “<x> people” “<y> ropes”

		ropes
		0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
people	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0
	2	0	10	0	0	0	0	0	0
	3	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0
	4	0	3	1	0	0	0	0	0
	5	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	0
	6	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	0
	7	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Happy new year!

I recently read Windows 7:
Mojave My Ass, an article by Jason Perlow about his experiences with
Windows 7 Build 7000 (Beta 1).

Here’s an extract:

To make matters even worse, the “Run” option is no longer directly accessible
from the Start Menu as a default behavior, you have to get to it via a Search.
Once you get to Run via Search, you can click on it to execute any commands
you like, such as the CMD.EXE prompt, and you can drag it onto the Desktop,
but you can’t drag it onto the new Taskbar, like you can do with any
add-on program, such as Firefox.

Is this what computing has turned into?
Will we really allow Microsoft to have our Operating
System-reviews to be reduced to OMG-I-can’t-click-here-rants?

I mean, what must their kernel developers think of that?
I bet I’d be extremely jealous of the Linux kernel developers, who at least
seem to have a lot of fun after
a new release. :-)

In my opinion, operating systems are more than just desktop environments, and
should be judged as such.

Yesterday I spent another great day in Ghent, at the second Barcamp to be hosted in the nice IBBT environment.
It was, without doubt, the greatest barcamp I ever participated in.
They quality of the presentations goes up and up each time.
Also, my own presentation, this time a hands on demonstration of some cool new features in HTML5, attracted more people than ever.
Maybe, because the Netlog lead designer and I decided to do a 40-minutes dual-presentation.

There was much ado about the main language of the unconference.
Obviously, 99% of the participants are Belgian out of which 99% are from the Flemish region.
Of course there’s no doubt that most of the presentations will be in Dutch.
I didn’t like it that much, however, that it was specifically announced before, that the complete event was to be held in Dutch.

I’ve been to unconferences in France, Germany and Norway.
In France and Germany, they were single-language unconferences, too, and I found them far less accessible for myself, even though I do speak and understand French and German.
(In Norway, most of it was held in English.)
I found it very nice of our own barcamps to be very easily accessible for non-native-Dutch speakers.
Pitches were held in English and before every presentation, we used to verify if somebody in the audience didn’t understand Dutch.
Is that so hard to keep up?
After all, most of the slides of the talks I attended were in English anyway, and so is the wiki where we self-organised the event.
It’s also very striking to see how much English sentences and constructions we use in our talks anyway.
Moreover, sharing our barcamp experiences with the world afterwards is so much easier if all was prepared in English anyway.
Think about the videos, presentations and all other material that was captured.

It’s a very small world already, so let’s try our best to include foreigners and non-Flemish Belgians too!

Don’t get me wrong.
115 Flemish people should not speak English amongst each other.
But let’s not send out the message that it’s a Dutch-only event.
Of course, at the end of the day, it’s up to the presenter himself to decide which language to use.

(And, whatever we do, let’s agree on a single #tag to use: is it #barcampgent2 or #barcampghent2?)

Word on the street is that next barcamp will be held around April in Antwerp.
Before that, there is a Mobile Webcamp announced in Hasselt, next February.
See you there!

I’m a very late adopter of new technologies.
It has to do with the fact that I first want to identify a certain need for something before I try it.

On the other hand, whever I find something useful, I tend to stick to it.
I still frequent IRC and usenet, for example.
Call me conservative. :-)

So, even though most people describe me as a “techie”, I got my first mobile phone only in 2004 (I got one from my employer at that time).
I started blogging in January 2008, which is pretty late for the people in the environment I work in.
My very first laptop ever is only 2 years old now.
I bought my first USB-stick last month.
And today… I created a Twitter account (b_b_b_a_r_t).

Seems like I started an overtaking manoeuvre… :-)

What’s the use for it?
Well, it appears that twitter is becoming the source of more and more interesting discussions.
Recently, there was a twitter discussion about article
about Europe’s success.
That one wans’t that interesting, however. :-)
Litrik only commented the language and grammar.
Atog mistook Flemish language influences for Pakistani ones.
Koen Vervloesem seemed to get and agree with the point I tried to make.

Too bad someone else took my nickname (bbbart) already. :-(

Anybody remember gettext?
A couple of years ago I investigated the localisation system for a project and actually came to like it pretty much.
Managing your .po and .mo files can be a hassle though.
That’s why I created these two scripts to help me handle them:


#!/usr/local/bin/bash

function createpot {
# create new .po templates (.pot)
local POT=$1
touch ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${POT}.pot

xgettext --default-domain=${DOMAIN} \
--output-dir="./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/" --language PHP \
--force-po --indent --strict --no-wrap \
--copyright-holder='inGen cvba' \
--msgid-bugs-address='bart@inGen.be' --output=${POT}.pot \
--add-location ${phpfile}

chmod -f g+rw ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${POT}.pot
}

function updatepo {
# update the original with the new potfile
local PO=$1
touch ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.po
touch ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.pot

msgmerge --update --backup=simple --force-po --indent --strict \
--no-wrap --quiet --add-location \
./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.po \
./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.pot

chmod -f g+rw ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.po
}

function mergepot {
# merge the original po with the new pot
local PO=$1
local POT=$2
touch ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.po
touch ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${POT}.pot

msgcat --output-file=./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${POT}.pot \
--to-code=UTF-8 --use-first --force-po --indent --add-location \
--strict --sort-output \
./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.po \
./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${POT}.pot

rm -f ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${PO}.po
chmod -f g+rw ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${POT}.pot
}

function backuppo {
# do a real backup of the existing pofiles
cp ./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/${DOMAIN}.po \
./locale/${locale}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/pobackup/
}

for locale in nl_BE fr_BE en_GB
do
# generate .po messages
for phpfile in index.php
do
# the domain is the basename of the file
DOMAIN=`basename $phpfile .php`

backuppo
createpot ${DOMAIN}
updatepo ${DOMAIN}
done
done


and


#!/usr/local/bin/bash

# generate .mo messages of al .po files
for lang in nl_BE fr_BE en_GB
do
for pofile in ./locale/${lang}.UTF-8/LC_MESSAGES/*.po
do
rm -f ${profile/po/mo}
msgfmt ${pofile} -o ${pofile/po/mo} --strict --check --use-fuzzy
chmod -f g+r ${pofile/po/mo}
done
done


These scripts will not setup the working environment nor generate full headers for new .po files.
You will have to do this manually.
A corresponding working environment for the scripts in their posted configuration looks like this:

.
|-- images
|   `-- favicon.ico
|-- includes
|   `-- accept-to-gettext.inc
|-- index.php
|-- locale
|   |-- en_GB.UTF-8
|   |   `-- LC_MESSAGES
|   |       |-- index.mo
|   |       |-- index.po
|   |       |-- index.pot
|   |       |-- index.po~
|   |       `-- pobackup
|   |           `-- index.po
|   |-- fr_BE.UTF-8
|   |   `-- LC_MESSAGES
|   |       |-- index.mo
|   |       |-- index.po
|   |       |-- index.pot
|   |       |-- index.po~
|   |       `-- pobackup
|   |           `-- index.po
|   `-- nl_BE.UTF-8
|       `-- LC_MESSAGES
|           |-- index.mo
|           |-- index.po
|           |-- index.pot
|           |-- index.po~
|           `-- pobackup
|               `-- index.po
|-- makemo
|-- makepo
`-- styles
    `-- index.css

Mind the accept-to-gettext.inc file, a great script written by Wouter Verhelst to convert information in HTTP ‘Accept-*’ headers to gettext language identifiers.

Yesterday was probably the best Profoss session up to now.
Too bad, only 30-ish people showed up, but the quality of the discussions was pretty high.
It was also one of the first Profoss’es where business models and market promises of Open Source software vendors stood central.
Too bad, however, that all four speakers (OpenBravo, OpenERP, Compiere and Adampiere) were not very proficient in English.
You could tell after 5 words where they came from (The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany). :-)

One thing which got stuck in my head was a remark form the Microsoft representative in the audience.
He mentioned that all the industries in Europe where we’ve been doing very well and are successful with worldwide, are in sectors where Intellectual Property rights are very well protected and laws are in place to do so.
He gave the pharmaceutical industry and the GSM communication standard as examples.

Now, he might be right for certain definitions of “success”.
They are the industries where venture capitalists like to live.
They are the sectors with the so called money-printing companies.
But, as someone in the audience gave as a remark, haven’t they stretched the limits of profitability too far?
Isn’t the financial crisis we are in right now a symptom of that?

The Microsoft guy went on to express his fear that by adopting the Open Source idea so quickly, Europe is putting itself in a more vulnerable position as compared to the rest of the world where huge companies are still being formed around (software) patents.
And that’s where I strongly disagree.

I believe, and not only for the software industry, that the Open Source philosophy forms the best sustainable business models, as a whole and in the long-term.
Janssen Pharmaceutica might never have been so huge without it’s patents on the medicines they “invented”, but now it appears that for the last 25 years the whole company just survived on those few patents.
Now that they have expired, all of a sudden Janssen is in trouble and recently had to lay down some thousands of people.
However… now that alternatives for those medicines are allowed, they all of a sudden become far cheaper as the factor of choice appears.
So which Europe (or Belgium, for that matter) is the most “successful”: the one where huge companies can get monopolies and allow some to get astonishly rich, or the one where medicines are affordable by anyone (without the need of too much medical insurance intervention)?

Isn’t the reason that Europe became what it is right now because of the rapid and free expansion of science and exact knowledge?
(
As a matter of fact, I agree with Michael H. Hart that Isaac Newton has had a greater influence on our every day life than Jesus Christ.
But that’s a different discussion.
)

But… doesn’t Janssen deserve to be paid back and generate revenue to support further research and development of other, great medicines?
Well, of course they do.
But why didn’t they do it then?
Why are they now, after 25 years of artificially stretching the time constraints of their patents, getting in so much trouble?
Haven’t they had the time to invent something else profitable?
(
One could also argue that for matters as health and hygiene, research should be left to public entities as universities.
Again, that’s another discussion.
)

The other example I want to tackle is the GSM one.
GSM is, in my eyes, one of the great failures of humanity.
Compare it to, say, TCP/IP.
Both are communication protocols.
One is proprietary and heavily regulated.
The other is open and free.
A couple of years after it’s existence, TCP/IP shaped the Internet, changed our entire world and allowed millions of business and even completely new business models to flourish on top of it.
On the other hand, with these stupid mobile phones, after 10 years we still can’t do anything but calling and sending crappy text messages.
MMS was supposed to be a big innovation.
Ironically, we had to wait for TCP/IP to arrive on our mobile devices, before we could start doing useful stuff with them.
Before we could do fun stuff that we didn’t have to ask permission for.
Before we could be free.

Why is the iPhone such a success?
Surely not because it supports GSM.

Just like Janssen, the great mobile operators might get in trouble when everybody starts using VoIP on their mobile phones.
Sitting on top of their governmentally protected industries, they have done nothing to protect themselves.

Yes, GSM regulation has made it possible for huge companies to form where, in Belgium, Mobistar, Proximus and Base are offsprings off.
But it has killed all innovation around it.

So again, what’s the most successful Europe?

Those Open Source ERP vendors might not get the big venture capitalists backing them.
And none of their CEO’s will be the next Bill Gates.
But they are forming the shape of the software business of tomorrow.

What is the definition of Open Source?

I find this a very hard question to answer. Thrown at the crowd at CloudCamp last week by Raphaël, most seemed to have trouble coming up with an answer too.
Notably, only one guy raised his hand.

Apparently, there is such a thing as an “Open Source Definition”.
It’s used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered Open Source.
Hmmm… I’m doubting this is what Raphaël was looking for.

Even after many years of being active in the Open Source community as a (little) developer, (big) evangelist, (sporadic) documenter, (furious) discusser and (big time) user, I still won’t know how to define Open Source.
I’m not even sure if I should categorise it as a technology, a movement, a software distribution model, a software license category or whatever else.

Kris, I really wonder what your definition would be?
Or anybody else’s, for that matter.

Yesterday, I attended the first CloudCamp in Belgium, which was
held in Brussels. It was at a very
nice venue, and the attending and presenting crowd was of very high
quality.

There was much to be seen and more to be learnt. However… it wasn’t an
unconference at all. Yes, at the end of the schedule there was a piece
left “unscheduled”, but that time was wholly consumed at the bar.

Oh, wait… so maybe it was an unconference after all then… :-)

I especially enjoyed the talk of Raphaël in which he stressed the need
for openness in the cloud, as that is exactly what made the Internet such a
success. If the “cloud” is willing to turn into this next layer on top of the
Internet, it indeed will have to make sure that it’s as open as can be.
Otherwise, all we’ll get is another useless network like we have today with the
mobile phone network and it’s few übermasters.

By the way… MyOwnDB is as open as can be! ;-)

Dag,

In follow-up to your PS, I
would like to refer to a statement I did in the past about
blog comments (4^th paragraph). Please also mind the spam notice.

I’m sure you knew already, however. :-p

I must agree with Philip
that Usenet remains the best platform for online non-real-time discussions. May
we welcome you at be.comp.os.linux?