townx

I'm joining Jono's quest for people to request Linux to be installed and supported by Dell on laptops and desktops. More importantly for me, I'd like to see Dell supplying Linux drivers (preferably open source) for its own hardware and insisting on the same from their supply chain. That would be something.

Go and vote. It's easy. I just voted for the top 10 or so popular items, as they are nearly all Linux/open source related. The hardware idea (the most important, to my mind) is here.

I bet you're wondering, why oh why would you want to compile Subversion? Can't you just install it with apt-get or Synaptic?

The answer is: yes, you can install it with apt. But my problem: if you set up a project with the latest EasyEclipse, the Subversion client version in EasyEclipse is different from the Ubuntu Subversion client version. This means any projects you create with EasyEclipse and link to a Subversion repository are unusable with the command line svn client in Ubuntu Dapper. You get this message if you try:

$ svn stat
svn: This client is too old to work with working copy '.'; please get a newer Subversion client

(By the way, I also get this error if I try to use script/plugin for a Rails application inside a project created with EasyEclipse. Presumably because the Ruby Subversion client library isn't up to date as a consequence of the C client library being out of date. This makes it difficult to use the plugin script, so I've been manually adding svn:externals to my plugins directory.)

First, download Subversion itself (I got the tarball) from the Subversion site. I'm using Subversion 1.4.3.

Next, install all the pre-requisites for compiling. I cribbed this list from http://packages.debian.org/stable/source/subversion:

sudo apt-get install m4 debhelper libneon24-dev libapr0-dev libdb4.3-dev libtool \
libexpat1-dev zlib1g-dev bison patch autotools-dev autoconf swig libsasl2-dev \
perl libperl-dev libkrb5-dev

Just for good measure (and because I don't really know what I'm doing :) I installed all the dependencies listed at http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/subversion, plus all the -dev versions too:

sudo apt-get install db4.3-util libapr0 libapr0-dev libc6 libc6-dev libdb4.3 \
libexpat1 libexpat1-dev libldap2 libldap2-dev libneon24 libneon24-dev \
libssl0.9.7 libxml2 libxml2-dev patch zlib1g zlib1g-dev

Next, connect to the unpacked Subversion source directory and run these commands:

./configure --prefix=<path_to_install_directory>/subversion-1.4.3 --disable-nls
make
make install

Replacing <path_to_install_directory> with the path to the install directory. The --disable-nls turns off gettext support (for internationalisation) which otherwise causes problems.

Now try running:

<path_to_install_directory>/subversion-1.4.3/bin/svn --version
svn, version 1.4.3 (r23084)
   compiled Mar 12 2007, 23:33:51

It works for me. It could be there are other dependencies I've missed or not listed, but you can get what the Debian developers think the dependencies are from the links in the text above.

By the way, it took me about two hours of debugging wierd error messages to get this working, so there's a chance you might get the same, of course. Here are a few examples of what I ended up googling:

• NE_FEATURE_SSL undeclared
• PKCS12_unpack_authsafes@OPENSSL

I'm pretty sure these were caused by problems with OpenSSL and Neon, but I'm not 100% sure.

I like this exchange (from http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39286135,00.htm), where Tim Berners-Lee discusses removal of DRM from electronic media in favour of ownership tracking, with Mary Bono (ex-wife of Sonny), a member of Congress:

Berners-Lee said a better approach would be to devise software capable of tracking whether a person owns a particular file. "It won't stop you, but it will let you know if you're playing music you shouldn't listen to because you backed up someone else's machine and you got access to it," he said.

"Is that not the equivalent of having the speed limit but no enforcement of the speed limit?" Bono replied.

Berners-Lee suggested closed DRM regimes were akin to enforcing a speed limit by requiring the offending car to "grind to a halt" and added, "I am inclined to try to make software that allows you to do the right thing first."

I recently heard about Streamburst, a UK company implementing this type of approach. You can't get much info from the website, but the approach centres around two types of ID embedded in video files:

• The name of the person who bought the file displayed for the first few seconds when a video plays. Various publishers do this with PDFs you buy from them: while the PDF isn't protected, having someone's name along the bottom of it makes illegal users at least feel guilty when they open the file.
• Random stripping of a few bits from the file, acting as the signature of the person who paid for it. This would enable the person who first distributed the file if it ended up on file-sharing networks.

I have to say that if we have to have DRM, then this approach seems much fairer than the ridiculous restrictions of current DRM: "naming and shaming" rather than incarceration.

If you have your own coupon codes, good luck to you. But be warned I'll delete your comments if they are just blatant plugs for your own codes. I'm sure you can see my point.

Dreamhost have new options for coupons, which mean that you can set up discount codes which give people extra disk space, extra free domain names, more bandwidth, or a unique IP address. It's a pretty nice idea. I've set one up which will give you double disk space for any of the yearly or two-yearly payment plans, with an additional $4 discount on the price. The coupon is:

MONSTERDISK

This means you can get hosting for 2 years at a cost of around $185 (if you go for the Crazy Domain Insane plan), with all the features they usually include; but on top of that, you will also get 340 Gb of disk space (100% more than a usual sign up). Yes, you read that right, 340Gb. They are lowering disk space in an attempt to get customers to sign up while it's still high; they also add disk space every month once you're signed up. I basically use Dreamhost as a big "disk in the sky" and rsync to it over SSH: works great for me, and at those prices, is a cheap backup solution for any small business or individual.

Alternatively, you could use my other coupon:

DHCHEAP

and get their normal hosting with $90 off any plan (e.g. two years pre-payment for their lowest level hosting works out at $100; or you can get one year for a measly $29).

Note: I don't use Dreamhost to host this blog (it's currently hosted on Site5), but given their decent record so far, I've been considering moving it over to Dreamhost.

There's a 13 year old Filipino fellow called Elliot Smith who contacted me on Last.fm. Fairly weird in itself, but even weirder is the fact that Wire appears to be one of his favourite bands (as they are one of mine). Does everyone have a doppelganger like this, somewhere?

The launch of the National Open Centre happened last Monday at the House of Commons. The speakers made some interesting points about the need for wider knowledge of and acceptance of open source, particularly in the public sector; and how the EU is keen for open source to be used more widely. Bill Thompson wrote up the launch, and makes some good points. I think he's right that what the NOC will be involved in is maybe not as prominent on the website as it could be; but there is a link which describes the subject panels the NOC will be running, which gives some idea. Plus the minutes from the first advisory board meeting are on the site, as well as minutes of the first Management Committee meeting. The idea is for the NOC to be as inclusive and transparent as possible, so we value feedback like Bill's.

Anyway, my main point here is that some of the feedback was less than positive. For example, ZDNet's coverage has an anonymous comment which is particularly scathing. I'm not in a position to argue about the points made about the NOC and its partners (I'm not the NOC press officer) but I did find the comments about OpenAdvantage (where I've worked since August 2005) particularly hurtful. I quote:

OpenAdvantage - funded by the same regional development agency behind Noc, OpenAdvantage's impact on the adoption of open source in the region has been limited to distributing branded merchandise at Linux World and running Joomla! courses.

(It's worth correcting an inaccuracy here for starters: the NOC is not funded by Advantage West Midlands, who fund OpenAdvantage. They contributed funds for the launch event, but that's the extent of their involvement so far.)

The above comment belittles the commitment and achievements of myself and my colleagues at OpenAdvantage. Without our intervention, open source would undoubtedly be used in the West Midlands. But I know for a fact we have had an influence on the take up of open source, and have exposed many more companies to its benefits than would have occurred without our help. How do I know this? First, some figures:

• We've run 5 day courses (either ourselves or outsourced to local companies) for 180 individuals. Courses covered have included PHP, Apache, Linux, and Moodle.
• We've given 1-3 days of assistance (ourselves) for about 300 companies. This has included both consultancy engagements (helping install servers, configure laptops, short tutorials on various programming languages, evaluation of software etc.) as well as 2 day courses on Joomla!, PHP, Rails, Drupal, VOIP (Asterisk), and Linux.
• We've run seminars for 1000 attendees (some repeats, obviously). Topics have included agile programming techniques with open source, getting involved with open source projects, open source business models, web development, podcasting with open source, open source CMS, open source business applications, etc.

I should mention that, because we're funded, we do all of this for free. So, you can see we do a bit more than Joomla! training. We do do a lot of training, because that's what people want. At the bottom of this entry, I've attached a PDF which I wrote in August 2005, which covers the rationale behind why we decided to do courses. Initially, we just offered consultancy; however, this was too amorphous and unattractive, so we changed tack after we realised people really like training. Training is the first step into open source for many people: several of the companies we've worked with have gone on to use PHP, Drupal, Joomla! etc. who might not have picked up those technologies without our initial "shove". For proof, take a look at our website, where we have a range of testimonials and case studies. A few examples of the latter:

• The National Institute for Mental Health: how they adopted SugarCRM as a consequence of our assistance (I was marginally involved in this one).
• A local record shop who setup an internet cafe with open source.
• A local business which started using Joomla! to manage its website.
• A local company which has won awards with their products, built on open source. We were only tangentially involved, but did help.

There are lots of others, but case studies take time to write, and we have to spend most of our time actually assisting people. So we only have a handful written up. But we've also done things like got involved in Smethwick Youth and Community Centre, plowing a lot of time into helping them setup their networking with open source; worked with Aston Pride on installing PC labs with open source; given numerous bits of advice about CMSs, CRMs, programming etc.. to countless people; helped local companies mix open source into their portfolio of offerings; referred potential customers to companies we know that work with particular open source technologies; and so on.

What else have I/we done beyond training and consultancy?

• Jono set up PHP West Midlands while he was working at OpenAdvantage. This has gone on to be a very successful, vibrant and friendly community, which has now been handed over to members of the community. We participate, but on the same footing as everyone else. They use our office (for free) occasionally to hold their meetings.
• I wrote on article for the British Computer Society annual review on open source and why small companies should care about it. I also presented at the OSS-Watch Conference on open source and sustainability.
• My colleagues have spoken at IBM and various international conferences about open source.
• OpenAdvantage provided some sponsorship for LUGRadio Live last year (I spoke there, but as an individual, not an OpenAdvantage employee).
• I wrote a series of reviews of open source content management systems, which is reasonably well-regarded and referenced from Wikipedia (not by me, incidentally).

To give even more of an idea of what we typically do, I thought I'd share my log of activities for the past week:

• Met with a local company to go through XAMPP and SugarCRM installation with them.
• Compered a morning workshop on open source content management, where I'd organised for four local companies to come along and describe their experiences to the audience.
• Ran a 2 day PHP and MySQL course.
• Met with a local new media company to introduce open source to them and give them an overview of CMSs and project management tools they could use in their business.
• Wrote a presentation on dynamic languages (open source, of course) to be given to the British Computer Society next week (Coventry branch).
• Spoke to a local company about appropriate infrastructure for Moodle, and explained a bit about how open source licences work.
• Responded to an email asking about how to implement REST web services using PHP.
• Sent a list of local open source CMS suppliers to a charity looking for support for their website.
• Assessed iPoint open source portal software written by a local company (C2B2) and gave them some feedback on it.

Outside of OpenAdvantage, I use lots of open source myself, write a blog largely about open source, have run open source projects, have contributed to Rails and Drupal, written Creative Commons licenced training materials, and do bug reporting etc. as all good open source citizens do.

Maybe I'm protesting too much, but it really gets my goat when people insinuate that we don't work hard, or don't care about open source, or haven't done anything constructive. I am very proud of our achievements at OpenAdvantage, so hopefully this blog entry will go some way towards making our work more transparent and redress the balance.

Update: turns out the link_to code has also changed, so that if you don't select any licence conditions, you get an application error. I fixed this by explicitly removing the conditions parameter from the URLs if no conditions are selected, which seems to work. Probably something to do with the massive routing rewrite in the latest Rails.

I knew Flickrlilli was having some problems, but I hadn't had time to fix them until today (when I needed to use it again). Turns out the problems were caused by a Rails upgrade on Dreamhost. It appears the new version of Rails insists on loading every part of the framework unless you have frozen it into the vendor directory. As Flickrlilli doesn't use a database or mailer, I'd turned those components off. This made the whole thing break. The solution was to turn those bits back on, then create a dummy SQLite database to connect to. This made everything all right again. This seems a bit of an unfortunate change in how Rails works: several of my applications don't have or need databases, so I often turn ActiveRecord off. If anyone can shed any light on this (or if I've misunderstood the comments in the environment.rb file), please let me know.

Excellent news - there is now a formalised non-profit association to support Drupal. From the full press release:

The Drupal Association exists to provide the logistical and financial foundation necessary to support the Drupal project's exponential growth and to provide the Drupal project with new possibilities regarding infrastructure, marketing and funding. The Drupal Association will not be involved in decisions regarding the development or direction of the Drupal project itself.

This will make it possible for people to donate directly to Drupal (rather than individual developers), help create infrastructure to support the growth of Drupal, organise events and actively promote Drupal. Can't be a bad thing.

I haven't been blogging much recently. I kind of fell out of love with it for a while, and realised I was putting myself under too much pressure to produce stuff. While I have a few readers, I decided it's not worth the effort forcing myself to write stuff, just to keep my blog popular. So I've been kicking back, going to bed early, leaving the computer at work, doing nothing in the evening, watching more DVDs. Plus I was off work for a couple of days with a cold, which took me out of it for a while. That's why it's been a bit quiet round here.

But I'm back in the saddle now, rewriting my PHP course and reviewing open source CRMs for the OpenAdvantage website (SugarCRM has been occupying me for most of the last week: it's a beast [how bloody hard is it to setup email campaigns?!], but I figured it was worth indulging the time, as people keep ringing me up about CRMs - it's this year's CMS). I spent a couple of days just writing a glossary of CRM terms to get my head around it (which will be part of my review eventually). Any suggestions for open source CRMs I should consider for my review, put 'em in the comments. Here's my current short list (NB some of these aren't CRMs, or just have CRM bits, but I thought alternatives for contact and project management might be handy too):

• SugarCRM (the daddy)
• activeCollab
• EGS
• Centric
• Queplix
• CiviCRM
• CentraView
• hipergate
• vtiger (is this anything other than a SugarCRM clone?)
• Daffodil
• OpenCRX
• Cream
• Ofbproject
• Compiere (vast, looks nasty)
• Ohioedge
• OpenERP
• OpenTAPS
• xanders:one

Some of these aren't even open source (probably) and some will get dismissed flippantly out of hand (I haven't got time to go in-depth on all of them), but there you go.

Next week sees me visiting the House of Commons for the launch of the National Open Centre project (yes, it's a Drupal site). Funding is still being sorted out, but we're hopeful it will come off. The launch "party" will be the official start of the project (without funding, but we're going ahead anyway). I'm still working full time at OpenAdvantage, and it will be interesting to see how (if) we morph into the NOC, and what my duties will be then. Like OpenAdvantage, it's tricky to predict until you get into it, but I'm sure it will be interesting: open source and open standards, but at a policy level, is the aim, but how that will translate into day-to-day work I'm not sure.

I don't normally advertise OpenAdvantage events on this website, but I'm really proud of the one we've organised for the 28th February on Open Source Content Management. We've put together four speakers from UK small businesses (three from the West Midlands), each talking about a prominent open source CMS:

• Jeff Tupholme of MakeMyShow will be talking about how he's used Drupal to build innovative mobile solutions.
• Ibrahim Khatib of OpenScape will be talking about Plone.
• David Willets of DAW Consulting will be discussing how he built his consulting website with Joomla!.
• Keith Lauchlan of Utter will be demonstrating CMS Made Simple.

The idea of the seminars is to give a warts and all account of how open source CMS can be used within a business, not from a sales angle but from a technical/business one. The seminar is FREE to anyone based in the West Midlands region. I think it's going to be a really interesting morning, and I'd encourage you to sign up now.