Interviews with FLOSS developers: Joey Hess

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-28 21:27

Edit: Now translated to Chinese. Thanks zhang wei!

There is really hardly a better way to open a series of interviewing with developers behind Free Libre Open Source Software project, then with incredible mind such as Joey Hess. To write his contributions to Free software ecosystem, especially in Debian, would be a book by itself. His impact exceeds even his projects - people literally follow his blog posts to see what he is doing and how is he living. A hacker from cabin. If you really need to have a picture of true hacker, then Joey is the one. As this isn't a book I will just mention few projects that he has been behind - git-annex, ikiwiki, etckeeper, debian installer, parts of dpkg, debhelper, devscripts, taskel. So without further waiting here it is.

Useless web

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-26 21:40

Or maybe they want to say use less web? Who would know but once you get into it, its hard to get out. You get taken. You become addicted. You know you want it. Say please. You welcome.

Net Neutrality for average Joe

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-25 22:08

If you are still unsure what it means, here is perfectly simple example.

Loosing yourself

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-22 21:07

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller

What's better than bearded man?

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-03 21:04

What's better then bearded man? It's a dancing bearded man.
Enjoy! :)

Trip to DebConf14

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-02 21:08

First thing first. I went with Debian invitation letter to US embassy in Sarajewo, got accepted and after few days my passport with US visa was with me. Got booked ticket (with help of Steve Langasek) and bought my bus ticket to Belgrade Airport (Nikola Tesla). As bus tour would be from Banja Luka through Croatia (the highway) and then to Belgrade I needed some special planning to do. To be honest I needed some special plan for whole trip. You wonder why I needed special plan?! Well because I was bringing with me 9 liters of rakija. Yep you read it correctly - 9 liters of rakija. As in most European countries (and especially EU, which Croatia is now part) allowed quantity was to bring 1l of it. I wasn't much nervous about it (actually I wasn't nervous at all I just didn't want to loose the rakija ;) ) as I already had "bus-border" experience during my previous DebConf (DebConf13 in Switzerland). So I packed all nine liters into my backpack and put it above where I sat. In my suitcase (that is going in suitcase space inside bus) I put my laptop from backpack. The suitcase would most probably be checked by border police but the backpack shouldn't be.

xkcd took my day

Zlatan Todoric

2015-02-01 21:52

Yep, thank you xkcd for love and thank you brain for being pain in the ass. I decided to download all xkcd images and then watch them in slideshow. You wouldn't believe that getting all images from xkcd is not an easy job. At least not for begginer as me. And especially not if you just start to search where are all the images.

Nightmare

Zlatan Todoric

2015-01-30 21:57

I had last night a dream. It was really bad - systemd took over the Linux ecosystem, distributions became very similar and after some time every piece of Free software gathered all their contributors in one place and they decided to create one superb GNU/Linux OS with a manpower of all FLOSS contributors. So now Google, Apple, Microsoft and all other parties that try to centralize their power in world had an adversary of millions hackers forking ideas of their software and creating by a magnitude better FLOSS equivalents and give power to people. When I woke up I did a fsck do Google, Apple, Microsoft and other parties exist still at all. All good - the world is same as it was yesterday, people don't have the power (thanks to jobs)...

I have a dream

Zlatan Todoric

2015-01-29 23:21

Or better to say although I have hope in humanity my experience showed me that it is better to be prepared for the rough edges then to be taken by surprise which can have impact on overall health.

That said - please read this great blog post by Lars Wirzenius.

Lets plot some lines

Zlatan Todoric

2015-01-26 20:58

I have a simple faculty project where two lines intersect. To be more precise: first line is defined by two points, second line is defined by point and angle, all must be shown in plot presentation, given points should be marked with "x" and intersection of two lines should also be marked with "x". I was supposed to do it in Visual Basic but as I use only Debian - its a bummer. So I choose to do it in Python. Lets get it started. Open your text editor.