Tsikbal: from my perspective

Looking around Reddit, I stumbled upon this Open Content & Software Magazine post asking if there is a need for a code of conduct for developers at the FLOSS community, and if anyone would follow it. In short, the answer is yes in both cases. There is a need for a code of conduct and people who would follow them, but I'm not sure if only one code of conduct would suffice or would be followed by the community at large. As such, we should be honing specific codes of conduct depending on the specific community where it will be applied. Most importantly, each community should make it's code of conduct and enforce it. A code of conduct that doesn't comes from the community, is doomed to fail from the onset. It's vital that each community comes up with its own code of conduct, even if the whole community isn't engaged on coming out with it. At least the people who are seen as the leaders should be, as representatives of each of the groups that make up th...

As this post at wired.com , saying that you don't have nothing to hide is not the right way to make a case for or against surveillance. Surveillance in itself is not something good or bad, it's a tool that can be helpful in many ways from keeping us safe to learning new things. The post makes a good point about how anything we do can be illegal somewhere. Not only that, laws evolve as society does. As such, things become legal or illegal with time as society views changes overtime or to accommodate technological changes. To add complexity to something that is already hard to follow, the law books reflect the way the views of the society that codify them. As such, we all have done something that it's illegal somewhere at some point in time. Not because we are bad, or criminals, but because the laws are different at different places. Even within a same country, laws may differ between different states and counties. So, if we let law enforcement agencies know everythi...

I find it amusing, ironic and a bit sad that Blackberry blasts Apple for its use of encryption to protect their user's privacy. In more than one way, I didn't see coming something like this from Blackberry, who's encryption software is one of the best and the reason many of its costumers use it to begin with. But most importantly, while it's true that criminals and terrorists make use of encryption, using as that an argument against encryption is a fallacy. Encryption isn't the most important tool than enables criminal or terrorist actions, or makes it impossible to conduct or collect data to prevent or punish those actions. Most importantly, that encryption can be used to do bad doesn't take away that most uses are legit and it protects the privacy of good people. Saying that it was because of encryption, that law enforcement and intelligence agencies are not able to prevent crime and terrorism is shortsighted and at the verge of being a lie. To b...

I find it ironic that most of the biggest software and hardware companies are using open source to build their own systems, they keep telling their costumers that they should put their trust on proprietary systems. It seems that foolish that those companies that use open source to build their system, don't embrace open source on the costumer side. In a way, they are losing on the most important side of open source software and hardware. After all, who would be more interested in making their software and hardware even better than the costumers who use it. Costumers invest more than money on the systems they use, they also invest time and build expertise on those systems they use. With this in mind, it makes sense to let the costumers that use your system to actually be able to freely contribute to make the system as a whole better. After all, they are more likely to find things to improve or bugs to fix since they come to scenarios that are hard to replicate in other w...

After the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, many have called encryption as something that we need to give up in the name of safety. Many of those voices say that encryption enabled the terrorists to carry out their attack, because it made it's movements to pass undetected. The truth is far more complex, and encryption was not an major factor in the terrorist ability to carry out the attacks. The whole intelligence gathering apparatus failed, since there are many other ways to gather information about people. Focusing on the communications made via smart phones, or the information stored on a hard drive, is to narrow. People moves no only on a virtual world, but they also need to contact other people on the real world. As such, saying that people who use encryption on their electronic devices must be doing something bad are evil is not only shortsighted, but dangerous. Most people who use encryption, myself included, just want to keep something private. The obsessiv...

As an free and open source software advocate, that actually uses it on my personal laptop on daily basis, I find most arguments for and against it a bit exaggerated. I do recommend free and open source software to be used by all, it's just a matter of finding the right software for the needs of the user. For most users, I'd recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint since I've first hand experience with both of this distros and they cover the needs of most users with not that much of a learning curve. Most importantly, these two distros have all the software that most people normally uses on daily basis. As such, they wont miss their proprietary software all that much since they can do all what they are used too without a problem. With Ubuntu and Linux Mint they can still have access to software like Firefox, Chrome, Spotify and Skype. For other software, there are options available that work at least as well as their counterparts in Windows or Mac OS X while being user fr...

There are many arguments on how modern technology is dehumanizing people, yet I think that modern technology is changing what it means to be human. There has been several technologies that have changed the curse of humanity through out history, yet it's hard to pick a time in history in which technology has changed humanity as much, and as deeply, so many aspects of humanity in such a relatively short time. It's impressive how much technology has permeated to every day life, and how much we have come to expect it to just work. It has allowed us to do so much more, that it has augmented our experiences in ways that would be unimaginable just a few decades ago. Not just what we can physically has been enhanced, but our minds and senses have been enhanced in ways that we can really understand yet. In more than one way, this could mean a chance to make humanity better as a whole. Yet, it seems that how good this new chance is not yet certain because the signs are still...

Blackberry has been somewhat of a dilemma for me, since I like the security and the quality of its smart phones. Yet, that its OS is closed source OS is something that I don't really endorse as an open source advocate. Now that Blackberry has made official it's Priv smart phone launch, all changes. Since it's powered by Android, and it comes with Blackberry's security features baked into it from the start, it makes quite an interesting proposition. This combination makes it quite an interesting proposition for people who support FLOSS and those are mindful of their privacy. Now, we'll have to wait until the device hits the market to know how good Priv actually is. Yet, one can be hopeful that it will be quite a good handset, since Blackberry's hardware is quite solid and Android is quite the solid OS as well. The plus for me, is the fact that the Priv comes with a physical keyboard. Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer having a physical keyboa...

The news that Steam just crossed the 1,500 games natively available on Linux is great news not only for Steam itself, but the whole Linux ecosystem. While it still lags far behind the number of games available for Windows and OS X, that the mark is significant in itself. It means that Steam is viewed as a viable gaming platform by developers, since it has been adding about a 100 new games a month for a while now. And while Steam still has some pains due to the lack of driver support for some graphic cards, the fact that there people developing and buying games for Linux helps the ecosystem as a whole. Since it gives a reason to GPU manufactures to start supporting their cards on Linux, they are going to have to make available their drivers on the OS if they want to have a piece of the market for themselves. With this, all the Linux ecosystem wins as a whole. The game developers working to make their games on Steam, and the people buying those games, are a driving force to...

The irony of a 9th grader being arrested because he took a clock he made to school is not only big, but quite disheartening as well. One should think that schools would a place a student should be able to bring something like that without fear, specially of being arrested and suspended because of it. As a matter of fact, the reaction one would expect from the teachers and other staff would be the opposite. I mean, they should be quite interested in fostering that kind of skills and mentality on their students for the better. This issue is made even worse, when one takes into account that the US is starting to lag behind other developed countries on that skill set. Not only that, many of the teenagers and kids are loosing interest on perusing and engineering or science degree stuff like this will only push them further away from those fields. Schools should be one of those places where their students could safely share and practice building things like that. Specially, sin...

The news that the city of Munich is contributing upstream are good, really good, news. They mean two important things for open source software, and both can't be understated. To begin with, it comes to show that open source software can be successfully deployed even in places as important and complex and city governments. The argument that open source software can't compete with proprietary software has been rendered muted, and in such a way that its hard to dispute. There are a few other places where software could effectiveness could be tested more throughly than a government, even if it is at a city level. Secondly, it comes to show that contribute upstream is not something that just a few can do. The only requirement is to have an IT department that has the technical knowhow to implement the changes needed to the needs of the particular entity to then share does changes upstream. When there is that aspect, then it makes it more of a matter of will to contribut...

To hear that the Ada Initiative is closing down, is not something an open source advocate wants to hear. Specially when it's an initiative that brings women to the open source community, by empowering them and giving them the skills needed to be a part of the community. Though not all is lost, since their resources are going to be left behind so they can keep benefiting others, the ideal would be that the Ada Initiative to be able to keep on their work. In many ways, there is a need for women to have place like Ada Initiative as support. Though I'd love to see these kind of initiatives moving away from helping women against harassment and those kind of issues, to being being able focus on other kind of support to women who want to move and work on open source software. When we lose an initiative like this, not only women lose. We all lose, since it could mean that many talented women could choose to move away from working on open source software, and deprive the c...

In this article about Google Chrome , there are two main things that I take from it. To begin with, that no software is perfect. As such, all software will have some issues that will affect users in some ways. There is no such thing as a perfect software, there are always issues from security flaws to take care of to quirks that make it do unexpected things from time to time. Some of this bugs won't be a problem to most people, while they can be a deal breaker for other. Good software, will keep this to a minimum. Yet, there will be some for whom it just won't work. Trying to to frame those users as being the guilty ones is not fair, since it's not their fault that the software doesn't work for them. On the other hand, the developers of the software can't be expected to make their product one that works perfectly for everyone who uses it. I'm aware that browsers are a special kind of software that will cover the needs of a broader set of user. B...

As Richard Stallman in this article says, that the NSA uses GNU/Linux or any other FLOSS isn't bad at all. In a way it speaks well on how good the software is, since it can be used in such critical missions. The problem with the NSA lies somewhere else, and not directly with the technology it uses to do its work. To begin with, the NSA shouldn't be spying on everyone in the name of safety. That's a violation of basic human rights, since we all should have a reasonable level of confidence that we aren't being spied by any government at any given point of time without a good cause. Law enforcement agencies shouldn't be able to get any data on anyone without having to give a good reason why an individual should be a target of their investigations. It's better for all, that the bar is high in order to get a warrant to get our data. Also, if law enforcement agencies used FLOSS we the people would have a good reason to be sure that the tools they use ...

If we want a truly open and transparent government, all it's to relay on open standards and open source software. The reliance on proprietary software, and closed standards, would mean that the government would be at the mercy of a particular vendor or whoever hold the rights to the patents to the the standard. This is unacceptable, since the government shouldn't have to be subject to such limitations. What's more, every we all have the right to study the software that the government uses to see how it works and to make sure that it does what the government says it does. After all, we all have to interact with it, and need to be certain that it does what it made for in the best way possible. On the open standards, one of the main reasons to use them is the fact that all should be able to access the government's platforms without any limitation artificially imposed by a third party. By using open standards, government could make sure that all the people have...

That Apple is to open source it's Swift programming language , and that it will have support on Linux, is some good and welcome news. Swift is becoming popular fast, and it seems there are lot of good reasons for it to gain popularity. And that it's backed by a company like Apple, should give people the reassurance that it won't lack support in the long term. Even though I admit some suspicions on why Apple moved to open source Swift, I do welcome the idea to have such a tool for open source developers to use to work with. Specially because it could be a good place for beginners to learn to code, making it less intimidating to learn a skill that is becoming ever more relevant in the modern world. One of the things that Apple does well, is good software. While it's true that it has an iron grip on it, one has to admit that the quality of it is high. Many of the criticisms out there about Apple's software have more to do with the way it manages it, and t...

If you need that the open source model not only works on software, but that it can be adapted to other areas go ahead and read this article at Arstechnica . At the core of the open source model is not sharing for the sake of sharing, but collaboration among people that have a common problem that need to be solved. By allowing collaboration with other people, with whom one normally wouldn't have the chance to do so. Since the network of people working on a common platform on the same problem, the time needed to solve problems and ending with a mature design, is reduced by a wide margin. By adopting an open source model, the benefits out weight the cons that can be encountered by using it. Most importantly, you can concentrate more on differentiating your product rather than on solving the same design problems others are working on or have been already solved. With more time to work on the details that you need to work on to give your target market asks of your product, ...

After having some trouble with Ubuntu not turning off, or suspending, properly on a Gateway NEseries laptop I decided to move on to another Linux distro. The fist one I decide to give a try, was Kubuntu. I've heard great things of the distro itself, and the KDE Plasma Desktop user interface. Though I liked the distro, and KDE, I still had the same troubles I did and KDE didn't do much for me as a user. In someways, I didn't feel as comfortable with KDE as I did with Unity and just couldn't get up to speed or get KDE to my linking. So, I decided to move back to an old known distro. I jumped back to Linux Mint with Cinnamon as the user interface. I'm using 17.1 Rebeca, and I remembered why Linux Mint is, along with Ubuntu, my top pick of Linux distros. All in all, I found that Cinnamon 2.4.8 to be a lot more mature and stable. As such, I haven't had any of the bugs I used to encounter jumping at me. The best thing, is that the system as a whole so...

On my personal computer I run Ubuntu, while at work the computer I use a Windows 7 computer. As such, I get to compare the two on the daily basis and know the pros and cons of both systems. And every day, I wish that the company I work at to dish Windows in favor of a Linux distro. The main reason why the move is highly unlikely is because our operations rely on SAP, which really sucks on the user interface side. One of the aspects I loathe about Windows, is the systems updates. Most of the time, it adds about extra 5 minutes to the power down since. It's even worse if there are more than 10 updates to install. On Ubuntu, most the updates don't require to turn off the system to reboot to install and with the upcoming 4.0 Linux kernel the main reason from the reboot will be taken away. I used to like the Windows 7 user interface, but since Ubuntu moved to Unity I just can't stand it. Most importantly, I just find the Windows user interface to be just in the blin...

And yet again, this wired.com article points out the dangers of depending on proprietary software at all. While it may be true that if you use software from some established vendor you have less to worry about having to deal with this problem, the fact that no one can say it will never happen like it happen to the likes of Kodak . The fact that open source software gives you the possibility to keep the software you depend upon alive, since the users can come together to continue the work on the software from where the original company left. It puts the control of the software on the hands of the users, and its up to the user the degree of involvement on the development of the software it uses. Its okay to trust companies to develop and maintain the software we depend upon, but that's not a good reason to give them full control of said software. But, the user should always have ultimate control over the software. There is no way to understate how important that user ha...

With Ubuntu Touch finally coming to the market, and with it's possible release in Mexico soon, it all puts me in a peculiar situation. By the time I come to replace my smart phone, I might have to choose between continuing using Android or make the jump to Ubuntu. So far, I've liked Android. There has been some hiccups, there hasn't been one that I haven't been able to fix myself with a little bit of research. None of those problems has taken me more than a couple of hours to fix, so there isn't much to complain about. The user experience I've had so far, it has been quite good. The only complain, is that the device doesn't have that much memory. As such, that can't be blamed on Android; besides it has enough memory to house the apps that I like and use regularly without any problem. So, if I choose to continue with Android it would be with a device with more memory than the one I currently have. On the Ubuntu Touch side, I use Ubuntu on my ...

With the Women's day at hand, there is a lot of things to ponder about how far women have come over the last century and how much there is left to do for women to reach equality with men. There can't be any question about the fact that women have proven just as men, and can do all men can just as well. We have examples like Marie Curie , Linda B. Buck , Ada Lovelace , Hedy Lamarr , to name a few, who have more than demonstrated that women have as much to offer as men can. They don't need men to patronize them, or to give them any more help that a man needs to contribute to the advancement of science and technology. Now more than ever, we need to put in place a system that allows women to contribute freely and as true equals to their male counterparts. While there have been improvements, there aren't enough to level the playing field to allow women to work as a peer. Its offensive that some propose that women need to be given special places, or treated in a ...

It's quite sad, and unnerving, that governments seem to be so slow to adopting modern technologies to make it's functionalities as streamed lined to make it work more efficiently. With the limited resources governments have, they have to be a lot more conscious on how they use them with the biggest impact. One of the areas that would help, would be using open source software to build a common platform for the government. Mainly because by using open source software, government wouldn't be tied up to a single provider to maintain the systems they use. They would be able to actually make better use of the resources they got, by actually being free to pick the service provider that gives them the best value for what they expend on their services. The adoption of open source software by all the government agencies, has the added benefit that all their operations will become more transparent. Not by allowing full access to their data, but on how they work. Not all t...

When it comes to the GNU/Linux distros, and how to choose the one that's right for you, it seems to come down to what you want and need on OS. There is no single distro that does everything, but there is one that will fit your needs like a glove. The distro that works for some, might not be the distro that would work for you. Because of this, it becomes vital to do some research in order to see what distros are the best fit for you. If there more than one distro that does what you need, the best thing you can do is to actually try them before you settle for one. Not all distros are created equal, since the communities behind them will develop them with a different set of priorities. As such, the way they approach things is different from each other. That's why it's important to give a try to the distros that are geared toward the areas you need, in order to find which one is the one that will allow you to work how you feel most comfortable. This is why I lo...

With time, I've come to become even more sure that free and open-source software(FOSS) is the way to go. Not only that, but some aspects how FOSS is developed could bring enormous benefits to humanity at large if there where replicated in other areas. One such example is open science , that promotes scientific development could have great positive impact for everyone not only the scientists who work on the research. Letting people coming together to work openly, and enable them to share their work freely, can help their work have the best possible impact in the widest possible way. Most importantly, since they'll be working in the open it will make it harder to make bad uses anything done this way. Not all bad use can be prevented, but it will be harder to pull and it would be easier to hold accountable those who act wrongfully. It's easier to audit things when they are done openly, than when they are done behind closed doors. Most importantly, when you us...

I finally got a new laptop, and since it came with Windows 8.1 I decided to give try first hand. To be honest, it wasn't as bad as I expected from the reviews I've read. Yet, Windows 8 is not an OS I want to us for several reasons. The main one, is that it's proprietary software and I'm an FLOSS advocate. As such, I avoid using proprietary software as much as possible, and in my case I can use FLOSS on my personal computer. Also, there is the fact that I simply couldn't stand Windows 8. While it isn't all that bad, it still isn't usable for me. The way the OS is made, makes it hard for me to use the way I want to use it. The whole thing got in the way I do things, and that is not acceptable. So, as soon I got the time I installed Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic Unicorn on it. The feeling I got to be back to an OS I love is a real good one, it feels like coming back home after a long trip you didn't want to make but had to make. I'm happy with my...