tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338032112024-03-13T11:03:48.145+01:00schuldei.orgstockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-24852904902582453332010-07-12T12:59:00.003+01:002010-07-12T13:13:08.974+01:00Spotify on LinuxAfter several years of only having Windows and Mac clients, we at Spotify are really excited to release a qt-based Linux desktop client. The port was quite smooth after all the work we’ve done for other platforms that we’ve developed (iPhone, Android, several set-top boxes with Linux, Symbian, etc).<br /><br />Being the Debian shop we are, we packaged it right away and are now happy to provide the client as a deb. It is regularly auto-built and tested by all our developers working on debian (and even ubuntu) whenever they want to listen to one or more of our 8*10^6 tracks. (One lonely fedora college prepared a rpm, too! Its not up yet, though.)<br /><br />Add this to your sources.list files and aptitude install spotify-client-qt to check it out:<br /><br />deb http://repository.spotify.com stable non-free<br /><br />There is some additional infrastructure in the package spotify-client-gnome-support (same repository) so that you can click on links to open tracks, interact with Facebook and other, useful websites etc.<br /><br />As we haven’t found a reliable way to display ads yet, this version is only available to Spotify Premium subscribers.<br /><br />Additional information about the archive key etc can be found here: <a href="http://www.spotify.com/se/download/previews/">http://www.spotify.com/se/download/previews/</a>.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-6861997657181812992009-12-10T12:25:00.002+01:002009-12-10T12:33:07.631+01:00Dear Lazyweb: Datacenter in the US?I look for a data center in the US for some servers with ~40kW cooling power. I plan to use those nice energy efficient double sided racks from SGI (formerly Rackable), so the place should allow that i bring my own racks. I don't need super-low latency to Europe, but rather to the USA and Canada. And it needs to be highly reliable, preferably tier 3 or better!<br /><br />However, what is most important to me (living in Europe) is that the remote hands actually have a clue. At one place in London i got really lucky: They are able to patch up new servers, can install spare parts and mail broken stuff back to IBM, know about tcp/ip, link lights, switches and routers, debug bad hardware (where LOM is not good enough) and are generally really friendly and quick. As icing on the cake they can even spell debian! Good pricing would be nice, too, but less important then the clueful people.<br /><br />Should you know such a place, please mail me!stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-39527308771332126362008-02-11T13:36:00.000+01:002008-02-11T13:54:03.222+01:00apt https transport for etch?Over the weekend Michael Vogt (mvo) and I produced a backport of the apt https transport to etch. In lenny and sid that functionality is in a seperate package (apt-transport-https), but for etch it seemed easier to just put it into the existing apt package and rebuild that. The advantage of not backporting all of testing's apt is of course the horrible intrusiveness with all its reverse dependencies because of the apt abi changes. <br /><br />Since this cant go into backports.org because it is not a straight backport from testing to etch i wonder if it is worthwhile to make it publicly accessable in an alternative way.<br /><br />A https transport is usefull in settings where sensitive packages (e.g. from a private repository) need to be accessed from accross unsecure networks.<br /><br />Please tell me if you want to use this so I (and mvo for ubuntu perhaps?) can put the package up somewhere. Is there a standard place for non-standard backports yet?stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-19948711002459898032007-12-20T00:29:00.000+01:002007-12-20T01:22:47.453+01:00Helping DebianRegarding Lucas' points that he makes about helping debian, I think there is an important factor for people that was only mentioned between the lines: "Instant Gratification". It is much more gratifying for a contributor if his effords have immediate effects. (I guess that is one reason for the success of Wikis.) Things that slow down the effect usually dimish this gratification. <br /><br />So what can people who want to help Debian do to achive more imminent gratification? Pick projects that let you help directly with direct svn/git/whatnot access (Security team, Debian Edu, Debian-Installer...).<br /><br />On the other hand we should try to come up with ways to cut down on delays as much as possible and make it easier to rollback and repair if an error occures. (That is almost allways a good thing anyways.)stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-64111791866189323222007-11-03T22:22:00.000+01:002007-11-03T22:35:57.463+01:00Dear Lazyweb: How to make less coding errorsI just read Daniel J. Bernstein's <a href="http://cr.yp.to/qmail/qmailsec-20071101.pdf">paper</a> on how to write secure software. It basically boils down to "Don't make programming errors!". This reminded me of an article which I read roughly a decade ago in <a href="http://www.heise.de/ct">c't magazine</a> about a technique to reduce the numbers of errors when coding. If i recall correctly it worked like this: Write code, then debug it and pay attention what kind of errors you made and in what part of the process you made them. Then figure out ways to avoid those errors in similar situations in the future. <br /><br />Despite spending some quality time with google I could not find a trace of this technique, let alone a name. Can someone please help me?stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-46471556752917158292007-10-29T23:05:00.000+01:002007-10-29T23:36:10.440+01:00Random Acts of KindnessSome time ago a friend of my sister in law contacted me and offered his services as a courier for gifts. I had told him that I knew someone in Israel and he was traveling to Sweden. So I contacted Lior with the strange proposal to give me a gift (and I promised to return the favour). A few days later I got a book about Israel from Lior, was very happy and started to ponder what kind of present could be fun and entertaining for him. I ended up going to the supermarket and bought all kinds of special swedish food (and obviously skipped <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming">some</a>). I wrote some short notes with cooking instructions and explanations and sent the whole lot back to Israel.<br /><br />I enjoyed both getting the present, reading the book and picking a present for someone I regard highly. I would like to recomment this as a fun game within Debian: If you know someone traveling abroad find out if there is a DD (or Debian contributor) around at the destination and send a present to that person. This kind of love bombing is low cost and lots of fun and creates bonds parallel to those of the Web of Trust. Try It!stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-12041826246763965562007-10-20T09:11:00.000+01:002007-10-20T09:41:38.695+01:00Dear Lazyweb: Au-Pair wanted!So we will move back from Sweden to Germany after 7.5 years. Besides swedish nature and working culture we will surely also miss swedish broadband. On the other hand we survived swedish health care without serious repercussions and look forward to the german alternative. <br />So after having found a really nice house in Lübeck's historic center we now look for an swedish Au-Pair. One of the main goals with that would be to help our children to keep their swedish language skills. If anyone reading this knows someone interested in working as an Au-Pair during 2008 please have them contact me.<br /><br />This years first Extremadura work meeting with people from Debian Edu, FAI, Debian-Science and Debian-Med takes place at time of writing. The group is 20 people (with some locals included). There is a rich supply of good spanish food so I skipped dinner yesterday in order to let my digestive system recuperate and get work done at the same time. I feel tempted to do that again today. Having stared and poked at FAIs new partition framework makes me consider partman as an alternative.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-2726712262831196122007-10-10T09:08:00.000+01:002007-10-10T09:21:30.156+01:00video survailanceConcerning Russels post about the pros and cons of video survailance i saw an interesting article about the evaluation of the <a href="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/97141">berlin subway surveilance</a>. According to that the system did not help to prevent crime, instead people seemed to have considered it when they e.g. created new graffity.<br /><br />Aparently those results of the evaluation were not very welcome and there were effords to suppress them. This gives me the feeling that there is yet an other agenda to the growing and more and more pervasive survailance. I just wonder what it might be.<br /><br />In unrelated news blogger.com seems to regard this text as written in swedish despite my selection in the preferences.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-25465685774086780142007-06-24T13:58:00.000+01:002007-06-24T14:28:23.167+01:00Best DebConf everThis was my first DebConf since DebConf2 in Toronto that I was not involved in as an organizer. And it was great. I enjoyed tremendously to meet and talk with people, have coffee and dinner with friends and not be in a hurry. No meetings, no awkward problems to deal with, not my problem if something did not work. It was great. I will have fond memories of the small french restaurant and the good conversations and great food. I enjoyed the new things i learned in the talks and when playing with the new FAI and debian-live and even more the helpfullness of people when approaching them with questions. One highlight of DebConf was the day trip, when we rented bikes and circled the island where the weather was surprisingly good and nature was fresh and immediate. <br />To me it seems as if Debian picked up speed and direction. Sams "Sexy Debian" seems to catch on. I hope that people understand that it takes more then excellent technology to do that but also good looks and even talking and writing about Debian in a new way that does not come naturally to typical Debian Developers. We have to integrate both artists and evangelists into our community to do that. I hope Debian has the openness to listen to these people when they come and want to change things they know more about then we do currently.<br />I want to thank the DebConf organizers for their work and effort they put into the preparation and implementation of this conference and congratulate them to a successful event.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-73147130440287754292007-02-13T18:48:00.000+01:002007-01-12T16:25:46.794+01:00Skiing with GPSLast week we were skiing in Idre, a small Swedish family friendly resort. Most of the black slopes were still closed and those that were open were quite short.<br /><br />One fun thing I managed to do was to carry my GPS whenever I was in the slopes (or lifts). It created for me a simple map of all slope and lift system. Furthermore it recorded the top speed for every day. I could reproduce 90km/h reliably and once had a top speed of 98km/h. I was a bit scared afterwards, but did not feel "too fast" at any point.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-43617481229274306072007-01-11T18:45:00.000+01:002007-01-12T00:02:25.961+01:00Dear Lazyweb: Gnome Power Management hooks for suspendI am trying to figure out how to hook in a homegrown script into the gnome power management. I read the source to gnome-power-manager and it seems to make dbus calls to accomplish what it wants. This is where I get lost as i dont know the first thing about dbus. So: where can I add scripts for suspend or hibernate actions?stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-76120055668425870092007-01-03T20:10:00.000+01:002007-01-03T21:03:11.472+01:00GTD software, Work meetingsSince I am on "maternity leave" now and basicly run the household and try to keep the children entertained, my time to get things done is randomly fragmented and I want to plan the things better that I have on the plate. Liw's blog post reminded me of GTD and today I was looking for planning tools. On <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Getting_Things_Done">Wikipedia's GTD page</a> they mention two: A <a href="http://www.gtdgmail.com/">Firefox plugin</a> to use with gmail (and therefor everywhere where I would have internet) and <a href="http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/demos.php">ThinkingRock</a>, a java app which aparently would fit on a USB key. Of course i wonder which one might be better? The ThinkingRock one seems to be a heavy weight GTD tool. Does that spoil GTD's light weight character? I watched the demos and it seems to be pretty feature complete. I would like to hear from people who use GTD and am interested in their oppinions. Thanks!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">Debian Work Meetings - Extremadura evaluation</span><br />8 people already managed to send in their evaluations or feedback mails to me regarding the Extremadura work meetings. That is surprisingly few, given the fact that we had 6 meetings with an average of 20 people. And so far I got only one reply from someone who could not attend eventhough she was very interested, explaining why (different continent, too far, too expensive) etc. I had expected more replies in that category, given that we had mostly europeans coming to Extremadura and I had intended to spread out future meetings over the globe more evenly. So I ask both those that attended and did not manage to send in some evaluation and also those that would have liked to come and could not to mail me!stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-40609482493295361812006-12-25T12:48:00.000+01:002006-12-25T12:52:16.904+01:00Morbid interruptions to christmasWe had a short morbid (and funny) interruption to the usual general marry mood when we started to search for "darwin awards" on youtube. And then we read a <a href="http://www.themenmix.de/witziges/witzige-xmas-weihnachtsgedicht-loriot.html">christmas poem</a> (german). Have fun!stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-46706112717392555102006-12-19T16:39:00.000+01:002006-12-19T17:11:15.547+01:00maildir housekeeping<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DX-5Cspy1YyrVbLzKLFM0OWr6VafR3snzW9G_E356AB0yBxPq5RlChK2v9si9GDjMJtDbdOSQhG23rZpNELbyV3j23TzGxNAkWC5QmCN2D4p4mUZXF6OBa9b1XSnIDCF6FNN/s1600-h/spamstats_barnabas-week.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-DX-5Cspy1YyrVbLzKLFM0OWr6VafR3snzW9G_E356AB0yBxPq5RlChK2v9si9GDjMJtDbdOSQhG23rZpNELbyV3j23TzGxNAkWC5QmCN2D4p4mUZXF6OBa9b1XSnIDCF6FNN/s320/spamstats_barnabas-week.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5010271106437377570" border="0" /></a><br />Takatsugu had problems with his maildir and lost a bunch of mail. This reminded me of my little <span class="down" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_CreateLink" title="Link" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 8);ButtonMouseDown(this);"></span><a href="http://www.schuldei.org/pack_maildir.pl">script</a> that keeps my maildirs at a reasonable small size. I let run over my maildirs every night. It removes duplicate mails first and then moves all mails that are older then 30<br />days and not part of an active thread into a $maildirname.attic maildir.<br /><br />I invoke it like this on my mail server in my user's crontab<br /><br />@daily ~/src/pack_maildir.pl --maildir=~/Maildir --dir=. $(find ~/Maildir -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -not -name '*.attic' -not -name 'tmp' -not -name 'new' -not -name 'cur' -not -regex '.*Trash.*' -not -regex '.*Trash.*' -not -name '.SENT' -not -name '.Sent' -not -name '.DRAFTS' -not -name '.Drafts' -not -name '.virus' -not -name '.merkwurdiges' -name '.*' -printf "--dir=\%f ")<br /><br />and duplicate the maildirs from there to my working machines with offlineimap.<br /><br />This setup is orthogonal to spam protection, however. Apropos spam: According to my munin spamstats i get a magnitude more spam then ham nowerdays.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-78515373727318633052006-12-12T19:54:00.000+01:002006-12-12T20:11:24.703+01:00Useful Improvements... any ideas?I started a <a href="http://wiki.debian.org/UsefulImprovements">Wiki Page</a> about what could be improved in Debian. There are a few ideas already on that page, but I am curious what people come up with. I do hope that this page can serve at some point to pick a few key points that we can work towards for the next release (after etch). Note that these does not need to be features or cool software, but also stuff like the ultimate spam defense for list traffic or so...stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-78375461681191465102006-11-06T14:43:00.000+01:002006-11-06T14:52:20.287+01:00ExplosivsMartin, please dont quote <a href="http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200608/msg00087.html">this</a> anymore on plausibility of bombs with liquid explosivs. I know a guy who *finished* his Ph.D. in chemistry and works in the military devision developing detectors for explosivs (while the author of that pice of fiction just *starts* studing chemistry). The guy i know told me pretty much the opposite of what the article says and sounds much more convincing and knowledgable. Of course, dont take my word for it but educate yourself.<br /><br />That said, I dont know why people worry about liquid explosives so much as long as you are allowed to bring notebooks (and notbook batteries) into the plane. Those can be abused much easier, I hear.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-38450005958086817652006-11-01T20:21:00.000+01:002006-11-01T20:45:55.597+01:00scandinavia's radar map for gnome weather appletHere is how to download the scandinavian radar map for rain and snow from the swedish meterologic institute and put it into your gnome weather applet:<br /><br />put this into your $HOME/bin<br /><blockquote>#!/bin/sh<br /><br />codeblob=$(wget "https://xout.smhi.se/natvader/gateway/getmodule.php?module_request=radarsekvens_norden&images=1&user_id=21" --output-document=-)<br /><br />url=$(echo $codeblob | sed -e "s/.*\(https[^\']*\).*/\1/")<br /><br />wget $url --output-document=/tmp/smhi-radar.png<br /></blockquote><br /><br />and this into your user's crontab:<br /><br /><blockquote>30 */2 * * * $HOME/bin/smhi-radar.sh >/dev/null 2>&1<br /></blockquote><br /><br />and this into your gnome weather applet's radar url:<br /><br /><blockquote>file:///tmp/smhi-radar.png</blockquote><br /><br />Here you see the area covered:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/3019/4126/1600/smhi-radar.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger2/3019/4126/320/smhi-radar.png" border="0" alt="" /></a>stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-59248000781591836552006-11-01T00:01:00.000+01:002006-11-01T00:09:18.417+01:00First Word: "More!"My daughter (13 month old) has started forming her first words. Of course there is the usual "Da!" which is also a german word ("There!") but she does not use it consistently and in a meaningfull way. The first word she DOES use consistently and in the context of food, and in only that context, is "More!" (or "Mehr!" in german). Usually she points on the table in front of her where she expects the food to show up, now! <br /><br />I have no idea from where/whom she got that attitude.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-1161442198809245752006-10-21T15:31:00.000+01:002006-10-21T22:50:43.865+01:00North Korea's national anthemAn old friend who is a sucker for weird sounds (he listens to <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=yX57N5ORqvg">Heino</a>) today sent me the North Korea's national anthem. Having read a bit about the country, I have a hard time imagining anyone there singing such a jubilous song. You can listen to it <a href="http://david.national-anthems.net/kp.htm">here.</a>stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-1160949930689249682006-10-15T21:35:00.000+01:002006-10-21T22:50:43.811+01:00Math problemDear Lazyweb!<br /><br />I would like to find the symbolic solution for XT0, YT0, dSX, dSY, qX and qY to this set of equations, in a numerically stable way:<br /><br />XT0 + real_X1*dSX*Cos[qX] + real_Y1*dSY*Sin[qY] == own_X1,<br />YT0 - real_X1*dSX*Sin[qX] + real_Y1*dSY*Cos[qY] == own_Y1,<br />XT0 + real_X2*dSX*Cos[qX] + real_Y2*dSY*Sin[qY] == own_X2,<br />YT0 - real_X2*dSX*Sin[qX] + real_Y2*dSY*Cos[qY] == own_Y2,<br />XT0 + real_X3*dSX*Cos[qX] + real_Y3*dSY*Sin[qY] == own_X3,<br />YT0 - real_X3*dSX*Sin[qX] + real_Y3*dSY*Cos[qY] == own_Y3<br /><br /><br />Mathematica seems to not come back at all when asked for a solution, Maxima (in Debian) refuses cooporation, Maple produces a solution by approximating Sin and Cos with polynoms (which is not good enough for the whole range of [-Pi .. +Pi] and furthermore is not numerically stable.<br /><br />This is for finding the parameters for the transformation between two different coordinate systems of maps. The real_* and the own_* coordinates are three identical points on both maps. A numeric solution (with simulated annealing from the gnu scientific library) exists but seems to be not exact enough. See also <a href="http://www.posc.org/Epicentre.2_2/DataModel/ExamplesofUsage/eu_cs35.html">http://www.posc.org/Epicentre.2_2/DataModel/ExamplesofUsage/eu_cs35.html</a>stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-1160598943775265932006-10-11T20:44:00.000+01:002006-10-21T22:50:43.757+01:00Lazyweb: notebooksThis is the reverse lazyweb: I want to share what I learned, since many have similar considerations.<br /><br />Some time ago I started to use the c't hotline to inform myself before buying computer stuff. Currently I am looking for a new notebook, since my wife poured tea into her old one and the keyboard stopped working.<br /><br />So today I talked with one of the notebook experts at c't. My criteria were: "small", "long battery lifetime", "reliable", "good warranty", "excellent keyboard" and "works well with Linux".<br /><br />He recommended that I should look at business notebooks as they came usually in higher quality and with better warranty. He pointed out a downward trend at Lenovo, which seems to produce lower quality machines nower days. Both warranty and technology seem to get reduced in quality. Asus machines break more often then average and their repair/warranty service is bad and improves only slowly. Dell machines break more frequently but their service is good. Linux compatibility seems good at Fujitsu-Siemens notebooks, which seems to have good service/warranty, too. Keyboards have improved a lot over the last few years and he encountered no bad keyboard at any decently priced notebook nower days.<br /><br />I remember that joeyh and fabbe independently from each other picked a Fujitsu-Siemens. I will look into their offerings now.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-1159485925507553902006-09-29T00:05:00.000+01:002006-10-21T22:50:43.703+01:00Future beach front propertyToday I watched the "An Inconvenient Truth" film which was recommened to us at the foo camp preceeding Euro OSCon. Steve had already blogged about it shortly. While i enjoy the summer evenings at the end of september that I experienced this week, I think we are heading for very serious and even hard times. I would guess that we all will soon have to cut back on many areas of our compfortable lifes: less warm showers, more sweaters in winter, not keeping your computer on 24/7, no more car, no more flights. I have been thinking on where to move, given the delicate position that europe is in with its dependency on the gulf stream.<br /><br />Incidently i also ran into <a href="http://flood.firetree.net/">this cool website </a> today, which makes one consequence of global warming a little bit more realistic. If you are lucky your house in the middle of the city will be beach front property soon.<br /><br />Yet another example of that positive crisis awareness is needed. Act today and we might just get a major global crisis. Don't act and we might get mass extinction.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33803211.post-1157320862231986892006-09-03T19:11:00.000+01:002006-10-21T22:50:43.640+01:00Light at the end of the tunnel!This seems to be a happy day for Debian. It certainly gave me the warm fuzzies when I read people's reactions to the Slashdot item, the steering committee, Madduck's and Joeyh's reflections on how things can work and some comments on IRC. It pleased me enough to get some new bloging infrastructure going in order to be able to chipe in.<br /><br />There definitely is hope for Debian and change for the better is possible (and actually happens), as seen in the improved climate on IRC.<br /><br />As with every change for the better, there is need of "positive crisis awareness" in order to reflect on possible changes, build momentum to overcome the status quo and implement changes in order to improve the situation step by step. <br /><br />Crisis awareness is the awareness that there is a problem that needs solving. In contrast to negative crisis awareness, where one is paralyzed and unable to act on the danger and basically rolls over and dies, positive crisis awareness motivates to initiate change in order to avoid the crash and burn point and turn it into an opportunity of improvement, perhaps.<br /><br />And exactly this is what I see emerge more and more: People who are no longer satisfied with the current situation and formulate thoughts on how to achieve improvement. A year ago we saw this with the hostile climate on mailing lists and IRC, now people realize that Debian has a lack of leadership, and that this is actually a problem.<br /><br />We are still not the welcoming and friendly project we ought to be, but we are less hostile already and people know in what direction they want to move in the future (the more friendly one, thankfully). People have realized that hostility and pissing contests are evil and not a sign of l33tness, as some might have thought some time ago. But a culture change is happening, and if we stay on top of the issue we have a very good chance to not only omit the negative, hostile things we used to do but also come up with actively inviting and friendly things we can do.<br /><br />The same is happening now (on a lesser scale so far) with the leadership area. The great thing is that if Debian takes up its issues and continuously improves there is hardly a limit to its potential. Not the first and strongest, but be the most persistent and patient will win in the end. And if we have incentive and urge to change we might just manage to keep up a continuous improvement process. <br /><br />I think *that* incentive is the greatest thing we have to thank Ubuntu for.stockholmhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15099903911534660058noreply@blogger.com0