The preparation for the next OSC

Here is Yokohama. This is one of the biggest city in Japan. I came to buy some goods that I will need in Open Source Conference 2009 (OSC 2009). I’ve written about OSC in this blog once or twice. That was known as a big open source event to Japanese open source users/developers.

In the OSC, I will take a part in three seminars. The most important seminar is “How to learn English language for OSS developers“. This shopping is for the seminar. This learning seminar was planned by me, so I’m putting muscle into preparation of the seminar. The role to buy something for the seminar is me. But, I will NOT a speaker of the seminar. (As you know, I am not good at English. I should learn English language, not teach it.)

I invited the speaker to the seminar. His nick name is LYE. He is a translator and translated many video games!

In this seminar, I and the speakers will introduce various method to learn English. Those methods will include the method that we had discussed learning English in xoops.org forum. The method using movie that Mr. plusangel told me in the forum is my favorite method.

I’ve just bought these goods. The tripod stand will be used to take a picture for key note of the seminar. “XOOPS Cube Legacy Developers Bible” (the book at lower left) and “Talk Man” (yellow color PSP software at center) will be a gift for OSC visitors. “FINAL FANTASY X International” is English version of FF-X. I will introduce this video game as learning kit.

BTW, This blog had not updated for a long time, but I keep interests in English and restatred this blog to write my thinking, my daily, my works and XOOPS Cube.

If you’re OK, bookmark my new twitter account that you can see in the right side of this blog. I try to write messages in English there.

Sf.net changed use of project web

Perhaps we became unable to access project web directory via SSH. According to a topic in Community Discussion Forums, it became possible to read/write porject web directory vis web.sourceforge.net easily.

rsync -av {your_directory} {account},{project unix-name}@web.sourceforge.net:htdocs

If you need to get files from project web directory, exchange source with target:

rsync -av {account},{project unix-name}@web.sourceforge.net:htdocs {your_directory}

It became impossible to use something, because we are not able to use SSH. But, members who don’t bring to our project became unable to access to our directory. That’s important for security of us.

Beta of Tacker2

Have you ever read “SourceForge.net Service Operations bulletin 2008-09-12″? You may read interesting news from the news letter. At first, projects that host at sf.net become able to use new applications — phpBB, MediaWiki and LimeSurvey. These applications are under sourceforge control, so we don’t need to do something for maintenance. And users can login to those application with account/password of sf.net. For more informations, read this topic.

Next, sourceforge is developing a new version of their tracker system. We, users may try it anytime. Click “Try it” at a head of our tracker system page:

By that, we can use beta of tracker 2. It needs your feed back! And, we may back to stable tracker system anytime.

For more informations of the beta, read this topic.

Revival of Free Software (4)

Lastly, I’m going to write the reason why I always feel the Free Software spirit from XOOPS and XOOPS Cube. When XOOPS Cube was forked from xoops.org, we got to plan to recover Free Software Activity at XOOPS. That’s the revival of Free Software, and the revival of fun.

Why? The reason is that XOOPS had been pure Free Software. The XOOPS foundation smashed it, made the fear centralism that might Stalin likes and bans user accounts who like XOOPS by the reason that their love doesn’t equal with foundation’s love. But, don’t forget that XOOPS had been pure Free Software.

When onokazu tried to develop MyPhpNuke and XOOPS1, most people didn’t think that free software web applications will become “a seed of benefits”. He wrote MyPhpNuke and XOOPS to learn how to write programs for his job. He is technical translator and wanted to translate technical factors more better. His effort to his job created XOOPS.

That’s surely a action of Free Software.

XOOPS was one of pure Free Software Activity. After then, some people noticed that open source web applications bring benefits, So many new CMS were born. And, XOOPS was damaged by the XOOPS foundation. Now, XOOPS is often compared with other CMS, but XOOPS is one of nascent CMS that nobody did not tie it with business. I pay respect to onokazu’s great works.

And our project is Revival of The Spirit that XOOPS had once. XOOPS Cube was written from a scratch, but XOOPS Cube has surely the spirit of XOOPS that was smashed by the foundation.

Revival of Free Software (3)

As I wrote at the previous entry, all open source projects are not about IT/Web. There are commentariats in Japan who like to talk about a relationship between free software and business activity, but they don’t take notice to such projects. Perhaps they don’t know that such projects are on the earth.

Each developer has each motivation. Anybody can’t fix those. It’s sure that some open source projects in some genres give something to some developers. But that is not only one motivation for developers. There are the following projects on the earth:

• There is no contribution to society.
• Developers use money, but they never get money.
• A project can not any changes to developers’ career and developers’ life.

However, there are developers who join to such projects. You don’t need to analyze the psychology of the developers, if you are not psychologist. Anybody can not define motivations of developers who join to free software projects. Also motivations are freedom.

Some people asked me what benefits I get from XOOPS. And, some members of XOOPS community asked me whether the benefit is a motivation why I touch XOOPS. I think that they saw themselves. The reason why they feel that benefits were my motivation is that their motivation was benefits.

Developers act without benefits, if there is not uselessness.

Therefore, if you suspect a conspiracy of XOOPS Cube project because XOOPS Cube is IT/Web industry, that’s idle speculation. You and we should use the energy to do it for other actions.

Revival of Free Software (2)

Japan IT/Web industry is brisk. When we were young, our dream is a baseball player. But, now, young people want to become web service creator and keep their efforts.

In this country, IT/Web Open Source Software (OSS) has important implications. It changes developers’ career, makes developers’ chance and gives something to developers’ life.

Open Source Products are used for business activity very well, (in IT industry). Some people think that Open Source has to be talked with business activity. Of course, there are various open source projects that are not about IT/Web in this planet, but they might not know those exist on the earth. Anyway a project that tries to run DOOM in iPod is out of their sight.

Anyway, it’s good that activities are brisk. But, because IT/Web OSS is brisk for business activities, XOOPS Cube has to be tormented by misunderstanding.

As you know, XOOPS Cube is one of primitive Free Software Activity. But, people don’t think so, because XOOPS Cube is IT/Web OSS that is used for business activity for most people.

Somehow, there is the insistence that Free Software projects should collaborate with companies and business activity directly, in these years, in Japan.

As you know, the relation between Free Software and business activity was figured in previous decades. You read it at the FSF web site. It is not bad to discuss it again, but many people don’t need to take time to redefine it. If they think that such a discussion is must for OSS improvement, I request them to pay notice to all projects that include a excellent project that runs DOOM in iPod. They hope that just a specific project is developed and use “OSS improvement” to speak in a roundabout way.

The XOOPS Cube project receives contributions from anybody, but doesn’t collaborate with companies directly. A collaboration is not a duty of a free software project. This clear and primitive direction takes a balance between free software and business activity automatically.

Revival of Free Software (1)

In Japan, Open Source is often discussed with business activity. That’s not bad. Formerly, we’ve gotten involved to Free Software Activity in a freenet that we’ve connected by using poor modem, when the internet and the word “open source” didn’t still exist. In those days, those who are not interested in technology did not have taken no notice to our activity. Since the “Open Source” word was made, everything has been changed. Many many people became interested in Free Software and think to do something with Free Software now.

It’s possible to do business activity through Free Software, because Free Software is freedom. But, Free Software Activity is not business activity. XOOPS Cube is one of primitive Free Software Activity. Therefore, I hope that XOOPS Cube is useful for busines activity and don’t want to touch anything of business activity. The only thing that our project should do is keeping perfect freedom.

XOOPS Cube is in Public Domain. So anybody can contribute something to XOOPS Cube. XOOPS Cube doesn’t check what is a contributor. He may be a student or a company. But, that is not important at all. The project doesn’t need to plan to tie with a company and may keep to the stance to receive contributions from everyone.

Let me say that again. XOOPS Cube is primitive Free Software Activity. Existing other Free Software Activities have shown a way that we should go.

XOOPS as Free Software Activity has been damaged by f**k XOOPS foundation. So we have to revive XOOPS as Free Software Activity.

Busy at the office

My recent weekday’s schedule is:

• 23:45 Come home.
• 00:50 Go to the bed.
• 07:00 Uprising.
• 07:40 Go to work.

In XCL 2.1 development, I’ve cut out sleeping to get free time. I was tired by overnight efforts sometimes. I feel deep regret for what officially and privately were not good. It’s impossible to do it now. Programers need 6h for sleeping to do their best.

However, I have to find a way. There is nothing in weekday. This could go on forever, if I don’t do something to change.

The biggest problem is that I take pleasure in work.

X68k+LGPL

When I got the relation to Public Domain Software, my main PC was X68000 (made by SHARP) that is one of the best PC in Japan PC’s history. X68000 had an excellent architecture, the best world to enjoy creations and the same spec as GENESIS to develop a video game. Many programers learned programing with X68000 and most of them became a video game programer. I’m one of them.

There are two C compilers in X68k that are XC(*)+XCLIB (SHARP SDK) and gcc+libc. SHARP SDK was not free, but gcc+libc was free. We, X68k programers had released many free software but had not considered licenses. The most popular combination was gcc+XCLIB. gcc was able to optimize programs than XC. And, XCLIB is smaller than libc because XCLIB was written by the machine language. We had liked the gcc+XCLIB combination that programers who did not have SHARP SDK could not compile. For that, most programers prepared better makefile to compile programs with both of SHARP SDK and gcc+libc.

(*) This XC is not XOOPS Cube. We called X68k C compiler “XC”.

PDS(Public Domain Software) was known, but “Open Source” was not defined yet. But programers loved freedom and knew what programers should do.

 

However, most X68k programers did not use dynamic link to use libraries. If a program links libc with static link, the program has to be LGPL. If the license of the program can not be linked with LGPL, that’s the actions that are not allowed. Also it is not allowed to link XCLIB to programs having GPL/LGPL code.

We may have made small boo-boo. But, our world was really freedom. I think our world did not have a problem. You may call such a world anarchy. That was really open, even if there were not GPL/LGPL.

ImpressCMS is available

Oh, ImpressCMS that was forked from XOOPS became available. The biggest feature of Impress CMS is that developers write programs. Any abilities for action are a nice. They changed their wish to their result. Cool!

And, it seems that ImpressCMS is not controled under the foundation. Very good. The XOOPS foundation released a long long announce. Meanwhile, the ImpressCMS released a software.

Like Cube became warfare in the XOOPS community, ImpressCMS became a problem. Someone said that is a political fight. But I imagine that ImpressCMS developers got angry in the foundation that doesn’t try to perform XOOPS development. XOOPS is freedom software, so it’s correct that they chose to develop themselves.

I like anarchy, so I think the biggest miss of XOOPS is the XOOPS foundation. I don’t know what the foundation has been useful for. The current ImpressCMS is a kind of distribution. They had to fork, to only release such a package. In XOOPS Cube case, they don’t need to fork, because XOOPS Cube recommends actual actions.

Some people say that “an organization” is useful. But I don’t think so. XOOPS is a volunteer activity by citizens. Too short free time of citizens should not be used for organization game.

Some people think that the organization collecting people is able to do something. But, even if many people gather, unactive people do nothing.