Bristol Wireless News

One of the joys of this year’s BarnCamp (news passim) was the banter around the campfire in the evening (in some instances the campfire conversation was redolent of this recent xkcd cartoon. Ed.). And for the following we’re indebted to Asterisk enthusiast Naomi for reciting round the flames on Saturday evening:

Our father, who art in /sbin,
init is thy name.
Thy PID is 1;
Thy children run
In user space as they do in kernel.
Give us this day our daily RAM
And forgive us our interrupts
As we are nice to those who interrupt us.
Lead us not into uncaught exception
And deliver us from SIGKILL
For thine is the system
And thou art the saviour
For ever and ever – until we upgrade yer!

Following on from the release of government data earlier this week (news passim), comes an announcement that Young Rewired State will be taking place again this year from 2nd to 6th August at various places around the country.

Young Rewired State is a hack week for young developers across the UK to go and build visualisations, digital and/or non-digital products using government data, alongside working developers in businesses. Their work will presented to government at the end of the week, either in person, or by live stream.

It’s open to anyone aged 15 to 18 (although certain businesses may not be able to take the under-16s) who can work with data, coding or design.

Full details are on the Rewired State blog, whilst those interested can sign up here (note to the impatient: reading the full blurb first may be worthwhile. Ed. ).

Hat tip: Glyn Wintle

Update 28/06/10:Rewired State today made the following appeal via its Twitter account:

need some help recruiting 2/3 YP for the Birmingham Yng Rewired State at Talis, young coders 15-18 yrs and free 2-6 August. Help? #yrs2010

The passing into law of the controversial Digital Economy Act 2010 in the dying days of the last Labour Government focussed plenty of attention on peer-to-peer software (P2P), such as Ktorrent, which is built for the Linux KDE desktop. Indeed as torrent software can be used to download material that infringes copyright (such as illegal copies of music and films), some people may have assumed that P2P packages are used solely for illicit purposes. This assumption is wrong – and there are plenty of legitimate uses for P2P.

For instance, how do I get copies of Linux distributions? With a torrent client of course! It involves a quick visit to LinuxTracker to find what’s available, select the desired torrent and download away we go! Of course, distributing Linux distros for free is perfectly in order as it’s all covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL) and other ‘copyleft’ licences under which free/open source software is distributed.

In the past P2P software has also been used to distribute data in scientific projects, of which the most famous is the Human Genome Project (HGP), which began in 1990 and is amazingly still going on.

However, coming right up to date, yesterday saw HM Government, hardly the most radical of organisations, releasing the COINS (Combined Online Information System) database of UK Government expenditure provided by government departments. This data is used to produce reports for Parliament and the public including expenditure data in the Budget and Pre-Budget reports, Supply Estimates; Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses (PESA) and the monthly Public Sector Finance Releases. It is also used by the ONS for statistical purposes. And before I forget to mention it, the data has been released as a torrent file for distribution via P2P; details can be found here.

Late yesterday evening, the Financial Times (the sporting pink for the casino economy. Ed. ) reported that search engine giant Google is phasing out the use of Microsoft’s Windows platform for its employees.

The policy has been gradually implemented since January, when Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, which Google blames on the lack of security and vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and other Microsoft software (e.g. Internet Explorer).

Unlike many employers, Google actually allows its staff, of whom it employs 10,000 internationally, a choice of operating systems. These will henceforth be just Linux or Mac OS. “Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. “Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”

Employees wanting to stay on Windows will require clearance from “quite senior levels”, according to one employee, whilst another declared, “Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval”.

Read the original FT article.

Today is the last day to sign up for BarnCamp 2010, which will be staged in the beautiful Wye Valley from 11th to 13th June 2010, courtesy of Hacktionlab, a regular convergence space where activists interested and/or working in the areas of alternative media, renewable energy, online video distribution, free software or any other form of activism using technology can get together and plan how (or not) to harness the technology better to support grass roots social movements.

Barncamp promises fantastic tech in the sun (someone’s tempting the weather gods… Ed. ), but advance registration is essential and will end on 1st June. Depending on whether you pay in advance (£25) or on the gate (£35), the cost of this year’s BarnCamp will vary. The fee includes meals, camping, all the entertainment, the planned workshops and the BarnCamp sessions.

This will be the third rural that has been put on in recent years and Bristol Wireless volunteers are again involved in organising and setting up the event, which has just reminded your correspondent he needs to find some white paint for doing signs…

On 19th and 20th June this year, Bletchley Park, former home of Blighty’s World War 2 code breakers (when it was known as Station X. Ed.) and now the home of the National Museum of Computing, will be hosting Britain’s first ever Vintage Computer Festival (VCF).

The event is being billed as a unique gathering of enthusiasts and specialists to celebrate the history of computing, whilst the publicity promises:

• Exhibitions of retro systems;
• Lectures and special guests;
• Bring and buy;
• Demonstrations;
• Retro systems traders;
• Music and games; and
• Museum tours.

Our old friend John Honniball is already preparing, judging from this tweet on his Twitter feed (which I’ve edited slightly for the sake of clarity. Ed.) earlier today:

Which reminds me, I must clear out a few things for the Bring & Buy at the Vintage Computer Festival. Probably more like Bring & Give Away for me

VCF will be open from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on both days, whilst admission to Bletchley Park (map) will set you back 10 English pounds (although concessionary and family tickets are also available).

More information on VCF is available on the National Museum of Computing website.

The Open Source Observatory and Repository reports that the government of Malta started the Government of Malta Open Source End User Group (Moseug) in April. The group is meant to become a major driving force behind open source initiatives in the country.

According to a Times of Malta article on the new user group, written by Michel Bugeja, an IT architect at Malta’s governmental Information Technology Agency (MITA), the government wants the group to help increase the use of open source software by government. “All stakeholders see the formation of the user group as a commitment from the government to promote open source software on equal play to proprietary software.”

It looks as if the United Kingdom is once again being outpaced by its European partners, even the smaller ones…

Read the original OSOR article.

The European Commission has officially published its long-awaited Digital Agenda, outlining its policy plans for the next five years. “While it includes some important building blocks for Free Software, the omission of Open Standards rips a gaping hole in this agenda,” says Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) President Karsten Gerloff.

The FSFE welcomes the Commission’s plans to give standards a greater role in the public procurement of software and to get dominant software vendors (I think the FSFE really means that virus testing platform masquerading as an operating system. Ed.) to licence their interoperability information, opening up the software market for Free Software vendors.

However, the Digital Agenda falls short of systematically promoting Free Software and Open Standards, missing the goals that EU Member States set for the Commission in the Granada and Malmö declarations. The Digital Agenda itself avoids any reference to Open Standards. Instead, the Commission points to the European Interoperability Framework. This is a document which FSFE’s analysis shows is currently being systematically hollowed out.

“The EC needs to adopt a strict definition of Open Standards, along the lines of the first European Interoperability Framework,” says Gerloff. He continues: “The Commission needs to put Open Standards at the heart of its strategy for the public sector’s IT systems. Only with the competition that Open Standards enable will we tap the full potential of Free Software for European innovation.” (Too right mate! Ed.)

Yer ‘umble scribe, wearing his company secretary’s hat, has just emailed the members the following notice:

NOTICE OF AGM

The Annual General Meeting of Bristol Wireless for 2009 will be held at 6.00 pm on Tuesday 1st June 2010 in the Lab, Hamilton House, Stokes Croft, Bristol, BS1 3QY. It will be followed by our regular monthly meeting, before we all adjourn to a nearby hostelry.

All members are welcome to attend.

Agenda for AGM

1. Receipt of the accounts and balance sheet and the reports of the Committee and auditor;
2. Application of the audit exemption (in accordance with rule 54);
3. Election of committee members;
4. Application of profits:

• firstly, to a general reserve for the continuation and development of the Co-operative;
• secondly, in making payments for social or charitable purposes within the community served by the Co-operative.

We extend a warm welcome to all wishing to attend our Annual General Meeting. However, voting at the AGM will be restricted to members of the Co-operative (if you wish to join cross our Treasurer’s palm with the customary £1 fee!).

Steve Woods Company Secretary, 17th May 2010

It’s been a while (almost 2 years to the day. Ed.) since we last looked at Gnucash, the personal and small-business software that’s available for free under the GPL for Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows (news passim).

Yesterday in the lab, Jules, our treasurer, announced that he’d migrated the Bristol Wireless accounts from the previous Windows-only QuickBooks package to Gnucash.

Asked for his opinion as to how the package had changed since Malcolm (a friendly accountant who helps with our accounts) looked at it, his main reaction was that it was obviously written for North America and couldn’t handle this strange European fiscal creature called VAT and a lot of the terminology needed changing to match British vocabulary, so it appears that localisation is the main area of work to make Gnucash more useful. Over to you Gnucash developers!