tola

As usual, the TTLLP office will open noon ’til mid-evening on 1 April. I’ve already noted one thing on identi.ca that might be an April Fool’s joke (surely it’s not real) and we’ve enough to do without double-checking everything we’re told.

Further, timezones and international communications (we work with companies from +1100 to -0900 IIRC) makes April Fool’s jokes really tedious. Unless it’s done really carefully, the joker is probably the fool, either too early (31 March) or too late (afternoon) for some of the targets.

I’m sure there must be lots written about group system administration, but it doesn’t seem to be written in either the FAQ, the reference or even the venerable FDL’d SAG, so I hope it’s not a(nother) completely silly question. As I was reminded by the Paralysed Perl Package Problem, sometimes other system administrators can really mess you up by changing things without documenting what, how or why they made that change.

My current solution on that system is to put the message “please record any major system changes with the command dch -f /root/changelog -i 'description of change'” in the /etc/motd file. I’ve also installed apt-listchanges with a suitable configuration. For TTLLP servers, there’s not a problem because we all use the same task tracker to make notes.

For shared/remote servers, I’d like to have something better than fault-finding and the intrusion detection tools, but stop short of trying to require all system administrators to use a particular version control on the system configuration, or trying to require them to use a centralised bug tracker application. (The other sysadmins work for other people, so we can’t require them to do it and “pay us to manage a repository/bug tracker for your server” is an awkward sell anyway.)

What do you do?

Last Friday, I spent most of the day at this NAVCA ICT event in Taunton. (There’s another similar one in York this Friday if you’re interested.) The event was a sandwich, with a Steve Bridger social media session as the filling between workshop halves.

Conference

I went to the workshop for support workers. I’m not sure whether it was quite the right label, but the others were for managers/trustees and for accidental technical supporters, which definitely weren’t. There seemed to be at least three other ICT specialists there, so I wasn’t the only one.

The best thing about the workshop was the mix of specialists and generalists. I was really interested in what the generalists had to say, but sadly the workshop was more of a lecture and I don’t feel I got as much out as I could. I’d be interested to know if that was the same for other participants.

I’m not sure what I thought of Steve Bridger’s session. It was a difficult one: the strange mix of an audience was all together, the room felt pretty warm and it stood between us and lunch. I had trouble concentrating but posted a few updates to identi.ca about it.

The worst thing was all the needless promotion of certain companies’ products. They didn’t talk about blogging and syndication, they talked about Blogger and Google Reader; they didn’t talk about photo-sharing, they talked about Flickr; they didn’t talk about spreadsheets, they talked about Excel.

Nevertheless, I left the event feeling really positive about other ICT specialists, with some hope that the generalists were “getting it” and quite impressed by the people I met from the other tracks. It was pretty good to help someone towards the autosuspend setting on their GNOME-based netbook within ten minutes of arriving, too. I’ve just updated software.coop with Richard Stallman’s explanation of why proprietary software is a social problem, to see if that helps put the community-based view across.

I’ll look again at some of the grant-funded resources mentioned and see if we can improve them, but I’d welcome any comments from the voluntary and community sector about how best to do that.

The monthly board meeting of SPI will take place on irc.oftc.net #spi tonight (Wed 18 March) at 20:00 UTC. Members may have seen that the meeting announcement was posted, but a bit late and with a misleading subject line. This month, the record-keeping looks like it will catch up to present-day, with a small hole still from Neil McGovern’s time as secretary. The current treasurer and secretary have also posted their reports before the meeting… only the president is missing this month.

There’s some bank house-keeping and another new associated project under discussion: OpenWRT. There seemed to be a little confusion about whether it had been waiting for a legal opinion or not and some controversy about whether SPI recognises a liaison or a decision-maker.

Once again, I may still be travelling and without a stable network connection during the meeting, or I might have made it home by then. Either way, watch the comments below this article for a link to the summary when posted.

With any luck, someone has seen this problem before and can fix it easily. I don’t seem to be able to find the fix by searching, but the search terms feel like they’re either too general or too specific.

I was trying to install some perl software on a debian lenny system that was upgraded from etch (and previously from sarge). After installing the dependencies, I started getting errors like this:-

Update: Well done to Raphael who spotted the local that I’d overlooked. D’oh! Now to see if I can discover where that came from.

Update 2: Also thanks to Florian who emailed in at about the same time (I don’t read my email as much as my website dashboard, usually).

Then I discovered that the debian mirror being used (which is in the same city, and in a nearby network) is marked as bad on the health check. I switched mirrors to a known-good one that I’ve used for other systems recently, but no joy.

I think a key symptom is this bit near the end of the output of perl -V:

Our good systems show a December “compiled at” date and a much longer @INC list. I’ve tried reinstalling pretty much every package I think might be connected, including libc6, libperl5.10, perl, perl-base and perl-modules (those last four are all version 5.10.0-19). I really don’t want to reinstall the whole system because it’s behind an irritating firewall that will make it a 10-hour round-trip site visit. I’m currently hunting and removing obsolete packages to try to make sure they’re not causing problems, because I’m running out of straws to clutch at.

How would you recover a debian system from this?

Conference

This afternoon, I’ll be at What’s So Social About Social Enterprise? in Bristol.

In general, I’ll be trying to support the idea that TTLLP and cooperatives in general are necessarily social enterprise. I may ask a few questions about the Social Enterprise Mark which you may have seen me asking elsewhere already. I’ll probably be sending a few updates during the event to identi.ca and other sites if I can get it working from the venue.

What’s your answer? What’s social about social enterprise?

I was disappointed to read that ippimail announced “the closure of the ippimail project [...] barring a miracle we will take the site down at noon on the 1st May 2009, UK time.”

I first covered the ippimail social enterprise back in 2006 as a way to do better than googlemail. There was a longer review on Cutting Free.

So what now for free-to-use UK-based free-software-using webmails? Where do you think ippimail users should look now? Are there others giving to charity? Is a better world possible by emailing?

Earlier this week, Tom Watson, Cabinet Office Parliamentary Secretary, published the Open Source, Open Standards and Re–Use: Government Action Plan. It’s had a pretty mixed reaction, with mild scepticism (niq’s soapbox: Is gov.uk going open-source?) being the average reaction from what I’ve read. I particularly liked the kind offer by Bristol Wireless to debianise Tom Watson’s laptop.

I think commentators are bang-on that the procurement process needs to change and that this sounds positive. I’ll love it if I’m wrong, but this looks like the “lip service as usual” which I’ve seen in the last 10 years working on FOSS in the UK. I want to see the action that comes from this plan! When government actually starts buying FOSS from typical FOSS service providers and not just the IBMs of this world, then I’ll believe it.

My suspicion is re-ignited by some of the activites around this action plan. For example, does anyone know why the Cabinet Office didn’t select FOSS to run their special public FOSS Aggregation page? (Actually, what’s the best FOSS tag aggregator web service out there? I know we can set them up in Wordpress widgets, but what hosted services are there?)

I’m also a bit bemused that their page requires users to accept cookies until they expire, yet its privacy policy explicitly says “You may suppress cookies after your visit or configure your Internet browser to prevent them.” Yes, I can prevent them, but then it does nothing useful!

(Based on a comment I made at the OSS Watch team blog and discussions with a few user groups.)

This week and next week are Fairtrade Fortnight. As I’ve mentioned in discussions at the Co-operative Group, there are some drawbacks to Fairtrade (most of which can be overcome by trading with co-operatives locally), but it is worth supporting fairtrade overall.

The featured event this year is Go Bananas for Fairtrade, an attempt at world-record banana-eating on 6-7 March. I don’t like bananas much, but I’ll eat them cooked, so I’ll be joining in.

If you want to get involved and do something else, there is an events calendar on the FtFn site.

I’ve added the lovely k’s Helping Hand to Koha Community Blogs. I’m particularly pleased to see a site combining both Koha and Drupal, two of my current favourites. A bit more about the background to the site is over at Korerorero: More great Koha news from India.

Websites

I’ve just updated the online banking compatibility list after a report from Italy that Monte dei Paschi di Siena is not currently working for GNU/Linux users. Can anyone confirm they broke it, or tell us how to get it working, please?

The Open Source Initiative and the Free Software Foundation are probably the two authorities on what is free and open source software that are better respected than the debian project. It’s fairly easy to see that the famous licences (GNU GPL) appear on both lists, but how similar are their approvals?

There was a comparison at Asheeshworld Notes you will like: OSI vs FSF in 2007, but I’ve noticed more and more duplicates in that listing and the source code didn’t work for me. I’ve captured the current differences between their actual approvals in a pseudo-diff. The generating code and intermediate steps are splattered around the same folder.

Many of the differences look like a result of process differences, but I’m not sure because OSI doesn’t make any comments and their licence review process archive seems awkward to search. As I understand it, a lawyer advocates a licence in the OSI process, so it requires the licensor to contribute (and many licensors couldn’t care less about OSI); but FSF does an independent review, so FSF has to decide it’s worth reviewing. In case it’s not obvious, I think FSF’s independent foundation-led review is much the better of those two.

There are two licences that OSI approved but FSF lists as non-free: NASA Open Source Agreement and the Reciprocal Public License. Both of these are “send-back-ware” where changes have to be sent back or made available to the upstream developer. Many debian developers agree such payments-in-kind are non-free (OSI’s OSDefinition is based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines), but I think an early OSI advisor thought they were a good idea, so those approvals look like an OSI bug to me.

It’s not obvious if there are licences that FSF approves but OSI rejects. OSI doesn’t seem to list licences to avoid.

Is it helpful to see the differences? Would a comparison with the debian archive be useful? Are there other curiousities captured in the differences? Are people interested in reconciling the differences?

Three things I really like have released recently:-

1. Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 (”Lenny”): I installed it on a laptop the weekend before going to a conference and I’m really impressed. It installed fairly neatly and was good-looking (gtk installer from USB stick, default desktop task, in case anyone cares). I found one or two small glitches while travelling, which I’ll reportbug soon, but they’re very minor. Well done to everyone involved in stabilising this release!
2. The co-operative officially launched its new brand with a 2.5-minute whole-break advert using a Bob Dylan track, both of which are unusual. OK, so I feel it should have been available in a FOSS-friendly format and not done on the same day as announcing a sale of opticians or a big closure, but it’s still good to see the co-operative getting big TV exposure.
3. Videos of Debian at FOSDEM and the Business of Open Source mini-conference at Linux.conf.au were released, which I’ll watch soon. The current trend of recording key conferences isn’t a substitute for being there in-person, but it’s still invaluable and I thank all those involved.

I was at this event back in November and they’ve just emailed me this week to point out the speeches and some recordings are now available online. The appointed Regional Development Agency is getting more powerful as our indirectly-elected South West Regional Assembly is phased out, so if you’re based in SW England, you may find their current views affect a lot of your daily life over the next few years.

After the meeting, I passed on a few comments about how Business Link is failing to support cooperatives and I was asked for numbers, but I don’t think I have them yet. I’m still following this up and will post about it again later.

The monthly board meeting of SPI will take place on irc.oftc.net #spi tonight (Wed 11 Feb) at 20:00 UTC. Members may have seen that the meeting announcement came out on time - hooray! It looks like minutes may also catch up to last meeting, too.

There are two new associated project currently under discussion: the Helios Initiative and OpenWRT. I think both of them had been waiting for a legal opinion.

I may still be travelling and without a stable network connection during the meeting, or I might have made it home by then. Either way, watch the comments below this article for a link to the summary when posted.

After a few hiccoughs, I’m trying to gather live coverage of Voice09 in Birmingham today and tomorrow over on the software.coop site. I have access to the wifi, but picture uploads will mostly have to wait until I can bugfix some stuff this evening.

Another Monday, start of the working week and I’m thinking about business again. Ian Lynch of The Learning Machine is a smart cookie who I’ve collaborated with before. He leads a free-software-based business which is very different from TTLLP’s cooperative model and he gave a talk about it to Manchester Free Software. Here are the headlines:-

Building a FOSS Business

• No fees from licenses
• Services allied to FOSS
• Something everyone needs
• Low cost to produce
• Low cost to distribute
• Encourage FOSS take up
• Increase the number of FOSS contributors
• Make money to support FOSS development

Background theory and research

• Clay Christensen and the theory of disruptive innovation
• The innovators dilemma
• Seeing What is Next

Business Growth

• 3 horizons of business growth
• Horizon 1 – current profitable business
• Horizon 2 – business with clear potential
• Horizon 3 – possibilities currently being explored
• Pipeline for growth

Tipping points

• Critical mass
• Viral effects

The ideal product

• Something everyone needs
• Something that costs nothing to make
• Something that costs nothing to distribute
• Something that has increasing value the more that is bought.

The INGOTs

• International Grades – Open Technologies
• Market disruption
• Lower barriers to entry
• Target those currently not in the market
• Provide products that are good enough
• Improve and add features over time

Primary Schools - KS3

• No-one targets primary schools
• Very little certification in KS3
• Use specialist schools community plans
• “Upsell” from primary to secondary
• KS3 – add value at with less work for teachers

Developing world

• Enable developing countries into the qualifications market
• Target those making the transition to FOSS
• Ally to netbook/smartphone internet access to lower costs
• Use UK Awarding Body status for credibility.

The above points are under a Creative Commons cc-by-sa license and the original report was at Manchester Free Software. Sometimes FSUK-Manchester produce videos of talks, but I’ve not seen this one yet. Watch their page for details.

What can Ian’s business analysis teach us about free software businesses? What interesting questions does it leave open?

Have you had anything to do with the INGOTs? I’ve not worked in education for a while, so I’d love to hear tales from the chalkface about them.

Yesterday I phoned into The Phone Co-op AGM 2009 and heard the reports, most of which you can read in the PDF annual report from the AGM website. There were also various questions from members, which I scribbled down as follows:-

What does ADSL mean?

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Essentially, what we sell as broadband.

How many day-equivalents of training did part-time employees get on average? (I think this was the question, but I got a bit lost.)

Information not immediately available. ThePhoneCoop will research and reply later. The number of part-time employees is an asterisk footnote in the non-financial performance indicators.

Where are the Phone Co-op’s investments?

Most of the share capital is for investment in TPC, but surpluses arise for various reasons and are invested outside. Current locations include 40k in long-term investments, including 10k in the Co-operative Group, 20k in Westmill wind farm, 5k in a hydro power project; 60k is in the ICOF share account, 1.4m in the Co-operative Group, [...I missed some. I was struggling to keep up. Some of this may be wrong anyway...] 486k in Midcounties Cooperative share account, 20k in Chelmsford Star; total of about 2.9m.

Is ICOF deciding recipients of the sustainability fund or The Phone Co-op?

The arrangement with ICOF is now ending for various reasons and now TPC will partner with Black Country Reinvestment Society. Don’t want to manage the fund directly because it’s not a core task for a phone company.

The increase in turnover is described as mainly to existing customers. Has there been an increase in the number of customers?

The Phone Co-op is recruiting 150-200pcm residential and 30 business customers, but losing a similar number. Have recruited new staff to try to improve this.

Is share account interest being cut in line with banking interest?

Just cut to 3%, but there has been a net inflow of investment. Current interest receipts from TPC cover it due to long-term investments, but they will mature, so the interest rate will be cut gradually to keep it sustainable.

Purchase from other cooperatives is 11% and falling. What is being done to increase it?

[I missed the answer to this.]

What is happening about getting a new office?

The Phone Co-op still has an option on a site in Chipping Norton, but no planning permission. An alternative commercial building which was being discussed with its owner was lost to housing (planning permission granted there!). There is a general lack of suitable sites available and things are happening cautiously in the current climate.

If we’re trying to save paper, why did members receive two envelopes in the post for this AGM?

The report was sent from Calverts directly, to save time, postage, staff and “report miles”

Is the description of “non-white” in the performance indicators a problem for mixed white+non-white people?

Will look into this.

How many affinity schemes are there?

There are currently 300 and they are being reviewed for the best way to work better with them.

Are acquisitions likely?

Expect the credit crisis to being opportunities. There are benefits from more traffic and so on. TPC has been contacting potential suppliers and intermediaries asking after other providers in difficulties.

What is the deferred income shown in the financial statements?

Pre-billed broadband and similar products.

Is the investment in the Co-operative Group risky?

TCG holds around 4bn in assets under and is one of the longest continuously-traded companies in the UK.

Are ThePhoneCo-op’s 0845 numbers advantageous to TPC or the caller?

Still yes for TPC, paying 1p/min at peak; probably not advantageous to caller these days.

There are 15% sales to cooperatives shown. What’s the largest cooperative and what % of that is it?

Shown in the annual report. [The numbers in report work out to about 15% of all sales I think. So, nearly all sales to cooperatives are sales to Midcounties?]

All errors and omissions in the above are mine.

I heard the allocation approved, then I had to leave before the special meeting and the presentations. If anyone has links to them or coverage, please leave me a comment. Other comments welcome, too.

Well, in line with the Do Not Drive from the local police (and one from Gloucestershire), I’ll be phoning in to ThePhoneCoop AGM today and doing a bit of work from home.

While preparing for the journey that never was, I realised that I’ve mentioned some of these phone tools in articles like Connecting from the k608i with SSL, but not all of them. So, here’s my favourite Java phone applications:-

1. MidpSSH: this is my main workhorse, as long as I have a stable data connection (even 3G seems to freak sometimes above 120mph). I’ll be connected to a screen session in our server (TERM=linux) using lynx, irssi, mailx and other tools I learnt back at UEA;
2. MujMail: if I don’t have a stable network connection, this seems a good way to download email from SSL in bursts for offline reading;
3. Mobile RSS Reader: downloads RSS in bursts for offline reading;
4. anyRemote: this is my main workhourse at home, replacing the above three applications. My phone doesn’t do WiFi, so I use bluetooth to run shell commands on my workstation, read RSS feeds and email and view web pages. Combined with a video-sender, it also acts as a remote control when playing internet video feeds on the TV. At a push, it can control the workstation’s full GUI, but that’s a bit slow and awkward;
5. JabberMixClient: I’m having a few problems controlling this in version 2, but 1.x uses the basic GUI and works mostly fine. I guess I ought to fix its bugs, but I’m terrible at Java;
6. MicroCalc2: a cool lisp-driven spreadsheet, handy for sums you want to keep and it went GPL about two years ago;
7. ReadManiac: much better than the built-in browser for text files and went GPL about a year ago. If only I could work out how to sign it with my local TTLLP certificate authority and get rid of the security prompts;
8. MFRadio: useful when the built-in FM RDS radio can’t find anything interesting. The interface is a bit clunky and it really racks up data transfer charges, but it seems worth keeping around.

All of those are free and open source software, mostly under the GNU GPL. The only thing I feel I’m really missing now is a free and open source FTP client, for uploading photos to my preferred photo-sharing site. Any suggestions?

On Saturday (7 February), I should be attending both The Phone Co-op AGM and The Phone Co-op Members’ Workshop before it. I’ll be asking a question at the AGM, if we can get the wording nailed down in time.

Sadly, travel from Bristol to Chipping Norton by train is totally screwed by engineering works near Didcot and the usual poor connections from the cross-country line, so I’ll be making a 2 hour car journey instead of a 5 hour train+bus combination. If you’re travelling from the Bristol area and can car-share, please get in touch.

Next Tuesday/Wednesday is Voice09 in Birmingham and I should be there if things come together in time. This is the Social Enterprise Coalition’s annual conference. Conservative Party leader David Cameron MP will open as keynote speaker, with Liam Byrne MP, Minister for the Cabinet Office, opening on Wednesday. Would live-blogging or similar be interesting to people reading this?

If you’d like to meet up at either event, get in touch somehow - comments here, instant message, email, or phone. If you’ve something you’d like to send to either, also get in touch.