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Burning Man Goes Open Source For Cell Phones
coondoggie passes along this excerpt from Network World:
"Today I bring you a story that has it all: a solar-powered, low-cost, open source cellular network that's revolutionizing coverage in underprivileged and off-grid spots. It uses VoIP yet works with existing cell phones. It has pedigreed founders. Best of all, it is part of the sex, drugs and art collectively known as Burning Man. ... The technology starts with the 'they-said-it-couldn't-be-done' open source software, OpenBTS. OpenBTS is built on Linux and distributed via the AGPLv3 license. When used with a software-defined radio such as the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), it presents a GSM air interface ("Um") to any standard GSM cell phone, with no modification whatsoever required of the phone. It uses open source Asterisk VoIP software as the PBX to connect calls, though it can be used with other soft switches, too. ... This is the third year its founders have decided to trial-by-fire the system by offering free cell phone service to the 50,000-ish attendees at Burning Man, which begins today in Black Rock City, Nevada. "
Seriously, I'm totally confused by this. Did the burning man attendees actually set the /article/ on fire as well?
I haven't been to Burning Man in a few years, but when I did go it was nice to get away from it all. I suppose I could choose to not use/bring my cell phone - but if other people are still tethered to the ordinary world...? Well - bummer!
There's certainly a lot of overlap between the techie crowd and the hippie crowd. Steve Jobs, for example, experimented with LSD.
Jobs never has been been really a techie though, he is more of a hipster businessman.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Cool project. Unfortunately the use of AGPL will guarantee no one ever uses it. Too bad. Imagine having a base station where you have to require a partition for the source. Or people with broken cell phones saying you're not providing an equal opportunity to download the software source. Ugh.
I think what he's trying to say is that he was Steve Jobs best customer.
I fear the burning man festival may soon flame out, or at best, morph into an anemic lame-o semblance of it's former self
I think I've been hearing that it's already done that from people who have attended it every year in the last decade. People were probably saying the same thing before then, I just wasn't paying attention.
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Burning Man had its brief, shining moment, but when was that...? Circa mid-90's? Now it's a staged pseudo-event the very promotion of which cuts against the grain of what it was supposed to be. I see the jowly middle-aged Marketing Suits queuing up for their Burning Man tickets and I am reminded of the giddy tourists in and around Woodstock, NY paying $25 for a tie-dyed peace-sign T-shirt.
Couldn't they just have said it Slashdot style? The people being photographed at Burning Man own the copyright of their own image. And please, since we can not determine who is sober and who is not during the event, for any non-personal publication of those photographs, do not make anyone sign any model release form until well after the event has ended. Get their email address, or contact information instead.
Not a techie? He worked as a technician for Atari, and worked on the design for the motherboard for Breakout. You also don't successfully manage a technology company like Apple without having a grasp of technology.
Of course, Woz was far more adept at hardware, which brings a lot of people to make the claim that Jobs is just a businessman.
Remember that the most popular guy on the beach is the one who can carry a dozen donuts and a cup of coffee in each hand.