Yeah, finding a bitesize bug that looks cool is a drag when the next step isn't clear.
It would be nice if more of these bitesize bugs were well-maintained by their projects, or at least you could tell what you should do next.
Something we could do is give you an info box, suggesting good next steps. "If there is a patch, download it -- does the patch apply against the current version of the software? Does it work? Does it seem like a good contribution? Patch review is very helpful to project leads."
What do you think? I'm really eager to hear others' ideas.
Keep in mind that, without your help, the patch might never land. So even if you "just" write, "This patch looks good!" or "This patch sucks; can someone delete it?" you're moving the issue closer to resolved.
The project pages are actually generated from the list of projects people have said they contribute to. So it is all things that people on the site have worked on, in one way or another.
The point of our the project is to help people find the *official* channel to contribute, and I think having that information in another place can't hurt.
I really don't want the site to feel gross and astroturfy, since it's actually organic! So your feedback is helpful, if somewhat painful to hear. (-:
Oh, yeah, and our hosting is two little Linode virtual machines, so we do suffer a bit more than huge sites like Launchpad when a load storm comes our way. We're working on performance, too. (-:
If you're willing to break the CCC standard, you could mangle the "." in an email address. There are plenty of Unicode characters that look like a dot that aren't the real dot. That way, the reply-all to the CCC'd recipient would bounce.
Otherwise, well, um, see the Security considerations section.
Thanks for these comments. I agree with your general tone -- that it's great when hackers help people *unlike* themselves.
With regard to HTTP vs. HTTPS, you write that HTTPS adds "extra overhead." That's true in two ways -- TCP round-trips and CPU load. For CPU load, our server really can afford it. It's disk I/O that hurts us. As for the round-trips and their effect on latency, if the client does pipelining and stays on the site for a little while, that mostly goes away. So I think the worst thing HTTPS can do is drive away users who can't handle the extra round-trips for the first few page loads. That's a possible problem.
I don't want OpenHatch users' web traffic to be snoopable by their ISP or people using the same coffee-shop wifi connection. By keeping HTTPS on, I'm making life easier for those who value privacy. It's not as if it's really harder to use a HTTPS connection than HTTP one, so it's no burden (except the round-trips) on those who don't care about privacy. I'm heartened by big developer-oriented websites like Launchpad and Ohloh using HTTPS by default.
As for text-mode email clients, well, I use what I love. (-: I don't spend all that much time taking care of the Alpine source; mostly I fix Debian-related bugs for Debian/Ubuntu users who want to use it.
I try to keep OpenHatch responsive to user feedback. So do check out the site and send us email, or file a bug, or chat with us on #openhatch on irc.freenode.net!
HTTPS is a nicety for our users. End-to-end cryptography is a great thing; let's have more of it!
I happen to like alpine and text-mode email reading in general.
When you say this makes you wonder, do you just mean I'm clearly some sort of bizarro nutjob? (Nothing to wonder -- that one's probably true.) Or is there something specific you wonder? If so, say what it is, and I can possibly answer. (-:
public.resource.org has a GREAT comic about a similar issue. It is a lovingly-captioned discussion between two Lego men. My favorite passage:
"Isn't it the duty of every citizen to know the law?"
"It is also the duty of every citizen to give us $100!!"
public.resource.org is a project to make government information more available. They've been focusing for a while on these sorts of expensive, copyright-encumbered laws. The courts have struck down copyright interest in these laws before, but that doesn't stop the cartels and the states from trying to charge people.
I intend to do what I can to keep the Geocities pages on the web. I am part of the Archive Team, an independent group of amateur archivists racing to rescue the web from destruction at its own hand. I bought geociti.es and we're in the process of putting Geocities back online.
At least, the pages we have rescued. So far, it's only about a terabyte. Imagine - fifteen years of the world's memories for less than a hundred bucks at today's storage prices.
ThinkPads have great pixel density. I upgraded from a 14" 1400x1050 screen (ThinkPad T43) to......a 12" 1400x1050 screen! The X61 Tablet is a fantastic little computer; I can't recommend it highly enough. When I bought mine (about nine months ago), those things could be purchased for about $1050.
IBM/Lenovo stopped making screens that high-resolution, but I bought mine used on eBay with nearly the full three years of warranty.
IBM/Lenovo calls this SXGA+, and you can find ThinkPad T40, T41, T42, or T43 computers on your local Craigslist. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=t43+sxga shows you a few for a few hundred dollars in the San Francisco Bay area.
(Also, for what it's worth, the OpenMoko FreeRunner and GTA01 both had 2.8" screens at 640x480. Mega drool factor.)
The way Comcast's system works is, when Alice communicates with Bob, sending forged packets that impersonate Alice saying, "Bob, never mind - cancel the connection."
If I'm Alice, the Comcast customer, I would find it fraudulent to see a company sending forged packages as me. Why should it be hard to punish Comcast for impersonating me and disrupting my communication with someone else?
If Comcast is allowed to send forged IP messages, are they also allowed to forge emails from me that disrupt my communication with those people?
Re:Lessig lives in the wrong district?
on
Lessig For Congress?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
He actually lives in San Francisco, in the 12th Congressional District, according to a blog post from a few years ago. He does still live in San Francisco, not in Palo Alto or at Stanford.
If you need help with alpine, your best bet is to sign up for the alpine-alpha email list at http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-alpha and ask your question there. The developers already have some ideas on what might be wrong in Windows 98, and how to fix it, but do keep in mind that Windows 98 is a rather old system these days.
I understand what you mean about Gmail envy. I've been using PINE since 1999, before this Gee-mail fad started, but everyone around me uses a web browser for email and claims to love it.
PINE is best used when coupled with a good IMAP server. The best Free Software IMAP server seems to be Dovecot these days, and includes indexed (read: "FAST") full-text search in the 1.1 beta releases.
What I do is enable full-text indexing on my email with Dovecot, and then you can use PINE's regular ; (Select) operator to search on all text, and bam - you get results practically instantly.
Recently the MPAA widely pirated some software written by commercial software developer Matthew Garrett. Verizon recently has publicly and repeatedly violated the copyrights of many software developers working on a widely-used product called Busybox.
If this bill passes, wouled we see Verizon's and the MPAA's Internet infrastructure and all the developer machines used to build and distribute those illegal warez confiscated and auctioned off?
(Note to trolls: Matthew Garrett is a commercial software developer in the sense that he gets paid to code. That he gets paid is orthogonal to the licensing, if any, attached by his employer to the code he writes.)
Slashdot Mirror
(I'm asheesh at openhatch.org.)
Yeah, finding a bitesize bug that looks cool is a drag when the next step isn't clear.
It would be nice if more of these bitesize bugs were well-maintained by their projects, or at least you could tell what you should do next.
Something we could do is give you an info box, suggesting good next steps. "If there is a patch, download it -- does the patch apply against the current version of the software? Does it work? Does it seem like a good contribution? Patch review is very helpful to project leads."
What do you think? I'm really eager to hear others' ideas.
Keep in mind that, without your help, the patch might never land. So even if you "just" write, "This patch looks good!" or "This patch sucks; can someone delete it?" you're moving the issue closer to resolved.
This is why OpenHatch focuses on projects that have bitesize bugs.
There are projects that *want* new contributors, and they're marking tickets in their bug trackers as good for newcomers.
You can read more about that at https://openhatch.org/blog/2009/get-involved-in-foss/.
(It's 2am, and I'm going to sleep!)
Thanks for your thoughts on the site!
The project pages are actually generated from the list of projects people have said they contribute to. So it is all things that people on the site have worked on, in one way or another.
The point of our the project is to help people find the *official* channel to contribute, and I think having that information in another place can't hurt.
I really don't want the site to feel gross and astroturfy, since it's actually organic! So your feedback is helpful, if somewhat painful to hear. (-:
Oh, yeah, and our hosting is two little Linode virtual machines, so we do suffer a bit more than huge sites like Launchpad when a load storm comes our way. We're working on performance, too. (-:
-- asheesh at openhatch.org.
FCC is used, at least, in the Alpine (formerly known as PINE) mail reader to mean "Folder carbon copy".
That, and by a federal agency. Oh, now I get your comment...
If you're willing to break the CCC standard, you could mangle the "." in an email address. There are plenty of Unicode characters that look like a dot that aren't the real dot. That way, the reply-all to the CCC'd recipient would bounce.
Otherwise, well, um, see the Security considerations section.
Thanks for these comments. I agree with your general tone -- that it's great when hackers help people *unlike* themselves.
With regard to HTTP vs. HTTPS, you write that HTTPS adds "extra overhead." That's true in two ways -- TCP round-trips and CPU load. For CPU load, our server really can afford it. It's disk I/O that hurts us. As for the round-trips and their effect on latency, if the client does pipelining and stays on the site for a little while, that mostly goes away. So I think the worst thing HTTPS can do is drive away users who can't handle the extra round-trips for the first few page loads. That's a possible problem.
I don't want OpenHatch users' web traffic to be snoopable by their ISP or people using the same coffee-shop wifi connection. By keeping HTTPS on, I'm making life easier for those who value privacy. It's not as if it's really harder to use a HTTPS connection than HTTP one, so it's no burden (except the round-trips) on those who don't care about privacy. I'm heartened by big developer-oriented websites like Launchpad and Ohloh using HTTPS by default.
As for text-mode email clients, well, I use what I love. (-: I don't spend all that much time taking care of the Alpine source; mostly I fix Debian-related bugs for Debian/Ubuntu users who want to use it.
You can see from https://openhatch.org/people/paulproteus/ that I've hacked on projects with more visibility than that, like http://search.creativecommons.org/.
I try to keep OpenHatch responsive to user feedback. So do check out the site and send us email, or file a bug, or chat with us on #openhatch on irc.freenode.net!
HTTPS is a nicety for our users. End-to-end cryptography is a great thing; let's have more of it!
I happen to like alpine and text-mode email reading in general.
When you say this makes you wonder, do you just mean I'm clearly some sort of bizarro nutjob? (Nothing to wonder -- that one's probably true.) Or is there something specific you wonder? If so, say what it is, and I can possibly answer. (-:
You can all read the links now, thanks to Coral cache for the blog post, and memcached on our server.
Whee!
I'm not saying I *mind* the attention. I agree that I was unprepared. (-:
The blog post can also be read at http://www.asheesh.org.nyud.net/note/debian/avoiding-working-on.html
Working on fixing the site...
public.resource.org has a GREAT comic about a similar issue. It is a lovingly-captioned discussion between two Lego men. My favorite passage:
public.resource.org is a project to make government information more available. They've been focusing for a while on these sorts of expensive, copyright-encumbered laws. The courts have struck down copyright interest in these laws before, but that doesn't stop the cartels and the states from trying to charge people.
I intend to do what I can to keep the Geocities pages on the web. I am part of the Archive Team, an independent group of amateur archivists racing to rescue the web from destruction at its own hand. I bought geociti.es and we're in the process of putting Geocities back online.
At least, the pages we have rescued. So far, it's only about a terabyte. Imagine - fifteen years of the world's memories for less than a hundred bucks at today's storage prices.
ThinkPads have great pixel density. I upgraded from a 14" 1400x1050 screen (ThinkPad T43) to... ...a 12" 1400x1050 screen! The X61 Tablet is a fantastic little computer; I can't recommend it highly enough. When I bought mine (about nine months ago), those things could be purchased for about $1050.
IBM/Lenovo stopped making screens that high-resolution, but I bought mine used on eBay with nearly the full three years of warranty.
IBM/Lenovo calls this SXGA+, and you can find ThinkPad T40, T41, T42, or T43 computers on your local Craigslist. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/sss?query=t43+sxga shows you a few for a few hundred dollars in the San Francisco Bay area.
(Also, for what it's worth, the OpenMoko FreeRunner and GTA01 both had 2.8" screens at 640x480. Mega drool factor.)
Finally, a version of Windows that is compatible with my IBM PS/2 Model 25 that came with 256-color MCGA!
The way Comcast's system works is, when Alice communicates with Bob, sending forged packets that impersonate Alice saying, "Bob, never mind - cancel the connection."
If I'm Alice, the Comcast customer, I would find it fraudulent to see a company sending forged packages as me. Why should it be hard to punish Comcast for impersonating me and disrupting my communication with someone else?
If Comcast is allowed to send forged IP messages, are they also allowed to forge emails from me that disrupt my communication with those people?
He actually lives in San Francisco, in the 12th Congressional District, according to a blog post from a few years ago. He does still live in San Francisco, not in Palo Alto or at Stanford.
...but when your cells get Slashdotted you'll think again.
Yes, that's why I said you should "sign up". (-:
If you need help with alpine, your best bet is to sign up for the alpine-alpha email list at http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/alpine-alpha and ask your question there. The developers already have some ideas on what might be wrong in Windows 98, and how to fix it, but do keep in mind that Windows 98 is a rather old system these days.
I understand what you mean about Gmail envy. I've been using PINE since 1999, before this Gee-mail fad started, but everyone around me uses a web browser for email and claims to love it.
PINE is best used when coupled with a good IMAP server. The best Free Software IMAP server seems to be Dovecot these days, and includes indexed (read: "FAST") full-text search in the 1.1 beta releases.
What I do is enable full-text indexing on my email with Dovecot, and then you can use PINE's regular ; (Select) operator to search on all text, and bam - you get results practically instantly.
Isn't cone just a poor man's PINE written by the Courier guys?
Why not just use alpine, now that it's Free Software/Open Source?
Recently the MPAA widely pirated some software written by commercial software developer Matthew Garrett. Verizon recently has publicly and repeatedly violated the copyrights of many software developers working on a widely-used product called Busybox.
If this bill passes, wouled we see Verizon's and the MPAA's Internet infrastructure and all the developer machines used to build and distribute those illegal warez confiscated and auctioned off?
(Note to trolls: Matthew Garrett is a commercial software developer in the sense that he gets paid to code. That he gets paid is orthogonal to the licensing, if any, attached by his employer to the code he writes.)
If I defrauded a state and sold it uncertified voting equipment, I'd be in jail.
Why isn't this organization, which has clearly committed a criminal act, in jail?
Just to name one counter-example, Sun Microsystems makes the Solaris "operating software" and sells their own computers with it.
The fact that you can ask Sun not to install Solaris doesn't change the fact that they do make their own OS and sell it on Sun-branded hardware.