Songbird 1.2 Released
My favourite music player has just been updated and version 1.2 released.
I picked up the story from The H where they’ve done a great job of describing most of the new features in a single paragraph.
One of the biggest new features is the ability to automatically organise library files across multiple folders based on track metadata, such as artist and album information. In addition to several performance improvements to features like search, Songbird 1.2 now supports 2-way syncing with iTunes, which is especially useful for users who purchase songs in the iTunes Music Store. Songs added to Songbird can also be synced back into iTunes for syncing with iPods and iPhones. Last.fm support has been included in Songbird for some time now, however, users can now access even more artist, track, album and tag information. A new 10-band equalizer has been added to Songbird to let audiophiles tweak the frequency response of audio playback.
With the ever expanding feature set and the superb extensibility thanks to their Mozilla platform pedigree we have a really good alternative to the “other” much touted music player based on Mono. I know which one I prefer.
Songbird, incidentally, was the only music player I found on Ubuntu that would sync with my iPod Nano 4th Gen. And that was the previous release of Songbird too. With iTunes synchronisation I think I have just found the last piece of the puzzle to get my wife off Windows once and for all.
Thanks to all the community and developers behind Songbird. I can’t wait to get this new release installed and give it a work out.
Early Father’s Day Present: DiE6
Die6 T-Shirt
Was it an early Father’s Day present? No. I was expecting something as it happens.
One of our very good customers, Clive from ion design it (for whom we do a fair bit of Joomla! work – see here for one our recent projects), told me a while ago that he’d seen something he thought was right “up my street”.
He certainly wasn’t wrong.
If you haven’t worked out what DiE6 represents, click on the image or here to find out more. [Guess what I will be wearing to the pub this evening]
A most worthwhile and laudable campaign if you ask me.
Although just a small part of me wonders a little bit; It does certainly create more work… 
Does UK Government Grok the GPL?
This is really quite interesting. It seems as though the UK government are starting, finally, to get the whole “Commons” thing.
There is this Government Department/Quango(?) called the Office of Public Sector Information (OSPI for short). Yep, I’ve never heard of them either. Not until I saw this tweet from Glyn Moody last night at any rate. The OSPI’s remit is (according to their website) as follows:
Operating from within the National Archives, the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is at the heart of information policy, setting standards, delivering access and encouraging the re-use of public sector information. OPSI provides a wide range of services to the public, information industry, government and the wider public sector relating to finding, using, sharing and trading information.
The merger of OPSI with the National Archives in October 2006 enables the combined organisation to provide strong and coherent leadership for the development of information policy across government and the wider public sector.
OPSI has an important role as a regulator of public sector information holders for their information trading activities. The Information Fair Trader Scheme (IFTS) founded on the principles of openness, transparency, fairness, compliance and challenge helps re-users of public sector information to know that they will be treated reasonably and fairly. OPSI also investigates complaints against public sector information holders made under the Re-use of Public Sector Information Regulations.
OPSI provides the Click-Use system for obtaining a licence to re-use Crown copyright and public sector material through an online licensing process and is responsible for the Information Asset Register (IAR) that lists information assets held by the UK Government with a focus on unpublished material. OPSI also provides a secretariat to the Advisory Panel on Public Sector Information (APPSI), which advises Ministers on how best to encourage the re-use of public sector information.
Operating from within OPSI, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) continues to exist and fulfil its core activities including responsibility for the publication of legislation and the management of Crown copyright.
Got that? Good. Although I’m still not sure I know what they “do”. I can see they are “at the heart of information policy” but anyway, let’s assume they do something important and worthy within the huge bureaucracy that is UK Government. The big news is they now have a blog! Called perspectives. The most interesting article (from 3 so far) on their new blog is this one where they introduce a new “Licensing Model” and are, more importantly, soliciting feedback:
The Government’s response to the Power of Information Taskforce’s recommendation 8 stated that OPSI was developing a new licence model, building on the success of the Click-Use Licence. We thought it would be good to post our initial thoughts about what the new licence terms could look like here on our blog for your comments.
Here’s the bit that caught Glyn’s eye and makes all us Freedom lovers go weak at the knees…
• The new licence terms are compatible with other standard licences such a Creative Commons and GNU GPL;
How interesting. I am not sure that I understand the full implications of the new license and what content/information it really pertains to, but the description of their remit above would suggest that it could be far reaching. Anyway, here is the license they propose in full below, but please don’t make specific license comments here, comment about the license over there, where the OSPI will see them.
Terms and conditions
Purpose
This licence explains how you may re-use a wide range of public sector information and what conditions apply. Under this licence the term information means any content, including any part of such content, whether in writing or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audio-visual recording, other than computer programs and software.
What you can do
1. You can copy, publish, translate into other languages, adapt, mash and convert to Braille and other formats for people who are visually impaired.
What information is covered
2. All Crown copyright information can be re-used under this licence apart from the specific exemptions listed below.
3. Information produced by other public sector organisations as listed at [link to be inserted].
What information is not covered
4. Crown copyright information produced by government departments and trading funds that are responsible for licensing the re-use of the information they commission or produce. Details of these organisations can be found at [link to be inserted]
5. Information where re-use is not permitted for policy reasons, for example the HSE Health and Safety Law poster.
6. Information that is exempt under Freedom of Information legislation and the Environmental Information Regulations.
7. Personal information about named individuals.
8. Official imprints, public sector organisation logos, badges, crests and insignia of the armed forces. This includes the Royal Arms unless they form an integral part of the information that you are re-using.
Your obligations
9. You must:
• Re-use the information accurately
• Acknowledge the copyright and the source of the information, for example the title of a report and the name of the department that issued it.
• Not re-use the information in a deliberately misleading way.
• Not re-use the information for promotional or advertising purposes; not to imply endorsement by a government department or other public sector organisation.
• Not mimic the style and appearance of the original information, for example by replicating the look and feel of a published document or a departmental website.Disclaimer
Your use of the information covered by this licence is entirely at your own risk. OPSI makes no warranty, representation or guarantee that the information is error free.
Governing law
This licence is made under the laws of England and Wales and comes under the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
There are a couple of comments already and they cover the obvious.
Not being a lawyer I am not sure if I quite “get” why they (we?) need a new license though? Why could they not simply use any of the CC licenses as appropriate?
Anyway, if you spot anything in the detail or wish to simply make your voice heard, you know where to go.
The Ubuntu/Mono debate continues…
Mono seems to be causing a great deal of debate and discussion within the Ubuntu Community right now. I’m sure it probably always has, but it definitely seems that the intensity is building at the moment.
For those who don’t know what Mono is, from their website:
Mono is a cross platform, open source .NET development framework.
Two blog posts have caught my attention in the past couple of days and should be mentioned, one on either side of the debate and interestingly that is one from a developer and one from a user. Thankfully these two posts and most of the comments attached to them have been free from the personal attack and verbal abuse that has been written on several mailing lists and forums recently. Those don’t have a place in a decent debate, I will not condone them by linking.
First the developer.
Jo Shields writes well and clearly has a lot to say. This is a well written piece that articulates the position of a software developer who clearly likes what Mono has to offer.
I recommend you read it and consider carefully what Jo has to say.
The other article, from a user and expressed in plain and heartfelt language, tells us why he feels Mono is not for him.
I also recommend you read that one too and consider his position.
Welcome back.
What strikes me with these posts is how technical and abstract the position of the developer is and how emotional and personal the position of the user is. It is a very clear distinction and one that is probably at the heart of this disagreement.
Interestingly, the developer seems to inadvertently (I assume) be making the case for Mono dependent applications being removed from a default install in his final point in the “Why it is not a threat” section:
The layering of escape routes is extensive in Mono, especially Mono in Debian/Ubuntu. In the first instance, the contentious Microsoft-sourced non-ISO libraries such as System.Windows.Forms are not included by default, and are rarely used in Free applications anyway (because WinForms looks like ass, amongst other things). If a reason is found to remove these non-standardised libraries, then bam, they’re gone – without harming Free apps. Secondly, if a more severe change is required, then the Mono packages can be patched to remove the infringement. If more drastic changes are required, as mentioned above, then the applications can also be patched to support any core changes. And, taking it one step further, if the whole of Mono needs to be pulled, then applications can be ported. The porting process would potentially be slow and painful, and cause great harm to an application’s future rate of development (although no worse than if the app was written in the target language from day one), but nobody who has written an app they care about would simply throw their hands in the air and say “never mind, it was fun, but the Man says I have to stop now”.
The user’s post is emotional and from the heart. As a user myself I believe this perspective should not be regarded in any way less important or valuable than the technical position; both are just as valid.
The bone of contention for me is Mono. I remove it. I don’t like it. I refuse to use it. It rubs me the wrong way. Anything that starts with Microsoft and goes via the sellout, Novell, cannot be good.
I know that Microsoft is opposed to the existence of Linux. That have said so, often and stridently. I know that Novell caved in and did not stand up for FOSS when they had the chance. They have since apologized, sort of, but the damage is done. Other companies did not follow suit, including Red Hat and Canonical. I respect them for this as much as I detest Novell for selling us down the drain.
My perspective on the Mono thing is from that of a user and not a developer. I really fail to see why anyone would want to build new applications on top of a framework that has so many unanswered questions and causes so much angst in the community as a whole. We have plenty of other solutions that are – if not 100% free from controversy – certainly far less likely to end up requiring the kind of backtracking or complete re-writing that Jo describes above.
I think the problem many of us have with Mono will not go away, irrespective of what, or how much, the developers say. When I first removed Mono from Ubuntu back on Hardy, I did not know, nor had read anything about the Mono controversy before. It was simply an “itch I wanted to scratch”. I was unhappy with Mono being in my desktop OS for non-technical and personal reasons. I tried removing it and found that it worked so I wrote a post on how to remove Mono from Hardy. What amazed me was the huge surge in traffic to my lowly blog and the number of comments it attracted. That was in August last year.
The fact is that there are many, many “users” of Linux who simply do not want Mono dependant applications to be included by default in their distribution of choice: Ubuntu. The opinion of developers that Mono is great – as Jo so eloquently says himself – in the end carries little or no weight with users:
Why Mono is desirable
That’s a question which depends on whom is being asked.
If you’re asking a user, then the answer is “it’s not”, any more than a Scheme compiler or LOLCODE interpreter.
If you’re asking a developer, then the answer is VERY different…
Mono clearly provides a useful and good tool for developers to [ahem] develop things, but there are many other less controversial solutions which are as independent from Microsoft as it is possible to be. Surely these should be chosen over a framework that carries so much baggage and ill-feeling? Fedora are moving in that direction and appear to be picking up users at Ubuntu’s expense.
In short, I strongly believe Mono and applications that depend on it should reside in Multiverse and not in Main.
Finally, I think this sums up what many feel about Mono (A re-phrase one of Steve Ballmer’s most famous quotes):
“Linux Mono is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.”
Speedtest meme
He we go then seeing as everyone else is at it. My speed would have been at least half this before I installed the i-plate:
The Ubuntu UK Podcast
A couple of evenings ago we were invited to come and talk about what we do with the team who put together the Ubuntu UK Podcast.
For those who do not know, the team are: Laura Cowen, Ciemon Dunville, Alan Pope, Tony Whitmore and Dave Walker, and a couple of friendly cats. The podcast is an Ubuntu UK Community production and aims:
“… to provide current, topical information about, and for, Ubuntu Linux users the world over. We cover all aspects of Ubuntu Linux and Free Software and appeal to everyone from the newest user to the oldest coder, from the command line to the latest GUI.
Because the show is produced by the Ubuntu UK community, the podcast is covered by the Ubuntu Code of Conduct and will therefore be suitable for all.”
We were made very welcome and even given seats!
They organise the podcast recording session in a more professional way than I had envisaged. They had a big telly showing the running order and some of the content to be read (although for some reason Dave seems to ignore this and just says whatever his notebook tells him) and they had lots of PCs running Ubuntu and even more wires, cables, microphones and other paraphernalia strewn about Tony’s living room.
The recording experience itself was fine and fairly painless apart from one awkward moment where Dave put me on the spot regarding Mono. I hadn’t expected that to come up and I wasn’t really sure that the podcast was the right forum so I stumbled around and then bailed out rather pathetically (hopefully that bit will be magically edited away). But anyway, seeing as we had met most of them before at various events and shows it was a friendly and jovial atmosphere.
Anyway, the podcast is now online (I am listening to it now) so go and grab it and the previous podcasts to be entertained and educated.
Many thanks to the UUPC team for inviting us. We thoroughly enjoyed taking part.
PS: Next time you meet Dave, ask him to pronounce Okular and Rants
