Dusty's Diverse Domain

After far too many delays, I’ve finally shipped all the outstanding case badge orders. The badges arrived today, after a delay in production and mailing, and all envelopes have been packaged; they’ll be in the mail tomorrow. I spent a lot of time stuffing envelopes this evening!

I would like to apologize to everyone who has been waiting for badges; the preorder form has been up since early December. I originally said they’d be shipping in early January, and a 1.5 month delay is truly unacceptable. Thanks to everyone for their patience; I will try to perform better in the future. I’ve certainly learned not to rely on shipping estimates!

The new badges are a more modern looking than the old ones; I’ll try to update the pictures on http://schwag.archlinux.ca/ tomorrow.

Last September I posted about Arch Bounty, a project I’d written to allow people to post ‘bounties’ to have specific ArchLinux bugs fixed. I didn’t promote it and interest faded quickly. I’ve been thinking of pulling the plug on it for a while now, but it happened unexpectedly yesterday when I accidentally killed half a dozen of the sites on my webhost. I’ve recovered most of them, but I decided that ArchBounty won’t be coming back.

There was one donation to the project; I will be forwarding it directly to the Arch Linux Donations fund.

I’d like to announce the arrival of Arch Linux Pens to the Schwag shop. These are nicer than I imagined, very opulent’ I’m very happy with them and hope you will be too.

Pens are deep blue and gold with “Arch Linux” and “www.archlinux.org” engraved on them. They have a soft black grip and fine ball-point black ink. They are available for $5 individually, or as low as $3.50 in bulk.

Order them now from http://schwag.archlinux.ca/product/pen/.

In the so-called “copyright wars,” we see a spectrum having the MPAA, RIAA, Jack Valenti, and “all rights reserved” on one side, with the Pirate Parties, Pirate Bay, Rick Falkvinge, and “no rights reserved” on the other side. In the middle, we have Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig, and “some rights reserved”.

I’d like to momentarily expand this line to one that places “no rights reserved” in the middle, in a way that shifts Lessig closer to Valenti, and opens up a whole new area of creative exploration beyond the pirates, who are no longer extremists.

First, a disclaimer: I don’t claim to have any answers. I don’t even believe what I’m suggesting is the right path. I am simply suggesting an idea that frames a long-standing and long-term discussion in a different light.

The spectrum above defines the opposite of a right as “the absense of a right.” This only goes halfway. The opposite of a right is a responsibility.

Image, for a moment, a society where there is no such thing as, “the right to my creation,” but there is a massive, “responsibility to create.” In this society, people would have free access to all the materials of the world, all the patents, blueprints, and software, all the films, songs, and books, all the photos, paintings, and sketches the world has ever seen. In exchange for this free access, individuals would be required (responsible) to create a certain amount of new material every year. Some of this material would be innovative and fresh, some would be a new presentation of old stories and ideas, some of it would be interpretations of those old stories in new media. We’d see new designs for existing products, we’d see new products that merge old technologies. We’d see Android phones with iphone gestures, and we’d see Mickey Mouse saving Princess Peach from the evil Bowser the Hedgehog.

Such a world may excite some, bore others, and scare many. Would these same people be less excited, bored, or scared by the Pirate Party? by Creative Commons? Maybe those deals aren’t so bad after all (to those demanding rights)… or maybe they aren’t so good (to the promoters of creativity).

This responsibility to create idea seems radical in the context of entertainment media, but it is not new. It’s a long-standing scientific tradition, best encompassed by Newton’s overused quote about giants. Academics have “free” access to the entire compendium of academic knowledge; in exchange for this access, they are expected (responsible) to generate new ideas and innovations. Some are good and some are bad, but if a scientist neglects to publish a few new papers a year, they fade from the academic community.

This idea is also an unofficial motivator in open source communities. Within the Arch Linux community, my home, I’ve made some effort recently to verbalize this norm. The story goes thus: Arch Linux has had contributions from many thousands of users. Each of us that uses the distribution is somehow indebted to all those other users. Further, we can never, as individuals, pay off the debt in its entirety. Even the well-known user with 8000 posts on the forum, thousands of package updates to his name, and dozens of Arch Linux tools under his belt has contributed but a drop in the bucket compared to the efforts of the entire community. And Aaron is aware of this debt. So should we all be.

Yes, in the academic and open source world, the implied responsibility to create is known to work. Creativity in both worlds spreads more quickly than anywhere else. Compare to the communities creating ideas whose soul purpose is entertainment. Even the liberated Jamendo is mired way over in the (Some) Rights Reserved end of the scale.

I promised last month that pre-orders on pens, case badges, and laptop stickers would be filling early in the New Year.

All three of these items are coming from different suppliers, and all three of them are late. I am still expecting all of them “any day now,” but I wanted to let anyone waiting for their items know that there’s going to be a bit more of a delay than I expected. I have about 40 orders outstanding, and I will try to fill them all as quickly as possible as the supplier orders arrive.

Items shipping from Zazzle, and other Arch Schwag items including Jewellery, wooden sculptures, and laptop bags should continue shipping on their normal schedules.

You might think things have been pretty quiet on the Arch Schwag front lately, but behind the scenes a lot has been happening. As always, I’m constantly looking for new concepts to place on t-shirts and other mechandise at the Zazzle Schwag Shop, so let me know what you’ve got!

In addition, I’ve finally reordered the very popular Arch Linux Case Badges. I don’t have them in stock yet, but any orders made now should be shipping in the new year.

More excitement: I have finally tracked down a supplier for laptop stickers featuring the “Powered by Arch Linux/Keep It Simple” logo. These have previously been available on round and bumper stickers from Zazzle that you have to cut out yourself, but there have been plenty of inquiries for “real laptop stickers.” They will be available very soon; I should be receiving them by the new year as well, and will try to put a preorder page up before Christmas.

Finally, there is one more new product coming available around New Year’s. I’ve ordered a batch of elegant Arch Linux pens that should, technically, have arrived by now! I guess mail is slow at this time of year. I don’t have any photos available yet, but they, too, will be available for preorder very soon.

I’d also like to add that the Arch Linux Handbook has sold more than 150 copies since I introduced it in October, and is continuing to average more than one book per day. This is so much more than I originally projected that I am thoroughly overwhelmed by this community’s support and generosity. Also, to all the people who have purchased the Handbook, if you find any errors in it, please submit corrections to the Beginner’s Guide in the wiki, from which it is derived.

I don’t like it when blog authors write a blog post and then later write a new related post and point an “update” link to the old post. So if this post looks familiar, it’s because I’ve revised to with some new data. It’s mostly chronological, so the newest info is at the end, but I’m not above editing my own content.

One of my missions in life is to meet as many Arch Linux developers as possible, and more than any other human being. I’m already well on my way, and was able to add to my list recently.

In the past, I’ve met Jason Chu, aka Xentac, one of the earlier adopters of Arch Linux, all round good guy, and most relevantly, the man currently holding the, “Tell Dusty he’s wrong,” record. We met up with Tobias Kieslich (neri) and Judd Vinet (yes, I met the founder!) for drinks and ramblings. That was several years ago. I’ve met Jason and Tobias a few more times since.

In November, 2008, I took a job with a Montreal company in November, which yielded an evening out with Eric Bélanger, more commonly referred to as (the fractal) Snowman.

This March, I had a terrific time at pycon including a (late) evening out with Simo Leone (Neotuli), Dan McGee (toofishes) and Aaron Griffin (the mighty phrakture), overlord of all that is Archly. To my knowledge, this was the first time four Arch devs were together in North America.

In May, I was able to spend a few hours with Kevin Piche. I was visiting Ottawa for PGCon, where I was a bit of an outsider, but Kevin and I were able to meet up for miscellaneous — sometimes Arch-related — discussions. Baked Brie and Poutine make terrific appetizers.

I left Toronto in July, 2009, but before leaving, I met up with Travis Willard (Cerebral), a retired Arch Linux developer. We watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Live Blog and were chased into his house by inclement weather when we tried to barbecue.

Now, I visited my sister in Victoria again last week, (November, 2009), and managed to convince Judd, Tobias, and Jason to join me for beers again. In addition, a little pressure on Thayer and Libby brought them over from Vancouver, and our party grew to a total of six.

This brings me to today. My sister is moving back to Saskatchewan now, with a long road trip down the US coast including a stop in Portland. I had the chance to meet the inimitable Eli(ott) Janssen, better known as Cactus. He quietly mentioned that he tried some poutine recently, though claims it isn’t as good as tacos.

So, counting my own reflection in the mirror, I’ve now been lucky enough to meet, in person, 13 Arch Linux contributors! I’m sure ArchCon will allow me to expand my pool. I want to add the few remaining North American developers (Dale, Don, Jeff, and Paul) to my list, then I’ll have to do an Australian tour to meet my favourite Aussies (you know who you are). Eventually a tour through Europe and South America will round out my collection. Then I’ll have to start all over, because so far I’ve met a bunch of terrific people who need to be seen more than once!

With a bit of discussion and a quick one-click deploy of a wordpress CMS, ArchCon 2010 turned from a “maybe we should do this,” into a “Let’s do it and see what happens.”

That’s right, folks, A few of us (and hopefully you’ll join us, we need more organizers!) are planning an Arch Linux Conference. Details are sketchy at this time, but we have a website, a location (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), and a timeframe (July 2010). We’re working out the details, and if anybody else wants to help work out details, we need the help.

Right now, we need presenters. If you have any ideas for a topic you can present at ArchCon, please let us know. We have a Call For Proposals open, but that basically entails “send your ideas to me and we’ll probably let you present.” Good presentation topics are a key to ArchCon’s success, and I believe each and every one of us have at least one good talk in us. So what’s your talk?

Hope to see you at ArchCon 2010, both as an attendee and a presenter or tutorial leader. Help us get this off the ground!

Several years ago, I was honoured by an invite from Judd Vinet, Arch Linux Founder, to join the Arch Linux development team as Documentor. I did the job for a while, helped start and fill our first wiki, got bored, and resigned. I continued in the Arch Community doing notable activities like forum administration and moderation, and wiki maintenance.

Then, Aaron Griffin, current Arch Linux Overlord, posted a need for an Arch Developer to handle the Django projects for internal development and the Arch Linux website. I’m a Django coder, so I volunteered for the job. I cleaned up the code, ported us to Djngo 1.0 (and later, 1.1), implemented a few features, maintained some mirrors, got bored, and resigned.

Yes, this weekend, I resigned my position as Arch Linux developer, joining an elite group of ex-developers for the second time.

I do a lot of Django development by day, and found that I am less and less inclined to do more of it for Arch Linux in my free time. So I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m not dropping involvement in Arch, as I’m still maintaining and improving the product lines of Arch Linux Schwag. I’m also hoping to promote Arch Bounty and see it take off. Finally, I’m working with ralvez to organize an ArchCon this summer (more on this soon).

So I’m not cutting back my involvement at all, just switching to things that are currently interesting to me. I’m well-known for insisting that being an Arch Linux developer and being an Arch Linux community member are one and the same thing. The development team focuses on core Arch Linux issues and technical issues, stuff I was once interested in, but not currently. The community is left to deal with meta-projects, and I’ve got lots of those on the go right now.

So I hope I’m setting an example by stepping down: Being an Arch Linux developer doesn’t make you important, it isn’t an elite position. What makes you important is contributing to Arch Linux in any way. You are an elite member of a very powerful team if you’ve ever filed a bug report, answered a forum question, created a wrapper script, hosted your own repo, or edited the wiki.

Because of this, I’m not sad to leave the Arch Development Core. I’ve quit before, and I suspect I’ll be joining some of my best friends and most respected software developers when a core project takes my fancy once again. In the meantime, I’m a powerful community member and contributor, just like you.

Arch Linux was invented in Canada by a guy called Judd. I want everyone to remember that. Why? Because if the great taco vs poutine war ever turns bloody, we must remember our roots.

Also, I’d like to announce a new Arch Linux community, the bringing Arch Linux home community, the community for Canadian Archers:

http://bbs.archlinux.ca/

I dunno what we’ll discuss. If you need help, the official forums are the best place to get it, so my thinking is this is a forum for Canadian socializing (and plans of world domination, something most Canadians are not aware we should be trying to achieve). Huge communities like the Arch Linux community are great, I love it and am proud to be part of it. But smaller communities are also nice because you can get to know individuals better, and have more in common.

It’s not closed to non-Canadians, but if you don’t know how to properly use ‘eh’ in a sentence, can’t form a good snowball, think tacos are better than poutine, or believe hockey is a silly sport, you probably won’t fit in.