User behaviour in the open and closed source world, and why I use Free Software

Posted on 27/06/2008 by myriam

Funny how people behave sometimes:

I remember from the times I was still in the Closed Source user fraction, I sometimes send bug reports and/or wishes which were simply ignored, as I was a insignificant small user, not investing much money into software, although from a private user perspective, it still was a horrific amount: I remember having payed sFr. 4000.- on AshtonTates Framework 3 when it was released, as well as more than sFr. 1200.- for a complete MS-Office Suite quite some years ago. Years later the school was offered license packages for their computers which made software a bit more accessible for us teachers, but still we payed for. I know for sure that the bugs we filed from the school software were as ignored as my previous private user ones, ditto for the wishes. Occasionally we had some security updates where we sometimes discovered that the security hole had been there since years, but we were still happy to have it finally fixed. On the whole, we were just the cattle supposed to use the software as is and pay money for so the bosses could get rich.

When I discovered Free Software, it was a whole new word: bug reports and/or wishes were answered most of the time, especially if one did the homework exploring the bug databases looking for duplicates. Although the answers were not always what one expected and not always very polite, at least I was sure that someone had read it and reacted to it. I didn’t have to pay by default but could make donations if I was pleased with the software I got. It was a whole new user experience, something quite a lot of the users still in the Closed Source world would love to experience. I had and still have a tremendous respect for those Free Software developers who listen to the users (most of the time), and I feel respected as a user. Of course, as with most of the Free Software around, it exists mainly because the developer made it to suit her/his needs, occasionally integrating user wishes because they fit in the whole. One doesn’t have to use this particular software but can choose form more than one for the same task (remember, once upon a time in the other world we had no choice).

One thing that is not known from (or not thought of by) most of the users: if they want a particular feature that can not be integrated by default because of lack of time/money/whatever, they can pay a developer to integrate it. The source is free and can be modified by a skilled developer, so every user can find someone he pays to work on that feature. Of course I’m talking about reasonable features that do not demand years of work and can be done within that particular project.

The world is changing all the time. You get aware of it when you look in the mirror: you change too within time, even if it’s only on the outside :-) . The way we use computers has changed a lot in the last 30 years (yes, I use computers since 30 years!), and most of the time the integration of new ways was made in the Free Software world before the Closed Source one. I remember database software existing and working smoothly in the *nix world long before the MS-world or the Mac-world. Ditto for the security features for private data or internet access, my first Linux computer back in 1998 was by far more secure than all the Windows PCs I had before and after that time. I switched to Free Software only in 2000 and never looked back with regret, but then, I might be a bit more geeky than others and have never been afraid to read a manual (does this qualify for geekness BTW?). Still, in the pharmacy, for various reasons not always clear to my little pharmacist’s mind we still use Closed Source software on closed operating systems and I sometimes feel desperate at the lack of usability and features in this environment as I’m used to so much more possibilities in my new world.

I’m very pleased to see that the progress is still going on in my world, KDE 4 is showing brilliantly how the way we use computers is changing and how Free Software is not staying behind. Of course, there will always be those who don’t like changes and refuse to follow progress because it forces them to integrate new concepts in their already quite narrow mind. And yes, changes do not always go smoothly, especially not in bleeding edge software based on new concepts and using new technology. Using a whole new technology also means that not everything we are used to from the old one is immediately available as it has to be brought to that new technology and is not working the same way as it used to. That means a lot of time investment and sleepless nights and sweat and tears on the developer’s side which sometimes the user tends to forget.

So, Thank You, Free Software Developers! I like my new modern and shiny world :)

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It has been a while..

Posted on 26/06/2008 by myriam

since my last blog here. But sometimes life just prevents you from doing quite a few things.

Anyway,update:

The last year I was busy at work, health was almost good (besides a minor accident in December and a heavy cough that lasted for about 2 month and survived 2 out of 3 antibiotics. But then, that’s supposed to happen when you have a transplant and take immunesupressive drugs, doesn’t it?). Private live has changed too, living with my boyfriend since December. I try to get a few things done in my free time, like giving a hand in the Amarok project (promotion, bug fixing, etc.) and exploring the shiny new KDE 4 desktop on Kubuntu 8.04.

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Sometimes Im really fed up with..

Posted on 31/05/2008 by myriam

..those “Neinsagers” who permanently complain about KDE4. That’s what I wrote today on the Kubuntu mailing list, after a recurrent complaint about KDE4:

Don’t compare apples with pears, please!
KDE4 is still in heavy development, and it never has been announced to be finished yet, so please give the developers time to polish that!
Don’t forget that, as with Firefox 3, there was a choice to be made to be included in the LTS and other upcoming releases of distributions
like OpenSuSE etc. and to be able to upgrade in the standard package sources.

If you can’t run KDE4 decently then you must have a problem with your installation that usually is sorted out with a clean install (one
mayor reason why /home should be on a separate partition BTW). I run KDE4 since before KDE 4.0.3. on my very old Acer laptop (like 3+
years) and can use close to every app I need.

Also, there is a change in the way computers will work in the future and how GUIs are designed, based on intense usability research, a
change you can see the beginning of in KDE4. What do you expect, that developers stay behind mayor evolution in desktop design? Of course
there will always be those who don’t like changes, and nobody forces you to use KDE 4, KDE 3.5.9 is still around and will be around for
quite some time, so make your mind up and try to understand what the computers of the 21st century will look like or stay put with the “old
way”.

And if you read a little info coming from the developers, be this on kde.org or planetkde.org, you might eventually change your mind and
understand why KDE 4 is at the current state. Gnome is not near in ages to that GUI changes we need to do to catch up with the modern
world :)

Well, the last sentence is a bit bold as I have no insight in the current Gnome development, and I would not be astonished if they were on the same ways for coming releases. Please correct me if my statements are false or incorrect…

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Paris – night 1

Posted on 16/07/2006 by myriam

Sorry for the delay in blogging about UDS, but a week of "doing nothing" was wellcome and necessary :-) Unfortunately real life also came back far too early and an unusual work load in pharmacy prevented my blogging so far.

Monday night we (Belinda, Anthon and Scott) were out for dinner in the village where we ate some french food: "Gigot d’agneau" (lamb with mixed salad and fries) was in my plate and, well, quite good. Unfortunately wine was not very good: too young and very acid. We decide to go back to the Radisson for a drink and had the quite unpleasant surprise to learn that one beer was €9 ! Excuse me, this is not the Ritz AFAIK ! After some discussions we decided to buy some drinks in a shop. Loaded the dinner folks plus 2 KDE people (Aaron and Sebastian) into my car and tried to find an open shop… it was already way past 9 o’clock so we headed towards Paris. After a first try in a shop where nothing alcoholic was available we managed to find an open liquor store and my passengers went to buy some beer and wine, but came back without wine (/me not very lucky obviously) but french and dutch beer and even a bottle of some harder stuff, e.g. vodka. The drive was very, very funny, especially having Aaron on board who is not only a brilliant writer but also a witty entertainer :-) But then, me (after dinner with wine) behind the wheel and another 5 funny bones in the car could have been reason enough to be stopped by some patrol car. The drive was hilarious as we either had to follow an overloaded truck at 10 km/h for ages or found the motorway entry blocked on the way back from St-Denis, already fearing to get lost in french countryside in the middle of the night.

Back at our hotel we sat together in the lobby chatting and drinking …  still loaded with adrenaline from the day,  sleep was not something we were thinking of very much. I remember going to bed around 4 in the morning !

And of course, "9 sharp" was mandatory, but I managed to get up in time and was at the Radisson at 8:45.

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UDS – Paris – Day 1

Posted on 20/06/2006 by myriam

We rise early enough to be at the Radisson for 9 o’clock. Some 10 or 11 round tables wait for developpers to gather around and UDS specs are presented from top to bottom by those who filed them. This takes about 2 hours after what all the others present themselves to the audience. During specs presentation I try to find some interresting ones, so I end up with a quite impressive list of some 15 specifications I might try to help out. Remember: I am _not_ a developper !

(What am I doing here anyway ?)

There really is an impressive list of great names some might have heard of. Check the specifications list to get some ideas what we are working on. Well, ideally this list should turn from Braindump to Review or even Approved by the end of the week.

 I subscribed today for "What do NonGeeks want ?" and had a very nice braindump session with some very interresting folks. Before that I stayed at my initial table and tried to find my way to work with "Quieten Grub" specification.

Actually, all sessions are on Gobby server where one can join the party from the outside world, so check this if you want to collaborate.

And, of course, there also is some critics from the FSFE fellow I am:

Besides the fact that Launchpad actually is _not_ Free Software, there is no other way to participate, well one can read on your neighbours laptop, but this somehow keeps you out of touch with the ongoing work.

But there is worse to come:

There also is VOIP in use and TeamSpeak is an affliction. Am I consequent enough to get my hands off and follow RMS’ advice ?

"To use non-free software will have the effect of excluding certain
participants from the discussion: those that on ethical grounds will
not install such software on their computers.  We already press hard
against e-government practices that demand citizens use non-free
software to communicate with the government.  We will do likewise if
WSIS adopts such practices.  You have only seen the beginning of it
here."

Attending "Tab Consistency" BoF afterwards showed how much VOIP could be used to integrate users from the outside, unless you manage to get it to work. I decide to give it a try…

In the afternoon I attended the "Common Customisations" session and it was quite  a… strange experience: Strangely, all the attendees around the table had their heasets on but nobody spoke. Some typed on their keyboard and I had a feeling of total exclusion. So I decided to install VOIP and the collaborative editing tool !

First I struggled to get TeamSpeak: the link to it was well hidden in a then undocumented subpage of UbuntuDeveloperSummitParis wiki page (which is well documented by now). Then I got aware I had no Gobby and installed it from the Universe repository.  At about 2/3 into BoF session I managed to join the party and spotted a thread about media players. As I sat 20 centimeters from the drafter I asked about VLC aloud: and I got te answer on Gobby typed! No external users were visible and still everyone got their headsets on in total silence. Strange…

Still, I’m not a developer nor a computer scientist of any sort, maybe I just missed the point. But using VOIP needs bandwith which is not available all around the globe at reasonable cost…

With all this new experience, Belinda and I got in touch with two other attendees staying at the Comfort Hotel and we decided to look for a decent restaurant at reasonable prices, eating at the Radisson not beeing sponsored definitely was a no go. Fortunately we found a french restaurant in the village and had a not too bad meal with a typical cheese ending :-)

 

 

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Paris – day 0

Posted on 19/06/2006 by myriam

Wow, what a trip! Weather was bright and very hot, so I was driving the whole 600 km to Paris with air conditioning on, so I must have used a lot of diesel during this trip. But more about this later …

Driving an almost new car is great, but its also dangerous to drive too fast. Although my car actually has cruise control I often forget to use it. Which I really do since my trip to France: never forget that police cars do not look the same in other countries ! So passing past dark blue cars with uniformed guys inside is _not_ a good idea at 160 km/h ! It cost me 90 € and stern looks of otherwise friendly french policemen.

Approaching Paris also meant getting into heavy clouds, lightening and raindrops the size of oranges. But as all Paris was commuting home from weekend I was stuck in traffic for the last 100 km and of course arrived pretty late at the Airport to get Belinda. With my usual luck her plane was late and she only had to wait a few minutes (at least she told me so ;-) ).

Heading to the hotel from the airport I saw my tank warning flashing which means less than 50 km to go … remember I still had air conditioning working ? We stopped at our hotel and asked the concierge where we could find some fuel. After refreshing in our room we headed for diesel and found a station, just to get aware that
a) it was not taking cards and
b) there was no other mean to get some diesel there.

So off to the next station: for all those who never have travelled in France: the countryside is lovely but also very empty, some little village here and there, nobody in the streets (France playing against South Korea) and no fuel station in the next village. Belinda spotted a Shell station when we came from the Airport so we managed to find this again: closed !. Oh but on the same street in the next village I was able to spot another station ! Saved ? no, card reader "out of order". This time I seriously began to think of whom of the Ubuntu folks I had the phone number of I was going to call, how to tell where we were (lost in lovely french countryside, somewhere north, err south? err no idea, too many clouds), that we were in desperate need of fuel and it was raining with interruptions and no, we can _not_ push our car to the next fuel station. After boldly driving uphill I suddenly spotted a Carrefour supermarket _and_ a fuel station. And oh, open 24h/24h !

So park the car next to the fuel nozzle, get out my Maestro card: "carte refusée" !!!

Oh but there is Belinda having some VISA: "carte refusée "

But, oh how lucky we are, she’s got another card: "carte refusée".

I was on the edge of tears ! They were only accepting french cards !!!

But, there, other people filling their tanks: up to the first car to ask if he could help us out if we pay him cash: blunt refuse!
Luckily, the next Frenchman was very kind and we finally got the so needed diesel and drove back to Mesnil-Amelot where the hotels are.

We drove around a while to find some nice restaurant but only saw asian or closed french ones. As we also needed to know the time schedule for Monday we went to Radisson where I came across Ogra smoking outside. Belinda and I decided to get some food there and later joined the "Ubuntists" at the bar.

BTW, find Belindas blog in trackback.

Posted in Free Software, Kubuntu, travel, Ubuntu | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Software Freedom Day in Switzerland? Call for action!

Posted on 25/05/2006 by myriam

I hope all Swiss fellows read this message: I would like to make September 16th a very special day. Since there are quite many of us it should be possible to organise a great event. I already made a wiki entry in the SFD wiki and as some of you know we have a mailing-list for the Swiss Team. Mail me if you want to be added to the mailinglist and dont hesitate to post ideas and suggestions for the SFD.
There are less than 6 months to go, so join the team and lets make September 16th a great Software Freedom Day in Switzerland !

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Fête du Libre – Geneva

Posted on 14/05/2006 by myriam

Sitting in an internet café in Geneva where the GULL – Groupe Utilisateurs Linux Léman – organises the Freedom Day: la Fête du Libre!
I’m going to speak about the FSFE, the Fellowship programm and how to help and support our work. Nice happening, althought weather is beautiful outside, but lets hope I can attract the attention despite the weather :-)

Update: nice public! Some of them are seniors who attend the Internet Café for courses and they all had interesting questions and remarks, like: “How come a pharmacist is so passionate about Free Software?” and “Great to see that we also have young people who are interested in social issues”. I like the later, as I’m used to face people who usually are surprised that “people of my age” are still interested in “young” issues!

I clearly fill the gap :-)

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FOSDEM 2006 – first day

Posted on 25/02/2006 by myriam

FOSDEM’s first day is slowly ending and here is a first attempt of a report. Let’s hope my wifi-connection stands to the end.

The booth is very large this year, we sell T-shirts on both sides and installed the info booth in the middle. As usual, web connection is very unpredictable, but luckily this morning we were able to access and read our mail during more than an hour. I try to sell on the "women"’s side, e.g. T-shirts in female sizes and often explain the Fellowship of FSFE. As usual at FOSDEM, I’m speeking mostly french, but alread came accross people from Italy, Spain and also Switzerland. Dutch would be very usefull but unfortuantely I dont speak it (yet). There are the usual runs at the booth showing the end of tracks, where our selling and explainig capacities are well used.

Today I gave an interview to a belgian TV team: they promised to get in touch before the broadcast. So get your satelite dishes ready, I’ll post the date here.
 

 

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Wilhelm Tux in Karlsruhe

Posted on 27/06/2005 by myriam

As in previous years I joined the FSF Europe fellows and volunteers in Karlsruhe, this time in company of Florian and Didier from Linuxbourg and Mario from Wilhelm Tux/Edux.

A carload of geeks, loads of chocolate and, as a special feature this year, a Raclette cheese and its tools.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and immediately found the Community booth of the FSFE in the Stadthalle where fellows from the newly founded FSF Latin America already hacked their keyboards. It was great to meet Fernanda and Beatriz whom I only knew from their mails and of course a big pleasure to see Federico again. Niibe and his friends from Japan were there too and gave us a warm welcome.

As expected, we had a lot of people asking questions about software patents issues, I don’t know how many times I answered the same questions again and again… but it was a really great job, especially with friends doing the same during this four days (and beyond).

As usual in Karlsruhe, afterwork was great fun:

The first evening we shared some Italian food where Matze, like all of us, expressed his joy to see us all together again.

On Thursday we organised the Raclette at our booth in the exposition area where also other booths held afterwork parties. Mario was very impressive as chef and made people really happy with his skills. More and more people were attracted (maybe by the smell…) and we soon run out of pickles, potatoes and white wine, but a raclette is good on its own! This was a tremendous beginning of the evening and Georg was obviously very happy,

We then moved over to the KALUG party where we shared some drinks and of course ended up singing :-)

The great evening was of course the social event on Friday which this year was hosted at the Nancyhall restaurant. There was plenty of food (there was not really enough last year), plenty to drink (much better than last year!) but also plenty of people with not enough chairs, unless one went out to the Festplatz.,, where the FSFE band gathered together and had a really great evening.

(photos provided by Mario)

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