Colin Charles Agenda

Aza Raskin from Mozilla, spoke largely about usability and user interface design. Judging from his Wikipedia entry, he’s been doing this for a long time and is very passionate about interfaces. It was very hard to see his slides (noted problem, too much sunlight), so I just attempted to make random bits of notes from his talk. His slides, may or may not be available, but he did mention that searching for a talk titled “Don’t Make Me Click”, was the basis for his LugRadio Live USA talk. Turns out, it was a Google Tech Talk, available on Youtube - Don’t Make Me Click (~65 minutes). Now for the sparse notes…

You already use a command line interface. Typed pine before? Or slrn? Now you just type gmail.com or nytimes.com. This is an interesting analogy… the command line and the location bar.

Intuitiveness vs. ease of use? There’s a difference. The iPhone interface isn’t exactly intuitive, but with all the advertising available around, when you got one, you knew what to do, and you got ease of use.

“Don’t copy, do something else”

1. Interface design is about how your software is used.
2. Usability is architectural (pretty interfaces/devices, you will use better)
3. Well designed command lines are good for usability. “Your users don’t know what features they want” - architect well, for your user. Learn a lot from Microsoft Word print dialog (which allows you to choose which pages to print)
4. Don’t blindly copy, find another box to think in
5. Don’t design separately for users and experts. Make things intuitive for all

Technorati Tags: lugradio, lugradio live usa, aza raskin, usability, interfaces, mozilla

The very brave soul, was Aaron Bockover, from the Banshee media player fame (via the LugRadio Live USA 2008 weblog). There were a few interesting highlights from these gong-a-thong sessions…

Zumastor
Dan Kegel spoke about the Zumastor Linux Storage Project. Want snapshots and remote replication in your Linux filesystem? This one does just that. From the contributor list, it looks like its all Google engineers hacking on this… Yes, this is better than LVM. No, I haven’t tried it yet.

mod_ndb
J.D. Duncan spoke about mod_ndb. Here are my transcribed notes of the talk.

MySQL Cluster is a database designed to be fault tolerant, on cheap commodity hardware. Write SQL queries, and they access the data from the NDB nodes. A few deficiencies in web applications - 2 tier architecture (from PHP to MySQL), now it becomes a 3-tier architecture (PHP->MySQL->NDB). MySQL 5.0 also limited - no true VARCHARs, and entirely in memory. There are variable linked rows, VARCHARs support, and on disk support in 5.1.

Apache web server, link in mod_ndb in httpd.conf file, write something that looks like a SQL query, then you send a GET/DELETE/POST request to Apache (its a REST API). If its a GET, the data can come out of the database as JSON, XML, etc. From a browser, its as simple as an XMLHTTP request call.

Solomon Chang’s Irish Ballad
Folk at the MySQL Conference 2007 would remember active community member Solomon Chang. In fact, if you’ve read The MySQL 5.1 Cluster DBA Certification Guide, you’d also recognise the name.

Solomon went up on stage to entertain us with an Irish ballad. He used to be involved with an Irish woman, and has got the skills to mimic the accent really well, and make funny tunes. Solomon won a Neuros OSD for his efforts.

Technorati Tags: dan kegel, zumastor, mod_ndb, j.d. duncan, mysql cluster, apache, solomon chang

I paid great attention to Ian Murdock’s talk at LugRadio Live USA 2008, as he’s an important person at Sun in terms of the open source community, and I’m community facing as well. It was also the first time I got to meet Ian (after his talk), and we hit off a conversation really quickly. I look forward to working alongside Ian more… Now to the talk notes.

A Bit About Ian
- Linux user, developer, and advocate since 1993
- Founder of Debian, co-founder of Progeny
- Joined Sun in March 2007, Chief OS strategist (launched Project Indiana), and now since February 2008 is VP Developer and Community Marketing

What’s a Linux guy doing at Sun?
- When people say they want Linux… they don’t actually mean that they want Linux. You don’t only want the kernel, but you want the userspace as well. You really want a distribution, not Linux itself. Ian is more of an open source guy. So create a business model behind OpenSolaris?
- Solaris ships all userland utilities you’d expect from Linux. GNU Utilities vs. UNIX Utilities. Where the real differentiation is, is Linux Kernel vs. Solaris Kernel.
- Its the kernel where you drive change for the OS. Look at ZFS, Dtrace, containers, etc.
- Linux has multiple configurable platforms with expanding ecosystems. OpenSolaris, is an integrated operating system, with binary compatibility.
- Where Sun wants to go with OpenSolaris? Have binary compatibility in the core platform, and have the expanding ecosystem in it.
- Project Indiana has Solaris innovation with the “distribution” model of the Linux world, i.e. have package repositories. Also, to close the “familiarity gap” so that there is a GNU userland, a package management system, etc. And of course, focus on the unique Solaris capabilities - upgrade rollback via ZFS snapshots, AMP stack with integrated DTrace probes (MySQL in OpenSolaris Developer Preview 2 already has this capability), binary compatibility, etc.
- Remember, people deploy what’s accessible to them. This is a whole new deployment model. This is how Linux got into the Enterprise. This is the reasoning behind OpenSolaris… Solaris itself is great in the Enterprise, but lacks a user community. Follow the Linux (and largely, Microsoft) model…
- One Solaris Platform, two delivery mechanisms - Solaris: enterprise class, support, long release cycle (3-5 years); OpenSolaris: latest Solaris innovations, short release cycle (6 months), much easier to use, network economy, support from Sun also
- Adoption-Led Market is what its at now. Users become customers. Give users something of value. That’s the basic business model at Sun, around open source.
- Volume drives value! New consumers/communities on the network will drive infrastructure demand. Reach the developer community through massive volume, get it in use as many places as possible, then sell software/storage/servers/services/etc.
- Just spent $1 billion on MySQL. Databases are often deployed on other middleware, say identity management. Sun sells identity management software.
- Developer platforms of choice are moving up the stack. Traditional Sun platforms are increasingly invisible infrastructure. New platforms remove barriers to entry and hide complexity so developers can focus on getting to market quickly.
- Remember, no one “owns” the web. The Web 2.0 world is like open source in the 90s.
- Hot new platforms are silos - you write your application to Google APIs or Amazon APIs and there’s only one place to deploy it. Sun is a leader in open standards for 25 years, how do you take this leadership into the new platform world? One needs the ability to deploy on a number of different platforms, and take your application from one to another. Sun strategy?
- Where do down the stack technologies, like operating systems, fit? Do they still matter? Yes.
- Solaris 10 is free today (you just have to register to get it)

On the packaging system
- OpenSolaris package system is new. Needed to build own for a few reasons, despite studying apt/yum/conary.
1) platform is very different from Linux; use ZFS and you get rollback, and this is Solaris specific
2) zones/containers, single shared kernel, multiple application environments, which is intelligent for resource sharing, and the package system is fundamentally aware of zones
3) an opportunity to innovate; Sun’s all about innovation. Package managers haven’t changed much in over 10 years (apt, yum)
4) the notion of customisation, i.e. have a version control like facility for patches, etc. so that changes can be reconciled when you rebase with upstream, is something the new package management system can use. This is kind of like Conary?
5) All customers tend to customise, even (especially) in Enterprises. IPS helps them (refer to 4)

Questions & Answers
- OpenSolaris and Solaris, how is it in sync? Codebase is in sync, generally. Solaris 10 is one codebase, and there’s a development version (i.e. the next release). There is a Solaris “train” and an OpenSolaris train now. How will these two trains come together? Solaris Next based on OpenSolaris? OpenSolaris with Enterprise support? Questions that are being asked now, and there’s no real decision yet. Wait till 2-3 OpenSolaris releases first, before finding out more.
- What is Sun doing to make OpenSolaris work better in a virtualized environment? I.e. working better in Xen, QEMU, VMWare, etc. Linux naturally has better device support than OpenSolaris, so virtualization is very important. Mentions the innoTek purchase, so that VirtualBox could be used for bundle delivery.
- Is Linux and OpenSolaris in par, security wise? Solaris has a slight edge at this point… They’re fairly comparable, but there’s more maturity in the Solaris product.
- OpenSolaris on PowerPC - unknown status, there’s been some work at Sun Labs to port it to PPC, you can boot it and do some basic things, but unsure if its ready for users or not.

Technorati Tags: lugradio, lugradio live usa, ian murdock, sun, opensolaris, linux, distributions, IPS, packaging system

Miguel de Icaza from the Mono project, tells us more about Moonlight, and where the Mono project is headed, at LugRadio Live USA 2008.

- shows us about Silverlight 1.1 (Moonlight is the Mono equivalent)
- works a charm in Firefox, but there’s issues with the implementation in IE (something JavaScript related)
- Demos the chess application
- Microsoft will provide a Media Pack (they will incur the licensing costs for the media codecs) for all Moonlight users on Linux. Microsoft will also provide regression test suites, and complete specifications for implementation. Novell will deliver a 100% compatible Moonlight and will support it on all major Linux distributions (contractually, only the top 3 Linux distributions - no mention of what the top 3 are). This is the Microsoft/Novell agreement, as of last September 2007.
- The codecs come with a restriction - you can’t use it outside Moonlight. Its only for the in-browser experience. If you use Totem, you’ll need to make use of gstreamer, etc…
- The MSPL is better than the X11 license. Miguel would like to change the Mono license to the MSPL, but everyone that hates him now, will hate him more because of the “Microsoft” substring! Why is the MSPL better? It has a patent clause, so that the code you use there, if covered by a patent, you will not be sued, ever. That in a way, is similar to the Apache license.
- Self-contained applications - traditional GNU software is spread out, quite unlike Mac OS X applications where you drag an application into the Applications folder, and everything is contained in one directory. Mono has an application guideline, where everything is also in one directory.
- Like all good demos, something broke. Miguel starts debugging on stage, and fixes the problem, and the demo works!
- “Programmers have no taste for design”
- “I have a roadmap, but I don’t think anyone gives a fuck, so lets just go to questions”
- How long will it take to get mixed-mode assembly working? If you are Chris Toshok, it will take 2 weeks. If you’re not, definitely longer. He spoke to Dan Kegel from the WINE project :) Patches are being accepted… The aim is to allow WINE to run Windows applications on a fully open source stack

Technorati Tags: lugradio, lugradio live usa, miguel de icaza, mono, moonlight, microsoft, patents, media pack, licensing, codecs, mspl, wine

An interesting morning for me. I woke up, had breakfast at the Hilton Concierge Lounge (complimentary, seeing that I’m on the Executive floor), and decided to find my way, by public transport, to downtown San Francisco, from Santa Clara. Boy was I surprised as to how inane everything was: I spent about 2.5 hours travelling on a light rail (VTA), then a Caltrain, and finally a BART. I almost finished a book I was reading, all on public transport. Talk about a commute.

Anyway, arrived at LugRadio Live USA, registered (paid my paltry $10 in cash, since their credit card provider was wonky), and started the day with great talks. Some quick notes about the conference itself, and then my notes shall follow soon.

• Turns out its very hard to see the screen, because of all the sunlight that was coming in. The Metreon is a great place, but the light hitting the projector screen was a real issue.
• Lack of power everywhere, was a bit of a bummer. Tech conferences, laptops, one must charge one’s laptop!
• When they recorded an episode of LugRadio Live and Unleashed, they looked for the folk that came the farthest - at first, it seemed like only Stewart (Melbourne) and I (Kuala Lumpur) were standing. Then two others from Kiev and Moscow stood up. Turns out we all walked away with a copy of The Ubuntu Book as a prize. Nice :)
• Google was a major sponsor of the entire event. Kudos to them, the stuff was great.
• Saw a PostgreSQL booth (and caught up with Josh Berkus). Saw an OpenSolaris booth, and learnt a bit more about IPS. Even managed to sneak a chat with Ian Murdock, about IPS, Sun, and so on. Most interesting. Wished for a OpenOffice.org, MySQL, and even Fedora booth, which were nowhere to be seen.
• Lunch was at the food court. MySQL’er JD Duncan introduced me to some amazing pizza.
• We saw a streaker, during the Gong-A-Thong. OK, not a streaker, just a guy, in his underwear hitting the gong. I’m sure pictures of this will be online soon enough.
• Dinner? Cha-Ya. 16th and Mission (BART stop), probably closer to 18th and Valencia (by memory). Vegan Japanese food. Interesting, even the ice cream was made of soy.

All in all, great networking event. Whole day spent meeting new folk, speaking to old friends, and so on. Definitely worth the trip.

Remember the problem with public transport in San Francisco/Santa Clara? The BART/Caltrain/VTA all stop at midnight. Useless. Your only options are an expensive cab ride back, or sleeping on the street (don’t even dream of a hotel in downtown SF, they’re all booked out).

Technorati Tags: lugradio, lugradio live usa, public transport, san francisco, santa clara, california