So with all that in mind, I present my 2017-2018 Introspections... in no particular order:
Continue reading "My 2017-2018 Introspections"]]>Partly it was due to external issues. Mostly that the project and the committers were spending a lot of their time and energies battling and correcting the FUD associated around the project. Nary a week would go by without the common refrain "OpenOffice is Dead. Kill it already!" and constant (clueless) rehashes of the history between OpenOffice and LibreOffice. With all that, it is easy and understandable to see why morale within the AOO community would have been low. Which would then reflect and affect development on the project itself.
So more so than anything, what the project needed was a good ol' shot of adrenaline in the arm and some encouragement to keep the flame alive. Over the last few months this has succeeded beyond our dreams. After an admittedly way-too-long period, we finally released AOO 4.1.4. And we are actively working on not only a 4.1.5 release but also preparing plans for our 4.2.0 release.
And it's there that you can help.
Part of what AOO really wants to be is a simple, easy-to-user, streamlined office suite for the largest population of people possible. This includes supporting old and long deprecated OSs. For example, our goal is to continue to support Apple OSX 10.7 (Lion) with our 4.2.0 release. However, there is one platform which we are simply unsure about what to do, and how to handle it. And what makes it even more interesting is that it's our reference build system for AOO 4.1.x: CentOS5
Starting with AOO 4.2.0, we are defaulting to GIO instead of Gnome VFS. The problem is that CentOS5 doesn't support GIO, which means that if we continue with CentOS5 as our reference build platform for our community builds, then all Linux users who use and depend on those community builds will be "stuck" with Gnome VFS instead of GIO. If instead we start using CentOS6 as our community build server. we leave CentOS5 users in a lurch (NOTE: CentOS5 users would still be able to build AOO 4.2.0 on their own, it's just that the binaries that the AOO project supplies won't work). So we are looking at 3 options:
Which one makes the most sense? Join the conversation and the discussion on the AOO dev mailing list!
]]>Others speak because they know everything (or, much more likely, think they do!).
Others speak because they like the sound of their own voice.
And others speak because they want to shut down others speaking.
In general, which one are you?
]]>That is certainly the case with me.
As you may know, for decades I have poured my heart and soul into being deeply, actively involved in various Open Source projects and activities. But lately, some of the ones that used to be fun, simply no longer are. What used to be a group of like-minded people, working together, valuing each other, collaborating and operating with a common goal has turned for some of these projects and actvities into "putting up" with power plays, soapboxing, petty squables and a dismissive attitude towards basic common tenets and goals that, up until recently, were respected and honored. Life is too short, and my talents (as limited as they are) are too valuable to waste on such things. When an Open Source project is no longer fun to be around, there are plenty to take its place.
My advice when it comes to getting involved in Open Source has always been to Have Fun. The corrolary to that is that once it stops being fun, it's time to shake off the dust and find another place more welcoming and more inviting... and more fun. I give that advice to others, it's time to take it myself.
The positive part of all this is that it allows me more cycles and the ability to work on other things and projects and activities that I've been interested in, but have lacked the time to do. All of us involved in Open Source should do this: take an inventory of what projects you are involved in and seriously ask yourself if you are still having fun. If not, maybe it's time for a change as well.
]]>The 29th is also, ironically, also one of my saddest, because it was 5 years ago today that my Dad was admitted to Hopkins Bayview hospital with shortness of breath and because he just "wasn't feeling too good." Little did we know then that less that 3 weeks later, we would be saying our goodbyes and planning his funeral. This was especially true since just 5 days before that we had celebrated his 80th birthday.
It is surreal to both celebrate and mourn on the same day; you feel as if you are doing a disservice to both events no matter what you do. But as sad as my Dad's passing was, and is, I have tried to look upon differently. I've tried to see these days as times to celebrate his life, and to honor his memory by enjoying life.
And that means being grateful and extremely happy that I was fortunate enough to, 30 years ago, marry my soul-mate and my best friend.
]]>All Hail the fork; meh the merge and the pull. Don't lurk on a mailing list (A mailing list! Get with the times!), ask drive by questions on Stack Overflow. Don't use open tools and collaboration s/w, use cool proprietary systems and software (lock in? what's that?)
Yeah, I'm a greybeard, and I've been part of the open source movement for awhile, having at least some small part in its success. "Wasn't the whole idea of the open source movement, in some way, to make it the default, to move software and software development to align with the goals and ideals of Open Source? Wasn't it, after all, to make Open Source a success?" people will say. "Well it is! So what are you complaining about?"
I am not complaining about the success of Open Source. What I am complaining about, what I am worried about, is redirection of the movement in a way which destroys the successes by ignoring the history of the movement. What I am worried about are people ignoring the lessons learned, and the wisdom obtained during the decades within the movement, by people who don't understand it, but think they do. What I fear is the increasing "influence" of so-called open source experts today, who dismiss what Open Source is, because it is "old" and "outdated" and "that's not how we do things anymore". And I'm angry at people taking a dump on such concepts as community, collaboration and consensus because "that's just too much work".
I'll be honest. IMO, if the prevailing attitudes and "understanding" of Open Source today were around at the beginning of the Open Source movement, then Open Source would never have gained traction. Look at the things that made Open Source popular and successful. It was a keen awareness that code needed to be explicly licensed so people could use it. It was a deep understanding that working together, on a single project, was important, instead of numerous side-projects recreating the wheel. It was a core tenent that people worked on this project because they were personally invested in it, it was important to them, it was personal to them, they volunteered their time and energy on it. It was the balance that communities governed the projects, and companies worked with the communities instead of over them.
Look at all those points, and look at how today, in many ways, they are no longer "important" or "a big deal" to many self-proclaimed next generation open source experts.
You don't honor a movement, you don't carry the torch, you don't keep the dream alive, by ignoring and dimissing the core of what made that movement, that dream, special. Don't turn the Brave, New, Post Open Source world into the Weird Bizarro Open Source World, where it's a funhouse mirror-image of what it could, and should, be.
]]>In the first episode it is discovered that Piper has escaped! It doesn't matter how... maybe she cut through the fences, or tunneled out ala The Great Escape. The important thing is that it is discovered that she has escaped from prison. The thing is, nobody cares. I mean, at least, nobody cares enough to report her missing. In fact, the entire prison is kind of happy she's gone. And so both inmates and guards decide to maintain the farce that Piper is still in prison, just so they don't risk the fact that she would be captured and returned.
So the first few episodes might have some funny, short scenes where people pretend that Piper is still around. When visitors come to see her, the guards will explain that she has a shot and can't visit, or that she's grumpy and doesn't want to see anybody. After awhile, nobody bothers to come visit her anymore and after the 1st few episodes nobody even mentions her anymore.
Personally, I think this is a winner idea! They get rid of the least interesting and most badly written character of the whole show, plus they get rid of the least talented "actress" of the entire ensemble, no doubt saving lots of money from not having to pay whatever undeserved salary they are paying. It's Win-Win-Win!
And maybe the season 4 cliffhanger could feature a cameo by Taylor Schilling at the prison gates, crying and moping to be let back in (this would require some acting, but maybe using CGI they could make something that works). Everyone just ignores her and, just as she turns to walk away, we see Larry come out of the shadows, and cracks her over the head with a baseball bat. The entire prison cheers and Larry, for once in his life, doesn't feel like a total schlub.
You gotta admit, it's got teeth.
]]>So even though Apache httpd excels at delivering both static and dynamic content, an extremely common use-case is for httpd to be used as a "simple" reverse proxy (aka: "gateway"). In this scenario, httpd acts basically like a switch, accepting requests but handing those requests off to servers on the backend. Those backend servers ("origin servers") are where the content really lives, or is created, but the outside never sees them; never even knows they exists. As far as the Web is concerned, that front end gateway is sole server.
The advantages of this setup are numerous and obvious; The implementation provides for high-availability, load balancing, failover, reliability, etc... but only if the gateway web server, the reverse proxy itself, has that capability. Fortunately, Apache httpd does. It has all that and more.
Because it is such a common use-case, and because this capability to so vital to the design and architecture of enterprise web infrastructure, including Cloud setups, I've focused a lot of adding features and improvements to httpd's reverse proxy. Along with the other committers on the httpd project, not only has load balancing been added (and has been for quite awhile), but there are various load balancing methods included, with the ability to add your own implementation very easily. With the balancer-manager, the devops admin gets not only a view into the current state of the reverse proxy, but can also dynamically change various reverse proxy parameters on-the-fly, with these changes surviving a server restart. The reverse proxy supports not only HTTP, but also FastCGI, Websockets, AJP and others. And just recently, I finished work on something that has been on my TODO list for awhile, and something people have wanted for awhile as well: Dynamic Health Checking.
In the normal situations, before httpd sends a request to the backend origin server, it checks to see if it is still "alive" and able to handle the request. Now this is great but it would be even better if, in parallel, httpd was also checking if those backend servers were alive or not independent of requests being passed to them. In other words, not only static health checks but also dynamic checks as well.
Well, now Apache httpd can do exactly that.
Right now this capability exists just on the trunk branch of the server, but I anticipate it being fast-tracked backported to the 2.4.x branch. There are also some addition features I'd like to add in, such as better interaction with the balancer-manager before it is backported. But before too long, the Apache httpd reverse proxy will have this capability and be even better than it is now, and continuing to be even better than its peers, whether they are Open Core or commericial or truly Open Source.
Try it out! And if you are interested in helping develop Apache httpd, jump in and join the fun. Unlike other web server projects, contributor and commit privs can obtained by anyone, not just specially picked people, like "employees" or stuff.
]]>Over the years this has resulted in a variety of interesting situations, such as random people coming up to ask for job openings, taking pictures of "Apache HQ" and even numerous visits by the FBI as they investigate various web-related issues. But this also means that I receive a lot of postal mail directed to the ASF as well, and these are just as interesting. There are the numerous requests for help, letters demanding to know why this "Apache stuff" is on their devices and demands that we stop installing our "junk" on their computers, and the occasional "Thank You" letter from someone truly appreciative and what we do.
And very rarely, a letter which calls me to action.
I received such a letter this week.
The letter was from Jamal Reid, an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas in Pennsylvania. While serving his time, he is trying to learn programming and the selection of books available to him are woefully out of date. He sees programming, and career as an Application Developer, as his ticket out from a criminal life. He wants to learn and he wants to be a viable candidate, with the necessary skills, for a job in programming once he completes his sentence. All he asks is that, if possible, if we could "donate a few books" to help.
Well, I already have a box of books ready to ship out. But I am reaching out to everyone who follows me, or also believes in the power of community within the Open Source eco-system, to also donate what books you can. During this time of year, one of the most cherished stories is A Christmas Carol, a tale of redemption. Let's share the potential of that redemption.
Let's #HelpJamal.
His address is in the letter linked to above, and I strongly encourage you to read it. I also include it here to make it even easier.
Jamal Reid
GF6119
State Correctional Institution
1000 Follies Rd
Dallas, PA 18612
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