April 2005 - Roundtable

Conference on Engaging in Open Source (fwd)
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 14 Apr '05

14 Apr '05

I'm forwarding this to you all in case any of you are interested in attending this open source conference in Halifax, in mid-May... -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 09:58:47 -0300 From: Conference on Engaging Open Source <ceos(a)cs.dal.ca> Subject: Conference on Engaging in Open Source Is open source software an impressive promise or a practical advantage? Is it a platform that will be forever relegated to nerd space or does it have a real commercial role to play? And how do you get in on the act? Find out "what's up" with open source right now at the only forum of its kind in Atlantic Canada. CEOS The Conference on Engaging in Open Source May 12 & 13, 2005 Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia This special two-day event promises to become an annual gathering of evangelists, recent converts and the open-minded to explore the challenges and the future of the Open Source movement. CEOS is organized by the Dalhousie Student Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (Dal-ACM) and aims at: * Showcasing the open-source projects undertaken by universities, government, industry, and the community * Enhancing the knowledge and exposure of open-source software * Promoting stronger relationships between academia, government, and industry in the form of open dialogues and open-source initiatives This year's highlights include: "Exploring this business of Open Source" is the subject of a presentation by Dr. Brian Barry, who is currently CEO of Bedarra Research Labs. Dr. Barry has over 20 years of experience in the design and implementation of component-based and object-oriented systems and led the development of the Eclipse Platform and IBM VisualAge at Object Technology International. Billy Biggs, a Master in Computer Science from Dalhousie and an active developer of the open source Eclipse Project at IBM Canada will address the philosophy and politics behind the open source movement and explore the real, seemingly altruistic motives of developers. The Vice President of Sun Microsystems operating platforms group, Tom Goguen will give a provocative presentation entitled "Open Source, Open Standards". An analysis of the benefits as well as the pitfalls of developing products that incorporate open source software will be explored in depth in a presentation by Dr. Lawrence Rogers who is currently the Chief Technology Officer of Bandalong Incorporated. Dr. Rogers has over 30 years of experience in the software industry from the heavy-hitters to a recent string of successful start-ups. Richard Charpentier, a specialist in infrared imagery and space-based surveillance at Defense R&D Canada - Valcartier and an advocate of open source software within the Department of National Defense will address the reliability and security considerations as well as the strategic value of adopting open source. The event will wrap-up on the second day with an open forum with the Atlantic open source community, highlighting Atlantic Canadian open source projects and developments. An informal discussion and networking will continue throughout the evening during the GeekBeer social at the Faculty of Computer Science. A complete conference schedule and registration details are online at: http://ceos.dal-acm.ca/ THERE IS A DISCOUNT FOR BOOKING EARLY! -- CEOS Organizers

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Visual Intelligence
by Bill Reid 13 Apr '05

13 Apr '05

Gilbert's very interesting talk last night reminded me of a book I read a few years ago on the rules that our brain uses to create what we see. It was a fascinating read. http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/%7Eddhoff/vi.html He has created a number of Java applets to demonstrate how we create the motions that we see. http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/%7Eddhoff/vi6.html -- Bill

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Patents - nothin' new here...
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 13 Apr '05

13 Apr '05

Further to last night's discussion of intellectual property and, more specifically, patent abuse, I found the following web page interesting... http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html The information is a few years old, but still relevant. One link I particularly enjoyed reading was this one... http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/supreme-court.patents ... which talks about a 1950 US Supreme Court opinion that was rather critical of the claimant's patent application and subsequent infringement claim. The judge's comments cite an earlier opinion, from 1882. There was something comforting about seeing that abuse of the patent system is not a recent thing, and that when these frivolous cases are brought to the attention of judges who understand the constitution and its implications, sanity usually does prevail. And in other news, I found this article from The Economist, on the economics of sharing, to be interesting too... http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3623762 -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca> Dept. of Computer Science Web: http://www.cs.umanitoba.ca/~gedetil/ University of Manitoba Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R3T 2N2 Fax: (204)474-7609

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MUUG Meeting, Apr 12, 7:30pm - Digital Stereo Photography & Phantograms
by gedetil＠cs.umanitoba.ca 05 Apr '05

05 Apr '05

[Posted to man.unix.general and other news groups] ------ Forwarded Article <d2uf9n$1d0$1(a)canopus.cc.umanitoba.ca> ------ From gedetil(a)cs.umanitoba.ca (Gilbert E. Detillieux) The Manitoba UNIX User Group (MUUG) will be holding its next monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 12. The meeting topic for this month is as follows: Digital Stereo Photography and Phantograms Stereoscopic (3D) photography is almost as old as photography itself. However, when working with film and photo-chemical processing, getting good results was tricky and time-consuming. Digital cameras and computer-based processing have made the task much easier, and have also opened up the field to interesting new possibilities. The phantogram (technically a stereoscopic anamorphosis) is a relatively new form of stereo photograph, which makes use of the latest image manipulation tools, but is based on techniques and principles that have been around for centuries. The results can be quite impressive, and lifelike. In this presentation, Gilbert Detillieux will describe some of the principles of stereo photography and phantogram production, as well as demonstrating this using open-source tools such as The GIMP, and freeware such as AnaBuilder (which is Java-based, and platform independent). The presentation will also discuss some of the legal issues facing those working in this medium, due to two US patents that have been granted recently, which cover some of the fundamental processes involved. The group holds its general meetings at 7:30pm on the second Tuesday of every month from September to June. (There are no meetings in July and August.) Meetings are open to the general public; you don't have to be a MUUG member to attend. ********************************************************************** Please note our meeting location: The IBM offices, at 400 Ellice Ave. (between Edmonton and Kennedy). When you arrive, you will have to sign in at the reception desk, and then wait for someone to take you (in groups) to the meeting room. Please try to arrive by about 7:15pm, so the meeting can start promptly at 7:30pm. Don't be late, or you may not get in. (But don't come too early either, since security may not be there to let you in before 7:15 or so.) Limited parking is available for free on the street, or in a lot across Ellice from IBM, for $1.00 for the evening. Indoor parking is also available nearby, at Portage Place, for $2.00 for the evening. ********************************************************************** For more information about MUUG, and its monthly meetings, check out their Web server: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ Also note that MUUG maintains two mailing lists, called "muug-announce" and "roundtable". If you're not already on these lists, we encourage you to subscribe now: http://www.muug.mb.ca/mailman/listinfo/ The "muug-announce" list is used for monthly meeting announcements (such as this one) as well as other important announcements of interest to MUUG members. The "rountable" list is meant to be a forum for follow-ups to topics discussed at the meetings, or for round-table-style discussion on other topics that come up between meetings. Of course, for this to be effective, we need to reach a certain critical mass. So, please subscribe, and stay involved! -- Gilbert E. Detillieux E-mail: <gedetil(a)muug.mb.ca> Manitoba UNIX User Group Web: http://www.muug.mb.ca/ P.O. Box 130, St-Boniface Phone: (204)474-8161 Winnipeg, MB, CANADA R2H 3B4 Fax: (204)474-7609 ------ End of Forwarded Article

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Shell programming question
by Mike Pfaiffer 04 Apr '05

04 Apr '05

I'm playing around with a little program called Zenity. It is a simple way to call up dialog boxes from a shell script. I've been able to produce a couple of simple examples with just an OK box. There are more complicated examples I'd like to try (this is going into some articles in Call-A.P.P.L.E.). The thing is Zenity can return values to the calling script. I'd like to know how to read these values... I have done a bit of research. The UNIX textbook I was using at university was written around the csh and didn't really have the information I wanted in a location I could find easily (although I could swear it was there when I took the course a little over 10 years ago). I looked at the man pages for Zenity and BASH. I also looked at several examples in the /etc directory (obviously unsuccessfully). I'll admit to being an airhead occasionally, but this is a really simple problem. Simple problems are the worst ones to solve. :-( Later Mike -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Call-A.P.P.L.E. and the Digital Civilization http://www.callapple.org | | http://members.shaw.ca/pfaiffer = Mike Pfaiffer (B.A., B.Sc.) | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ----- BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK ----- Version: 3.12 GCS/G/IT/PA/SS d s+:- a? C++ UL L++ W++ N++ o+ K- w(---) O+@ M++@ V PS+ PE !PGP t+ 5+ X R tv b+ DI+++ D++ G e++* h! r-- !y-- UF++ ------ END GEEK CODE BLOCK ------

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Am I the only one having problems with Kernel 2.6/FC3?
by Sean A. Walberg 02 Apr '05

02 Apr '05

I upgraded my machine from FC1 to FC3 a while back. My sound card (ens1371) then started playing a lot of static whenever I used it. You could make out whatever you were trying to play, but it was very choppy and hard to understand. I played around with some BIOS settings, and found that turning off a lot of the PCI bells and whistles made it semi-usable, there is still static but at least it's playing at what seems like full speed. This weekend I swapped motherboards with another one of my computers and nothing at all worked. I couldn't get my machine to boot, and when I finally did, I was getting kernel panics during the boot sequence. I installed RH9, and it worked perfectly. Swapped everything back to where it was before, and things are back to normal (except the sound still sucks). I Googled around and can't find anything similar. I even filed a Bugzilla report on the sound problem a few months ago but I haven't heard anything on it. I can't believe I'm the only person having problems with FC3! Just curious if anyone else has run into similar problems before I re- install with FC2. Thanks, Sean -- Sean A. Walberg <sean(a)ertw.com> http://www.ertw.com

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