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A few years back, Eric S. Raymond (or, as everyone else calls him, ESR), wrote a lengthy paper about this community. Entitled The Cathedral and the Bazaar, he wrote about how the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) community does what it wants when it wants to.
I don't think he was entirely wrong; I just don't think he was entirely right, either.
The path less traveled is still traveled
Now, before I continue, I must mention that, although I write this article for Free Software Magazine, and there is a gulf between ESR and Richard M. Stallman (also known as RMS, the patron saint of the Church of GNU, and the head of the Free Software Foundation), this article does not exist to promote either ESR's or RMS's point of view as the correct one, or even consider them grounded in this reality.
So, two weeks ago, I wrote about how business analysts lie, cheat, and perform dime-store magic tricks to make middle- and upper-management believe in fairy tales. And don't forget the rubber chickens, either.
A friend of mine, after reading that article, said something rather interesting: he said that what I wrote was a subset of ESR's essays. I thought about it for a moment, and I realized that he was right; I really did write about a subset, especially the last sentence: "Linux goes in all directions simultaneously."
ESR effectively wrote the same thing many years ago, and helped inspire hackers everywhere. He even inspired me to hack away at software, although my wizardry skills would make even Gandalf stifle a giggle. I, like ESR, wrote about the Bazaar's modus operandi based on observations.
To state this in a non-verbose way: we seem to have come to the same conclusion on this.
The implied action scene
So, where else does the FOSS community get tripped up? If business analysts are simply the ugly hunch-backed minions of the Bad Guy then who is next on the list? IP lawyers? No. Bill Gates and his vast Olympic-sized wallet? No (although this recent Novell thing isn't helping). RMS and ESR? No.
The next bad guy on the list is us. Yup, us: the community. The FOSS community itself is its own enemy. Not the worst enemy, mind you, but an enemy that still has to be dealt with. Before, I said that Linux goes in all directions simultaneously; this is both a strength and a weakness.
As a strength, this allows any individual to hack on any feature, any program, any anything and scratch his/her proverbial itch on whatever is bothering him. In this way, we often get interesting solutions to interesting problems. The worst bugs are fixed, the most wanted features are added, and the most annoying of either are dealt with in a quick and painful hacking session that often involves swearing like a drunken pirate.
However, as a weakness, this also means that leadership in some projects is non-existant or ineffectual. In Cathedral-style projects, your not-so-friendly neighborhood PHB (fueled by the lies from various ugly hunch-backed minions), although wrong 120% of the time, says what goes in a project. The PHB's vision is corrupt; but none-the-less, it still is a vision.
Now, some Bazaar-style projects do manage to wing it fine. The Linux Kernel itself is a good example, with Linus Torvalds acting as a benevolent overlord. He allows just the right amount of free-form hacking to go into the kernel, and refuses to commit patches that don't provide 100% useful content.
Other projects, however, are glowing examples of what not to do. GNOME, sadly, is one of those projects. Backed by the Free Software Foundation and the FOSS community as a whole, the GNOME project for many years just added lots and lots of feature creep and otherwise unnamed bloat. They seem to be digging themselves out from under that, but they have a long road ahead of themselves.
The GNOME project lacked true vision for those years, and feature creep and other long term development problems rushed in to fill that hole. Problem is, many projects are just like GNOME. Incidentally, few Cathedral-style projects suffer from lack of vision: those that do simply die off and are never heard from again. Bazaar-style development allows projects to be in a zombie state for long periods of time, where it is vastly expensive for a Cathedral-style project to do the same.
Another example: for years, XFree86 languished under the control of David Dawes (who also proved earlier on that a benevolent overlord actually has to be a benevolent), and Keith Packard had to go ahead and fork XFree86 (producing X.org, the now de facto X server for most Linux distributions) to solve this issue. Not only did Dawes lack vision, he got in the way of everyone who did have vision.
The Solution?
I hate to say this, but there may be no easy solution. Unlike in the Cathedral, the Bazaar has no official leadership. Linus, as did Dawes, as do the core development team of GNOME, only have limited control over their small section of the Bazaar; and even then, it is only for a limited time.
Someday Linux will be replaced, someday X will be replaced, someday GNOME will be replaced. In the Cathedral, nothing is ever thrown away, nothing is ever replaced, but here in the Bazaar something better always comes along. This is a strength, not a weakness.
Due to the fact that there are more people like Dawes than people like Linus running projects, the only solution would be to act like the Cathedral. For short periods of time, I believe Cathedral-style development can be beneficial to the FOSS community; someone with vision (corrupt or not) would control a project, driving development behind it, and have the project reach goals in specific time frames.
The future may prove that hybrids of both styles will provide better frameworks to deal with large projects.
How do you think you can get OSS developers to stay in specific time frames?
The vast majority of OSS projects don't have such a large base of developers that would allow them to develop in Cathedral-style. After all, they are all doing it in their free time, and the amount of free time people spend on OSS projects needs to stay a free choice, since when it doesn't (like when setting deadlines) most developers will just jump off.
Okay, I haven't figured that part out. Smaller projects don't really even apply here. Larger projects /do/ have paid developers. So, I think a combination of getting paid to develop and self-discipline would help.
If anyone does figure out how to make this work well, feel free to write about it. I'll be sure to link it in a future article.
OSS development
If anyone does figure out how to make this work well, feel free to write about it. I'll be sure to link it in a future article.
Have you seen http://producingoss.com/
This is just on that subject.
regards DaveP
OSS development
I've read producing OSS several times. It's a great read.
I don't think the original article is entirely correct. He's spot on the problem but the solution isn't short-term cathedral-style leadership. The solution is growing more and better bazaar-style benevolent dictators. Books like producing OSS are a good way to start that off, but we need much more of such works.
For example, producing OSS is biased towards larger projects backed by a corporation that have a clear goal (not surprising since it draws heavily on Subversion - backed by Tigris - with the aim to replace CVS). A book similar to that but focussing more on pure community-led projects with more fuzzy goals would be a great addition.
I agree with you! Someday
I agree with you!
Someday Linux will be replaced, someday X will be replaced, someday GNOME will be replaced. In the Cathedral, nothing is ever thrown away, nothing is ever replaced, but here in the Bazaar something better always comes along. This is a strength, not a weakness.
This is just the nature of the community, it's the source of creativity and power
You don't necessarily need
You don't necessarily need more resources if you used brief cathedral style releases. I agree that there may not be enough developers on a given project to sustain this long term, but as an example, if you briefly assigned a new "benevolent dictator" who *did* have the time to contribute, the same core developers would put in the same amount of time they normally would put in. They just do it against this leader's list, instead of their own. To say that F/OSS has to be freewheeling to be free, re-enforces the false notion that it's wild and unpredictable--and worse, that it's in its nature to remain so.
It doesn't have to be "I say Johnny must develop threading, and Billy must develop asynchronous I/O..." instead you could say "We need threading and asynchronous I/O" by March, Johnny and Billy may still be the main contributors, but if they can't be, it's on the "hit list" for anyone to take a whack at it. Then rather than lose the power of the collaborative devel environment, as you would in a true Cathedral where only Johnny *is allowed* to develop threading, you keep the F/OSS magic, gain the control and predictability or a Cathedral build.
Just as many closed source companies have adopted the F/OSS methodoligies within their ranks, even though the licensing is not F/OSS.
It's still a choice to participate in this or not. But don't assume that all projects are alwasy done by volunteers in their spare time. Anyone who develops knwos that it always happens in fits and starts of inspiration and work. External deadlines only add stress, and the mild notion of cohesion. You need them, for example, when you have a worldwide marketing push behind a release, and you need to know if x fature is going to be in by a certain date, or not.
Done well, you can do it with *less* resources than a pure F/OSS or pure Cathedral environment would.
This also solves the problem that all engineers are not dyed in the woll code poets. Some actually need to be given a task. In a hybrid model, those folks can chip in, without having to be super creative as well as a competent engineer.
So, in the case that Patrick puts forth, you have a mutually agreed to Cathedral-style build. I agree that you are the benevolent dictator for three months, and you say "these are the 5 things we will have by then". At the end of the three months, we either have what we agreed to or we don't. The bonus is that we don't have all the Cathedral's shareholders pissed at us if we miss the mark.
Linus is in charge of the kernel, but he hands off the stable tree to someone else (Alan Cox, Andrew Morton...) and has a core group of sub-dictators that do in fact set the agenda for those outside the core group. Another is Keith Packard's efforts in X.org, if he hadn't taken a leadership role, stating "this whole thing needs to go this other way" we'd still be watching XFree86 rot from within.
Red Hat is another example of a living in both worlds. RHAT has to have a pre-announced schedule for their paying customers. How do they ensure that these features will be in without forking? Partly by allowing the upstream developers to do their thing and packaging/marketing the output, and partly by paying folks to do the work they want done.
An image of herding cats
An image of herding cats springs to mind :)
You don't necessarily need
You don't necessarily need more resources if you used brief cathedral style releases. I agree that there may not be enough developers on a given project to sustain this long term, but as an example, if you briefly assigned a new "benevolent dictator" who *did* have the time to contribute, the same core developers would put in the same amount of time they normally would put in. They just do it against this leader's list, instead of their own. To say that F/OSS has to be freewheeling to be free, re-enforces the false notion that it's wild and unpredictable--and worse, that it's in its nature to remain so.
It doesn't have to be "I say Johnny must develop threading, and Billy must develop asynchronous I/O..." instead you could say "We need threading and asynchronous I/O" by March, Johnny and Billy may still be the main contributors, but if they can't be, it's on the "hit list" for anyone to take a whack at it. Then rather than lose the power of the collaborative devel environment, as you would in a true Cathedral where only Johnny *is allowed* to develop threading, you keep the F/OSS magic, gain the control and predictability of a Cathedral build.
Just as many closed source companies have adopted the F/OSS methodologies within their ranks, even though the licensing is not F/OSS.
It's still a choice to participate in this or not. But don't assume that all projects are always done by volunteers in their spare time, or that Cathedral bulding means all engineeers are turning in exactly 8 hours worth of code per workday. Anyone who develops knows that it always happens in fits and starts of inspiration and work. External deadlines only add stress, and the mild notion of cohesion. You need them, for example, when you have a worldwide marketing push behind a release, and you need to know if x feature is going to be in by a certain date, or not.
Done well, you can do it with *less* resources than a pure F/OSS or pure Cathedral environment would.
This also solves the problem that all engineers are not dyed in the wool code poets. Some actually need to be given a task. In a hybrid model, those folks can chip in, without having to be super creative as well as a competent engineer.
So, in the case that Patrick puts forth, you have a mutually agreed to Cathedral-style build. I agree that you are the benevolent dictator for three months, and you say "these are the 5 things we will have by then". At the end of the three months, we either have what we agreed to or we don't. The bonus is that we don't have all the Cathedral's shareholders pissed at us if we miss the mark.
Linus is in charge of the kernel, but he hands off the stable tree to someone else (Alan Cox, Andrew Morton...) and has a core group of sub-dictators that do in fact set the agenda for those outside the core group. Another example is Keith Packard's efforts in X.org, if he hadn't taken a leadership role, stating "this whole thing needs to go this other way" we'd still be watching XFree86 rot from within.
Red Hat is another example of a living in both worlds. RHAT has to have a pre-announced schedule for their paying customers. How do they ensure that these features will be in without forking? Partly by allowing the upstream developers to do their thing and packaging/marketing the output, and partly by paying folks to do the work they want done.
The reason
The reason why you reached the same conclusions as ESR is because his coding skills make Gandalf stifle a giggle too.
So the simple conclusion is that both you and ESR don't really have any idea what you're talking about.
I have no idea why you're compelled to comment on this topic, given you freely admit you have no clue.
At least you're honest about that, whereas ESR portrays his clueless commentary as divine inspiration.
Wow, my first troll on FSM.
its probably true. You
its probably true. You didn't sound like you understood wtf you was talking about. ESR is a joke too- what did he make? Shitty fetchmail, gpsd?
The reason (stfu)
I just thought I'd mention that Patrick has a point and his troll, is a 13 year old newbie who just learned how to use arrays in C.
I have been programming for 10 years and I was there before GNOME or KDE came along, I can definietly back this up.
GNOME was awful for a long time, it was a horrible hack, GTK back in version 1.x didnt even have double buffering and the performance was atrocious (still is in some ways) and it's only in recent years where GNOME has a vision and a direction has any improvement been made. To me, it's the best DE you can get, it does what you want, without getting in your way and if you want to do things they didnt plan for, you can do it another way (REAL men don't mind playing with gconf, pussies whine and moan about why there isnt a button in the preferences).
KDE was the same pretty much, but KDE has consistently improved quite nicely, with or without licence issues (which don't exist anymore)
Cathedral style development can be helpful for a project, but it usually appears in one of two forms
1) from the beginning
this is where the project is created and managed from the outset in this way and never really changes, it only changes to the bazaar way of development when someone forks it and you usually find a less controlled development cycle is representant in the fork. X.org would be an example of this, but as well as being bazaar style in development, it's also kinda cathedralic, since each team that works has it's own vision and management, it depends on your point of view, look at the tiny details, you see bazaar, look at the big picture, it's usually cathedralic.
2) since yesterday
this is where someone yesterday got pissed off cause the project is going nowhere very quickly and he's got his ideas about where he wants to go and forks the project. Since he's forked the project, he's going to go in his direction and nobody is gonna stop him. (I cannot think of an example)
so, ignore the trolls, they don't know anything, they just dislike ESR because someone told them something horrible about him and they believe it, they most likely never formed their own opinion, just read someone else's.
I had thought GNOME was an alsoran because Sun got involved with the foundation (see Mozilla).
Learn something new every page.
An example
Check the FreeBSD fork to DragonflyBSD my Matt Dillon. He was convinced the FreeBSDers were going the wrong way toward SMP. He tried to persuade them, they cancelled his commit privs (can't play nice with others) and he forked.
Maybe I wrote about the wrong thing. Inter-project politics are the enemy... in fact, I may write about this in a future article if I can enough for an article on this.
Intra-project politics
Inter-project politics are also an issue, but intra-project politics are a larger one. GNOME vs. KDE is a strawman-- there *is* no GNOME vs. KDE, except in the minds of the fanboys. (Full disclosure: I'm a GNOME fanboy, because I prefer C over C++. But I run Enlightenment as my primary desktop.)
GNOME folks really don't worry about the KDE folks, and KDE folks don't worry about the GNOME folks. Really, there's more cooperation between the two projects than most people realize.
I think the big problem isn't the lack of a regular release schedule. It's exactly what you said: a lack of focus. GNOME started out with a clear direction-- build a good application environment, the infrastructure needed to create a full desktop environment. They had great direction, and they built ORBit2 (an excellent CORBA implementation), Bonobo, the GNOME libraries on top of GTK+, and a bunch of other great stuff.
But they forgot to ask: what were they going to do with all that once they had it?
Enlightenment gave way to Sawmill, which begat Sawfish, which begat Metacity. The panel saw rewrites. The control center saw rewrites. And all the time, there was no clear direction other than the application environment itself.
I love GNOME. I think it is going in the right direction. But, I also recognize it is an evolutionary process, in which many ideas are floated, but only a few survive. They aren't necessarily the best ideas, but the are the best for the current environment.
I think this is a good thing.
I think many people misapprehend the significance of the free software development processes. Like evolution, many paths are tread at once, creating a complex environment. If one or many turn out to be evolutionary dead-ends, it isn't a big dea, because there are other ideas that have survived. And, unlike evolution, we can scavange the good parts of the failed ideas for our own use. (We can scavange the good parts of the successful ideas, too.)
Closed-shop development processes are not that fortunate. MS-Windows doesn't stand a chance. Not because GNU/Linux is better (for any arbitrary definition of "better"), but because, for all its user-base size, MS-Windows an isolated environment. Some ideas are lifted from other projects, and Microsoft is trying hard to make the transfer of ideas one-way (check out the recent "look-and-feel" licensing announcement for the MS-Office 2007 GUI for an example). But, it is essentially a sealed environment, forced to march lock-step with Microsoft's marketing agenda.
Intra- and inter-project politics are often seen as a bad thing, but I disagree. I think they are part of the environment. Without environmental pressures, evolution would not take place, as there would be no selection process. Politics are just one (very important) selection mechanism. It isn't the best one, but it doesn't have to be the best to exert a positive pressure. For instance, it helps ensure the people working on a project are compatible, with agreeable goals and personalities.
We don't need schedules, because we don't need to conform to business processes. We don't need regular release cycles, because all steps forward are not uniform in size or complexity. Even Microsoft realizes this, which is why MS-Windows Vista is so late. We don't need pre-defined management structures, because people are different, and projects are different, and it's probably better in the long run to let the management of a project form organically around the people and the project itself.
That doesn't mean we should stop thinking about project structure, or structured releases, or other management issues. It means that free software project leaders should probably learn people skills, and management skills, and nunchuk skills, and horse riding skills, and computer hacking skills.
Or maybe not.
I'd suggest taking a look at Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical if you are looking for a "Cathedra-zaar" approach to FOSS.
Except Mark and friends don't exactly develop software in the usual way. Most of their contributions are simply improvements, not exactly the whole entire application from the ground up kind of thing I was looking for.
That said, its close enough to use as a future example.
in time
I think that the special thing about Ubuntu is that it is developed in a kind of hybrid "Bazaar Cathedral". It's as bizarre and creative of an idea as code names such as "Dapper Drake". A well-dressed duck is quite a progression from the carbuncular wild pig of "Hoary Hedgehog".
At any rate...
One of the most interesting cathedrals in the world is Notre Damme à Chartres. From what I understand it was quite the community project. For example, there was an entire guild dedicated solely to hauling water up the hill from the river. Have you ever heard of a "software cathedral" memorializing such a utilitarian job as water hauling to the scale of an entire stained glass window, visible to all after just walking in?
Community is the material out of which change comes. Also, it the the community which actually causes the change. Can any truly large project be completed by a single man or committee? The community is important even to the "cathedral" model of software development. A team (or sub-team) must function as a community for the Product to exist as a coherent whole. It is imperative that software cohere for two reasons. First, incoherent software is incoherent to its users, thus isn't useful. Code which is incoherent to the limit doesn't compile. Code which meets the minimum requirements for the language may compile, but doesn't run well. Perhaps I am biased, but it seems to me that the vast majority of software is designed to actually be executed, and as such I'd like to limit the scope of my definition of software to *runnable* software. Perhaps someone exists who writes a kind of post-modern "program" which is only useful as a poster, or wallpaper, or something...
Back to Ubuntu though:
It seems as if Mr. Shuttleworth is the architect. I think that it's interesting that the fiscal patron of the "Bazaar Cathedral" is named Canonical. The Ubuntu project is divided into guilds which anyone can join. One could say that the Ubuntu Cathedral is being built out of raw materials provided by the entire GPL software topos. Debian can be seen as the bazaar where tier two materials are purchased (pre-made glass, already quarried rock, etc.); after this, the Ubuntu project dyes, carves, polishes, etc. the Debian goods. I'd write more, but this is getting kind of long. Basically, I think that the Ubuntu project isn't really a "new thing"...it's an application of a time-tested model. Mind you, though most GPL programmers work for free, they're definitely not serfs!
Something cannot be created out of nothing. If easily workable source material can be had for free (as in beer, and freedom...), then one ought to both complete the job quicker by utilizing it, and honor the work of the original author by showing everyone that his or her work is worth using.
Hmm, this is worth keeping. I've archived my post here:
Nick Steeves
I think this was the road Novell was starting to travel until the ugly hunch-backed bean counters got their hands in it.
Open-source cathedral
The Open Source Applications Foundation is an open-source cathedral.
Did you contradict yourself?
The premise of this article seems to be that the bazaar style of development in the FOSS world is a potential danger to the survival of the FOSS community. Your anecdotal proof is that in the cathedral style of development, projects that don't produce profitable applications die off quickly to be replaced by "better" applications (which is a very questionable assertion).
But then you go on to use the XFree project and its fork, X.org, as further proof, when in fact, I conclude exactly the opposite. XFree was usable for a long time. The project team had disagreements about its management structure and so the code was forked, and the new team is now moving forward on tasks that were stalled before. In a cathedral (read proprietary) environment, the team would have had to start from scratch (to maintain the metaphor--buy new land and materials, hire architects and contractors, etc.). In the bazaar (FOSS community), hardly a step was missed.
The description of the Gnome project is supported by the fact that the project team performed a major overhaul on the code for version 2. But I disagree that it supports the assertion that the FOSS community is its own (less than worst ;~) enemy. All that can be said about it is that if a FOSS project team decides its code needs a major overhaul, then it can, and often will, do exactly that. Whether that is good or not depends on how much you have invested in applications that also have to be overhauled for the new version.
I believe that you have overstated the case against the bazaar methodology. It is true that the bazaar style of development is less ordered (some would say messier). But the process works overall, as the many high quality FOSS applications prove. And the many other advantages that go with the system--such as a low barrier to entry, longevity of successful projects, transparency, etc--are strong arguments in favor of supporting the system as is.
Possible contradiction
... although I didn't mean to. GNOME's redirection was a Cathedral choice in that the heads of the team had to (basically) enforce this choice; "No more crap in the tree until the rest of this crap gets shoveled out," in essence.
Keithp's choice to fork was more of a Hybrid choice, because it was lower in the chain of the command Cathedral isn't the right description for it. Dawes decided to screw over XFree86 over ego/political issues, and Keithp forked and ran his project in a hybrid style for a short time.
The Cathedral/Bazaar metaphor falls apart in situations like this. The tech industry is dominated by businesses who have small yet powerful development teams: no inter-office politics, no stupid PHBs, no metric tons of bullshit. Some of the best commercial software has been written in environments like this; coincidently, thats the closest similar work-flow I can find.
Also, I wasn't exactly making a case against Bazaar, more of a case that this isn't a black and white thing. With new-GNOME and X.org as examples, hybrids do seem to work well for short periods of time; it just happens that Bazaar and 'False Prophet' (ie, anti-Linus) is what screwed them up in the first place.
The Real Cathedral and the Bazaar
I find it much more likely to read ESR's essay as a condemnation of the GNU project's development style.
Changes for changes sake
I tend to agree with some of what the author has stated in his article. I have worked with a number of other UNIX operating systems and find working with Linux to be fustrating in the very least. On IRIX, Solaris or Unicos/MP I can count on in an emergency situation certain pieces of software always being configured in a certain way because they are core parts of the operating system. Linux all bets are off as each distro has its "own way" of doing low level important functions. In a mixed enviroment datacenter this can become somewhat of a challenge.
Instead of reinventing the wheel hundreds and hundreds of times why not really innovate? In some cases I'm almost certain that the "development" that the OSS community does is just moving around files and recofiguring things out of political need rather than functional need.
Your comment is ridiculous, because each "Linux distribution" is in fact a separate operating system; RedHat and Debian may share a kernel and substantial quantities of other code but they are different systems and you cannot expect them to work identically, just as you don't expect IRIX and Solaris to work identically even though they are both Unix.
I suggest that there is someone in your organisation who doesn't understand this and they are to blame for your mixed environement data center challenge, not the Free Software community or "Linux".
No, he's right.
if you compare unices at all, rhel is the only distro with a linux kernel, that you're able to trust. not, because redhat is doing a "better" gnu/linux, no, they just keep working things and innovate in things like the redhat-cluster-suite or extreme improvements over nfs, etc.
short question: how much different device models were used and trashed since the linux kernel 2.4 ?
Richard S. Stallman??
What typo?
Just joking. Thanks for spotting that one.
Er, whoops
Sorry Richard! Didn't mean to typo your name there!
Unix Tools
The Bazaar works particularly well for project that are composed of unix style small tools. A grammar is setup initially, everyone builds all kinds of little tools searching the space that can be put together, and the useless parts drop out. The problem for gnome, kde, openoffice, is that big graphical "environments" aren't really modular in the same way, that say apache can be. They can't have small interfaces; they've got to be these big object interfaces with big objects that hook everything together constantly, so that the end-user doesn't need to understand the toolkit. The pattern has been clear for a decade: build a project where the user's are experts, and you can break it into small interfaces, and depend on your users to put it together: apache, the kernel, shells, programming languages. Try to put it in one black box so that naive users who don't want to learn a toolkit, and instead want an interface, and the bazaar approach is painfully slow, as the entire structure has to be adapted to the space search.
FOSS can ruin your career
like it did mine: people blame YOU for problems in FOSS software, since there is no company to blame. You'll get instance experts combing through the source code and criticizing every line and every decision you made. They can't do that if you use Microsoft.
Do a complete code audit on any open source tool you plan to run, if you can't/don't have time, don't install it because at some point someone is going to find something ugly in the code and blame you for it, and use it to destroy your career so that they can get ahead.
Commercial code is safer, because you CAN'T look at the source, no one expects you to, and they and you can blame the vendor for bugs and holes.
Remember, most people want to blame someone for problems (we have a cultural/biological fixation with blame), there will be problems with software (b/c it is all pretty much junk, OS and COS), and if there is no company/vendor to blame, someone at sometime (probably soon)is going to blame YOU.
I've been amazed and flabbergasted myself at how prickly some open source coders can be, people who's job was created by the decision to use OS at a place turn around will turn around and attack the people who made OS happen at an place, and because it's open source, they can...
Sounds like you had a really bad experience
Sounds like you had a really bad experience, but I've never encountered any kind of trouble like that. I suppose it depends on the organization.
Any organization that spends more time on assigning blame than on solving the problems is going to be a terrible place to work, no matter what software you use, though.
Of course, these are all reasons why I have gravitated to being self-employed or working in very small organizations, where the politics are easier to manage.
Needs explanation.
How is there no company to blame? If you install RedHat AS, you can blame RedHat. If you install Ubuntu, you can blame Canonical.
If you choose to install Gentoo, then of course there's no company providing support (that I'm aware of), and you are where the buck stops.
If you make the decision to install any software, proprietary or Free, then you have to live with consequences of your decision, it's not the fault of the software, the developers or the community... you sound like a teenager, "it's not fair, I didn't do it". If it wasn't your decision to install whatever piece of unsupported software ruined your career, then it was your place to defend yourself appropriately. It's no-one else's fault that you were unable to do so.
I don't think free software is ever "replaced"
It's more like it gets recycled. Things get worked into new projects.
I'm not sure that Linux will ever be "replaced", though I have a strong feeling that it will evolve into something that will no longer be recognizable as the thing we call "Linux" today (perhaps every single line of code will be new, but it won't have happened in one 'replacement event', but rather over the course of time).
Free software permits this kind of organic growth, whereas proprietary software development is in isolated bursts. Proprietary software developers spend a lot of time 're-inventing the wheel', because they can't just grab code from the pool to start with. Even when a free software project dies, it still leaves a body of code which some similar project may opt to plunder for ideas if not actual lines of code. It's rare to start a project and not find some piece of it already written for you. Sometimes you re-write it anyway, but you have an original idea to work from.
You don't really engineer free software the way you do a proprietary project. Instead, you plant a seed, and encourage it to grow.
Pogo said it first...
them is us
You are correct
This article is very true and many open source developers should listen.
What I have noticed is that the only OSS projects that actually have succeeded have a corporate style of management (most are now backed by large corporations).
I think it's just human nature. When you have a ton of people moving in a bunch of different directions, the project suffers. You need a few people to keep the vision going and cut through all of the BS/code that should not be added to the main base.
If you take a look at sourceforge and freshmeat, you can see a countless number of failed projects that do not follow these practices.
High Performance PHP
The whole strength of FOSS is it's disoraganisation: progress is Darwinian. This may seem inefficient, but it ensures we don't all charge off the same cliff like lemmings. Leaders lead only for as long as they do so well. If they are poor leaders, and the project is not useful, it dies (though useful parts of the code are likely to be picked up). If the project is useful, a better leader takes developers with him in a fork.
The fact is that there are no shortage of poorly led projects in the commercial world, with just as much wastage.
Vista anyone? And what happened to the WFS that was supposed to underpin it?
BTW, what did happen to Duke Nukem Forever?
Need I go on? I can if you like.
The system works
Your examples of why Free Software can be bad are in fact examples of why it's so good. So GNOME is having trouble? That's why we have competition in the form of KDE. XFree86 trapped by obstructionists? The XOrg fork soon solved that problem. RMS and the FSF have themselves been on the receiving end of this "Free Software Justice"--look at the glibc/libc business, GCC vs EGCS, and Emacs vs XEmacs. At least they learned their lesson from some of those instances. Similarly, Linus Torvalds remains head of the Linux kernel project only as long as he maintains his credibility among the community: if he ever tries to pull a David Dawes, the kernel will fork, faster than you can say "BSD".
Lawrence D'Oliveiro
At least *someone* said what I was thinking the whole time! The FOSS community has proven more than once that it is able to handle crazy idiots and jumping neurotics. The latest example of this healthy self-regulation is the cdrtools/cdrkit fork. Kudos to Debian, to hell with you disbelievers! ;-)
OpenBSD ruled
By Theo...
Bazar like in a Cathedral..... In fact. i really dislike using Linux for the same reasons outlined in the article. It's a hack. There is little consistancy, undiciplined and it's a project management nightmare. While it hold true evolutionary development, it truly lacks guidance under poor leadership. The community needs this. While some some of Linux works, other parts just blow up dismally. Ever try to install a USB printer?
The OpenBSD model is a nice balance. Theo has imposed a working philosophy, and has found like minded people who agree and work together. I like how all modern daemons are re-written now to follow a strict code audit and also a working admin approach. OBSD is organized to be consistant and workable. It just works.
Care and Feeding of FOSS
Excellent article. You might find one that I wrote, which has been widely read and circulated (I think something like 100,000 downloads to date) to be interesting and relevant, as it takes an in-depth look, and perhaps answers, the core question you raise here. Well, OK, I don't have an answer, but rather a way to predict which FOSS projects will stay focussed and which will wander and fade. Anyway, I hope you'll check it out:
Craig James
cjames (at the domain) moonviewscientific (with a dot) com
I thought...
...that is what Red Hat, Ubuntu, Mandriva and Suse where for... Suse in one hand did a great job with versions 9 and 10, but then they made that deal with Microsoft! Come on Suse, drop Microsoft, there is still hope for you!
Patrick McFarland needs to get some things right.
Richard M. Stallman (also known as RMS, the patron saint of the Church of GNU
GNU isn't the church, is Emacs. More specifically, St. Ignucius of the Church of Emacs
more reasons
In no particular order:
Not learning from mistakes. For example: if you've used/developed for X-Windows and other window systems, you know that X is fundamentally broken in many places ("a good idea for the 80's, and still is"). But the OSS community keeps going back to it, while professional developers laugh and avoid it like the plague (it should have been an EX-Windows 15 years odd ago). Sometimes, things are so fundamentally flawed that they should be thrown out. If you don't throw the mistakes out, new developers assume that they're being used because they're good, then they repeat the mistakes.
Not understanding your customers. Do customers want ease of use, or do they want lots and lots of features? Do they want reliability, or a RUBY interface? Until OSS developers learn how to write software for someone other than themselves, OSS is not going to see widespread adoption outside of it's current audience (which happens to equal the developers). If customers tell you that they need something, and you don't understand it -- work with them until you do understand it. If you compare yourself to a commercial software package and users laugh – you might not understand the software or the users well enough to make that comparison (and have a lot of coding left to do).
Not enforcing standards. I'm not talking ISO here, just coding practices. Things like "crashes should never be allowed to happen", which implies things like checking all error return values, checking for bad pointers, using something other than the C assert function (which just crashes the app), using C++ exceptions correctly, etc. Or "everywhere there is text, it must handle Unicode correctly" (kind of essential for handling languages other than your own). Or the old file format rule of "write strict, read permissive". A lot of these should be common sense. But many of the inexperienced developers working on OSS don't know this stuff. And it shows in the final result.
Reinventing the wheel. Hey, do I have to explain this one? I mean, have you looked at a list of SourceForge projects lately?
Assuming that if it's good enough for your thesis, it's good enough for everyone else. It never is. Too many OSS projects start this way and never get better. Proof of concept code is maybe 5 to 10 percent of what it takes to make shippable code.
Lack of testing. Ok, in theory everyone using your software is testing it. But are they all trained to find, reproduce, and document bugs? Are they going to report the bugs at all? And if they do, will they really give you what you need to reproduce the bug and fix it? Sometimes this can be solved by adding unit tests. And sometimes you need a partner to sit down and find every edge case that you missed, and every OS bug that you need to work around (or report!). And how many OSS projects have been tested against other applications and other projects? Just because your code can read the file you wrote doesn't mean that everyone else's code can read it (too much incestuous testing, not enough free love testing).
Thinking that OSS is inherently better just because it's OSS. Sorry, but you've got to get over yourself. Just because it's free and 800 highschool kids contributed to it does not make it better. Of course, the reverse is true - but commercial software that sucks doesn't last long (without a monopoly and massive marketing engine behind it, of course). Unfortunately, OSS software that sucks keeps getting updated, then branches, then updated for new OS releases, then branched again, a few features added, then 20 similar projects start up (after that, see the first paragraph) and everyone involved goes to slashdot and whines about it.
"I invented it, so it must be the best". Yeah, and there's nobody on the planet smarter than you or with a bigger, um, idea than you. This is a frustratingly common pattern in the OSS world.
Lack of incentive. Why would I spend my own time on an open source project when I could do the same thing and get paid for it? Why would I give up the potential profits from my ideas when I could keep them proprietary and make more money? Why deal with a bunch of inexperienced programmers when I could work with a team of professionals and have additional resources available? These fundamental issues have yet to be solved.
Thinking of commercial software as the enemy. They're really not. Especially when OSS isn't competing with them yet. Do you know how many of them contribute to OSS? Do you know how far out of their way some commercial developers go to support OSS projects? A few of you might, but the OSS community as a whole seems to think it's "us versus them", not "us and them".
Yes, the OSS community is it's own worst enemy. But there are many reasons for that. And they're not going to change overnight.
Zombie Projects
I didn't read all the comments, but one thing that I did have to comment on was in regards to this sentence:
"Bazaar-style development allows projects to be in a zombie state for long periods of time, where it is vastly expensive for a Cathedral-style project to do the same."
A good amount of those zombie projects prove to be the foundation for something better. Alot of failed Cathedral ideas never make it into the public, thus have no chance of ever being anything. Since GNOME was mentioned, I think Xfce4 would help explain what I mean.
- goon12
The real problem is the attitude
I read, I see, I understand. I've been a LINUX user and developer for a very long time. And, even now that I think I can find my way around FOSS, I still really have to be bogged down to ask the community any questions. You always get either snotty remarks, or some-one on a crusade against Apple/Microsoft/IBM/Novell/etc. (make your pick). So, the problem is not the products, but the community holds new ideas and fresh blood away with one thing: ATTITUDE!
When people complain about such things then provide a link, 99% of the time it turns out that they were a dick. People go into a channel, complain how "crap and shit" something is, complain nobody helps them, then go away to complain loudly.
So, to prove me wrong, please provide a link.
Wow great minds and fools eh !
Patrick, there I was reading the same Blog entry and posting a short response on Marks blog when I realised I also had more to say about foss than would fit into the comments. Your right to make the comments and I can see that many of the responses are either right out Trolls or indepth technical issues about what the problems are. Ignoring the trolls is simple but the Technical discussions ironically highlight a weakness. The community is driven by standards over peer pressure and delivery. Very often things just grind to a halt under stop energy or overplanning which consumes more time and energy. Mean while the market share for the hearts and minds of consumers is being won by MS because its prepared to talk about ideas and concepts and encourage people to feel safe a happy if they continue to use MS software. Anyway I blogged up the whole thing myself at LoudMouthMan and I'll link back here as a pointer.Your spot on about the community however I would like to have the optimistic belief that we are a great crowd of smart people that we will be able to fix this soon, oh and I just noticed that I need to Login to post with my own details, so this was Nik Butler, The Loudmouthed Man and another Linux Evangelist.
Edge of Chaos
Over in the complex systems world there's an idea called "edge of chaos". In a number of experiments, systems seemed to maintain the most "information" if they have some structure, but not too much. Too much structure ends up frozen. Too much randomness ends up chaotic. The most interesting systems are those that are working right at the edge of chaos.
Leadership needn't to be either pure bazaar and pure cathedral..
Real open source leaders DON'T do cathedral-style development.
They rather spearhead and advise and conciliate, but not necessarily assign tasks
nor decree a particular architecture.
Please DON'T mistake good FOSS leadership skills with bankrupt cathedralism.
The hierarchy doesn't work, for problems that are complex enough.
Ubuntu fits the mold
I very much agree with your observation of one of the biggest problems with the FOSS software and community. I have followed a couple of free software projects, and I crave for better organization, better leadership, better vision. You said,
someone with vision (corrupt or not) would control a project, driving development behind it, and have the project reach goals in specific time frames.
I agree with a previous comment that Ubuntu seems to fit the solution you describe.
I hope that more people will become benevolent overlords like Linus and visionary men like Shuttleworth. Maybe I can do that. Maybe you, the reader, can do that.
The community's ennemy is the community
I'd like to draw a parallel to a different story, but the headline still applies IMHO, even if drifting somewhat away from the Cathedral-vs-Bazaar.
For this whole Novell-MS deal thing, the "community" has thrown more FUD, assumptions out of their a^Hhead, flaming and distro-war than anyone from, say, MS (including Ballmer).
(and +1 to "the real problem is the attitude")
And I really mean that. Most articles, blog posts, IRC poisoning are based on rumors, statements that are contradicted by what Novell has posted about the deal, sheer paranoia, and some sort of hatred against anything that's not Debian (see Bruce Perens).
Yes, there are some concerns wrt GPL3 and a few details that should get some more light, but the reactions have been kneejerking and napalm almost everywhere.
But that's not the topic, I have no intention to open yet another flaming thread about this one, just citing it as an example. The same applies to the Sun-MS deal earlier this year, but to a lesser extend.
Clueless trolls are enemies of the community, both by their flaming against other projects (e.g. Debian vs anything else, GNU vs Opensource, GNOME vs KDE, python vs ruby, and whatnot) and by their childish attitude towards non-FOSS (often non-GNU) projects, products and companies in the IT.
There is even a person who has been attacked at an Linux/FOSS meeting he organized in France, just because he's also taking care of a Novell User Group.. and I mean attacked, "physically", for real, also getting insulting phone calls at night, etc...
And I really do think that responsibility has to be taken by some of the "voices of opensource" (citing an article on zdnet or something). RMS and ESR have extreme opinions. That's fine, it's important to have people taking care of the libre-ness of software, being some sort of guides to some people and being the one end of a sane and realistic balance.
Then you have other people who are more balanced, like Linus. That's fine too, we need all of them.
Just keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "FOSS community". Everyone has her own reasons for using, contributing to and possibly advocating FOSS. Ethical, technical, free as in free beer, being part of a movement, world domination, because you make business with it, whatever. Hence you will always have many different point of views, opinions, and preferences. The point is: respect that.
The problem is just that some people take words as a religion and don't make up their own opinion, like taking every word from Bruce Perens for granted, whatever qualification he has to speak out about a project and distribution he never used, never contributed to, regardless of the fact that many people contribute their free time and efforts into this project for the good of everyone (yes, I mean openSUSE), deserving the same credit and respect as people who contribute to, say, Debian or Ubuntu.
Just keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "FOSS community". Everyone has her own reasons for using, contributing to and possibly advocating FOSS. Ethical, technical, free as in free beer, being part of a movement, world domination, because you make business with it, whatever.
I'd be curious to hear your definition of a community. We're all separate people with our own motivations, but we have a common interest in free and open software. We can respect that people have different opinions and preferences, but does that mean we can never make a value judgment?
I don't condone trollish, bullying kinds of behavior. We absolutely should be civil in these discussions. (See: Others may have different opinions about what an acceptable objection or protest is, but I'm making a value judgment about which is preferable, just as you did.) :-)
Similarly, as a business analyst who knows many other analysts that are smart, decent people with good values, I object to Patrick's simplistic characterizations of the group as a whole. I don't think it lends credibility to our movement to make careless remarks such as that analysts are "simply the ugly hunch-backed minions of the Bad Guy." I'm not personally offended--I just cringe at how that reads to other people.
Re: Community ?
(this time registered ;))
I'd be curious to hear your definition of a community. We're all separate people with our own motivations, but we have a common interest in free and open software. We can respect that people have different opinions and preferences, but does that mean we can never make a value judgment?
Yes, sorry, should have picked a better phrasing for that one.
I was once interviewed by a student who was writing an essay on the FOSS community wrt its social aspects and while he was talking about "the FOSS community" and mentioning some work done by some people on those points, I pointed out to him that there is no such this as the FOSS community.
s/a "FOSS community"/the "FOSS community"/g ;)
Of course we are thriving for similar goals, but not in the same way, and not exactly the same goals.
While for some the GPL is the only way, for others software covered by e.g. the Apache license is just as good (or even better). Some of us value FOSS because it gives us the source code, and rights on that source code, guarantees it will always remain FOSS, etc... Others value FOSS because they can use excellent pieces of software for free to make money with it in their own product/project, have access to the source code, can participate in a more open environment wrt submitting patches, etc... (mind you, I'm talking about "FOSS" as a whole, not "Free/Libre/GNU/FSF" ;))
As far as "value judgements" are concerned, I'm not sure that all of us would agree on all that much in exactly the same terms.
I don't condone trollish, bullying kinds of behavior. We absolutely should be civil in these discussions. (See: Others may have different opinions about what an acceptable objection or protest is, but I'm making a value judgment about which is preferable, just as you did.) :-)
Yeah, that's perfectly fine ;)
Different opinions is something that should be grown and favored, just as different cultures and origins -- well, at least, in between certain boundaries (some of them being e.g. the GPL license).
The point is just: we should all respect the fact that other people have different opinions, even if ultimately thriving for the same or very similar goals.
Similarly, as a business analyst who knows many other analysts that are smart, decent people with good values, I object to Patrick's simplistic characterizations of the group as a whole. I don't think it lends credibility to our movement to make careless remarks such as that analysts are "simply the ugly hunch-backed minions of the Bad Guy." I'm not personally offended--I just cringe at how that reads to other people.
You're part of the 1% then. You'd have to agree that most stuff written by so-called business analysts is just so far away from any realistic knowledge of the IT business and.. dare I say, facts. ZDnet, the register or rubbish aggregated on linuxtoday.com are full of those.
One should always ask himself what credibility and deeper knowledge some people have when they shout out loud about things they don't have a clue about, e.g. because they're not even working in such environments.
No pun intended, good to hear you're part of the IMHO somewhat smaller percentage of qualified business analysts ;)
The academic definition for community is that it is a group of people who share similar beliefs, norms and values. Therefore yes, it can be claimed that a FOSS community does exist.
Torvalds judgement perfect? Wrong.
Claiming Torvalds has good judgement borders on making religious propaganda.
What he thinks is 100% vital is not what other people think is, but he refuses to be flexible.
Therefore Torvalds is NOT a belevolent leader or dictator, he's a little George Bush.
Bush said "You're with us or against us."
Torvalds and his ilk have said the same many times...
One small problem
Linus Torvalds has not invaded other countries and murdered thousands of innocent people. Linus Torvalds didn't ignore the CIA and let 9/11 happen. Linus Torvalds didn't commit vote fraud. So, no, Linus isn't a Bush from what I can see.
Thankfully RMS isn't in the white house
Or we'd have a junior Stalin running the country.
Sorry, i think you missed the point.
You're talking about free developers as employers, but even if you implicit this thought in every sentence it won't turn into truth. FOSS is -with single exceptions= not business. If I take a look at the results of the gnome community, i've to say "thank you". they've written a nice desktop, thought about dbus layers etc. - this is _much_ more that i can expect to write by myself. also, I never could expect to write such quantity of code, independently of talking as a private person or as part of an IT office.
You're talking about the quality of FOSS created code. What the hell do you expect from people coding for fun without a strong business target in mind and without customers complaining about every bug?
Nobody is forced to use OSS Projects, interestingly many firms are doing so - and, what do you think would be the quality of cheap routers without the iptables project?
The big problem of OSS isn't the communtiy, because they ARE the heart and the hand of OSS projects. And, who cares about so-called zombie-projects? If they're needful to you, just bring them to live, if you don't care about them, shut up.
Just like Democracy
Democratic nations produce the most non-essential inventions, but are also unable to respond to non-immediate problems. Solution: more dictators like Linus Torvalds.
Please ignore this idiot
Patrick McFarland's major "contribution" to Open Source is "Shadow Conflict", a vaporware project that he used to attempt to scam LinuxFund out of money a few years ago:
Read through some of the comments and you'll get a feel for how far his contributions go.
The other major thing he did recently was start up "makepatrickrich.com", a website where he got people to give him money because he claimed he was the next Bill Gates, and intended to use the money to do "something awesome". According to the following log, this was either a parody or a "Psychology Experiment", depending on how he was trying to justify it. Obviously, he never returned the money:
Patrick McFarland is not an important Open Source/Free Software contributor. He does not know what he is talking about. Please don't make the mistake of thinking that he is an expert or qualified in any way to write articles on topics like these.
Solution: community organization, communication
Just like in any community, progress comes with more organization.
I believe the bazaar process is great, however the organization could improve - a lot.
It seems many, or most, people's efforts are largely taken for granted.
Better recognition of people's contribution, indeed, is likely to go a long way. Some way to organize all contributors, sortable by lines of code, years of activity, messages posted, community kudos/brownie points, etc. Perhaps sourceforge/freshmeat/etc could find some joint project to do this.
Many projects seem to die, or go wayward, from lack of motivation, frustration, lack of communication.
Some auxiliary support groups, mentors, professors, etc to occasionally support several projects, motivate programmers, comment, suggest merging groups/projects with duplicate or complementary efforts, serve as diplomatic relations, moderators, etc.
Active campaigning in universities and communities to include more students and programmers in projects.
I have long been looking for a good internet-cafe-manager open source program. I found several, over ten, but unfortunately none of very good quality, most largely abandoned. I also found people starting several new ones, instead of taking up and improving the abandoned ones.
Indeed, taking up someone else's code and trying to figure out is annoying and frustrating, whereas banging up your own brand-new, visionary, great, perfectly projected code is always fun. Sure, it's soon another mess - but at least you can understand it.
I'd say a few fulltime project-motivators, and project-evaluators, would go a very long way.
Cosource and SourceXchange
A while ago I pitched a proposal for adding process to FOSS projects, as did some other more vocal folks (see subject). It seems that the managerial itch just isn't one most of us care to scratch. Lord knows my curiosity about "institutional revolution" has not yet been great enough to actually get me to fulfill the resource requirements needed to foster an open source research organization. However, I think many would agree this is something that should happen; the FSF is too wrapped up in upholding its ideology (which I empathize with) to provide technical leadership, and nobody else has been willing to step outside the scope of their individual projects.


text:
Six-time Emmy Award-winning actress Carol Burnett is making a return trip to Minneapolis this spring.
Burnett will appear in an audience interactive program on May 17 at 8 p.m. at the State Theatre in downtown Minneapolis.
Burnett's conversation with the audience grew out of the question-and-answer sessions she would hold with her studio audience on each episode of "The Carol Burnett Show."
In April, Simon & Schuster will publish Burnett's new book, "Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story." It's a tribute to Burnett's late daughter, Carrie Hamilton.
Burnett sold out her April 2010 appearance at the State Theatre.
Tickets went on sale Friday at 10 a.m.
Location, ST | website.com

subset: commoncrawl


text:
- Apr 1:
- Even star Paul Walker's death couldn't stop 'Furious 7'
- Jan 3:
- Paul Walker coroner report: 'Fast and Furious' actor was alive when Porsche caught fire after 100 mph crash
- Dec 10:
- 2 charged with stealing piece of Paul Walker death car
- Dec 4:
- Appreciation: Paul Walker was rock-solid guy in life and films
- Paul Walker's daughter Meadow didn't see crash, publicist says
- Paul Walker's daughter Meadow didn't see crash, publicist says
- Dec 3:
- 'Wheel of Fortune uses 'The Fast and the Furious' answer days after Paul Walker's death
- Upcoming Paul Walker films still on track for release
- Dec 2:
- Paul Walker, Roger Rodas fatal crash described by witnesses
- Dec 1:
- Roger Rodas, driver in crash that also killed Paul Walker, mourned by friends and colleagues
- Nov 30:
- Paul Walker, 'Fast & Furious' star, dies in car crash
Paul Walker died from the combined effects of traumatic and thermal injuries sustained from the Nov. 30 car crash, according to the autopsy report filed by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office.
Sadly, this means the "Fast and Furious" star did not die on impact when the Porsche GT he was riding in crashed into a tree in Santa Clarita and exploded into flames.
The man behind the wheel, Roger Rodas, died from multiple traumatic injuries suffered upon impact.
The coroner said toxicology results for both men will be available in 6 to 8 weeks, TMZ reported. Both deaths have been ruled an accident.
Sources in the coroner's office say both men were positively ID'd using dental records.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation. Walker was 40 and Rodas was 38.
Contact Tony Hicks at Facebook.com/BayAreaNewsGroup.TonyHicks or Twitter.com/insertfoot.


text:
- Currently Unavailable
New Gemini material for a composite look while remaining extremely lightweight. Patented nash palm with mesh inserts for superior ventilation. Ventilator moisture wicking liner. Adjustable free floating cuff. Redesigned thumb with increased breaks makes this one of the most flexible and comfortable thumbs available. New backhand design with chrome accents.


text:
Sen. Rand Paul, one of our favorite punching bags (see HERE, for example),� is hinting at presidential ambitions.
The story is HERE:
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said at a breakfast meeting Wednesday morning that he�s considering a run for the White House in 2016.
�We�re considering it and won�t make a decision before 2014,� he told an audience at�The Christian Science Monitor's breakfast series, according to quotes published in The Hill.
Paul added that his early announcement of interest in a race still nearly four years off will ensure he�s �part of the national debate.�
Read more


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text:
Yume Ume
Category: Design / Branding/Identity, Design / Environmental, Design / Packaging, Design / Typography,
Posted by: Thea
Posted: Jul 20th 2012
No. of comments: 0
Posted: Jul 20th 2012
No. of comments: 0
It's rare that packaging design makes you laugh out loud - but that's exactly what I did when I saw the lovely collateral for Yume Ume, a Japanese restaurant based in Florida. Check out Kelly Dorsey's portfolio for more information, but until then, giggle over the family of edamame, edadaddy, and edababy!


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- OUTSOLE: Rubber with enhanced traction pattern with pivot circle for quick cuts


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The 2016 LS
Important Info Important Info
To ensure your experience on lexus.com is as exceptional as our vehicles, we no longer support Internet Explorer Version 10 and older. We do, however, support Version 11 and other browsers. Click here to upgrade your current browser or, to install a new one, select a link below.


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After 83 years, Higgins Armory Museum officially closed its doors on December 31, 2013. Fortunately, the museum's core collection lives on at the Worcester Art Museum (WAM) just a few miles away. On Friday, March 28, WAM opened a NEW exhibition, entitled Knights!, combining works from its collection with those from the newly integrated Higgins Collection.
Click here to learn more about the future long-term plans to present this arms and armor collection at the Worcester Art Museum.
After completing a proposal process that focused on building preservation and community enhancement, The Higgins Armory Museum officially closed on the sale of its property located at 100 Barber Avenue in Worcester, Mass. The property was purchased by the John W. Higgins Armory, LLC, a company created by the new owner prior to the sale, which is unrelated to the existing museum and non-profit corporation.
The Higgins Armory Museum Board of Trustees ultimately selected this proposal as it best addressed the five criteria outlined for potential buyers (in no order of priority): reuse of existing building; financial return; most immediate transaction; honoring historic integrity of the building; and enhancement to the surrounding community. Proceeds from the sale of the property will be transferred to the Worcester Art Museum for the continued stewardship of the Higgins Armory Collection.
If you would like to learn more about the future use of the building by the new owner, click here.


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According to the Pocono District of Penn State Extension, Charcoal Making Then and Now webinar, January 8, 12 – 1 PM and repeated 7 – 8 PM ET. This is the next webinar in the Forest Stewardship Series. To register and take part in the live seminars or to view the upcoming seminars schedule, visit http://extension.psu.edu/private-forests/tools-resources/webinars.
If you are unable to participate in the "live" session, a recording of it will be available for you to view at your convenience.
Of course, none of the interactive elements will be available when watching the recording. Participation in the web seminar does not require any special software. To view live and previously recorded seminars all you need is a high-speed Internet connection and sound.
Penn State is committed to affirmative action, equal opportunity, and the diversity of its workforce.
Location, ST | website.com


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Handgun training offered locally
Published: Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, February 16, 2013 at 12:01 a.m.
A concealed-handgun course is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Lafourche sheriff's Shooting Range, 3451 La. 182 in Raceland.
The course costs $110. Register in advance.
The course is a pre-requisite for applying for a state concealed-handgun permit. To register, contact Sgt. David Robichaux at 449-4480, or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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STOCKTON – Seconds after arriving home around 9:40 p.m. Tuesday in the 4600 block of McDougald Boulevard in Weston Ranch, a man was confronted on his driveway by two males, including one pointing a black pistol at him, police reported.
While the adult suspect demanded his money, a juvenile between 14 and 16 years old attempted to pull the victim's wallet from his pocket. After being knocked down, police reported, the victim managed to get up and run into his house. The suspects fled in a vehicle, without the victim's wallet.
Location, ST | website.com


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World Soccer Shop. Your best source for soccer jerseys, soccer balls, soccer shoes.
Departments > Coaching Gear > Medical >
Departments > Sale > Player Equipment > Less Than $30 >
Departments > Teamwear > Other Brand > Women's >
Skins A400 Women's Top Racer Back (Blk/Grey)
Skins A400 Women's Top Racer Back (Blk/Grey)
» read more
Customer Testimonials
I recently purchased a t-shirt from them as a gift for my son, who is an avid player and fan. I ordered the shirt and had it customized with his name on the back. The shirt arrived at his home two days before I expected it would. My son was both shocked and very happy. Shocked because he had tried to find this very shirt on other sites and catalogs, but they were sold out on that teams shirts. Happy because his name was on it. I couldnt be more pleased! I have now ordered the same teams home jersey, and am looking forward to his reaction upon its arrival. I guess am more than a satisfied customer.
T.V., Florida
Great looking shirt and excellent printing :)
I highly recommend this shop. Thanks for the quick turnaround!
A.P., California
Thanks so much! The order arrived this week and the jerseys are great! I'll be sure to order more in the near future!
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Safe Shopping GuaranteeAll information is encrypted and transmitted without risk using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
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Easy ReturnsReturns are extremely easy with us. We accept returns on all items except customized products so you can order with confidence!
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Great Customer ServiceWorld Soccer Shop has a history of incredible customer service. If you have any questions, or wish to speak to our team call use at 1 800 277 7255
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text: Log In or Join Now * All fields required Email or Username: Email or username is incorrect Please Select Username to appear on public areas of the site like community and recipe comments. Requested Username: Please enter a valid username Username already exists Username cannot contain spaces or special characters Password: Please enter a password Forgot Your Password? Remember Me Log In Log In Join Now Not a member? Here's why you should be! Save favorite recipes in your FREE personal recipe box Share your comments on what you thought of the recipes you made Sign up for FREE recipe newsletters Join Now


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Tuesday's letters: National debt
Published: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 4:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Monday, January 21, 2013 at 4:50 p.m.
To the editor: I was truly touched last week seeing the president surrounded by children as he signed executive orders regarding gun control. Clearly he was showing his concern for their safety and the safety of all children as he should.
Now what I would like to see in the near future is another photo op with the president surrounded by children but this time as he signs legislation addressing a problem that will affect them much more significantly than gun violence: the overwhelming burden of our national debt.
Please, Mr. President, save our children!
John Knapp
Bad bank deal
To the editor: Our friends, the Wall Street banks, are at it again. HSBC, Europes largest bank, has agreed to pay $1.92 billion to settle U.S. probes of money laundering for major drug cartels and terrorist countries such as Iran and Sudan. It sounds like our Justice Department is really doing a bang-up job.
But is it? You and I will usually go to jail for a range of relatively minor drug offenses. But at HSBC, no one was even placed in handcuffs. Instead, our Justice Department gave it a deferred prosecution agreement, meaning it is too big and important for criminal prosecution. Our Justice Department did the same thing under George W. Bush to Wachovia Bank for the same offenses.
Is the fine of almost $2 billion a significant penalty for HSBC? Nope! The fine gets paid by stockholders, not executives. Who are the stockholders? Well, stockholders include pension funds and mutual funds that you and I may own. No executives salary has been docked a dime. Probably quite the opposite is true, as money-laundering activities are enormously profitable. Sad, isnt it?
I wish the Times-News would ask Sens. Richard Burr and Kay Hagan and Congressman Mark Meadows for their thoughts.
William F. Fitch
To the editor: What we need in this country isnt hatred. What we need in this country isnt divisiveness. What we need in this country isnt violence. But rather, love and wisdom and compassion for each other and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer in this country, be they poor or mentally ill.
My favorite writer is Camus, who wrote that a man doesnt prove his greatness by being of one extremity but rather by touching both at once. Camus meant by this that if one goes around treating others justly, and doing good in spite of his dark side urging him to do evil, then he will have achieved greatness.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: To tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of the world.
And say a prayer for ourselves and for our children.
Richard Pope
Devoted care
To the editor: Doctors generally, especially geriatric specialists, are the very antithesis of criminals. The only willful trait of Dr. Felicia Brabham I have observed in the past 20 years is the excellent and devoted care of her patients, myself among them.
Ed Boyen
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged.


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World Soccer Shop. Your best source for soccer jerseys, soccer balls, soccer shoes.
Departments > Teamwear > High Five > Jerseys >
Team Stock > Jerseys >
High Five Tempest Soccer Jersey (Navy)
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L.B., Texas
Safe Shopping GuaranteeAll information is encrypted and transmitted without risk using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
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Erin Wood brings news from LRSC and a whole lot more in her blog.
Today's entry is about taking a day to visit and explore the campus and to learn about what's there for you. Check it out on this website under Community Blogs, select "Read More" and "College Clips."
Location, ST | website.com


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Jetsetting designer Stephanie Johnson knows that trying to stay organized while traveling can cause more headaches than a missed flight connection. That's why the former telecom executive — who lives in what she calls a "stylish Type A universe" —launched her eponymous line of sophisticated travel accessories in 2000. Stephanie Johnson features more than two dozen accessory styles — from chic iPad cases and cosmetic bags to passport covers, jewelry organizers, luggage tags, and clutch purses. Distinctive embellishments such as gold thread woven into gorgeous lavender linen, silk-knot zipper pulls, and ombre sequins add an opulent touch to Johnson's designs. Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz, and other celebs have all been seen carrying Stephanie Johnson's wares, including her ultra-lightweight totes, train cases, and makeup bags.
Elegant finishing touches, from cosmetic pouches to leather key chains
Stylish accessory steals to carry everywhere


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Law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced the federal indictments of 42 people in what may be the largest conspiracy ring busted in the area. U.S. Attorney William C. Killian said all 42 are charged with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine; and, if convicted, they face a minimum of 10 years and up to life in prison, a fine of up to $10 million, and a term of supervised release of no less than five years.
Seventh Judicial District Attorney General David Clark said what makes the indictment different from operations in the past is the conspiracy charge … meaning all 42 people indicted were involved in some way with the manufacture and distribution of meth.
"And they are all then legally responsible for the object of the conspiracy," the DA said. As an example of conspiracy, Clark talked about 10 people involved in a bank robbery, stating that all — from the get-away driver to the actual robber — were equally responsible.
"That's what's happened here, 42 people in one conspiracy to manufacture and distribute meth," he said. "It seeks to link together the people who handle different parts of the manufacture and distribution of meth."
Clark said he hasn't seen a conspiracy charge "this large" since he's been in office.
Of the 42 individuals, 33 reside in Anderson County and were indicted by a federal grand jury for various charges relating to the manufacture and distribution of methamphetamine.
In addition to manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine and conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, some are also charged with offenses ranging from possessing equipment, chemicals, products and materials which may be used to manufacture methamphetamine; knowing that the equipment, chemicals, products and materials would be used to manufacture methamphetamine; and federal firearms offenses, including two for using firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and one for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Also, in one case, a person was charged with maintaining a residence less than 1,000 feet away from an elementary school for the purpose of manufacturing methamphetamine. Clark identified that school as Claxton Elementary.
Killian called the conspiracy "far-reaching" and started about 2004. He said he couldn't release information about when officers started the actual investigation but said it involved several different aspects of investigation, including undercover operations.
Clark said part of the investigation revolved around changes in state laws and how criminals got around those laws, using as an example the law that restricts pseudoephedrine purchases.
"The person making meth would use other people to acquire the pseudoephedrine for them," he said, calling the process "smurfing."
"Smurfing comes from a 'Smurfs' episode where Papa Smurf sent 10 smurfs out to collect ingredients for soup," he said. "That's how it got its name."
Page 2 of 2 - Dubbed "Operation Meth-odical Destruction," the investigation was designed to address meth-related crime in Anderson and Knox counties.
The investigation leading to the indictment was a joint effort between the Drug Enforcement Administration, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Tennessee Methamphetamine and Pharmaceutical Drug Task Force, Anderson County Sheriff's Office, Knox County Sheriff's Office, Knoxville Police Department, Oak Ridge Police Department, the Seventh Judicial Crime Task Force and the Clinton Police Department.
Officers with the Oliver Springs and Lake City police departments, as well as the Tennessee Highway Patrol, are also part of the Seventh Judicial Crime Task Force.
Killian said all but five to eight people indicted are still at-large. He said officers began arresting the suspects Thursday.
"They are either in state or federal custody," Killian said. "None have been released and, under federal law, they are not entitled to be released."
Beverly Majors can be contacted at (865) 220-5514.
Location, ST | website.com


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Men's New Era Philadelphia Phillies MLB Skew 9FIFTY Velcro Strapback Hat
A fresh look on the field, at the mall or in the streets, the New Era MLB Skew 9FIFTY Velcro Strapback Hat offers standout graphics and pure comfort so you can represent your team in style.
A classic 9FIFTY hat with a twist, the Skew 9FIFTY features a VELCRO brand strapback for an adjustable fit. Large embroidered team graphics at the front leave no question what MLB team you are rooting for, while the New Era flag embroidered at the left side adds iconic athletic recognition.
- TYPE: Strapback


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From 1910, Hotel of luxury and Palace, inspired by the monument of the Alhambra, faithful representative of a renewed tradition and of a high European hospitality industry.
Please note that the bookings for Advance Purchase rates are non-refundable. Hotel might take the remaining balance upon the receipt of the booking.


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Our FAIRS bring living wisely to life with hands-on workshops in organic gardening, country skills, renewable energy and more.
By Allison Martin
Peppermint, Herbal Tinctures, DIY, Allison Martin, Gina DeBacker, K.C. Compton, The Herb Companion, Mother Earth News Fair, Allison Martin
The editors of The Herb Companion magazine are here at the MOTHER EARTH NEWS FAIR sharing information about healing with herbs, and how to get started using herbs in your own life. K.C. Compton, editor-in-chief of the magazine, is speaking today at noon about natural ways to save money on medical bills. Yesterday, Associate Editor Gina DeBacker and I talked about herbal apothecary basics. Here are a few tips for getting started with tincture making:
What is a tincture? Basically, a tincture is an alcoholic extract. For our purposes, a tincture is plant extracts in alcohol.
How do you do it? I showed the audience a simple technique I learned from Steven Foster's article on medicinal gardens. In a jar, cover plant material you wish to preserve, such as dried peppermint leaves (which is what we used in the demonstration), with 80 proof alcohol (we used vodka), leaving as little room at the top of the jar as possible (a mason jar works great). Place in a cool, dark location, like a kitchen cabinet, and shake twice daily. For a supple plant material like leaves, let sit for 2 days before straining the mixture into a bottle made of amber or cobalt glass to protect it from the sun.
When do you use it? Take a small amount of your tincture (an eye-dropper full) in tea or a glass of water. The peppermint tincture would be best after meals, since the antispasmodic properties can help ease digestion.
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Latest Blog Posts
- Sage Francis
Sage Francis 2016 Events (EdFringe, Eng, Nordic, Florida, Tahoe)
- Sage Francis
"Reflections from Hell" prt 1
- Sage Francis
Fancy Fran and the South African Fam (2015)
- Sage Francis
Copper Gone 1 Year Anniversary + NEW VIDEO!
- Sage Francis
The most common response to the announcement of his 2009 signing to SFR was, "Who the fuck is Curtis Plum?"
Let's start with the basics: Curtis Plum is a character who makes Casio keyboard beats and raps in a Katharine Hepburn accent. But wait… there's more!
Aside from the assistance from label mate Reanimator on a couple of tracks, all of Plum's beats are completely self-produced. Every song on Call My Cellphone has a theme of its own, and these themes are turned upside-down with a dose of his signature style of twisted humor. Rather than the tread-worn punchline style of most hip hop 'humorists', Plum opens up his mind and empties it all over the borders of hip-hop topics, blurring the line between keeping it real and creating the surreal. It takes a special kind of emcee to tick off a list of 20 ways in which he can be "Up in Ya Face."
Despite the lo-fi nature of his recordings, the music is oddly hypnotic. The melodies are as catchy as his lines are quotable, and when all elements come together the songs become maddeningly infectious. There is an old school sensibility to the sparseness in Plum's production style, which gives the vocals adequate room to breathe. This is essential to Plum's effectiveness, as he has a penchant for great storytelling. He goes from being a "Bike Cop" poppin' wheelies of justice, to being Vin Diesel's best friend… consoling him at yet another winless night at the Oscars.
It's not all jokes though, as you'll find out on "XBox Trife Life," where Plum personifies an Xbox game system left to deal with its waning popularity. When the sad strings kick in you'll begin to understand how trife life can really get. Things get a bit personal on "Indie Rocker," as Plum puts an old Junior High School friend on blast for being a closet Blink-182 fan. You want social commentary? The song "Jack in the Pinebox" exposes the nasty secrets of Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurants. Deciphering the reality from the fantasy is part of what increases this album's replay value. Did Lil Wayne really try to rape Curtis Plum backstage at a show that he won tickets to a couple years back? Shit if we know.
In fact, we don't know much about the person behind the music. He has disappeared and reappeared with various accents and game plans ever since he started working with Strange Famous Records back in 2007. He showed up unannounced to the SFR Showcase at SXSW in 2009 which is the first and last time he met with label owner Sage Francis. Scattered peanut galleries online have murmured rumors that Curtis Plum isn't real, or that he's a composite character made up of different rappers on the label. Throw that idea out the window. There are also rumors that Plum used to be a sponsored skater who operated under a different alias. One person from Boise, ID recalled a time when Plum ran out of a house party into the snowy woods completely barefoot, never to be heard from again. 'Til now of course.
Here are the facts: Curtis Plum is a bizarre cat who has delivered an incredibly fun and enjoyable album. This will most likely be the only album we get from the man, in this incarnation at least, so eat up every minute of it. Plum will not be touring any time soon due to how his last tour got cut short thanks to a horrible run-in with the Pittsburgh police. With that in mind, be sure to bump this album in your rides with cellphones held high. Pop a wheelie of justice. Or don't. He's cool either way.
Curtis Plum's debut album, Call My Cellphone, is available for pre-order now here at SFRstore.com!
Latest Blog Entry
My Tour Dates/Watch Yourself Asher
This is the basic run down of my pre release promo tour. I got the idea of fan poaching with promo stickers/ a cd with one track not on my album rapping outside venues of other artists and it grew on me. I love the idea of it. I talked to Scroobius after hearing he […]
"5 out of 5" - PopularOpinions by Chaz Kangas
"Mildly hypnotic." - Storm Davis
"When i listened to curtis plum, my thoughts were along you are fucking kidding me. But guess what. I have put his myspace playlist on 10+ times and it is playing currently. My girlfriend walked by a few hours ago when I was listening to it. I didn't point it out or was aware she heard it. A few minutes ago she went up to bed, and she gave me a "Up in your FACE" - Jack, SFR forum
"I'm honored and flattered. This music is getting me PUMPED!" -Vin
"I am suprised but I find the Plumster very entertaining" - PHIL LACIO AKA P DAWG, the godfather of troll
"Curtis Plum is weird on first listen - then unbelievably catchy forever after." - Lants, SFR Forum
From the mind of B. Dolan, The MAKE RACISTS AFRAID AGAIN Hat is meant to express solidarity with those opposing racism, homophobia, and fascism worldwide. Anywhere they rear their head, we will combat them. It's that simple.
BRAND NEW STYLE FOR 2016, available in Men's & Women's fits! The One Party System T-Shirt is inspired by lyrics from the Sage Francis classic "Slow Down Gandhi".
Because you demanded it: brand new FLEXFIT HATS! Click here to see them all.


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Haven All Purpose Cleaner
- Overview
Clean living. Great for countertops, mirrors, tile and just about any other non-porous surface, Haven All Purpose Cleaner is made in Brooklyn of natural, non-toxic solvents. Its lemon mint scent will spread cheer from room to room.
- All purpose cleaning spray.
- 32 fluid oz.
- Non-toxic.
- Lemon Mint scent.
- See Dimensions + Care for ingredients.
- Made in the USA.
- Details + Dimensions
- Overall product dimensions: 3.25"diam x 13"h.
- Overall product volume: 32 fluid oz.
Distilled water, witch hazel, saponified organic oils of coconut, olive and jojoba, non-GMO vegetable glycerin, essential oil blend (lemon, lemongrass and peppermint), grapefruit seed extract.
- Shipping + Return Info
Most purchases are shipped from our Distribution Center by UPS, to arrive in your home within 5-7 business days of order receipt.
Shipping Rates
The shipping rate varies depending on your order total and shipping options. View Shipping Rates and Options
Next Day Delivery
For an extra charge of $17.50 per address, we can arrange for rush delivery to most destinations.
Return Policy
We take great pride in the quality of our merchandise. If for any reason you are not happy with your purchase, you may return the item(s) within 30 days of receiving the order for a full refund of the merchandise cost. After 30 days, we will replace or refund your purchase against manufacturer's defects ONLY. Please note that we cannot accept returns on mattresses, monogrammed/personalized items, special order upholstery items and special order rugs, one-of-a-kind rugs, or on items damaged through normal wear and tear. We also cannot accept returns of final-sale items, which are identified by a price ending in .99 or .97.
For further assistance please call our customer service department at 1.888.922.4119 or send an email to email@example.com


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Welcome to the Tennessee Softball Community at ACTIVE.com. Feel free to ask for tips & advice, post recruiting wanted ads, general discussions and more. Visit our softball activities section for softball leagues, clinics and tournaments near you. Looking to improve your game? Checkout our selection of softball training tips
For Softball Teams & League software, check out our Sports League Management Software.