Hello all,

I’m moving my blog from my drab Ikiwiki to the WordPress host. I have always been reluctant to adopt a big blog host for the following reasons:

• Web UI: it’s a goddamned web interface
• HTML: it uses plain HTML instead of wiki markup
• Plugins: I can’t install plugins
• Hosting: I’m already paying to be hosted at HCOOP.net

… but then I thought…

• WebUI: … I can type my post offline then stick it online if I care. I can even post with Emacs using XML/RPC
• HTML: … wiki markup is fast and succint, but I know HTML just fine too
• Plugins: … maybe I can’t install plugins, but I don’t have to keep my WordPress install secure
• Hosting: … I can still host most of my things on HCOOP, and this blog is free, or very cheap if you add some options.

There is also the obvious advantage that being hosted on such a big site probably increases the chances of getting traffic. Traffic at my other blog was mostly people passing over my posts about Awesome.

WordPress may be a web UI, but it’s a pretty good web UI. It obviously has seen a lot of users over the years to become as good as it is now.

Finally, I can’t say I was the victime of peer-pressure, but I have several blogging friends which have adopted wordpress.org. They probably did it for good reasons.

Today I’ve read some statements on IRC which I know are true but for which I never found necessary to search for more explanations. Perhaps because they were not relevant enough of because I thought I
superfically understood the issues.

ZFS on Linux

ZFS will never be usable on Linux because it’s license isn’t compatible with the GPL

Well, file, but how is CDDL not compatible with the GPL. Many people can probably answer but I’m not the kind that is very interested in the politics and legal side of FOSS.

KernelTrap has a thread which has some developers discussing why ZFS cannot be included in the Linux kernel. There seems to be a lot of informations about how ZFS rox0r in there but I don’t really care about that. I know it’s probably an awesome filesystem, but it doesn’t really matter since I can’t use it.

This thread reveals that one of the problem particular to ZFS is that Sun has taken several patent about its technology. This is relevant because someone could still reimplement ZFS from scratch without looking at Sun’s code. If the resulting Sun-free code works, it’s doubtful that it will be accepted in the kernel because of Sun’s patent on ZFS features.

The list of non-free software licenses at gnu.org doesn’t tell much.

A high Google hit on the issue, at sun.com, has some pretty graphics that explains exactly the problem. It seems the viral nature of the GPL license comes in conflict with the “un-erasable” nature of the CDDL. That means if you link a piece of code under the GPL license with a piece of code under the CDDL license, the GPL wants that you use the GPL license for the other piece of code while the CDDL says that you cannot relicense code
licensed under the CDDL. This is where the incompatibility remains.

OpenGL SGI

We’ve been told recently by various news
websites that OpenGL as changed its license on OpenGL.

It’s Linux.com that has the best article about that issue, covering pretty much everything I wanted to know.

In very short, SGI did a Good Thing. They also did it so fast that no Linux distribution, except
GNewSense took step to remove the OpenGL distribution from their Free offering.

I’ve recently gave a try to Awesome 3 RC5. Again, like in my last attempt, I was forced to bail out.

I decided to try it at work because it is the place where I need the less applications. I mostly use a few terminal with Emacs to edit and Opera to browse. I also still use VMware, and yes, the problem I described last time is still present. I already admitted it was just an annoyance so this time I decided this would not stop me from at least trying to use Awesome productively.

I lasted roughly 2 days and a half before I was forced to admit defeat and move back to OpenBox. I don’t believe there are any formal studies done on that, but I feel getting used to a software graphic interface needs at least two step:

1. First is getting used to the controls, and being able to find its way into the interface. This might be short or not depending on the complexity of the said interface.
2. The second step is becoming productive in the same interface.

The steps can probably overlap, ie, you can probably become productive with an interface without knowing the full feature set of the interface, but you need a basic understading of the features before
becoming productive.

I can say that after 1 day, I was well in my way into step 2 of my learning. What really helped is that Awesome defaults are well choosen and easy to learn. In fact, I quickly felt the need to rebind some controls, which is something you can’t really before thinking you might be more productive if you move some bindings around on the keyboard.

I had already done that after a day or two. In fact, I actually rebound the Caps Lock key to be my modifier key for the WM. That was pretty cool actually.

Everything went fine until I started to know the key good enough to stop thinking that I was using a WM. At this moment, I found myself continually typing in the wrong window. My brain could not at any moment, know which window had the focus. Everything I switched
window, or moved window around, I had to stop, for perhaps 1/10 of a second, and check which window was highlighted.

Before surrendering to the familiar OpenBox, I asked people of the #awesome IRC channel for their opinion on my problem. The simplest trick I’ve seen was to edit the theme so that the focused window
border was of a bright color. I did set the border to be thick and red, but to no avail. Other suggestions were either not applicable to all windows, or would have required compizmgr, something with which I have no competence.

The problem is certainly not specific to Awesome. Any tiling window manager will probably lead to me typing in the wrong windows all the time.

I’m a little annoyed by this problem. With WM dealing with overlapped window, it’s obvious that that the top-most window is the window that has the focus. My working style with WM is usually to have a few (2
or 3) windows opened inside a single virtual desktop. I toggle between them using Alt+Tab. Windows are really side-by-side each other will overlap 95% of the time. I have not stopped to see how I
work the remaining 5% of the time. Do I type in the wrong window? I honnestly can’t say yes or know. When you work day to day, very quickly, with windowing environment, its the kind of thing you may not realize happens when it doesn’t really slow you down.

I’m off Awesome for a while now. I’m not ready to make it replace my working environment any time soon. Still, Awesome is really awesome. I recommend to everyone that is curious about tiling window managers to try it before any other. It’s just a personnal problem that I find myself incapable of using it.