wingolog

flumotion roundup

My last entry on Flumotion internals began with a rhetorical question, something like "why aren't more people hacking Flumotion?" Unexpectedly, I got some real responses in the comments, all quite good. The general theme is that "developers are users first". If your project doesn't present itself well and offer a good initial experience, you're shutting off potential contributors as well as users. So say HiHo, Kalle, and Michael, more eloquently than I.

Johan appears to be in a similar situation as myself; I don't know if blagging is the answer, but it does entertain when you have lost your phone.

launchpad

I am very impressed with Launchpad's support for Bazaar. For example, I was able to tell Launchpad about Guile-Gnome's bazaar repositories, and it automatically mirrored them.

But that's not the best part. Launchpad offers a web-based repository browser, including changesets, and offers the ability to subscribe to any branch it knows about. You get emails on distributed commits. This is a beautiful thing! Anyone who has worked with distributed VCS's has probably had the feeling that they are seeing development through a keyhole, that there's a whole world out there that's not easily visible or comprehensible. Launchpad offers the possibility of tying together the various development branches out there in the wild in one place, effectively removing the last advantage of centralized version control. Nice job, Launchpad hackers!

I have no current plans to rely on Launchpad for this service, as it is not free software. However, the genius of distributed VC is that I don't have to rely on it; I can continue working like I normally do, commiting my code to archives hosted elsewhere, but if Launchpad is available (probable), I can use it to keep track of things. It helps me work better. I don't need anyone's permission for it to help me work better, either; I just tell it about the bazaar repositories, and it mirrors them. Delightful.

colonizing earth

My phone's been in interplanetary orbit since I went to the Pyrenees two and a half weeks ago. Without it, life's been calm -- time to write, for example. But it's getting old, I might have to hoof it to Tarragona to retrieve my social contact device.

I bought two old albums today: more Cat Power (the covers album, which is astonishingly beautiful), and Yo La Tengo (And then nothing..., mellow, in a similar haunting vein, verging on mope). I just can't seem to put 2000 down. cd drome++; instead of swiping a barcode to listen like at FNAC, there you spin vinyl.

MediaLens' cogitations continue to inspire.

Finally, I desire to believe that the word "mindset" comes from the definition of "set" as "[d]irection or course; as, the set of the wind, or of a current." To me this is a wonderful image that some sailors I know might appreciate.