Web design & FOSS

Last Saturday I went along to KLUG, my local Linux Users Group, to say hello and to talk about setting a FOSS-based digital arts project, which would double up as a focal point for local FOSS groups, plus it could also facilitate a way of persuading public institutions to use and invest in FOSS.

Along the way, I came up with the "3 I's" that impede the take-up of FOSS:

1. Inertia: it's a lot of effort to change systems, at any level
2. Ignorance: people just don't know about FOSS
3.Indifference: people just don't care, and why should they?

I'll be posting more about these issues, and about investment in FOSS. In the meantime, I came across a post entitled UK Government: Starts The Push For FOSS? by the Open Sourcerer, plus an article from Tom Watson, the Minister for Digital Engagement entitled Open Source, Open Standards and Re-use in the UK.

I'm in the process of rebuilding my web site in the open source Joomla CMS, and I also have the possibility of some work building a simple Drupal site.

Imagine my delight on discovering a complete and public reworking of the audience and User Experience interface for the upcoming Drupal 7 by the talented and eminent web designer Mark Boulton.

In this post, he explicitly details working with Leisa Reichelt to create a tool for looking at The Matrix of different roles, site types and numbers of users. It's really refreshing to see a creative process publicly aired, in the true spirit of Free Open Source Software. And as Mark says "what other projects can you talk about as you're doing it?"

To get involved in the process, visit the post and download the PDF!

Your starter for 10...

This is an open question to Ubuntu/GNOME users -- I like to use a non-anti-aliased font (specifically ProFontWindows) when coding in my favourite text editor. However, I can only seem to switch on non-anti-aliasing (AKA 'monochrome font rendering') system wide (see screengrab of the Appearance Preferences dialog).

Is there any way to have a non-anti-aliased font for specific programs?

Yours, not holding his breath very long, Jake ;)

I'm in the process of installing Ubuntu linux on my old PC tower (I'm building a trusty audio workhorse). But I forgot the name of the web site which carries the latest Debian packages that aren't in the Ubuntu repositories.

It's called getdeb.net, all the latest, freshest, lovely software. The proviso is (there is always a proviso) that the software won't be supported by Ubuntu.

Addendum:. Thanks to fancollo for his comment, pointing out an alternative site called Appnr.com, which is a similar site but slicker and you can install packages directly from the web site.

Whenever I give a talk about Free Open Source Software, the question I am invariably asked is "How does anyone make any money?". I reply that people make money from the services they offer using free software, and then plough money back into the projects that support their livelihood. For example, Google's Summer of Code, and on a micro-scale, myself donating spare $ to my favourite projects.

However, software projects still need lots of hard cash (the Digital Audio Workstation Arour asks for subscriptions).

Recently I've also received an email from the Libre Graphics Meeting, who are looking to raise $15k for "travel and support" for the meeting in Montreal in May 2009. Included in the main projects are Scribus, Inkscape and GIMP, and considering I use at least one of these pretty much every day, a few dollars donations seems the least I could do.

A few years ago I had a conversation with Martin Dupras (an ex-colleague, lecturer, FOSS exponent and musician with a brain the size of a planet). The conversation was about somehow persuading universities and colleges to firstly use Free Open Source Software, and secondly to pay for that software. Then, the educators could ask for new features, neigh, even pay for new features. The beauty of it is that the features would then be available to everybody :). To be effective, this would have to be a nationwide initiative. A revolutionary thought: government spending money on Free Software, with the fruits of that expenditure benefiting everybody…

So, is anyone up for the challenge?!