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Saros account management

This feature makes it much more manageable if you have a number of profiles to switch between. What’s more, you can switch between the accounts via a drop-down on the roster view. How much simpler could it be?

In addition to this, the new-look chat view is also available. Much more pleasing to the eye, I’m sure you’ll agree, and it even notifies you when someone else in the room is typing (notice the little pencil icon in the image below).

New-look Saros chat

And finally, as you might notice from the session view in that screenshot, there is now the option in Saros to change the default colour assigned to you, should you wish to change it to something more meaningful to you, or something just plain nicer.

Go over to our project website to get Saros today. If you already have Saros, update to version 10.10.29 now! Learn more about how to use it at the official web-page.

Thanks to all those who took part! Maybe I should take another poll: who has the best logo, Eclipse or Git?

Edit: See the previous post to find out why Subversion is not included in the results.

You may be familiar with Saros — our plug-in which provides distributed collaborative editing in Eclipse — and you may even know that Saros now features version control system (VCS) integration, so that all participants can work directly on the project repository together. At the moment, this feature only supports Subversion, but thanks to some clever architecture we can easily chuck in a bit of new code to support any VCS we like. But our resources are limited, and in lieu of a contributor coming forward and writing their own code (which is always welcome!), we have to pick and choose which VCS to support next.

To help us decide, please take a few seconds for this poll. The most popular VCSes are included, but feel free to add others.

As I was reading on BBC News about the Pope’s visit to the UK a few weeks ago, I came across this line:

But speaking in Birmingham, Mr Cameron will tell the Pope: “Faith is part of the fabric of our country. It always has been and it always will be.”

There was plenty to comment on concerning the whole bizarre visitation, as well as this rather hollow, meaningless quote itself, but a lot has already been said about both before now. Instead, I just want to focus on the words: “Mr. Cameron will tell the Pope…”

Will tell the Pope?

So, the BBC were not reporting on rumours and saying something like, “It’s understood Mr. Cameron will talk about importance of faith,” etc. They were quoting him, word-for-word, on what he was going to say in the future. I saw an instance of this again on the BBC a couple of weeks later, when the Labour Party chose a new leader and the BBC, having consulted their Minority Report-mutants I suppose, quoted us exactly on what Ed Milliband was going to say in his upcoming speech.

I decided to see if any other domestic media outlets had access to higher pre-cognitive powers and so Googled “Ed Milliband “will say”". Very quickly, I came across this article in the Independent (a UK newspaper), in which Ed Milliband was pre-cognitively quoted at length — whole paragraphs of his speech were written out for us to lap up before he had even spoken them. (And looking at the comments, it appears I’m by no means the first person to notice this, the first commenter on the article having picked out all of the psychic instances.)

How long has this been going on? Ruling out any kinds of extra-sensory perception, I can only presume that these speeches are leaked to media outlets beforehand, either complete or just in the form of juicy titbits to make us beg for more. But if this is going to happen, why bother giving the speech at all, if the key-points and sound-bites are already out? And what if a politician decides to change his words at the last minute (which, after watching The Thick of It, seems an unlikely idea, I admit)? Does the media outlet doctor their article to make it fit reality? It would appear not, seeing as articles like the Independent one above remain available in the pre-quotation stage. In which case, we are left with a quotations from someone floating around the public record that was never actually spoken in the first place. Think of the immeasurable damage that could be wrought, should I or anyone else quote Ed Milliband’s conference speech incorrectly.

And pity those reporters who are not ‘in the loop’, forced to do that thing where you wait, listen to someone and then write down what they have said.

NOTE: The author would like to acknowledge the influence of David Mitchell in the formation of this post of ‘angry logic’, but is in no way drawing comparisons to Mr. Mitchell’s genius.

New Saros menu in the project explorer

Visually the layout has changed a little. Using Saros is now so adaptable that we’ve had to group the growing number of menu items together into a sub-menu (above). The Roster also marks the icon of your friends who have Saros installed in their copy of Eclipse (below).

The Saros Roster -- each user with Saros has a little icon

Functionally the biggest improvement is in the version control system (VCS) integration. The previous Saros release introduced sharing your project with VCS support, allowing you and your colleagues to work in a common repository when distributed. In the latest release you can now update, switch, or revert your working copy and your peers will share these events too.

Sadly we decided to hold back a few of the new features we’ve been working on, to give them a little more polishing time. But in the next release you can look forward to:

• Multiple XMPP account management
• Colour management (change your profile colours)
• An overhauled user interface, and much-improved look-and-feel, especially in the chat view.

Finally I must point out that a lot of the improvements you see in both this and the upcoming releases would not have been possible without the efforts of the students on my Softwareprojekt course here at Freie Universität. For six weeks, they toiled away at the tasks I hurled in their way, but they astounded me with their capabilities, surpassing all my expectations. They all have reason to be proud of what they achieved.

Version 10.10.01 is now available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/dpp, or visit http://www.saros-project.org for more information.

Books

Thomas Paine

• Thomas Paine. Rights of Man. One of the original libertarians, a term that has pretty much lost its original meaning these days. The core ideas that came forth from his work, radical at the time, are simple. That rights are inherent in individuals, not for governments to erect or destroy as they wish, and that the only legitimate government is one in which free individuals enter into compacts with one another for their common good. Not only did it pre-date, but it influenced the ideas about inalienable rights that soon appeared in the American constitution. The response of the British government to his ideas? He was tried in absentia and convicted of seditious libel for suggesting that hereditary monarchy was perhaps not the best way to appoint a head of state. I’m currently working my way through one of his other masterpieces, The Age of Reason.
• Ian Mortimer. A Time-Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England.In Nineteen-Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s character O’Brien challenges us to wonder whether the past objectively exists. Ian Mortimer seems to think so, presenting history almost as a living, existent thing. The book is written like a travel guide, overflowing with sumptuous and graphic detail about what to expect when you travel back to England during 1300–1400. The sights, sounds, smells, attitudes, dangers, and customs you will encounter are all recounted vividly. Well-recommended.


Bertrand Russell

• Bertrand Russell. An Outline of Philosophy.I stepped rather far from my speciality when purchasing this one, but I’m glad I did. My only knowledge of Russell thus far was his contributions to discrete maths (like Russell’s paradox, paraphrased as: “This sentence is false” — is it true of false?) But his contributions range far and wide: maths, philosophy, logic, social criticism, and recently I can’t get enough of them. Others disagree with me, but I think his introduction to philosophy is very clear and readable (yes, OK, the language is a little complex), and it served as a gateway for me to his many other works. I’m particularly glad that I discovered his social critiques, revealing his proudly humanist stance and his inexhaustible empathy for human nature.
• T. Edward Damer. Attacking Faulty Reasoning. When I was much younger, I thought that the politicians I saw so often were masters of argumentation. The words they spoke seemed to come together into elegant, water-tight argument that I could never hope to counter. How disappointed I was when later I began to learn what logic and reasoning actually are, and that most politicians rarely make any real use of either. In part, I learnt this from Damer’s handbook, a recent re-read for me, which shows both how to construct arguments that are logical and how to spot the flaws in fallacious ones. Once you learn the problems with things like causal fallacies, straw manning, and “thin end of the wedge” arguments, you’ll rarely be able to keep you hair on when you watch a politician. Part monologue, part catalogue of fallacies, this is an indispensable guide on how to call people on bullshit arguments.
• Jim Butcher. Storm Front. I was recently persuaded by my girlfriend to return to reading some fiction, after a long time keeping my nose in non-fiction books. She passed this my way, the first of a series of books about Harry Dresden, a wizard living in modern-day Chicago. I found myself pleasantly surprised by the way the story drew me, presenting Dresden as a magical Phillip Marlowe, stumbling Indiana Jones-like from one scrape to the next. Clever and intriguing writing from Butcher.

Articles & Web

• 

  Matt Dillahunty

  Matt Dillahunty. I’ve constantly been meaning to send some link love this man’s way. There’s little reason why you should have heard of Matt Dillahunty if you live outside of Austin, Texas, where he hosts a public access TV show about atheism, but, thanks to the Internet, that’s no reason for stopping him from becoming an international web-celeb. Raised as a fundamentalist Christian, he lost his faith in adulthood after an autodidactic education and now spends his time defending atheism. Not only is he extremely sharp and witty when it comes to debating and communicating, but he seems a genuinely thoughtful and intelligent guy, with proven capacity in scepticism, rationality and philosophy. In fact, it’s hard to choose the best from his writings, but start with his response to a theist on the subjects of belief and justice, and also check out the Atheist Experience blog (where he posts as Matt D). Furthermore, he runs ironchariots.org, a counter-apologetics website. Lastly, typing his name into YouTube will get you lots of hits providing hours of entertaining food for the mind.

• 

  The svelte Stephen Fry (looking a bit Richard Madeley)

  Stephen Fry. I can hardly say anything about dear Stephen that hasn’t already been said. If you only know him as the insane General Melchett or the host of the sublime QI, you should definitely look into one of his other facets as a… well… a thinker. I recently re-read his excellent essay on the BBC and public broadcasting in general, and I cannot recommend enough his appearance at the Intelligence² debate on Catholicism (you’ll find it on YouTube I’m sure). There he joined Christopher Hitchens (the erudite anti-theist, who collects the heads of religious apologists as trophies) in speaking out against the religion, and although it is Hitchens who is famed for his ability at routing the religious in debate, Fry delivers the most superb rebuke of the evening. It also helps that he is a defender of free software.

• Richard Feynman. Quite simply the most watchable, the most readable, and the most absorbing spokesman that science has so far had. Shamefully, I own none of his books, but I have read many of his wonderful essays on science. But, frankly, I much prefer to listen to the man. YouTube (yes, YouTube again) is filled with clips of him explaining the pleasure of finding things out. Try this one to start with. Also, something that is a pleasure to watch is, after he is asked a question here, he spends a good minute or so giving his response, but immediately retracts it when he rethinks his opinion — something that is not so easy to do, if we allow ourselves to get attached to our own view simply because it belongs to us. He was memorably the fly in the ointment of NASA’s management when he was asked to investigate the 1986 Challenger disaster, exposing the outrageous self-deluding “reasoning” they had used to predict the shuttle’s safety.

These days, I am on the other side; I am an educator. It is part of my job to teach people, and my subject matter involves heavy technical detail. Because of this, I try desperately to cling onto my memories of what it was like to be in the audience of the lecture hall, rather than at the podium. I want to remember what I thought as the lecturer droned on at me, what I wanted him/her to actually say in order to make sense. I still have these memories, but some day they will slip away, and I’ll be doomed to delivering my obtuse explanations, all the while berating the students, asking myself “What’s wrong with them, why don’t they get what I’m saying?”

But, until that day comes, I am determined to remain empathetic and keep in mind how I favoured being introduced to new complex new ideas. My favoured way was by examples, and especially by visualisations although these were exceedingly rare. I do not think it is an accident that one of the degree courses I can remember most clearly, Program Slicing with Professor Keith Gallagher, began by the professor refusing to give any definitions until he had thrown wads of illustrative examples at us. As another example, over the pond, Professor Walter Lewin won great acclaim for his very physical demonstrations of physical principles at MIT.

Now, why should I bias my approach towards the way I favoured learning? A fair point, but I think I can justify it by arguing that my way generalises to the great majority of humans. (And remember that I’m only talking about introducing someone to a topic — once someone is knowledgeable, they should be expected to deal in the equations, models or code.) Humans cope best with visual data — a huge proportion of the brain is devoted to processing images — and humans are also intuitive creatures, whose grasp of something (be it correct or not) is improved by subjectively getting a “feel” for it.

Let’s take an example from my own domain, computer science, a particularly challenging subject in which to visualise concepts, so maddeningly abstract are they. If you enter computing, you have to know about algorithms, which are simply lists of instructions used for solving a problem. You have to know things like: what they do, how they work, how efficient they are. One particular algorithm, called merge sort, I could introduce with a definition (from U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology):

A sort algorithm that splits the items to be sorted into two groups, recursively sorts each group, and merges them into a final, sorted sequence.

Or I could show you the code (taken from Wikipedia):

function merge_sort(m)
if length(m) ≤ 1
  return m
var list left, right, result
var integer middle = length(m) / 2
for each x in m up to middle
  add x to left
for each x in m after middle
  add x to right
left = merge_sort(left)
right = merge_sort(right)
result = merge(left, right)
return result

function merge(left,right)
var list result
while length(left) > 0 or length(right) > 0
  if length(left) > 0 and length(right) > 0
    if first(left) ≤ first(right)
      append first(left) to result
      left = rest(left)
    else
      append first(right) to result
      right = rest(right)
  else if length(left) > 0
    append first(left) to result
    left = rest(left)
  else if length(right) > 0
    append first(right) to result
    right = rest(right)
end while
return result

And that’s everything you need to know to learn merge sort. Does that help? Do you get a feel for it? Can you run through an example in your head? Eventually, you could gain an understanding of the way it works, but if you’re being introduced to sorting algorithms, what use is it really? What’s more, you would you need to be able to compare merge sort to other sorting algorithms. Would you have an intuitive understanding of that?

I use the example of sorting algorithms, not only because it is relevant to computer scientists and time-consuming to gain a feel for, but also because I came across this attempt to give sounds to sorting algorithms. This, I think, is a great way to provide intuitive understanding to something as abstract and difficult as an algorithm in process.

So much of our time learning is spent providing ourselves with an intuitive grasp of things, the ideal being that we can “see” them in action within our minds. Those with extraordinary talents, from mathematicians to musicians, often tell us mere mortals that they can actually see the numbers or the notes in front of them. The memory masters, reciting π to a million decimal places, only enable their great talent by using images to power their feats of recollection.

We can’t all be extraordinary, but we can help others to achieve a correct, intuitive and “visual” understanding of things to cement them more firmly in our minds.

What is also interesting about this is that when we compare repositories that are grouped together (GNOME to KDE, or Savannah to SourceForge) we observe very great similarities in these same measures. This raises intriguing possibility number one: that one can establish “types”, by which repositories can be classified. Not only defined by the sorts of measures we can expect, but also the way it functions and organises itself. For example, Savannah and SourceForge often incubate any type of newer software and are open to any contributors. Conversely, GNOME and KDE deliver more well-defined programs and erect meritocratic barriers to entry for contributors and new software.

Now, when you consider that individual projects in these repositories can transit between them, this raises the second intriguing possibility: these types could be arranged into an evolutionary framework, an eco-system of repositories, if you like. This diagram is an attempt to visualise it.

Framework of progression for FLOSS projects through various types of repositories

Definitions

• Open Repository: A repository with a low barrier to entry. That is, the process of joining and adding software is essentially trivial and uncontrolled. Projects tend to be independent and no guiding policies cover the development or organisation process (aside from any terms of service agreements). Examples: Savannah, SourceForge.
• Controlled Repository: A repository with a higher barrier to entry. That is, joining as a developer or adding new projects are subject to the control of existing members. There is likely a set of guiding policies and development standards enforced throughout the community, as well as goals/roadmaps. Within this group, one can further differentiate:
  • Distributions: E.g. Debian. The projects hosted here are part of the larger GNU/Linux operating system. From the point of view of the process, Debian developers are not typically programming for other Debian projects.
  • Meta-Projects: E.g. GNOME and KDE. The projects contained in a meta-project are each part of a wider system (in these examples, each is a complete desktop environment), and there are typically several glue projects also.
• Transition: Moving a project from repository to another. This could be a migration (whereby the storage location of a project is changed), or an inclusion (whereby another repository distributes the project, but its location remains the same).
  • Bold arrows: These are typically observed pathways between repository types taken by FLOSS projects.
  • Dashed arrows: These represent atypical transitions, observed much less frequently. No empirical study has been performed on this transition.

Consequences

The evidence I have gathered points this to being an evolutionary framework, because the differences observed are mostly between rates of activity rather than absolute differences in quality. Note that these statements pertain to the average project observed in each repository; there are overlaps present in the process and product attributes. Therefore it should not be expected that all projects in a repository will necessarily perform at the levels established as average for that repository.

What might reasonably be expected to be seen of an arbitrary project’s measured attributes is no doubt dependent on a number of other factors that influence a free software project’s success, such as the understandability of the initial version, the existence of other alternative projects with similar or identical functionality etc. While this framework insists that the repository is an important driver of determining project evolution (especially at the macro level), for the individual project it is one of a number of factors. When considering the consequences of a repository’s effects, this contextual detail determines how the framework may be useful.

Understandably, a software developer is expected to be primarily interested in how their own individual project may be influenced, yet within this framework that is informed by measurement of a collection of projects. The range of values of a metric observed act as some indicator of the expected value for a repository type, or even a specific repository. It is feasible that any desired quantifiable attribute of a project can be measured and built up into a set of values similarly to the work shown in previous posts. Critically, this provides a developer with quantifiable means for use in a comparative judgement of where a project is best placed for the project’s particular evolutionary needs, as well as for judging how and why a transition should be brought about in future. All the time this planning will need to be balanced with the typical participatory requirements of each repository type.

For researchers it is useful to understand a repository’s influence at both the individual and collective project levels. When embarking upon a study involving empirical research of free software projects, knowledge of the expected evolutionary effects of a repository, or that typical of a repository type, on a project is useful as it may have a bearing on how results are interpreted.

Looks like I have some reading up on Google App Engine to do…

… but be advised. There are now a couple of dozen youngling programmers busying away at Saros code like worker bees for the next few weeks.

Expect a bumper crop of fixes and features in September!

Firstly, Saros is now version control system (VCS) aware. You now have the choice of sharing a project by sending SVN repository information to your peers, so that they can interact directly with the repository. More functionality in this feature will follow in later releases!

We’ve also improved the chat view a little. The visual layout is nicer, it has a configurable beep for received messages, and one joins/leaves the chat session automatically.

In addition to that, there is a large batch of bugfixes and miscellaneous improvements. The Sourceforge site is here, or the Eclipse update site is here.

To that end, I’ve put together a new static page about Saros. Enjoy.

SourceForge has project settings to help you comply with regulations governing distribution of software to persons from certain countries (aka Export Controls).  We’ve had some recent questions about these settings, so have sent out this note to all administrators to make sure all projects have this information.

By default, software downloads initiated by visitors from Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Cuba are blocked.

A project administrator may disable this blocking if they conclude that their project is *not* subject to US export-related regulations or any prohibitions of applicable jurisdictions…

To be honest, the first thing that comes into my head, when asked, “Do you want to allow people in Sudan, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Cuba access to your code?”, is: “Uh… yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”*

It is really quite an odd and pathetic situation all round. It’s technically feeble to try and block access to certain countries for a start. It is quite simple for someone knowledgeable enough to access SF using a computer from another country as an intermediate (e.g. using a VPN), or even simply to ask someone  in another country to send them a copy of a SF project.

Furthermore, it is a bit much to be just assumed of contravening US laws prima facie, then to be asked to work out for myself (as a non-US citizen) whether this is true or not, and then make a declaration to that effect.

And it certainly violates the spirit of the FLOSS “code” for very obvious reasons, as well as the letter. Just take a look at article 5 of the Open Source Definition, one of the commendable things that the “Open Source crowd” brought to the whole FLOSS party in my opinion:

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

* Saros is now available in Communist nations and the Axis of Evil.