Show Notes
Episode 23 (17-07-2010) - Interview with Ross Addiss - Gauteng Linux User Group Chairperson
In this episode Mark interviews Ross Addiss from the Gauteng Linux User Group. We get some interesting insights into the Linux skill shortage in South Africa and Impi Linux
Episode 22 (17-07-2010) - Darlene and Mark Chat about Crisis Commons, the warped logic of the business world, Dell and Initiatives in Africa
In this episode Darlene and I chat about Crisis Commons, the dangers of cloud computing and the behaviour of corporates. Interesting that we talk about Dell's quick modification of the Ubuntu page and a few days later, the news breaks that the company and its founder have been fined for accepting 'exclusivity payments' from Intel. This might also be the case with MS vs Ubuntu.
Also check out Silicon Cape, Apps4Africa, Fixed in Uganda
Download ote-episode-22-2010-07-11.mp3
Episode 21 (20-06-2010) - Interview with ThePenguinTrail.org Organisers Veera Uusoksa and Armi Korhonen
We chatted with the 2 ladies from Finland who are planning the Cape to Cario trip. Veera Uusoksa and Armi Korhonen tell us what inspired them to start the Penguin Trail initiative. Good discussion regarding the challenges of managed bandwidth and the need to download all extra software packages to work with distros etc. They are considering a freedom toaster on the bus to help address this challenge along with encouraging people to make a copy of ISO's
Links:http://www.thepenguintrail.org/
Direct Download - OTE episode 21
Episode 20 (13/06/2010) - Open Tech Exchange - Interview with Alastair Otter, Editor of Tectonic.co.za
In this episode we talk to Alastair Otter, founder and editor of Tectonic, the only ZA news site dedicated to issues relating to open source in South Africa and Africa. Alastair trained as a journalist and started Tectonic 5 years ago. A year ago the site went on hiatus and now its back for which the open source community is grateful.
In the interview we chat about the challenges facing open source in South Africa and Africa and what can be done to improve open source penetration in the continent.
Links:
Episode 19 (31/05/2010) - Open Tech Exchange - Interview with Jhoanna Rosales of Vertmonde E-recyclers in Quito Ecuador
Darlene chats with Jhoanna Rosales about launching the first e-recycling business in Quito Ecuador. Vertmonde plans to refurbish slightly older PC's and load Linux onto them for redistribution on public projects. Jhoanna's background as an environmental engineer gave her first hand insights on how e-waste was not being properly disposed of in Quito's landfills. The program also contains a public education component as well.
Download episode 19 here
Episode 18 (16/05/2010) - Open Tech Exchange - Patent Absurdity, Humble Indie Bundle,Challenges in Kenya and Ubuntu hate
In this episode of OTE, Darlene and Mark discuss
- patents and the Free Software Foundation's Patent Absurdity video.
- the humble indie bundle experiment,
- challenges in open source deployments in Kenya,
- Ubuntu hate,
- the calamari project - Squid Log Analysis Application
Download episode 18 here
Episode 17 (12/05/2010) - Open Tech Exchange - Interview with Bruce Byfield regarding sexism in FOSS
Accusations of sexism in the community have been around for years. Why did it suddenly become an issue in 2009? Why isn't it going away? And why should you care as a member of the community? Bruce and I chat about both sides of the debate. Interesting to hear about the reactions both positive & negative
Bruce presented at Cossfest 2010 in Calgary - View
He is a freelance journalist who covers free and open source software. http://members.axion.net/~bbyfield/
New York Times article "left out in the cold"
Download episode 17 here
Episode 16 (21/03/2010) - Open Tech Exchange - Novell Developments & Interview with Jacob Odame from 1VILLAGE Ltd in Ghana.
Mark & I chat about the proposed buyout of Novell and have a great interview with Jacob regarding his upcoming youth training program for ICT technicians
Information is Power and Power Corrupts - Mark's Perspective
Financial Intelligence Centre - SA monitoring of your bank account
1Village Ltd
Bringing appropriate information technology solutions to rural Africa
www.1village-africa.com/about.php
Episode 14 (21/02/2010) - Open Tech Exchange - Wii, Accessibility, GNome Shell and Javascript
In this episode we chat about game consoles and which one is best for a "light" game player.
Darlene gives us some insight into accessibility in Gnome and Mark discusses his experience with Gnome Shell and whether Javascript will be the language that allows ordinary users to develop applications. Interesting javascript links
- gjs Gnome Javascript bindings,
- Project Phobos - Server Side Javascript
Sorry for the poor audio quality - the SAT3 cable connecting South Africa to the rest of the world has had some "issues".
Episode 13 (14/02/2010): Crisis Camp Calgary, NoSQL and Windows 7 Impressions
In this episode of Open Tech Exchange, Darlene and I discuss
- the success of Crisis Camp Calgary http://www.crisiscommons.org/,
- my impression of working with Windows 7 for 20 minutes,
- Is Canonical and Ubuntu moving to the right,
- And why NoSQL won't take over the world
Episode 12 (31/01/2010): Mdadm, Drupal and Crisis Camp Calgary
In this, somewhat rambling episode, we discuss:
- mdadm woes with the SS4000e Nas,
- drupal module development and "mandatory" optional modules
- chromium - the google browser, now in Ubuntu repositories,
- crisis commons - Crisis Commons and the planning of Crisis Camp Calgary, and
- apple ipad and the sun oracle deal.
Episode 11 (24/01/2010): Video cards, drivers and video editing in Linux as well as Mobicents
In this episode of OTE we chat about video cards and drivers in Linux, as well as video editing applications. We also briefly chat about the open source voip platform Mobicents.
Sites of interest for the video editing applications:
The home page for the mobicents project can be found at http://www.mobicents.org/
Episode 10: Debian ARM on the SS4000e and Tech in Education
In this episode, the first for 2010, I chat about my experience with embedded Linux, installing on the Intel NAS server and Darlene shares her thoughts and experiences on tech in education.
Debian Installer - The debian installer home page. The image I used to install Linux on the NAS
Debian Installer Documentation - special entry on the SS4000e
Episode 8: Capacity Building with FLOSS
This week, our guest, Marc Lepage, who is the Country Manager in Uganda for IICD joins us for a frank discussion on the use of appropriate technology to build capacity in country. Having experience working on sustainable projects in the area of ICT for development. Marc shares his insights with Darlene & Mark, and discusses when FLOSS is a suitable option. In particular, we were introduced to the open source support centres listed below
www.eacoss.org/ The East African Center for Open Source Software (EACOSS)
http://www.ma3bar.org The Arab Support Center for Free and Open Software
www.osrc.org.pk/ Open Source Resource Center - Pakistan
Episode 7: Catching Up - Open Source stuff
After a bit of downtime, Mark and I got back together to catch up on life in the open source world. Both of us have been immersed in some cool projects and now are finally catching our breath.
Mark has been configuring and hacking away on some IP tables and routing, all based on the flexiblity of Linux. We talked briefly about the key points that Mark found interesting and are planning to dedicate a future podcast to the topic.
I have been away in Ecuador, working to raise the profile of open source in education. Having mandated the use of Open Source software in education and public ministries, Ecuador is looking to take the next step forward. It was encouraging to be able to focus on migration strategies instead of comparing merits vs proprietary solutions,
We look forward to having future interviews with various members of the open source community and sharing some technical insights as well.
Episode 6: FLOSS in Ghana. We speak with Fred Yeboah from the Kofi-Annan Center for ICT Excellence
As we speak with people around the globe who are involved in Open Source, it is incouraging to see programmes that work to enhance core capacity in the ICT sector of Ghana. At the Kofi-Annan center, they have a project i2CAP (I too can programme) that builds programming skills among students in Senior Secondary Schools. Fred discusses this in our interview along with his experience of transitioning from proprietary software to open source solutions.
www.aiti-kace.com.gh/ - Kofi-Annan Center Ghana
Episode 5: Interview with Teddy Nyambe from the Open Source Zambia Initiative.
In the 5th episode of OTE Darlene and I talk to Teddy Nyambe, a open source advocate working to see FLOSS adopted in Zambia.
http://www.opensource.org.zm - Open Source Zambia Initiative's Home Page
http://www.iicd.org/projects/zambia-oszi - International Institute for Communication and Development, sponsors of the Open Source Zambia Initiative
Episode 4: Browsers Wars and Mobile Development
In this episode we give our views on the latest happenings in the browser market and we discuss the pros and cons of mobile applicaiton development. Some links that are relevant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers - Browser market share
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10245339-37.html - Apple Iphone market share
Episode 3: What's up with the take down notice & MS code contribution?
Our 3rd episode discussion points were varied indeed! We shared our opinion on whether the take down notice that Mark recieved was indeed valid, and why was this Orwellian approach was taken, instead of going to the source of the website in Russia.
We also spent some time discussing the source code that Microsoft had recently contributed to the open source community and the implications of this. Should the community devise a strategy for future interaction with Microsoft? As well, given that they were pursuing patent issues with Buffaloe, it seems that they give with one hand and take with the other.
We concluded with a brief discussion on CMS's such as Drupal, Joomla and Wordpress vs traditional web design tools such as Dreamweaver and other Adobe products.
Darlene also touched on a podcast she had listened to about OpenEMR, the open source medical records database program. It was good to hear from an end user (in this case a pediatrician from New Mexico) www.hackerpublicradio.org/eps/hpr0405.mp3
Episode 2: Google's Chrome OS
In our second episode, we discuss the potential benefits and functionality of the Google's Chrome OS. We focus on the synergies we see between FOSS and the Chrome OS, including better driver support for main stream peripherals and the increased awareness of Linux in general through market recognition of Google.
As well, cloud computing came up in the discussion and we spoke on the impact of web based applications and the changing demands of users/workers to have more mobility.
As with all concepts, there are pros and cons to having your information out on the cloud, hosted and pursued by a third party. We hope you enjoy the show, and we welcome your comments and feedback (July 2009)
Episode 1: Mono, Java and FOSS applications in Education.
In this, our first episode of Open Tech Exchange, we discuss Richard Stallman's post on Mono and why Java is the way to go for Linux Desktop development and great open source software to use in education.