1x22: Oval Ted Bag

We return to our normal places around the globe and continue to bring you tasty things for your ears. Jeremy Garcia, Stuart Langridge, Jono Bacon, and an inexcusable absence of Bryan Lunduke think up a new competition involving things in our houses, and also discuss:

  • Where's our free culture revolution? Lawrence Lessig predicted a world filled with remix culture and set up the Creative Commons, but little to none of it has actually changed the way people think. Or has it? (2.25)
  • Graham Morrison of Linux Voice answers some of the questions from our discussion in the previous show about their magazine, their process, and why the December issue comes out in June (17.45)
  • Mashed Voltage: we start a new competition. Read about it on the forum and listen to it on the show, and enter before September 10th to celebrate remix culture (36.48)
  • Jono reviews the Samsung Gear Live smartwatch and the team watch, smartly (40.25)
  • Open source projects sometimes decide that they'll build their own hardware. When they try, they fail. Why? What motivates the decision to do it in the first place? (54.22)

Download the show now!

Is there some sort of negative feeling towards Jupiter Broadcasting in this community?

One problem that open hardware faces is that there is always someone saying “This is not fully open”. While these can be valid criticism it puts a block on people making the first steps. We would not have all the opensource software we have now, if the pioneers refused to use GNU because it needed a closed source kernel, or refused to use any computer that had a closed BIOS. We probably would not have the Linux adoption we have today if it were not for things like the flash plugin and closed graphics/wireless drivers, but now are in a position were we don’t need those.

For example there are a lot of posts online saying that openmoko phones are not open enough. I don’t believe that all the people writing those posts had more open phones. (I bet some of them were posting from their iPhones).

So how about a set of open hardware goals.

  • Sufficient documentation to write free drivers. (most computers, some phones)
  • Repairable hardware. (like fairphone)
  • Board schematics, sufficient that build a clone (like arduino, openmoko).
  • No closed firmware blobs (maybe ignoring the burn to ROM vs read from storage distinction that FSF make)
  • Full chip designs (so that you can build it in your basement chip fab)

No negative feeling from my point of view – I don’t listen to their shows much, but that’s not negativity, I just don’t. The amusement is that @bryanlunduke used to be part of the whole collective…

Agreed with @ssam here, although I think that the solution isn’t “try harder to make hardware open enough to satisfy the complainers”; I think the solution is “stop listening to the complainers if your first effort doesn’t satisfy them, and be happy that you’ll get there eventually, and create a culture in which other people condemn this sort of complaint so it stops happening”.

I concur with @sil. Certainly no negative feeling from my point of view either.

–jeremy

I was left with the impression that having the Jupiter Broadcasting logo as an avatar would be an insult to Bryan. This, to me, implied that there might be something negative that caused Bryan to leave. If there is, I certainly have not found anything that either Bryan or Chris has said or did to show that. In fact, Bryan had listed LAS as one of his favorite Linux podcasts after he left the show. So, this has confused me a bit.

I would just like to say that I will take any punishment like a man. Haven’t listened to the show yet, but do I need to change my avatar to something?

And, for the record, I missed the show because we changed the time we were recording to work with Jono’s schedule. But, for some reason, the appointment on my calendar didn’t update. So I was outside, playing with my kiddo, when the other dudes were recording. I came in side at the normal time to record… and they were done. Not sure why (invite was updated, and I accepted it) but, regardless of the cause, I shall take my punishment with my head held high.

Holy crap. Did you blokes decide that was my punishment? Damn, if so, my co-hosts are brutal.

It’s a long story, duder.

But, yes, there are bad feeling. So I just don’t talk about them publicly much. Sometimes I’d really like to… but I’ve managed to keep my lips sealed on the matter so far.

We did. You don’t wanna know what I talked the other two out of. :slight_smile:

Well… crap. You guys are a bunch of meanies. But, you know what? Taking it like a man!

Do you guys want to post the picture I need to use or should I go dig one up?

@jonobacon was supposed to be designing one.

It’s rubbish getting an avatar you hate, isn’t it? I don’t like it either. I suppose that’s the point of a punishment though…

Erroneous! I was also against the other idea from the get go sir.

–jeremy

Bummer. I like their podcasts. I work in a factory so I am pretty short on content and the lack of really good linux/tech podcasts that can cover that amount of time has left me scraping the bottom of the barrel for material.

Can’t we all just get along?

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Already changed. :smile:

Also, to be clear to @brandenwitte, there is no negative feeling towards Jupiter Broadcasting at all. We were just ragging on Bryan. :smile:

Quite commendable.

Bastard.

I had liked the show (LAS). And while I understand that they need revenue to make the show and to live, I couldn’t stomach the Leo Laporte approach of spending minute after minute saying the same thing over and over every week for each advertiser. I wish they could find a different model for revenue.

Do you have a bigger version of that horrible avatar that you could send me? I’m going to change my avatar on the social networks too. How I do.

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