Chris Tyler's Blog - Mozilla

Mozilla running Unit Tests on Fedora

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Wed, 19 May 2010 08:49:20 -0400

Mozilla uses CentOS for their Linux builders. They have up to this point also been running their unit tests on CentOS, but Armen has now switched the Linux unit tests over to 32- and 64-bit Fedora. This is a great win, because it means that Firefox will be tested against a more-current environment.

TeachingOpenSource.org: Get on the List

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:46:00 -0500

Greg, you've made some fantastic points, but now you and everyone interested in the teaching of Open Source need to get on the TOS mailing list so we can work on the solutions

Mozilla DevDays Toronto

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:47:08 -0400

It was great having the Mozilla DevDays at Seneca on Monday and Tuesday. Monday's sessions were aimed at getting new developers up to speed on the Mozilla platform, and Tuesday's sessions focused on testing. A good portion of the core Firefox devs were here on Tuesday, hacking up a storm (and bringing our wireless network to the edge of meltdown!), and Seneca students and Toronto-area developers had a chance to connect with Mozilla developers from farther afield.

Licensing

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Mon, 12 May 2008 09:18:38 -0400

Several students have had to select an open source license for their creations recently -- including Fima and Cesar -- and this has provoked some interesting comments and discussion. Cesar's recent blog post reflected a common sentiment:

I cant really see anyone commercializing this or putting into some sort of binary extension, so I dont think the GPL would really benefit me.

But I think that part of the question should be: Which license will lead to the widest possible use of my work? Conditional cooperation theory, the overall vitality and productivity of the community, gains in personal reputation -- all of these support choosing a license that will make it easy to reuse what you've done, which means a license that is compatible with the widest range of projects that may be interested in your code.

The most popular Open Source license is GPL2, so using the GPL2 ensures compatibility with a huge codebase. Unfortunately, its successor, GPL3, isn't nearly as widely used, and was rejected outright (at least initially) by some projects. The LGPL and BSD License are permissive licenses that encourage reuse. Specific open source projects will have their own licenses.

Perhaps the best option, then, is to select the licenses that are used by the communities closest to your project, and consider dual- or triple-licensing (this works for content as well as code). You'll be in good company -- after all, some very successful projects use a tri-license.

Mozilla Projects

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:09:28 -0500

A new group of Seneca students is jumping into Open Source development! We've just selected (Mozilla-related) projects in the OSD600 course -- here's the list:

Project	Student (IRC nick)
Convert password storage to SQLite	Radovan Nesic (radoye)
Plugin throttle - cut back a plugin's execution speed when it is not visible	Chris Andreacchi (Tryzo)
FUEL backport to Firefox 2	Samer Ziadeh (samer)
Improved temporary file management	Sidney Russell
Thunderbird picture preview/slideshow	Joseph Cresencia (FirestormZERO)
Universal Firefox on a USB key - Windows/Linux/Mac	Peter Evanoff (peterevanoff) Peter Chan (PeterC)

Over the next 10 weeks, these students will be taking these projects to a "0.3" (usable, maybe not perfectly polished) release. At the same time, David Humphrey is leading another group of OSD700/DPS911 students in taking their existing projects from 0.3 to 1.0 release.

If you're interested in following along on the progress of these projects, I invite you to read our opensource@seneca blog planet and the related wiki or stop by irc://irc.mozilla.org/%24seneca

FUDCon 2008 - Links for the session "Getting Students Involved in Open Source"

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:17:27 -0500

Here are the links for the session Getting Students Involved in Open Source at FUDCon 2008:

Open Source Development Courses at Seneca (Wiki): http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki

Project list: http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/Project_List

OpenSource@Seneca Planet - aggregated blog postings from current and former Open Source development students and faculty: http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/~chris.tyler/planet
Free Software and Open Source Symposium - a two-day event held in October each year: http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca/
Seneca Centre for Development of Open Source: http://cdot.senecac.on.ca/

This session was co-presented with Will Cohen, and you can find his homepage here: http://people.redhat.com/wcohen

Mozilla Linux Reference Platform under KVM

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:36:14 -0500

Ben Hearsum released RC1 of an VMware machine image containg the Mozilla CentOS reference platform. If you're using KVM instead of VMware, you can easily convert the image (tested under Fedora 8):

unzip CentOS5-ReferencePlatform-rc1.zip

cd CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-vm-rc1/

for NAME in CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-vm*-s???.vmdk ; do echo Converting $NAME ; qemu-img convert -f vmdk $NAME -O raw ${NAME/vmdk/raw} ; done

mkdir -p /var/kvm/images/

for NAME in CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-vm-s???.raw ; do echo Concatenating $NAME ; cat $NAME >>/var/kvm/images/CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-disk1.img ; done

for NAME in CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-vm_1-s???.raw ; do echo Concatenating $NAME ; cat $NAME >>/var/kvm/images/CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-disk2.img ; done

echo "<domain type='kvm'>
<name>CentOS5-ReferencePlatform-rc1</name>
<uuid>b48947dc-1531-8869-9c5e-797dae9a9d9d</uuid>
<memory>804864</memory>
<currentMemory>804864</currentMemory>
<vcpu>1</vcpu>
<os>
<type>hvm</type>
<boot dev='hd'/>
</os>
<features>
<acpi/>
</features>
<clock offset='utc'/>
<on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
<on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
<on_crash>destroy</on_crash>
<devices>
<emulator>/usr/bin/qemu-kvm</emulator>
<disk type='file' device='disk'>
<source file='/var/kvm/images/CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-disk1.img'/>
<target dev='hda'/>
</disk>
<disk type='file' device='disk'>
<source file='/var/kvm/images/CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-disk2.img'/>
<target dev='hdc'/>
</disk>
<interface type='network'>
<mac address='00:16:3e:0d:d1:cd'/>
<source network='default'/>
</interface>
<input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
<graphics type='vnc' port='-1' listen='127.0.0.1'/>
</devices>
</domain>" >/tmp/CentOS.xml

virsh define /tmp/CentOS.xml

L=$(losetup -f -v /var/kvm/images/CentOS-5.0-ref-tools-disk1.img|cut -d" " -f4)

kpartx -a $L

mkdir /tmp/d1p1

mount /dev/mapper/$(basename $L)p1 /tmp/d1p1

perl -p -i -e "s/sdb1/hdc1/" /tmp/d1p1/etc/fstab

umount /tmp/d1p1

kpartx -d $L

losetup -d $L

virsh start CentOS5-ReferencePlatform-rc1

You can connect to the reference image using vncviewer on display 0 (the IP address will depend on your DHCP setup).

Atomic Time in Your Pocket

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:20:55 -0400

Well, it's time for the semi-annual daylight savings time change. One thing that has annoyed me in recent years is the fact that, for a few weeks after the time change, it seems that many clocks are out of sync -- some a few minutes fast, others a few minutes slow.

For networked computers, the Network Time Protocol (NTP) can be used to synchronize the system clock with time standards available on the Internet, which are in turn tied to atomic clocks operated by the National Research Council in Canada, the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the US, and other organizations. NTP used to be a chore to set up, but now it's pretty trivial -- in Fedora, for example, you just have to check the NTP option during installation (or select System>Administration>Date & Time, click on the Network Time Protocol tab, and then checkmark the field labeled "Enable Network Time Protocol").

What many people don't realize is that cell phone networks also use NTP (or a similar protocol, I'm not sure about the inner workings of the cell networks). This means that most cellphones display the time to within a second of the official standard -- it's like having an atomic time reference in your pocket.

So, if you're adjusting your clocks tonight, consider setting them according to your cellphone.

FSOSS 2007 Begins

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:34:37 -0400

FSOSS 2007 is beginning. You can follow along from anywhere on the 'Net:

Flickr Photos will be posted throughout the day
the FSOSS:planet will aggregate blog postings
videos will be posted on the FSOSS web site after the event (and maybe even during it)

If you're in T.O. and didn't pre-register, we're opening up a few extra spots to accept walk-in registrations.

The Return of the Bidirectional Internet

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10:05:40 -0400

One of the exciting things about the early web was that it was fully bidirectional. Since almost all of the early Internet connections were symmetrical, anyone who could read the web could publish on the web. Web server software was lightweight, and installing it was the only barrier to publishing a site. Every Internet-connected computer was a "host", not a "client" or a "server".

This changed with the introduction of asymmetrical broadband connections and client-oriented systems (read: Windows 95 and successors). Vendors made the assumption that we wanted to consume content, not create and manage it.

Now, finally, the tide is turning. Although most residential and small-business broadband connections are still asymmetrical, the upstream bandwidth is sufficient for medium-duty serving. Here in Toronto, a 3-8 Mbps download/800 kbps upload speed is very common and priced between $40-60. The 800 kbps upstream speed is half of a T1, which used to be the standard business-class data connection, and is sufficient for serving a low- to medium-volume web site. Although some ISPs such as Rogers and Bell still haven't grasped the concept (and may never), other ISPs such as TekSavvy are run and staffed by smart people that understand the demand for unencumbered, fast pipes. Most non-Windows operating systems do not distinguish between client and server roles and are happy to be both.

We're seeing the bidirectionial internet appear in other places too: browser extensions that provide services traditionally supplied by "servers", personal domain names, and SMTP and DNS servers running in homes.

The return of the bidirectional internet: is an exciting and empowering change that's well overdue.

Hackergotchis and IRC nicks

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:23:40 -0400

To my OSD600 students: I'm having troubles matching up your face in class and your nicks on IRC! Please alter your feed links for the OpenSource@Seneca planet so that:

Your IRC nick appears in parenthesis after your name: "Chris Tyler (ctyler)" or "Jay Dough (foxkeh)"
Add a Hackergotchi (picture of your face)

If someone who's good with The Gimp or Photoshop wanted to snap photos of everyone and make Hackergotchis, that would be great ... and count as a small contribution towards a project!

"Open Source" is not "Open Systems"

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:08:43 -0400

In the past couple of weeks, I've heard several of my colleages refer to Open Source as Open Systems. I thought that this was a slip of the tongue, but since it's happened several times and by people of sufficient ... experience ... to remember Open Systems (as I do), I'm not so sure that the distinction is being made. To clarify:

The term Open Systems was used, primarily in the 1980's, to refer to systems that were hardware-and-software interoperable between different vendors and therefore avoided vendor lock-in (with varying degrees of success). Standards such as POSIX, SVID, and the Single Unix Specification provided source-code portability, and network standards such as TCP/IP provided network interoperability. However, Open Systems were still often proprietary, did not include source code, and were generally Unix-centric.
Open Source is software for which the source code is freely distributed (though the term is actually more formally defined). This software may be any type of program: an operating system, applications for an iSeries system, utilities for a Windows system, or games for a Mac. Since source code is provided, the software can be further enhanced and developed, and derivative works can be created.

There's not really much in common between the two. For good measure, one more definition:

Free Software is Open Source software protected by Copyleft licensing so that access to source code and freedom to use that code is preserved for recipients of derivative works. This is also formally defined.

Free Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS 2007) Registration Open

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 08:06:43 -0400

This year I have the pleasure of co-chairing the Seneca Free Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS 2007). We've just opened the registration for this 6th edition of the event, which will run October 25-26 in Toronto. The speaker list includes many familiar names from projects such as OpenOffice.Org, OLPC, Python, Mozilla, DemocracyTV/Miro, and Creative Commons, as well as companies and organizations including IBM, SAP, Nokia, Environment Canada, and Microsoft. Check out the full details of this (very affordable!) event at http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca/

Seneca Centre for Development of Open Source (CDOT) Reception

nospam@example.com (Chris Tyler) — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:33:41 -0400

We threw a reception at the Seneca Centre for Development of Open Technology (CDOT) last night. It was a great event, attended by about 95 people from Ontario businesses, open source projects, educational institutions, and government. I'll post a link to a summary page next week -- but if you're in the GTA and into open source, you may want to check out the CDOT website now for a hint of what we do.