Live in southern Ontario? Attending dinner meetings is free.

PegaSoft's November Dinner Meeting

Date: November 16, 2006
Location: Linux Caffe


Attendance

Ken B, Scott E, Giles O
Madison K canceled at the last minute.

Attendance was down due to the TLUG mailing list failure.


Meeting Business


PegaSoft Mailing List Problems

On the mailing list last month, Ian Z asked for improvements to the mailing
list software.  Ken B was busy with client testing but would look into the
issue later.  Ian Z sent hostile emails to Ken and then unsubscribed from
the mailing list.  Ken asked Scott E to present his Atomic OS talk in place
of Ian Z's Perl talk.

The mailing list software was discussed.  It was agreed that there were no
major problems with the mailing list.  There are 2 known issues:

- An attempt to "unsubscribe" results in a permission error.
- A user-specified "Reply-To" doesn't override "Reply-To" in the mailing list
   messages

Ken intended to upgrade his server and the mailing list software when time
permitted.  There were no opinions as to which mailing list software to use,
but mailman was a popular choice with many people.

Ian Z appeared at the Linux Caffe prior to the meeting and then left before the
meeting started.  There was no explanation for his behaviour, but Ken
believed Ian had issues beyond the mailing list.  Ken had no ill feelings
toward Ian.



Open Forum - Industry Quote

"Red Hat only provides bug fixes for the latest version of its software.
This often requires customers to upgrade to a new version of Linux software
to get a bug fixed. Oracle's new Unbreakable Linux program will provide bug
fixes to future, current, and back releases of Linux. In other words, Oracle
will provide the same level of enterprise support for Linux as is available
for other operating systems." (Oracle press release)

Red Hat releases regular security updates for their software through online
tools.  Although is was not clear how fast Red Hat created updates,
patches were available on a weekly basis.  It might be possible that Oracle
was trying to use the Fedora project, the free unstable version of Red Hat,
to cast fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) upon commercial Red Hat Enterprise.

It was unknown if Oracle intended to use CentOS or another Red Hat
meta-distribution as the basis of its Linux.  It was clear that this kind
of hostile action was one of the risks of open source.


Open Forum - Linux in the News

"The patent cooperation agreement enables Microsoft and Novell to give
customers assurance of protection against patent infringement claims. It gives
customers confidence that the technologies they use and deploy in their
environments are compliant with the two companies' patents." (Microsoft press
release on announcement on SuSE patent deal)

The general consensus was that the Novell-Microsoft patent protection was a
lot of FUD as there were no serious patent infringement claims.  It has
been known that, despite the popularity of Novell's SuSE Linux, the company
has had trouble making money and there have been management changes as a
result.  The deal gave Novell money to get out of trouble and, in exchange,
Novell had to work with Microsoft.

It was speculated that Sun's announcement that their Java compiler would be
released as GPL was a direct response to Microsoft's press release.  Novell's
.Net Mono project is the rival to Sun's Java.  Microsoft may have been pushing
for Mono to be used more.  [Microsoft has more of an interest in controlling
the Internet, which is dominated by Linux, than with Linux itself. --KB]
Corporate customers might be attracted to .Net.

At one time, the Java license allowed Sun to install other software on a
user's computer without their knowledge.


Firefox 2 released (BBC)

Giles O reported that he had no issues installing or using Firefox 2, although
there were some memory leak problems reported.  Firefox 2 has improved tabs
(such as the ability to save the tab layout when the browser is closed) and
anti-phishing features.  For most users, there was no compelling reason to
upgrade from Firefox 1.5.


PlayStation 3 scheduled to be released in coming days. (Lone Coder)

Ken B discussed the PS3 in his Lone Coder blog on the PegaSoft web site.
Sony had quietly dropped Linux from the PS3, but Yellow Dog Linux was still
available for purchase as a separate product.  Yellow Dog Linux had OpenOffice
and clustering software.

Giles O questioned why Yellow Dog was not free.  Ken B suggested that, as a
distribution, the costs cover porting software and testing it on the PS3
platform.  Scott E pointed out that there is no rule that says open source
products cannot be sold.


Software Demonstration - Audacity (Ken B)

Ken B demonstrated the Audacity sound editor  on his laptop.  Audacity was
easy to use and was popular for converting old records and tapes to MP3 files
for computer playback.  Fedora disables MP3 support, the main draw of Audacity,
but the program can be rebuilt with MP3 support from its sources.

Although the basics are easy to use, the advanced features of Audacity, such
as the FFT filtering, were technical and difficult to set up and use.


PegaSoft Member Projects
 
Perimeter 911 (Alan C)

Alan asked for volunteers to work on his project at the last meeting.  Ken
encouraged those present to pass along information about this project to any
interested parties.


Business Shell (BUSH) (Ken B)
                                                                                
Updated the configuration script and make files for Fedora Core 6 and
OpenSuSE 10.1.  Posted the updated BUSH sources and binary versions for those
distributions on the web site.

Patched problems in the third-party APQ database library for MySQL 5.  APQ has
become abandonware (no longer supported by author).  Either Ken need to take
over or BUSH needs to be changed to a new database library or write his own.

Scott E recommended SQLite (www.sqlite.org) as a replacement.  Also, the GNADE
Ada database project had support for SQLite.


Online Game Project (Ken B)

Ken was experimenting with OpenGL texture mapping.

Ken was working with Mel W who disappeared for unknown reasons.  Ken
emailed Mel last week about his involvement in the project but received no
response.  Ken welcomed volunteers for the game client or the game proxy server.

Ken was concerned that he was suffering from "code guilt": he had spent
so many months developing the server with Mel W that he hated to see
the project not put to a practical test.


BASH Prompt Web Site Project (Giles O)

Giles need assistance in rewriting and completing a web site to generate
a Bash prompt string using web page forms and JavaScript.  (Giles is the
maintainer of the Linux BASH Prompt How-To.)

Ken pointed out that there were many good projects, but it was hard to
get programmers to stop working on their individual project and start
working together on a common one.  He said he was willing to work on another
project provided the other developers wouldn't leave him doing all the work.

 
Discussion: Introduction to Atomic OS (Scott E)

Scott Elcomb
http://atomos.sourceforge.net

What Is Atomic OS?

- Using a web browser, Atomic OS aims to emulate/provide standard operating
  system features including a command-line shell, interpreter, filesystem,
  database access, and GUI services 
- These features are implemented as a single HTML file for exceptional
  mobility and flexibility 
- Web applications are written in Javascript. Using the Atomic OS API's makes
  web development feel more like standard application development 
- Web applications do not require server-side logic or services, but can still
  benefit from them (eg. chatrooms, multiuser terminals and games) 
- A fundamental redesign/rewrite of the WAJAX prototype 

Atomic Origins

- TiddlyWiki
  http://www.tiddlywiki.org
  Provides a very solid base for text-based web applications
  (eg. ebooks) 
- JS/UIX
  http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/
  Not Free Software. No GUI tools. 
- Other related web-based prototypes I've worked on including: PHOTON (JSON
  interpreter for Perl), player, raDHTML, dungeon, dTank, jsConsole, and WAJAX 
- Other related comp sci prototypes I've worked on including: GEOS (not the
  real one), CIDER (Pascal->Perl translation of the "Let's Build A Compiler!"
  usenet tutorial series with a curses-based IDE) 

Expanding The Field

- This slide, presentation layout, and S5 presentation software were
  shamelessly stolen from the Public Domain via Eric Meyer's website 
- Motive and opportunity combined to point the way... 
  - Mandatory Murphy's Laws of Combat Operations reference. =) 

Where We Are Now

- Version 0.1.0
  - In development (not in CVS yet...) 
  - WeirdBro, the Atomic OS developer with a Javascript background, is helping
    move Atomic OS to an object oriented design and has added a pure
    Javascript build tool 
  - Currently debating the necessity of various (workable) OS features such as
    UID/GID support, process management, and other items that might or
    might-not be worthwhile for web applications

- Version 0.0.2
  - The v0.0.1 package contained excess media files from the original WAJAX
    release. These were removed

- Version 0.0.1
  - contains the basic operating code from the monolithic WAJAX console.html
    document broken into multiple source files 
  - a simple Perl+Bash based build system

How It Works

- By default, Atomic OS will start with a console visible 
- The console is loosely modelled after Bash running in a *nix/*bsd like
  environment 
- Try some basic *nix commands like ls -l /, cat README, cd /bin, etc. 
- Application developers may disable, hide, or remove the console entirely
  depending on their applications' needs 
- Everything is a file. Even GUI widgets 

The Advantages

- A single universal and robust API for application developers moving to AJAX
  and the web 
- An incredibly lightweight and familiar operating environment for end users 
- Applications (and/or suites) scale well and can run anywhere Firefox can 
- Recent improvements in IE and Opera compatability testing plus research into
  other AJAX libraries (Prototype, RSH, Sarissa) are paving the way for real
  cross-browser and standards support 

Alchemy: Building Atomic OS

- Download the tarball and extract to a convenient place
  (eg. /var/www/html/) 
- Rename atomos-0.0.2 to something nicer (eg. atomos) 
- Change to the Atomic OS build directory
  (eg. /var/www/html/atomos/build/) 
- Run the alchemy command: 

  ./alchemy

- Test the build: 

  firefox ../atomos.html &

Hello, World!

- To add a very basic command to your build 
- First, choose the destination directory for the command. We'll put this one
  in your Atomic OS's /bin folder. Then open your favorite editor and write
  the application code 

  nano rom/bin/helloworld.js

- Enter some code: 

  system_Writeln("Hello, World!");

- Rebuild your Atomic OS document: 

  ./alchemy

- And test: 

  firefox ../atomos.html

Current Limitations

- Very basic "distribution," poorly written due to lack of Javascript
  programming knowledge
- None of the GUI routines have been implemented, pending the reconstruction of
  the system's core 
- Browsers other than Firefox (IE, Opera, Opera Mini, and Safari in particular)
  are not supported at all 

Open To The Public

- Atomic OS is released under the GNU/Creative Commons LGPL license 
- Contributors to Atomic OS must be willing to accept those terms 
  - In other words: if you submit a contribution, you are agreeing to abide by
    and place your contributions under the LGPL along with Atomic OS 
  - On the other hand, anyone can freely use Atomic OS for their own purposes
    or modify Atomic OS to suit their needs 

In Summary

- With minimal scripting, we have recreated a familiar Operating System like
  environment for developers and end users alike 
- It is a very flexible and lightweight web application development framework
  available for anyone to use 
- Atomic OS is capable of creating scalable web applications and systems while
  remaining very portable 

Next Dinner

Unless otherwise notified, the PegaSoft annual charity Christmas Party is
Thursday, December 14, 2006.  Location: TBA

Ken B said the party was usually held at the Swiss Chalet near the Bloor
Subway stop (in part, to cater to long-time PegaSoft supporter Chris Browne).

Scott E suggested holding the party at Orwell's Pub.