martinman.net

Preserving the Culture: why opensource matters

While browsing through my email, I have found a nice report from Dzongkha Linux launch event held in Bhutan (a small country between India and China) written by Christian Perrier (Debian Developer).

Dzongkha Linux is a Debian/GNU Linux based distribution and Live CD localized and fine tuned for Bhutaneese users.

Interesting part was that Debian, and GNU Geneal Public License gave the Bhutaneese chance to build their own operating system and advance the level of computer education in a country that is ignored by mainstream operating systems such as Windows XP from Microsoft or MacOS/X from Apple.

As Peter stated in his report:

My own keynote lecture focused on the main key aspects of Free Software, especially in developing countries (Openess, independence, ability to preserve the local culture and knowledge, ability to develop a local software and services industry). I, of course, also introduced the Debian Project, targeting the point on the commitment
of the project to Free Software and enlightning its ability to be “derived” for specifics needs.

I am personally very happy to hear that these things happen, especially with regards to the fact that I have spent some time in Nepal that is in many aspects very similar to Bhutan.

June 9, 2006 EN, Opensource

About Intelligent Mail Filtering

Last week it came to my mind like a storm. What if I apply the Bayesian Filtering rules to automatically sort all of my email to proper folders. It should consider email body and headers to learn how I do sort email and offer me the proper folder next time. I have talked about it with some of my coleagues, …, well, they were not so enthusiastic about the idea as I was.

This morning I was browsing through Ubuntu Bounties only to find that:

1. There is a bounty filled for Thunderbird to do exactly what I wanted (see correspoinding Mozilla bug).
2. The algorithm was already implemented by ifile,
3. and more recently by POPFile.

Anyone saying anything about reinventing-the-wheel? I wish this functionality became the default part of Thunderbird soon.

June 5, 2006 EN

Pojezd: Nové Mlýny

Tentokrát jsem chybÄ›l, ale jihočeská sekce, t.j. Jirka, Jarda, a Zbynďa hlásí super pojezd z Moravy. Vítr stabilnÄ› 8-9 metrů od obÄ›da až do odpoledne. Å estka byla plná, vlny drsnÄ›jší než na SvÄ›tÄ›. Večer zakončen klobáskou…

June 2, 2006 CZ, Windsurfing