Calling for help

In the last years I was hunting the secrets of successful open source communities (for my PhD thesis). The analysis of the principles of those fantastic communities is done. The next (and last step) is:

How could the positive effects of open source communities be transfered to classical organizations. Of cause I have some ideas but I think it would enrich my work if I could discuss those ideas with people from "real life".

Most people are happy to live in an self-determined, passion encouraging, fearless "open source community environment" but are not convinced to privde such an environment to their subordinates, because they fear to loose control etc.

It wouldn't be so difficult to get interviews with empleyees or lower management. The problem is, that these groups generaly like the idea to have such a workenvironment, too, but have very limited possibilities to let their dreams come true. (And it is easier to impress the professors with the opinion of somebody from top management.)

This would be the perfect interview / discussion partner for me:

• A member of top management of
• a medium-sized or major enterprises
• who is interested in new ideas to shape the company way beyond cost reduction (e.g. the increase the use of collective intelligence in the enterprise, the creation of a passionate environment or the introduction of the "sharing spirit" etc.).
• It would help if the company / manager has heard from the open source movement and the power of communities before.
• (Non software related branches would be more intersting, because the differences between them and open software communities are bigger.)

I tried the last weeks to get to those peolpe but without success.

So if you have some connections to top management (e.g. NOKIA!) please let me know.
( thomas dot thym at gmail dot com)

And by the way:

Cut mp3 and ogg files without decoding

Audio editing software (in many cases at least) is decoding the audio files before edit. At the end they are encoded again. If you only want to split the file with the mentioned method the quality of the file decreases.
The command line tool mp3splt [1] does that job (without de-/encoding) for mp3 and ogg files. (And there is even a gtk-gui.)

The basic command is just:

mp3splt [options] filename starttime endtime

e.g. mp3splt -f filename.mp3 02.55 06.22
Option -f for variable bitrates
The output will be in filename_02m_55s__06m_22s.mp3

There are several options. Take a look at the manual [2].

[1] http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net
[2] http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/documentation/man.html

A first glance at the Plasma Netbook Reference

As promised my first impression about the Plasma Netbook Reference.

First boot took "very long" but at least I had an amazing netbook interface with great effects running really smooth on the N270 1,6 GHz processor with 1GB ram. All in all really promising!

Downside: WLAN was not working and it was not possible to start an application that required root priviliges (like software management).

So I changed the root password (I don't know if that was the best idea). Now I was asked for the password but the app didn't start anyway. After the reboot WLAN worked. So I updated via konsole with yast2. The Netbook Reference is KDE SC 4.3.5. After the update everything worked great (WLAN, amazing desktop effects, start of every app, ...) Only one minor: Maybe it would be helpful for new users to have the logout/shutdown button in the panel. But this isn't software for new endusers anyway so it doesn't matter.

In the next step I tried to update to 4.4.70 but then KDE didn't start anymore (nothing happend after the login screen). As this should be the device for my wife (and she prefers a rock stable system) I decided to install OpenSUSE 11.2 with KDE 4.3.5. As the netbook reference is a on-stick-version I will try it some day again without any effects on the hard disk to give useful feedback to the developers.

All in all it was a good experience and very promissing.

BTW: Where can I get the beautiful grub menu and splash screen?

Finding the KNetbook (part II)

As I wrote a view weeks ago I am searching a notebook for my wife to run KDE SC 4.4 on Linux on it. Now we decided that it would be a netbook.

Why am I telling you that. I am still unhappy with the small market share Linux has and want to point to some points I recognized during my way to find my product.

Steps if I wanted a netbook without preference for an operating system:

1. Check some netbooks at a netbook test or discussion site of your choice.
2. Check the hardware in a store of your choice.
3. Buy the netbook and have fun try to use it.

Steps if I want a KDE netbook:

1. Check some netbooks at a netbook test or discussion site of your choice.
2. Spend hours to search the web if there are known issues with hardware compatibility.
3. Oh yes, there are known problems. But the sites were last updated one year ago. Perhaps the problem is solved by now? Keep on searching!
4. Check one or many of the hardware compatibility sites of major distros.
5. Find out, that your favoured netbook is not listed (the compatibility databases are often by far not completed) and the sites are a little bit outdated anyway. [1]
6. Go to bed and spend your next free evening, too.
7. After several hours of searching for other nice and affordable peaces of hardware finally write about your martyrdom on identi.ca. (Thanks to anyone who answered!)
8. Get really useful information from your fantastic KDE community within a couple of minutes / over night and decide.
9. Search the web for a reseller shipping your favoured netbook to your country WITHOUT operating system.
10. Renege your promise never to pay again for an operating system you don't use and order a Acer Aspire One D250 with XP/Android. (It is not possible to buy state of the art hardware without OS. Something goes definitely wrong here.)
11. Before wiping the hard disk have a look at android. Find out that you have to end the windows install (incl. licence agreement) before you can use android. Forget about android and pass to the next step.
12. Download your linux distro of choice and copy it onto an usb-stick. (Excellent descriptions for OpenSUSE and the KDE netbook reference are here and there.)
13. See your netbook come to life and HAVE FUN!

You might assume that it is much easier to find a windows netbook than one with linux. And you are totally right.

My resume:

• Simplicity rules: If we want to increase the market share of Linux/KDE it should be really easy and fast to find proper hardware and software.
• Our strength is the community: I spent hours searching the web without usefully results. The community helped me within minutes.

What can we do to improve these two major points? Is it only a personal issue or is this important for anybody else? Where can I steel the time to contribute? ...

P.S.: About my experiences with the KDE netbook reference I will blog another time.

[1]
http://en.opensuse.org/Hardware
http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Laptops/Asus
http://en.opensuse.org/HCL/Laptops/Acer#Aspire_One
http://hcl.mandriva.com/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Laptop/Reports
http://hardware4linux.info/systems/
http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/
http://www.linlap.com/
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/
http://www.linux-drivers.org/

Finding the kBook

My wife as well as my sister are looking for a small notebook or a netbook. I did a quick research to find a proper gadget to run KDE on it. I made good experiences with Lenovo, so I started there. One thing was clear to us all: We don't ever gonna pay for a Windows whatever version.

It seems that Lenovo has a "close relationship" with MS. No refund for MS operating systems possible. :-(

Same situation with some bigger vendors and reseller. Lenovo UK wrote in their mail about an agreement with MS only to ship windows with their machines.I have to admit: I'm shocked. Windows only systems where ever you look.

I didn't knew if I should laugh or cry as I read the Lenovo slogan "New World. New Thinking."

Hey European Commission! Wake up! After your success against Microsoft in the browser war here is your next goal: Every computer (esp. notebooks) should be available WITHOUT operating system. The price should be reduced by the cost of the OS.

Still alive

4yo and 2yo "working" with their favorite app Krita.

It has been a long time since my last post.

Since my move to Switzerland and my new job I haven't found any time to support the KDE-promo or www-team. (Ok. I never was one of the top-contributors, but it was always a great pleasure to contribute a little bit to such a great community).

From time to time I can read the promo mailinglist and are happy to see how many remarkable people are doing fantastic things. I can't wait to see the new web-design and new t-shirts and of cause KDE SC 4.4.0.

The only two things I could achieve the last 1/2 year.

1. Spread KDE in the private environment: Infect my sister and her husband with KDE passion. I could convert them from windows and now they are two proud only-KDE-on-Linux-users.
2. Convince future users: Show my two kids the free world of KDE. Their favorite app krita saved a small forrest (in form of paper) so far (see the picture above).

Thanks to all (real) contributors who keep the KDE-community running!

Life is Great!

Photo by mikep (CC-BY-NC-SA)

A view days ago Lydia dented me to an interesting video on TED. (If you don't know TED it's worth having a look. The clips there are much better than the regular TV program.)

It's a talk from David Logan on tribal leadership.

According to Logan the difference between tribes (or communities) are their cultures. Build on the culture communities can reach different states. He suggest 5 tribal states:

State 1: Life Sucks

That's the culture of gangs and in prisons. Life is horrible and you just try to survive.

State 2: My Life Sucks

Life isn't so bad. But mine! If I had other possibilities I would have fun.

State 3: I'm Great (and you're not!)

That's the culture in most companies and other "tribes". These people keep telling you their own success stories.

State 4: We're Great

Tribes in this state focus on the WE, not the I. The spirit glues those communities together. They produce excellence and are having fun. A view brilliant companies and many FLOSS communities have reached that level.

State 5: Life Is Great

Tribes in state 5 are those who change the world. They focus on values.

According to David Logan's research 2% are in state 1, 25% in state 2 and the majority (48%) is in state 3. Only 22% are in state 4 and 2% in state 5.

David Logan introduces two assumptions:

1. You can only understand someone who is at the same state (plus minus one).

2. The way as people see the world so they behave.

You might have been wondering what that has to do with KDE? Here it comes: KDE (as a brilliant community) has definitly reached state 4. How can we move from 4 to 5?

Eric Raymond discribes the attitude of FLOSS hackers: "The world is full of fascinating problems waiting to be solved." This discribes exactely the attitude: Life Is Great!

What is your attitude?

When you are looking for fascinating problems: Grab one! ...at http://bugs.kde.org

The four questions I am asking myself are:

How do I see the world? At what state are the people around me? How do I communicate with others? How do we change that amazing world?