Jonathan Corbet
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Ah the memories one finds at the bottom of a desk drawer... Once upon a time this was a really cool thing.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
I have ... opinions ... on the current course of the US federal government, and have been doing my best to make sure that my elected congresscritters know about them.
When you put in a message on Senator Bennet's web site, as with all of them, they want you to pick a topic. Only today did I notice that one of them is, literally, "Internet & Technology". I guess I'll have to advise them of my opinions on excessive entity escaping too...
When you put in a message on Senator Bennet's web site, as with all of them, they want you to pick a topic. Only today did I notice that one of them is, literally, "Internet & Technology". I guess I'll have to advise them of my opinions on excessive entity escaping too...
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Jonathan Corbet
repeated
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John Skiles Skinner
skiles@carhenge.clubI got laid off today, with the rest of 18F.
18F was an elite federal software shop. We made gov't websites work better, more efficiently for the American people. We saved taxpayers from getting screwed over by contractors. And were fired for it.
We made this website to tell our story:
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
US politics
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So, while I think this article declares victory a bit too soon, I think we also need the occasional optimistic view that we may actually get through this administration.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-24-trump-coup-has-failed/
(by way of @pluralistic)
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-02-24-trump-coup-has-failed/
(by way of @pluralistic)
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Just after my last post on solar power, I got a cheery email from "SunStrong", the company taking over from SunPower, which has gone bankrupt. It seems that if I want to get historical data or performance data for individual panels (which I own) out of the monitoring system (which I own) installed in my house, I will have to pay them $100/year.
...or perhaps I can just use the data I've collected into Home Assistant via the SunPower integration and tell them to take a hike ...
My one question is whether they have the ability to push a firmware load and enshittify things further; I think the time may be coming to take the monitoring box off the net.
...or perhaps I can just use the data I've collected into Home Assistant via the SunPower integration and tell them to take a hike ...
My one question is whether they have the ability to push a firmware load and enshittify things further; I think the time may be coming to take the monitoring box off the net.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Many cultures celebrate solar events — solstices and such — and that is a fine tradition. My variant of that is to celebrate the first day of the year when the solar panels generate more power than the house uses, running the meter backward overall. Thanks to some warm weather, that was yesterday... spring is coming!
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
@binder @luis_in_brief @Edent Strange, I have not seen much "steamrolling" going on, certainly not on the part of the Rust folks. But, if you have thoughts on how things could run more smoothly, joining the mailing-list discussion with constructive comments might be a good thing to do.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
Far too many years ago, Rit Carbone hired me as a student assistant at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. My first job was delineating data from early doppler radars into structured scans — and creating a deck of punched cards describing each tape from the radar. It was an amazing way to start a career.
I am deeply saddened to hear that Rit is gone, he was a great scientist and a great man.
https://www.rit-memorial.com/
I am deeply saddened to hear that Rit is gone, he was a great scientist and a great man.
https://www.rit-memorial.com/
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
@maco @Edent Who have you seen "flouncing out"?
Do you really expect a project with 5,000 contributors over the course of the year to run without occasional conflict and disagreement?
At the moment we have a high-profile maintainer who is concerned about the prospect of maintaining a multi-language code base for the next ten years. I am not on board with how that concern has been expressed, and I think those concerns will not win out over the long term, but the concerns should be addressed on their merit — as the Rust-for-Linux developers have been patiently doing. Turning it into a "cold dead hands" strawman is really not going to make the process work better.
Do you really expect a project with 5,000 contributors over the course of the year to run without occasional conflict and disagreement?
At the moment we have a high-profile maintainer who is concerned about the prospect of maintaining a multi-language code base for the next ten years. I am not on board with how that concern has been expressed, and I think those concerns will not win out over the long term, but the concerns should be addressed on their merit — as the Rust-for-Linux developers have been patiently doing. Turning it into a "cold dead hands" strawman is really not going to make the process work better.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
@luis_in_brief @Edent I looked at longevity a bit one year ago: https://lwn.net/Articles/956765/ . I should run those numbers again. The brief answer is that some of those people obviously drop their one patch and move on, but others do indeed stick around for the long term.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
@Edent So this appears to be a lightly disguised criticism of the kernel project ... the project that is working hard to incorporate Rust into a 30+-year-old code base, is (slowly) developing new contribution tools, and sees 2-300 new contributors in each and every one of its nine-week release cycles.
There are plenty of problems in kernelland, but they will not be improved by a distorted view like this.
There are plenty of problems in kernelland, but they will not be improved by a distorted view like this.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
On the radar: should there be an OpenWrt Two router device?
https://lwn.net/ml/all/56022ffa-2e71-4335-ae3c-418552e7e088@phrozen.org
...as if anybody is going to say "no"...
https://lwn.net/ml/all/56022ffa-2e71-4335-ae3c-418552e7e088@phrozen.org
...as if anybody is going to say "no"...
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
US politics
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So NOAA employees have been told to stop working with foreign nationals
https://www.wired.com/story/noaa-employees-foreign-nationals/
Before I bailed out of reality to get into this free-software adventure, I spent many years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; it was a great time working on things that really mattered. One of the things I learned is that atmospheric science is an international exercise; international collaboration is the norm. Removing the US from that community will impede science worldwide, and deprive the US of the fruits of working with others. Many of the best researchers in this field are *not* in the US.
But something else crosses my mind. If they can kill scientific collaboration, they can go after other types of collaboration too. Like, say, ordering government agencies to stop participating in free-software projects where there are non-US developers present — all of them, in other words. Or telling government contractors that. An attempt to tear our community apart is not much of a stretch from where we are now.
We live in interesting times, alas.
https://www.wired.com/story/noaa-employees-foreign-nationals/
Before I bailed out of reality to get into this free-software adventure, I spent many years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research; it was a great time working on things that really mattered. One of the things I learned is that atmospheric science is an international exercise; international collaboration is the norm. Removing the US from that community will impede science worldwide, and deprive the US of the fruits of working with others. Many of the best researchers in this field are *not* in the US.
But something else crosses my mind. If they can kill scientific collaboration, they can go after other types of collaboration too. Like, say, ordering government agencies to stop participating in free-software projects where there are non-US developers present — all of them, in other words. Or telling government contractors that. An attempt to tear our community apart is not much of a stretch from where we are now.
We live in interesting times, alas.
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
US politics
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A strident look at what is going on in this country, worth a read. Wish I knew better what to do about it...
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/05/the-24-hour-reality-check-musks-impossible-power-grab-and-americas-crisis/
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/05/the-24-hour-reality-check-musks-impossible-power-grab-and-americas-crisis/
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Jonathan Corbet
corbet
@kees @securepaul @monsieuricon @jmorris I have found them to be really useful when, for whatever reason, the automatic renewal process breaks and the cert heads toward expiration. Maybe I'm just clumsy, but I have managed to break it a time or two without noticing.
Yes, we should just have some sort of monitoring of our own ... that's gonna be happening soon ...
Yes, we should just have some sort of monitoring of our own ... that's gonna be happening soon ...
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