Community Participation, Done Right (Lawyers Too!)

The Fedora Project Contributors' Agreement (sometimes/formerly "CLA", the L is License/ing) must be signed by everyone who registers with the Fedora Account System and receives credentials allowing them to contribute to the project. (That includes software packaging, wiki editing, code checkins, and so on.) It sets the tone both for members' activities within the community, and for that community's relationship with its leaders.

For an open-source, community-driven project's organizational body to be respectful of that community, it mustn't put its own interests ahead of theirs. In fact, it shouldn't even have a concept of "its own interests" distinct from theirs; its only interests are the community's. Any goals that organization has should be narrowly defined, and any rights or authority it asserts should, when faced with conflict or overlap, be deferred. That's the model of a responsible governing body, one that wishes only to consolidate and guide the efforts of its contributors for the benefit of all involved, not appropriate those contributions for its own benefit or profit.

That's why, for Fedora contributors agreeing to & signing the CLA, almost more important than what that does mean is what the agreement doesn't mean. And why, in recognition of that fact, the text of the CLA opens with explicit statements of both points:

The Fedora Project Contributor Agreement

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal:Fedora_Project_Contributor_Agreement

Goal

We require that contributors to Fedora (as defined below) agree to this Fedora Project Contributor Agreement (FPCA) to ensure that contributions to Fedora have acceptable licensing terms.

Non-Goals

The FPCA is *not* a copyright assignment agreement.

The FPCA does *not* somehow supersede the existing licensing terms that apply to Fedora contributions. There are two important subpoints here. First, the FPCA does not apply to upstream code (or other material) that you didn't write; indeed, it would be preposterous for it to attempt to do so. Note the narrow way in which we have defined capital-c "Contribution". Second, the main provision of the FPCA specifies that a default license will apply to code that you wrote, but only to the extent that you have not bothered to put an explicit license on it. Therefore, the FPCA is *not* some sort of special permissive license granted to any party, despite the explicit choice of a more restrictive license by you or by upstream developers.

...Commendable. And why FESCo (the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee), the Fedora Project Board, and anyone else involved should be commended. In this time when free websites have Terms of Use claiming exclusive ownership of everything their users do on the site, this type of dedication to putting the community first — even in their lawyers' fine print — is all too rare.

Posted via email from ferdnyc's posterous

Samsung Transform phone Review: Awesome keyboard, substandard everything-else

[Since I bothered to bang out this review of my Android phone over on Samsung's site, and I have no idea if it'll ever see the light of day there, I thought I'd mirror it here, with additional details that are apparently forbidden in Samsung-site reviews. Like prices, or mentioning any competitor products or sites.]

 ...OK, to be honest the screen's not half bad, either.

I was dead-set on replacing my previous Instinct with a phone that had a REAL physical keyboard, and the Transform's is possibly the best keyboard Samsung has ever designed. Great feel and no weird layout "stuff". (Looking at you, Moment keyboard!) But, obviously, the main selling point for the Transform is its price. An Android phone for $50? Sign me up!

Problem is, you really do get what you pay for when you buy a "cheap" Android phone. The Transform's biggest failing is simple: It. Is. SLOOOOOOW. Criminally slow. Occasionally-goes-out-for-a-walk-and-just-gets-lost slow. "Background services? Sure, I can do that... *OR* I can let you answer a call" slow.

Shortly after buying the phone, I ran some random benchmark app (all-but-useless for practical purposes, but still better than comparing clock speeds or other specs for relative comparisons) on my Transform. On whatever arbitrary scale it used, my phone's score was ONE TENTH the rating of the HTC Evo, one of Sprint's then-flagship Android phones. The Transform really did score just 10% of the Evo's benchmark result.

Now, that kind of phone is a serious mobile device with a zippy CPU; you'd expect the Transform to be slower. But TEN TIMES as slow? Which is not to say that every operation takes 10x as long on the Transform. But it does mean that it has to "ThinkRealHard!" for up to ten times as long, for each of those operations. It means that when even a few stack up, severe delays build up fast. (The ONLY thing the phone does quickly: get bogged down!)

It means that, if you're unfortunate enough to be doing anything with the phone at the moment the Alarm Clock triggers, causing the alarm popup to get lost, you will be forced to endure several seconds of loud beeping/buzzing/etc, all throughout the time it takes you to get to and then pull down the notiifcation tray, tap on the alarm notification, wait for the dialog to come up, and then select and have it process your response. (Nothing else will silence it short of pulling the battery — a better approach for particularly embarrassing situations. Of course, Google has to share some of the blame here, for an OS that violates the *one* well-established mobile convention: Whenever the phone is emitting ANY audible noise, pressing Volume Down should ALWAYS silence it immediately, without exception, no backsies.)

Because the CPU really only has two operating states — idle or near-catatonically overloaded — its power management has little practical use. Thus, battery life is... unstellar. (After learning a few new habits to save on power, though, I've found it pretty manageable.)

Lastly, factor in Samsung's unsurprising lack of enthusiasm for actively supporting a device that can't possibly represent any significant profit for them. As evidenced by the months of delays before the 2.2 update was released (though that issue affected their entire lineup), the fact that the 2.2 update that *was* finally released is actually worse in several ways (unless Samsung can explain how adding a reverse-landscape rotation orientation to a side-slider phone is somehow a feature!), and the fact that in the time since the 2.2 update finally appeared, no further update has been released or even hinted at to fix the issues with the current build.

The 2.2 update did shave several seconds off the phone's boot time — a welcome change, but still far from a gold-star feature for the phone. With the official Froyo build, time to cold-boot my Transform after an orderly shutdown, from first touch of the power button to the moment the lock screen appears: 2 minutes and 2.65 seconds. ...Yay.

Engadget and ilk have made excellent arguments against "budget" Android phones like the Transform, usually pointing out that "last year's model" of a REAL phone can be had for similar price, and will likely still be superior. I can only add that, even as a relatively-content 6-month Transform owner, I agree. The phone is "fine" for what it is, and I knew what I was getting into, but if I had it to do over again I'd look for a better solution than the Transform.

But I'd really miss that keyboard! 

Pros: Bright display, excellent keyboard 

Cons: Poor quality, slow, poor battery life

Final Verdict? No, I would not recommend it to a friend.

(...Possibly an enemy.)

Posted via email from ferdnyc's posterous

For Gary, a reminder of conversations past...

Frank  WTF? NOT _AGAIN_! This happened once before on my account, and disappeared almost immediately -- the top of my feed has been replaced with a Share: box containing four links, and I have to click one of them to get an input box. It is _AWFUL_ and Assbook is *ON*CRACK* if they think this is a good idea!!

December 10, 2010 at 3:49 am

Julie  Mine has been like that since I switched tov the new profile 5 days ago. It is like that when I go to other people's walls too.
December 10, 2010 at 3:59 am

Frank  How is nobody else complaining about this, then????
...And why are you _awake_? :)
December 10, 2010 at 4:09 am

Gary  It's the new software they rolled out a few days ago. It is the new and permanent change.
December 10, 2010 at 4:14 am

Frank  Not if there's a backlash to end all backlashes.
December 10, 2010 at 4:15 am

Frank  There's no such thing as "permanent" in software, WTF does that even _MEAN_???
December 10, 2010 at 4:16 am

Gary  It won't revert back to the earlier version.
December 10, 2010 at 4:16 am

Frank  ... ... ...You work at Facebook, now? Congrats on the new job!
December 10, 2010 at 4:36 am

Gary  Thanks! I'll make sure your complaint gets routed to the appropriate individual. We are now serving number 37...your number is 354,726,586,324,591.45. Feel free to have a seat and wait.
December 10, 2010 at 4:38 am

Sean  Yea I've had that box since the new profiles were rolled out. I find the new design much more clunky but oh well they don't care.
December 10, 2010 at 8:41 am

Julie  I *was* awake giving the baby the boob!
December 10, 2010 at 10:24 am

Frank  MY BRAIN-EYES!!!!! *spaf!*
December 10, 2010 at 1:03 pm

Posted via email from ferdnyc's posterous