Quick review: Sintel

As many probably know, after high anticipation, yesterday was the Internet launch for Sintel, the third short film from the Blender project.

Obviously, I hurried to view it (is available in multiple formats, video qualities and and packages, from torrents, to direct downloads and YouTube streaming), as I was warmed up about it since the preview we were offered in May at LGM.

Technically the video is impressive, it shows the software advancements and the grown experience of the team, it had good music and voices and it slightly longer. Still... I think it will be a smaller success compared with its predecessor, Big Buck Bunny.

Why? Because it has a !!!spoiler warning!!! sad story, not the same slapstick comedy from Big Buck Bunny and I expect the larger audience will go for slapstick, even if the fantasy story are cool (or used to be cool before the wave of lame teen vampires?)

So so watch the video, is a thoughtful fantasy story nicely done with Free software by an open community. A bit of learning and maybe you will make the next film :D

Free movies?

My knowledge about Free movies is limited beyond the "classics" eveyone knows like Sita Sings the Blues and the shorts from Blender but with the idea of holding a Free cultural event I need some suggestions, please help.

Of course there is a catch:

• The movies should be good enough, so they don't bore an audience composed mostly from university students (but not only);
• The movies should be Free, as in freedom, so it can be licensed as CC-BY or CC-BY-SA, without restrictions like NC or ND, which are contrary to our philosophy.

Thank you in advance for the ideas left in the comments section :)

Plz seed more!

I know my download is coming so slowly because I limiting it myself (there are other things going on the network which I don't want to disturb) but I can't stop asking myself: why so few seeds? why so few peers? (and yes, I also know at least one of them has a really fat pipe)

Big FUDCon 2010 photo dump

I think I already bored everyone with telling again and again how disappointed I was for lacking my lens and not being able to take the shots I wanted (with such frustration, investing 2000€ in glass start sounding less insane)... well, as many people taking pictures there I had the luxury to allow myself to focus on silly things, for serious stuff you have plenty of alternatives.

So between weak replacement lens and silliness, I did a bunch of crappy photos (still, not as many as at the previous FUDCons, blame the lens) so now is the time for a big dump, for everyone to see (they were many enough so I didn't feel like editing many right now, so to the crappy add unedited):

Fedora is people

Remember the new Fedora logo concept? Well... we have it made from people, from our awesome Czech friends.

We are Fedora (FUDCon 2010)

The obligatory group shot for the Zurich FUDCon (to bad some people already left the conference and they are missing from the picture):

To play with it, download the large version.

Rock it!

BarCamp: Awesome art stuff

FUDCon's last day, BarCamp sesions, come to jopin the "Awesome Art Stuff" from 15:00 PM in room G46.

Ubuntu @FUDCon

Ubuntu invaded the FUDCon. Or maybe not... :D :D :D

Before flaming me: no, I didn't put them in there nor have any idea who did it, I just noticed the fact and took the picture. Now flame away.

Come to Fedora, we have... cookies

Yes, there are some cookies too... (my favorites were those with chocolate)

The stuff Fedora is made of

If you hurried and answered "crack" you are wrong, look below to learn more about the things Fedora are made of:

Incolor liquids shared freely among the friends in the circle of life

Community dancing

Underground bunker frisbee

Football playing with a tennis ball in the bunker garage while listening to Czech music from the '80s

PS: if you were expecting ponies and strawberries... maybe you are reading the wrong blog. Or maybe not :D

Fedora Webcomic Special ZURICH FUDCon: Bunker Rising

So far at least seven people asked me about a webcomic special for FUDCon, so I had to do one. But I think I am going to have even less shame than usual, trying to change the bribery... I know I have to expect the beers, but can I have something else instead? I need to buy a FUDCon T-shirt, M size. Thank you in advance :) I have no shame :D

Design Team Meeting @FUDCon

Sitting in what was supposed to be a meting of Fedora Design Team contributors at FUD Con Zurich but momentarily was deturned in a boring presentation about not really Free Design books:

Before seeking refuge to blog posting I tried playing a bit with photos, when got served with this simple and clear sign:


So, in conclusion:

• a bit later we will have Pierros' talk about the Design Suite spin, maybe then we will be able to use the time better
• is he right? should I stop? please leave your answer in the comments below

Update: at last! over half hour later we are saved, the session is back on track and we have now Mo talking about real stuff (and I am listening, no time to post photos).

The new Fedora logo?

As you know, with the advice of Red Hat Legal, Fedora is actively protecting its logo and trademark (and we have some real problems in this area. As a consequence, the logo usage is not as Free as we wish, we must apply some restrictions.

One of the ideas to make this easier, an idea which as the moment is not agreed, was to produce a secondary logo, created by the community and used by the community with no restriction in usage. If this idea will ever get steam, I think this night in the bunker I discovered the perfect graphic for it (if you look at those pictures will see the sign practically everywhere):

...if you want to know more about the meaning of this sun-shaped sign, ask our Czech friends :)

Tales from the Bunker

There are many tales to be told about the bunker where many of us, FUDCon participants, are spending the nights but I am in a hurry, with the Design Team meeting starting in less than 30 minutes, so I will tell my story for now only with a few photos. Expect more for later.

Wired Dreams

A the same time with FUDCon another event, FrOSCamp, is tacking place and today they have a party called "Wired Dreams"... unfortunately, the party is boring. How boring? Just look at my friend's Adrian face:

We tried to kill the time for a while as we could, for example Pierros got hiss ass kicked at table football even from Ubuntu users and girls. There are rumors about him going to resign from all Fedora positions and going to Windows.

Now a band started to sing at least, but we are so bored that many started the laptops (we are geeks after all). Waiting for the hour when the bunker will open its gates.

The Mo

FUDCon Zurich day one, end of the day: we are in the middle of Mo's talk about GIMP and Inkscape, the tools we are using the most at Fedora Design.

Funny fact: she's famous enough she can stay all the time with her name tag hidden, everybody around knows her.

Lunch break (FUDCon Day #1)

So we were hungry and went out for some food at a kebab place for the unhealthy (but tasty) stuff:

Good time to prove the Romanians and Greeks can be equally hungry (and equally pervs too, but that's another topic);

Then the crazy bunch returned:

And we can see how disruptive can we be (yup, that Fedora running computer is on the SUSE booth):

FUDCon 2010: the road and the first contact

Just arrived at FUDCon and in a hurry to see as many as my Fedora friends as I can, so will spare the useless prose and just show some photos:

Fun, fun fun! and also somewhat sorry for people who are at home and can't be here... talk to you later.

Half a photographer in Zurich for FUDCon

Less than a day until this year's FUDCon in Europe, and obviously I can't miss it, will definitely be there (not with all my toys for those wondering) but with all my perversitycharm. Unfortunately, I won't be whole as a photographer, only half of me: as the zoom lens, which I use most of the time, is borken (latest estimate repair: next week), I will have with me only the 50mm and the cheap wide one. Will have to manage the situation, but probably will not be excessively enthusiastic about shooting.

If there is enough demand, I can act as a mobile hackergotchi creation station, able to do anything from photos to GIMPing, so if you need one locate me (that may not be trivial as I won't be wearing the beard) and don't be afraid to ask. And don't forget I am bribable :)

My unsexy desktop

Monkey see, monkey do... so when I see other people posting screenshots of their "sexy desktops" and recipes to configure like that, I can't resist the urge and to the same. here is how my desktop looks at the moment:

So the recipe:
- GNOME theme is the unmodified Fedora 13, the same colors, icons widgets - as boring as possible;
- the Panel layout is also standard Fedora/GNOME, with a couple of launchers and applets added to the top panel and with slight transparency to the panels, just for kicks (and with Metacity the transparency is fake anyway);
- the wallpaper is a self-made photo, but it will be probably available in a F14 package;
- the desktop is piled [apparently] chaotically with a bunch of files and folders for projects I am working now or worked lately. Believe me, I can find what I need there.

Am I boring or what?

Caroline^W Andreea and Fimo

Andreea is my friend and besides being a beautiful model she is quite a geek (and a photographer too), she definitely is a Caroline... the only downfall: she does not use Linux, nor plan to do it (she's content with Windows and Photoshop) but she understand and likes the community... enough that when she started making Fimo models, one of the very first things she did was a Fedora bubble :D

Nice, right? Thanks CarolineAndreea :)

Everyone can contribute

In an earlier post I talked about Fedora supplemental wallpapers and our effort to check the license, the replies are positive but I wanted to share with the world one heart warming reply from one of the photographers I contacted:

I'm honored that you chose one of my photos, and I'm quite happy with your attribution mechanisms.

Feel free to contact me if I can be of any further help.

Thanks,

Nic

P.S. I teach computer science at the University of Minnesota, Morris, the public liberal arts campus of the U of M. Our CS lab has approximately 35 clients, all running Fedora Core. Thanks for your good work - it's nice to be able to contribute something small back.

See? Is not hard at all to become a contributor to FLOSS and Fedora.

Thank you Nic.

My love story with Caroline

Caroline is one persona created to illustrate the various categories of Fedora users and she stands for the "Casual User", paraphrasing, she tries to spend as little as possible time on front of the computer but may be involved in some other communities.

Frankly, I used to root for Caroline and want to see her targeted more by our distro, but after seeing the changes in our distro made in the name of catering to her needs... I got to care very little (none?) about her and I am not far from hating her. Why? because those changes are making my life harder and my computer use less pleasant (I acknowledge is not always Caroline's fault, she's sometime used as a strawman to push some agendas).

We look desperate trying to "steal" the Ubuntu audience and forget what made Fedora Fedora and doing it poorly. As I see it, the key to the success on the desktop is: features, features, features, polish, polish, polish. Look at the features we advertise for F14 and, please, show me at least one desktop user that get excited by one of them. Of courde we are not perceived as a desktop distro and losing. Badly.

Sad/FUDCon

I am sad today: learned yesterday a good friend may possibly attend the Zurich FUDCon which would have been nothing short of awesome. Half a day later, sad reality hits: she won't be able to attend for the stupidest reason of all: didn't get a few days off from work. It's a shame! And her employer is supposedly in the FOSS business...

Fedora 14 Supplemental Wallpapers

We at the Fedora Design Team are not arrogant enough to think the default wallpaper we provide is the ultimate choice for everyone, we understand the diversity of our users and their tastes and trying to make a larger audience happy we want to provide a set of alternatives. The idea is not new, we started playing with it a couple of years ago, but only now it came to fruition.

Of course, other distros are doing it too and they may arrived faster to results, but we used the "Fedora way", more Free and more Open :D It started with a wiki page collecting submissions from everyone, it was announced on blogs/Planet, Fedora Weekly News, microblogging and so (as a writer for FWN I made sure the happenings are documented as they go).

After a generous submission interval we had the members of the team expressing their option/preferences/votes (you want the selection made by someone with an understanding about design, usability, photography and such) and this ended in a "winners" page containing the most voted images, some of the submission are creation of Fedora contributors and some are Free images gathered from the internet (Flickr)

The current step is to double-check the licenses (we became quite paranoid about this after the InvinXible/Solar incident) and at the first pass we struck down a couple of them due to restrictive license (CC-BY-ND and CC-BY-NC are not Free, so not acceptable for inclusion on Fedora). The second pass is to contact the unknown photographers and learn if they are happy with the attribution we are able to provide, some already replied positively. Expect the package to hit the repos before the Beta release and get a few improvements until final.

One of the last steps we are still trying to figure is providing attribution (author name, license and URL) in the wallpaper chooser application as tooltip, the current idea is to (ab)use ane XML file in /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/) and another is to try to persuade some spin maintainers into liking and using the package (it will probably be at least part of the Design Suite).

Rock it.