Slack slowly dying?

I have been using Slack a lot in the first half of 2018. Multiple servers, different people, customers, everything. In recent months it looks a lot like slack is slowly dying as activity is far less then it used to be. Some of the servers I participate are already closed down and moved on to other services.

Since I first used slack I really couldn't get comfortable with it. It just has a few things that just don't work like I want them to (e.g marking a server read, handling of servers and users). That is why my company used Discord from the start and not the then "industry standard" slack. Also, all these integrations are nice but I have jet to see a useful usage that people actually use for a longer time.

So I came to the conclusion that slack is dying a slow death, if they don't change some fundamental things.

Open Source Culture: Problem #1

I like how Canonical decided to be more open about secret projects they work on. At least that they now involve some people outside of Canonical to get feedback is great. I think a lot of problems with the new "Amazon Suggestions" feature could have been avoided like that. Sometimes it just takes an outside perspective to see some problems.

And I don't think it is a problem between Open Source and secret projects. Sometimes this is a much better approach then to be open from the start. It's more about the psychological side than code improvements or testing. Often Projects fail because motivation of the contributors fades away. People just tend to move on as they loose interest.

That's why I really dislike bad comments to some newly released code. It's new, surely it has it's problems, just like anything new has. At least some others seem to share my opinion. I think Jono Bacon put it right on his blog:

The Genesis Of Free Software Projects | jonobacon@home: "when sometime decides to create Free Software either as an individual or as a company, they have the right to create the first iteration of that feature however they choose. Their investment of time, money, or both in building Free Software earns them a right to put together a first cut that meets their needs…this is the very nature of scratching an itch."

Comments like "you should have used X instead!" are just wrong. Especially for things that are open and you get for free. Even more so if the one releasing something didn't event get paid to do so. The only thing these comments do is discouraging someone which cares about free and open software. So people writing such bad things are only discouraging other people to do such tings. You are destroying your own system here.

This is something I still see way too often on blogs. This is really bad for open software ...

Skeuomorphism Is Bad

Will Apple's Tacky Software-Design Philosophy Cause A Revolt? | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

The issue is two-fold: first, that traditional visual metaphors no longer translate to modern users; and second, that excessive digital imitation of real-world objects creates confusion among users.

What Killed the Linux Desktop (so far)

What Killed the Linux Desktop - Miguel de Icaza

... (a) First dimension: things change too quickly, breaking both open source and proprietary software alike; (b) incompatibility across Linux distributions. ...

good and valid points raised. This needs to be addressed somehow...

Software isn’t Dead

DoctorMo's Blog » Blog Archive » Software isn’t Dead

he's got a good point there. I like the cathedral metaphor :). And it's interesting that Microsofts "Metro" UI makes programming simpler by making the UI simpler (=more mobile like). Less feature bloated, less to code. But also a lot needs to be reinvented for this "new" UI. From this point of view half of it feels like a step back to the 90s. Thank God they didn't reintroduce the commandline.

Game Over for Moonlight

Moonlight sent into twilight - Update - The H Open Source: News and Features

sad, sad thing. But expected ...

Ubuntu 12.04 - dislikes

As usual, after the official release of the Precise Pangolin and my first impressions, my dislikes on this nice and polished Ubuntu 12.04 release.

• They removed my favorite Launcher Feature. As I wrote before, I really loved the Launcher window dodge feature. It was great to work with and with the new edge resistance it would have been so much better to use. Really a shame they did that. Autohide feels like such a big step back from such an intelligent feature. (It's possible to get this feature back.)
• They changed how Meta+1/2/3/.. behaves. It now only raises the last focused window from these. Before it did raise all windows which I found much better. I used this a lot so now it's a bit more cumbersome.
• Skype still doesn't work properly. Distorted audio is the norm for every notification. Basically this makes me hate Skype. Didn't try to call anyone so far, so don't know how the audio is there. I think I need to apply my old Skype audio hack to fix this, again.
• Just like last time I still need to manually edit the Pulseaudio config file and set "enable-lfe-remixing = yes" for my subwoofer to work with normal stereo sound (like music playback). This is annoying and one of the only things I need to edit a config file for (which I still hate to do).
• I start to hate it more and more when applications create directories in my home folder. And I'm not even talking about hidden directories here (which is bad as well, a .ssh, .config and .local should be all there is). The default Backup application creates a deja-dup/[computername] directory for Ubuntu One syncing. Why not use something like Ubuntu One/Backups/deja-dup/[computername]? If I use Ubuntu One that directory will be there anyways.
• Compiz Scale window switching seems to have problems sometimes. It happens that some windows end up on the wrong Workspace after switching. Not really sure how to reproduce it, just happens sometimes.
• When the computer is Idle and the display deactivates it starts to do something. The fans start to spin faster (and with that also louder). As soon as I do something to reactivate the screen it stops. Annoying as usually you can barely hear the fans even while doing normal activities like browsing the web. Like this I can't leave the computer on while doing something else.
• Focus stealing got a lot better. It only happens very rarely anymore (like while running Synaptic). Still annoying, but mostly gone now.

Thank good that most of my old dislikes from Ubuntu 11.10 are fixed now. Especially the Unity related ones. Unity is pretty great to use now. Generally, my dislikes seem to move more to niche areas. This is a very good thing.

experience working with patents

My experience working with patents - Where is Ploum?

interesting and a good read on patents ... such a sad sad state of this system :/

Small Details Matter A Lot!

For me, today is one of those sad, sad days. Everything was fine until I did read this blogpost on OMG Ubuntu!. It struck me like lightning. Is it already April the 1st? No. What the hell did happen there? What went wrong. I've been using this happily since it's introduction. It's not a great feature, it's an AWESOME one! This made the Unity Launcher matter to me. Now it's basically back to what every other launcher on every other OS does. Big bummer ...

I still remember very well the first time I stumbled over it. I remember how I played with it and later showed it to my flatmate and told him how awesome this feature is. And he agreed. It was love at first sight. We both use it and we both like it today. Back then it still was buggy, didn't work as expected all the time and had its quirks. But it was a feature that made the launcher stand out from others. At the time we all could see the potential. And I do not think that this potential has suddenly disappeared.

So, Mark Shuttleworth writes on the Ayatana Mailing List a few things on this topic. I do understand the reasoning behind the removal. But, in my opinion, completely axing the feature is a bit extreme. He writes the following:

So, based on that, we made the following design choices:

1. To start with the launcher always visible. This is the least surprising starting position. Nothing happens unless the user commands it. 
2. To expose an option of having the launcher hide, or be fixed.
3. Not to offer a dodge option, because users who don't want it always there are perfectly capable of using it in plain hiding mode, and users who don't know what 'dodge' means don't have to spend time trying to parse it.

Point one is pretty clear, good and what should be the case and is expected. Second point doesn't say much besides "no dodge". Third one is a bit tricky. Yes, users who don't know what "dodge" means shouldn't be confronted with it out of the box (point 1). And, yes, users who use dodge can also use plain hiding mode, as they can use always visible mode (hey, they are advanced users!). But what the hide mode users really want is a good implemented dodge mode! As that's the evolution of simple hiding.

To me, dodge is definitely a feature for advanced users. It's basically an improvement to the always hide mode. It's that small detail that transforms the launcher behavior from good (that it hides) to awesome (that it dodges when it would waste space otherwise). It's nicer and makes one feel like the launcher has some intelligence to it. If I have my desktop visible, I want the launcher to be visible. There is no reason to hide it except laziness of the programmers to implement a better behavior. Especially as likely the next thing I do is launch one of those pinned "important" apps of mine. With a hidden launcher that needs more effort from my side.

There has only been one thing that still is annoying about the dodge feature. In the current release it shows as soon as you touch the left screen edge with you mouse. This is annoying for some programs. Especially graphic applications, like Gimp or Inkscape as they have icon toolbars there. But guess what!? They fixed that by introducing edge resistance (which is awesome too!) in the newest alphas for the next LTS. So now that dodge would have been perfect they axe it completely instead of making it an option for advanced users. Personally, I would rather axe the always hide mode.

A sad, sad day indeed. I just say, details matter and this is one of those details that did matter a lot. And definitely not only to me. This is the additional attention to detail and polish that is needed to make something awesome. I hope they leave it in for the LTS release as an hidden option. Furthermore, I hope someone will add this feature over some Compiz plugin to later versions of Unity. It's been too useful to just disappear completely.

How Microsoft kills cool projects

How Microsoft kills cool projects « Scott Berkun
Simple thing: You just don't go to a big company if you want to innovate. They usually don't like new things.

Scott Berku is, as usual, an interesting read.

Bios: Secure Boot

Canonical Blog - White Paper: Secure Boot impact on Linux
good to see some positive action regarding this topic. I build my computers myself so I wouldn't want this anyway. Buying a new Card just to notice at home that it will not work because some stupid key is missing. Just a bad and restricting idea. Again something that helps the big ones and hinders the little ones.

Ubuntu 11.10 - dislikes

After using the final Ubuntu 11.10 release for some time and liking it quite a bit. I present the things that annoy me so far:

• for some reason Banshee doesn't work properly at all. Most of the time it freezes on start. If it starts it crashes after a few songs are played. In short the experience is horrible. So horrible that I stopped to listen to music on my computer for now. I removed all Banshee config files I could find within my home directory, just to make sure there isn't something old left over which causes this. Didn't help at all. I did install Rhythmbox which seems to work better but crashes after a few songs as well. Maybe the crash is related to some backend stuff not working properly. Maybe I make the effort and spend some time to setup XMMS2 and look how that goes. This is a mayor problem for me as I usually listen to music constantly when I'm on my computer.
• Desura updates often (which is a good thing for a beta) and it already improved some but still crashes a lot. Also I can't get some games to install ("Gathering Information" stands there and nothing happens). Annoying but I'm sure they manage to get stable for the LTS.
• The first time I open up the dash after login I can't write anything. Minor thing but a bit annoying. If I close it and open it again everything is fine.
• Sorting of "the things I want" in dash is sometimes a bit funny. I often start Skype out of the dash and still it's not the first item most of the time. Other Items before Skype I didn't start at all. That's annoying as I want to press the Super key, type sky and press enter. Can't do that right now. If this isn't fixed for the LTS I probably need to install something like GnomeDo again.
• Skype still sometimes has weird audio. Didn't call anybody so far so don't know how well that will work. But especially on start the Skype sound is very distorted.
• Some apps tend to steal focus which is very annoying. Especially the Update Manager. I start it, press check and minimize all to continue my work. After some time it puts itself in the foreground and I'm interrupted. Very annoying and if I remember right not the only app that does this.
• As the keyring requests the password after login it sometimes doesn't have the focus, or the focus is stolen by something else. This happens often as I turn on my computer (it's on auto-login) and go away for some time. After I get back it's finished booting and is on the desktop but I can't just enter the password. I have to first click on the dialog. Sometimes it even looks focused visually but I just can't type until I click somewhere on the window.
• I'm still annoyed from time to time by the global menu. But it has improved. I don't like it but I can live with it. The removed visual clutter is nice, behavior is still not optimal or consistent across applications.
• Just like last time I still need to manually edit the Pulseaudio config file and set "enable-lfe-remixing = yes" for my subwoofer to work with normal stereo sound (like music playback). This is annoying and the only thing I need to edit a config file for (which I still hate to do).
• Right click on a dash icon reveals a menu. I can't select an item the first time. Need to open the menu a second time to actually use it. It doesn't even highlight the hovered entry the first time. Seems like it doesn't take any input. Strange thing ...
• Skype windows often behave strangely. They look focused but I can't write. The don't look focused but I am able to write. It seems to have trouble with focused/unfocused and minimized/normal states. Whats present and what is visually shown often doesn't fit together. Actually, it doesn't fit more often than it does.

They really have fixed a lot of my old dislikes in this release. Maybe that's why I like it much more. Still a lot of Skype problems, but I gave up on good Skype integration years ago. Skype is usable but far from a good experience.

I have high hopes for the next LTS that most of these will be gone with it. Can't wait ...

The patent system isn’t broken - we are

The patent system isn’t broken — we are | This is my next...

very interesting (and long) read on patents. Letting patents only be valid for 3-5 years would be nice. But doesn't it (from time to time at least) take longer for a patent to be granted than that? I think I heard of patents where it took 7 years? In my opinion thats a bigger problem as times move fast. If a system can be used for 7 years and suddenly you got to pay license fees, thats bad, very bad. Also I think within 7 years its likely that someone else comes up with the same thing. Anyway, right now its a bad situation no matter which way you turn it. It needs to change, hopefully soon ...

Update: more on that:
ignore the code: It's Broken.

More on Software Patents

ignore the code: More on Software Patents

good well known points there .. nothing more to say.

Intellectual property: Patents against prosperity

Intellectual property: Patents against prosperity | The Economist

A glimpse of hope. There seem to be people in America that realize the problem. At least on the Patent side.

Diablo 3 DRM (Constant Internet Connection)

Diablo 3 DRM Requires Constant Internet Connection – Until You Crack It, Of Course | TechCrunch

Damn, have been waiting for this game for so long and now this. Well guess have to spend my time and money on other games (shouldn't Tourchlight 2 be out this year?)

Apparatus and the Amazon Appstore

Apparatus will be pulled from Amazon Appstore - News - Bithack AB

Besides for a few big developers the Amazon Appstor seems not such a good place. I have jet to read a good blog post from a developer on the Amazon Appstore.

Facebooks Secret Smear On Google

Facebook Loses Much Face In Secret Smear On Google

Starting to dislike facebook more and more. Such a shame that you can't get around it these days. Somehow it seems to get worse and worse with this company.

Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity - dislikes

After some days of using Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity on my main machine I present a list of the things I don't like so far.

• The Trash as well as the Applications and Files lenses are featured to prominently in Unity. I don't event remember when I last used the Trash. Its more than enough for it to be somewhere within the filemanager. The lenses can easily be accessed over the top left ubuntu logo with just one additional click. Removing these would give more space to more important things like the apps I really use often and have pinned because of that.
• If you set the virtual desktop size to just one desktop the Workspace Switcher should disappear automagically. Its of no use there and wastes just space. I also would like to see the switcher where the trash is now. IF the two lenses are removed and the switcher is the last part which is "mixed" with my pinned apps it would be better to separate that like the trash is now. (UPDATE: seems to disappear after a restart, nice)
• I still think that the global menu approach is flawed by design. This is, for me at least, the case on OSX as well as in this similar approach. This just introduces new interaction problems as well as problems with different UI toolkits.
• From time to time I still get some graphical glitches. Mostly some images missing (or are for some reason not rendered) here and there. Nothing that makes anything unusable but it looks weird and sometimes even funny. E.g. there are sometimes lines missing in the dash. Or there are sometimes white rectangles over some icons.
• I still need to manually edit the Pulseaudio config file and set "enable-lfe-remixing = yes" for my subwoofer to work with normal stereo sound (like music playback). This is annoying and the only thing I need to edit a config file for (which I hate to do). Normal users will just wonder why the subwoofer doesn't work when they listen to music. This always gives the feel that something is broken and if you don't know what it is it's hard to find this simple fix for it. There are a lot of bug reports on this, problem seems that this is broken on some systems and enabling it by default would cause trouble for these people. There should be a checkbox in the audio preferences to simply enable and disable it.
• Unity itself feels a bit "early". I would like it to feel more like "rock solid" just like gnome did in the past. But I guess thats expected for a first version :). This is not a "bad" point, it's more a "needs to improve" point. And I'm sure it will in future versions ...
• As a developer I dislike that development tools are not as up-to-date as I'd like it. Mono for example or Eclipse. I keep my own copy of eclipse and just don't use mono as a result. Not a situation I like.
• Right now I'm asked three times after each login to unlock my keyring. Don't really know why that happens. But it's annoying .. 

Thats all I can think of right now. I'm getting more and more used to Unity. With that I have to say I even like it more and more. The problems are sometimes a bit annoying but nothing that I would consider a show-stopper. 

Start-ups hindered by software patents

Start-ups hindered by software patents | StormDriver

the software patent system is such a sad sad thing :/