Crystal Clear

There is always more out there, isn’t there? I’ve been using Linux and Open Source products since 1998, and yet the number of Open Source projects continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Sourceforge lists over 100,000 projects (not all are active or usable) and Freshmeat has close to 40,000 (most are GPL). If there is a program you want, you’ll probably find it there, for your operating system, and it will most likely be free to use.

Lately, I’ve been hearing of other projects that used to be proprietary, and now are being open sourced. These are production ready, in use projects. For example:

• Silk, a collaboration tool by Akiva in the same arena as IBM’s Workforce or Microsoft’s Sharepoint. Read about their reasoning in this newsforge article.
• Autodesk released their MapServer Enterprise as open source. For more, read their press release.
• Xara X says it is the world’s fastest and the most versatile graphics software, and was recently open sources by Xara, a UK firm.
• (older release) Eclipse is a powerful integrated development environment (IDE) for software developers. It was released open source by IBM in 2001. Since then it has grown massively in features and use.

So with 140K of projects to sort through what do you do? How do you find out which ones to use?

If you have time, high speed Internet, and a computer for testing, try some out yourself. Look for reviews on how well it performs and the feature sets.

You can also try a consulting company to do the work for you and help you find what you need. Guided Vision is one of many that can help you with this.

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I have a cousin with Cerebral Palsy. She can’t walk or write, and is mostly blind. But, she’s finishing university, so she needs a computer.

The Open Document (ODF) “debate” going on in Massachusetts right now is centering on accessbility, namely that the programs that can write ODF (OpenOffice.org [OOo], KOffice, etc.) do not have all the features that are needed by those with various disabilities. Some of these features are OS dependent, so OOo on Windows might have a feature, but in Linux it would be missing, while others are program depenedent, so OOo might be lacking. See Peter Korn’s indepth analysis for more details.

This is an important issue for all of us. I don’t think twice about using my computer to read newspapers, write letters and papers, read and send email, make purchases online, instant message others, etc. But could I do that if I couldn’t see? What about if I couldn’t type?

How can Open Source offerings help? Many of them are already well on there way, from screen readers to visual aids to voice recognitions. But people with disabilities are the best way to test and ask for improvements, maybe even to help code! (See a mailing list on issues for those with visual impairments)

Developers need to incorporate these libraries and helps into the programs we write. On the web, our sites need to make sense when read by a screen reader, etc. No surprise, W3 already has guidelines, now we just have to follow them!

Two closing thoughts:

1. Many sites use an image that contains letters and numbers that have to be typed in to complete a transaction or log in (this is supposed to discourage script writers). What if you can’t see the screen? That letter / number information won’t be part of the code as that would defeat the purpose.

2. Microsoft is outspoken on behalf of those with disabilities to point out the shortcomings of ODF programs with respect to accessibility. Visual Studio, their flagship product to produce .NET and ASP web applications produces very inaccessible HTML code.

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Climate change is already happening. What are we going to do about it?

The Canadian Government will hopefully take a lead in Montreal at the end of November. Already Canadians are being asked to take part in the One Tonne Challenge.

An innovative way to cut emissions from energy production: a village that runs on solar. You can even download the chapter movies on how it works (WMV only, sorry).

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I wrote a report on a recent Open Source Symposium I attended, and News Forge just posted it! Read my report.

They did some editing (of course) but on the whole I like it. It’s funny how after writing and editing something, by the time it gets posted, it seems not so exciting anymore.

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I love public transportation. Really, I do. Since selling the car (gasp) five years ago, public transportation (plus a few car rentals and some borrowing) has been my way to get around.

Gas prices have risen the last year or so and traffic congestion is on the rise. The city where I live has a mostly on schedule bus service – it really is good at that. But who rides the buses? Those in lower income brackets, kids, university students and the elderly. Very few business people.

Now would be the best time to market public transportation: get out of the traffic, count on the bus being on time, save money on gas! If they also get the drivers to be a little more friendly, I wouldn’t be surprised if more people rode the bus.

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