Spanish small free software companies have a brand new voice: ASOLIF

The federation of spanish free software companies' associations (ASOLIF) was born few weeks ago. 7 regional small free software companies associations has joined efforts and have founded ASOLIF, which envolves a hundred free software spanish companies aprox.. Another 3 regional associations will get into the federation soon.

I wonder if there is such a movement in other european countries so we can collaborate in a more global scale. Since the federation of associations ASOLIF is formed by small companies, we need to become a big network to push strong and defend our points of view.

We do not have web yet, but you can e-mail us: asolif@asolif.org

I'll announce when it's done.

I'm alive after all

I've moved to Málaga two monthes ago for a year and I'm quiet happy about it. I came here to manage the first step of a project that will migrate 31 municipalities from a region called La Axarquía, which is close to Málaga.

After planning and scheduling the tasks, we are inventornig the computers and services these minucipalities have. I'm also surveying how public workers use the propietary apps they have installed so we can define the software libre tools we will install and the teaching project we will have to define in association with the migration process. We are also building up the team that will be working with us and explaining to politicians from these municipalities what we are trying to do. Nice job, isn't it?

We will present the first results in October probably. During june we will be working on a public wiki, so everybody can check and collaborate on what we are doing. The information will be mostly in spanish but we will translate what is relevant to english.

Some lessons learned

During the last few days I've been working hard in configuring a Pundit to be able to use a big LCD TV with DVI and S-video. The technicians from Grupo CPD developed a simple app for a local company. They sent a couple of pundits to me to test the app and place them in some offices. The app showes the departure and arrival time of the ships this company has to the passengers in the ship station.

Anyway, since the company bought some TVs different from what we told them to, with no analogic signal entry, I had to configure the dvi out of the pundit (with a debian sarge) so the video signal could show up on the TV. I decided to get into it eventhough I'm not an expert.

After a couple of hours reading and trying stuffs, I supposed that I had to buy an analog to digital signal converter. So I did and I spent another couple of hours trying to configure the xfree server. In fact, I tryed everything I knew and a lot more.

Since nothing I tryed worked fine I though that converting the analogic signal (that comes out from the VGA) into digital signal (that get into the TV from the DVI) was not the best approach. I tryed then to configure the dvi out from the pundit. I failed again. Since I do not know much about xfree, I switched to xorg. I failed once more. Then I tried with different distros (live-cd), different configurations, different digital monitors.... no result. ...so I took it personal and I read a lot more about ati drivers and xorg. I spent another couple of afternoons working on it but couldn't make it.

After a couple of weeks (probably more) I gave up and sent back the computers to our technical department in Gran Canaria (from Tenerife). I was afraid they would solve it in 5 minutes and laugh at me the rest of the year.

They just called me today(I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago). They configured it in 30 minutes. After trying a couple of things, the plugged a simple vga-dvi adapter and...it worked.

What have I learned from this?

1.- Don't take computers too personal. They have no feelings.
2.- I reafirm myself now in the idea that technicians must be well paid
3.- Don't try to emulate technicians. You won't get well paid doing so.
4.- Don't laugh at technicians when they fail doing something they do not get paid for if you use a computer as an everyday tool.
5.- Do not give them your personal mobile phone number

What has happened to me is probably good from a personal point of view once in a while (realice you have limits) and for the technicians (they laugh at you telling tons of jokes).

We still have a lot to do

Just when you think we are beginning to win the battle, the enemy shows its weapons and get a step forward.

The Canary Islands Regional Gov. has made public a contract to buy MS Office licenses. They'll spend 3.3 mill €

We have improved a lot, but still have a lot more job ahead.

I'm moving out of the Canary Islands to Málaga for a migration project

I've been quiet lately....

I'm moving out the Canary Islands, where I've lived my entire life (except for one year I lived in the US). A friend of mine, Ramón Ramón (yes doubled Ramón), has called me to help him in a migration project to free software of La Axarquía, a group of municipalities close to Málaga, where Akademy 2005 took place, in Andalucía, Spain.

I will keep working in some of the projects I'm in right now in the Canaries, like trying to bring Akademy to these islands in 2009. I'm also going to be directly related with Grupo CPD as much as I can.

This is the first time such a migration project takes place in Spain. It is financed by Andalucía's regional Gov. and the company ITD was the one chosen to do it (they have contracted me as freelance) and Emergya, a free software company from Andalucía, is also involved.

My role will be to make the previous evaluation of each municipality and make the design of the migration project. That should take a year.

In Andalucía, GNOME rules, so it will be tough to introduce KDE, but now we have another warrior to try it. I leave a place where KDE is the most popular free desktop (Canary Islands) by a region where GNOME is, by far, the most popular.

Anyway, since Windows is the target...everything will be fine :)

This is a new milestone in my professional career so I'm excited about this new challenge. I hope we can do something that have impact in this region of Spain. We have the willing, the knowledge and the people to do it. If the politicians and the public workers of these municipalities want, we can make the difference moving from propietary to software libre.

What a nice project...isn't it? I feel lucky these days.

Kubuntu days...productive days

These last four or five days it have been Kubuntu days for me. For different reasons, I've have installed or upgraded Kubuntu in four PCs and used the Kubuntu Live CD to configure a graphic card of a computer with debian sarge installed.

Installing Kubuntu from scratch is a great sensation. It's fast and easy most of the times. My parents had at home a debian, then switched to Kubuntu Breezy and, during this weekend, I've changed their old PC by a newer one with Kubuntu Gutsy on it. They are happy because it was easy to configure the HP Laserjet 1018 (with breezy it was a nightmare for me). Everything works fine with no extra configurations. My mother not just use it, also promote it, which is something I've never expected. My father is getting into it, not 100% convinced yet

I also took a friend's PC and changed her old unupdated Kubuntu Dapper by a brand new Kubuntu Gutsy. After installation, everything worked fine, specially her usb-wifi stick, something she could not get working with the old distro.

I upgraded my office's PC from Kubuntu Feisty to Gutsy with the distribution upgrade tool. Everything worked fine except cups. I didn't have a backup copy of the configuration archive. Does anybody knows if it does one before changing cups by the new packet?

I also installed a Kubuntu in a quite old computer after adding some RAM memory (it has xubuntu). Now it has dual boot. It works quiet well although xubuntu works faster.

So, what is the point? It is that, for non technical users, as I am, Kubuntu have reached a point where I'm able to do with linux everything I used to be able to do in windows, install it, make partitions, configure a network, install apps, share printers and directories, configure wifi devices, create users, etc. very easily. In fact, I can do more things now that I could in windows.

We can improve a lot though, but it has been a confirmation of what I already knew (we all know). With linux I'm more productive, even in tedious actions like the ones I've done these days.

aKademy in the Canary Islands?

Sometimes it is hard or even impossible to achieve a goal no matter how hard you try. But sometimes things flow naturally and comes easier than you have ever expected. When I first told the people I work with that we should try to bring aKademy to the Canary Islands, everybody laughed at me. Few month later, some of them are even more excited with the idea of pushing hard to do it than myself.

We presented the idea to some people from the free software community here in the Canaries and they liked so we began to think about it was something we had to try. During aKademy 2007 I propose it to some of the e.V. members and they encouraged me to try it. So we are.

Now we are preparing a project to send to the e.V. to celebrate aKademy 2009 in Gran Canaria. We are working to compete with whatever candidate it shows up. Competition is good for everybody.

I hope we can finish our work soon and make a project we can be proud of. Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, sounds good for an aKademy, right?

Kubuntu...rescues another Windows. I need a special distro for this.

No matter how old I get, I can't get away from friends of mine calling me for help when their Windows have a problem. I have finally get to a point where they call me only when the fire is clearly visible, but still it is too often....

This week I had to do it again. I've became an expert:

• Save the data...that means the whole harddisk, since you never know for sure where Windows apps save the key data


• Check harddisk's integrity. It would be nice to have statistics about how often a harddisk breaks with windows installed compared with linux in the same enviroment.


• Pass an antivirus, maybe you just have to restore a couple of archives.


• Try to restore the windows installation (this doesn't work in 99% of the cases)


• Format the harddisk


• Install windows


• Install drivers


• Install apps


• Restore data


• Restore configurations


• Install eDonkey or similar (this is a special category even for corporative computers) :)

I used to do some of these operations with Knoppix, but lately I do them with Kubuntu. I would like to use a pendrive specially prepared for this. I have a Mandrake one (from aKademy 2007) but I prefer a Debian based one (I'm more used to it). Is there any?

Maybe next time I have to help somebody to restore the Windows, I convince myself to do it. It is such a pain.....

Plone...we meet again

I have a nice love story with Plone. It is like a close friend that becomes a lover in different stages of somebody's life.

I first discovered Plone back in 2003. It was a great love story, I use it as intranet since then and worked in a few projects based on it. But since the end of 2005 I haven't been able to work deeply with it, so I haven't been able to test the newest version (other people from Grupo CPD were in charge of projects related with Plone). I was willing to work with the new version, specially after I met Alan Runyan during Software Libre Conferences that took place in autumn in La Laguna (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. During the last 3 o 4 weeks I've the chance to use it again for a project, this time for a web portal.

Plone has grown up but still keeps in the user layer that mixture of functionality and simplicity I used to love so much, and the power and complexity that have attracted technicians these past 10 years.

I love this wiki way of generating contents that Plone has added to the new version. I'm a wiki fan and Plone can satisfy people like me.

Plone is not just the first and only really robust CMS, useful for big scale projects, it is a really good CMS, useful for medium size projects too.

KDE 4, a motivation to keep fighting

I hear people talking about innovation everywhere. It is an easy concept to talk about but hard to put in practice. KDE community had the skills and the determination of doing something new back in 2005, when I first got in touch with the project, but that was not enough. We usually think that money is a key factor for innovation but history give us tons of examples of the opposite. This is one of them. Hardworking is a necessary one, but not sufficient.

To innovate we need freedom.

Now we are close to see the light. KDE 4 is almost out and I was wondering what does this milestone means for me.

We have put a lot of effort fighting against patents, propietary software, restrictive licenses, etc., not because we want to defeat our opponents but because we want to have freedom to innovate... and to have fun doing it. We deserve the chance of having something better, promoting that the people with the knowledge and the determination of going for something like KDE 5 (or whatever adventure they want) are able to try it, and maybe do it, just like KDE community has done in this case.

For me KDE4 means, overall, a motivation to keep fighting to make our way to the next stop easier, to gain more freedom to innovate much more than we've done so far...that has been a lot.