Winpdb - A Platform Independent Python Debugger 2008-11-21T02:59:50Z WordPress http://winpdb.org/feed/atom/ nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Web Development Service]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=100 2008-11-21T02:59:50Z 2008-11-14T03:21:31Z Here is the first advertisement on the Winpdb site ever, and it ain’t from Google…

Are you looking for a web developer?
Look no further, here I am!
Python, Django, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, XHTML, etc…

High quality software development and professional service.
Contact me today, actually, contact right away nir@winpdb.org

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Winpdb 1.4.2 Tychod Released]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=73 2008-11-13T04:28:57Z 2008-11-13T04:28:57Z Winpdb 1.4.2 Tychod is available for download at http://winpdb.org/download. The new version is compatible with Python 3.0 rc2. GNU/Linux users, please use the source package. Windows users with Python 2.6 or later, please read the instructions in the download page.

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Winpdb 1.4.0, Second Take]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=66 2008-11-02T03:47:37Z 2008-11-02T03:46:26Z Python 2.6 users, read this:

I posted a new Windows installer for Winpdb 1.4.0 Tychod that installs on Python 2.6. The original installer was built with Python 2.5 and does not install on Python 2.6 (which is the result of a bug in Python). There are no changes to the package files.

Hey, GNU/Linux users: Winpdb runs on GNU/Linux! and is actually being developed on GNU/Linux.

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Stani Michiels]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=65 2008-11-01T01:47:43Z 2008-11-01T01:47:43Z Stani Michiels, the author of Stani’s Python Editor (SPE) who is also an architect and artist won a design contest for a new Dutch commemorative 5 Euro coin. Here is the full story as told by him: http://pythonide.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-make-money-with-free-software.html

Stani is also the one who started me working on Winpdb three years ago when he was looking for a debugger for SPE.

Congratulations Stani!

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Free Ignorance]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=64 2008-10-19T08:39:19Z 2008-10-19T08:39:19Z Here is my five-months-late take on the Negroponte-Microsoft love story announcement. It is an ironic story in which the FLOSS community is harnessed to pull the OLPC wagon to Africa and goes ballistic when told that they have to carry Microsoft in that wagon as well. I say that anyone in that community feeling betrayed can only complain of his or her own ignorance.

Take a look at Negroponte’s announcement (http://www.olpcnews.com/people/negroponte/nicholas_negroponte_sugar_olpc.html): The term Open Source appears 27 times in the announcement and comments while Free Software appears in one comment only where it is being slammed. Take a look at the Wikipedia article on OLPC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olpc): The term Open Source appears 7 times but nothing there on Free Software.

Well, isn’t Open Source all about that corporate-friendly magical method for creating high quality software? Not about user freedoms or hating a particular corporate. You would think the FLOSS community members who feel strongly about something would actually know what it means, right? wrong.

And guess what, there is a two years old interview with Stallman on YouTube in which he warns of such an occurrence (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBogiLGPMwA). This is what he says beginning on minute 08:45: “I ask you to please always call it Free Software because that way you will encourage other people to pay attention to the question of freedom. The term Open Source was formulated by people who did not want to talk about freedom and that is the stupidest thing any people can do. If people don’t talk about freedom it gets forgotten and then somebody says ‘if you will just accept these little restrictions, here is this convenient pleasure you can have’, essentially saying ‘we will sell you something in exchange for your freedom’. And if you have not been thinking about freedom and realizing what freedom means, you might accept that poisonous deal and then your freedom is gone.”

]]> 3 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Meet Bolepo]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=62 2008-10-12T04:56:41Z 2008-10-12T04:56:41Z Bolepo is a new and simple PHP framework I have been working on lately. Initially I thought to publish on Monday but I guess it would have been overshadowed by the economy-is-collapsing news, so a weekend might be just perfect after all. I hope someone finds it useful. Maybe it can help stabilize the global economy. In any case, without further ado, here it is: http://bolepo.org

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Coming Soon]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=61 2008-09-28T07:34:40Z 2008-09-28T07:34:40Z A new Free PHP web application framework…

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[GPL and the Copyright Problem]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=60 2008-09-23T03:47:32Z 2008-09-23T03:38:34Z First I chose GPL for Winpdb, then only 2 years later I actually discovered Free Software, what it stands for and the fascinating universe behind these two words, but now a year later I have stumbled on a problem.

GPL is a tool that uses copyright to enforce software freedom, but… in order to be able to enforce that there must be a copyright holder that can take action. The FSF is aware of this and is carefully requiring contributors and their employers (!) to sign legal papers of copyright transfer: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/why-assign.html

The problem is that most GPL projects can not afford to force potential contributors to get their employers to sign legal papers as it will reduce the number of contributions to 0 and therefore the copyright to their projects is either dispersed among the different contributors or even worse, is questionably held by a single person or entity (with emphasis on questionably).

What does that practically imply on GPL?

On my search for answers I stumbled upon an interesting article from the year 2000 in Advogato (A recommended site). It became even more interesting when I spied a comment by one Bram Cohen who at the time was little known in the Universe as he did not yet leave his job to write BitTorrent: http://www.advogato.org/article/183.html

I would appreciate your educated opinion or a reference to articles on this subject.

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[America, wake up!]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=59 2008-09-23T03:45:30Z 2008-09-22T05:23:37Z Where I come from I have no TV as a life style choice. It is great! We turned the old analog TV into a monitor and we only use it to watch DVD movies. But now, that we have been moving like gypsies from house to house in Santa Cruz, California, I have noticed something so amazing that it is hardly believable. The quality of the digital TV signal in California is worse than that of a three-hours BitTorrent movie encoded into 600MB by a complete novice. I do not understand how they can take it. It is impossible to watch anything like that. A movie star nods his head at his arch rival and half his face moves while the other half stays and football matches look as lively as the Commodore 64 versions of the game.

The funny thing is that this technology is promoted as a big improvement over the good old analog signal. I can’t wait to see how bad HDTV looks like… so funny.

America, wake up… ;)

]]> 0 nir http://winpdb.org/ <![CDATA[Life Outside of a Computer]]> http://winpdb.org/?p=58 2008-09-20T03:45:59Z 2008-09-17T08:57:45Z Three months ago I temporarily moved with my spouse and daughter to Santa Cruz, California. Nature here is amazing. I see squirrels, raccoons and deer on every walk in the woods and when surfing the famous Santa Cruz spots I frequently swim within touching (yes touching) distance from curios otters and sea lions and gliding (wind surfing?) pelicans and other types of big birds.

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