Category: FreeSoftware

Women in Free Software, by Fernanda Weiden

Some months ago I pointed to some articles related to Women, Computer Science and Free Software. A couple of days ago, Fernanda G. Weiden, a Free Software developer at the IBM Linux Technology Center in Brazil, has recently written a very interesting article on the topic, focused on the Free Software movement.

I extract some of the most relevant parts:

“When they try to integrate into the user/developers groups of the Free Software community, most women find barriers, mainly related to two diametrically opposed behaviors: either they will be treated as the most loved person in the group, over treating them, or they will be victims of sexist attacks, jokes or dating approachs.”

[…]

Another important point is that Free Software development is often done as a hobby, just for fun, and in one’s spare time. Where is a woman’s spare time? After their working day, most of them still have the second working journey, which is at home, taking care of the home, the children and her husband. If the men can have the privilege of doing Free Software in their spare time, sitting in front of the computer and having some fun coding what they want, women in general don’t have this privilege.

[…]

Another issue I see. Women also usually require too much of themselves, because they have a natural insecurity which results in less women participating in technical discussions, for instance. It’s the old feeling of “I don’t know enough to join this discussion. I’ll let the experts talk.”

We, at the Free Software movement, cannot be at the forefront of technology if we do not solve these issues.

Packages of the Fisterra project

The Fisterra project had before two branches:

  • The Fisterra 2 branch: fresh technology, with some generic modules, and some vertical implementations
  • The Fisterra 1 branch: old technology, with only one vertical implementation for vehicle repairs

The Fisterra 1 branch is going to disappear soon (by the end of the year). The only vertical implementation that is still using old technology, devoted to vehicle repairs business is being ported to Fisterra 2 technology. So soon we are going to stop talking about different technologies and Fisterra2 is going to be just Fisterra.

The current structure and names of the project is the following ones:

  • fisterra-base: new technology, stable version, all the common libraries an, framework technical features
  • fisterra-bmodules: new technology, beta version, allows code reusability, framework technical features
  • fisterra-distribution: new technology, stable version, POS functionality and soon warehouse functionality
  • fisterra-garage: old technology, stable version, ad hoc development for managing an automotive glass repair company
  • new fisterra-garage: new technology, under development

Migración

Suso Baleato has written a very nice article (in galician) about the urgent need of a “Migración” in the galician government to Free Software.

As he says: “Socialmente xusto, tecnolóxicamente sustentabel: o software libre é a única opción se queremos incrementar a competitividade económica ao tempo que a nosa viabilidade cultural.” (Socially fair, technologically sustainable: the Free Software is the only way if we want to increase our economic competitivity at the same time we increase our cultural viability).

We will see soon if the winds of change are real.

Fisterra: GNOME development framework for business software

If you need or want to develop business software, like Gnome technology and desktop, and don’t want to reinvent the wheel, you should have a look to this project developed by us at Igalia:

Fisterra logo

From the project webpage: Fisterra is an open source GNOME development framework. It is indicated for the implementation of whole business management applications, ad hoc ERPs or modules of other management systems.

The main features of the project can be found here.

All the code is under GPL license. In the webpage there is a lot of information on how to collaborate in the project.

The Ututo-e project

When Stallman came to give a couple of talks in May, someone from the public asked him about which GNU/Linux distribution would recommend to the people in favor of Free Software, and he suggested Ututo-e, as the only one that was free (according to the FSF). I bet that 99% of the audience had never heard about such a project, mainly developed by people from Argentina. In the webpage, they say the distribution has between 150 and 200 thousand users.

European Parliament Says No to Software Patents

From the FFII webpage: “The European Parliament today decided by a large majority (736 members, 680 votes, 645 yes, 14 No, 18 abstentions) to reject the directive “on the patentability of computer implemented inventions”, also known as the software patent directive. This rejection was the logical answer to the Commission’s refusal to restart the legislative process in February and the Council’s reluctance to take the will of the European Parliament and national parliaments into account. The FFII congratulates the European Parliament on its clear “No” to bad legislative proposals and procedures.”“.

Great news. Some days I even have the temptation to believe in Democracy.

Back from Guadec 2005

The past week we went to Stuttgart for a week to attend Guadec and also do some turism in Germany. We spent the first four days visitting Stuttgart and Ulm, and the last four in the conference.

Guadec 2005 - Ulm

It was a pretty impressive edition of the conference, with more than 300 people attending, and very interesting talks. As a summary of what was discussed, I would recommend the Glynn Foster’s “101 Things to Know about GNOME” and Jeff Waugh’s “10×10“.
I also liked a lot the talks of Miguel de Icaza, Mark Shuttleworth and Robert Love.

Guadec 2005 - Esslingen

Guadec 2005 - Stuttgart

During the conference, the Maemo development platform to create applications for the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, was announced. It seems that Nokia is committed now to support the Gnome project.