Alcides Fonseca

Comecei por conhecer este senhor através de um bom artigo sobre ele na Geek. Na altura fiquei impressionado, não pela filosofia em que ele acreditava, mas pelo historial dele.

Anos depois (ou seja, há um mês ou dois) encontrei uma pequena conversa com ele que realmente me desiludiu imenso. Leiam e tirem as vossas conclusões.

Ora hoje volto a deparar-me mais uma vez com a cara desse senhor. Lá estava ele, feito em Jesus Christ Superstar, a cantar a sua reza. Gosto em especial da emoção que transmite ao público.

Se ele me quiser contratar para gestor de imagem, eu cá mandava-o fazer um corte de cabelo rente, fazer a barba assim rés-vés, uma camisola preta com turtle-neck, uma dietinha e uns ténis Nike Air. Parece que essas coisas terminadas em Air estão na moda ;)

Sim, o título é irónico, não se preocupem. O Ricardo Carvalho divulgou a intenção do DCTI do ISCTE querer abrir um Mestrado em Opensource:

Eu sinceramente não vejo a necessidade de se criar um Mestrado em Opensource. Não por o querer matar, ou ignorar ou sei lá o quê que sei que alguns de vós já estão a pensar. Mestrado em Engenharia de Software, em Interacção Homem-Máquina, em Redes de Informação, entre outros, são nomes de áreas gerais relacionadas com a informática. Enquanto OpenSource é apenas um modelo de negócio (se fosse filosofia, penso que seria Software Livre não?). Penso que não faz sentido criar um mestrado só para se aprender sobre software de código aberto e andar a aprender Linux. Num mestrado???

O que eu defendo é uma implementação oposta. Durante o curso as tecnologias usadas nas várias cadeiras seriam opensource. Isto porque dá a vantagem aos alunos de ver o que está por baixo e, caso o entendam, aumentar os seus conhecimentos naquela área em particular. Quando a Linux, para mim era o ideal para ser usado como exemplo na cadeira de Sistemas Operativos. Analisar como funciona olhando para o seu código (Não sei como é nas outras faculdades, mas na minha aprendemos apenas a usar a API dos sistemas UNIX no que toca a signals, threads, processos, pipes, memória partilhada…) Olhar para um já feito seria muito mais interessante e quem sabe até contribuir para ele.

Quanto a modelos de negócio opensource, penso que poderia muito bem ser uma cadeira opcional de mestrado, visto que é uma área em expansão poderia ser interessante para o currículo de alguém que queira seguir essa área.

Agora um mestrado só para isso? Sinceramente não vejo o motivo nem a vantagem…

On the mac, due to the lack of del.icio.us integration with Camino, I switched to Firefox3b2, that is not yet perfect for me (Where the hell is the Microformats support?) and still lacks the del.icio.us integration (that I am handling with favelets), but looks pretty cool, is fast enough and supports this new coolnamed Mozilla service: Weave.

Weave is a service that hosts your favorites (that now have tags) and web history and soon a lot more (integration with your other plugins?). Mozilla starts off providing users other than software, they are offering services, that might lead them to a prosperous future in the 2.0 era. And will they take del.icio.us place for online bookmarking? I guess not. Although Labs.Mozilla is the only provider of weave services for now, they intend to opensource it, and delicious, magnolia and other online bookmarking services will make use of it. And then the competitions wouldn’t be for the best browser integration, but for the best social networking features and innovative experience.

This (temporary, I guess) lack of social features, is what keeps me from using weave as it’s meant to be and keep using del.icio.us (that has a new PHP version coming up for ages now).

This post is a best-of my feedreadings of today. Some people do del.icio.us posting and I’m getting infected too.

I found about Port25, a website where is explained why Microsoft hates OpenSource! (NOT) I’m curious about what will MS say about OpenSource in 10 years. When maybe Ballmer is enjoying his retirement and someone from a different background (and younger) will decide what direction will Redmond’s still-big Giant take.

IronRuby vs Ruby.NET, a nice post by the IronRuby developer John Lam, a bit more of what I mentioned between IronPython and Python.NET.

I want the new Windows Mobile 6.1 new interface! I guess 6.0 should be called 5.1 and this one it’s the one that is the real 6!

Developer’s Hymn: pretty much self-explanatory.

A fan of Desktop Tower Defense? And you also like World of Warcraft? There you go: Hordes of Orcs! But OS X only for now…

Feeds still messy. Sorry but no time to fix it. Please bear with me and come visit my wonderful website :)

Until now, if you wanted to create a social network for your self, the answer was almost certainly Ning. Today there are over 115,000 networks there and it’s growing.

When it was launched, October 4th 2005, it was a revolutionary idea that Fred best-described in TechCrunch:

In the recent past, every time a web2.0 service is launched, some opensource alternative is also released. Well, yesterday I found an interesting article in the .net magazine where it lets you host your own social network. It’s easy to do, you’ll just need a PHP+MySQL server but that’s what it gives you the power over Ning. You can change it around the way you like and add or remove more features, and so on.

I don’t believe this is a Ning-killer since the average Joe doesn’t have a hosting account, nor time to set it up and hack around. He’ll just go over to Ning, create a social network and play around with the theme editor. And users of multiple networks will share their Ning ID!

O Escolas Livres é um projecto que pretende divulgar e promover a adopção de software livre nas escolas portuguesas. Os seus membros partem de comunidades como o Ubuntu-PT ou a ANSOL. No entanto têm sentido a falta de ter personalidade jurídica (Eu já passei por isto várias vezes e realmente é complicado!) e decidiram então criar uma associação para esse fim.

Como uma associação envolve gastos no processo de legalização, optou-se por pedir uma quota anual de 10 euros a 75 pessoas. Não custa muito e sempre são bem aproveitados!

Se estiverem interessados, vejam mais informações no site oficial e colaborem, quer com os 10 euros, quer com ajudas posteriores no contacto com escolas ou outras tarefas necessárias.

(Post original)

Não seria interessante a Microsoft estar presente para (tentar) defender o seu OOXML ou então aprender alguma coisa? Também seria interessante trazer alguém da Adobe para ver se também alinhavam numa de abrir os formatos.

Over the years Microsoft has done this great marketing that makes (almost) everyone to use their tools, mainly because (almost) all computers ship with Windows pre-installed (Assismática is starting to sell computers with Ubuntu in Portugal) and “simple users” do not know any other alternative.

In this context, I support actions that take opensource (or not) alternatives to some places, like schools (PT) that show people that there are some free (and open) alternatives too. Although I think some Microsoft software is better, I believe each user should make their own decision and to do that, they should know all options. About this, Tecnonov is having its second edition this year and it will be a nice event to show people other options.

A few days ago I saw another perspective to solve this problem: Tom Morris thinks that teaching people how to code they will value more OpenSource alternatives and also help them in their own life with structure thinking. Well I had this idea that management student should learn relational databases since that really helps them organizing stuff. I am happy that someone thought something similar, but taking it farther to programming itself. And he mentions Python, Ruby or other dynamic language to be chosen.

I’m not sure how possible this is, but I’m sure some it would help some people. Any thoughts on this one?

I’ve always been a great fan of Fireworks because of its simplicity. Adobe Photoshop is a lot more powerful, but it is a bit less intuitive. I’ve also tried GIMP, but I have given up just for the interface I just don’t like. It remembers me of the old Photoshop style with a lot of windows. It is just not easy for me to work with it, and I’m glad GIMP team noticed this and they are brainstorming for the new UI.

In my opinion they should implement the MX style, one window with all the stuff. Canvas in the middle and optional toolbars on the side. As a webdesigner, I want to take full advantage of my screen-resolution, so if possible, I’d like the toolbars to auto-hide so I can see my project in 1:1 zoom. For old-school GIMP users, making the toolbox to float around too would be a nice thing.

Another good thing that I would be nice to see is a nice integration with webdesigning tools like bluefish, ajunta, eclipse, etc

Well this are just my basic ideas, and probably I will send an email to gimp.brainstorm at gmail.com with “GIMP” as subject and an imaging showing my ideal graphic tool. If you do have nice thoughts on this, feel free to contribute too. Good ideas will be posted on the brainstorming blog. Opensource UI design :)

Everyone knows I’m not a fundamentalist and I’ve been contributing to Opensource. I believe both OpenSource and Proprietary Software should co-exist. However I do not believe in Free Software (as described by Richard Stallman), he thinks all software should provide the users the freedom to use it, to edit it and to share it.

Well, let’s imagine I own a software house and I make this applications with this incredible algorithm. I spent one year paying for developers to study and come up with my product. I would want to make it profitable, so I have to sell it as a closed-source product. If someone needs this special feature, or improvement, I would be happily to sell a special version to them. That’s the way of making enough money to cover for the investment. If I had released it in opensource, I could have saved 75% of the time with external help from other programmers, but I wouldn’t make enough money, because some other company that had better implementation in the market would sell the service of setting up my application, and custom modifications. I wouldn’t like that.

Let’s make this analogy: when you go to the restaurant, you pay for the meal you have. Let’s imagine ti was a OpenSource Restaurant. You would choose from the menu, enter in the kitchen, see them cooking your meal, change the ingredients if you want. You might want to chop something for yourself, for example. You would pay just for the time it took for the cookers to prepare it, eat and take the recipe with you back home. Well this doesn’t happen. If this fancy restaurant has this fabulous dish and it’s the reason everyone goes there, they wouldn’t share the recipe with no other restaurant. Same happens with software code.

However I do believe in OpenSource in some situations: In education, mainly in the informatics field: you need to know how some kind of software works, and OpenSource gives you that power, which is very important when you are learning something that program has. And if OpenSource software exists already, why not use it? It’s a good deal software for free.

But if you demand a good support, you should think twice. Imagine a program that does something very specific this one guy has ever coded, and only a bunch of people use it. You need it for your enterprise, and you install it. Well if it has a bug and the developer has retired or has this awesome job and don’t care about it anymore? Hiring a company to guarantee the software quality wouldn’t sound so bad after all.

Another example where Free Software might probably fail: games. If games were opensource, the best players would be programmers that read the code (or change it) and hack into it, not those with gaming skills. The good thing about games is the difficulty it has to go to the next level. If it’s as easy as to change one number in the source code, It would not be fun as it is. But what about game platforms, they can be opensource right?

Yes, I believe opensource platforms are better than closed ones, because they allow people who program on top of it to know how it works better and use it’s full potential. Guess what, seems like Microsoft thought the same and they are sharing .NET source code!

Well this is my opinion on this issue, and I’m glad Microsoft is thinking in the same way. It makes me really happy about going tomorrow to the Microsoft Student Partner Program Launch Event as one of them :)

Ontem surgiu-me um convite para ser Microsoft Student Partner pelo Miguel Vicente, com quem passei cerca de hora e meia ao telefone sobre o assunto.

Para quem não sabe o MSP é um programa em que a Microsoft apoia certos alunos, dando-lhes certas vantagens (como formação, todo o software MS, acesso a eventos, e muito mais) acreditando que possam ser uma mais valia para o resto da comunidade estudantil. Quem melhor que “clientes” satisfeitos, para cativar outros clientes? ;)

Para começar devo dizer que não sou um “mslover”. Há coisas na Microsoft, quer a nível de produtos como de filosofia, com que concordo e outras com que discordo, mas no geral acho-a uma empresa com que me identifico. Como alguns de vocês já sabem, sou a favor do software proprietário (e também do opensource em certas situações. Sou capaz escrever um post dedicado a este assunto em breve) e a Microsoft desde sempre que tem impulsionado a tecnologia no seu todo e creio que tenho muito a aprender com a empresa.

Tinha, erradamente, na ideia que ao ser MSP teria de me cingir a tecnologias MS, coisa que não concordo, mas pelos vistos não é nada assim. Claro que se é fomentado a usar tecnologias MS, através de workshops, por exemplo, mas considero isso uma vantagem. Também gostava de ver a SUN, a Apple e outras empresas do género a ter o mesmo tipo de iniciativas. Continua nos meus planos comprar agora um macbook e experimentar o mundo apple, mas no meu desktop (workstation) vou manter o Windows que acaba por me ser essencial a nível de testes e de desenvolvimento na plataforma .NET. O grupo de MSPs de Portugal parece que se dá muito bem e incentiva esta troca de ideias.

É por estes motivos que vou aceitar ser MSP e espero não só trazer-vos novidades do mundo Microsoft, mas também para contribuir com as minhas ideias para melhorar a relação com os estudantes.

Before putting my hands in the ejaki project, the previous version of the website was pretty old-fashion but used Google Maps API. Wow I though, but then I saw it was only used to get thumbnails for each ejaki (Point of Interest). Well, in my opinion, the map should be the center of the website, just like it is on the mobile app, since Geography is the background of our shared information.

First I had to evaluate the existing APIs: Google Maps was indeed good, proved by the fact it is the most used, and includes features like GeoCoder, remote GML overlays, traffic and driving directions. This should be useful features to add in the future for our application.

Yahoo Maps AJAX (Flash was not an option) was pretty good, with almost all the features as Google’s but with integration with Y! Pipes and GeoRSS. This extras were not relevant since we intend to use only our database (in which other information can be added).

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth shown to be a really nice platform. Microsoft is known by being left behind in the web2.0 age, but this one is from far the most powerful engine. Since 3d visualization, “Birds eye”, powerful information finder, and all the features from both Yahoo’s and Google’s APIs. But there as a downside that matters. Since this is a scientific research project, we don’t like to use proprietary formats, and Microsoft is known for that. We wouldn’t like the possibility of in the future their API would only work on IE.

Open Layers is a free and opensource library, a project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. As an opensource alternative it would be nice to use and foment it, but it’s too poor for now. No Satellite view, no geocoding and nothing that would make it more useful for our users. Maybe in the future in another project…

As so, we sticked to Google Maps since it had the basics and some extras that might be useful in the future. Later working with it, I found out it was really nice, but one function was missing: To set the zoom depending on the geocoding answer, and so here you have it for free ;)

Quem tem estado atento a blogosfera nos últimos tempos, tem notado que têm sido publicados uns poucos de posts relativos ao OOXML e a um abaixo assinado. Como é normal, muitos dos que reparei estavam escritos em geekês (linguagem de geeks) e nem toda a gente percebeu aquilo bem. Para esses vai aqui uma breve explicação do problema:

A Microsoft com o seu Office 2007, começou a usar um novo tipo de ficheiros (os documentos Word em vez de doc, passaram a ser o docx e igual para os outros). Isto na esperança do novo formato Office Open XML ser usado como standard nos documentos do género. No entanto já existe um, o ODF (OpenDocument Format) que já é usado em vários softwares e é completamente aberto.

Fazendo uma analogia, de momento é usado o metro(ODF), e há várias réguas padrão (OpenOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, StarOffice, etc…) grátis e livres, mas a microsoft tem uma régua (MS Office) em que não usa o metro, mas uma medida proprietária deles em que não disponibilizam totalmente a definição da medida.

Quando já existe o metro, qual o sentido de optar por uma medida esquisita e proprietária? Ou seja, se já existe o ODF, um formato totalmente livre, porquê mudar para o OOXML que está apenas na mão de uma empresa?

A Microsoft está a pressionar os órgãos de certificação do mundo para aceitar o novo formato. No entanto os utilizadores têm uma palavra a dizer. Está a ser organizado um abaixo assinado para ser apresentado. Já assinaram pessoas, esperamos contar com a sua.

Petição online

Take off (or TOYS - Take Off Your Shirt, as Sérgio insists to call it) is going well with lot of interesting presentations. However I am having some trouble hosting in due to the support of my University Department. Nothing I can't handle.

Another topic: Free Software. I am having a few arguments about Free Software. I believe software should be paid. They say you should only pay for servides. Well, coding a software is a servide. And you also buy another products outside informatics. I dont quite understand... I like windows more than linux. I don't see the point why I should move to linux. Of course I dont pay for windows. It's too expensive for what it costs, but I like it. OSS people: If you want everyone to have Linux, try to pay crackers to stop hacking Vista. People will automaticly change.


To finish, I'm sad today-- Society is some f*cking shit! I dont agree with almost anything is done or thought. Maybe it's me.... maybe it's everyone.