Free Software with a female touch

Madonna and Load Balancing

Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:16:41 +0200

Madonna finally visits Brazil for the second time ever, with her new tour, Sticky and Sweet. The Brazilian concert in Sao Paulo happens on the 20th of December, and since I am planning to go to Brazil for Christmas, I thought: "why not".

Today, finally, the website started to sell tickets for the presentation, so I went there to check it out. Surprisingly, I ended up not only learning about the prices, but about new technologies on Load Balancing, which for me is personally interesting.

In case you need translation, the text in portuguese in the page says: "Please select one of the servers bellow. In case it is busy, please try another one."

Why the hell didn't I think about it before?

JeguePanel 2.0 – More power on your network

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:07:08 +0100

I decided to post here about an important release happening in Latin America these days. It is a project developed there, by my friend Anahuac, and since we do not have many of such initiatives, I thought it would be nice to spread the word. If you are sysadmin and has to interact with postfix, you will love it :)

With full support to Active Directory and MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, JeguePanel comes to it’s 2.0 version bringing you a lot of management options to Gnu/Linux and Windows networks.

Organization is the key-word to reduce costs and efforts with IT. The efficient management of servers, users, permissions and resources are the basic level of any network environment. This is the JeguePanel goal: be a management servers tool, specially to E-Mail and Samba Servers.

After two years of absolute success on the 1.x series, finally JeguePanel comes to it’s 2.0 version. On it OpenLDAP isn’t mandatory anymore to store users and it’s data. Now you can choose to use SQL database instead. This is a regular request by JeguePanel users that already has it’s users data in SQL databases and don’t want to migrate to any other option like OpenLDAP. So, from now on, it’s just easy to use JeguePanel with it. On this version you can migrate data from Access, SQL Server or Oracle into MySQL or PostgreSQL and use JeguePanel.

The new support to Active Directory allows JeguePanel to work integrated with Windows Servers based on this technology, synchronizing all your users, passwords and additional data between AD and OpenLDAP. This is a great option to companies that already has it’s network based on Windows Server and want use an E-mail Server powered by Gnu/Linux.

It’s simple and friendly interface make easy manage any number of users and deeply decrease the management work. You don’t need to lost hours making replications between servers and trying to find out who is this or that user. With few clicks in the JeguePanel web interface all the management tasks are done quickly and easily.

JeguePanel manage more than E-mail Servers. It’s allow complete management of Samba Servers as well. This is a new step to get the wanted management efficiency of the network resources and permissions, totally integrated with Gnu/Linux and Windows Servers.

Take a look in all the news and bug fixes of this version below:

New installer with Ajax to make easiest to chose and configure your options.
The default JeguePanel language, on this version, is Enlgish. All others languages are supported trough gettext.
Messages disclaimer. Now JeguePanel managers can easily include any text in the bottom of all messages sent by the E-Mail Server.
Active Directory support. From now on, Windows 2003 Servers and JeguePanel with OpenLDAP can be synchronized. To make it possible we use an agent thats run on the W2K3 side, sending data to the OpenLDAP and vice-versa. This agents are used to synchronize users and passwords. More data can be synchronized by the new jpsync script, developed in Perl, that runs trough cron and compare and synchronize any changes.
SQL database. From the version 2.0, JeguePanel get free from OpenLDAP and offers the option to use SQL as users, domains and passwords database. The only case when OpenLDAP became mandatory is when you want to use the integration with OpenLDAP.
New interface to setup return error message, when some e-mail is deferred by virus infection.
From now on, disabled users by full quota, don’t get only disabled to receive new messages, but to send too.
OpenLDAP only accept text with accents using base 64 encryption. This method has been rewritten to avoid some errors in the text fields.
Improved Egroupware support. Now JeguePanel has an option to add/remove applications to many users at once.
The jpr.pl script, responsible for the Postfix reports don’t run trough cron anymore. It’s has been rewritten and it’s a daemon that still reading the mail.log file and collecting all the needed data. It’s became a very lightweight tool.
The add domains function has been changed to improve it’s performance. Now it’s uses the postconf command to change the main.cf file.
Improved ClamAV support. The command clamscan has been replaced by the clamdscan. This little change make the virus scanning much more lightweight.

To know more about JeguePanel, please visit http://www.jeguepanel.net and try our on-line demo. You will see that JeguePanel is perfect for your business.

FSFLA frees Brazilian tax software

Mon, 14 May 2007 22:40:17 +0200

Finally a more extensive article on what FSFLA has done about the tax stuff in Brazil.

"The FSFLA, the Latin American branch of the Free Software Foundation, is claiming a last-minute victory in Brazil in its struggle to remove the requirement to use non-free software for filing taxes online. Having reversed-engineered a free command-line program for filing taxes, the FSFLA is jubilantly announcing that it has "freed the lion" -- "lion" being a colloquial term in Brazil for taxes."

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/05/11/1813251

Beyond Copyright -- the Lookright

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:25:13 +0200

After I get involved with the Free Software community, I started also to get interested on Copyright concept, laws, access to knowledge, among other things. The most visible effect to all that is: now I pay more attention to the very small letters in the back side of the DVD and CD cases, and also to the "patented" sign in some of the most stupid things ever: like the container where we throw away the glass.

I love music, therefore music is very present in my life. I download a lot of musics from the internet, I share music with my friends, and yes, I buy CDs, and now that I am living in Europe and there is nothing in Portuguese going on on the TV, I buy tons of music DVDs when I go to Brasil.

The last ones were Maria Rita - Segundo, which is a case with a music CD (not protected my DRM) and a DVD with the "making of" of the music CD production.

In the back side of the DVD case usually there are those very small letters saying things like: "Warning: the DVD is protected by law and authorized for home use only. Any unauthorized copying, hiring, lending, distribution, exporting, importing, dissemination, exhibition or public performance is prohibited by law."

I have to say that I think this is completly non-sense, but well, it is the "law" or the way the companies wants to control their rights over the content.

And when we think our "friends" from the music industry reached their limits, they go beyond: the Maria Rita's CD I bought comes with a short, althought more restrictive note in the back side of the case: "WARNING: All rights reserved. The partial or integral reproduction of this DVD is expressly prohibited. The infringers are subjected to penalties provisioned by law"

This means, simply and clearly: I cannot play my own DVD! It would be funny, if it wasn't tragic.

Ladies and gentlemans, let me introduce to you Lookright, by Warner.

Free as in "Mark Shuttleworth"??!?!?!?!?!?!

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 23:47:20 +0200

During FISL, David "Novalis" Turner and Georg Greve showed me that I was completly wrong about Ubuntu and that it indeed contains proprietary software.

Well, i checked whether I had the package they found in the CD, and since I was not using that package, I thought I was free (as in freedom).

After that, I started to pay more attention to the Ubuntu Policies, what that restricted session means, etc.

Today, when I received my really nice and new computer, I decided to try again Ubuntu, and then, after the installation completes, I removed the packages that has this description:

Non-free Linux 2.6.15 modules on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/PIV

and

Restricted Linux modules on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/PIV

Guess what???

Bingo! The dependencies of those packages removed also the kernel. Who needs a kernel, after all?

So, I am not wondering whether there is an easy way to install Ubuntu without the proprietary package, or if the lies in the CD are not only about incuding non-free software, but also about not having even the option to delete them!!!

I am feeling free as in Mark Shuttleworth...whatever it means....

Help the largest Latin American Free Software Conference

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:41:26 +0100

On the next april, FISL will take place for the 7th time in Porto Alegre/RS Brasil. FISL has consolidated itself as the biggest and most important Free Software event in Latin America, one of the coolest event in the world, as said by Georg Greve and other people who have been to most of Free Software conferences around the world.

It is an event that shows how to practice social responsability in its local community: every year FISL uses part of the subscription fee value to buy not perishable foods and donate it to local groups that fight against hunger in Brazil. Last year, FISL's organisers donated more than 11,5 tons of food and 3 tons of seeds that could be used to plant and produce 3000 tons of food.

Besides the solidarity numbers, FISL had more than 4.5 thousand atendees. 13,54% are women. A number that will hopefully increase, but even being small, is better than the number of other conferences I have attended. Last year more than 12000 different connections were received on the streaming servers, and there were 12 primary replicators.

This will be the second year that FISL will transmit all its sessions by internet, using the Free Software TV, but there are limitations of bandwidth that may make it difficult to happen, or very limited. All the transmission is made using Free (as in freedom) encoders for audio and video, and there is no need for disk space: only bandwidth.

So, if you or your organisation have good internet bandwidth available, please contact me (nanda at fsfe dot org) and let me put you in contact with the organisers in order to make this event available to as much people as we can.

Yes! We have bananas!

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 13:10:23 +0100

Actually are not bananas exactly, but I am writing today to announce the new FSFLA's website, I just thought the bananas would be more attractive. :)

If you're curious, try to access: http://www.fsfla.org -- I hope our DNS is already propagated to yours.

Thanks FSFE for providing the vserver, and Jonas, who was really patient with me :)

German things...

Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:04:49 +0100

I fortgot to blog about it few days ago, but the morning's experience I had today made me remind this subject :)

Here in Hamburg, the metro (subway, s-bahn, u-bahn, whatever) really works. It is irritatingly in time, and all the station have plates with a minutes countdown. There's no ticket control to get in the train, but if you "forget" to pay and someone ask you for the ticket, then you would pay much more.

It's incredible, eveybody buy tickets!!! Including me :-D

I imagine this kind of system in the Sao Paulo's metro, for instance....heheheh

But sometimes the train delays. That already happened with me twice, I guess. The reason: people jump in front of the train trying to kill themselves.

I thought it was a joke, but a couple of days ago I was in the metro coming to the FSFE's office and when the train supposed to go straight to stop in the station, it got another rail and stopped in other place. Georg said "it is strange, the train always stops in the other side". Well, when we were walking in the station, he saw the ambulance, few police people and said: "ah, someone jumped in front of the train, again". With a weird naturalitty in his voice!!! I got stalled, and asked "WHAT????!!!" How could people decide to kill themselves jumping in front of the trains?? And worst: How can the others think that it is normal???

If you have been in Brazil, and saw an accident on the transit, for instance, you noticed lots of people standing around willing to see whether the person is bleeding, or lost a leg, or died. Here it doesn't happen!!! Nobody stops to ask whether the criature is still alive or not!

Well, this morning I was again in the train, coming to the FSFE's office again. The sound system start to announce something different, then I asked Georg: what happened? (Since I cannot -- yet -- understand german). And his answer: "Someone jumped in front of the train".

Minutes later, more messages in the sound system. I asked again: "What happened now? One more?" And he: "No, they are just telling that they took of the corpse and the traffic is back to normal."

And one more normal working day begins...

It doesn't sound weird???

Shitting on voting machines

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 12:48:16 +0100

The brazilian voting system is already internationally known for being 100% eletronic and insecure, for sure. Since the elections in 1996 they start to implement a system, completly proprietary, to do electronic voting in which we dont't have, for instance, the right of recounting the votes, because there's no printed version of our votes. It' s completly automated! Besides, You cannot even know if you really had participated in an anonymous voting because they type your elector number just before go to the machine and type your vote. It' s really easy to know who votes to who.

The government in Brazil managed to do it in a way that all the people are really proud of being the country where the voting process is 100% eletronic. Wow! Even knowning that people still die hunger in the poorest regions in Brazil....clap clap clap! Milions of reais spent in an eletronic-proprietary-insecure-antidemocratic systems.

Now they are giving us the favor of improving the idea: they are opening a licitation to buy more voting machines and adapt the old ones (around 400 thousand) with a new feature: fingerprint scanner devices. They would collect the initial fingerprints in the next elections, and then in the voting after that, we'd not need to bring our "titulo de eleitor" (elector ID) to get recognized by the super new system.

In a discussion mailing list in Brazil, one guy questioned how it would be if the system for any reason cannot recognize the person by the fingerprint. Another guy gave a suggestion that I think was just fantastic: in case of not being able to recognize someone, they would ask this person to shit in a super shit identifier machine connected to the system! You know, just as a contingency ;)

I cannot avoid on imagine big lines of people going to the government in order to have their figerprints collected and then passing in a toillet to drop the "contingency".

Birth of FSFLA

Fri, 25 Nov 2005 17:11:31 +0100

During the 5tas Jornadas Regionales del Software Livre, that took place in Rosario, Argentina, the founding members of FSFLA Free Software Foundation Latin America took the first formal steps to the Foundation's legal constitution, joining the network of Free Software Foundations.

During its Founding Assembly, the Council of Administration of FSFLA designed as President Federico Heinz, as Secretary Alexandre Oliva and Beatriz Busaniche as Treasurer, constituting the Executive Council of the new organization. The other members of the Council of Administration are Enrique A. Chaparro, Mario M. Bonilla, Fernanda G. Weiden and Juan José Ciarlante.

The official launch of the new organization was attended by the President of Free Software Foundation Europe, Georg Greve.

FSFLA is the fourth Free Software Foundation in the network, started in 1985 with the Free Software Foundation by Richard M. Stallman, later joined by Free Software Foundation Europe and India.

Joining you

Tue, 01 Nov 2005 21:08:02 +0100

Today is the first day of work on organizing my stuff here in Brazil in order to move to Zurich.

I'm a bit sad about being not close anymore (at least physically) of my friends of FSFLA, but also it's exciting to know that I'll be joining another group. Usually I don't unjoin the groups I enter, so I plan to keep working mainly to FSFLA, but it will be impossible to not participate and get involved on FSFE activities.

I hope to meet you folks around there to get some beers and share experience on how to help to save the world :)

New article and other stuff..

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 00:00:00 +0200

Pamela Jones just published today one article written by me about women in Free Software at Groklaw.

Well, after a long time without post anything here, I'm back. I promisse that it will not take so long until I post here a bit more of my crazy thinks and adventures.

After a weekend with people (the psl's server) in maintance, I'm finishing to put my personal website back online, and few more websites which I maintain.

Loooooong day doing that, now I think I'll go bed (actually I'm seated on my bed right now). Ok, go sleep then.

Women and Free Software Meeting in Montreal

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0200

I had the opportunity to meet some people from Montreal last FISL, and then I told them I would be going to Ottawa this month. Well, they organized a Women and Free Software Day in Montreal, next 24th. I really liked the press release, in which they say being planning to start a PSL Mulheres like group in Montreal.

That would be really, really great!

*Women and Free Software*

On Sunday July 24th 2005, Fernanda Weiden will be of passage in Montreal to open a meeting on the topic of "Women and Free Software". The event will be organized by FACIL, pour l'appropriation collective de l'informatique libre, the Koumbit network, the Laboratoire de Communication Médiatisée par Ordinateur (LabCMO) and Communautique.

The coming of Fernanda Weiden, activist within the Free Software community in Brazil since 2002, has inspired the topic of this conference. Involved in organizing the first women and free software meeting of Brazil in 2003, she has since founded "Projeto Software Livre-Mulheres", a project having the objective to work along organizations of women in order to debate their needs and their participation in the domain of information and communication technologies (ICT) and particularly of free software. Her contribution falls under a process of social integration in the field of free software in Brazil. Her participation in the Debian project (GNU/Linux distribution) and in the "Free Software Foundation of Latin America" will open the meeting on her experience in Latin America.

This event is actually the first step of a medium term objective to create a "Women and Free Software" collective in Montreal. This will be an occasion to gather the people of Quebec interested to participate in its creation. During the presentation, the participants will have the opportunity to determine the stakes of free software through these topics: women and the development of free software, women and the access to training for ICT, social and digital integration, participative uses (network citizens and solidarity) and appropriation models of free software, concerns of the social environment and paradigms of local development. The presentation will be followed by a roundtable where our guests invested in different domains (development, education and IT in Quebec) will share their experience. There will also be a discussion and presentation of books and documents about free software.

The "Women and Free Software" day will be held on Sunday July 24th 2005, between 12h and 16h. The meeting will take place at the Café Utopik, 552 Sainte-Catherine East near Berri-UQAM metro. For more information, please visit the website of the event:

http://femmes.informatiquelibre.info

This event will be also the occasion to discuss the workshops and presentations for the SQIL, Semaine Québécoise de l'Informatique Libre, which will be held between November 12th and 20th 2005:

http://sqil.info

Lia Talbot: 514-948-6644 #227 - lia@communautique.qc.ca; Valérie Dagrain: 450-646-7522 - vdagrain@free.fr

Back to Sao Paulo...

Mon, 18 Jul 2005 00:00:00 +0200

Finally I'm back home after 25 days in Germany. No words to say how cool was my trip.

I would like to thanks all the FSFE people for being so cool with me during LinuxTag. I really hope that FSFLA will have a really united team as you have. Well, we are working for it...

Also, my time in Hamburg was really, really great. The Hamburg's channels were really great, 200Km/h in the Autobanh by motorcycle also cool.

I really enjoyed each of all the minutes I spent there.

Europe is just like we see in movies here. Everything is so organized that made me feel looking to a picture, or watching a movie. And clean! Well...excluding the ice cream guy caring the waffer without protection in the hands and caring the money with the same hand (bleh!).

Besides, here in Brazil...Ministers being changed, Paulista Ave completly destroyed after a football game last week (and the team won the competition), workers party having their directors changed. I don't need to talk about traffic jam and polution, do I?

I really hope to have the opportunity to move to Recife, Salvador or any other city where the sea would make me forget about the problems around :)

Now, time to organize the stuff to get the flight to Ottawa tomorrow. Next adventure: Ottawa Linux Symposium.