There’s a podcast titled “The BSD Show!”, which I didn’t know.  What’s more, it has 15 minutes of Warner Losh speaking about FreeNAS.  That’s the 4th broadcast so far.  (via)

(added it to the links, too)

I almost had an all-acronym title, darnit.

• Theodore T’so’s writing about SSDs.  It’s Linuxish, so not all the problems he finds would apply to DragonFly, but interesting in the detail level.
• The WordPress Theme Fiasco. (via)  I link just so I can say that BSD licensing certainly takes away some of these headaches.
• How to get Vim to highlight HACK the same as XXX.
• How many books are there in the world? (via)  I find this strangely interesting, probably cause I like books.
• 10 Great Unix Tools (via).
• The oldest web page, via Prof. Dr. Style, also a good read.  I still reflexively assume web links that contain a ~ must be more authentic and personal than any other.  (via).

Dru Lavigne’s started a PC-BSD Blog.  This is great news – I don’t tend to cover other BSDs because I think there’s enough space in the blogosphere to others to do it.  (and I only have so many hours in a day.)  Dru’s already shown she knows posting, so I’m very happy to see more specific BSD outlets.

Dru Lavigne linked to AboutBSD.net; it’s an aggregate site that compiles the RSS feeds from a number of BSD sites.

It doesn’t list any news from this site.  I had a conversation with “Psyber.Monkey”, the maintainer some months ago and I pointed out that since it was copying posts wholesale, it sounded like I was writing for that website instead of my own, and it didn’t note the source, or even keep my name with my work.  He said he’d address that and remove my copied posts until it was fixed.  It looks like it hasn’t been addressed.

The BSD license (for example) allows for copying work, but it doesn’t allow you to strip the author’s name off the work.  The AboutBSD.net articles at least link back to the original articles now, but I’d like to see more specific attribution, as is done at other places that quote people’s work, like KernelTrap or even (usually) Slashdot.

I don’t want to sound too cranky about it, as he did reach out and check, which is a first – normally I just see my writing surface on aggregate feed sites, and that’s the earliest I hear of it.

Update: I take it back.

Michael Lucas sent me a copy of his newest book, Network Flow Analysis, on the grounds that I read it and write what I thought.  While book reviews aren’t usual fare for this site, it’s appealing to write something different from my usual brief summaries.

(more after the jump…)

More…

Dru Lavigne has posted a list of upcoming locations for BSDA exams; look for one near you, as this list is globe-spanning.

Michael Lucas is giving away a limited number of copies of his new Network Flow Analysis book.  Post something clever and you may get it.  Please don’t be more clever than me, though, as I want a copy.

Dru Lavigne is the new “Director of Community Development” for PC-BSD.  I am totally jealous, and she is the perfect person for the job.

BSDTalk 190 has 20 minutes of conversation with Michael Lucas, one of my favorite authors, about his new book, “Network Flow Analysis“.  He is also responsible for other BSD books.

I didn’t know about this, but Michael W. Lucas has a new book on the way: Network Flow Analysis.  It should be good; his other (BSD-themed, generally) books are surprisingly accessible despite being very technical.  (via)

Dru Lavigne is interviewed for 28 minutes on BSDTalk 188.  It’s about her new book, and also about the new BSD Professional Certification.

Did you know Linux still had Big Kernel Lock issues?  I didn’t.  Plus: yay for new KernelTrap activity!  Unless this is some sort of April Fools’s prank…

If you’re interested in software design, this blog post may have some good links to follow.

The April Open Source Business Resource is out, on “Cloud Computing”.

I gots a Summer of Code org application to write up, so you get a linkdump:

An mp3 of “PFSense II, Rocking The Datacenter” at NYCBUG, via Dru Lavigne.  Also, her “BSD for Linux Users” at the SCALE website.

A 5-part series about Scripting Vim, written by a terribly smart guy?  Interesting!  (Yeah, I did link to a part of it before…)

Have you ever wondered if building more than one pkgsrc package at a time can be a problem?  Others have too, and apparently there’s a fix.   If you don’t want to have to get to a command line to find the answer, it’s:

PKGSRC_LOCKTYPE?= none
The type of locking that will be done if competing processes
attempt to do work on one package directory simultaneously.

Possible values:
* none: No locking takes place at all.
* once: When the lock has already been aquired by another
process, the current process is terminated.
* sleep: When the lock has already been acquired by another
process, the current process will sleep for PKGSRC_SLEEPSECS
seconds and then try again.

You should also set OBJHOSTNAME when you are using the same
copy of pkgsrc on different hosts, maybe via NFS. This is because the locking process writes its process ID into the lockfile, and process IDs on different hosts are unrelated.

See also: LOCALBASE_LOCKTYPE, WRKDIR_LOCKTYPE.

BSDTV has been launched, with 3 videos to start.  Will there be DragonFly content?  I hope so.  (found via this and this)

The iPad is BSD-based, which is neat.  I like the notion of covering more BSD devices and products here on the Digest.

But: do you like even the vague concept of open source?  The iPad is expressly designed to limit your choices, especially with media consumption and the programs you run.  It’s sort of like owning a TV circa 1975 – you get what large media groups and the network (Apple) want you to see. I don’t want to come across as someone who’s complaining because it’s different – I’m complaining because it’s not different.

There’s other people arguing the same idea, with even more reasons.  This is one of the most specific.  Plus, there’s the natural progression…

Brought to you by iXsystems: a BSD-themed cartoon.  We haven’t had one since the one that ran on bsdnews.com… 5 years ago?  (via)  Updates each Friday.

The economy, at least in the U.S., seems to be improving.  With that in mind, I’ve seen some traffic on the freebsd-jobs mailing list lately.  BSD-specific jobs are harder to come by, so take a look if you’re ‘in the market’.

BSDTalk (4 years old!) has 24 minutes of talk with Randal Schwartz, talking about a whole pile of different subjects. I met Randal before – he’s a decent guy.

A recruiter found me through my administrative role for DragonFly in Google’s Summer of Code, and passed along a job description.  I’ll paste it after the cut.  If you’re looking for a job (or know someone who might match this job), contact me and I’ll pass contact information around.

Edit: The recruiter has a similar but non-BSD job also available…)

Man, I hope this works out.  In the job climate we’ve had the past year or so, helping someone get a job is very fulfilling.  Plus, the job sounds cool…

More…

BSDTalk 182 offers a very timely 12 minutes of talk with Josh Paetzel of iXsystems, talking about the recently not-BSD then BSD-again FreeNAS.  (see previous item)

Speaking of iXsystems: they have a new facility.

BSDTalk episode 180 is a 25-minute conversation with Girish Venkatachalam about … stuff.  (I am posting before listening.)

Jon Birrell, a contributor to a number of BSD projects (primarily FreeBSD), has died.  His friend and coworker Craig Rodrigues has posted a notice about his death, along with some memories.  It’s always awful when someone dies, but it always strikes me about how when an open source contributor dies, it’s noticed, quietly, worldwide.