Foro.Carajal.Info

Esta mañana he estado en Colmux 2012, que se celebró en el IES Ángel Corella de Colmenar Viejo, no muy lejos de Madrid. Con un título tan barroco como “Redes sociales: ¿todos para uno o todos para todos? Arquitecturas centralizadas o federadas” me dediqué a hablar sobre las formas de construir redes sociales, y cómo su arquitectura viene hasta cierto punto dato por la tecnología, pero también por el modelo de negocio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I had about one hour with ten ~15-years-old students. It was not exactly a class: they are coming to the campus during this week to have some exposure to the University life, and to IT (I’m at the Telecom School). Before staying with me, they had attended to a class on IPTV, to a Gymkana with mobile devices, to a demo of WiFi-controlled toy cars. So the stakes were high. Fortunately (for me and for the students), Hackasaurus came to the rescue.

I had learned about Hackasaurus about a week ago, while I was thinking what to show/explain/practice with these students. I really liked the idea of letting them think about how the web is not read-only, but a place to hack, a place to play. So, I tried to design a simple practice session to help them to think in a new way about the web: not as a collection of sites that I have to adapt to, but as a powerful, yet very flexible tool that I can contribute to shape. And it was a enlightening experience for me.
Read the rest of this entry »

Esta mañana he estado en Boadilla, participando en Boadinux 2012, como telonero de Richard Stallman. Como Stallman iba a hablar, (y habló, muy bien como siempre), sobre el tema “Por una sociedad digital libre”, me pareció que la ocasión merecía preparar una presentación que no había hecha antes y sirviera para poner en contexto lo que luego iba a contar él.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, that’s right. I’m not a US citizen. And this is not a US blog. However, despite how strange it may sound, this blog is subject, at least to some extent, to what the US Congress and the US Senate may decide about SOPA and PIPA. To avoid duplicating arguments, just have a look at “Why Canadians Should Participate in the SOPA/PIPA Protest“, and Por qué BarraPunto protesta contra SOPA (Spanish). So, yes, this blog is (partially) blacking out today in protest. #stopSOPA!

Sad days for democracy, when people that I have not elected and cannot elect are discussing a law that will affect how I can express myself, and even my right to express myself where anybody can hear me. So this is also a protest against my Government, and the EU institutions, which seem not to be capable of fighting for my rights as an Spanish and European Union citizen.

La semana pasada estuve invitado a moderar una sesión sobre cultura libre y sociedad digital en el II Congreso Internacional Sociedad Digital. Lo pasé muy bien con los demás participantes (Stéphane Grueso, Javier de la Cueva, David Cabo, Felipe Ortega y Miguel Jaque) y todos los asistentes, que también colaboraron lo suyo. ¿Te lo perdiste? Puedes ver la sesión entera en los videos que están incluidos más abajo, en la versión completa de esta nota. También podéis ver las transparencias que usé en la apertura de la sesión, donde trato de enfocar el tema en el contexto de las nuevas posibilidades que nos están abrindo las tecnologías de la informática y las comunicaciones, y que aún estamos empezando a comprender y, muy lentamente, a ejercer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday I was invited to deliver a talk on libre software and mobile devices at I Jornadas Universitarias de Programación Móvil (1st University Workshop on Mobile Programming), held in Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Fuelabrada & Mostoles, Spain). I started by talking about the definition of free and open source software, and elaborating a bit on what that may mean to developers. Then, I briefly summarized the history of free software for PDAs and mobile devices, since the late 1990s. Just in case they’re useful, you can have a look at the slides I used for the presentation (or see below, they’re embedded).

The research we’re doing at GSyC/LibreSoft on Wikipedia has been mentioned in the last Wikimedia Research Newsletter issue. And it was mentioned twice :

• The paper “Temporal characterization of the requests to Wikipedia“, which is in part a result of Antonio J. Reinoso’s PhD thesis, is mentioned with respect to its analysis of the use of Wikipedia during weekends, which is a part of a more complete analysis on temporal patterns of users and editors.
• The book “The Digital Potlatch“, by Felipe Ortega and Joaquín Rodríguez is referenced in the section.

This comes perfectly on time for introducing Antonio’s PhD dissertation, which will hapen tomorrow (30th Sept 2011), 12:30, at the Fuenlabrada Campus of the URJC.

Last year, in the context of some meetings related to the FP7 Research Program, I started to write a document on Good practices for R&D projects producing FLOSS, as a request for comments. The abstract says probably it all:

Many R&D projects are producing FLOSS (free, libre, open source software) in different domains. This document provides details on the practices that could be considered as “good” from the point of view of maximizing the impact of using FLOSS as a distribution model. It is targeted mainly at projects funded by the European Commission, but could be of interest for others as well.

Tomorrow I’m presenting it at the FLOSS Working Group meeting, scheduled in the Collaboration meeting for FP7 projects (Internet of Services). The talk is called “Dos and Donts: FLOSS in FP7 projects”, and I’ll be using some slides, which somewhat summarize the document.

If you have any feedback on these ideas, please, let me know! I’m now working in a new revision, having into account some comments that I had during the last year, and some new ideas. Stay tuned for its release!

This evening I’m participating in a panel on licensing in the Open Source Hardware Conference, in Madrid (Spain). I’ll have like 5 mins. for a very short presentation on the matter. So, I’ve prepared a couple (literally) of slides, commenting about the Open Source Hardware (OSHW) Definition 1.0, and about some of the licenses most commonly used for OSHW. The most important concept I will try to stress is that these licenses in fact cover the design (and more specifically, the expression of the design, that is, the plans), and not the hardware itself. This may cause some difficulties in enforcing copyleft clauses, for example. Some side aspects (but also important!): relationship with patents, and relationship with software licenses. Too much for 5 minutes, but well…

Next week I’m participating in the Information Day on Call 8 of FP7: Cloud Computing, Internet of Services and Advanced Software Engineering (Objective ICT-2011.1.2) (hey this is really a long name for a one-day event). I’m contributing with a presentation which includes some ideas for FP7 projects that explore some possibilities related to the transfer of research results that could help to improve libre (free, open source) software development.

Comments are welcome! (For convenience, I’m also attaching the slides for the presentation).