IRC Chatlog 2011-08-15 15:00UTC

generated by irclog-xml.pl alpha-0.04 on Mon Aug 15 09:52:03 PDT 2011

<vasile> Welcome, everybody, to the scheduled Q&A with Bdale Garbee and me. We're here for an hour to answer questions and discuss the FreedomBox. So pipe up with questions and we'll try to give the best answers we have.

<bdale> naif: http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox

<vasile> I'll start with a question of my own for bdale: How are things going with the first release?

<vasile> Goldstein: I've asked Eben's external human memory storage (aka Ian Sullivan) and hope to have an answer for you shortly.

<reed> naif, and http://freedomboxfoundation.org/discuss/

<bdale> we're on the cusp of putting out a "developer image" for the DreamPlug that is a relatively simple Debian base image with essential build tools .. I had hoped to have it out by this morning but unfortunately day job and family reduced my available time the last few days

<naif> subscribed!

<vasile> Goldstein: @eben> It's a class of Comp Priv Const at Columbia on the death of the fourth amendment. Audio should be available at the CPC website. Ian is with me at the moment, but we can find it for you shortly.

<laziac> has the required u-boot code been merged upstream yet?

<bdale> the initial dev image can be installed and used with the factory-provided u-boot

<gbastien> bdale: will this image require specific hardware to run?

<bdale> the two features we "want" that aren't in that image are the ability to boot from an ext filesystem, so you have to maintain a small fat partition for the kernel .. and the ability to execute a script read from the filesystem so that we don't have to hard-code versioned filenames in the flash or maintain symlinks on the filesystem, but neither are immediate needs for dev work

<bdale> gbastien: the image in question is specifically for the Globalscale DreamPlug .. however, note that *any* Debian system can be used for development work other than assessing performance on a plug computer or working on hardware-specific enablement code

<vasile> bdale: You, Eben and I have talked about a first feature release. Any ideas on what that might look like and how we get from here to there?

<bdale> the plan is that we'll add additional software packages and configuration, re-spinning the install images as we add functionality

<bdale> there are three major areas I think we need to focus effort on soon

<bdale> the first is deciding on an approach for a configuration user interface .. we're more or less in concensus that the user interface should be a web ui, and we'd like to use as much of the existing Debian package configuration mechanics as we can on the bottom

<Knygar> bdale: Web UI and XMPP chat?

<bdale> the second is fleshing out the connections between openpgp keys and the identity and trust elements of the software we want to use .. starting with monkeysphere and growing out from there

<jdeisenberg> Will I be able to run the software on a normal desktop/netbook from a USB stick?

<bdale> the third is building a core XMPP stack .. as Knygar says, the likely starting place there is XMPP chat, though once we have a base in place, a fairly rich set of connectivity services open up quickly

<reed> jdeisenberg, with all software in FreedomBox packaged for Debian, I guess you will

<bdale> jdeisenberg: our focus to date has been on getting a reference implementation together for ARM-based plug servers, but turning that into an x86 virtualization image or a Debian Live cd/dvd/usbstick image featuring a similar package set wouldn't be hard for someone to do

<silver_hook> Is there a list (e.g. on a EtherPad or Wiki) of things that are to be decided upon?

<bdale> the work liw did on vmdebootstrap should be easy to fold into our freedom-maker tool, for example, to emit x86 virtualization images at the same time we emit dreamplug bits

<bdale> silver_hook: there's an evolving set of pages in the wiki, but I don't think there's anything so crisp as a "list of things to be decided upon" right now

<silver_hook> bdale: I was thinking more in lines of the agenda for today's meeting.

* silver_hook is now known as hook

<bdale> vasile: so back to your original question, I think the first 'feature release' will be the addition of an XMPP server and web-oriented XMPP chat client

<vasile> bdale: Excellent. And are you still leaning toward ejabberd?

<bdale> hook: oic, the plan for today's meeting was "town hall" style Q&A

* hook changes his nick ...much better now :]

<bdale> vasile: probably .. jonas was in th