From 2c01d4daeff989a556083d26b7c6e5cf7f89b472 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: David Thompson Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2022 17:41:36 -0500 Subject: Prefix old post file names with dates. --- posts/gnu30.md | 62 ---------------------------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 62 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 posts/gnu30.md (limited to 'posts/gnu30.md') diff --git a/posts/gnu30.md b/posts/gnu30.md deleted file mode 100644 index 3d42bf3..0000000 --- a/posts/gnu30.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,62 +0,0 @@ -title: GNU 30th Anniversary Hackathon -date: 2013-09-30 22:00 -tags: gnu, fsf, free software -summary: Happy birthday, GNU! ---- - -I spent my weekend at MIT at the GNU 30th anniversary hackathon. I had -never participated in a hackathon before and was excited to see what -it was like. Developers from many GNU and non-GNU projects were there -to hack and help others get involved, and RMS was there to give the -keynote speech. - -On Saturday, I spent nearly the entire day in the GNU FM room. About a -year ago I wrote an -[installation guide](http://bugs.foocorp.net/projects/fm/wiki/How_to_install) -on the GNU FM wiki, and so Matt Lee asked me to walk some newcomers -through getting a development environment up and running. I was able -to help four people with this. They all had a functioning GNU FM -server and they were able to scrobble their music to it. Setting up -GNU FM can be quite a pain, and the guide I had written was missing -some information and gave some bad advice. I simplified and rewrote -some of it so that it’s easier to follow. Hopefully this will benefit -a future contributor to GNU FM. - -At 5PM on Saturday, RMS gave a talk about the future of free software -and the GNU project. He discussed the value of reverse engineering -proprietary applications and device drivers in order to write free -replacements. He also talked about the dangers of -software-as-a-service and the “iThings”. His -[new article](http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/09/why-free-software-is-more-important-now-than-ever-before/) -on Wired covers much of the same subject matter. After his speech, he -raffled off a stuffed baby gnu and an “adorable” GNU 30th anniversary -mug. Chris, owner of ThinkPenguin, won both items! After the speech -came the reception in which I ate some delicious vegan cupcakes and -acquired two 3D printed gnu logos that were sitting atop each -cupcake. After the reception, I briefly went out to a pub with Matt -Lee and Matthew Garrett. Donald Robertson of the FSF joined in later. - -On Sunday, I spent the first couple of hours helping out more with GNU -FM because Matt Lee was sick. For lunch, I went with a large group to -a chinese restaurant. Included in the group was the John Eaton, the -GNU Octave author, and Zak Rogoff, Campaigns Manager at the FSF. It -was interesting to talk to John about the challenges that he faced and -continues to face when trying to keep up with Matlab and maintaining -compatibility even when the Matlab engineers make bad design decisions. - -After lunch, I met up with Mark Weaver, one of the GNU Guile -developers. He helped me write my first patch for Guile: a new REPL -option called “read-wrapper” that allows external code to hook into -the part of the REPL that waits for user input. Guile-2D needs this -functionality in order to create a REPL that plays nice with the game -event loop. Since the main thread is in an event loop, waiting for -user input at the REPL prompt would stop the game entirely. To get -around this, we used the “read-wrapper” option to pass the procedure -that reads user input into another thread so that Guile-2D’s event -loop can continue running. We achieved this functionality in less than -100 lines of code. This hack showed me how great it is to use a -language with first-class continuations. - -tl;dr: The hackathon was a great time. Happy birthday, GNU. - -![GNU 30th logo](/images/gnu30.jpg) -- cgit v1.2.3