IRC logs for #farmOS, 2015-12-09 (GMT)

2015-12-08
2015-12-10
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[20:13:53]* lizzy has joined #farmos
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[20:14:06]<wizzyrea>ACTION waves
[20:17:46]<mstenta>ACTION waves back at wizzyrea
[20:17:51]<mstenta>:-)
[20:18:05]<wizzyrea>ACTION realises it's probably pretty late for you
[20:18:14]<mstenta>8:18pm
[20:18:18]<mstenta>you?
[20:18:20]<wizzyrea>oh, that's not terrible
[20:18:30]<wizzyrea>14:18pm :)
[20:18:36]<wizzyrea>(tomorrow)
[20:18:58]<mstenta>ACTION wonders what tomorrow is like
[20:19:18]<wizzyrea>sunny, chilly-ish, for summer.
[20:19:39]<wizzyrea>just curious, is farmos backed by any companies? or hosted as a service by anybody?
[20:19:41]<mstenta>mmm sounds nice :-)
[20:19:58]<wizzyrea>or is it basically a community thing
[20:20:12]<mstenta>not backed by any companies currently... just a pet project of mine, with a few other people starting to join the effort
[20:20:23]<wizzyrea>(I work on Koha Library Software, at a company that supports only open source stuff)
[20:20:28]<mstenta>and I made farmier.com for hosting services
[20:20:41]<mstenta>cool!
[20:21:42]<wizzyrea>It's New Zealand and we own our own cloud, I thought it might be neat to offer farmOS as a service, as we do heaps of drupal stuff already
[20:21:52]<wizzyrea>and NZ has heaps of farmers with complicated farms
[20:22:14]<wizzyrea>so just trying to find out more about it
[20:22:45]<mstenta>cool! you came to the right place :-)
[20:24:36]<mstenta>ah you are "the drift and dream" on twitter!
[20:24:41]<wizzyrea>I am!
[20:24:47]<mstenta>i just liked your post :-)
[20:24:52]<wizzyrea>ha :D
[20:25:12]<wizzyrea>yes this username follows me around ^.^
[20:25:24]<mstenta>i'm @getfarmier aka Mike Stenta - the guy behind farmOS
[20:25:41]<wizzyrea>very nice to meet you :)
[20:25:46]<mstenta>you as well :-)
[20:28:00]<wizzyrea>so what is your uptake like? any idea about how many installed instances you have out there in the wild world?
[20:28:05]<mstenta>nice to meet someone familiar with drupal! what kinds of work do you do?
[20:28:20]<wizzyrea>https://www.koha-community.org I work on this
[20:28:33]<wizzyrea>it has 0 to do with drupal ^.^
[20:28:39]<wizzyrea>but others in our company do drupal websites
[20:28:47]<wizzyrea>for example http://maoritv.co.nz
[20:28:52]<mstenta>http://drupal.org/project/farm has usage stats - it's a pretty good gauge
[20:28:56]<wizzyrea>er no
[20:29:01]<wizzyrea>ha
[20:29:16]<wizzyrea>http://www.maoritelevision.com/
[20:29:20]<wizzyrea>that one. sheesh.,
[20:29:33]<mstenta>the project is still very new - and only recently became stable enough that i started telling people about it
[20:29:45]<mstenta>but the response has been very good in the past few weeks alone!
[20:30:11]<wizzyrea>yeah, it feels to me like a thing that lots of people would want to use
[20:30:30]<wizzyrea>and I reckon, though I don't know specifically, that proprietary solutions to this same problem are wicked, stupid expensive.
[20:30:44]<mstenta>very cool! my friend's mom works in a library system here in the USA - and she is interested in Drupal - I'll share that with her!
[20:31:16]<wizzyrea>oh? where does she work?
[20:31:22]<mstenta>yea! are you familiar with farmhack.org?
[20:31:24]<wizzyrea>I'd probably know if it was a Koha library
[20:31:27]<wizzyrea>hm, no
[20:31:42]<wizzyrea>oh now that is neat
[20:32:04]<mstenta>yea - all kinds of open source tools for farmers, by farmers
[20:32:06]<wizzyrea>yessss
[20:32:09]<wizzyrea>I approve of this.
[20:32:12]<mstenta>:-D
[20:32:27]<mstenta>perhaps a NZ farm hack meetup is in order! ;-)
[20:32:32]<wizzyrea>hehe
[20:32:37]<wizzyrea>that would be a reason to visit ;)
[20:32:43]<mstenta>i would love to
[20:33:33]<wizzyrea>NZ has what's called the "number 8 wire" mentality - meaning that people here can fix almost anything with some number 8 wire. It's like our version of fixing things with duct tape.
[20:34:16]<mstenta>haha that's great
[20:34:26]<wizzyrea>I feel like farming, like libraries
[20:34:35]<mstenta>i'm going to use that phrase... and people will wonder what i'm talking about :-) unless they are kiwis
[20:34:54]<wizzyrea>is a sphere where FOSS could really be so very valuable
[20:35:12]<wizzyrea>https://catalyst.net.nz is the company I work for
[20:35:51]<mstenta>(when i was ~20 i worked in Yosemite National Park as a housekeeper (college job) and there was someone staying there from NZ, and she made a point to explain to me that New Zealanders referred to themselves as kiwis - stuck with me) :-)
[20:36:07]<wizzyrea>yep, true fact
[20:36:22]<mstenta>yes, absolutely - and so many farmers are already open source wizards
[20:36:48]<mstenta>in many ways they emodied the ideals of open source long before software ever existed
[20:36:52]<mstenta>embodied*
[20:36:57]<wizzyrea>yep, tis true.
[20:37:12]<mstenta>it is a natural progression
[20:38:11]<mstenta>anyway - i'm making farmOS to help with my own records, but i am also building it as a generalized Drupal distribution so that others can benefit as well
[20:38:30]<mstenta>and farmier.com is a hosting service - which i hope will help to support my time eventually
[20:39:23]<wizzyrea>yeah, that sounds about like every successful foss project ever :)
[20:39:35]<mstenta>i hope so ;-)
[20:39:42]<wizzyrea>"I have an itch. I shall scratch it. What, you have that itch too? Here, have my scratcher!"
[20:39:56]<wizzyrea>everyone wins.
[20:40:00]<mstenta>yea! because this scratcher can be copied for free
[20:40:28]<wizzyrea>Koha was started because a library in NZ had a y2k bug in their current system, and none of the proprietary ones fit their use case
[20:40:43]<mstenta>pretty cool if you think about it... we are the Ctrl+C Ctrl+V generation
[20:40:43]<wizzyrea>so they wrote a new library system from scratch, and open sourced it
[20:41:02]<mstenta>that's awesome!
[20:41:29]<wizzyrea>and now it's in libraries around the world. There is always a Koha library in the sun.
[20:41:30]<mstenta>i'm not very familiar with the inner workings of libraries - what kinds of stuff does it do?
[20:42:06]<wizzyrea>https://ihc.mykoha.co.nz/ for example
[20:42:13]<wizzyrea>it hosts the online catalogue
[20:42:21]<wizzyrea>and for the library staff
[20:42:26]<wizzyrea>manages inventory and circulation
[20:42:33]<wizzyrea>keeps track of library users
[20:42:47]<wizzyrea>automates things like printing spine labels and barcodes
[20:42:58]<wizzyrea>so, if you walk into a library
[20:43:06]<wizzyrea>pick up a book, and take it to the desk
[20:43:12]<wizzyrea>the beep beep boop the librarian does
[20:43:23]<wizzyrea>that's them circulating the book to you
[20:43:30]<wizzyrea>and koha is the software that manages that
[20:43:30]<mstenta>wow
[20:43:34]<wizzyrea>(for some libraries)
[20:43:36]<mstenta>that's great!
[20:43:38]<wizzyrea>(well lots of them.)
[20:44:12]<wizzyrea>Koha is almost 16 years old now. :)
[20:44:21]<mstenta>impressive!
[20:44:30]<wizzyrea>http://dashboard.koha-community.org/
[20:44:32]<mstenta>have you been involved the whole time?
[20:44:39]<wizzyrea>only since ~2008
[20:44:52]<wizzyrea>but I work with the guy who originally wrote it. :)
[20:44:53]<mstenta>that's a long time!
[20:45:18]<mstenta>and it's sponsored by various libraries who use it?
[20:45:34]<wizzyrea>yep, various libraries and there are support companies around the world who support it
[20:45:47]<wizzyrea>(I used to work in a library, now I work for a support company)
[20:46:02]<wizzyrea>but no one actually gets paid directly to work on Koha
[20:46:16]<wizzyrea>Koha the software exists outside of any commercial entity
[20:46:36]<wizzyrea>that dashboard. we have a student who likes to change the theme on it
[20:46:42]<wizzyrea>right now it's decorated for christmas lol.
[20:46:55]<mstenta>:-)
[20:47:31]<mstenta>cool - that's how i am approaching farmOS too - I decided to make farmOS.org and farmier.com separate entities - because the project itself should be independent
[20:47:42]<wizzyrea>*nod* that's how we did it with Koha
[20:48:03]<wizzyrea>some day there will be a foundation that "owns" it
[20:48:04]<wizzyrea>but not yet
[20:48:13]<mstenta>that's what i'm thinking too
[20:48:24]<mstenta>"farmOS Foundation" has a nice ring to it ;-)
[20:48:28]<wizzyrea>:)
[20:48:43]<wizzyrea>there are ones you can join like the SFC or ... gah what's the other one I can never remember it
[20:48:54]<wizzyrea>nope it's gone.
[20:48:57]<wizzyrea>meh.
[20:49:07]<mstenta>oh yea... organizations that manage FOSS project you mean?
[20:49:09]<mstenta>like apache
[20:49:42]<wizzyrea>apache is another one
[20:51:34]<mstenta>so regarding your tweet... about high speed internet access...
[20:51:43]<mstenta>i agree - that is a hurdle currently
[20:51:49]<mstenta>but i believe it's a temporary one
[20:51:54]<wizzyrea>oh yes, it would be in nz as well
[20:52:34]<mstenta>i believe that internet access will be 100% pervasive soon
[20:52:50]<mstenta>it may take some years - but not long
[20:53:41]<mstenta>even so - it is probably worth investing some time in offline capabilities in farmOS
[20:53:49]<mstenta>using HTML5 localstorage, probably
[20:53:49]<wizzyrea>in NZ you can get mobile just about everywhere
[20:54:19]<wizzyrea>well I'm not sure about the more rural areas of the south island actually... there are some reeeallly remote places.
[20:54:23]<mstenta>yea, availability is good in the US, too... but there are still a lot of rural areas that are spotty
[20:54:30]<mstenta>yea same here
[20:54:40]<mstenta>but i think that's temporary
[20:55:11]<mstenta>the internet is such a revolutionary force - it makes sense that it will eventually be available everywhere
[20:55:24]<wizzyrea>assuming the politicians don't destroy it (
[20:55:25]<wizzyrea>:(
[20:55:28]<mstenta>yes
[20:55:30]<mstenta>assuming that
[20:55:32]<mstenta>:-/
[20:56:31]<mstenta>ACTION doesn't want to think about american politics anymore... too much craziness right now
[20:56:52]<wizzyrea>from afar, it makes our faces go O.O
[20:57:01]<mstenta>from up close, it's even worse
[20:57:29]<wizzyrea>working on FOSS is by nature a subversive act :)
[20:57:49]<mstenta>:-)
[20:57:58]<mstenta>i wish it weren't
[20:58:04]<mstenta>it makes too much sense
[20:58:07]<wizzyrea>yeah it ought not to be.
[20:58:32]<wizzyrea>it feels like in reality, it's the default mode of humanity though. Give a little, take a little.
[20:58:33]<mstenta>again... temporary... all of this...
[20:58:38]<mstenta>(hopefully)
[20:58:53]<wizzyrea>yep, hopefully
[20:59:17]<wizzyrea>... there's a FOSS project for beehives.
[20:59:23]<wizzyrea>THE THINGS I LEARN.
[20:59:26]<wizzyrea>jebus.
[20:59:35]<mstenta>yes! opensourcebeehives.org?
[20:59:59]<wizzyrea>.net but yes
[21:00:05]<mstenta>oops .net
[21:00:06]<mstenta>yes
[21:00:13]<wizzyrea>sensor enhanced beehives! we live in the future!
[21:00:18]<mstenta>yeaaaaa!
[21:00:18]<wizzyrea>\o/
[21:00:24]<mstenta>you should check out openpipekit.org
[21:00:29]<mstenta>by my friend RJ
[21:00:44]<mstenta>it's a project to make it easier to set up sensor devices
[21:00:55]<wizzyrea>oh, like yahoo pipes for sensors
[21:00:57]<wizzyrea>neat
[21:01:07]<mstenta>we have a module in farmOS called Farm Sensor, which can accept data from OPK sensors over HTTP
[21:01:19]<wizzyrea>that is sweet as
[21:01:40]<mstenta>so you can set up a bunch of sensors on your farm, and enter them all into farmOS, and each of them can collect and display data
[21:01:44]<mstenta>all DIY ;-)
[21:01:51]<wizzyrea>\o/
[21:02:03]<wizzyrea>number 8 wire ;)
[21:02:33]<mstenta>OH ... also... (since you seem interested)... we have a Farm MapKnitter module so you can create your own aerial photography (using a drone/balloon/kite) and see it in you maps in farmOS
[21:03:07]<mstenta>using mapknitter.org to stitch the images together into a map layer
[21:03:33]<mstenta>http://farmier.com/newsletter/2015/08/25/farmos-beta-5-mapknitter-ui-api...
[21:03:38]<wizzyrea>NZ farmers would be all over that. As most of them depend on teh googlez for that kind of stuff
[21:03:59]<mstenta>yea, google maps is the base layer in farmOS - but the mapknitter layer is displayed on top of that
[21:04:20]<mstenta>(but because it's Drupal + Openlayers modules, you can customize it even more ... almost any map layer can be used)
[21:04:29]<wizzyrea>ya neat
[21:07:40]<wizzyrea>https://twitter.com/ranginui this'll be the original Koha developer - he's like the you of #kohails
[21:08:26]<mstenta>cool! perhaps i will pick his brain sometime about running a big FOSS project :-)
[21:08:46]<mstenta>it was great talking to you! i think i'm going to settle down for the evening...
[21:08:52]<wizzyrea>you should. We've done plenty of things wrong in kohails, but we've done lots and lots of things right.
[21:09:39]<mstenta>thanks for sharing that with me - perhaps i'll talk to you again soon! either here or on twitter ;-)
[21:09:50]<mstenta>fyi i am very new to twitter... this is the first time i've really started using it
[21:09:52]<wizzyrea>(for example, we got aggressively forked in ~2009, and the company that did it basically stole our domain)
[21:10:00]<mstenta>wow yikes
[21:10:05]<wizzyrea>yeah it was pants.
[21:10:26]<wizzyrea>oh, twitter is fun as long as you curate your feed and don't let assholes in ^.^
[21:10:28]<mstenta>ACTION is unfamiliar with the phrase "it was pants" but likes it :-)
[21:10:34]<wizzyrea>hehe
[21:10:42]<wizzyrea>highly unpleasant?
[21:11:01]<mstenta>yea, i can imagine it was very pants
[21:11:22]<wizzyrea>they still have our domain. they're just holding it out of spite now.
[21:11:26]<mstenta>wow
[21:11:35]<mstenta>that's just bad
[21:11:44]<wizzyrea>yeah they were bad sorts.
[21:12:23]<mstenta>is that this one? http://www.koha.org/
[21:12:42]<wizzyrea>yep, that is not ours.
[21:12:51]<mstenta>:-(
[21:12:56]<mstenta>what a bunch of jerks
[21:13:05]<wizzyrea>so yeah, handle your trademarks
[21:13:34]<wizzyrea>you're lucky I reckon because it's all held by you
[21:14:44]<mstenta>such a shame... were they members of the community? or just swooped in and started a new fork out of the blue?
[21:15:01]<wizzyrea>they were actually instrumental in getting version 3.0 out the door
[21:15:24]<wizzyrea>then 3.2 kept getting delayed and delayed because they wanted features
[21:15:40]<wizzyrea>and then the company was bought by another company
[21:15:45]<wizzyrea>and they were the aggressive ones
[21:16:19]<mstenta>wow
[21:16:38]<wizzyrea>the community didn't like their approach to, well anything.
[21:16:49]<wizzyrea>so they went their own way
[21:16:54]<mstenta>hmm
[21:17:01]<wizzyrea>forking, in itself
[21:17:03]<wizzyrea>isn't a big deal
[21:17:11]<wizzyrea>trying to take the name? that's a big deal.
[21:17:40]<wizzyrea>there's a lot of drama in there. it's been years now, we call it "the troubles"
[21:17:41]<mstenta>yea - that's aggressive
[21:17:42]<wizzyrea>lol.
[21:17:59]<wizzyrea>but, we made it through
[21:18:15]<wizzyrea>and now we've had 10 releases to their 2
[21:18:21]<mstenta>good!
[21:18:23]<wizzyrea>over 100 new developers to their 0
[21:18:29]<mstenta>:-D
[21:18:34]<wizzyrea>so I think we're doing alright. :)
[21:18:37]<mstenta>community wins in the end
[21:18:47]<wizzyrea>yep, for sure
[21:19:46]<mstenta>well i'm going to start the bedtime process...
[21:19:53]<wizzyrea>yes, that's important
[21:19:58]<mstenta>it was very nice talking to you @wizzyrea
[21:19:58]<wizzyrea>sleep well, the future is safe.
[21:20:05]<mstenta>:-)
[21:20:10]<wizzyrea>yep very nice to chat
[21:20:17]<mstenta>have a wonderful sunny (but chilly) summer day
[21:20:22]<wizzyrea>hehe
[21:20:43]<mstenta>talk to you later!
[21:20:44]<mstenta>goodnight!
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