Skip Navigation

User banner

Onno (VK6FLAB)

@ vk6flab @lemmy.radio

Posts
23
Comments
882
Joined
2 yr. ago

Anything and everything Amateur Radio and beyond. Heavily into Open Source and SDR, working on a multi band monitor and transmitter.

#geek #nerd #hamradio VK6FLAB #podcaster #australia #ITProfessional #voiceover #opentowork

  • The open source projects I helped bring onto my job!

    Jump

  • Fair question.

    What it boils down to is: Become part of the OSS community.

    In my experience, there's no other way, since the alternative is to be automatically part of the Microsoft (or Apple) community.

    In other words, you need to make the investment into the implementation. As I've said elsewhere, license costs are insignificant.

    The community is where you get help, where you find others with the same issues. You can pay the likes of Canonical and Redhat, but I've never been impressed by either.

    Ultimately any solution requires support, just like any other tool. You just need to make it explicit, rather than assumed.

    One thing that Microsoft does to ensure that you have support infrastructure is to continually break backwards compatibility in subtle ways that require you to open your wallet and pay for support.

    OSS will likely run for years without adult supervision, but that doesn't mean it can continue to work without requiring support from time to time. If you don't prepare for this, you're going to be very unhappy.

  • Average Debian system update experience:

    Jump

  • Kali ≠ Debian

    I did not see an apt-get update

    In my experience, unmet dependencies are unlikely to happen on a stable version where you only installed from the official repo.

    The LZMA decompression errors point at a much more fundamental issue. I'm suspecting that the repository URLs point at non standard locations or downloads were interrupted, though I'm not sure exactly how, since AFAIK, apt checks the checksum.

    If you must have something that's not In your distro, do yourself a favour and install Docker and run your package inside there, much less chance of killing your system.

    Source: I've been using Debian for over 25 years.

  • The open source projects I helped bring onto my job!

    Jump

  • I'm talking about the reality of an organisation digging itself out of the hole created by projects such as described by OP.

    I get the call from such organisations to help fix their issues and sometimes I can even help, more often than not it's a time consuming effort (ie. expensive) to get to a point where the systems are in place to avoid the next catastrophe.

    The reason that Microsoft keeps getting mind share and revenue is because there's so much of that expertise around.

    There's loads of OSS professionals, myself included, but we're a drop in the ocean by comparison.

    In many cases an OSS deployment is the equivalent of "my nephew helped set this up" and it's not helping the overall picture in the wider community.

    If you're going to deploy OSS, then you must consider the support implications before you start, anything else is unprofessional. License fees are insignificant by comparison.

  • The open source projects I helped bring onto my job!

    Jump

  • Here's three:

    • A server with nobody supporting it for 13 years. It had a MySQL database with 743 columns. There was no documentation, served three organisations and hadn't been backed up for at least 7 years.
    • A server running a CMS for a dozen organisations that was running on failing hardware. No idea who built or didn't support it.
    • A server built by an employee 15 years ago, then supported by a "web company" who didn't update it for 12 years, then "supported" by a Windows shop which was happy to charge the customer but hadn't actually updated the server.

    You'll notice that I'm being deliberately vague.

    All these share the exact scenario that the OP outlines. The organisations involved didn't know that they were in deep trouble until well after the project instigator departed. No documentation, no updates, no training, handover, nothing beyond a set of credentials.

  • Rush hour traffic in Utrecht, Netherlands 🇳🇱

    Jump

  • Er is er altijd wel eentje ..

  • The open source projects I helped bring onto my job!

    Jump

  • Right until your PostgreSQL server goes down and you can't call your IT department and have to start hunting for a contractor, find a budget, get it signed off by management and HR, then on-board the new staff member, that is, after you advertised the position, did job interviews, after first filtering through the 700 .. or two, applications, each plausibly generated by a ChatGPT session. Give it something like six months in a big organisation, less in a nimble one.

    Does an "entrenched" anything sound "nimble" to you?

  • The open source projects I helped bring onto my job!

    Jump

  • And that right there is why Windows is so entrenched.

    If you want this for real, adoption of open source, then treat it properly. Consider the business impact of your absence, document the systems, train others, otherwise this is just another timebomb waiting to go off and with it any hope of weakening the Microsoft stranglehold on the company and its C-suite.

    I've lost count of the number of such "projects" I've encountered in my professional career.

    This is not doing anyone any favours, least of all yourself.

  • The open source projects I helped bring onto my job!

    Jump

  • Given the "deeply entrenched windows" in the company, together with a presumably similarly equipped ICT department, how are you protecting your department and the company against your absence?

    In other words, what happens if you get hit by a bus?

  • Rush hour traffic in Utrecht, Netherlands 🇳🇱

    Jump

  • Fairy sure that you're seeing a bicycle only intersection. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but zero cars is not plausible, not even in Holland.

    Source: I lived there for a decade and I've also been watching Not Just Bikes on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@NotJustBikes

  • what open source messaging app do YOU use?

    Jump

  • what open source messaging app do YOU use?

    Jump

  • Depends on the purpose.

    Signal for private conversation.

    Mastodon for my hobby.

    Lemmy and Bluesky for participation in the world.

  • What platform currently exists to replace FB?

    Jump

  • That makes no sense.

    You can create a Lemmy or Mastodon account in moments with nothing more than a web browser.

    Is that the entire fediverse, no.

    Is Facebook one thing, also no.

  • What platform currently exists to replace FB?

    Jump

  • Your restrictions on excluding the fediverse are nonsensical.

  • Cloudflare is down this morning

    Jump

  • Well, unless it came back in the last 25 minutes, it's working fine in Western Australia.

  • My GF gave me one afternoon to fix this, what do i do

    Jump

  • Talk to the building owner.

    If you get this wrong you'll likely cause havoc across the whole building.

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    How do you pronounce in words the following two references to money: "6½d" and "6s. 6d." from a 1904 text?

  • Billionaires are extremists

    Jump

  • Billionaires are extremists

    Jump

  • You don't think that 3,028 people holding 99% of global wealth is extreme?

  • Billionaires are extremists

    Jump

  • That's an interesting observation.

    Given the 3,028 billionaires among the 8 billion people on Earth, that's the definition of extreme.

    Those 3,028 people, or 0.000036% of the global population, hold more than 99% of all wealth.

  • [RANT] Why is so much coverage of "AI" devoted to this belief that we've never had automation before (and that management even really wants it)?

    Jump

  • Given the massive layoffs happening under the Assumed Intelligence banner, the answer has always been: "cheaper labour"

    Apparently people who actually know how to do their ICT job are too expensive, right until the shit hits the fan, at which point it's "drop everything and help me, now!"

    Organisations are no longer run by Founders, instead they're run by accountants and lawyers who only care about shareholder value, not the societal or environmental impact.

    When the bubble finally explodes we're going to be looking at an altered economic and technology landscape, if we don't self ignite before that.

  • Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Community behaviour around deletion of posts

  • Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    How are you supposed to synchronise the packaging of medication that comes in different quantities?

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Australian Under 16 media ban is censorship by stealth and data harvesting by law

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Labor plans to make it harder to access government information

    www.abc.net.au /news/2025-09-02/labor-plans-to-weaken-foi-laws/105723992
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    The Ongoing Fallout from a Breach at AI Chatbot Maker Salesloft – Krebs on Security

    krebsonsecurity.com /2025/09/the-ongoing-fallout-from-a-breach-at-ai-chatbot-maker-salesloft/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Chinese Pudu robots found open to hijacking

    www.theregister.com /2025/08/29/pudu_robots_hackable/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    McDonald's not lovin' it when hacker exposes rotten security

    www.theregister.com /2025/08/20/mcdonalds_terrible_security/
  • Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Does an Amber alert get sent to every phone in a region, including the target?

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Instagram's new location feature has left users feeling 'sick'

    www.abc.net.au /news/2025-08-09/instagram-location-sharing-feature-is-raising-privacy-concerns/105632212
  • Showerthoughts @lemmy.world
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    We refer to jeans as "a pair of jeans", but the only thing that there are two of is the legs, it's still only one item of clothing.

  • Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Why do we continue to treat Death as an exception?

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio
    privacyguides.org

    Privacy-Respecting European Tech Alternatives

    www.privacyguides.org /articles/2025/03/19/private-european-alternatives/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Undocumented "backdoor" found in Bluetooth chip used by a billion devices

    www.bleepingcomputer.com /news/security/undocumented-backdoor-found-in-bluetooth-chip-used-by-a-billion-devices
  • Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    What is the end game?

  • Linux @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' — posts and users being blocked

    www.tomshardware.com /software/linux/facebook-flags-linux-topics-as-cybersecurity-threats-posts-and-users-being-blocked
  • Showerthoughts @lemmy.world
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    Parking fines should be proportional to the value of the vehicle

  • Linux @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    How many Linux kernel developers does it take for the project to stall?

    www.scannedinavian.com /the-github-plugin-my-coworkers-asked-me-not-to-write.html
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    So, this cookie alert on theverge.com is both refreshingly honest and depressingly disturbing

  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Onno (VK6FLAB) @lemmy.radio

    RFC: Cross Platform Password Manager