Software

Link: Software Archive: postping

In one of the earlier incarnations of the Austin Bloggers web site, we used a simple utility to aggregate trackback pings into a meta-blog. This system would encapsulate the trackback into an article, and post it to a Movable Type weblog.

I have received periodic queries for this utility. I finally got around to packaging it up and publishing it in my software archive.

We no longer use this utility. We currently use a more sophisticated system. I wrote an earlier article that discusses the evolution of this site. It explains the reasons for moving from the simple utility (published here) to the more sophisticated (but as of yet unpublished) package currently in use.

Link: Linux Access in State and Local Government, Part IV.

In the linked article, Tom Adelstein discusses efforts to pass state-level legislation that encourages using open source software. He detailed the life and expiration of Texas SB 1579, and discussed the EFF-Austin lobbying effort I helped coordinate.

I think his commentary is insightful, and we need to take it to heart for next time around. (And you're darn tootin' there'll be a next time!) I fear, however, he may be a bit too harsh on the Open Source community. I suspect that if we weren't such rank novices at this organizing and lobbying thing, we might have turned out more support. I hope that as we accumulate experience and expand our network, our ability to rally the community will improve.

I differ with Tom on one significant point. I believe our greatest lack was not community support, but business support. We needed to bring in some heavyweight names and we failed to do so. It's one thing if I go to a Senator and say, "Microsoft is feeding you a line of shit." It's another thing if somebody from, say, IBM does that.

Still, Tom does a great job capturing how the process works. I hope this article becomes required reading for all the EFF-Austin people working on legislation. All legislation, not just open source.

Sure, we wish it had gone all the way. In practical terms, the fact that we even got a committee hearing was a big success. Most bills die a quiet and ignoble death, without ever being heard. Next session, we hope for even bigger things.

For nearly two months I have been working in support of SB 1579, a bill that would expand the use of open source software by Texas state agencies. This is the first article I've blogged about it. Is that wack or what?

I have been writing a lot on this effort, just not here. We've got a mailing list and wiki page with all sorts of good information. I've neglected to tie that back to here.

Unlike the other EFF-Austin legislative efforts, this is one we are working to support. We like open source software, and we want to see the state use more of it.

Yesterday, we got a hearing for this bill in front of the Senate Committee for State Affairs. The hearing went quite well. We've got a long row to hoe, but at least we've got a small victory to celebrate this weekend.

I just got email from Eric Raymond saying he was planning to use some of my code in his forthcoming book The Art of Unix Programming. He is planning to cite my blq script as a case study in Perl programming.

Here is what he said:

blq is a good example of a small Perl script, illustrating both the strengths and weaknesses of the language. It makes intensive use of regular-expression matching. On the other hand, the Net::DNS Perl service library it uses has to be conditionally included, because it is not guaranteed to be present in any given Perl installation.

blq is exceptionally clean and disciplined as Perl code goes, and the author recommends as an example of good style (the other Perl tools referenced from the blq project page are good examples as well). But parts of the code are unreadable unless you are familiar with very specific Perl idioms

Several folks around town have been blogging about the meta-blog technology that powers the Austin Bloggers web site.

David Nunez wrote up an article on the presentation I did during SXSW Interactive. He included a photo of the session showing me and the backs of some A-Listers heads.

Adina Levin, who is the original architect of the meta-blog, wrote an article about another site that is using the technology we developed. That project is using a previous version, which lacks the scalability and features of the current release, but is simpler to manage. One challenge I've got is that once the feature set stabilizes, I need to package up a release that makes this version easy to setup and manage.

In a previous article, I mentioned some work I was doing on automatic blog aggregation via trackback ping. I've already turned a second generation on the system, and it's now been deployed at the Austin Bloggers web site.

I bet you thought I was being a lazy slug, shirking my weblog duties over the holiday week. Ha! Nothing could be further from the truth. I was doing something useful: writing code instead of generating blather.

I'm pleased to announce the second public release of pxytest, a tool for detecting unsecured proxies. This release, version 1.36, is a significant update. It fixes one bug, adds one new proxy type, and provides a whole slew of new features.

I released the pxytest open proxy tester last month, and it's received a great response.

When I released the program, I did so without testing the cisco module. This test detects a router without a password set, which can be used to proxy spam. I just received word from Furio Ercolessi that this module works correctly. Cool! And thanks, Furio.

Software Archive: pxytest

A significant portion of the spam today is delivered through unsecured proxies. Spammers use these proxies because they make the messages untraceable. I just released a new tool named pxytest that can be used to test a host for open proxies.