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Denis "Jaromil" Rojo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaromil) is an artist and a FOSS hacker. He's popularly known for Dyne:Bolic (http://www.dynebolic.org/), a Live CD distribution that contains several applications for audio and video manipulation. As a programmer, he is author of several free software that present new possibilities for online radios. As an artist he is known for his netart performances (http://lab.dyne.org/JaromilTalks) and for crafting the most elegant and efficient 13-character forkbomb ever written (http://www.digitalcraft.org/?artikel_id=292).
Packt Columnist, Mayank Sharma, interviews Jaromil.
Discussing Dyne:Bolic and Freedom with Denis
"Jaromil" Rojo
Denis "Jaromil" Rojo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaromil)
is an artist and a FOSS hacker. He's popularly known for Dyne:Bolic (http://www.dynebolic.org/),
a Live CD distribution that contains several applications for audio and video
manipulation. As a programmer, he is author of several free software that
present new possibilities for online radios. As an artist he is known for his
netart performances (http://lab.dyne.org/JaromilTalks) and for crafting the
most elegant and efficient 13-character forkbomb ever written (http://www.digitalcraft.org/?artikel_id=292).
A media activist, Jaromil is the author of MuSE (http://muse.dyne.org/)
- a network audio streaming engine, FreeJ (http://freej.dyne.org/)
- a tool for real-time video manipulation and hasciicam (http://ascii.dyne.org/) that captures feeds
from a TV tuner card and renders them in ASCII. He's also a very strong
supporter of the Free Software movement and the founder of Dyne.org, which he calls
a free software foundry for digital artisans. Jaromil took time out to share
his views on free software and discuss about the development of Dyne:Bolic.
Mayank Sharma: Could you please share a little about yourself. You are an
interesting mix of artist, a social activist and FOSS hacker.
Denis Rojo: I am creative, as many other people around the world are or can be.
When you are creative you can express yourself in many different ways.
Different forms of expression don't exclude each other, even when it seems so -
like with literature and computers, science and humanism. Sometimes they
integrate in unique combinations as you cultivate your interests and talents
all together. So I don't really see a difference between roles as artist,
social activist or FOSS hacker: all such roles presume the capacity to
understand, exchange knowledge and be understood. As different forms of
expression and social intervention, artist activist and hacker roles can be
combined with a new and unusual mix at a first glance, sometimes with
innovative results and higher consciousness of the impact of technology in
society.
What really makes a difference is not who you are, but what you really want,
and why: what moves you. What you really want to do for yourself and - most
important - for the others around you. More than ever in the hyper connected
world of today you can't ignore the resonance of your actions around you and
through the networks you are connected.
As for my personal "mix", I was born in 1977 in a little city on the Adriatic sea, with Neapolitan roots. This made me part of
the first generation of kids around the Mediterranean area that has grown up
with computers, I had my first one with 6 years old and I started programming
in the age of 12. Such a situation is much more common nowadays in
technologically equipped societies: in the third millennium kids start
interacting with computers very early and there is a lot of knowledge already
available to learn from.
That I'm so proficient in informatics I have to thank my family for that. They
understood it was important for me to know about computers, as it would give me
something to survive in a technocratic world, so they made sacrifices for my
education, as often south Italian families do for their kids. And of course
also the GNU project played an important role in my education :)
Despite the contact with computers, while growing up I nourished my interests
in literature, which through the years became an almost obsessive thirst for
new books, stories, experiences. After
classic literature studies in high school I discovered a science called "Semiotics"
(which apparently Umberto Eco unveiled with his studies in the '60s) which can
be applied to various levels of representation, as a conceptualization of
communication practices. I was fascinated by the role of art, carrying
experience and feelings through mankind, across lands and across time.
The context in which I've lived in most of my youth was a mutation of
north-western society, imported in the south of Italy right after the second
world war: cities grew bigger, a state government completely corrupted and
manipulated by the imperialist influences of the USA, which already knew well
how to land and conquer the Latin world, as they did and still do in many places
of South America.
By experiencing it so closely, I developed a critical view on the capitalist
system. In this regard I think FOSS is not simply about computers: the free and
open source software movement is a fresh new development for the world, it can
become a new sustainable model for evolution. The principles of cooperation and
sharing, as opposed to competition are way more efficient in reaching a
balanced progress for societies: FLOSS is a proof of this for immaterial goods
as software.
MS: I have read your views on free software. Could you explain to our readers
what do you mean by the "consumerist approach" of proprietary
software? Many people fail to understand how empowering free software can be.
DR: With "consumerism" I define a specific sickness of capitalist
societies: treating every citizen just as a consumer of goods, instead of an
individual capable of producing and elaborating new ideas. In such a setup the
basic right to consume is taken for granted by everyone, but the control of
production is a privilege for the few who can afford it.
Despite that it is not necessary in the digital way of production; this scheme
has been enforced also with information and technology.
Think of the television and the way it has propagated a cultural monopoly
across entire populations. A few people talk to masses and in most cases they
can, just because they have the money to control broadcasting technologies.
Everyone else only has the right to listen.
Such a loud voice as TV can enter every home, so the public square is not even
necessary anymore, everyone gets informed about what is relevant on TV and TV
decides what is relevant for everyone, what everyone wants after having seen
the latest blinking advertisement. This process of uniformization of society
has been well explained by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse in his publications.
I'm particularly concerned about this issue because the country where I was
born, Italy,
has been recently ruled by a corrupted criminal who was rich enough to own the
majority of the television infrastructure. He used his TV channels to gain
popularity and to be elected as President of the Government. After he reached
power he changed the laws and the judges who were already sentencing him for
his crimes. Till today his power is still immense and he is using it only for
his own lobby interests of so called "free masons", mostly business
related.
I'm not saying technology is good or bad in itself: it is just a tool as such
and can be employed in various ways. To choose the right way, it's important to
consider social and political aspects involved not only business convenience or
military power.
But let's look at a positive example in technological development. When Marconi
labored to make voice cross the ocean, he thought we could use his invention
for news broadcast, as it is with radio, one-to-many communication. But luckily
enough for us, his technology became the telephone as we know it today: a tool
for independent and spontaneous one-to-one communication, a horizontal
information architecture that is so important for the vast majority of
societies today.
Coming back to software, the consumerism is enforced by business corporations
since the existence of audio and video broadcasting through the internet: players
are gratis, but if you want to produce and broadcast something then you need to
pay. Free exchange of information among people, as in peer-to-peer
technologies, is banned on behalf of business interests.
But luckily enough it looks like this is changing and the internet has opened
more spaces for people to express themselves.
MS: I remember reading an interview of yours when you were in India last
year. You said "Richard Stallman is a capitalist. He is a very good friend
of mine but doesn't take a clear position."
DR: Right after that interview I published a correction on my website. In that
article my words are transcribed as "Richard Stallman is a capitalist"
where as I recall to have never literally said something like that.
What I tried to explain in the interview is that, while the Free Software Foundation
and Richard Stallman himself don't have an anti-capitalist position for what
they do, I do have.
So please read my statement as "while Richard Stallman doesn't hold an anti-capitalist
position, I do."
I felt like specifying that FSF and RMS are not sharing my anti-capitalist
views since I had a previous email exchange with Richard in which he wrote me
once that "I am not against capitalism as such, though I am against letting
business have power as it has today."
In making my statement for the interview I didn't want to assimilate the whole
free software movement to my personal view and motivation, but by doing so I
must have confused the journalist. And now I'm very sorry for it!
MS: Thanks for clearing that up. Now let's turn our
attention to Dyne:Bolic. What is it and how did it come about?
DR: It is a liveCD system born out of the community of the Italian Hackmeeting
( http://www.hackmeeting.org), which was also enlightened by the visit of Wau Holland
(Chaos Computer Club) in Milano 2000 and RMS in Bologna 2002. This event
happens every year (since 7 years now) and gathers hundreds of hackers, every
time in a different squatted place through the north or south of Italy,
creating temporary autonomous zones where technically and politically aware
hackers meet to share their knowledge and researches, completely free from any
business and sponsoring, to focus specifically on what it is seen to be an
important technological development in society.
Since its existence the hackmeeting has been solidar to the struggle of Italian
autonomist movements which animated the anti-G8 protests in Napoli,
Genova as in many other places around the world. So dyne:bolic (d:b) is
basically a tool for media-activists and it is studied to fit their purposes.
Since the beginning I fitted my audio/video software in it (HasciiCam, MuSE,
FreeJ), as the liveCD format permitted an easier employment of them and the
GNU/Linux system on any computer.
MS: Is d:b only for people interested in multimedia
production? Can it be used as a regular desktop?
DR: Since version 2 d:b became a core system optimized for multimedia
operations, still keeping good efficiency when running on older computers. It
comes with tools for easy customizations so now basically any hacker can tweak
it to fit particular purposes. As a basic system it provides usability for what
I call a "hacktive" desktop that is apart from including regular
functionality, it also discloses more possibilities beyond them.
MS: d:b has surely managed to gather a lot of attention and appreciation from
the community at large.
The Independent named you one of the top 10 Open Source
projects of 2005. How has d:b evolved over the years?
DR: d:b was born in 2001 and the first milestone was reached in 2002 with the
0.5.6 version, with the goal of providing an easy to use streaming tool for
your own internet radio. Following that achievement, development turned towards
the goal of a full multimedia liveCD including all mature tools for creativity
and independent publishing, which reached a mature state with version 1.x
"LUMUMBA" release in early 2005.
Version 1 also added some important features that were new to liveCDs at that
time, like automatic clustering, nesting (save your data and settings on USB
keys) and docking, a hard-disk installation system which doesn't require
re-partitioning, to easily co-exist with other operating systems.
As it grew popular, a fundamental problem arose and required a full re-write of
the system: better documentation, readability and better organization of
startup shell code and more. In general we wanted to simplify the possibility
for other people to customize and extend the system.
So dyne:II was born. More than a branch, it is another milestone. It reached
the goal of having a "nomadic" system that can be customized and
mutated even across re-writable CDs, without carrying a laptop around. It has a
modular system to plug different collections of software, developed by a
rapidly growing community of hackers.
MS: What's so rocking about the dyne:II branch? Are you still the sole
developer?
DR: I'm not the sole developer of dyne:II, as Smilzo helped in its early stage
of compiling it from scratch. Very important was the participation of the goto 10
hackers, Antonios Aymeric and Chun, who created the pure:dyne branch. They
didn't simply develop an awesome dyne:II module for audio and video artists,
but also formed a talented team that reviewed and debugged all my recent
developments, with precious emphasis on multimedia performance.
In dyne:II I could step back from development of the system as a whole, to
concentrate more on the "core" scripts and architecture of the
operating system, which has remarkably evolved.
Unfortunately the dyne:II branch didn't benefit long from Smilzo's activity.
Due to his health problems, he had to dedicate his time to finding money to
survive and for costly operations, so we still lack some special features like
clustering and support for game consoles.
MS: Could you please list the parts/features of d:b that you are really proud
of?
DR: On top of the list is the Docking mechanism. Achieved in dyne:bolic version
1, it lets users run the system from the hard-disk by simply copying a
directory in it, without installation hassles and without the risk implied by
installing a bootloader.
Also the module system of software collection in version 2 is remarkable: users
can install whole bundles of new applications just dropping files into a
directory, without even worrying about library dependencies.
I'm proud of the simplicity all that is implemented: the startup scripts are
cleanly written and all based on Zsh, Sed and Awk - portable, lightweight and
quick technologies. In my C++ code I pay special attention to clean formatting
and readability. With dyne:II system scripts I tried to do my best with shell
language, reaching some good results after having rewritten them for the third
time.
Also a recent point of pride is the architecture of the dyne:II ramdisk, which
opens possibilities for future development of a network based OS.
MS: And the ones that you aren't?
DR: First of all, that it provides only an x86 binary system, without any
possibility for cross-platform compatibility with Arm, Mips or PPC processors.
Support is also lacking for translating the operating system, which is a shame
since most users of dyne:bolic aren't native English speakers.
Then the fact that with version 2 we haven't kept up with all the features that
were there in version 1.
But there is future, to fix all this, hopefully :)
MS: Could you share details about individuals/groups using d:b to create their
works and how?
DR: There are many and the mailing list gathers more than 450 enthusiasts using
d:b in various fields, mostly musicians or video artists, but also teachers,
journalists and activists.
I'd like to avoid mentioning commercial names: it is unfair for independent
creators. I recall several crazy creations like videos made with a
skateboard-mounted hasciicam, or honest school teachers all around the world
freely providing all the software they teach to their students, or the Louga
folklore festival in Senegal,
Africa, where they use d:b to record and
stream the beats and chants of the event.
MS: So what can we expect in the upcoming d:b releases? Any short-term and
long-term goals?
DR: The short-term goal is to stabilize dyne:II and provide some infrastructure
for the community of users and developers that is rapidly growing around it.
The Freaknet.org network of hackers, which can be seen as the south Italian
core group at the hearth of dyne.org, is consolidating the server fleet to hold
all the network traffic that this is causing.
The long term goal for 2007/2008 is dyne:3, a cross-platform system that should
run on most game consoles available nowadays, as well on old Apple iMac
computers, before people consider them ready for the waste.
Another goal in dyne:3 will be to have a larger core development team, which
will include the pure:dyne developers of goto10 and the young and talented
programmers of the Freaknet hacklab.
Dyne.org will keep on growing as a foundation at a reasonable rate. It's
existed for 6 years now and despite the fact that it is less popular than other
sensationalist Open Source initiatives, I believe it is all good because time
is needed for solid developments. We will keep our grass root approach, and
remain motivated to keep on fighting consumerism and mindless production of
hardware. We plan to do that by optimizing the software instead of raising
hardware requirements, and by claiming legitimacy to run our creations on all
hardware available. We must stop the corporations from limiting the
functionalities of many popular computers as game consoles. They are denying
the right of users to run what they like on the hardware they own.
MS: From what I understand, it's very easy for developers to contribute to the
development of d:b. Any particular areas where you could use a hand?
DR: With version 2, I'm trying to distribute more of my responsibilities on the
dyne:OS development, but this is a slow process that needs proper
infrastructure to be in place, which is partly not yet there. Currently it is
my first priority and any help is appreciated.
Other useful activities are the development of modular software collections
that are well documented and specific to single tasks, as well of some simple
graphical interfaces (I believe gtk-dialog and shell scripting are the best
technologies for that) to increase the usage of the system and expose the many
possibilities of certain command line programs.
Also a webmaster is pretty much needed as I'm still the only one taking care of
dynebolic.org web pages.
MS: What license do you release your creations under?
DR: I release my creations under the GNU General Public License version 2 and
any later version. I believe version 3 is going to be a great improvement so I
will certainly be using that in future.
Nowadays there is growing popularity as well as confusion about Open Source and
Free Software, as well as commercial and mediatic speculations. I think it is
very important to keep following the efforts of the original Free Software
Foundation. They have already shown great practical and philosophical
consciousness through the years, achieving incredible results with the
directions they took. While there are several other and even more popular
initiatives trying to manipulate the original nature of FOSS, I recommend
everyone to keep following the one that originally inspired this incredible
movement.
 Mayank
Sharma is a freelance writer from New Delhi, India. He is
blown away by the power of Free and Open Source Software and its
usefulness to developing nations.
Check out his blog
at http://www.geekybodhi.net/
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