http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/documentation
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Session #3 20141120 Thursday: Much about BeOS history - some on focuses of HaikuOS

We watched video of 1995 History of BeOS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4A0Lc6DI7A
(targeting developers and early adopters)

notable notes and quotes:
Jean-Louis Gassée, CEO of Be Inc. (exApple product manadger): 
"One processor per person is not enough"
Beos was free us from layers, "sediments", blank slate
..."The linux of digital multimedia".

BeBox hardware made by Be Inc. was using cheaper processors 
but 5 of them against dominant hardware integration strategies
(ref.2700 dollars in 1995)

The vice-president of developer relations Steve Sakoman:
"The playing field is level" Turning processors on and off
Key feature of BeOS was multutatsking but also'pervasive multi-treading' 
that allowed for use of multiple processors interchangably.
Preemptive multitasking - dynamically handling processing, 
boxing, virtual machine-like/sandboxing.

Multimedia syncing and control was possible
almost a decade before Linux FLOSS media servers (flow motion). 
Super object-oriented on many levels (translators and add-ons).

Database-like file system 64bit journalings (so with "live folders" 
- operate like tagging rather than hierarchical placing) 
Moving stuff around to look like other system, but being more advanced
(author Dominc Gianpolo later made GoogleFS and AppleFS updates). 

Multiple desktop (9) could be at different resolutions.
Multiple audio, video, TV cards possible...
but also "you still got the power ... so here is your terminal"

Linux influence on queering desktop? 
Neil Stephenson essay: "In the beginning was the command-line"
(BeOS is batmobile=

non-conventional engineers treating developers 
BeOS would send source code around as example instead of manuals.



#2 Session 20141118 Tuesday: user-identity-privacy-security-obscurity

Not possible to be made in industry
Less efficient, telling stories

Resurrecting/reincarnation of BeOs ... as a Queer OS (or was it already)
Commercial failure, conceptual triumph? Haiku = all error messages in BeOs where written as poems 

Bulding it from scratch, but in another world.

One element of all that: how to deal with discontinuous identies / fragile identities / unstable identities / erratic identities, and representation thereof

Other models: 
*Android makes a user for each app
*Inconsistent profiles, 'security', bleeding between identities
*Jonah Brucker-Kohn: max 5 members on a mailinglist
*Heath Bunting splitting his activities over e-mail addresses (project-in-spain@irational.org)
*Shallow profiles (ref. sex-dating sites): profiles that are easily set up and deleted
*Obfuscation of singular ownership, authorship --> Projects like TrackMeNot and the new AdNauseam explore an alternate strategy, namely obfuscation (http://datafied-research.projects.cavi.au.dk/?p=455)
*groups + roles ... and power ( being a user or another only defines ownership of files, what an user can or can't do is defined by the groups it is part of)
*poly-amorous relations, non-reciprocal groups/relations (ref: Planet Romeo does allow only one partner at a time)
*Problematic proposals: Facebook "other" (not always available), OK cupid = 'options' (http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/11/16/okcupid-begins-rolling-out-new-sexuality-and-gender-options/?utm_content=buffera9e32&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer) 



At the time when produce possibilities were large no big functionnal corporation powerfull enough yet.
so we started to go on redeveloping queer os
deal  with the idea of multiuser.disambiguate one identity to different  users. Question of the duration of identities of communication

Identity  sharing we would play with the idea of temporary identities by sharing  identity info between user in order to create an emerging temporary  character.


Reaffirmations through software. Alghorithms that fragment

We should not talk about sex? Genitals are sex, doing sex ... To be queer means many things
Queerness is a non-category?

Doing sex work, having sex = not sexe ...
We need to talk about class, gender, situatedness, displacement, ... footprints that have to be left on the OS (of identification, stability, etc.)

Move away from icons/representations of consumerism

Foldering/folders ... logic of what gets wrapped into what
Spending time with your OS ... accumulation

Periodical self-destruction, implosion
Obfuscation: Susan Stryker here: http://obfuscationsymposium.org/participants/

system wide support for standards on the level of the system
translators: communicating while keeping difference (both within the OS and of it with its outside)

multiple desktops

a sign of queerness would be to have it on an external HD and even like this be faster than the OS installed in the machine


[disposession as a tactic against property-driven performances within an OS http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2013/09/01/book-review-dispossession-the-performative-in-the-political/] 


    How to report the self image of personal OS as an image of one's identity


Luka Frelih: streaming project / self-installing OS work
Martino: "from tale it became myth"

it seems more interesting to deal with "conditions" such as SUPERUSER (that you voluntarily take for certain tasks and then can leave)

sudo without a sudo group. radical sudo
everyone root? 

Life-server project as extereme explicity

productivity

construction of criticality -- is the computer a space that helps construct criticality?








QUEER OPERATING SYSTEM 

#1 Session 20141117 presentation by Željko Bla?e

Queering beyond critique - can it be a productive position??
To Who, Why and How? 

What is an operating system? 
The ground software providing the basis to interact with user, play sound, show image, text...
Depending on device or computer, you can have special, 
niche ones (chips, phoes) to macosx that needs one DVD of data/code
an operating system is depending on the function 
it needs to fulfill but also on market elements...
When competing in a market these commercial ones need (?) 
to follow established GUI metaphors 'Desktop', "files" and "folders", concepts of 'productivity' like "office tools"

Interest of Željko:
What are most basic uses of average user, without turning you in an office clerk
How coud you change the dominant paradigms?
Who can learn/benefit from queer position/experience?
http://wiki.ljudmila.org/Queer_OS


FAR HISTORY: 
- Back in 1995 - BeOS lost the market battle with Windows95
by being 2 weeks too late and by Microsoft blackmailing hardware makers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS 
It was multimedia focused innovative system 
but relying on established POSIX system structure 
(inplemented across all variants of UNIX operating systems)
- State of computing and multimedia was miserable for desktop users
(it would only work when you were lucky and very basic things)
while BeOS could do multi-mp3 play, 3d mapping, crazy stuffs on a desktop.
Hardware was also made for experimentation and hacking 
http://mobile.osnews.com/story.php/20869/Planets-Align-Rare-Hobbit-BeBox-Offered-and-Sold/
Felt like it would change the IT world, but: their best success in Market 
was a huge cash compensation by Microsoft (away from court), 
as they were bullied off from the market...
Their developers went to Google, Palm and Apple - innovating less radically.

RECENT & PRESENT:
Indy developers still try to re-do BeOS with free tools and make follow-up in HAIKU 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_%28operating_system%29
but different expectations, requirements in the mean time
TOTALLY UN-PRODUCTIVE! (in conventional market terms :)
IT IS A DEAD-END (no new major software would be produced for it)
Problems with hardware, drivers and software options are permanent.. 
but it still has a niche charm while being more ambitious than common OSes
Niels - theorist and package maintainer 
(also comrade helping to resurrect Haiku as QueerOS)
gave a talk in 2010 on FOSDEM talking about Haiku as QueerOS
dealing with situation as queer and use it to advantage to
"undermine the monotone machinery of competition."
Basic pre-conditions and also opportunities: 
- we have to give up to be mainstream. we will remain underdog
- no pressure to serve anyone than yourself -> missing in Ubuntu now
innovate in a way that is not relevant for the market
This is a problem within FLOSS. 
People do crazy stuff, but they get into trouble. 

Free software should not only try to emulate what is already out there
Obscure technology ... 

(non-)mainstreaming of LINUX
Linux distros are trying to hard to counter commercial operating systems
with same aims and similar goals - prevent radical innovation. 
A development that is distributed, hybrid would be more rewarding.
With Linux you can have access to all code, 
that is different in proprietary software. 
There are many flavors. "Fairtrade", "Industry strength", "Usable"
Difference between Free (gratis) and Free (freedom)
four freedoms:
1. to use it for anything you like
2. to study the  code/program
3. redistribute copies to your friends
4. redistribute copies of your derivated programs
-> are an invitation to look at how software is constructed, as political object, object of culture, not only pragmatically
use that invitation to think differently, not to make something as powerful as something else


Context for Reflection and Production:
Software Studies is one way this field gets thought, discussed. 
Mix between discourse and technology.

Why not happy with it? 
Z: pushed by academics that need antagonism ... 
not always very political, compromised by funding,
absorbed by normalcy and pacification of academia.
Not mature as field yet, popular mostly in US, 
(exception. Matthew Kirschenbaum = great!)
not though in Europe and not at technical Universities.
It gets normalized. It should be at Tech faculties, 
not only in Humanities where it is a niche now, 
too much self referential


An operating system that is coming out of the closet ...
It looks like MacOS9 ? 
windowing and docking

BE OS did innovation in hardware, they would have their own machines that would run on 5 (!) non mainstream different processors
geek port; hardware made to be experimented with. 
same spirit as Raspberry pi?

Trying to envision things we can think of that we need to have in a Queer OS
if dominant paradigm is not productivity, what would it be?
maybe not safe, productive ... how to queer an operating system
still needs to be programmed & developed

The problem of 'Maker Culture' - most of the time prototyping things that already exist (so mainly modifications, not tinkering with the system)
joined TimeLab in Gent last year, social fabric of community interesting but not politically charged
'Making & Queering' text/manifesto

need to involve other genders, other sex polarities (not just extend to include women)
found peers in feminist queer theories .. slowly making into a set-up to work critically
difficult to get these peers talk about the makers' production/own work, before producing

narratives on opensource and sharing would be somehow a given, but how to be critical of makers production

the agenda for the kickertable was different. denormalize the figurines. 
maybe less playable, more expensive, fragile, mechanically non-resistant etc. but they will have stories.
non-efficient! but they would have stories. ie I want to make a very specific figure of 1 person, for example because it is not usually represented, or a symbol, or hybridysed.

can a figurine be a symbolic figurine?
figurine half human & half currency: because Professional players reduced to their legs ...  to their value on the market. (to figurines?)

"Naiveté"of the relation to production

a new narrative we see within FLOSS too ... how free time/hobby becomes a way to become employable. Is the tool or practice hidding content?
how can a hackerspace be a place for discourse?
Not only what we develop, but also how we develop. 
illusion of the "non ideological?" What are the Implications of liberal enthousiasm?
not only in situations of scarcity, but also of abundance of ressources.
-> by producing this: being both free and employable
-> not reproducing what is there, but how to break this

ex. mislim woman playing football
first she created it as still figurine, after research on existing gears for moving sports women, she came up with innovative model

About maker Culture: Free Universal Constrution Kit: to connect all existing construction toys together
patch, plug things together - 

FabLabs culture and working situations:
hidden rules, both machine and socially defined
machines cannot print everything yet, f.ex. physicial with plastic; printing dildos was complicated 
-> you need to speak language of fablabbers
-> commercial company did not want to print these dildos + mesh up of commercial icons (Mickey Mouse)
companies do not want to take any risk, they dictate what can and can't be done
also contrary experience: someone getting maybe too much traction ... taking over more subtle, critical discourses by printing sex toys (press)

it is hard to start from scratch with full freedom
there is always a license somewhere....
Using software can be seen as a human right? And what does that mean for what software is?

it is not just about freedom for artists

ref. human rights vs queer politics in LGBT
similar to: you have this freedom to use the code because you are an artist vs. you claim the right to use the code
narrative of complete freedom ... what does that really mean? direction is given by people/machines/context

Conditional freedom of production "illusion of freedom"

there is always a boundary. How explicit that is and how you deal with it yourself
"Urban manufacturing"

fitting politics into fablabs as modding
the name of fablab still linkek to MIT, has to fit manifesto

"democratizing manufacturing" is in fact machines making things (buildings)

wiki house: a kit you can modify (?) but it doen not open knowledge, regulations... you can change the colour...
http://www.wikihouse.cc/

3D printing a house from ... concrete!
http://3dprintcanalhouse.com/
what about a house from chocolate?

how to subvert the idea of multi-user into a multi-identity system
an immigrant sexworker? a queer activist?
disambiguation - other types of identification. What would that mean, if you would be not the same identity always. graphics ownership of files and...

P.S. the kicker table wants players
what would we do?

Can we do new handles? what textures would we develop? Shapes?
http://www.timelab.org/en/node/379


LINKS:
    
    
    
http://www.desk.org:8080/ASU2/i.QueerOS (initial wiki notes)
    http://www.haiku-os.org/blog/nielx/2010-04-11_haiku_has_no_future

http://cultureandcommunication.org/deadmedia/index.php/BeOS#What_BeOS_said_about_technology

#2nd BeOS Engineer (Belgian) 
also developer of famous 3DMIX app 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Schillings

http://8325.org/haiku/


http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-dawn-of-haiku-os