Free Open Source and Linux in Vietnam

We could say I’m currently in holidays because I’m not officially working in any company, but I spend much part of my free time these days working in my delayed opensource projects. The first one I had to dedicate more time is SubDownloader, which is a Subtitle Automatic Downloader.

The project started few years ago because I need a way to not waste my time searching trought subtitles sites in order to find subtitles for my movies/series. I contacted Brano, the admin of a opensubtitles.org and together we created the API to connect my software with his site.

Why it saves so much time? Well, let’s say you have a folder full with 30 movies, that need subtitles, but you don’t want to go and search 1 by 1 all the titles of the movies in order to find subtitles.

Well, in SubDownloader, you just have to click on the folder that contains that movies and it will show up automatically the subtitles found in few seconds. Then you select the language that you want and voilà, they are downloaded easily.

But what assures me that the subtitle is good for my videos ? Well, due that the database is full of hashes of the videos, you can be sure that the user that upload that subtitle, was having exactly the same videofile that you have now, so that means that it fits almost perfect.

SubDownloader is , of course, Free Open Source Software, FOSS, it was started using WxPython but then I started to like QT so I moved to PyQT, the forge of the project is on Launchpad, so we use bazar, launchpad bugs and translations which makes our work more easy.

The number of downloads passed 1 million 6month ago, so we calculate will be around 1.5 millions by now, it’s a pitty that Launchpad doesn’t seem to care to support the Downloads Counter in their forge, so we cannot see statistics of our current downloads, but we observer that in peek time, there are around 1000 users using connected to the software server at the same time, which is awesome so far.

Plans for the future:

- Make contact with more subtitles sites to advertise the application.

- Make it torrent compatible so the subtitles can be shared by users instead of the current server-client link.

I also have to say that this software won the 1st University Open Source Contest of Spain in the category of Multimedia in 2007.

Also I need to say that free software can never be illegal and this one isn’t. We don’t own any server hosting subtitles, SubDownloader is just the client to the API of opensubtitles.org .
Our program is mainly based to be used with legal copies of movies, copyleft movies, public domain movies, so if any MPAA-like or SGAE(Spain) try to sue us, that only will give us a lot of publicity in the medias, so go ahead!!!

With the donations so far, we are going to hire some developers to work in Babiloo, our second open source project that I will talk soon here.

I arrived last 21th October to Singapore. I’ve found a job in a Singapore Linux Company named Adeptiva Linux.
I miss really a lot Vietnam and Vietnamese people. Singapore it’s a too easy city and not as much exciting as Vietnam, anyway we need to move forward and some day I’ll come back for working.

Anyway my wife is Singapore, currently studying tourism here in Singapore so we’ll come back at least 2 times per year to Vietnam to visit friend’s and family.

The good thing about working in a Linux company is that everything is Open Source, I don’t need, like usually, to explain any boss about how or why to migrate to Open Source. I’m happily working in a Ubuntu Gutsy Dual Core and 23” screen with 4GB of Ram . The phones work with Asterisk, the mail with Zimbra, etc.

My mission here is Web Programmer oriented to new WebApplication frameworks like Groovy and Grails and QooxDoo Widgets, once I’ve got used to it I feel really comfortable and it’s amazing to see the results that these languages-frameworks can provide you in few moments.

I’ll try to get sometime in order to keep working in my 2 main Open Source community projects. Subdownloader and Babiloo, they are not dead, they will never be because they’re open

Totally 20.000 computers will migrate to OpenOffice suite instead of starting to pay the Microsoft licenses which in VietNam represents a lot of money saved.

Their reasons are mainly economical, but also they will enjoy some extra features:

A fantastic localization/translation of OpenOffice to Vietnamese and the SpellChecker in Vietnamese.

Original new here. http://english.vietnamnet.vn/tech/2007/09/739409/

I am very proud of the decision I took few years ago about not giving Free support to Microsoft when some friend ask me to fix their Windows or install some drivers, etc. I remember I coudn’t say no during my youth and I spent a lot of my times helping them to love more that operating system.

Since that day I only give give free support installing and fixing Linux systems, and what I like the most is to do brand new installations in laptops because I can contribute to write guides to make other people in the future to install linux on the same model. That way I don’t feel I’m only helping my friend, but all the people with the same model who check the guidelist.

Few places to write or read that Laptop/Hardware guides are :

The Ubuntu LaptopTestingTeam , here there is an example of laptop that I wrote yesterday.
TuxMobil, here there is an example of my wife’s laptop I wrote one month ago.
Linux-Laptops

If sometimes we must write this guides it’s because Ubuntu don’t detect everything, the most common problem is the non-support of Wifi native drivers so it must be done using Ndiswrapper(some linux-talibans won’t agree emulating Windows drivers). The 2nd most repeated problem is the screen resolution in new laptops and graphic cards.

What I normally during I write the guide is to post all the bugs founded to Ubuntu Launchpad , explaining which model I’m using, reporting the lspci, xorg and dmesg outputs. That way I’ll make sure that nobody will find that issues in the next versions of Ubuntu.

I personally like more the UbuntuLaptopTesting Wiki because everybody can modify or subscribe to any wiki-page(the owners of that laptop-model for example) and see all the progresses making that model become 100% functional.

So, everybody willing to install linux on their new laptop in HCMC, please leave a comment and I’ll be glad to meet him to take a coffee and help him with the process.

I personally knew that the movement initiated by Dell about installing Ubuntu on their machines would make jealous  other distributors, that’s the case of acer (in Singapore for the moment). We can see in the image the model Aspire 5710Z with the Ubuntu distribution.

I would like to see Dell Vietnam learning from this because the laptops that they sell with Linux pre-installed are only Terminal-based distribution. Not useful at all, and the end-user normally installs Windows right away and even worst, will think that linux was a very complicated thing.

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Thanks to the HanoiLug and Vu Do Quynh specially to give me the link of the most interesting points that were talked during the visioconference.

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When the new rule takes effect on December 15, drivers will be required to wear helmets on all Vietnamese streets. Currently, helmets are only required on highways.

More info here

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