Free Radio Linux
by r a d i o q u a l i a
http://radioqualia.va.com.au/freeradiolinux/
http://crossfade.walkerart.org/
Free Radio Linux, a new project by r a d i o q u a l i a, commissioned
by Gallery 9/Walker Art Center, is a the first net.radio distribution of
the world's most popular open source software - the operating system,
Linux.
Free Radio Linux is an online and on-air radio station. The sound
transmission is a computerised reading of the entire source code used to
create the Linux Kernel, the basis of all distributions of Linux.
Launched February 3, the fourth anniversary of the day the Open Source
Initiative (http://www.opensource.org/) coined the term "open source" as
a label for freely published source code
(http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.html), there are only
approximately 582 days before the code has been fully netcast.
Each line of code is read by an automated computer voice - a speech.bot
utility built by r a d i o q u a l i a. The speech.bot's output is
encoded into an audio stream, using the open source code, Ogg Vorbis
(http://www.vorbis.com), and sent out live on the internet. FM, AM and
Shortwave radio stations from around the world will also relay the audio
stream on various occasions.
The Linux kernel contains 4,141,432 millions lines of code. Reading the
entire kernel will take an estimated 14253.43 hours, or 593.89 days.
Listeners can track the progress of Free Radio Linux by listening to the
audio stream, or checking the text-based progress field in the ./listen
section of the website (http://www.radioqualia.net/freeradiolinux)
./ BACKGROUND : LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE
Since Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds
(http://www.cs.Helsinki.FI/u/torvalds/) started development of the
operating system, Linux in 1991, the collaborative model of software
development has reached profound new heights. Consisting of millions of
lines of source code, Linux has been mutated, improved and sent
spiraling off into new directions by literally thousands of programmers
from all around the world. This is because Torvalds promoted a simple
approach to the development of Linux: he made the code available for
users of the operating system to read, view and alter. Sharing their
ideas on the software and potential improvements was a core part of
Torvalds' ethic. Due to the extraordinary success of Linux, the ethic of
code sharing has reached new heights of popularity. Code sharing is no
longer a process specific to computer science, rather it has become an
ideology embraced by business, the computer using public, and a
multitude of cultural, artistic and academic sectors. When Linux won one
of electronic art's most prestigious prizes, the Prix Ars Electronica
(http://prixars.aec.at/history/net/1999/E99net_01.htm) for .net
excellence in 1999, Open Source completed its journey from a prosaic
functional process to a phenomenon verging on art.
./ FREE RADIO MEETS FREE SOFTWARE
In the hierarchy of media, radio reigns. There are more computers than
modems, more phones than computers, and more radios than phones. Radio
is the closest we have to an egalitarian method of information
distribution. Free Radio Linux advocates that radio is the best method
for distributing the world's most popular free software.
Free Radio Linux is therefore be a networked broadcast system,
transmitting on ether-net via open source audio codec, Ogg Vorbis and
relayed on AM, Shortwave and FM frequencies, by a collection of ham
radio amateurs and radio professionals.
Free Radio Linux also continues the tradition of FM 'code stations' of
the early-mid eighties. These stations were pirate broadcasters who
distributed bootleg software programmes via radio transmitters, allowing
early hackers with home computers, such as Sinclair ZX80-81s, Commodore
64s, and Acorns, to demodulate the signal through a modem and run the
code. The modern day equivalent, Free Radio Linux, similarly enables
anyone with notepad to transcribe the code and utilise it at his or her
convenience.
