Converge
Dyne:bolic
by Adnan Hadzi
Over the last few years "Free Libre and Open Source Software" (FLOSS) - a form of collaborative software development - has grown rapidly over the digital networks. "Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech", not as in "free beer". The users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software as they wish - in other words, not restricted by patents or copyright.
The idea of free software still needs more acceptance from users who are not programmers. This shows a demand for technical literacy, but also the fact that FLOSS needs to be developed further for it to become "user-friendly".
Linux is one of the most famous FLOSS developments. Linux is a computer operating system which can be installed for free on any computer without having to pay for it, unlike the commercial mainstream operating systems like Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS. All its source code is available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify, and redistribute it.
Among other software, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] includes the free software below, released under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License. The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU GNU] project (a project to create a completely free software operating system). It has since become the most popular license for FLOSS initiatives.
How to use it
All you have to do is to download the disk image from http://www.dynebolic.org, burn it onto a CD and reboot your computer with this CD inside. You can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream. You don't have to install anything because the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] system can run just from the CD and automatically recognizes most of your devices and peripherals such as sound, video and network cards.
Other similar initiatives
[http://muse.dyne.org/ MuSE] - Multiple Streaming Engine is a user friendly but powerful tool for network audio streaming.
[http://cinelerra.org/ Cinelerra] is a video editing system. Thanks to its small size it can be run on older computers and enables multimedia video and non-linear video editing access more publicly.
[http://ascii.dyne.org/ HasciiCam] makes it possible to have live [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art ASCII] video on the web. It captures video from a TV card and renders it into ASCII letters, formatting the output into an webpage with a refresh tag, or into a live ASCII window, or into a simple text file.
[http://freej.org/ FreeJ] is a VJing tool for real-time video manipulation. VJ or veejay (from video jockey, by analogy with disc jockey or DJ or deejay) is a term coined in the early 1980s to describe the fresh-faced youth who introduced the music videos on MTV. The word VJ is also used to represent video performance artists who create live visuals on all kind of music.
Dyne.org - general background information
"This software is about Digital Resistance in a Babylon world which tries to control and market the way we communicate, we share our interests and knowledge. The roots of the Rastafari movement are in resistance to slavery: this software is one step in the struggle for Redemption and Freedom from proprietary and closed-source software." (Jaromil 2000)
In 2000 Jaromil registered the domain [http://www.dyne.org/ dyne.org]. Dyne.org started as a software atelier, a lab for on-line development of software; a place to show the creations of programmers and to address issues like distribution of knowledge, freedom of speech, and the sharing of free technologies in support of those who have less opportunities to access them.
So, if dyne.org is not a company, what is it then?
"dyne.org is a network, communication flows between individuals, without any hierarchy or power structures. As long as the constituting fundamental of every community are identities, defining themselves with their activity, dyne.org is a network of individuals and doesn’t aim to be in any way representing neither substituting them. If you make us a collaboration proposal remember that dyne.org is not a business company: you'll need to arrange business terms with each one interested, singularly and independently." (Jaromil 2000)
This is the lab behind the bootable GNU/Linux system [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] outlined above. Jaromil came up with the idea of creating a free and easy-to-employ operating system for radio broadcasting including his streaming software MuSE after he attended, in 2001, the presentation of the Bolic1 live CD distribution by the [http://wiki.hacklab.org.uk/index.php/Hacklabs_from_digital_to_analog LOA hacklab], when they gathered in a hackmeeting in Sicily organized by the [http://freaknet.org/ FreakNet] media lab. In August 2002 Jaromil employed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] in the independent net-art project Farah in Palestine. After the positive experience of the Farah project, the development was focused on lowering technical requirements (computer speed etc) in order to be able to use recycled hardware. Today the bootable [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] CD is a complete multimedia system. At the time of writing (June 2006) the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] system is for example being used by the independent Iraqi media project [http://streamtime.org/ Streamtime.org].
Streamtime uses the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] system to broadcast radio programs from Iraq. People can speak to the world through a hand-held microphone connected to a computer. The first streams where initiated on the 14th July 2004. The broadcast was picked up by several stations in European cities such as Naples (Italy), Zurich (Switzerland), Munich (Germany), Sheffield (United Kingdom), Bern (Switzerland) and Amsterdam (Netherlands) and broadcast directly, or in an edited version later on.
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] system is a computer operating system that gives the widest possible public access to the technology because it will run on the original Pentium series of machines PCs with quantities of RAM that would not be considered sufficient for a basic PC these days, let alone a multimedia workstation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyne:bolic Dyne:bolic] also runs on the Microsoft Xbox games console!
"It's a core feature! (...) Hardware recycling has been an important activity for the FreakNet Medialab, setting up free surf stations in a squatted building back in the early '90s. (...) It is about the politics and philosophy we developed in the Hackmeeting: in solidarity with the poor, and trying to fill the digital divide since the very beginning." (Jaromil 2000)