In several occasions I had to build RPM packages for installing software. In the past I mostly did it with a Maven build using the RPM Maven Plugin.

The process is simple: At the end of your build you gather up all resources, try to understand the mapping configuration, bang your head a few times in order to figure out way to work with -SNAPSHOT versions and that’s it. In the end you have a few RPM files.

Now creating an RPM file is easy. There are a lot of tutorials out there on how write a SPEC file and build your RPM. Even when you are using Maven … with the exception that when you are on Windows or Mac OS X, the Maven RPM plugin will still try to invoke rpmbuild in order to actually build the RPM file. The maven bundle simply creates a SPEC file, layout out the payload data and lets rpmbuild do the processing.

A few weeks ago we started to test Mattermost as a communication channel for Eclipse Foundation projects. So, how is it going?

When you start learning a new programming language you often encounter snippets of code which you have no idea why they work. The more you learn about that programming language to more you understand and these moments become rare.

This is the third time I am testing Diaspora. I never wrote about the other attempts, but between Christmas and New Year a had a bit of time writing this together.

Motivated by the article at Heise about diaspora, I decided it is time to give diaspora another try. I did try the first version after the crowdfunding campaign and one or two years later.