Author: Joseph Dickson

Joseph Dickson is a front-end web developer with experience building higher education websites using ClassicPress, WordPress, and Drupal.

PyRadio

Read a quick post at from Linux Journal about setting up PyRadio. Admittedly the hardest part was finding a valid URL for stations as many hide or obscure their urls behind a block of JavaScript.

Additionally, this is a great way to listen to streaming radio without a website hogging your CPU and RAM.

If you are using Peppermint or any other Ubuntu 18.04 based distribution that supports snap packages you can grab PyRadio by running the following commands in the terminal.

sudo apt install snapd
sudo snap install pyradio

I visited TuneIn.com where I was able to inspect their player and collect the necessary public urls to mp3 streams while they were playing.

This is my first use of a snap application so I’m not certain the configuration path will be identical on your system.

stations.csv configuration location in my user account.

Once up and running I opened stations.csv in vim and added the NPR station streams I collected earlier.

stations.csv configuration example.

Here are those URLs if you would like to test them.

  • http://kcrw.streamguys1.com/kcrw_192k_mp3_on_air_internet_radio
  • http://kcrw.streamguys1.com/kcrw_192k_mp3_e24_tunein
  • http://kcrw.streamguys1.com/kcrw_192k_mp3_news_tunein
  • http://kpcclive1.publicradio.org/kpcclive/

After saving the .csv and restarting PyRadio my new stations appeared for selection.

Brief thoughts on WordPress.org leadership

Reading a post by Joost de Valk about moving on from the Marketing Lead position left me with concerns about the project.

Today WordPress.org leadership is narrowly tied to a small number individuals from a short list organizations that rely heavily on the platform for their market success. This allows for nimble decision making but ultimately limits community leadership.

Leadership should grow from the community

I’d love to see efforts made in the following areas that reflect WordPress’ wider community.

  • Consider limiting the number of leaders that come from a company, organization or industry.
  • Hold elections within the WordPress.org community to appoint leadership to well defined terms.
  • Maintain a benevolent dictator if necessary but clearly define what that person does and why.
  • WordPress must document the governance of the project and how it is led. (Examples from other FOSS projects)

It is my hope that the WordPress.org community will rally together to demand an independent and well documented governance model. We’re too large to not have one.

Note: A community movement to formalize WordPress.org governance exists that provides a better argument than I have done here.