Just had a minor annoyance this morning, trying to post a status with gwibber this morning. I was dual-posting to Twitter and Facebook. On Twitter, the post read, simply enough:

DC Tweed Ride 2010. I need to step up my game: http://readysetdc.com/2010/11/video-dc-tweed-ride-2010/

On Facebook, however, Gwibber felt the need to add the word “is” to the beginning of my post. “Cliff Dyer is DC Tweed Ride 2010” makes no sense whatsoever.

I figured Gwibber is python, so it should be pretty easy to patch it not to post the word “is” when it posts to Facebook. Sure enough, in gwibber.microblog.facebook.Client.send() , there is an argument, status_includes_verb , which is set to False (line 403). Apparently, if you tell Facebook you don’t have a verb, it gives you one.

I changed it to status_includes_verb=True , and now my statuses show up exactly how I want them to. All I have to do now to get my status to start with the word “is” is (are you ready for it?) type “is.”

It was a nice reminder why it’s working with open source software is so great. Thanks Linus for starting this whole Linux thing. Thanks RMS for fighting for free software even when we wish you would just relax. Thanks to the Gwibber developers, Ryan, Ken, Dominic, Alexander, Greg, and Fabien. Thanks all you contributers of code and documentation.

P.S. The DC Tweed Ride looks awesome.