Simon Willison’s Weblog

openai/openai-realtime-console. I got this OpenAI demo repository working today - it's an extremely easy way to get started playing around with the new Realtime voice API they announced at DevDay last week:

cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/openai/openai-realtime-console
cd openai-realtime-console
npm i
npm start

That starts a localhost:3000 server running the demo React application. It asks for an API key, you paste one in and you can start talking to the web page.

The demo handles voice input, voice output and basic tool support - it has a tool that can show you the weather anywhere in the world, including panning a map to that location. I tried adding a show_map() tool so I could pan to a location just by saying "Show me a map of the capital of Morocco" - all it took was editing the src/pages/ConsolePage.tsx file and hitting save, then refreshing the page in my browser to pick up the new function.

Be warned, it can be quite expensive to play around with. I was testing the application intermittently for only about 15 minutes and racked up $3.87 in API charges.

# 12:38 am / javascript, nodejs, websockets, ai, react, openai, generative-ai, llms

otterwiki (via) It's been a while since I've seen a new-ish Wiki implementation, and this one by Ralph Thesen is really nice. It's written in Python (Flask + SQLAlchemy + mistune for Markdown + GitPython) and keeps all of the actual wiki content as Markdown files in a local Git repository.

The installation instructions are a little in-depth as they assume a production installation with Docker or systemd - I figured out this recipe for trying it locally using uv:

git clone https://github.com/redimp/otterwiki.git
cd otterwiki

mkdir -p app-data/repository
git init app-data/repository

echo "REPOSITORY='${PWD}/app-data/repository'" >> settings.cfg
echo "SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI='sqlite:///${PWD}/app-data/db.sqlite'" >> settings.cfg
echo "SECRET_KEY='$(echo $RANDOM | md5sum | head -c 16)'" >> settings.cfg

export OTTERWIKI_SETTINGS=$PWD/settings.cfg
uv run --with gunicorn gunicorn --bind 127.0.0.1:8080 otterwiki.server:app

# 3:22 pm / flask, git, python, sqlalchemy, sqlite, markdown, wikis, uv

The Fair Source Definition (via) Fair Source (fair.io) is the new-ish initiative from Chad Whitacre and Sentry aimed at providing an alternative licensing philosophy that provides additional protection for the business models of companies that release their code.

I like that they're establishing a new brand for this and making it clear that it's a separate concept from Open Source. Here's their definition:

Fair Source is an alternative to closed source, allowing you to safely share access to your core products. Fair Source Software (FSS):

1. is publicly available to read;
2. allows use, modification, and redistribution with minimal restrictions to protect the producer’s business model; and
3. undergoes delayed Open Source publication (DOSP).

They link to the Delayed Open Source Publication research paper published by OSI in January. (I was frustrated that this is only available as a PDF, so I converted it to Markdown using Gemini 1.5 Pro so I could read it on my phone.)

The most interesting background I could find on Fair Source was this GitHub issues thread, started in May, where Chad and other contributors fleshed out the initial launch plan over the course of several months.

# 6:17 pm / licenses, open-source, pdf, sentry, chad-whitacre

Free Threaded Python With Asyncio. Jamie Chang expanded my free-threaded Python experiment from a few months ago to explore the interaction between Python's asyncio and the new GIL-free build of Python 3.13.

The results look really promising. Jamie says:

Generally when it comes to Asyncio, the discussion around it is always about the performance or lack there of. Whilst peroformance is certain important, the ability to reason about concurrency is the biggest benefit. [...]

Depending on your familiarity with AsyncIO, it might actually be the simplest way to start a thread.

This code for running a Python function in a thread really is very pleasant to look at:

result = await asyncio.to_thread(some_function, *args, **kwargs)

Jamie also demonstrates asyncio.TaskGroup, which makes it easy to execute a whole bunch of threads and wait for them all to finish:

async with TaskGroup() as tg:
    for _ in range(args.tasks):
        tg.create_task(to_thread(cpu_bound_task, args.size))

# 8:38 pm / async, gil, python

Forums are still alive, active, and a treasure trove of information (via) Chris Person:

When I want information, like the real stuff, I go to forums. Over the years, forums did not really get smaller, so much as the rest of the internet just got bigger. Reddit, Discord and Facebook groups have filled a lot of that space, but there is just certain information that requires the dedication of adults who have specifically signed up to be in one kind of community.

This is a very comprehensive directory of active forums.

# 8:45 pm / forums