Archive for the 'Law, IP, and Standards' Category
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Elliott Associates, Novell, and primetime IT market speculation
There’s obviously been a lot of talk and speculation since the Elliott Associates announcement. I had started drafting a post looking at the key scenarios and add my own take on how this could play out when I ran into Andy Updegrove’s take over here. Andy nails it. The only part that I’m not “in the boat” on is his take on the Microsoft importance. I actually wonder if this isn’t exactly what a certain person in Redmond wanted though I’ll keep my reasons to myself. ;-)
One thing is for sure – this is going to be a roller coaster ride for Novell execs and employees. Novell actually has a lot of cash relative to its revenues so it was only a matter of time before someone would go raiding. Elliott is in it for a flip profit … and the financials are lined up perfectly. (or someone behind Elliot who is in it for other reasons ;-) This is a savvy move, but also as Andy says a potentially dangerous game – if they win and overpaid.
If you’re reading any analysis of the situation, make sure you read Andy’s take in the link below. At the end of the day, the GPL, Suse, the technology, etc won’t matter – this is going to be a nasty game billion dollar chicken game for profits.
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20100304051547830
I haven’t seen any article yet, though, that describes in detail how the high stakes game of tender offers is played, and how the usual process maps (and doesn’t) to a high tech company like Novell. So I thought I’d provide an overview for those that haven’t had occasion to follow a tender offer in the past, and also my thoughts on what may happen over the next several months in this particular game of cat and mouse.
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Red Hat makes “strategic investment” in EnterpriseDB (backer of Postgres)
I’m not quite sure how I missed seeing the news until today, but I just noticed that Red Hat made a “strategic investment” in EnterpriseDB – the company behind PostgreSQL. I think this is a very interesting move.
http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-management/red-hat-invests-in-enterprisedb-eye-oracle-and-mysql-855
Many seem to have their concerns or at least questions about Sun+MySQL, but with Oracle in the mix those issues appear to have snowballed into an avalanche. Even the EU has shown its concern. I think a key issue for the Linux community is whether Oracle will create enough impetus to move people away from MySQL’s technology platform or not enough impetus which will make MySQL clones attractive. It’s harder to move wholesale to a new database technology than it would be to move to a different open source clone. But then customers (paying ones) get into the issues of support, fidelity, and roadmaps. The all too repetitive issue of forking will inevitably take center stage.
Two thoughts: 1) what does this mean for a community Linux FOSS database solution and 2) why Postgre SQL?
As for question 1), at the end of the day, I think a strategic question has to be answered. That is whether a FOSS database is important enough to have maintained by an independent community organization/foundation similar to Apache, Eclipse, Mozilla, etc. Not like CodePlex which is a front for 1 company, but a foundation where multiple companies, invested community members and influencers provide some level of guidance/control. MySQL’s code could become that base, or it could be Postgre SQL. However, the current situation is no foundation-led free and open source database platform – which appears at odds with what the community seems to expect out of the “MySQL poster child” for a FOSS database. MySQL is a company and should be treated as such (although it remains to be seen how Oracle treats it…).
As for question 2), I think the savvy move by Red Hat is around Postgres Plus – the “Oracle compatibility” that EnterpriseDB commercially licenses for a fee. (what does Oracle compatibility mean is answered here) Postgres Plus also allows a customer to migrate Oracle-based applications to use a Postgres database engine that “looks like” an Oracle database. Now consider customers constantly complain about Oracle’s license fee increases and consider that at least 20% of any customers Oracle environment is “low priority” Oracle applications that they could pilot moving to another platform and now EnterpriseDB is starting to sound attractive.
I don’t have a crystal or Magic 8 ball to say where this will lead, but I’m sure we’ll all have fun watching ;-) One thing is for sure – MySQL is under pressure from all sides and there’s a viable alternative to Oracle’s core database platform. Now Oracle just needs to figure out if it can fix the mess it’s in with the EU ;-)
Friday, October 9th, 2009
Internet Explorer’s share plummets to just 65%; Chrome nearly matches Safari
There are some very interesting browser share statistics over at Ars today…
Between September and August, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 1.26 percentage points (from 66.97 percent to 65.71 percent) and Firefox moved up a sizeable 0.77 percentage points (from 22.98 percent to 23.75 percent). Safari increased 0.17 percentage points (from 4.07 percent to 4.24 percent) while Chrome once again moved further away from Opera: it gained a worthy 0.33 percentage points (from 2.84 percent to 3.17 percent).
Friday, August 7th, 2009
Ohio LinuxFest 2009 Sept 25-26
Just received an email notice from the Ohio LinuxFest team today.
———————————–
It’s only a little more than a month from now, the seventh Ohio LinuxFest. This year we will be celebrating 40 years of Unix!
If you haven’t heard, we are very excited and proud to have Doug McIlroy give a key note address this year. Doug was the head of research department at Bell Laboratories where Unix was invented and is credited for the inventing Unix pipes as well as writing many of the Unix tools we still use in some form today.
Shawn Powers of the Linux Journal will give an address on the current state of Linux, 40 years after the invention of Unix.
Dr. Peter Salus, Bdale Garbee, and Elizabeth Garbee will be returning this year, and more speakers will be announce shortly.
Again, as last year, a set of training classes will be held on Friday before the main conference. These classes are available with the Professional Package registration, and if you are interested, you may upgrade your registration online at ohiolinux.org. Space is limited, so please register early.
Classes include:
* LPI Certification Level One Cram
* Black Magic: Troubleshooting and System Administration
* Disaster Recovery – Will You Survive?
* Spam Filtering With Open-Source Tools
* Linux Terminal Server Project Administration
* Advanced Security – A Self-Assessment Study
* Introduction to LDAP: Provisioning, Managing, and Integrating
See http://www.ohiolinux.org/olfu.html for information and details.
A Diversity in Open Source workshop will be held on Sunday September 27. Please join the conversation on how to improve the way we work together and attract much needed talent to the open source development model.
We are quite pleased to announce Novell is a Platinum Level sponsor Digium as a Gold Level sponsor of Ohio LinuxFest 2009. Other sponsors include Hurricane Labs, Zenoss, Scalable Informatics, Linux Fund, Red Hat, and Peak 10. There is still time left to be a contributing organization. Please send sponsorship inquires to sponsor@ohiolinux.org.
As we are a 501c3 non-profit organization, we depend on sponsorships and attendee registration fees to hold the Ohio LinuxFest. Given the current economic downturn, we are proud to move forward, but if you haven’t done so, please consider purchasing the Supporter Package. With the valuable support from you, we can continue the tradition of Ohio LinuxFest.
Finally, we would like to make an appeal to you to help us get the word out. Time is short! Please tell your friends, coworkers, fellow students, and fellow LUG members about the Ohio LinuxFest. Send emails, post blog entries, and invite people. We have banners and audio at ohiolinux.org and please feel free to use and distribute.
Thank you and see you in Columbus, Mike
PS.
I want to send out a thank you to the people that made Ohio LinuxFest 2009 a reality:
Beth Lynn Eicher, Greg Boehnlein, Dennis “Bear” Palmer, Robert Ball, Moose, Klaatu, Dan Chen, Carol Rutz, Makenzie Morgan, Scott “Skippy” Merrill, Paul Ferris, Kevin Otte, Nicholas Schembri, Sabrina Downard, Jon “maddog” Hall.
Friday, June 26th, 2009
Offtopic Friday: time to re-think state sales taxes?
The topic of state sales taxes has been a sleeper issue over the last few years. Congress keeps passing moratoriums on out of state Internet sales, but states are trying to come up with clever ways of taxing the business. Amazon seems to be the target of many state legislators and understandably so.
I recently bought a Canon T1i for $950. I bought it online at Amazon.com with free shipping (took 3 days to arrive). The local camera shop had plenty of them in stock and I could have picked it up that day. However, at 8% local sales tax, that camera would have cost an extra $76 for no incremental benefit to me as I wasn’t in any rush to get it so the 3 day delay was fine. The camera shop also closes at 5pm promptly during the week which is an annoyance and nearly impossible for me to get to anyway.
Why would anyone buy from a local store? I bought a plasma HDTV for a few thousand dollars a couple years ago. I saved approximately $175 that would have gone to sales tax by again buying it online (at Amazon.com). I buy EVERYTHING online these days. I’m probably one of a few power users of the iPhone Amazon.com app.
State sales tax policies will kill local retailers, local businesses, and local jobs. It’s odd, but your states implicitly encourage you to buy things from other states rather than the shop down the street. The Internet, USPS, UPS and Fedex have made it infinitely easier today than say 10-15 years ago.
The state sales tax is antiquated and adversely impacting local businesses. State governments need to stop trying to chase down Amazon.com and the 1,000 other Internet retailers who will pop up next.
How should states fix this? Who knows – taxes and markets are a complicated and dynamic system. I haven’t researched which states may have found alternative approaches, but I personally think the state sales tax has to go away. Sure, “local items” like gas, alcohol, etc are easy targets to continue a sales tax, but that’s because they can’t be shipped across state lines by individuals. I can see some moron legislator coming up with a plan to ban importing HDTVs next…
The reality is states needs to create a new, modern tax policies that align local interests and provide the funding needed for the services residents expect. It won’t be easy, but it can be done.
Many cities still tax personal income – another nonsensical issue. They should tax people based on the property the occupy. There’s no reason I should have to contribute to a local city 3x more than the guy down the street does just because I work harder, invested for more higher education, and accepted a more work-intensive lifestyle. I get the same municipal benefit he does but I should pay 3x more? When my wife and I moved from Tarrytown NY last year (no municipal income tax), we moved into another municipality that has no income tax as well. Sure, we pay for these things in property taxes, but it’s a more “even” allocation of the tax burden.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an “anti-tax” person. I’ll pay my fair share and that’s fine. I think that many of these taxation systems are trying to patch a failing system that no longer makes sense in our modern economy where physical boundaries are no longer relevant.
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Obama chooses IBM’s David Kappos to head USPTO
I think this is great news for potential patent reform (long overdue). David certainly has experience with open source licensing and IP issues related to open development.
While many will see the press generalizations about David’s views on IP reform, why not listen to his interview with Scoble from August of 2007 and hear for yourself? In the interview David talks about collaborative innovation, open standards and open source which I think many will still find very interesting.
Scoble Interview: http://www.mefeedia.com/entry/3286371/
Ars covered the news here:
The Obama administration’s choice to head the US Patent and Trademark Office, IBM’s David Kappos, appears to be getting rave reviews, which can only partly be attributed to the fact that Kappos has been a prominent advocate of patent reform.
And this is a link to the official announcement.
Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
California will adopt open source, digital textbooks next year
Some very intriguing news over at Ars about California’s move to digital textbooks. I’m not sure they’re on a sustainable model yet and California will have to work out all the kinks. This comment in particular made me conclude this:
“We’re pretty excited about what we’re seeing,” he said. “We actually have one commercial publisher who is submitting several of their textbooks [as open sourced material] for review, so this will be pretty groundbreaking, and I think it will be a paradigm shift for the publishers as well. They’re taking a paid resource they used to charge the districts for, and basically allowing the districts to download it for free.”
In my opinion, California should consider establishing a governance body of key education materials stakeholders and find a way to both incentivize content submissions, ensure “polish”, and ensure there’s a strong pipeline of contributors. They’ll need a “community manager”.
I think the great news is that this approach appears to have been in the works for many years, it intuitively makes sense, and I’m sure there are many willing to contribute. Just think – perhaps PhD students should be required to contribute as part of their graduate coursework?? There’s many ways to make this work, but I really hope they don’t expect people will just come out of the woodwork with open source, “polished”, “free” textbooks that integrate and that anyone can use for all purposes.
The first link is to Arnold’s written statement, the second is to Ars’ interview where I pulled the quote above.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_12536333?nclick_check=1
Tuesday, June 9th, 2009
OpenAppStore – Do we need one?
I can’t help but think with Apple, Sun, Nokia and others with “AppStores” live and working or clones in the works, is it time to have 1 set of open, “AppStore” APIs? I certainly wouldn’t expect it from Apple as they’re currently the market leader, but all these “me too” players should consider consolidating resources for 1 API set that could be shared and collaboratively built upon. There’s no reason this couldn’t be possible and successful. We need strong competition in this space – not just weak, feable, short term “tries” at building a competing store to Apple…
Monday, June 1st, 2009
ODF adoption continues – has it ‘crossed the chasm’?
There’s a certain point in any technology’s adoption that you step back and think to yourself “there’s no going back now”. It’s then that you realize the technology has “crossed the chasm” and whether some would wish it away or whether early adopters start testing a new “next generation” that technology will still be here to stay. I **think** ODF is there now. When you look at the government adoption levels it makes a very compelling case for “here to stay”. The fact is that as governments develop a standard, all government agencies, citizens who use the documents, and vendors who work with the government will all start to adopt the format.
I know within IBM we’re making the switch. Bob Sutor recently pointed that out. On Friday I also upgraded to the latest build of Symphony (as did every IBMer did per our automatic update tool). The switch still has miles to go, but much of the mythical “last mile cable” has been installed.
What prompted me to realize this just today? I receive the ODF Alliance Newsletter regularly in my inbox. Today, I noticed the following:
(note that while the URL is in Spanish, the translation can be seen here thanks to Google)
ECUADOR CHARTS PATH TO ODF ADOPTION
The latest government in South America to advance the use of ODF is Ecuador. Upon its approval by the Instituto Ecuatoriano de Normalización (INEN) as an Ecuadoran national standard, ODF was also adopted for sending and receiving documents by the national government’s Secretariat for Information Technology (Subsecretaría de Informática), whose mission is to improve the government’s management of IT projects and coordinate actions in this field in other public sector institutions in Ecuador . In South America, the governments of Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela have already adopted ODF, as have several regional governments, including Parana (Brazil) and Misiones (Argentina).
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Consider this… Vista vs Netbooks
Why are Netbooks such a threat to Microsoft? It’s not just the abundance of Linux shipping on them. It’s their profitability flying off the shelves (or via UPS these days…)
- Consider: 1 license for Vista Home Basic $199 at Best Buy
- Consider: 1 Dell Mini 9 Netbook with Vista Home Basic for just $299
- Consider: 1 Dell Mini 9 Netbook with Ubuntu for just $249
So, for $199 you can get a software license for Microsoft. For just $100 more, you can get a working netbook with that software license. Or, for just $50 more, you can get that same Netbook with Linux.
If you had just $300 to spend, who wants to pick the software license?
Now, consider what this is doing to Microsoft’s margins… Your premium pricing power has just been put under pressure – not by Linux, but by the hardware underneath the OS that just dropped from days of $1,000 laptops to $299. Microsoft can’t justify doubling the price of the product just for its software license. And Ubuntu is clearly offering hardware vendors a key counterpoint in their negotiations with Microsoft.
Microsoft is also in a bind as enforcing its premium pricing will either
- invite priracy b/c who can look at the offerings and justify paying that much retail for the OS, and which hurts their margins more (a paying customer is better than a pirating one…)
- 2) alienate a new set of younger, price conscious buyers entering the market (not just in the US, but around the world)
Clearly Microsoft is in need of a strategy refresh – and fast. I see the tide turning where their downstream users and upstream suppliers will create a challenging negotiation. Michael Porter would have fun with this analysis.
And with that… I may just order myself a Netbook soon. They’re almost as cheap as iPods now…
Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009
Sun – Oracle Analysis
I just read Stephen O’Grady’s classic Q&A on Sun-Oracle. Another through analysis. There are certainly many angles to this one… and many questions that will play out over time.
http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2009/04/21/settingsun/
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
Linux kernel 2.6.29/30: with a preliminary Btrfs
I just read a “cute” article at The Register talking about the 2.6.29 kernel release which includes a preliminary release of Btrfs. P
lease note this is still a fast changing filesystem technology and should not be used on anything near production workloads.
I can’t wait to see 2.6.30 release and this is one technology I will try out right away. For more information on Btrfs, you can check out this page.
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
TomTom flexes Linux muscle in Microsoft’s face
Interesting news being covered at The Register
TomTom has belatedly joined a patent holding company, which champions the Linux ecosystem, in a clear message that the GPS maker won’t take its escalating legal with Microsoft lying down.
…
The group, which has some big backers in the open source community, including IBM, Novell and Red Hat, was founded with the sole aim of acquiring patents relating to Linux and offering them royalty-free to Linux developers.
…
“I’d say the Microsoft/TomTom battle just got bigger, and TomTom is in a stronger position than it was”, wrote Groklaw today in response to the OIN announcement.
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
IDC’s Al Gillen Covers the Red Hat / Microsoft Virtualization Announcement
I just saw Al Gillen covered the news from Red Hat and Microsoft on virtualization. Note the differences between this announcement and the Novell-Microsoft announcement. Two approaches that both achieve the same general customer result – which approach is better is up to you to decide/discuss ;-)
What’s also interesting is that so far, Red Hat has only submitted for Windows certification on KVM and not yest on RHEL/Xen (which is currently shipping).
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=lcUS21686409
The Red Hat and Microsoft agreement simply is about cross-validation/certification and does not have any IP or financial implications.
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009
Bob Sutor takes on a new (Linux-related) role in IBM
Congratulations to Bob Sutor on his new role in IBM’s Linux team:
Now that it’s been announced internally, I can briefly spill the beans that I have a new and expanded role in IBM. My standards and open source IP/membership/policy team and I are moving to the Software Group, and I am picking up…
Monday, January 19th, 2009
Is Samba 4 going after the Windows Active Directory stronghold?
Admittedly I have neither read or heard much about Samba 4, but it sounds like they’re gunning for Active Directory replacement (finally). I’d be very interesting in seeing a comparison table of what features are supported (and in what DC roles) vs AD… if you know of such a comparison, please let me know. I checked samba.org and wikipedia but didn’t find anything.
Looking at the article /. linked to, this may be a while off with Bartlett saying, “we don’t know what people need”
“Enterprise networks now have an alternative choice to Microsoft Active Directory (AD) servers, with the open source Samba project aiming for feature parity with the forthcoming release of version 4, according to Canberra-based Samba developer Andrew Bartlett. Speaking at this year’s linux.conf.au Linux and open source conference in Hobart, Bartlett said Samba 4 is aiming to be a replacement for AD by providing a free software implementation of Microsoft’s custom protocols. Because AD is ‘far more than LDAP and Kerberos,’ Bartlett said, Samba 4 is not only about developing with Microsoft’s customization of those protocols, it is also about moving the project beyond just providing an NT 4 compatible domain manager.”
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
IBM takes on Desktop cost challenges (with Linux)
Interesting news out of my employer today. Here’s the thing, everyone who hears “Linux desktop” has a knee-jerk reaction and thinks of all the things they do on their own PC, laptop, Mac. The reality is you’re probably not the target market for virtual desktops. The market is large desktop environments that have thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of users and who are not doing consumer-oriented work (or shouldn’t be). The cost savings of moving from physical PCs in a 1 user to 1 PC model to a managed model with virtual terminals can be significant. We’ll see where the market goes for this model, but I know of a few very large companies that want to make this model very real. The economic situation and the impact on IT budgets may act as an accelerant.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the IBM solution runs on Ubuntu and can be easily deployed on RHEL/SLED too ;-)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/04/ibm_linux_lotus_virtual_desktop/
IBM is working with Virtual Bridges and its VERDE (Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment) product to ship a virtual Canonical Ubuntu Linux desktop, with Lotus email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, and social networking software included, to a variety of end-point devices. Virtual printing is also included.
…
When we look back several years from now, I think we’ll see this time as an inflection point when the economic climate pushed the virtual Linux desktop from theory to practice. The financial pressures on organizations are staggering; the management of PCs is unwieldy, and traditional office software innovation is paltry. Today’s virtual desktop is delivering superior collaborative software, an innovative delivery method, and an open-source operating system that is demanding clients’ consideration.
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Seen on campus: 2 Ubuntu Laptop Success Stories
I have two younger sisters who are currently in college – both at the same school. It’s a private college and has what I would consider your average IT setup for a campus.
Within the first two weeks, both had their laptops infected by viruses separately – different viruses, different times. One was running XP, the other Vista on you basic Dell laptops. Of course, who did they call? Answer: me.
Well, I took in both laptops and tried to fix them. I found that viruses today are far more advanced – one modified the MBR and the other completely wiped out the Dell recovery partition – savvy indeed. I did my best to try re-installing their respective Windows OSs, but I found that Microsoft’s licensing practices prevented me from succeeding. First, I only had Pro CDs of XP and Vista so the Home license keys on the underside of each laptop were of no use. I’d install the OS, then Microsoft Genuine Advantage would block me… thanks Microsoft.
So I had them try calling Dell – of course, no luck. They wouldn’t send a replacement media for Windows. If I had the time and energy, I’d file a lawsuit against them tomorrow.
So I turned to my laptop OS of choice: Ubuntu. No chance for a license key or media obtainment problem.
My sisters had both seen me using Ubuntu before so they had seen “what it looked like” but they never knew it wasn’t Windows. When I loaded it on their laptops, they actually didn’t know it wasn’t Windows. In fact, the first thing they both did was try downloading/installing iTunes from Apple.com. No luck – Apple, where’s an Ubuntu client?
So I set them up with all the software they needed for iPods. They actually installed their own printers without even calling me (HP printers – great compatibility). They use OpenOffice for their papers/spreadsheets/presentations, Firefox was not new to them, and Evolution is just as easy as Outlook.
They’re now both about to close out their first semester – both made it on Ubuntu alone. And the best news – not a single virus.
More amazingly, the overall number of “support requests” have gone down. Even when they had Windows there were other reasons for calls, but now… only an occassional “how do I?” type question here or there. It’s been great. They easily download from the digital cameras, they manage their music collections (no corrupted iTunes libraries), and they use all the latest social media networks. Now they would both prefer to get a Mac, but that’s the really interesting part – they have no need for Windows.
We’re making progress. Ubuntu is leading the way.
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Did hell freeze over? Broadcom releases an open source, Linux wireless driver
I had to read this article twice to ensure I was actually reading it correctly. Then I visited the Broadcom website and downloaded it just to be certain this wasn’t a hoax. Yes, Broadcom, the most open only about not supporting Linux has released an open source Linux wireless driver. And it’s really under an open source license. The source files I opened were clearly GPLv2.
So Dell and Canonical forced them into it – but they did it. I’m honestly shocked.
Linux has hit a critical mass. It may not be taking over the desktop world, but it has at least reached “Mac” support status.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_linux_broadcom_wi_fi_drivers_arrive
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
NY Times: “Is Sun Solaris on its deathbed?”
Interesting article on the last ditch efforts of Sun to keep Solaris from dying. Personally, I think Solaris will die a similar death as IBM’s OS/2 did – slowly, with stalwarts hanging on as long as they can.
http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C400693880002574CE00371FE1.html
I’m not sure UNIX in general is dead as AIX and I think even HP-UX have seen fairly strong growth recently, but Linux is certainly tearing up the industry like the good disruptor it is. I think another angle that was missed is the outstanding growth of Linux on Power and mainframe platforms – heck, even Sun has tried to put Solaris on an IBM mainframe.
Another point that is often overlooked is that a lot of Solaris migrations also go to Windows. It’s the drive to high volume platforms that triggers the shift.
However, aside from those minor conflicts in views, Jim Zemlin is right on. I think this quote says it all. It amazes me that any company would try to compete with that level of momentum head on and not try to join in on the growth opportunity. Just look at Red Hat’s earnings yesterday if you’re still skeptical.
By contrast, Linux is the overwhelming choice for new deployments on x86 systems, Zemlin says. Sun has had its strength in applications such as ERP systems with a seven- to 20-year life cycle, he adds. “What’s starting to happen is those life cycles are starting to be completed,” and those customers are moving to Linux.
That move to Linux is accelerated by Linux’s strength in Web applications, where developers today are focused, Zemlin adds. “You can’t really talk to any Web-based application company these days that’s not using Linux,” he says.
Subscribe to RSS/Atom Feed
