http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2009/04/21/settingsun/

“We are working to democratize information,” Whitehurst said. “A lot of people don’t see the importance of that. But, ultimately, it is about information freedom and making sure information’s accessible.

“If we don’t fight those battles now, our entrenched competitors will lock up file formats, force you to use their software or force royalties,” he added. “Then the information stored in those formats will no longer be free.”

The Free Software movement is dead,” Hilf said, in a typical quip, as quoted in “The Bangkok Post.” “Linux doesn’t exist in 2007. Even [Linux creator] Linus [Torvalds] has a job today.”

I’m curious if he was just misquoted, but that does happen. Obviously that was a terribly poor judgment as the free software movement is most certainly alive and well, and there are more people working on Linux than just IBM, Oracle, and Canonical. Bill, take a look at who really contributed to the 2.6.20 kernel Bill - there are many contributors (nearly 2,000 had code accepted just into the 2.6.20 kernel). The free software ecosystem is actually growing further – and many of the participants are Microsoft’s own long time partners. And yes, many of them do make a living (it’s hard to code Linux kernel code while wandering and asking for money on the streets). That is actually Microsoft’s real problem – these guys (and gals) are making a living – it’s an economically self-sustaining model. Sure, they are not making $92M/day like others, but they make a living and enjoy what they do.

Maybe that’s what has Microsoft so afraid that they’re reverting to their usual tricks (e.g. not competing on technology). After all, there used to be a huge force of Wintel+Dell, but even that partnership has changed…

Consider this: Google, IBM, HP, Dell, Intel, AMD, Novell, Red Hat, Oracle, Sun, SAP, Accenture, China, India, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Avnet, vast numbers of global and local resellers, consultants, ISVs, and system integrators are all making vast fortunes for their shareholders off of Linux. Will the industry just let FUD tricks stand in their way??? Heck no, this industry invented FUD and certainly knows how to defeat it.

The real problem is that the industry is already defeating it. The MS monopoly is under attack from all sides: ODF, Linux Desktop, Linux server, Adobe RIA, Eclipse RCP, etc, etc and I see these latest threats as last resort efforts from a company clearly concerned about its long term growth. That’s a natural response, but another way to compete is to just fix your products and deliver something your customers want.

The first thing Oracle needs is better marketing – nobody seems to know what to call this. The distribution appears to be called “Oracle Enterprise Linux” (like the RHEL distro) and the support program is commonly referred to as the “Oracle Unbreakable Linux” support program (like the RHN). I think this whole Oracle Linux effort would be an excellent study for an economics PhD student. If you’re in a PhD program and would like some ideas, just contact me.

1) Canonical joined Gnome Foundation’s advisory board.

2) Microsoft Silverlight was recently unveiled… Flash killer? Skeptical. Regardless it promises to mess up with a nice trend having Flash 9 on Linux…

3) Microsoft releases a Windows Media plugin for Firefox (but only for Windows…) See a theme here?

4) Nice interview with Mark Shuttleworth -he seems to be everywhere these days including a press hit for DB2 9 on Ubuntu ;-)

5) Oracle Enterprise Linux has some issues popping up …

6) CentOS 5 for x86 and x86_64 released. It’s funny, I think Oracle’s announcement did more to put CentOS on the map… people who never knew of CentOS before suddenly recognize them (and some even pronounce it correctly)

7) Ubuntu Live registration is now open

8) Microsoft sends the black suits into Florida to kill ODF – black helicopters rumored to follow….

9) SFLC says every copy of Microsoft Windows includes a $21.50 “patent tax” that goes towards paying for Microsoft’s litigation bills/penalties. No wonder Ballmer keeps throwing out IP threats – he needs those Linux users to help pay his bills….

10) Asus announced plans for a $199 flash based (SSD) laptop (no, not a typo – that really says $199)

There’s one more news item I wanted to cover… but I do need to get home at some point ;-)

http://enterpriselinuxlog.blogs.techtarget.com/files/2007/04/44218-linuxdistrotimeline-72.png

Preview:

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSN2846383620070308?pageNumber=1 

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS8140222255.html 

Anyway, b/c of the menu problem I’d call this UBL b2 rather than 2.0. It’s definitely not beta1 but there’s some polish to take care of. Everything else in the distribution is exactly as it would be on RHEL. No surprises there.
Oh… oddly my grub menu was not pink. Not sure how eWeek had that happen without doing it on purpose???