Archive for June, 2006
Friday, June 30th, 2006
More coverage of SCO Decision
“Fans of the free Linux operating system should be popping champagne tonight. A judge has tossed out most of the claims in a case claiming Linux contained stolen code.”
“SCOâ„¢s arguments are akin to SCO telling IBM, ‘Sorry, we are not going to tell you what you did wrong because you already know,’ ” Wells wrote in her ruling. “Given the amount of code that SCO has received in discovery the court finds it inexcusable that SCO is in essence still not placing all the details on the table. Certainly if an individual was stopped and accused of shoplifting after walking out of Neiman Marcus they would expect to be eventually told what they allegedly stole.”
eWeek Channel Insider: “SCO Hits Iceberg in IBM Case”
“In fact, no versions, files or lines of Unix System V code are identified; no versions, files or lines of Dynix or AIX code are identified as misused; and no specific versions or lines of Linux code are identified,” IBM’s attorneys said at the time.”
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
Bob Sutor hands out prestigious “I Read the Memo and Stayed on Message” Award
You have to laugh at this one - couldn’t they come up with something different? There’s also a great discussion going on in the comments section. A time machine back to 10 years ago eh… so what does that make Excel 2003???
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
Slashdot digs up Linux Watch
I haven’t seen this in years until Slashdot pulled it out today…. IBM watches… running Linux. How fashionable… ha.
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
Google Checkout - Very Nice
Google Checkout is so simple… reminds of Paypal in the early days…
Wednesday, June 28th, 2006
Hmmm… World Domination?
When you consider the volume of data and calculations being done on these machines… you begin to think… maybe Linux has already achieved world domination…. (sort by Operating System)
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006
I wonder what happened…
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/martintaylor/default.mspx
Not sure what he did to “part ways” with Microsoft and get a “(Former)” in his title… I love this junk… are they afraid to just say “Get the Facts, an assault on Linux and open source software”?
“Prior to this role, Taylor served as general manager of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, responsible for Windows Server Systemâ„¢ business strategy and competitive strategy efforts across the company. In this role he led the campaign for factual, third-party information that helped customers make difficult IT purchasing decisions.”
Tuesday, June 27th, 2006
Very very dangerous game: IV
A disturbance in the force… IV.
Hmm…. what are they up to…
I think companies and startups coming to IBM Research looking to license a patent that valuable R&D was invested in is a bit different than a firm with patents looking for “buyers” (ahem… violators). HP’s comments are dead on: “But trolls are immune to countersuits, because they make nothing themselves.”
Start a business and sell a product based on your patent. That’s another business model…
Monday, June 26th, 2006
Microsoft Fights ODF with… Free Office for Everyone… errr… just Massachusetts
It appears stopping ODF is worth at least $30M to Microsoft. Actually it’s far less b/c well.. another copy of Office costs Microsoft nothing - it’s just “lost opportunity”…
But this is relatively unfair - so MA goes towards ODF - and gets free software for its students… why don’t the other states get free software for their students? Will Microsoft replicate this tactics in other ODF states that may pop up? It would seem to me as governor you could save your state $30M in Office fees by supporting ODF. And if you don’t support ODF, you’re wasting $30M of your taxpayers dollars and are evil :)
So the real coup might be if Microsoft gets to write off any of that $30M… then the trick is really on taxpayers everywhere… and those poor students who will grow up only knowing Office and not the apps built on open standards and open source that all companies and governments will be using in less than 5 years…. (or 3 years ago if you believed Jonathan) .. ha… it _will_ take time… how much I don’t know.
It would be so ironic if MA mandated that it’s classrooms use Macs…
Sunday, June 25th, 2006
Ubuntu on a roll?
Wow, just noticed Bob Sutor is using Ubuntu as well… my wireless wasn’t as easy as it seems his was, but I never expect wireless to be…
Sunday, June 25th, 2006
Ubuntu Tips / Findings
1) Forgot about the whole “sudo bash” instead of su… and why don’t they include any console in the menu by default?
2) If you’re using a Broadcom 1450 wireless Mini-PCI card, you will notice that it’s detected as a 143xx card… that’s because they are building support for these cards into kernel modules, but the 1450 still requires that you use ndiswrapper (installed by default in Ubuntu). So, just blacklist the 143xx module and install your Win drivers with ndiswrapper and you’ll be up and running. From a CL, type “sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist” and then add in “blacklist bcm43xx”
3) The Synaptics apt-get implementation is really polished - use it. There are deb packages for just about anything, but you need to enable the non-free “multiverse” and community maintained “universe” by opening Synaptics and choosing Settings->Repositories. On the first LTS binary, click edit and check off the boxes. Now you can see all the packages.
4) I was absolutely blown away that the “up/down volume” multimedia buttons at the top of my laptop actually work out of the box… never have I seen that… never. I had them working once before but that was an odd setup of tpbuttons (prob the same still) but they even added in the On Screen Display with a volume meter. Very impressive.
5) boy do I miss conf.d … other distros could do well to copy Gentoo on this one.
6) XGL - not out of the box. Also uses nv drivers out of the box… argh…. will have to find out how difficult it is to use the nvidia drivers - there seem to be “difficulties”.
7) DVD Playback, MP3 and all those proprietary codecs you want. Yeah so Ubuntu is sticking with the “legal” approach… although this site is probably bordering on inducement (a wonderful new term we all have to fear from the RIAA/MPAA), this page should help you get started. The big one is to replace totem-streamer backend with totem-xine. There’s even a nice little script in Ubuntu for getting decss up and going.
8) OpenOffice 2.0 -> not sure why but this Ubuntu release is quite possibly the slowest loading OOo that I’ve ever come across.
If I find any more.. I’ll add them - and if you have any suggestions, just send me a note/comment.
Saturday, June 24th, 2006
Picassa for Linux
Downloading this right now… should be interesting. Based on WINE… Google shame on you… don’t you know how to write multi platform - code once, deploy anywhere - type of code??? Well… I guess they did acquire Picassa so it’s not entirely their fault.
Saturday, June 24th, 2006
Apple takes some open source backlash
Apple’s taking some heat over their closed/private/proprietary (insert “not open source” antithesis here) approach to software and their desktop technology. I have to admit… I’ve come to pretty much the same conclusions over the year. I’m actually writing this from my brand new Ubuntu setup - yes, my 4th Linux OS in recent months (I’m on a Linux tour… so it seems). I enjoy trying out the different Linux distros every now and then just to see what little tweaks, polishes, and innovative features they throw in. While it’s been say… well a LONG time since I last ran Debian on a desktop/client, I must admit I’m shocked at the simplistic, stable, and really polished approach Mark has taken with Ubuntu. I met him a little over a year ago and he had asked why I chose Gentoo for my desktop - he wasn’t trying to push Ubuntu, but rather he was innately curious as to what features/functionality drove me to pick the platform. That curiousity has led to a very nice distro.
Anyway, as I’m going through a tour of distros like Henry VIII went through wives, I am living out a disaster recovery type situation … every few weeks. I have to ensure I have backed up my data (email, docs, pictures, etc) but most important is that the new platform I choose to install (could be Vista beta soon) must be able to accept the format that I’ve backed up my data. Over time I think things like POP3 mail will go away - we’ll get to a “grid” like data availability with online access becoming ubiquitous in the next 5-10 years. But to get there - we need open file formats, standards, and the ability to support new and old generations of data formats.
And so Apple seems to be taking a hit. I first read about the controversy at Stephen’s tecosystems which seems to have spread to the masses a couple days later at eWeek here. It all started on Mark Pilgrim’s blog posting “When the Bough Breaks” about his concerns with Apple’s approach to closed formats and data access. It will be interesting to see how this plays out - Apple’s had to respond to open source community “issues” before - but they were never a direct attack on its corporate approach to … well everything.
Could this be the “shot heard round the world”?
It’s a monsoon in NYC right now… guess I had a bit more creative time on this post ;)
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
Rosetta Stone (Map) for FOSS to Microsoft
Very interesting map… ok, so it’s more like a battlefield :)
Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
Major exec shakeup at Novell
Wow… maybe I sold my Novell stock to early… Looks like Hovsepian is in as CEO.
Wednesday, June 21st, 2006
How does Pixar do it? With Linux
Interesting overview of Pixar’s sytems for creating movies like the current Cars.
Monday, June 19th, 2006
Mind Map of Linux Distros
I actually have a printout of this in my office - wasn’t sure where I found it. Now I know - it’s here.
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
WAS CE and PHP Oh my!
Cool stuff coming with the open source based WAS CE - looks like full PHP integration is coming. If you’ve ever done PHP based SOA versus full Java… you know this is a really cool platform.
IBM announced yesterday it will offer a PHP Integration Kit for WebSphere Application Server (WAS) Community Edition. This software will enable customers to use PHP technology to develop and execute applications in a service oriented architecture using IBM’s open source–based application server, WAS Community Edition.
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
Kumula: Open Source Case Management for Lawyers
Hook pointed me to an interesting project: Kumula. This project is billed as a “business software” suite but interestingly has an extension application called “Cases” for legal case management. Could we be seeing a new area of vertically specialized open source projects? I do hope so as I think the verticals are in much need of some “open” standards and practices. I’ll have to give this project a run through.
My initial guess is this one would be a small legal practice application - probably not ready for the big boys. However, could you imagine your law firms SOA based application interfacing your internal, corporate case management system? What if similar to an open calendar standard, you could exchange confidential, secured case information. If you’re the global law firm with global clients… would offering this capability for your clients - to integrate into their systems - increase their reliance on your firm for new cases?
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
Why Vista Slipped… Live from inside the Empire
I read a day or two ago one of the more intersting Microsoft stories in a while. No, it wasn’t the one about Bill Gates stepping back. It’s a blog from one of Microsoft’s development engineer/manager on Windows Vista. This post describes why Windows Vista has slipped. And if you read the blog posts, you’ll see that many corporate developers are facing the same problems with large, complex software applications that span millions of SLOC. While Windows developers probably deal with issues application developers don’t have to (spyware, malware, rootkits), application developers and OS developers have to work in a teaming environment with multiple dependencies, etc.
I’m reminded of a certain “Get the Facts” report where Microsoft said that Linux required too many packages or security patches or something along those lines (basically beating on Linux for its componetized architecture of dependencies). Well… looks like the monolithic architecture where you hide circular and multiple dependencies from the user is coming back to haunt MS.
In the end, I see open source software as the “next generation” of software development. Not that the source will always be open - but that the distributed, collaborative environment along with mentoring and review structures built into the process. Open source development has proven the model works. Look at Apache, Linux, Eclipse, Firefox, BIND, etc. The modularized architecture combined with open source development processes has served these complex projects well. Then look at OpenOffice - or better yet try building OO from scratch… and you’ll see the contrast. Despite being open, the monolithic code base 1) prevents developers from getting involved/contributing and 2) is extremely difficult to work within without knowing everything outside the area you want to work in.
Friday, June 9th, 2006
GoogleTalk Coming to Linux (native)? Really?
So… most of us are connected to Google Talk… but we use GAIM b/c Google has not released a native Linux client. Sounds like we’re going to see one soon. InformationWeek reports in its June 5 issue on p21 that Google and Nokia have an agreement to put GoogleTalk on the Nokia 770 wireless Internet tablet (which runs on Linux).
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