Archive for September, 2008
Monday, September 29th, 2008
Jack Welch on the economy, bailout plan – must see
There’s a great interview with Jack Welch over at MSNBC.com that I’d recommend watching. As usual, Jack “get’s it” (IMO).
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.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
Red Hat beats estimates and Ohio Linux Fest is Almost Here
I can’t make sense of the “all eggs in a Solaris basket” strategy Sun is on especially when I see Red Hat just launched economic concerns back into the faces of Wall St. analysts by posting 24% growth over last year. Jim Whitehurst seems to be doing just fine in the new role – the Qumranet buy was also brilliant. I have high hopes for what we might see come from the acquisition.
And in other news, Oracle launched its own branded storage hardware product (made by HP) that is based on Linux. All around it’s been a positive day for accelerating growth of Linux.
And for those who haven’t registered, Ohio Linux Fest is coming up soon. I’m proud to say that IBM is once again the primary platinum sponsor (thanks for the funding Alena!). You can sign up here. I can’t say for sure yet, but it looks like Brian Warner from IBM’s Linux Strategy team will be joining me in person. If you’ll be present, send me an email and let’s meet up. There’s a great list of speakers for the event. I’ve never met Joe Brockmeier but I’m hoping to introduce myself at some point.
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
Get involved in the Linux Foundation – now accepting individual memberships
The LF is branching out to include individual members interesting in participating and collaborating on Linux topics. For just $50/year you too can become a member.
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2023858186.html
After announcing its first event for “end users,” the Linux Foundation has begun to promote “individual memberships.” Available now for $50 a year, memberships include a T-shirt, quarterly newsletter, and the “ability to run for and vote for a Linux Foundation board seat,” says the organization.
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
Repost: 2008 NYC Software Freedom Day Reception
From James Vasile at the SFLC for NYLUG (and I suspect other) interested parties.
———————————–
The Software Freedom Law Center cordially invites you to the 2008 NYC Software Freedom Day Reception! Industry leaders, lawyers, advocates
and hackers alike will be gathering to commemorate and celebrate the state of the movement; from the inception of the GNU Project 25 years
ago to the present day, the lives of millions of people all around the world have been forever changed by software freedom.
More information about Software Freedom Day can be found at http://softwarefreedomday.org/about
When: Saturday, Sept. 20th from 6pm to 9pm.
Where: Limewire is hosting us in their rooftop garden at 377 Broadway, between White St. and Franklin St. It’s just a few blocks south of
Canal. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=377+broadway+10013
Activities will include guest speakers from around the movement, as well as music and a raffle, with a focus on mixing, meeting, and
greeting. The reception is a rooftop affair, providing ample time and space to celebrate, meet new people and reconnect with old friends.
RSVP required to: rsvp@softwarefreedom.org
We look forward to seeing you there!
Your Friends of Freedom,
The Software Freedom Law Center
softwarefreedom.org
Tuesday, September 9th, 2008
Shameless Plug: IBM offers developers, customers access to its Chiphopper tools
The Chiphipper program is an interesting program where IBM gives its ISV partners access to a toolset that allowed them to validate their x86 Linux applications for Linux on POWER and z mainframe platforms. It may seem trivial, but ask any developer and the challenge of moving from one architecture to another without tools can be a pain.
With Chiphopper, the process becomes fairly automated in discovering what needs changed before starting a port and makes it fairly easy to offer an application on multiple platforms. Developers use these tools on their x86 code so you don’t even need access to Power or mainframe hardware to use them. You can even use the tools with open source applications.
Now IBM is offering these tools to any developer or customer that wants to port their x86/Linux application to Linux on Power or System z (mainframes). The IBM team has been collaborating with the Linux Foundation and I think some of the tools overlap with the LF’s LSB application testing tools. If fact, these tools can be used as a step toward LSB certification of your application.
The first set of tools used in the Chiphopper offering comes from the Linux Standard Base (LSB), a project of the Linux Foundation. When using standard interfaces, the developer can have confidence that these interfaces will be stable over time. Developers can focus on adding new functionality to enhance the application instead of having to rewrite over and over for changing interfaces. Developers can use the LSB Application Testkit Manager, located on the Linux Foundation Web site, to check whether the interfaces used by an application are part of an LSB standard.
Monday, September 8th, 2008
London Stock Exchange servers go down; halts trading
I can’t believe that in this day we have an exchange actually going down during the day… this would never happen on a mainframe platform.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/08/lse_down/
But at 9am trading was suspended as big banks lost their connection to the exchange. Some traders blamed an overloaded system following the US government decision.
I wonder if the issue has to do with their choice of Windows Server over Linux? Of course you never really do see the implications of that choice on Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” or “Compare” websites now do you… :-)
The London Stock Exchange needed a scalable, reliable, high-performance stock exchange ticker plant to win more trading business and new customers and replace its earlier system. Roughly 40 per cent of the Exchange’s revenues are generated by the sale of real-time information about stock prices.
Friday, September 5th, 2008
It’s been confirmed. Ashlee Vance left The Register.
I will now likely remove The Register from my feed reader as 90% of the good articles were Ashlee’s.
It’s a sad day for me. Ashlee’s already writing daily articles for the NY Times that are non-obnoxious and it’s like seeing that old college drinking buddy 5 yrs later when he has 3.25 kids, a white fence and gets excited about Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
What the… ! Ashlee Vance is writing serious articles for the NY Times!?!
What’s going on? I just pulled up a NY Times article on Red Hat’s Qumranet buy and noticed the author is none other than my favorite El Reg author, Ashlee Vance! How, what, when, why? I need answers…
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/red-hat-buys-a-seat-at-the-virtualization-table
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Using Java with Google Chrome
I need to use Scottrade’s streaming quotes application which runs in Java and is launched from a browser window. In order to use it with Chrome, I needed to find a way to get Chrome working with Java support. This was actually easier than I anticipated. There are just two steps:
1) Install the latest (Release Candidate) JRE from Sun
2) Restart Chrome
Now Scottrade works just fine. For a Windows system, I can now switch to Chrome. The one last MAJOR problem is that Google still has not even published a build for Linux (at least not that I could find). I need a Linux version to switch. Now in reality, “switch” just means which browser will I use more often. I will always have Firefox on hand especially with all the great plugins for web development, etc that come in handy. I will use Chrome on Windows just for a lightweight, fast browser.
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Red Hat Acquires Qumranet For $107M
Red Hat announced today that it will acquire Qumranet, the company behind KVM. Now Qumranet does not make its money on KVM, instead it uses KVM as part of its desktop virtualization solutions. Qumranet is also behind the very efficient SPICE protocol. I think this is a great move on both sides and I’m excited to hear a former IBM colleague’s bold move into a startup has paid off. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Qumranet was acquired, but it’s great to see it finally went through. Great ideas and technology leadership deserve to be rewarded.
I think you can expect to see an increase in KVM usage in RHEL going forward ;-)
I saw the press release here:
Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
Notice to all my mail.ru registered users
Many people have registered for my site whereby they receive emails when new posts are published.
If you are a real person and registered on my site with a mail.ru email address, please email me and let me know you are a real user. I’ve had well over 300 users register with mail.ru addresses in the last week for less than admirable spam purposes. I deleted all user accounts with mail.ru email addresses and if I deleted your legitimate account, I apologize and will recreate one for you.
Monday, September 1st, 2008
Google “Chrome” browser is here. Google still treats Linux as second class?
I’m honestly surprised that we continuously see Google support Linux second. Google just announced “Chrome” on Labor Day stating a release for Windows and an “in the future” support for Linux and Mac. By all accounts, Windows is obviously the largest base, but why not wait just a little and do a simultaneous release? Heck, Google uses a ton of Linux on the desktop internally. Then I also have to remember, Linux already has a dominant penetration for non-Microsoft web browsers and already supports open standards… so maybe it’s just not needed – or is it? I think it’s too early to tell at the moment but Google is making its case with a compelling story.
You can see the “story” behind Chrome’s purpose on Google’s website at the URL below. Google put its argument for Chrome and its approach in comic format which I found quite entertaining. For engineers out there, this is a great medium (in my opinion) for communicating the benefit/value of an architecture decision. The technology and impact on the users are clearly defined.
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
I’m actually quite excited to see Chrome in action. First, there’s been a lot of work going on with Javascript engines and I’m sure Google did some performance work that should help Google Maps, Gmail, etc. Second, there appears to be a very strong integration of Google Gears into Chrome which should lend to great offline performance and features. Finally, it also looks like Google is going to revolutionize the “behind the scenes” processing your browser does. Instead of implementing a single threaded web processing model as we’re all used to, Google is going to split each tab into its own process. This gives you a multitasking performance boost if you’re a big time power user with multiple tabs executing at the same time. More important though should be the isolation – if Google Maps crashes, it shouldn’t take out the entire browser.
Google Inc. is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.
The Mountain View-based company took the unusual step of announcing its latest product on the Labor Day holiday after it prematurely sent out a comic book drawn up to herald the new browser’s arrival.
The free browser, called “Chrome,” is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running on Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Google said it’s still working on versions compatible with Apple Inc.’s Mac computer and the Linux operating system.
Now, yet another question is why do we need another web browser for Windows, Mac and Linux? How about one that supports open standards for the iPhone? Unfortunately Apple is unlikely to budge on its Apps policies which will, I can guarantee, limit its enterprise adoption for the iPhone. I’m honestly shocked that Apple has been touting its “enterprise” potential in some circles and been so standoffish towards enterprise applications vendors who those “enterprise” clients would need. Wake up Apple. You need Symantec, Cisco, AT&T and other network/AV/etc providers. Not everyone uses Microsoft Exchange so you’ll need Lotus Notes, IMAP support, etc. Oh well, I can only hope Apple will one day “get it”.
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