01.24.09
Posted in Antitrust, GNU/Linux, IBM, Microsoft, Windows at 11:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“I’d be glad to help tilt lotus into into the death spiral. I could do it Friday afternoon but not Saturday. I could do it pretty much any time the following week.”
–Brad Silverberg, Microsoft
It’s no secret that Microsoft is nuking GNU/Linux partitions/boot tables, by design. While we lack correspondence to show this was deliberate and malicious, antitrust evidence provides precedence that relates to a similar strategy from the nineties.
As a little bit of essential background, here are some articles of interesting that refer to Windows Vista (and most likely Vista 7 too):
1. Vista SP1 won’t install on dual-boot systems: Microsoft
If you’re dualbooting Windows Vista Enterprise or Ultimate alongside a Linux distro, and have installed the Linux bootloader into the MBR, then you’re guaranteed to run into problems when installing Vista Service Pack 1, Microsoft has admitted.
2. Geek in Paradise – Vista Upgrade
As the HP Advisor disc was in the process of finishing, the machine froze solid. After giving it 5 minutes of no disk activity, I reset the machine to be greeted by a lovely blinking cursor. I put the Vista disc in and booted into a repair installation, where I ran the Repair tool. My hunch was proved correct when it returned a corrupted MBR, which it had fixed. Thinking all was well, I rebooted to be greeted with a black screen (no blinking cursor). Well, there’s something more going on so I rebooted into the repair tool and let it do it’s thing. This time, it found a Corrupted Partition table which it then said it repaired. Awesome! Next reboot was greeted by the same black screen, so I figured the other partition was corrupt as well and let the repair tool run again and fix the partition table again. Reboot, same thing…
3. Vista scoots to new boot, but it’s still kinda rooted
While Microsoft would like the world to believe that anyone running Windows has no need of any other operating system, that attitude doesn’t cut much mustard with many of its users.
Why settle for one OS when your PC is easily capable of running two or more?
[...]
One of the more questionable tactics that Microsoft has implemented in Vista is to automatically overwrite any existing MBR during the installation process without asking if you mind or giving you an option to back up.
Microsoft says that the Windows installation system can’t intelligently interrogate an existing non-MS MBR, although such features are quite common in the install routine for other OSes.
It also argues that an “official” Vista MBR is required for security features — such as measured boot, which works with Trusted Platform Module (TPM)-enabled chips to check that the OS hasn’t been hacked or altered each time it boots — to work correctly.
There are many more articles just like these, but that’s not the point. We are more interested in the developments behind the scenes, and particularly Microsoft’s approach towards situations as such.
Today we look at Exhibit px09040 from Comes vs Microsoft [PDF]. Herein, Microsoft prefers to “disable OS/2 in ALL cases.”
We also add a presentation about OS/2, courtesy of Steve Ballmer. Combined, these two antitrust exhibits show that Microsoft thought OS/2 was much better than windows and considered sabotage to compete, much as they did with DR-DOS. Steve Ballmer sang OS/2′s praises for a duration of 14 pages, as shown in Exhibit PX08112 [PDF], but here is what they did:
In all cases I can think of now, Janus [multiboot tool being written by the
author] will blow away the OS/2 sys files and render OS/2 useless.
Question: do we care about this? This is WAR, and in that regard, I
believe we should design Janus such that if this multiboot partition
(has a unique partition number (11)) is found, we should warn the user a
foreign OS has been detected, give them a chance to exit and read the
docs and possibly make a backup, and then repartition the disk, removing
the multiboot partition. This way, we disable OS/2 2.0 in *all* cases.
Mind the phrase “This is WAR” (capital letters in the original too). This is an exact copy of the "Microsoft evangelist" guidebook, which uses capital letters in the phrase "Evangelism is WAR!"
“It was an entirely different story when Steve Ballmer was singing praises about O/S, saying that “OS/2 will feed off Windows success.””The complete text has grousing about “feature creep” that drips with resentment for doing anything positive for the customer while trying to justify a “batch mode” for OS installation. They probably would not have thought of this feature had OS/2 not already been doing the same..
Brad Silverberg and Jim Allchin too were involved in these tactics (albeit at a higher level), as we showed in the past. Here is an exact copy of some offending code.
It was an entirely different story when Steve Ballmer was singing praises about the O/S, saying that “OS/2 will feed off Windows success.” His presentation (with handwritten notes) [PDF] has textual copy in the appendix below, but here is one highlight from his talk.
0S/2 Momentum: Role of Microsoft Windows
o The 0S/2 user Interface is the most popular graphical user interface in the
world today
{CUA on DOS}
o The compatibility of the user interface across Windows and 0S/2 makes it
possible to develop common DOS and OS/2 based applications
{eases fear of transition – large brokerage example}
o Largest base of graphical applications is portable (and being ported to)
0S/2
{OS/2 will feed off Windows success}
In the appendix, one cannot really see Ballmer’s handwritten notes, but the PDF, which includes initial and rudimentary OCR output, is worth seeing. How quickly they back-stabbed a so-called ‘partner’. We remarked on OS/2 in the past (mostly Microsoft’s dirty war against it, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]) and we are likely to do so in the future. We have many dozens of ‘smoking guns’ in the pipeline. █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit PX08112, as text
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Courtroom, Fraud, Hardware, Microsoft, OLPC, Vista, Windows at 11:20 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Taking loans to settle crime?
Microsoft’s collusion with Intel is white-collar crime which we last wrote about here. This class of crime is the most severe and most damaging to the economy, so equally severe punishments are necessary although they are rarely delivered in corporocracies. Either way, there were a couple of major developments in what had become a class action court case.
New evidence has appeared which indicates that Microsoft knew exactly what it was doing.
A group within Microsoft Corp. recommended in 2005 that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista be released without the “Vista” name because of concerns over “user product expectations,” according to documents unsealed by a federal court Wednesday.
The disclosure was made in a filing by the plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that claims Microsoft misled consumers with its “Vista Capable” marketing program in the months leading up to the January 2007 release of the operating system.
The consequences? Well, IDG also wrote about the possibility of $8.5 billion in damages.
Microsoft Corp. would have to come up with as much as $8.5 billion to settle accounts with the customers affected by its 2006 “Vista Capable” marketing program, according to documents unsealed by a federal court.
U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman released the figures yesterday from the class-action lawsuit, which claims Microsoft misled consumers with the Vista Capable campaign in the months leading up to the January 2007 release of the operating system.
Microsoft is already entering debt [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], so hypothetically speaking, where would it pull almost $9 billion from? More loans?
In other related news, Microsoft’s partners in crime [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] see their chief quitting. Craig Barrett, who verbally attacked OLPC (benevolent charity) and used other means to counter this price-fixing breaker, is permanently out. As we noted yesterday, this company (Intel) is also suffering massive layoffs, a 90% profit drop, and Wintel as a whole is under siege. ARM and some microchips from China are in a great position to replace old-school x86. Windows is hugely dependent on end-end x86. █
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Posted in America, Finance, Fraud, Microsoft at 10:39 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
‘Patriotic’ Microsoft
“Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer [...] I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business. I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”
–Jim Allchin, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft
LAST month we outlined the Microsoft-Abramoff connection and how it related to Microsoft’s cheap(er) labour — a right which was earned using political corruption. Right now, in the face of workforce reductions [1, 2], Microsoft comes under fire for further betraying the United States. “Steve Ballmer is being questioned by a politician,” says the reader who sent us this pointer. It wasn’t long ago that Steve Ballmer was deposed by the court.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has sent a letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer expressing concern over how the company may go about its layoffs.
“I am concerned that Microsoft will be retaining foreign guest workers rather than similarly qualified American employees when it implements its layoff plan,” Grassley said in the letter, posted to his Web site on Friday.
The company announced plans Thursday to cut a net 2,000 to 3,000 jobs over the next 18 months, its first companywide layoff. An initial wave of 1,400 job cuts were effective Friday.
The senator asked Ballmer for details on the jobs to be eliminated; how many are held by H-1B or other work-visa-program employees; how many are held by Americans and, of those positions, how many similar positions held by foreign guest workers are being retained; and how many H-1B or other work-visa-program workers Microsoft will retain when the layoff is complete.
What’s good for Microsoft is good for the United States? Not necessarily. █
Update (26/01/2009): Here is the text of Grassley’s letter:
January 22, 2009
Mr. Steve Ballmer
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond , WA 98052-6399
Dear Mr. Ballmer:
I am writing to inquire about press reports that Microsoft will be
cutting approximately 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months. I
understand that the layoffs will affect workers in research and
development, marketing, sales, finance, legal and corporate affairs,
human resources, and information technology.
I am concerned that Microsoft will be retaining foreign guest workers
rather than similarly qualified American employees when it implements
its layoff plan. As you know, I want to make sure employers recruit
qualified American workers first before hiring foreign guest workers.
For example, I cosponsored legislation to overhaul the H-1B and L-1
visa programs to give priority to American workers and to crack down
on unscrupulous employers who deprive qualified Americans of
high-skilled jobs. Fraud and abuse is rampant in these programs, and
we need more transparency to protect the integrity of our immigration
system. I also support legislation that would strengthen educational
opportunities for American students and workers so that Americans can
compete successfully in this global economy.
Last year, Microsoft was here on Capitol Hill advocating for more H-1B
visas. The purpose of the H-1B visa program is to assist companies in
their employment needs where there is not a sufficient American
workforce to meet their technology expertise requirements. However,
H-1B and other work visa programs were never intended to replace
qualified American workers. Certainly, these work visa programs were
never intended to allow a company to retain foreign guest workers
rather than similarly qualified American workers, when that company
cuts jobs during an economic downturn.
It is imperative that in implementing its layoff plan, Microsoft
ensures that American workers have priority in keeping their jobs over
foreign workers on visa programs. To that effect, I would like you to
respond to the following questions:
* What is the breakdown in the jobs that are being
eliminated? What kind of jobs are they? How many employees in each
area will be cut?
* Are any of these jobs being cut held by H-1B or other work
visa program employees? If so, how many?
* How many of the jobs being eliminated are filled by
Americans? Of those positions, is Microsoft retaining similar ones
filled by foreign guest workers? If so, how many?
* How many H-1B or other work visa program workers will
Microsoft be retaining when the planned layoff is completed?
My point is that during a layoff, companies should not be retaining
H-1B or other work visa program employees over qualified American
workers. Our immigration policy is not intended to harm the American
workforce. I encourage Microsoft to ensure that Americans are given
priority in job retention. Microsoft has a moral obligation to
protect these American workers by putting them first during these
difficult economic times.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
United States Senator
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Posted in Finance, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, SUN, Windows at 9:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Client software felt the slump in PC sales, and was further harmed by the shift to netbooks; many of these run Linux, which helps Microsoft not at all.”
–Ars Technica
“Microsoft, like much of the IT industry, was caught off-guard by the rapid rise of the netbook category, but moved quickly to offer a netbook-specific version of XP Home to stem the tide of Linux on netbooks. When one considers that getting some revenue is better than getting none, that was a wise move.”
–CRN
“Search engines be da**ed, it’s the OS that generates money – if the world switches to linux, it will switch to OpenOffice too.”
–Motley Fool (heavily Microsoft-influenced)
“Microsoft can’t charge $80 or $100 when there’s Linux for free on netbooks,” Rosoff said. On regular PC sales, Microsoft’s profit margins are typically about 70 percent to 80 percent, he explained.”
–Microsoft Press
WE WROTE ABOUT Microsoft’s latest defeat several days ago [1, 2] and will continue to do so later. Apart from the new quotes above, worth paying attention to is the following article, which predicts that “There may not be much left [of Microsoft] in two years time.”
Here is the prediction I’m hesitant about. Always in the past when software with substantial installed base has finally been supplanted the fall has not been gradual: Lotus and Wordperfect went from world-beaters to also rans in just a few years. I think Microsoft may surprise us by falling equally fast. There may not be much left in two years time.
Could Microsoft be heading towards $4? Everything is possible. Just witness how quickly giants like Sun Microsystems have fallen; none of this is linear, much like the network effect. Proprietary software loses its margin advantage very rapidly and a panicky shift to Free software is in some situations a case of “too little, too late.” Novell understands this too. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 8:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
I installed the 64-bit version of the Moonlight plugin for Firefox, and tested it on the following listed test site:
http://www.mason-zimbler.com/festivegreetings/
I was subsequently greeted by a dialogue box entitled “Moonlight Codecs Installer”:
Would you like to install the required add-on to play the content of this page?
This page requires the Microsoft Media Pack to be installed to play multimedia content.
If you choose, the software will be automatically downloaded and installed from Microsoft’s web site.
[] Do not ask me to install this add-on again
[Cancel] [Install Codecs]
Clicking on “Install Codecs” results in this the following message being displayed:
End User License Agreement
Before the required software can be installed, you must first agree to
the End User License Agreement below.
MICROSOFT PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
MICROSOFT MEDIA PACK 1.0
ONLY FOR USE WITH NOVELL'S MOONLIGHT 1.0 RUNNING IN AN INTERNET BROWSER
These license terms are an agreement between Microsoft Corporation (or
based on where you live, one of its affiliates) and you. Please read
them. They apply to the software named above, which includes the media
on which you received it, if any. The terms also apply to any Microsoft
- Updates (including but not limited to bug fixes, patches,
updates, upgrades, enhancements, new versions, and successors
to the software, collectively called "Updates"),
- supplements,
- Internet-based services, and
- support services
for this software, unless other terms accompany those items. If so,
those terms apply.
By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept
them, do not use the software.
If you comply with these license terms, you have the rights below.
1. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS. You may install and use any number of
copies of the software only with the software identified above running
in an Internet browser on a personal computer.
2. TERM. The term of this agreement is until the commercial release of
Novell’s Moonlight 1.0 but in no event later than June 1, 2009.
3. PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE. This software is a pre-release version. It
may not work the way a final version of the software will. We may
change it for the final, commercial version. We also may not release a
commercial version.
4. FEEDBACK. If you give feedback about the software to Microsoft, you
give to Microsoft, without charge, the right to use, share and
commercialize your feedback in any way and for any purpose. You also
give to third parties, without charge, any patent rights needed for
their products, technologies and services to use or interface with any
specific parts of a Microsoft software or service that includes the
feedback. You will not give feedback that is subject to a license that
requires Microsoft to license its software or documentation to third
parties because we include your feedback in them. These rights survive
this agreement.
5. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement
only gives you some rights to use the software. Microsoft reserves all
other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this
limitation, you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this
agreement. In doing so, you must comply with any technical limitations
in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You
also may not
- work around any technical limitations in the software;
- reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software,
except and only to the extent that applicable law expressly
permits, despite this limitation;
- publish the software for others to copy;
- rent, lease or lend the software; or
- transfer the software or this agreement to any third party.
6. NOTICE ABOUT VC-1 VISUAL STANDARDS. This software may include VC-1
visual decoding technology. MPEG LA, L.L.C. requires this notice:
THIS PRODUCT IS LICENSED UNDER THE VC-1 PATENT PORTFOLIO LICENSES FOR
THE PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE OF A CONSUMER TO (A) ENCODE VIDEO IN
COMPLIANCE WITH THE VC-1 STANDARD ("VC-1 VIDEO") OR (B) DECODE VC-1
VIDEO THAT WAS ENCODED BY A CONSUMER ENGAGED IN A PERSONAL AND
NON-COMMERCIAL ACTIVITY AND/OR WAS OBTAINED FROM A VIDEO PROVIDER
LICENSED TO PROVIDE VC-1 VIDEO. NO LICENSE IS GRANTED OR SHALL BE
IMPLIED FOR ANY OTHER USE.
If you have questions about the VC-1 visual standard, please contact
MPEG LA, L.L.C., 250 Steele Street, Suite 300, Denver Colorado 80206;
http://www.mpegla.com
7. EXPORT RESTRICTIONS. The software is subject to United States export
laws and regulations. You must comply with all domestic and
international export laws and regulations that apply to the software.
These laws include restrictions on destinations, end users and end use.
For additional information, see www.microsoft.com/exporting
8. SUPPORT SERVICES. Because this software is "as is," we may not
provide support services for it.
9. ENTIRE AGREEMENT. This agreement, and the terms for supplements,
Updates, Internet-based services and support services that you use, are
the entire agreement for the software and support services.
10. APPLICABLE LAW.
a. United States. If you acquired the software in the United States,
Washington state law governs the interpretation of this agreement and
applies to claims for breach of it, regardless of conflict of laws
principles. The laws of the state where you live govern all other
claims, including claims under state consumer protection laws, unfair
competition laws, and in tort.
b. Outside the United States. If you acquired the software in any
other country, the laws of that country apply.
11. LEGAL EFFECT. This agreement describes certain legal rights. You
may have other rights under the laws of your country. You may also have
rights with respect to the party from whom you acquired the software.
This agreement does not change your rights under the laws of your
country if the laws of your country do not permit it to do so.
12. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY. The software is licensed "as-is." You
bear the risk of using it. Microsoft gives no express warranties,
guarantees or conditions. You may have additional consumer rights under
your local laws which this agreement cannot change. To the extent
permitted under your local laws, Microsoft excludes the implied
warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and
non-infringement.
13. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF REMEDIES AND DAMAGES. You can
recover from Microsoft and its suppliers only direct damages up to U.S.
$5.00. You cannot recover any other damages, including consequential,
lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages.
This limitation applies to
- anything related to the software, services, content (including
code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs;
and
- claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee
or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to
the extent permitted by applicable law.
It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the
possibility of the damages. The above limitation or exclusion may not
apply to you because your country may not allow the exclusion or
limitation of incidental, consequential or other damages.
I don’t agree with this EULA, therefore I can’t install this software.
To resolve this problem, I downloaded the sources for Moonlight:
svn co svn://anonsvn.mono-project.com/source/trunk/moon
The license for this software is as follows (from moon/LICENSE):
* Moonlight source code (src/, plugin/)
Unless explicitly stated, this code is licensed under the
terms of the GNU LGPL 2 license only (no “later versions”).
Why isn’t Moonlight licensed under GPLv3?
In addition to the GNU LGPL, this code is available for
relicensing for non-LGPL use, contact Novell for details
(mono@novell.com).
We consider non-LGPL use instances where you use this on an
embedded system where the end user is not able to upgrade the
Moonlight installation or distribution that is part of your
product (Section 6 and 7), you would have to obtain a
commercial license from Novell (consider software burned into
a ROM, systems where end users would not be able to upgrade,
an embedded console, a game console that imposes limitations
on the distribution and access to the code, a phone platform
that prevents end users from upgrading Moonlight).
This seems to preclude distributing Moonlight on a LiveCD or other
immutable medium, which seems like a rather odd restriction.
I then tried to build Moonlight by following the instructions given in
the link you provided:
Download and install the moon tarball or moon SVN module from SVN:
* configure like this: ./configure
* Build and install, run: make && make install
* To install the plugin in your home: make test-plugin
moon]$ ./configure
bash: ./configure: No such file or directory
I notice you now use an autogen script, so I assume the above information is now out of date. Perhaps you could update that page to reflect this change.
After manually resolving difficulties with missing build dependencies (expat-devel, firefox-devel), I then proceeded with the build, but encountered this error:
"application.cpp:18:37: mono/metadata/appdomain.h: No such file or directory"
And the build failed.
So I installed the following to meet this missing dependency (including sub-dependants):
mono-core, mono-devel, mono-data, mono-winforms, mono-web
And tried again, but encountered yet another error:
checking for MONO... configure: error: Package requirements (mono >= 2.2) were not met:
Requested 'mono >= 2.2' but version of Mono is 1.2.5.1
After checking “./configure –help” for clues, I discovered that I needed to disable managed code to remove this dependency, so I tried again with the “–with-managed=no” flag set, but I still received exactly the same error.
application.cpp:18:37: error: mono/metadata/appdomain.h: No such file or directory
Even though this file does exist:
/usr/include/mono-1.0/mono/metadata/appdomain.h
At this point, I’m basically stuck.
So the question is, how do I, or anyone else who wishes to only use Free Software, view the contents of that Web page?
Also, when can I expect to see a prebuilt package of Moonlight, built against Free Software codecs rather than Microsoft’s proprietary software, in my distro’s repo? █
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Posted in News Roundup at 7:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
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Microsoft today laid off 1,400 workers, with another 3,600 on the block within 18 months. We asked Linux Foundation Director Jim Zemlin what if any role Linux played in Microsoft’s misfortunes, how Microsoft will react, and what it could mean for Linux and the open source community. Enjoy . . . !
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UPDATE: A technology vendor who saw Koss’ post on the Seattle startup list now is joining the effort, offering free access to 512 MB linux servers to those who join the incubator. “Our Virtual Servers aren’t a MS platform, but it provides a good opportunity to use your skills in a new arena and build something great,” writes Jesse Proudman of Blue Box Group.
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“According to Russian media, the Russian Government is going to develop a National Operating System (Google translation; Russian original) to lower its dependencies on foreign software technology licensing. The Russian plan will base its efforts on Linux and expects a worldwide impact. Microsoft is also involved in the roundtable process that led to the recommendation. The Chinese government successfully lowered its Microsoft licensing costs through an early investment in a national Linux distribution. I wonder if other large markets, such as the European Union, will also develop their own Linux distributions or join in the Russian initiative.”
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Being absolutely terrified by this course of action I check out what other advice is available. Someone else mentions that they got Java working with Firefox by downloading a file-package from the Synaptic application after they installed the Java Runtime, so I go for it too.
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If it is not the end for live CDs , nor even the beginning of the end, perhaps then it is the end of the beginning. They braced themselves and did their duty, introducing a new generation of users to the genius of GNU/Linux and extracting impetuous users from bricked machines—especially me. When they eventually recede into the mists of fond memory we will remember them. Hail Klaus. Bless you.
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Back in 2002, as Roy Schestowitz calls out, Microsoft was desperately trying to figure out a response to Linux. The problem wasn’t Linux as a product-level competitor. The problem, as its Windows chief, Jim Allchin, told a small gathering of Microsoft partners (PDF), is that Linux changes the nature of software competition with odd things like “community” and “GPL licensing,” the latter of which Microsoft didn’t like one bit :
We feel a huge threat from Linux. Maybe we shouldn’t, which is a question you could answer from your perspective…There’s Linux the community. We’re going to learn from Linux the community. Incredible what they did…We’re going to practice and practice and practice (to learn how to respond to Linux)…
GPL is the licensing model. We thlnk it’s very bad…We don’t think it’s the same as public domain. Somebody wants to put in a free DSB(?), we don’t have a problem with that, at least on licensing. But GPL, we think it’s very bad basically for the world, but especially for the United States.
This is not surprising, given that Allchin had earlier deprecated Linux as “an intellectual-property destroyer” in 2001.
But name-calling was proving not to be enough, and for a reason that Allchin and Microsoft struggled to grasp, but one that its partners, which distribute the bulk of Microsoft’s software, felt first-hand on the front lines. When Allchin later asked the participants what the biggest driver of Linux is, they didn’t mention its modularity, high performance, or other characteristics. Back in 2002 (and, indeed, today, in many instances), one thing mattered…
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What’s more stable than a rock, faster than a spinning disk, more powerful than a Windows system twice its size, and able to leap platforms like no other operating system? Surprise! It’s Linux.
It’s also recession proof.
Can that be true? Yes, and here are the 5 reasons why:
1. Not Corporate Bound – Linux is developed worldwide by volunteers. It isn’t owned by a single company. No one person or entity really owns Linux, the operating system.
2. Free – Several companies create their own distributions and market them commercially but the underlying system is still, and will always be, free.
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Do you use both Windows and Linux? Wish you could remote into Windows from Linux (Ubuntu or other distributions) or into Linux from Windows? Well, you can. Just like when using a Remote Desktop Connection between Microsoft platforms (or remoting between Linux machines), you can bring up the desktop of the other platform. You can click around the desktop and run applications just as if you were sitting in front of the computer.
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eyeon Fusion on Linux is proving itself in high-end feature film work on box office successes such as Twilight, Changeling, and Inkheart, as well as Terry Gilliam’s upcoming film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, starring the late Heath Ledger.
Running Fusion on Linux provides a seamless workflow for facilities who have invested in the platform, for example for their render farms.
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At IBM’s Lotusphere Conference the company announced an update of its Lotus Foundations line of Linux-based software for midmarket companies, as well as new Web 2.0 tools.
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Kernel Space
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If you need the advantages of Ext4, your existing Ext3 can be easily “upgraded” to Ext4 without the need to format. This means that all your data will stay intact once you upgrade (though I would highly recommend backing up).
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If the Linux virtualisation space wasn’t heated enough, the open source hypervisors Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) and Xen are now duking it out for independent developer interest, according to Xen hacker Simon “Horms” Horman.
Horman is attending this year’s linux.conf.au conference in Hobart while remaining close to his day job as a senior Linux developer at VA Linux Systems Japan K. K, but based in the Sydney office.
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CohesiveFT (http://www.cohesiveft.com), the leader in automated software assembly, today announced it has partnered with ElasticHosts Ltd. (http://www.elastichosts.com), the second European cloud infrastructure and the world’s first public cloud based upon KVM (the native Linux virtualization platform). As a result, users are now able to deploy virtual servers to ElasticHosts’ cloud infrastructure via CohesiveFT’s Elastic Server on-demand service. Elastic Server is an automated “factory” that allows IT professionals to assemble, deploy, and manage virtual servers using a simple point-and-click interface. Beginning today, customers can assemble custom Enterprise-class servers for deployment to ElasticHosts’ European cloud computing infrastructure. Free trials are available for both ElasticHosts cloud infrastructure and CohesiveFT’s Elastic Server factory, allowing customers to test drive the joint solution.
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The frequency of words in texts, the size of companies and the linking together of components in Linux software distributions show approximately the same mathematical distribution: they obey Zipf’s law. ETH Zurich researchers tested how this happens in Linux programs.
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Four months after Mesa 7.2 was released, Mesa 7.3 has now officially surfaced. Mesa 7.3 has been in testing since earlier this month with it having gone through three release candidates. The new features found in this latest version of the standard Open-Source OpenGL stack is proper support for GLSL 1.20 and the Intel DRI driver now supports the Graphics Execution Manager and Direct Rendering Infrastructure 2.
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Conferences
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I caught up with one of the event’s organizers, Gareth Greenaway, to find get the inside scoop on what’s new, what’s different, and what they’ve learned from past events.
OStatic: How many people make up the various organizing committees? How do you decide how to divide up responsibilities?
We have the work load divided up among roughly 7 committees, each committee has varying numbers of committee members. At some point early on we decided what committees would be responsible for what task; over the years as the show grows, we’ve refined the tasks a bit and moved some tasks around. We’ve also added new committees to better handle various tasks and divide the load. Everyone knows what they have to do to make sure the show goes off without a hitch.
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LCA
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Exhausted but overjoyed with the outcome, the co-organisers of the 10th Australian national Linux conference say they would be willing to play host again – but certainly not for a couple of years.
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Open source has reached the third wave of its evolution and those who have been using the older models which were procurement-driven need to adapt.
That’s the message which Simon Phipps, the chief open source and standards officer from Sun Microsystems, brought to the Australian national Linux conference this morning.
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One doubts whether there have ever been more people watching a man’s beard being clinically removed, first by trimmer and then by razor, than there were at the Australian national Linux conference today.
But this wasn’t just any man and any beard – this was HP’s chief open source and Linux technologist Bdale Garbee. And the barber was a man by the name of Linus Benedict Torvalds.
The reason for this hair-raising episode was pledges made by people at the conference’s penguin dinner on Wednesday when a painting was being auctioned to raise money for research into saving the Tasmanian devil.
The final sum is expected to be in the region of $40,000.
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I didn’t really anticipate finishing my evening by hearing Linus Torvalds promise to shave off another man’s beard.
[...]
A consortium, spoken for by the extremely handsome Matthew Garrett of power management fame, offered $7500 if Linus would himself wield the razor. When asked if he was happy with this plan, Linus replied “Why stop at the beard? I will do his whole head.”
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/linuxconfau-penguin-dinner
Torvalds shaves Garbee’s beard: Photos
In these photos, Linux founder Linus Torvalds shaves Hewlett-Packard Linux CTO and open-source luminary Bdale Garbee’s beard to raise money for the endangered Tasmanian Devil species.
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The annual Linux conference, Linux.conf.au, is on at Hobart this week and we kept you informed about the activities with our Twitter feed. A speaker predicting cloud computing will replace system administrator tasks and Wikipedia’s plan to release a new mobile platform later in the year were some of the event’s highlights.
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KDE
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The program for the first two days at the Camp KDE meeting in Jamaica provided the attendants with a series of talks. In time, these will be available in video from but for now we have these short summaries of the talks. Read on for details.
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While writing this review I caught myself repeating the same things about every KDE application, namely excellent performance, usability and great features.
It is so good to see that a lot of work during KDE4 development went into improving the quality of the user experience. Unlike their KDE3 counterparts, the best KDE4 applications are definitely more user-oriented. Despite being a developer, I enjoy this as much as every other person would.
It is equally good to see almost all KDE4 applications being fast. The optimizations behind the scene in Qt and KDE frameworks already showed up, but I think that this is only a start. We will definitely see even more performance improvements in the future.
The KDE “Gang of Five” (Dolphin, KMail, Konsole, Gwenview and Okular) sets the new standards of performance, look, and usability without sacrificing essential features of file manager, mail client, terminal and viewer. If you aren’t convinced by the bare KDE desktop, please take a look at these applications, let them speak for themselves!
KDE comes with a lot of good applications and I barely scratched the surface this time again. I haven’t said a word about KWrite/Kate – an excellent text editor, Digikam – the ultimate digital photo processing software, Kaffeine – the video player and of course Amarok – my beloved music player. Looks like I have to write yet another part or two 
Come back again!
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Ubuntu
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The Ubuntu team has released Ubuntu 8.04.2, the second maintenance update to the “long term support” (LTS) version of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, released in April 2008. The new release includes over two hundred updates, covering a range of bugs and security issues. The LTS updates focus on improving stability and compatibility.
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Amarok – in my opinion, this is the greatest music player and collection management for the Linux platform. I think it’s also a killer application for Linux with all the features it has.
SMPlayer – one of the most powerful video players for Linux using the mplayer engine, and including support for DVDs, DVD ISO images, Matroska video files and much, much more. A must-have.
KTorrent – for me this is the BitTorrent client of choice. It has all the features I need, including the possibility to only download certain files in torrents, a feature which some other clients lack.
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Devices/Embedded
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Sony’s Cybershot DSC-G3 was announced earlier this month, and is one of the first consumer products shipping in with the Access Linux Platform (ALP), the successor to the original Palm OS/Garnet OS which was used in Palm, Handspring, and Sony PDAs and smartphones.
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Blusens Technologies has announced a combination set-top box, digital video recorder, network-attached storage device, and media server that runs Linux on a Sigma SMP8634 SoC. The “BlueBrain” offers dual DVB-T tuners, removable storage, WiFi, and optional HomePlugAV networking, says the Spanish consumer electronics company.
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Phillipines-based Neugent Technologies is shipping a compact, multi-channel surveillance DVR (digital video recorder) that can optionally overlay cash register output on surveillance videos. The SP-2000 Hawkeye Desktop DVR runs Linux 2.6.16 on an ARM9 SoC (system-on-chip), supports standalone or network modes, and boasts hardware MPEG-4 coprocessing.
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Innova Card has indeed developed an integrated, secure 32-bit MIPS microcontroller and a precertified POS terminal reference design. In addition, the company supplies advanced customer support tools, including secure software libraries and a secure implementation of the Linux operating system.
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Phones
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Free music service Last.fm announced today that it’s now available for handheld devices that use the Android platform. Like the Web-based version, users can stream radio stations, track listening habits, and get personal music recommendations. Last.fm users can also get artist information, view their personal music files, and access event and tour information.
According to Last.fm co-founder Martin Stiksel, the mobile app essentially replicates the online user experience. “The Last.fm service on Android enables our listeners to use virtually every Last.fm feature on their mobiles,” he said in a prepared statement.
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The Android open-source mobile platform is moving to Europe as the World Mobile Congress draws near. Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile will soon sell its G1 Android phone in several European countries, with the price set $1.33 in Germany. An analyst said all the big companies except Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion will have Android phones.
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Mobile application development projects bring in more money than other types of open source software development, a study found. The survey was based on “extensive interviews” of 380 developers involved in open source Linux projects, says Dublin, Ireland, based research firm Research and Markets.
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Sub-notebooks
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Sony has brought a new mini-notebook to the market that is small, light, stylish and with Windows Vista, although its instant-on feature is Linux-powered.
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Why don’t PC makers sell more Linux netbooks? Maybe because they simply aren’t making enough of them.
Jay Lyman is an analyst for The 451 Group who focuses on enterprise open-source software issues. He recently posted a blog entry describing the difficulty he had finding an Acer Aspire One netbook with a pre-installed copy of Linux. According to Lyman, the problem was that while loads of Aspire One models running Windows XP were in-stock and available, the models running Linux were in many cases simply sold out:
“The message for Acer and other manufacturers: up your ratio of Linux netbooks. While North America seems to be the main market for these machines, about 30% of which run Linux by most accounts, among my dwindling options for obtaining the right Linux netbook were in Canada and the UK. However, the shipping costs added onto my minimal netbook expense of ~$350. While there were a number of online outlets that were sold out of the Linpus version, most of these same places had hundreds, sometimes thousands of XP netbooks in stock.”
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Netvibes founder Tariq Krim sent me a new screenshot of Jolicloud, the Linux-based Netbook-optimized operating system he’s building (we first covered Jolicloud last December).
F/OSS
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Montreal – Identi.ca, the developer of an open-source alternative to the Twitter microblogging service, has raised an undisclosed sum of angel funding from Montreal Start Up, according to published reports.
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Jitterbit is an open source integration platform that gives end users a cost-effective way to connect with data in different sources, such as ERP and CRM systems, as well as with Web services and other applications. The company helps enterprises overcome the huge costs and complexities often associated with connecting data in different applications and systems, especially in large enterprises.
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Its official. Those prevalent Blackberry devices will support ODF natively mid 2009, as announced by RIM’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie, during IBM’s Lotusphere conference…
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Last I checked in June, Zimbra, Yahoo’s open-source e-mail and calendar software, was at 11 million paid mailboxes. This was a healthy jump from 8 million paid mailboxes in May 2007 and the 4 million paid mailboxes TechCrunch reported back in October 2006.
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With the final release of Alfresco Labs officially available, Alfresco believes they have an enterprise content management solution that can easily compete in today’s tough economic market. With this release comes Alfresco’s first solution for the presentation tier of website development – the new Web Studio.
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The open-source g-Eclipse project has had it’s first major release. It started over two years ago with the support of the European Union initiative; with further development now under the umbrella of the Eclipse foundation and other European projects. Version 1.0 of g-Eclipse has been released with support for grid middleware solutions g-Lite, GRIA and Amazon’s Cloud storage platforms, EC2 and S3.
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Parts-supplier Ogihara America, savaged by the automotive downturn, presses on with a key PLM initiative thanks to flexible pricing from its software vendor.
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If it’s good enough for Facebook and it’s good enough for Google, maybe it’s good enough for the corporates. Of the MIS Top 100 in Australia [the 100 organisations spending the most on IT], 18 have stated they’re using MySQL. They don’t need to sign up for support with Sun, but we’re finding increasingly they are. We see that transition being quite exciting.
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Sun Tech Days is part of Sun Microsystems’ commitment to foster open source technology, which they say ‘enables developer communities to collaborate and innovate without barriers, and for enterprises to reduce costs’.
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That’s not to say that applying open source and open standards to the healthcare industry is impossible and isn’t already gaining traction in some areas. For example, the Veterans Administration clinical information system software (VistA) is open source and, by all accounts, an incredible success: “VistA saves lives and money.”
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Lunch talks at the Berkman Center usually promise a challenging room, filled with smart people asking tough questions. But it’s rare that speakers have as tough an act to follow as Peter Semmelhack of Bug Labs whose lunch talk fell directly on the tail of President Obama’s inaugural address, watched on lossy streaming video by a room full of Berkfolk.
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Aiming to showcase its cost-saving technologies at an increasingly popular event, an Israel-based maker of open source software-based business telephony products announced today that it’s participating in the 2009 Digium Asterisk World at the Internet Telephony Conference and Expo East.
Officials at Xorcom, a private manufacturer of Asterisk-based telephony interfaces and appliances, say they’ll exhibit new PBX (News – Alert) solutions and services at the ITEXPO, to be held Feb. 2 to 4 at the Miami Beach Convention Center.
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PrismTech is all set to release its OpenSplice DDS data distribution software as open source. This open source software will be licensed under LGPL licensing. Optional subscription packages consisting of professional support, productivity and optimization tools will also be provided along with the code base.
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Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) collects, preserves, and presents historic and contemporary radio and television content with the purpose of educating, informing, and entertaining the public through its archives, public programs, screenings, exhibits, publications and online access to its resources.
MBC also runs Museum.tv–which stores and delivers terabytes of digitized radio and television content. Currently, they are featuring a 1984 senatorial debate including Roland Burris–whom you may recognize as the senator just appointed to fill Barack Obama’s vacancy (check out the protests at the start of the debate and how the moderator handles it).
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For OrangeHRM accomplishing 200,000 downloads of the Open Source Human Resource Management System since its first release in February 2006 to SourceForge is a great start for the year 2009 and we hope for a continuous exciting year ahead.
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The Veneto Region, around the Italian city of Venice, has decided to move to open source software and open standards, the Italian Internet news site Zeus reports.
According to the report, the regional Council of Veneto passed a resolution to adopt to open digital formats and open standards, in November last year.
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The PHP community is finally getting an update to the Eclipse Foundation’s PHP Developer Tools (PDT) project, an important set of tools for developers that has not been update since the initial 1.0 release in 2007.
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Development to be integrated into open source MediaWiki package
The proliferation of standards-based video sharing and collaboration is set to take off with a $US100,000 grant from the Mozilla Foundation to fund the development of the Ogg Theora video codec and server-side streaming software.
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26 years after GSM was created to design a pan-European mobile technology, Mobile World Congress number 13 is set to take place in Barcelona in February. This time around, as they did when GSM World Congress was first held in Madrid in 1995, mobile network operators will dominate the scene.
Next month, however, the topic of discussion will not be new network deployments, or the latest traunch of jazzy new devices, or the next best application. Rather, Open Source will be topic Number 1 on the operator agenda in 2009. As changing operator strategies include the need for a strategic terminal platform that they can influence, the tectonic plates that once defined how a device was created and deployed are shifting and fueling significant change in the value chain.
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The Google Desktop team has been steadily releasing our Desktop gadget (widget) creations as Open Source for the past few years. If you check out this list, you can see most of the official Google created gadgets are actively maintained by the Google Desktop developer community. We had many good reasons for opening this code for the community:
* Source code can be a valuable learning tool. The gadgets not only show you how to develop Desktop gadgets, integrate with Google APIs, but also provide other tidbits of knowledge such as how to calculate phases of the moon or StarDates.
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How has open-source changed our space and what more can it do for us?
I think there has been a lot of good innovation and freedom from open source, and I expect that to continue. But I think we are starting to see the model evolve, where commercial companies need some assurances and support around open source. I think a model similar to eclipse will emerge where it is somewhere between full open source and commercial applications. In that way, you have the freedoms and no vendor lock-in, but you still have feature development and support.
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Geospatial
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According to a Nabble post from an OpenStreetMap (OSM) community member the French Minister of the Economy, and the Direction Générale des Finances publiques (DGFiP) in charge of the French cadastre have allowed the OSM project access to vectorised geo-data from the French land registry.
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The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) have announced a Climate Change Integration Plugfest (CCIP) to be launched at the FOSS4G conference, 20-23 October 2009, http://2009.foss4g.org.
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Events
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OSBC 2009 will tackle the biggest issue in open source today: “Open Sourcing the Enterprise.” Over the course of two days, top IT executive keynotes will preview the future of open source by revealing how it is already being used by the industry’s top enterprises and vendors to push the envelope on innovation while coming in under budget.
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Does open source play a role in your company? Whether you use or produce open source software, understanding the business and legal ramifications behind open source is critical.
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Akaza Research announces the first annual OpenClinica European Summit. The event will be held on April 14, 2009 in Brussels, Belgium and bring together users, developers, and leading service providers of the OpenClinica open source electronic data capture (EDC) software.
Leftovers
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In the light of Gordon’s recent wobbly over our Freedom of Information Act, lets hope he reads carefully the following memo from his new mate Obama:
A democracy requires accountability, and accountability requires transparency. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” In our democracy, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which encourages accountability through transparency, is the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government. At the heart of that commitment is the idea that accountability is in the interest of the Government and the citizenry alike.
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You would have thought the smack across the knuckles delivered by the public over their attempt to hide MP’s expenses from scrutiny would be enough for the UK government’s ministers, but oh no, they’re up to their old tricks:
Hidden in the new Coroners and Justice Bill [2] is one clause (cl.152) amending the Data Protection Act. It would allow ministers to make ‘Information Sharing Orders’, that can alter any Act of Parliament and cancel all rules of confidentiality in order to use information obtained for one purpose to be used for another.
This single clause is as grave a threat to privacy as the entire ID Scheme. Combine it with the index to your life formed by the planned National Identity Register [3] and everything recorded about you anywhere could be accessible to any official body.
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Big label pressure has forced British cable ISP Virgin Media to suspend plans to introduce a legal music sharing service for its subscribers, just weeks ahead of its launch, The Register has learned.
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The BSA sure does love to use bogus numbers. Usually, it’s with its stats on “piracy” that are so ridiculously misleading it’s amazing that the press reports them as fact so often.
Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day
John William Templeton looks at Free Open Source Software and African American culture and innovation 02 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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