07.20.09
Posted in Free/Libre Software, Law, Microsoft, Mono, Novell at 11:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Free as in Freedom, with Microsoft’s conditions that are not enforceable by law
THE MONO-NONO WEB site has just published this long post which explores the impact of Mono on the term “Free software”, assuming Mono qualifies as “Free software” in the first place.
The question then becomes: Do you think that the licensing of the software, when combined with the patent assurances Microsoft has given are sufficient to meet all the requirements of the Four Freedoms? Of the Debian Free Software Guidelines?
Think on that in great detail and see what answer you come up with – think on it first trusting Microsoft to do the “right” thing, and once again assuming Microsoft will do the “wrong” thing. Can software be conditionally Free, depending on the intention of Microsoft? It is a sort of Schrödinger’s Freedom – how Free the software is depends on how Microsoft decides to act!
Perhaps you think that the assurances of the ECMA/ISO standard and the Community Promise are sufficient when combined with the licensing terms to consider Mono Free Software. I do not think that is an unreasonable conclusion. Now, read Microsoft’s Moonlight Covenant, and see if you get the same answer about Moonlight.
This matter is becoming important because code which falls outside Microsoft’s Community Promise will make it into GNU/Linux distributions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] if Banshee’s vision is realised. Mono and Moonlight are persistently being promoted by Novell’s PR people, so it is by all means a strategic focus for Novell. █
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Posted in Apple, Vista 7, Windows at 10:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Very scarce adoption predicted based on very scarce response rate, which is biased
LAST week we wrote about a survey which suggested a poor adoption expectancy for Windows 7. The following article, titled “94% of companies will pass on Windows 7 upgrade until late 2010,” gives good interpretation of what was found (or what was not found) by the survey.
The poll is a relatively small sample of all the companies out there, still it is 5% of those companies contacted. And to have 94% of them say they would not upgrade until sometime late in 2010 is really something! I think that’s more telling than the 60% who, today, say they won’t upgrade at all — as those mindsets could change given a successful migration, for example. But some are already anticipating the upcoming problems before they occur and have simply said “No, not before the end of 2010″.
There is also this new essay called “Microsoft Myopia Leads to Revisionist History.” It is mostly an Apple versus Microsoft angle, though. █
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Posted in Deception, Google, Microsoft, Search at 10:27 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
…According to Microsoft’s logic
Summary: A game with figures and definitions intends to paint a deceiving picture
THIS is an interesting little catch about Microsoft’s already-struggling-to-grow search engine. Watch how Microsoft spins its search engine, claiming a jump from 0% to 8% because they renamed their search engine and began redirecting visitors. Underneath it is mostly the same, so to suggest such a gain is like Google launching under a new domain, pretending to have begun from scratch, and then pretending to have gained a lot of market share, starting from 0%. Here is another article whole title is “Microsoft: Bing Jumps 8 Percent Since Launch”. This is a very deceiving headline and it is irresponsible to put it like that. Towards the end it states:
Bing has yet to capture as much of the market globally, with 3.27 percent of worldwide marketshare in June, behind Google with 89.8 percent and Yahoo with 5.15 percent.
The English-speaking press tends to paint a different picture by citing US-oriented surveys. The same goes for studies of Web browsers and operating systems trends, where data is mostly collected from the most developed countries.
Here is one person who is blocking Bing altogether.
Webmasters all over the web have been noticing the same trend. Exposure Online says, “Microsoft is lying and intentionally screwing up your log files,” and eKstreme.com says, “Yell if Microsoft’s Live.com Spammed You Too – Updated,” and even other webmasters decided to block MS’ bot before I did.
This last article is spinning it in some other ways; for instance, it is measuring only what seems like growth (e.g. “people likely to recommend”) and ignoring the rest of the possible metrics that are less than supportive. █
Related:
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Posted in Finance, Google, Microsoft at 9:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: More news about Microsoft’s situation amid declining margins, increased spendings in some units, and pressure from Google/SaaS and GNU/Linux
YESTERDAY WE wrote about Microsoft's expected sharp decline in profit. It turns out that not only profit declines but revenue does too (these two yardsticks can go in separate directions). According to this report from Romania:
Microsoft Romania, the local subsidiary of world’s biggest software producer would end the fiscal 2009 (July 1 2008 – July 3 2009) with a 10-15% decline in revenues, thus missing the growth estimates made at the end of last year by 1 to 4%, stated Calin Tatomir, the company’s chief executive.
Microsoft’s revenue also declined in the last quarter. It was claimed to be a first-ever, but as past stories suggest, this may not be true. Expectation is that Microsoft’s profit erosion will be sharp, so IDG has just published an opinion piece titled: “Seven Reasons Microsoft’s Profits are Tanking”
To give one reason:
* Bing: Microsoft’s latest search engine effort will cost in the ballpark of $100 million to market, and that doesn’t include development costs either. Is Redmond tilting at windmills here, or does Bing really have a shot at challenging mighty Google for search dollars? Whatever the case, Bing is one expensive gamble.
It is not just Microsoft’s finances that are declining. Microsoft’s public image too is suffering. Consider for example the following new reports:
i. Microsoft Customer Satisfaction Plummets in VendorRate Q2 Report
VendorRate, the only Web-based business information service that offers quick, confidential performance ratings and comparisons of technology vendors, announced today that customer satisfaction scores for Microsoft plunged dramatically in the second quarter of 2009 while IBM Informix and telecom equipment maker ShoreTel earned the top scores in the quarter.
ii. Survey: Microsoft customer satisfaction takes second quarter hit
Customer satisfaction for Microsoft’s applications and operating systems took a hit in the second quarter, according to a report by VendorRate, an outfit that tracks vendor satisfaction.
iii. Startups give Google thumbs-up over Microsoft
Analysts and executives say Google, which unveiled the Chrome this week in a direct challenge to Microsoft’s decades-old dominance of computer operating systems and business applications, will take years to get significant share of the market, but startups might be their way in.
A growing number of tech entrepreneurs argue that Microsoft’s current software is out of date and inefficient because, unlike applications that run off the Web in a “cloud” environment, they run one copy per person at a time, rather than allowing multiple users to share information.
So how can Microsoft defeat Google? Well, Joe Wilcox is back after Microsoft Watch closed. Writing for BetaNews, he gives Microsoft advice not on how to improve Microsoft products but on how to FUD rivals.
Microsoft should use Twitter data theft as hosted apps marketing FUD
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Microsoft talks about the “Apple Tax,” but I’ve heard plenty of IT managers complain about the “Microsoft Tax” in reference to Software Assurance fees or CALs (client-access licenses). They see that off-premise hosting can cost loads less per employee, provide immediate software and feature upgrades and reduce management costs. It’s to these businesses considering hosted services — and not from Microsoft or one of its partners — that the Twitter/Google Apps data breach could be used as effective counter marketing. Microsoft sales people can spin the story to emphasize the importance of on-premise software and to call out new security features coming in Windows 7.
The explanation may seem reasonable, but the headline shows sheer bias and intent to FUD as a business strategy. █
“I’m a huge fan of guerrilla marketing.”
–Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Watch
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Posted in News Roundup at 8:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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The partnership, a first for any Nigerian software company, will be launched at the Nigerian computer society conference slated for Abuja by this month.
International Syst and Leapsoft are jointly developing and marketing a suite of software applications and customized solutions for the Nigerian market which when fully developed will be branded Metasys Wazobia.
The partnership was structured by Leapsoft executives Bolaji Onibudo and Tola Talabi at International Syst headquarters in Brazil.
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The problem was that Asus had not only adopted Windows and jettisoned Linux (which I knew), but the computer didn’t even come with the free services that came with the US$199 model. I know there are millions who love Windows. That is their human right. But it fails completely — for me — on usability.
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Additionally, Linux is not tied to the brand or agenda of any other major company, as is the case for Nokia’s Symbian OS and Microsoft with its Windows Mobile OS, which creates unfettered business model flexibility that can fully support a highly customisable user experience.
Mobile Linux solutions share APIs with the desktop and enterprise solutions. As a result, previously developed third-party Linux applications can be ported to the mobile environment more efficiently and cost-effectively.
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MP3 – 1 hour 52 minutes 57 seconds, 51.7 MB, Ogg Vorbis version here — you can also download all our episodes in both MP3 and Ogg Vorbis format from the Outlaw Archives.
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There is a reason why open-source operating systems based on Linux are less likely to be infected by a virus than proprietary systems like Microsoft’s Windows: As computer security experts like to say, “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”
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Google recently announced plans for a new PC operating system, the Chrome OS. Within minutes, the media reported an OS war and began telling us who loses and who wins. The Chrome OS will smash Windows! Or else Chrome is actually good for Microsoft and (despite running on a Linux kernel) threatens Linux! Who knows? We might actually have to wait until the new OS comes out, which Google says won’t happen for another year.
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Have you ever wondered why some updates or installs require a reboot, and others don’t? The main reason relates to kernel-level (core) services running in memory which either have been altered by the update to include new data that can’t be “squeezed in” to its existing footprint, or are currently attached to multiple separate processes which cannot be accounted for without a reboot. Ksplice has figured out a way around that issue in a majority of the cases.
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This technology is only for Linux at the current time. No features like this are available for Windows. The technology does require a kernel patch, as Ksplice itself must be integrated into the kernel. The installation software (.deb package) handles this for you.
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Those behind the Das Keyboard are now offering up new keycaps for Linux and Mac users. Just pop off the designated Windows keys and replace them with the 2 Mac command keys, 2 Mac alt/option keys, and 2 Linux keys.
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Only two weeks ago, Bull announced that it was creating its own line of extreme-scale blade supercomputers with the unfortunately and presumably unintentionally hilarious name bullx. The machines do, however, include plenty of clever hardware such as nVidia Tesla GPU co-processors, and software such as a complete Linux stack for HPC shops.
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IFOSS L. Rev’s Tech Watch section aims to allow technical experts and organisational leaders in Free and Open Source Software to introduce and explain topical issues with important legal aspects. These discussions may form the basis of subsequent detailed examination by IFOSS L. Rev. contributors.
This issue, KDE e.V. Vice President of Legal Affairs Adriaan de Groot reviews some of the issues presently confronting community software authors: copyright consolidation, making a living from coding, and ‘doing legal stuff right’.
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Applications
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When I first downloaded LinCity-NG (free), I figured it was a simple clone of an older version of SimCity, primarily aimed at the *nix market. As it turns out, it’s more like a first cousin once removed, but that’s not entirely a bad thing.
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Micro-blogging is all the rage these days. It is a webservice which allows the subscriber to send short text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. Subscribers can read microblog posts online or request that updates be delivered in real time to their desktop as an instant message or sent to a mobile device as an SMS text message.
With micro-blogging, posts are brief (typically 140 – 200 characters) and can be written or received with a variety of computing devices.
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The Mandriva developers have released a second edition of their Mandriva Linux One 2009.1 LiveCD. The second edition of the LiveCD uses the 2.6.29 Linux kernel and features version 4.2.4 of the KDE desktop environment.
The release includes all of the available security and maintenance updates up to the 10th of July and several updates to the included applications, such as Firefox 3.0.11, OpenOffice 3.0.1 and version 1.0 of the VLC Media Player. Two new desktop icons allow users to easily install a flash player and several additional audio and video codecs.
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At the end of the day though, I wouldn’t call Kubuntu Jaunty a particularly successfully release. It took a pretty significant effort to fine-tune the setup to its current state and I don’t find that to be particularly associated to “just works”. I’m going to try out Karmic as soon as it hits beta. Hopefully, we can avoid jumping through hoops to get it setup properly this time.
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By sheer chance and very good fortune, I now own an ASUS N10J netbook. Or notebook. Somewhere in between the two, I suppose, in terms of price, features and performance. This is likely to turn out to be very long, so I am going to start off with the summary, for those who just want the high points, and then I’ll fill in a lot more details.
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Mozilla Labs has announced the winners of its Summer Design Challenge, a competition that called for the interaction design community to submit ideas for reinventing tabbed browsing.
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Open-source software has gained growing acceptance in the enterprise. Once enterprises put in place the same governance, policy and support processes around open-source software as they do with proprietary software, there is no limit to how much open-source software they can bring into their organization. Here, Knowledge Center contributor Carol J. Rizzo offers five tips on how to bring open-source software into your organization in a way that maps to your corporate risk factors, making open-source software no more or less of a risk than proprietary software.
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A picture is always worth a thousand words. The good news is that in the open source world as well as the freeware world, there are many excellent graphics and photo management tools, plus free desktop publishers and web design templates. Whether you want to produce splashy graphical documents, enhance graphics on a blog or web site, create eye-catching logos, or more, check out our updated collection of ten free applications and resources here.
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Open source shares critical values with government and public education that make them function in the ideal; meritocracy of ideas, transparency, collaboration. But where is the sweet spot in the confluence of these social, technical, and public policy ideals? What is the opportunity for the citizen developer to get involved? And would it surprise you to know that change has been quietly at work while you were still standing in line for your driver’s license?
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The Unladen Swallow project, which seeks to bring a 5-fold performance boost to the Python programming language, has delivered its first milestone release. Although the project hasn’t delivered real-world performance improvements yet, the new version is a big step forward and helps to demonstrate the technical viability of the effort.
School Park mashup art and Free Software space in Santo Andre, Brazil 01 (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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