Summary: If software is applied science and engineering, then comparing it to politics and religion should be deemed inappropriate
THREE DAYS ago we wrote about the use of the word "zealot" to describe anyone whom you disagree with. This strategy is not new and it is extensively utilised for political goals. Other words that can substitute “zealot” are “neo-fascist”, “dictator”, “fanatic”, and even “terrorist”.
We try not to be distracted by personal attacks that make systematic use of such labels. Going by the same rules, one might as well describe Microsoft as a “freedom-hating zealot”, but this is not a good way to construct a rational argument. In an excellent new post, the awkward perception that the Free Software movement “hates” Microsoft is being dismissed. Here are some portions of the argument:
Recently, Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the free software movement, expressed some genuine concerns regarding the use of C# to create programs and the use of Mono as free implementation of the .Net framework. Then, something interesting happened. Many people in the open source group were upset at him! Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, made a reference to “Microsoft hating” and linked it to the free software movement.
Excuse me???? Is Microsoft hatred identified with the “free software” community?
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Microsoft is not “evil” ethically speaking, it is just a corporation. However, Microsoft is not a friend of the free software and the open source movements. It has declared itself an enemy of the GNU/Linux operative system a number of times, and it has determined publicly and privately its erradication from the market. Remember the Halloween documents? These are memos that circulated within Microsoft which revealed several strategies to drive GNU/Linux out of the market, many of which include deceiving the public. These documents have been recognized by Microsoft as being authentic. Don’t we remember Bill Gates saying that the GNU GPL was a plague and that the open source community was a bunch of communists? Or don’t we remember that just recently Gates purposely misled people saying that the GPL prevents people from improving software? Don’t we remember the bogus suit by Microsoft against Lindows over trademark rights because Microsoft thought that it was the owner of the “indows” part of the name? Don’t we remember the repeated threats made by Microsoft against companies that distributed GNU/Linux with patent suits? And hasn’t the Software Freedom Law Center reported just a few days ago that Microsoft still continues to shake companies with patent threats?
As the above notes, some of the Stallman bashing began at the end of June when Stallman publicly presented his views on Mono. One person from Debian, for example, cursed Stallman, who merely formalised an existing issue that can be dealt with politely. As the following short essay notes, using the very same mental filters, Mono proponents can be described as “zealots”, based on their pattern of behaviour alone.
Pro-mono Zealotry
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What this does illustrate, I think, is something that is already obvious to anyone that has been following the Mono controversy: there are people that are just as “extreme” and unwilling to listen to reason as the most zealoty charactertures painted by the Broad Brush of the Most High and (Self) Righteous Community Gatekeepers.
You can spot these people by the mindless regurgitation of other people’s talking points and the inability to make even the slightest concession to any opposing argument; the gleeful participation in any manner of attack or disinformation; the uncritical embrace of anyone or anything that supports thier position. A sure sign is charging the opposition with the very crimes they themselves are in the act of commiting.
It would be best to drop the word “zealot”, which by convention refers to political and/or religious controversies. The arguments here are technical (and sometimes legal) by nature, so no heated debate about software deserves to be called “zealous” (or “zealotry”). It is just a daemonisation term, a propaganda term. Let’s give it a rest because comparing programmers to religious people is what leads to satires and parodies about religion. █
More than 9 out of every 10 Windows users are vulnerable to the Flash zero-day vulnerability that Adobe won’t patch until Thursday, a Danish security company said today.
A critical patch for all versions of IE will protect consumers, while a security update for Visual Studio will help developers fix the controls and components they built that could be affected.
Still, the malware helped build one of the biggest botnets in years—at one point reaching around several million, according to some estimates. In May, even after months of publicity and work by vendors and researchers, the worm was still attempting to infect some 50,000 new PCs daily.
It should come as no surprise that most Internet users ignore security certificate warnings, but a new study examines just how severe this behavior is and why people do it. Hint: it’s because legit websites cry wolf with SSL warnings on a regular basis.
PandaLabs found 1,000 samples of fake antivirus software in the first quarter of 2008. In a year, that number had grown to 111,000. And in the second quarter of 2009, it reached 374,000, Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs said in a recent interview.
After extracting the OEM certificate and OEM product key, it’s confirmed that Windows 7 uses the same digitally signed OEM certificate (in .xrm-ms extension) that is been used in Windows Vista. Windows Vista OEM cert can be used in Windows 7 has been explained in Windows 7 forum.
Sensitive information about the technical infrastructure of the New York Stock Exchange’s computer network was left unsecured on a public server for possibly more than a year, Threat Level has learned.
Summary: Listing of some new OpenDocument milestones and warning about those who try to push a stick into wheels of standards
Malaysia’s latest update regarding ODF was highly encouraging and Yoon Kit adds that “ODF will be published on the SIRIM website within 2 months since its approval in June. Priority will be given over others in their backlog.” Over at the OpenDocument Web site, it is noted that another project — called TEA — finally supports ODF.
TEA is a Qt-based editor for Unix and Windows. Version 25 features better support for reading ODF text files (.odt)
The same site also posts a reminder about this year’s OpenOffice.org Conference (OOoCon). For those who do not know:
OOoCon is where representatives of all the community projects meet to celebrate and learn from the achievements of the past twelve months, and discuss how to meet the challenges of the next twelve.
A lot has been achieved recently. OpenOffice.org was downloaded at a pace of 1.3 million copies per week around the beginning of 2007. At the beginning of this year it peaked at about 3 million downloads per week. Surely enough, the deep economic impact may have played a role in this. Microsoft Office is taking the toll [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], just like Windows is suffering from GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3]. It’s about margins, not just market share. Free software and open standards are eroding Microsoft’s profitability, which makes its business model a lot less sustainable.
“Free software and open standards are eroding Microsoft’s profitability, which makes its business model a lot less sustainable.”We have repeatedly warned and offered examples where ODF-hostile people were entering ODF mailing lists. They pretend to be friends of ODF in order to curse it and have credibility at the same time. Microsoft does this all the time while it’s harming ODF [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and even Wikipedia became a battleground to the monopolist. The ODF Plugfest had injected to it some ODF hostility, courtesy of Microsoft folks. It is all part of the plan to subvert ODF from the inside; if you can’t beat them, divide them.
I get very angry to seeing at Wikipedia a message that stating that “appears to have a conflict of interest with its subject” about the contributions to the article … we are all in favor of ODF ? Or not ?
This is exactly what they want … confuse, deceive, hinder, delay … help to fail! And hope it serves as a lesson and prove (or a warning) to all those who think that everything is solved!
When I was preparing to write this post, I made a complete list with names, email addresses, blogs, sites, and in some cases companies of each of the “workers of the gray area” that I managed to identify. With the help of some confidence friends around the world, also prepared a compilation of information that show the questionable not-so-distant past of those folks.
It is important to be careful of Microsoft’s attempts to approach the ODF crowd; Microsoft is not ODF’s friends. The only reason it implemented something that resembles ODF (and is incompatible with all existing implementations) is to increase sales of Office and act as PR gesture that unjustifiably appeases regulators. █
Virtual Bridges, IBM and Canonical announced today the immediate availability of the newest version of a Linux-server based virtual desktop with the release of Virtual Bridges’VERDE 2.0 software.
InMage Systems Presents Disaster Recovery Solutions for Linux Environments at Open Source World Conference and Expo InMage’s Scout Software Provides Cost-Effective Remote Disaster Recovery That Supports Heterogeneous Environments
According to the case study, “Gap Inc. Direct needed to revamp its entire end-to-end business technology platform–from the customer-facing front-end system, to the back-end order management application, to the business tools that supported the company’s long-term growth strategy.”
If you are involved with Linux, you know that the GNOME vs. KDE battle has been going on for a long time. Now in most flame wars, you might find a few in both camps who support both sides. Not in this battle. The GNOME vs. KDE clash is a vicious one that never has and never will see a pleasantry tossed across the DMZ. GNOME users hate KDE and KDE users hate GNOME. This battle goes beyond the interface and slithers its cold, hatred-filled finger of doom down into the very tool kits used to create the widgets.
We’ve written about Ken Starks in this space before and the admirable work he does for the HeliOS Project.
It’s one of those amazing Austin organizations that puts a lump in my throat every time I write about it. Ken and his volunteers take computers that would otherwise go into landfills or get donated to Goodwill, get them operational and donate them to needy kids, families and non-profits that are happy to have functioning desktop and laptop computers.
One thing I still hear a lot at this late date is why techies aren’t spending less time Twittering and more time doing things for their community. Well, Austin, it’s time to put up or shut up. This Saturday, you have an opportunity to get computers in the hands of those who need them most. Starks hooked up with networking guru Lynn Bender of GeekAustin and they have organized Linux Against Poverty.
Web host Sprocket Networks, powered by AppServe Technologies, LLC has announced their new Linux Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting program that is starting immediately. To ramp up this new VPS hosting they are providing 50% off all Linux VPS’s purchased by August 31, 2009.
Low cost, reliable clustering has enabled Monash University to deliver supercomputing power to its researchers.
High Performance Computing Clusters (HPCC), which are virtualised groups of Intel-based blade servers running Linux, have enabled the Melbourne-based University to maintain a supercomputer with non-specialist staff, according to Adrian Ling, Monash’s manager of infrastructure and major IT projects.
It has been no secret that we have been working to create our own Linux distribution that is designed to run off a Live DVD/USB device and would provide a standardized free software stack for running hardware benchmarks whether you are a computer review web-site like us, an independent hardware vendor interested in seeing how well their hardware performs on Linux, or just a hobbyist wishing to compare your system’s performance against that of your friends.
The Linux 2.6.31 kernel will be released within the next month or so and one of the new features in this release is the long-awaited integration of the TTM memory manager and then appearing as a staging driver in this kernel is an ATI kernel mode-setting driver. This KMS driver doesn’t yet support the newer R600/R700 GPUs, but it does support the R500 series and will be used by default in the forthcoming release of Fedora 12.
Clutter 1.0.0 is the first stable release for this project and it also marks the point of the APIs for Clutter and COGL being stable. Clutter is licensed under the LGPLv2.1. A lengthy release announcement for Clutter 1.0.0 can be found on the GNOME mailing list.
Despite all the people who claim to be productive at work, or those who claim to be more than a casual gamer, there is a lot, and I do mean a lot, of people out there who are either casual gamers, or they love to play various solitaire card games on the computer.
Of all the program types in use on all the OS’s of the world, computer solitaire, regardless of its flavor, is the single most installed type of program of all since computers began. Not even the web browser can match the total number of computers that have either shipped with, or somehow acquired a solitaire game. Every copy of Windows, since 3.0 has had a copy of solitaire in it, and even before then you could get solitaire games on Dos and Unix systems.
But if computer solitaire is so ubiquitous, what sets one apart from the other? Well, three things I’d say: The game(s) offered, program stability, and ease of use. But what if you’re using Linux? Of all the OS’s out there, Linux is the one with the least number of solitaire games on it. That’s not to say that it has the least games, because there are dozens of other games to fill the void, but solitaire is not one of them. Normally anyways.
World of Goo is a puzzle game with a highly efficient physics engine. It has won many accolades from across the world since its release. It was initially available for Wii, Windows and Mac, but lately, its available for Linux as well.
When i first tried this cute little game in my ubuntu machine, i was amazed by its slickness and the fun factor. Though i never bought the original version(i am not much into gaming), i really liked the demo version. This is indeed a must have for Puzzle lovers.
antiX is the perfect distribution for those running older hardware or for those who simply prefer a lightweight desktop environment. It also makes a good rescue CD should you end up needing one.
In these days of bloated desktops and unnecessary eye-candy, it’s nice to have distros like antiX available as reminders that we don’t really need all of that stuff and, in fact, we may be better off without it.
At DebConf 9 this week, the Debian release team proposed a new approach to Debian’s release cycle, which was then announced on the Debian web site. Both the Debconf presentation and the announcement were quite clear, but a number of news articles and blog posts on the subject seem to have misinterpreted them:
* Debian Adopts Two-Year Time-Based Release Cycle on OSNews
* Debian to adopt time-based releases on Linux Today
* Debian to Adopt Time-based Release Cycle on Jonathan Carter’s blog
* Debian to adopt time-based releases on a blog masquerading as a news site
For testing purposes or just for fun, almost any existing Linux distribution can be rapidly deployed from its Live CD or DVD ISO image, without the need to perform an installation to a hard drive or a USB drive. Windows users who are curious to test or use Ubuntu without actually installing it on a partition of the hard drive, have at least five fast solutions to deploy Ubuntu from within Windows without affecting the currently installed operating system or modifying the structure of hard drive partitions.
On a closing note, I should point out that systems upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10 from an earlier release will not have their bootloaders replaced, because that would be an inherently risky operation. Only fresh installs of Karmic will use GRUB 2.
According to Michel Genard, VP of marketing, over half of Virtutech’s customers run Simics on Linux (See farther below for more background on Simics, as well as an interview with Genard.)
Creative Technology subsidiary ZiiLabs is shipping a developer-focused portable media player based on a homegrown, dual ARM-core”ZMS-05″ SoC and “Plaszma” Linux distribution. The Zii Egg StemCell Computer offers a 3.5-inch display supporting 1080p HD video, plus an HD video camera, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, an SDK, and optional Android, says ZiiLabs.
Linux developers using LinuxLink or other development tools can tap the OMAP-L13x SoCs to add human machine interfaces (HMI), as well as applications that support touchscreen or networking capability, says TI. LinuxLink subscribers, for example, can develop the Linux platform for the ARM core, while leveraging TI’s DSP tools to develop and debug DSP code, says Timesys. Currently, the OMAP-L13x SoCs support only Linux, but Windows Embedded CE and Integrity OS support is promised for the fourth quarter.
This represents the first LinuxLink release for the low-power OMAP-L1x applications processors and will be followed by support for the OMAP-L138 processor.
Pegatron, a spin-off from ASUS, has been showing a Netbook powered an ARM processor around. This particular model uses an ARM Cortex-A8 design found in a host of gadgets, including the Palm Pre (same design, but not the exact same chip). Running at a 1Ghz frequency, it is capable of playing 720p video and run basic 3D applications. While Android isn’t ready for Netbooks yet, this Pegatron runs Ubuntu (Linux) just fine.
Netbooks are all the rage at the moment and with a good Linux version installed can wield serious power
When netbooks were first announced to the world there was significant speculation that these would be fertile ground for Linux growth. In part that was because the Asus EEE, one of the first netbooks, ran a version of Linux and soon after so too did the likes of Acer’s Aspire One.
Vyatta, the leader in open networking and network virtualization, is bringing the benefits of open source networking to K-12 and higher education. Demonstrating its commitment to the education market, Vyatta has joined EDUCAUSE, a non-profit association that focuses on advancing higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. To celebrate this partnership and commitment to educational excellence, Vyatta is offering a limited-time, 15 percent discount off any appliance or subscription for all qualified educational institutions.
MUSA Technology Partners, a leading provider of technology products, services and support, announced today that it is now offering its Linux and Open Source support services to all businesses. While MUSA’s Service Desk currently offers specifically Linux and Open Source support, the firm will be rapidly incorporating additional services over the next six months.
At this year’s OSCON (O’Reilly Open Source Convention) event that took place last week in San Jose, California, Google announced the winners of its Google-O’Reilly Open Source Awards, which are given every year to the top contributors in various IT-related domains. Individuals that have shown exceptional dedication, leadership, innovation and have been actively contributing to open source development were rewarded in a ceremony in front of their peers.
Open-Xchange is a great alternative to Microsoft Exchange that also syncs and supports Macs and Apple Mobile devices. It’s used to manage email, tasks, calendars, documents, contacts, and now, thanks to a new concept called “Social OX,” users’ social networking communication as well.
Ingres has announced it is working with VectorWise to improve database performance through fully exploiting the capabilities of modern CPUs. They are planning to create Ingres/VectorWise, a new product which incorporates the new techniques, for release in mid-2010. VectorWise is a commercial spin off of the, Ingres funded, Amsterdam based CWI (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica) database research team. Intel are supporting the project with engineering expertise and hardware.
Ingres for one has just announced a project with VectorWise, a spin off from the database research team at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica of Amsterdam, a research institute in mathematics and computer science. With backing from Intel, Ingres and VectorWise are attempting to build a database engine that derives an increased quotient of its power from modern hardware processor and storage performance.
Open source tends to offer best-of-breed solutions that aim to do a limited range of functions well, rather than to be all things to all people.
Indeed, it is this desire to get the core right that enables open source to be all things to all people, because enterprise IT can take an open-source solution that might be 85 percent of what it needs, and spend some time and consulting dollars to custom-fit the software.
Hence, customers can spend less money to get exactly what they want, rather than buying into a vendor’s bloatware, which is bloated precisely to justify the upfront license fees (“Look at all this stuff we’re selling you!”) and ongoing maintenance fees (“Even more stuff we’re selling you!”).
Just when I was getting a little worried about Ubuntu Server Edition’s ISV (independent software vendor) support, I received a heads up from John Pugh, software partner manager at Canonical. The timely news involved some Ubuntu-Alfresco developments. Here’s the scoop. And more importantly, here are some bigger-picture thoughts about Canonical’s ISV efforts on the server.
Large software vendors like IBM, Sun, Dell, HP, and Oracle are making significant amounts of indirect revenue from their activities with and support of open source software. This has greatly aided mainstream adoption and acceptance of open source software.
AccesStream, a provider of open source security solutions, has released a survey that focuses on open source and identity access management (IAM), which is which is available from its website.
Here’s an example: when OpenVista is deployed in a mid-sized hospital like Midland Memorial Hospital in Midland, TX, the customer saved about $6 million in licensing fees they would have paid a proprietary software firm. (Medsphere uses a subscription-based pricing model.) But the real savings, Jung explained, comes in the prevention or lessening of complications that deviate from best-case scenarios.
Last week I talked about some the advantages of Free/Open Source software for us end users. Today I’m going to do something no one has ever done in the history of punditry, and that is ask actual software developers why they prefer FOSS. I received so many excellent responses that I have split this into two parts, and the second part will run tomorrow.
Kudos to Moolenaar for a creative way to raise money for a worthy cause and give a nice bonus back to the donors who pledge money. Leave it to the open source community to find such a neat way to open their hearts and wallets to people in need.
No matter how smart your DRM people are, no matter how much money you throw at the problem and no matter how many layers of protection you add… there is an army of people out there working in basements and bedrooms and bunkers, fueled by Red Bull and pizza, just waiting for you to announce that you have released an uncrackable game.
Consumers spent less on recorded music, down 6% since 2007, but concert ticket sales have grown by some 13% as the industry as whole slowly evolves and adapts to digital distribution.
The RIAA has issued about 30,000 lawsuits during its nearly 6-year-old litigation campaign against file sharers. Most have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. The record labels have said they are ending the campaign, and are now working with ISPs in a bid to disconnect repeat music file sharers.
Also in the filing, the MPAA asserts that Reservella is just a front. Reservella is the company based in Seychelles, an island nation northeast of Madagascar, that The Pirate Bay founders say owns the site. The studios maintain Reservella is controlled by Neij, but Kolmisoppi denied this.
The new system will register key identifying information about each piece of content that AP distributes as well as the terms of use of that content into a storage database. It also will employ a built-in “beacon” to notify AP and other publishers about how the content is used.
The Associated Press, reeling from the newspaper apocalypse, has a new plan to “wrap” and “protect” its content though a “digital permissions framework. But there’s (way) less here than meets the eye.
Yes, it’s become so impossible to quote a single short sentence, that it’s just not worth doing at all. Welcome to permission society. Some copyright system believers may claim that this is just the market at work, but it certainly seems a lot more like an undue restriction on freedom of expression at the hands of copyright law.
With the AP being out there claiming that fair use only covers snippets fewer than five words, there are some questions about where the boundaries for “fair use” of “snippets” lies. Unfortunately, a new ruling in Europe seems to be pretty extreme (in a bad way). The ruling found that a snippet as short as eleven words could be copyright infringement.
Access Copyright, the Canadian author’s collecting society (a group that collects money from libraries for book lending and gives it to authors) is using its members’ money to sabotage an enormously popular consultation on the future of Canadian copyright.
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As a Canadian author, Access Copyright is supposed to represent my interests in the Canadian copyright debate. Instead, they are setting out to undermine the first glimmer of sanity in Canadian copyright policy in three governments — and using my money to do it. For shame.
Except, it appears that the lawyers for the patent holder (McKool Smith — a favorite among the patent hoarders) didn’t do much research on at least one of those “companies,” named CitiWare. Slashdot alerts us to the fact that CitiWare was basically just a small open source project from one guy, who hoped to turn it into a business, but couldn’t find any customers and shut it down. That guy has now turned the CitiWare.com website into an angry open letter to the patent holder and to its lawyers, demanding that they drop the case against him.
A federal appeals court has found all 38 of Blackboard Inc.’s contested patent claims to be invalid in ongoing litigation between the D.C.-based education software company and its Canadian competitor, Desire2Learn Inc.
This is the second time in the course of the three-year lawsuit that courts have poked major holes in Blackboard’s patent.
Even as the Patent Office realized it needed to rethink the patent, the lawsuit moved forward, with Blackboard scoring a win. Of course, just weeks later, the USPTO gave an initial rejection of the patent. The original court ruling was (of course) appealed (separate from the USPTO ruling), and the good news is that the appeals court has dumped the entire patent.
This one’s a bit old, but Boing Boing just pointed us to the incredible story of a guy named Larry Proctor who was able to get the USPTO to patent some yellow beans he picked up in Mexico.
Controversial Court patent case for simple yellow legume has become rallying point for “biopiracy” concerns
This is amazing. “Biopiracy”. The growing of crops is now compared to raping and murdering innocent people. The Wired Magazine Web site has meanwhile published this report about real piracy that still exists and thrives near Somali shores.
All these propaganda terms need to be dropped. They daemonise people who do perfectly ethical things. “Intellectual monopoly” is still being described as “intellectual property” and there are even many Web sites that use this term in their name. The UK-IPO is an example of an entire establishment that bases itself on a name that’s a propaganda term. From “Intellectual Property Watch” now comes this report about hypocrisy in Europe and also TRIPS, which is related to ACTA provisions that we mentioned before [1, 2, 3].
The European Commission on Monday released a report finding fault with a number of United States practices related to intellectual property rights policy, on copyright, geographical indications, trademarks and patents. The report is an answer, one might say, to the annual US Special 301 report that criticises US trading partners it deems unilaterally to be insufficiently protecting its companies’ IP rights.
[...]
And on patents, the US government frequently fails to comply with Article 31 of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which requires governments that use patents to promptly inform the patent right holders, the EU said. This means the right holders are likely to miss the opportunity to initiate an administrative claim process.
These disputes revolve around limitation and inconveniencing of scientists, who are usually far less interested in all this mess than lawyers and managers. As Barracuda’s CEO put it last year, “I would much rather spend my time and money and energy finding ways to make the Internet safer and better than bickering over patents.” █
Novell’s “Industry’s First Solution” is a Microsoft-taxed GNU/Linux distribution
Summary: Novell claims “Industry’s First Solution” for something it merely imitated, i.e. created based on the high shoulders of others
Novell has just made a couple of related announcements about SUSE appliances, but it is being dishonest about them. The press release from Novell states in the headline that this is an “Industry’s First Solution”, but just like with Astrum, this is a case of Novell imitating a partner. We shall come back to it in a moment.
In addition to the press release referenced above, there was another one here, which said:
Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) are demonstrating tremendous support for the SUSE(R) Appliance Program from Novell, the industry’s first, complete, end-to-end appliance solution that enables ISVs to rapidly build, update, configure and go to market with fully supported software and virtual appliances. These ISVs are taking advantage of the comprehensive go-to-market support for appliances offered by Novell, including distribution channel, joint marketing, pricing, and redistribution agreements that reduce the time to get an evaluation or production appliance ready for the market.
According to this listing, both press releases came out at the exact same time. One is an announcement of a product which is not truly new and the second is intended to just generate hype about it. Did the hype work? Well, it depends. Novell’s Chief Marketing Officer used his blog to generate some buzz and Novell’s PR people released episode 3 of a series — one about SUSE Studio. From Dragoon:
Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program announcement today promises to deliver the same “set it and forget it” benefits.
Linux is well known for being very customizable, but with SUSE Studio, things are taken to an entirely new level. Imagine taking a base template, building on top of it with your personal software choices, then configuring countless other aspects (even a SQL database), and then building it as a bootable ISO or VM. That’s exactly what makes SUSE Studio so great.
Novell has launched a free group of technologies that will allow developers to create and deploy software appliances that can run in any virtual environment.
SUSE Studio went into alpha in February, when Novell announced a partnership to package up SUSE Linux appliances and distribute them inside virtual machines compatible with VMware’s ESX Server hypervisor. SUSE Studio is a homegrown Linux and appliance software spinner that now has an improved user interface, according to Matt Richards, senior program manager for the appliance program at Novell.
Novell has announced the launch of the SUSE Appliance Program for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). With the Appliance Program, ISVs can can create software appliances, such as an email server for a small office, using SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE and SUSE Studio, test their appliances and get them to the market.
Today, Novell announced its SUSE Appliance Program, which encompasses Suse Studio Online, a customizable, lightweight version of Linux called SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (Just Enough Operating System), tie-ins with Amazon’s cloud services, and full support for custom software.
Seemingly, all of the above coverage missed the simple fact that Novell stomped on rPath, which is in fact more or less the originator of the idea. rPath writes:
So, it was with both pride and dismay that I read today’s news from our friends at Novell:
“Novell Announces Industry’s First Solution for Creating and Deploying Fully Supported Software Appliances.”
[Cue record needle scratch].
Industry’s first? A stretch, to be sure, but never let the facts get in the way of a good story, I suppose.
rPath has some history with Novell [1, 2, 3], but eventually it moved on and considered a wider set of GNU/Linux distributions. Here we have Novell claiming credit for something they were not trailblazers in. Astrum and Novell are a similar story and there was also a lawsuit. The short story is that Novell allegedly copied the ideas of Astrum and then dumped them. Shades of Microsoft… █
