08.13.09
Posted in Deception, Marketing, Microsoft, Security, Vista, Vista 7, Windows at 7:43 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Patches integrated quickly before RTM
Summary: Microsoft uses a familiar stunt to pretend that Vista 7 is more secure and then makes a lot of noise about it
NOTHING will change when it comes to computer security once Vista 7 is finally released. We wrote about the subject in:
Using what Ryan has called a “sneaky” trick, Microsoft hid the fact that Vista 7 too was vulnerable to the latest bucket of "critical" patches.
In his own words: “There’s articles describing Windows 7 RTM as safe from the Patch Tuesday vulnerabilities that have been fixed in Vista and XP this month, but that’s why Microsoft made 7600.16385 the RTM, they integrated those patches right before they declared it final, then said it was safe from the bugs that affected XP and Vista. 7600.16384 was almost the RTM, but they made a new build just for these.”
“Microsoft hid the fact that Vista 7 too was vulnerable to the latest bucket of “critical” patches.”In short, he argues: “They applied all the patches, called that build the RTM, then said the RTM was unaffected. Then [they] released a press release patting Windows 7 on the back for being more secure, even though at least half those bugs affected it too. You wouldn’t notice this unless you had been following the Windows 7 build process pretty closely.
“Watch what happens on Patch Tuesday in September and October and see how many of those bugs affect Windows 7 cause they can’t declare RTM again.
“They’re still patching Windows XP after 8 years. What does that tell you? I fired it up on my other laptop yesterday and had 9 security updates waiting. Well, after 8 years and ~4,000 patches you’d expect them to have tied up most of the loose ends. They said Windows XP was secure when it launched and they are *still* patching it routinely.” █
“Great talker, great liar.”
–French Proverb
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Ubuntu, Windows at 7:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Sqlite Sharp/sqlite# causes damage to GNU/Linux in a variety of new ways
THE increased Mono dependency in GNU/Linux distributions could be exacerbated by new endeavours from the proponents of Mono, which mostly helps Windows [1, 2, 3]. It is a facilitator of embrace-and-extend tactics (using patents, developers’ skills, influence over APIs and so on). It’s about assimilating everyone to Microsoft rather than dragging Microsoft towards support of open standards.
The Mono/C# version of sqlite is a case of hypocrisy which was last mentioned yesterday. But another impact that is easily overlooked is that sqlite# — much like NDesk.DBus (ndesk-dbus or DBus#) — is a case of Mono going deeper into the guts of the Free desktop. As one reader warned us last night, “Mono people are trying to put even more dependency on Mono inside Ubuntu. For example, some dev is porting sqlite to C#. F-spot uses sqlite [so the] result = f-spot sharp + sqlite# = more Mono dependency in Ubuntu.”
“sqlite is used in billions of applications and instances and now someone wants to ignore all that bug testing.”
–Fewa“Why the hell do they have to rewrite a gazillion bindings? C# is so close to C why can’t they just use the C bindings” asks Fewa, who adds that this “is slowing down ALL [of] sqlite simply for the purpose of encumbering it. It’s a classic example of bloat.” A point was then raised about many applications in Ubuntu using sqlite, so sooner or later proponents of Mono can try to make a transition to sqlite# in order to “save space” or something along those lines (maybe “best-of-breed” arguments).
“He is porting ALL [of] sqlite, not only a simple wrapper,” stresses a reader. “Mono people will probably try to put this version of sqlite in Ubuntu. And I have heard some comments about mono people trying to force Zeitgeist’s developer to use Mono, but thank God Zeitgeist’s dev is smart!”
Fewa later adds: “sqlite is used in billions of applications and instances and now someone wants to ignore all that bug testing.”
“Mono people love to attack gnote,” says another, “but Mono people do a lot of porting. Lucene itext [is one] example [because] Lucene is Java [and] itext is Java.” █
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Posted in Dell, FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 6:33 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“We should whack them [Dell over GNU/Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value.”
–Paul Flessner, Microsoft
Summary: Dell shoots back at Microsoft’s false claims about GNU/Linux adoption and return rates
EARLIER THIS YEAR we wrote about Microsoft attacking GNU/Linux — especially in sub-notebooks — using lies. It was fueled by friendly 'analysts' and very friendly 'journalists' — those who always promote Microsoft’s business agenda. GNU/Linux-powered sub-notebooks are causing an enormous pain to Microsoft's business, so the equivalent of “Get the Facts” is all they have left at Microsoft’s headquarters.
Over at IDG’s OpenSource World, Dell’s Todd Finch is quoted as saying that much of Microsoft’s FUD is baseless (although not in these words).
Todd Finch, Dell senior product marketing manager, said the number of Linux returns are approximately the same as those for Windows netbooks. He categorized the matter of returns as a “non-issue”.
“They are making something of nothing,” he said of Microsoft’s claims. Finch appeared to be referring to Dell’s own netbook sales.
Here is some more commentary about the subject.
I realize Canonical is trying to be polite and stay to the moral high road, but the issue here is that there is a huge disinformation campaign on that Microsoft is “a changed company” or “finally gets Open Source”, and playing into that by …. generously …. stating Microsoft is “a great company” or “better than that”, is: 1. Just not true. 2. Supporting the lie that Microsoft has changed in some material manner.
So, while it is sad and no surprise Microsoft continues to lie and distort, it is nice to hear from a major player like Dell putting the smack down on FUD.
Here is a good new post from Jack Wallen where he advocates GNU/Linux on sub-notebooks, stressing that “Linux is not going anywhere but up in the netbook market.” ARM-powered devices are on their way to the market.
I’ve read countless Microsoft-funded “studies” trying to persuade me that Windows is already dominating the netbook space. According to these studies, Linux might as well just take a curtain call because its act is over in the world of netbooks. That is simply not true. If it were, Asus wouldn’t be selling netbooks with Linux preinstalled.
After Microsoft’s engagement in FUD and alleged kickbacks, the company is said to be colluding with Intel [1, 2], so Linux Magazine wrote some more about the subject.
When Windows 7 comes to market, the Starter Edition will be conceived especially for notebooks. As they did for Windows XP, Microsoft has come up with a list of technical limitations.
Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service is already looking into Microsoft's abuse in this area. █
Related posts:
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Posted in ISO, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, Patents, Standard at 6:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s leap year bug-as-a-standard is back; more thoughts on the Word ban, which is challenged by Microsoft
AS we noted last week, OOXML has already 800+ pages of documented bugs. Microsoft and the Microsoft-dominated working group/s seemingly want to have some more bugs. Norbert Bollow, the man behind OpenISO, has the details.
2009-08-12: The ISO/IEC Working Group on OOXML Wants to Unfix the Leap-Year Bug and Related Date-and-Time Problems.
[...]
What can be done?
Obviously, if you’re involved in your national mirror committee for ISO/IEC JTC1, you can seek to convince it or the relevant subcommittee that 29500-4 / DCOR 1 should be disapproved. The international deadline for this ballot is 2009-11-04; the national member bodies of ISO will generally have deadlines in October by when the concerned committees mus make their decisions. While you’re at it, you’ll also be able to argue for disapproval of 29500-4 / FPDAM 1 (for related but different reasons, I’ll explain about that in one of my next blog postings.)
If you’re working for a software company and it is not yet active in the appropriate national standardization organization, you should probably become active to make sure that the emerging body of international standards in the field of IT isn’t going to get in the way of your company’s business interests. This recommendation for getting involved applies even if your company is a small one, or if software development isn’t the firm’s main line of business.
Dana Blankenhorn wrote about Microsoft’s OOXML abuse just a couple of days ago, reminding readers that Microsoft is more ferocious than ever.
While putting it in the way of the weasel, Microsoft is still pushing what amounts to a tax on users of Internet standards. It’s doing this through a definition of “open standards” that would mandate standards bodies to consider patented, protected, proprietary technology on a par with truly open source offerings, and encourage companies to pack standards bodies with paid employees.
[...]
If we learned anything at all from the OOXML debate it should be that any Microsoft victory there was pyrrhic. ODF was able to deliver on its standard long before Microsoft could change its own proprietary scheme to match what the ISO approved.
If their idea was to bury ODF in the corporate user base, Microsoft failed, and at enormous cost, both to its own reputation and that of the ISO standards bodies.
At the same time, Microsoft is accumulating patents on XML. See for example:
Carrying on from yesterday's post covering the subject of a lawsuit, here are some more reports about Microsoft Word being banned in the US. As SJVN put it:
It sounds like a joke. But, it’s real and it’s anything but a joke for Microsoft. Judge Leonard Davis, of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, has issued an injunction (PDF Link) that “prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML.”
Here is the official press release. TechDirt correctly points out that it won’t stick and Microsoft has already appealed against the ruling. [hat tip: ZiggyFish]
MICROSOFT plans to appeal a ruling by a Texas judge that would ban the software giant from selling its popular Word program in the US.
Groklaw has the documents from the ruling and one reader has given us the following i4i vs. Microsoft opinion:
<http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/i4ivMS-412.pdf>. Some interesting and arrogant quotes from Microsoft emails about the XML editor market. Read from the last two lines of page 39 through the first line of page 41. Best quote is the one in parentheses that ends on page 41.
Can’t believe those guys actually thought they had a prayer of monopolizing the market for low to medium power XML editors, particularly with Word native file support XML read/write filters.
My prediction: Microsoft either wins a stay pending appeal in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit or it settles promptly thereafter. Don’t think Microsoft can just remove the code for custom XML schemas embedded in the Microsoft flavor of OOXML overnight. OOXML also serves as the communications protocol between Office and Sharepoint Server, and from there via a conversion to XAML to a bunch of other Microsoft server side Office apps. To boot, Microsoft did the Office 2007 Compatibility Pack, a backport of the Office 2007 native file support APIs modularized with the old API’s replicated in the wrapper. That’s now running in Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2008 for the Mac. Interesting blog article here by a Softie describing what they did. Rick Shaut, Open XML Converters for Mac Office, Buggin’ My Life Away (7 December 2006), <http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/archive/2006/12/07/open-xml-converters-for-mac-office.aspx>.
So they’ve got this huge mass of apps that are interdependent and really can’t tweak just one of them. To boot, they’ve got institutional customers already dependent on custom XML schemas, not to mention a few developers who’ve created apps with custom XML
dependencies. See e.g., this article by Doug Mahugh describing the custom XML dependency of Mindjet’s round trip interop with MS Word. <http://blogs.msdn.com/dmahugh/archive/2006/09/16/758090.aspx>.
Did I mention that Microsoft halting the sale of Word 2007 and 2003 in the U.S. is about as likely as the crack of dawn getting raped and thereby impregnated? Microsoft either wins that stay pending appeal or it settles.
When software patents cause so much trouble, it is made a lot easier to explain why they should be deprecated. █
MR. OLSON [For Microsoft]: The ’580 patent is a program, as I understand it, that’s married to a computer, has to be married to a computer in order to be patented.
JUSTICE SCALIA: You can’t patent, you know, on-off, on-off code in the abstract, can you?
MR. OLSON [For Microsoft]: That’s correct, Justice Scalia.
JUSTICE SCALIA: There needs to be a device.
MR. OLSON [For Microsoft]: An idea or a principle, two plus two equals four can’t be patented. It has to be put together with a machine and made into a usable device.
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Posted in America, Fraud, Microsoft, Patents at 5:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New examples of insanely dangerous ownership of ideas
FOUND IN Fox ‘news’ was this report about ownership of ideas.
A North Carolina man who allegedly cracked the code to mentally calculate any multiplication problem is now offering to reveal his secret – for the bargain price of $33.
That would be a similar thing to patenting of algorithms and business methods. These are ideas that can be applied mentally (or with pen and paper), as they require no manufacturing of anything physical.
The Wall Street Journal also has this short piece about attempts by ‘pharmonopolies’ to ban their competition. [via]
India plans to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization alleging that the European Union allowed big pharmaceutical companies to use the bloc’s tough patent laws to have national customs agencies detain generic drugs in transit to developing countries, according to India’s commerce secretary.
This falls under a class of patents that simply kill or monetise deaths [1, 2, 3].
“This falls under a class of patents that simply kill or monetise deaths.”Groklaw has this detailed analysis of a story where “Pfizer’s lawyers hired a detective who ended up intimidating a witness the day before he was due to testify…”
Shades of Microsoft, as we noted before. They are like a group of gangsters who see themselves as magically pardoned by the law, so they bully their possible opponents without a challenge. Steve Stites said a few days ago: “In my case there is the little problem that Microsoft spent approximately 18 months stalking me.”
Those commonalities between Microsoft and the pharmaceutical cartel should not be entirely surprising. Taking also lobbying into account, there’s this new article about Merck’s role in the problem. █
“It is clear that the pharmaceutical industry is not, by any stretch of the imagination, doing enough to ensure that the poor have access to adequate medical care.”
–Paul Farmer
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Posted in News Roundup at 4:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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The Icelandic National TV channel RUV broadcasted a news story yesterday 11 August 2009 entitlled:
“Nýtt kerfi sparar milljónir” translation “New system saves millions”
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Here are 13 Linux and Open Source graffiti art I found on the Interwebs. I tried to figure out where each was, but for some I just couldn’t find any info.
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The Verdict – Linux serves 90% of my computer needs. Only on occasion must I boot into Windows. Fortunately, dual-booting is now a built-in Linux feature, so readers shouldn’t be intimated if they don’t know how to run two operating systems. Also, supposedly, there is Windows emulation software (such as Wine or Virtual Box), which may completely eliminate my need to boot into Windows – I am yet to figure out how to do this. Aside from these minor hiccups, my verdict is clear: Thumbs up, way up.
Why Didn’t I go Mac?
1). Its Expensive – Should Linux fail to meet my needs, I suppose I can sell a Kidney to buy a $1500+ laptop. But, I’d sooner avoid unnecessary expenses in this never-ending recession.
2). I still run some Windows-only programs.
3). I’ve lost confidence in Apple. Their fascist iphone app store approval system and continued reliance on Digital Rights Management (DRM) for Itunes makes me wary of adopting products that don’t allow for flexibility.
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Desktop
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Before we get started, it would be a good idea to go over exactly what we’re doing and how it all works. When you start up your Linux computer, you go through a series of steps to boot up. GRUB, your bootloader, loads the kernel that’s specified in GRUB’s config file, attaches it to your root partition, and runs the init scripts stored there. From then on, your system is running from within that root partition.
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Windows is like an ocean full of sharks. Do you really want to swim where the sharks swim, even if you take some defensive measures? Macs are like a swimming pool, no sharks. But, the Mac pool is deep and often neglected. Linux also offers a swimming pool, but it’s shallower and better maintained (more later) than the Mac pool.
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You now have to “show” them instead of just “telling” them in order to get them to bite. It’s like fish. You can’t tell them that they should get on your hook. You have to provide a fat, tasty worm first before they’ll even consider looking at your hook.
[...]
Which reminds me. When teaching them about Linux and FOSS, also teach them how to find the answers they need on their own. If they know how to educate themselves, all you’ll need to do is more or less be the mother goose, the one who hatches them and gets them out of the nest, after which they’re able to survive on their own.
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Kernel Space
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I’ve actually written code lately, although for some reason it’s been all these stupid projects. First I needed to fix the kernel tty refcounting, then I got all OCD on the git SHA1 routines.
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Benchmarks
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Have you considered embracing Linux in any of your articles? If you have, but have not acted on such thoughts, why is that? Is it the Linux learning curve? The “lack of benchmarks”? Simply the lack of resources on the part of your editors and product evaluators? After speaking with several editors from fellow publications, these seem to be most of the excuses at hand. However, at Phoronix Media, we have the solutions to these problems — and they are free and easy to adopt. I would invite you to think how using Linux to complement your Windows testing in hardware reviews could benefit your publication by providing more thorough reviews to fulfill the needs of more readers, wooing more hardware companies with having another feature to offer, and generate additional page views from having more content.
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Recently there was a paper published by Avishay Traeger and Erez Zadok from Stony Brook University and Nikolai Joukov and Charles P. Wright from the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center entitled, “A Nine Year Study of File System and Storage Benchmarking” (Note: a summary of the paper can be found at this link). The paper examines 415 file systems and storage benchmarks from 106 recent papers. Based on this examination the paper makes some very interesting observations and conclusions that are, in many ways, very critical of the way “research” papers have been written about storage and file systems. These results are important to good benchmarking. And, stepping back from that, they make recommendations on how to perform good benchmarks (or at the very minimum, “better” benchmarks).
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Applications
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One of the first things I hear from people attempting trying to make the switch to Linux distributions such as Ubuntu is that they are finding the sudden shift in how they use their computers to be relatively overwhelming.
Thankfully, there are a number of software titles that I happen to use every day that have made my own switch over to the Linux side of the fence a much smoother one. In this article, I will highlight some of my personal favorites. Hopefully those of you struggling to make the change will find that these options meet your needs.
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The GCDS videos have been online for a while now, but I thought I’d draw some attention to my talk about Grantlee for those that missed it.
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I sincerely hope you have enjoyed this article. I believe it is very detailed and thorough and helps make sense of what Linux gaming is really about. As you can see, it is not a trivial matter. There are many ways of going about Linux games, some very simple and trivial, others more complicated. Some might also cost you money.
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Qt
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Renaming a company can be a torturous process. Developing the new brand, getting the word out, and answering questions can be long and grueling, and at least some customers are bound to be upset, and possibly quite vocal about it. Not everyone is willing to brave these waters, though Nokia obviously is, as it announced today the renaming of its corporate Qt division, Qt Software.
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Photos of Nokia’s upcoming Maemo 5 device have been leaked, and they reveal that it is likely a smartphone and not just a tablet. The device reflects Nokia’s growing commitment to Linux.
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KDE
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The KDE desktop has been the center of changes and controversy for the last eighteen months. However, with last week’s release of version 4.3, the majority of users finally seem to accept — if not necessarily love — the changes. At this point, it seems fair to ask: How successful are the KDE 4 series of releases?
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As usual, Mikolaj Machowski has compiled a commit digest of the work going on in Digikam on his blog. This excellent work deserves a more public spot, so from now you will find them linked on the dot. Those interested in the progress and new developments in the world of digital photography, be sure to click through to the digest!
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The KDE Community released the 4.3 version of its popular Linux/UNIX desktop environment, representing more than 63,000 code changes by 700 contributors, 10,000 bug-fixes, and 2,000 new features. KDE 4.3 adds numerous improvements to the Plasma Desktop Shell and Application Development Framework, among many other enhancements.
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Well, if you like trying out new distributions, certainly give SAM a spin. Despite its problems, it brings forward some original elements that separates it from the crowd. Plus, it is packed with the latest and greatest software. I’m very curious about how the next release will be though, as the developers said that SAM 2009 is the last version using the PCLinuxOS base.
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Arch Linux is a unique distribution, offering the latest free software via a super fast package manager coupled with a “keep it simple” philosophy. It is fast becoming a very popular distribution and now thanks to their split packages, you can install a lightweight KDE 4.3 desktop for even more flexibility and speed.
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Red Hat Family
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Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Trader Media Group and its website Autotrader.co.uk, the UK’s no 1 motoring website, has standardised its platform on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. The combined Red Hat solution has given Trader Media Group a more resilient, high-performing and stable platform allowing Auto Trader’s internal operations team to scale as the company continues to grow.
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Debian Family
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It is in this regard that I was happy to learn of Canonical’s new support service for Ubuntu users. This very strategic but overlooked move could not have come at a right time. The technology world is at a crossroads and the Windows empire is reaching its point of demise. Last week’s DDOS attacks on Twitter and Facebook have provoked lots of anxiety and questions over the reliability of Windows. There needs to be a successor and if Ubuntu is poised to take up that role, then having a formal, reliable and corporate support from the OS vendor is a must.
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The Ubuntu development team has been forced to remove a feature called multisearch from Firefox for the upcoming release, Karmic Koala, following a number of objections by users.
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First you need to install a Linux distribution. This tutorial is based on using CentOS, a free open source operating system.
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The big question is: Is this better than the standard modified Xandros? That’s an easy yes. Apart from the fact that this is a much newer distribution, it has the huge Ubuntu base of applications and support. Yes, you could install plain old Ubuntu yourself and hack away till it’s usable but when you can have a great out of the box experience you’d have to wonder what’s the point.
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Open Source opens the door for companies that are looking to keep on growing despite the current environment.
[...]
Open Source in 2009?
Moreover, as a recent article in Wall Street and Technology) mentions, with the current economic situation cutting IT budgets, even more institutions are reconsidering their attitudes toward open source technology. Think about yourself and the company you work for: How many projects did you want to launch but needed to be put off until next year? How many business opportunities you believe you could have embraced if your budget had been friendlier?
I firmly believe that Open Source opens the door for companies that are looking to keep on growing despite the current environment. It is spreading its influence among different kinds of companies.
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Reviews
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If you are in the market for a blogging platform, content management system or a complete web platform, you can do far, far worse than choose WordPress.
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I think OpenSolaris is interesting to keep an eye on. They are working on some pretty interesting projects, however I think they still need to work on some quirks, before being a good option for students as they would like to associated with. Linux is still far ahead, with the countless amount of drivers, and friendliness.
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Firefox
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In this issue…
* Extend Firefox 3.5 contest!
* MozCamp Europe 2009 needs speakers
* Moz QA Companion 1.0
* User interface performance work
* Firefox startup improvement efforts
* Firefox 3.6 alpha 1 available
* Tips towards building communities
* Animated Personas
* Mozilla Service Week
* Open video codecs discussion
* Configuring web servers for open video and audio
* Lifehacker interviews Firefox Director
* Recent press coverage
* Upcoming events
* Developer calendar
* About about:mozilla
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Today, we are announcing that our Test Pilot platform is opening with the release of the first Test Pilot add-on for Firefox 3.5. We are looking for Firefox users of all levels of skill and all levels of technical knowledge to help improve Firefox and Labs experiments.
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An extension to browser Firefox will suggest cheaper prices for products you browse on the internet.
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Licensing
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Is it reasonable to raise the question “does X still matter?” when the X in question is in use among nearly two-thirds of the target users under discussion?
[...]
Tracking down the real numbers isn’t difficult though and they show that the use of the GPL isn’t decreasing; there may be more and more and projects using open source licences these days, lessening the percentages, but the GPL numbers are only increasing.
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Applications
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If I would pick the best free and open-source internet television desktop client, it has to be Miro. This awesome application (previously called Democracy Player and DTV) is loaded with great features making the TV experience on your computer a lot more fun and exciting.
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Standards/Consortia
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Officially, HTML 4.1 was supposed to be the last word on HTML. According to the W3C, HTML 4.1 was complete and concise, and required no further work. But that was not good enough for the HTML user community, who formed the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG). This group grew strong enough to force the W3C to form an official HTML 5 working group a few years ago, and what they have eventually created is the very small seed that will one day become HTML 5 (I say ‘one day’ because the official specification expects HTML 5 to be completely functional and ready by the year 2022 – and no, that wasnt a typo, I did mean 2022).
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A 34-YEAR-OLD woman, the mother of a 12-year-old girl, has been locked up in a Virginia jail for three weeks and could remain there for at least another month. Her crime? Blogging about the police.
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Back in March of 2008, Comcast’s Gerard Kunkel proclaimed that Comcast was experimenting with embedding cameras in your DVR or cable box, allowing the company to know exactly who is watching what, at what time.
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Intellectual Monopolies
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Over the years, we’ve seen a ton of lawsuits against so-called “gripes” sites: people who set up a site because they feel wronged by a company. Company lawyers will often try to bully such sites, and claim that they’re a trademark violations, especially when they use a name like BigCompanySucks.com. The big companies almost always lose such lawsuits. That’s because those sites are obviously not from the company itself and don’t cause any sort of consumer “confusion” over who runs the sites. Earlier this year, we heard that lawyers were finally starting to recognize that suing gripes sites was not a good idea. First, you would almost certainly lose.
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But, really, the bigger point was made by Boyle, via Twitter, where he noted that we are “the first generation to deny our own culture to ourselves and to drive the point home, he notes that no work created during your lifetime will, without conscious action by its creator, become available for you to build upon. For people who don’t recognize the importance of the public domain and the nature of creativity, perhaps this seems like no big deal. But if you look back through history, you realize what an incredibly big deal it is — and how immensely stifling this is on our culture.
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It’s a bit of an odd pairing, but musician Moby was recently interviewed by Walt Mossberg, and among other things they discussed issues like file sharing and the RIAA’s strategy. Moby, of course, has complained about the RIAA’s strategy in the past, calling for it to be disbanded following the Jammie Thomas verdict.
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James Patterson’s latest best seller, “The Angel Experiment,” is a little different from his usual hits. The novel isn’t new; it came out four years ago. Readers aren’t picking it up at bookstores, but mostly on the Kindle site at Amazon.com.
And the price is low even for an old release: $0.00.
“I like the notion of introducing people to one book, while promoting the sales of another,” says the prolific and mega-selling author (and co-author) of numerous thrillers.” His Kindle download is the first book of Patterson’s “Maximum Ride” young adult series.
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Apparently police and the FBI had been trying to track down members of this group for a while, but some good old investigative reporting — from a website — beat them to it.
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Unfortunately, it appears that judge Marilyn Patel (who was also the judge who killed the original Napster) disagrees. She’s issued yet another injunction blocking Real from selling RealDVD, saying that it violates copyright law.
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The use in commercials… however… may be a different story. That would require his authorization, and it’s surprising the team would use the song without any official agreement in place beforehand, but it still seems like quite a leap to then sue for copyright infringement.
Either way, the competing lawsuits seem pretty silly. It’s yet another case of entitlement society. Both sides benefited nicely from the original arrangement: Banks got a lot of free publicity for his song, and the Hurricanes got a song that promoted the team. Win-win.
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Copyright isn’t a war. It’s not us vs. them. It’s about creating a system where society is best off and key incentives are in place to create more content. Our own complaints against those who push for stronger copyrights aren’t about an “us vs. them” attitude. We’ve been quite happy to cheer on smart moves by those who have made mistakes before. Our only concerns are that the end result should be the best for everyone. Not a small group of folks trying to protect an old business model.
Apparently, Access Copyright thinks the laws are just for them.
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It goes on to point out that the answers to these questions aren’t going to come from lawsuits, but by recognizing how people (especially younger generations) view such things and putting in place business models that work. Still, the report does hedge in places, talking about the need for a “favorable regulatory environment,” though it’s not at all clear what’s meant by that. But it’s good to see a gov’t report recognizing this is really a business model (and technology) issue, rather than a legal problem as many in the legacy entertainment industry would have you believe.
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A survey of UK youngsters finds that the only paid music service to interest them is a subscription for unlimited permanent downloads—streaming just isn’t good enough, and buying individual songs is too expensive to appeal.
Thomas Bartol, computational neuroscientist for the Salk Institute 01 (2005)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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08.12.09
Posted in IRC Logs at 6:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Read the log
Enter the IRC channel now
To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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Posted in Microsoft, Mono, Novell, Patent Covenant, Patents at 4:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Novell’s development of Mono steps outside the sandbox defined by Microsoft’s Community Promise
AS WE noted 5 days ago, the Mono developers (of which there are not many) are making Sqlite easier for Microsoft to embrace and extend (if Microsoft ever wishes to do so). Miguel de Icaza is just one among several who rave about this and yesterday he wrote about C# 4 and Mono, confirming the worries that Microsoft’s useless Community Promise (MCP) will be rendered “not applicable” as .NET continues to evolve.
“This is why projects such as Banshee are also stepping in areas of .NET which the MCP simply does not cover.”In essence, Novell already knows that Microsoft’s MCP is limited to particular packages/components and versions of C#/.NET (and their Mono equivalents). Novell can totally ignore this because it has a special and exclusionary deal with Microsoft (regarding software patents, to be more specific). This is why projects such as Banshee are also stepping in areas of .NET which the MCP simply does not cover.
For the time being, Novell’s new release of Evolution seems unencumbered by Mono, but this changes as soon as Evolution is put inside distributions and gains plug-ins [1, 2, 3]. The same goes for Novell’s Go-OO, which happens to share the same “go-” prefix as “go-evolution” and “go-mono”. It is almost as though they are all part of the same dynasty.
As another new article puts, “Microsoft [is] wary of [the] Linux threat.” It does not give .NET away as a ‘gift’ — no more than the town of Troy enjoyed the gifting of a large wooden horse. █
“The patent danger to Mono comes from patents we know Microsoft has, on libraries which are outside the C# spec and thus not covered by any promise not to sue. In effect, Microsoft has designed in boobytraps for us.
“Indeed, every large program implements lots of ideas that are patented. Indeed, there’s no way to avoid this danger. But that’s no reason to put our head inside Microsoft’s jaws.”
–Richard Stallman
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