Summary: With Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2000 near the dumpster, Microsoft takes a huge risk by not patching the most ubiquitous desktop operating system
This very bizarre stance (if not illegal because Microsoft advertised XP as supported for years to come) is more or less being ratified now that Microsoft offers radical advice for ‘removing’ the security risk:
Microsoft says turn off Windows feature to protect Windows
[...]
There’s no real reason for SMB2, (Server Message Block 2), a Microsoft network file and print-sharing protocol that ships with Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7, to exist. All it does is duplicate the basic network file and print functionality that Windows has provided for over a decade. But, SMB2 is in there, it is broken, and, now it can be used to take over PCs.
Microsoft admits that the problem is real. Mark Wodrich and Jonathan Ness, part of the MSRC (Microsoft Security Response Center) engineering team wrote that an experimental exploit is already out and that it can gain “complete control of the targeted system and can be launched by an unauthenticated user.” Just what you didn’t need.
There is a way to fix it. Well, sort of. You have to turn SMB2 off.
Miguel de Icaza “is basically a traitor to the Free Software community” This was in response to my question about the new Microsoft “Open Source” labs. He went on to say that Miguel’s involvement in the project doesn’t give much confidence as he is a Microsoft apologist. The project looks to be concerned with permitting “Open Source” programs to work on the Windows platform and thus divert valuable developer time away from free platforms such as Gnu/Linux.
Mono framework is not so much of a problem, but C# shouldn’t be used in core apps as legal problems would be hard to work around. Recommends uninstalling any apps using C#.
These words about Miguel de Icaza are harsher than anything we have seen from Stallman in the recent and distant past. The FSF has also formally explained why C# is a problem. Like many others, we have already explained why the CodePlex Foundation is yet another trap. Among our posts on the subject:
Newer CodePlex takers include a Gold Partner of Microsoft called Telerik, which has been working with Novell [1, 2, 3]. There is also Gaia in the news: “The Carbon Project today announced the beta release of Gaia 3.4 for Mono, a powerful free platform designed to support Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) users.”
“Mono is basically a Microsoft product made and maintained outside the Microsoft labs.” –OmarIf that’s not enough, Novell also brings .NET to Apple’s product line at the moment, using MonoTouch [1, 2] which Novell marketing people are actively promoting, accompanied by partner blogs. There is also a bunch of new videos that promote MonoTouch, which gets demonstrated on a Mac PC [sic].
At FS Daily, Omar argues that “Mono is basically a Microsoft product made and maintained outside the Microsoft labs.” For peer confirmation he asks: “Am I right?”
lozz responds by saying: “You’re not wrong. Novell is already so close to Microsoft that many people automatically think of this trojan entity as M$-Novell.
“Mono developers are more dangerous to GNU/Linux than a court full of patent trolls.” █
Beginning on January 1, 2011 it will be obligatory to use ODF or PDF when exchanging documents as e-mail attachments between government institutions and users in Norway. ODF and PDF were included in the government’s so-called Reference Catalog and is the second step in a long-term effort by the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform to establish recommended and obligatory IT standards to be used by public institutions and enterprises.
HUNGARY, MALAYSIA APPROVE ODF AS A NATIONAL STANDARD
ODF has officially become a government recommended Hungarian National Standard (MSZ ISO/IEC 26300) as of June 1, 2009. ODF was also approved by the Malaysian national standards body, SIRIM. Hungary and Malaysia now join, Brazil, Croatia, Ecuador, Italy, South Korea, South Africa, and Sweden as countries whose national standards bodies have formally approved ODF. Taiwan’s approval of ODF by its Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection (BSMI) was announced 21 January 2009.
ODF WORKSHOP CONCLUDES WITH SIGNING OF BRASILIA PROTOCOL
Brazil’s approach to putting ODF policy into practice took another major step forward with the signing of the Brasilia Protocol at the margins of the 3rd International ODF User Workshop, which concluded August 26 in Brasilia. Major government institutions across Brazil formally signed what is in effect a commitment, which will proceed in phases, obligating signatories to begin using ODF internally, with each other, and ultimately in their electronic interaction with third parties and the public. The protocol was also opened to private-sector entities for signature. The workshop – organized by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SERPRO (Federal Service for Data Processing – Ministry of Finance, Brazil) and Caixa Econômica Federal, in collaboration with the ODF Alliance – brought together government officials from twelve countries that have already made the move to ODF or are actively considering such a move. Workshop participants expressed a strong interest in “internationalizing” the approach taken in the Brasilia Protocol.
The second in a series of events bringing together ODF implementers to fine-tune their interoperability capabilities and develop test scenarios, recommendations and best practices will take place November 2-3, 2009, in the Italian city of Orvieto. The ultimate aim of the “plugfest” is to achieve full seamless interoperability for the entire feature set of ODF across all suppliers, platforms and supported technologies. All implementers of ODF are invited to participate. The event is organized by the Dutch government program Netherlands in Open Connection and the OpenDoc Society together with the OASIS ODF TC, OASIS ODF OIC TC and ODF Adoption TC. The first plugfest held in The Hague in June of this year under the aegis of the Netherlands government attracted sixty-five participants from forty companies, open source projects and governments.
FileAid 1.3, the latest version of the file manager and viewer for your iPhone and iPod Touch, now allows you to view ODF text, presentations, and spreadsheets. http://www.digidna.net/fileaid/
The new release of GemBox.Spreadsheet, a .NET component which provides a way to write, read or convert native Microsoft Excel files without the need for Microsoft Excel on either the developer or client machine, now fully supports ODF for spreadsheets (.ods files). http://www.gemboxsoftware.com/GBSpreadshe…
Office-o-tron is a web application that accepts ODF packages and validates the XML within, returning a summary report. http://code.google.com/p/officeotron/
The Sun ODF Plugin 3.1 for Microsoft Office has been released giving users of Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint the ability to read, edit and save to ODF. http://www.sun.com/software/star/odf_plugin/
Please welcome the following new ODF Alliance members: Instituto Federal de Pernambuco – Campus Ipojuca (Brazil); Prefeitura Municipal de Silva Jardim (Brazil); Gnutech (Brazil); Ledger Consulting (USA); Done Deal ICT (Saudi Arabia); OUR Technology, LLC. (Azerbaijan); The SFL Audio Visual Group (UK); SOLAR Software Libre Argentina; Activistas por el Software Libre (Venezuela) : carolus-it EDV-Dienstleistungen und Software (Germany); Laboratório de Documentos Digitais/CCSH (Brazil); JSS Academy Ltd Mauritius; Cooperateva Tecnológica (Venezuela); SOLVE – Asociación Civil Software Libre de Venezuela; EQ Soft Consultoría y Soporte EIRL (Peru); ecology foundation еко.com (Bulgaria); Infogrid Pacific Pte. Ltd. (Singapore); Opentelematics Internacional (Bolivia) ; Technology Initiatives (USA); Banco do Brasil (Brazil); Spotlight Cameroun (Cameroon); International Open Source Network (IOSN) – ASEAN+3 (The Philippines); Alsyrinx Tecnologia (Brazil); Asociación de Software Libre del Ecuador; TreeO Technology (USA); Inovis (UK); and Revista Espírito Livre (Brazil).
It’s simply news that Linux is now on the air. It will air on KLBJ AM. It’s also a way for you to use the data without having to remove our taglines.
Yeah, that’s me…Mr. Considerate.
Both raw tracks are available for download and released under Creative Commons Attribute-ShareAlike 3.0 license. We stipulate no attribution is necessary. You can download the short broadcast version we used, minus our info tagline in mp3 or ogg. You can get the long version in mp3 here and the ogg cut here.
I recently mentioned Linux in a conversation that started with “I’m tired of the problems my computer has with Windows” and was told that Linux doesn’t have any support.
Really? Then the dozens of websites, mailing lists, news feeds and IRC channels that I use must be figments of my imagination.
Searching “Linux support” at Google returned:
Results 1 – 10 of about 1,160,000 for “Linux support”. (0.26 seconds)
Arguably, in the last 10 years, Linux has matured from a OS that was strictly for UNIX and technical sysadmin-types to a robust enterprise server OS that can scale all the way up from low-power x86 processors to the most powerful mainframe computers and massively distributed architectures. Nobody, especially myself, will question Linux’s huge impact on mid-range and enterprise computing as well as in embedded devices.
As a desktop OS, the situation has improved greatly, especially in the last 3 to 4 years, particularly with the rise of the user-friendly Ubuntu Linux distribution. Sun’s OpenOffice.org has matured to become a very functional office suite and even my employer, IBM, has gotten in on the Linux productivity suite act with Lotus Symphony 1.3 and we’ve all been encouraged to learn and start using the software.
The Enterprise LAMP Summit for CTOs (Nov. 5-6) will feature a case study about the use of several parts of the LAMP software stack in a sophisticated and highly effective patient white board developed by the Vanderbilt University Medical Center Informatics Center.
Welcome to this year’s 38th issue of DistroWatch Weekly! Computer security has been a hot topic of discussion on these pages in recent weeks. As a result, Caitlyn Martin has embarked upon writing a series of articles covering the basics of computer and Internet security, starting today with part one – user authentication. In the news section, the openSUSE user community launches an initiative to build an enterprise-level distribution with long-term security support, Mark Shuttleworth announces the code name for Ubuntu 10.04, Clement Lefebvre reveals some early information about the improvements in Linux Mint 8 “Helena”, and OpenBSD delays the planned October release by a month over a CD manufacturing error. Finally, don’t miss the New Distributions section which includes some interesting new additions to the waiting list, including a Linux-based operating system built around Google’s Chrome browser and a new Slackware-based desktop distribution called Salix OS. Happy reading!
The Remuco project has packages for Arch Linux, Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu. If you’re using any of the mentioned distros, you should have a way to install the package instead of installing from source.
If your guest OS is Ubuntu, restart the Ubuntu virtual PC. Now you will find the guest addition CD icon on the desktop. Access its contents, install the guest addition by clicking on the script file ‘autorun.sh’ and restart Ubuntu. At this point you will find the mouse moving freely all over your machine. You can run the Ubuntu in full screen mode or in seamless mode. The advantage of seamless mode is that you can keep the virtual machine application windows along with the application windows of your host. You will find the Ubuntu application panel on the top of your screen and Windows-XP task bar at its bottom. This means you can listen to a radio programme via Ububtu’s music player RhythmBox while composing an article with MS-Word from Windows XP.
The salesperson could no longer take it and approached us with a smile. He asked Staci if she needed any further help in making a choice. I believe it was the laptop opened for ten minutes with her full attention that got the best of him.
“Do any of these come with Linux”. Her question was direct and without malice…she glanced over at me just for a milisecond after doing so.
“Um…no, we don’t carry Linux products here. I’m sorry.”
Everyone has biases. It’s that bloggers end up broadcasting them to the entire world.
For us to find out whether something is good or not, useful or not, we have to research further. What could help us in our research? Here are some things that I look for:
* Other blog entries. What do other people say? Are a majority of relevant search results show that whatever that thing is, is truly terrible? In this case, do we see nothing that says that Linux is good? What are the reasons pointed out by other bloggers? Are those reasons relevant to me as a user?
* Forums. Checking up user forums could be helpful too. You could gauge if the users stick with it or not. You will also learn some of their hacks, tips and tricks. A lot of forums have a section for beginners or newbies so that’s one place to check. You could search for your hardware in forums too. There will be a chance that someone has already posted a problem and/or solution to hardware specific issues.
It is an impressive piece of work, even though it has not yet reached its 1.0 release (version 0.8 came out in July). It definitely belongs on any Linux-using photographer’s system.
Despite an already crowded browser market Midori promises to be a lightweight alternative to browser bloat
Despite an already wide range of browser options available there is always space for one more browser, it seems. Midori is one of the most recent additions to the browser market and bills itself as one of the lightest browsers around. Which is what Firefox billed itself as in the early days of existence, before it became increasingly bloated.
It’s been a little over a month since I started using Chromium, the Open Source version of the Google Chrome Web browser. Since then, I’ve been using Chromium quite extensively. While the honeymoon isn’t over yet, I do have a better handle on what I like and dislike about Chromium and how it fits into my Web browsing and use of Web apps.
The last few years has seen the company formerly known as Trolltech open their arms to one of the largest parts of their supporting community, KDE, in a new way: By offering a few members of the KDE community free admittance to the Qt Developer Days conference. This year is no different, and they have invited a number of people to attend this year’s conferences. Yes, that’s plural: There are two conferences. One from the 12th to 14th of October in Munich, Germany and one from the 2nd to the 4th of November in San Francisco, USA.
Gnome 3, which will be available to install in Ubuntu 10.04, will mark the first radical change to the Gnome Desktop since it’s inception, thanks to it’s “new” interface ‘Gnome-Shell’.
GNOME – the FOSS desktop for Linux and Unix – is currently at version 2.26. The next release will be 2.28, leading towards the next major release, version 3.0, which if everything goes well should be released in the spring of 2010. Our associates in Germany, heise open, recently had the opportunity to interview GNOME release manager Vincent Untz about the project. Untz reveals the projects future plans for the GNOME desktop and talks about the User Interface, the new window manager Mutter, the GNOME Shell, Zeitgeist and GNOME Mobile.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard? Windows 7? Forget it. The coolest OS release of the year is Puppy Linux 4.3. By now you already know that I have a soft spot for Puppy Linux, so for me each new release of this nifty little distro is a cause for a minor celebration. And the freshly-baked Puppy Linux 4.3 is no exception. In fact, the previous 4.2 release left me somewhat unimpressed, so I’ve had especially high hopes for the 4.3 version coordinated by Barry Kauler himself. Let me tell you straight away — I wasn’t disappointed.
More than 600 people registered to attend Atlanta Linux Fest, which was held Sept. 19. Many of the standing-room-only sessions focused on Canonical and Ubuntu. Here are nine Ubuntu-oriented highlights from the event.
Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #160 for the week September 13th – September 19th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Karmic Alpha 6 released, Mark Shuttleworth Announces via video Ubuntu 10.04: Lucid Lynx, Countdown Banner Deadline, UDS Update, Ubuntu Screencasts: Reporting Bugs, The first Ubuntu-DK podcast, Swedish LoCo Bug Jam: Linköping, Ubuntu-NH SFD ’09 Report, Launchpad 3.0 & Bug Filing changes, Ubuntu Forums tutorial of the week & Community interview, PostgreSQL security/bug fix testers needed, Ubuntu Packaging: Fixing FTBFS, Launchpad Nautilus Preview, In the Press & Blogosphere, Ubuntu-UK podcast: The Tribe of Gum, Linux-ready mini PC powers up, The Art of Community available for free download, and much, much more!
However, all this took some tweaking to accomplish, but being so user-friendly, Ubuntu makes it easy. If I have a question about how to install a new app, or a plug-in — which I always do — help is only a few keystrokes away. Also, I am easily able to update at any time.
Big, big, big thumbs up to the Xorg/Mesa-developer crowd and the hackers behind the intel-driver for OpenGL 2.x support (especially FBOs and GLSL)! Also big props need to go to Bryce Harrington and Alberto Milone for integrating this and pulling in all the needed bits and bytes into Ubuntu! It’s one thing to see stuff landing on f.d.o git, but only when it reaches “mere mortals” in the form of repository-updates it’s truly there (read: where the end-user “sees and feels” it).
The development on the upcoming Linux Mint 8 ‘Helena’ started in the Summer and a series of improvements are already implemented. Today, I’d like to show you the impact on one of our most popular application: mintInstall.
Eurotech subsidiary Parvus is readying a rugged PC/104+ single-board computer (SBC) that incorporates Intel’s thermally optimized Z520PT Atom processor. The Linux-ready, mil/aero-focused Isis XL boasts a fanless operating range of -40 to 85 deg C (-40 to 185 deg. F), and a five-Watt TDP, says Parvus.
Kontron announced a 3U CompactPCI board based on the Intel Atom N270, boasting soldered components and 10 Watt power consumption. The Linux-ready CP305 comes in a 4HP version with dual gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0 ports, or a developer-focused, dual-slot 8HP version with additional I/O, says Kontron.
A group of developers at the Digital Technology Group (DTG), formerly the Laboratory for Communication Engineering (LCE), at the University of Cambridge have released two Android applications that allow users to browse the web anonymously using The Onion Router. The Onion Router, commonly referred to as Tor, is free software designed to provide internet anonymity to users while browsing online. It does this by bouncing the communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers from all around the world, preventing visited sites from learning a users physical location.
Jolicloud starts with a great OS, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and couples it with a different way to use existing web applications. We think the developers have done a great job integrating Prism into their interface and find it very usable. Only time will tell if users are willing to migrate from traditional browsing, to using web apps for what they really are: an application.
I also find myself valuing ever more highly Mozilla Firefox’s rich armoury of extensions, which are rapidly transforming the humble web-browser into my portable desktop and, in effect, my personal learning environment. Below are a few of the extensions I’ve discovered, but I’d be very interested to hear about extensions you use yourself, and any you use with pupils.
But for computer science student Minh Van Nguyen, it was a wee bit different. A full-time user of free and open source software for the last three years, he was up bright and early and off to the Chadstone shopping centre in Melbourne’s south-east to spread the message of free software.
In the new release, users can optionally load the GNU Crypto Java library directly into the Oracle database. Once this is accomplished, intelligent PL/SQL modules integrate the Java AES ciphers into the Encryption Wizard’s cryptography definitions. This provides Oracle Standard Edition databases a free open-source alternative to Oracle’s DBMS_Crypto package.
Looking for a romantic way to do your bit for the planet? Then move in with your lover, take baths together and snuggle up on the sofa to watch TV together.
An awful lot of energy could be saved if only people shared things more, especially their homes. The evidence comes from the opposite end of the love spectrum. According to a recent study, if all the couples who divorced in the US had stayed together, in 2005 alone they would have used 2373 billion litres less water and 73 billion kilowatt-hours less electricity. Each divorced person spent 46 per cent more on electricity and 56 per cent more on water.
This would be the World Wide Web of Books that we have been dreaming of rather than a Monopoly of Books. Google has helped build momentum– lets take it the rest of the way without blowing it. This could be done by Congress or the Justice Department– both of which are working on this right now.
Did you know MIT has 1800+ courses available for your viewing pleasure? You can even download the syllabus and assignments (with answers). Some courses even provide copies of old exams. How could I have missed this? It’s not just MIT – other schools belong to the consortium – Carnegie Mellon, Standford, Oxford, Yale, the list keeps going.
A very interesting paper from Caroline Savage and Andrew Vickers was published in PLoS ONE last week detailing an empirical study of data sharing of PLoS journal authors. The results themselves, that one out ten corresponding authors provided data, are not particularly surprising, mirroring as they do previous studies, both formal [pdf] and informal (also from Vickers, I assume this is a different data set), of data sharing.
One of the signal failures of digital technology in recent years has been e-voting. Practically every high-profile attempt to switch from quaint analogue technologies to swish new digital ones has proved a complete and utter disaster. But taking a closer look at these failures it becomes evident that the problem is not so much e-voting itself, as the toxic combination of e-voting with black-box software.
The problem is quite simple. If you can’t see what the software is doing by looking at the code, you can’t possible trust it. And e-voting without trust is about as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot.
The solution is equally obvious: mandate open source solutions so that the code can be checked before use.
The European Commission will today (21 September) launch a revamped version of its Europa website. After two years of analysis and review, the EU executive hopes its new central web portal will make for a simpler, more organised experience for EU citizens.
European antitrust regulators on Monday published a torrent of internal e-mails and other company documents to back up its record fine against Intel, arguing that they showed computer manufacturers were afraid to cross the chip-making giant.
Neelie Kroes, the European Union competition commissioner, imposed the €1.06 billion fine in May for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market to exclude its only serious rival, Advanced Micro Devices. Since then Intel has appealed against the decision to a European court, accusing her investigators of botching procedures and trampling on the company’s rights of defense.
Many in the music business believe that the disunity, which has involved public spats between the FAC and artists such as Lily Allen, Abba and Muse, will derail Lord Mandelson’s proposals, as the industry fails to present a united front.
UK Music, the umbrella organisation for the whole music industry, has already dropped all mentions of disconnection from its public statements on the issue, in a desperate attempt to unite the industry. The consultation period for the plans ends in a week’s time.
Next week the German Pirate Party will compete in the elections for the German Parliament, but this week the country’s youth already cast their votes. In the youth polls nearly 9% of all votes went to the Pirate Party, a result that the party hopes to match in the upcoming election.
After an earlier decision failed to reach its objective, this week a Brazilian court made an unprecedented ruling against file-sharing clients. Following legal action by anti-piracy groups against a website offering a file-sharing client for download, the court decided that software which allows users to share music via P2P is illegal.
September 24th software professionals around the world will celebrate the annual World Day against Software Patents. This year the Swedish EU Presidency happens to contributes a minister consultation to the #ssp09 celebrations with an aim to “[review] Community innovation policy in a changing world”.
Those in the vicinity of these events can hopefully attend or help organise more such events. Other activists against the broken patent systems have been dragged into court [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and The Prior Art blog reports from there as follows:
Holmes repeated the last clause slowly, emphasizing each word to the jury: “The Banana Republic of East Texas.” Then he showed the modified version of the post that went up the next day, which eliminated that last sentence and changed “conspiring” to “may have… helped.” (Frenkel had regretted his earlier harsh phrasing and changed the post of his own accord, his lawyer told the jury later on Monday.)
Ward took legal action the following month, seeking to depose Google officials to determine the identity of the then-anonymous patent blogger. Once Frenkel was identified as the Patent Troll Tracker several months later, both Ward and Albritton sued Frenkel and Cisco for defamation.
Ward and Albritton say Frenkel’s posts, about changing a date on official court documents, were defamatory because they accused the two Texas lawyers of committing a crime. Lawyers for Frenkel and Cisco maintain that the posts contain no such accusations, and are a mix of true facts and legally protected opinion.
As the above shows, patent trolls are unable to accept criticism even from blogs, so they are trying to get them “shut down”. Troll Tracker was unmasked after the father of all patent trolls, Ray Niro, put a bounty on his head. These are borderline thugs who treat their “Banana Republic” down in Texas as though it’s the new Wild West.
The market is still small but it is growing quickly—by perhaps 20-30% a year, reckons Coller Capital, an investment firm that has snapped up, among other prizes, IBM’s portfolio of medical-device and health-care patents. Intellectual Ventures, based near Seattle, has spent a large chunk of the $5 billion it has raised from investors on buying patents; at the last count it had 27,000. Fortress, a big hedge-fund and private-equity group, is also active. Ron Epstein of iPotential, a patent-brokerage firm, says he is getting an ever-increasing volume of calls from hedge funds looking for patents related to mobile telecoms, medical equipment, biotechnology and the internet. He estimates that $4 billion-worth were bought and sold last year overall.
In other patent news, the USPTO’s new chief [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] is asked to change how patents get written, but this should really be a minor issue for someone who says that patents are a “20-year monopoly” to deal with. Yes, the chief of the USPTO actually said that patents are “monopolies”. They also happen to be monopolies that can be sold by the pound to patent trolls, which renders this whole system a farce. █
“Software patents have been nothing but trouble for innovation. We the software engineers know this, yet we actually have full-blown posters in our break-room showcasing the individual engineers who came up with something we were able to push through the USPTO. Individually, we pretty much all consider the software-patent showcase poster to be a colossal joke.”—Kelledin, PLI: State Street Overruled… PERIOD
Summary: Microsoft’s case with i4i takes another turn, but at the same time, Microsoft Office dominance continues to erode
MICROSOFT has learned very well over the years that crime pays. It pays well. It apparently pays more than obeying the law, so Microsoft continues to break the law and then lie, bribe, collude and whatnot to somehow get away with it. Extraordinary allegations require extraordinary evidence, but nothing about Microsoft’s crime is extraordinary and the evidence is abundant enough to occupy one’s lifetime to study. One of our contributors opines that Microsoft has the habit of hiring people who have become familiar with Microsoft’s violations of the law because paying them means that they are removed from the “gene pool” of those who can tell the story and provide satisfactory material to support strong claims.
Coverage in the press is still somewhat disheartening. It’s lacking and it is largely biased. Gizmodo, for example, does quite a job concealing Microsoft’s OOXML corruptions and continued attacks on interoperability and open protocols/formats. In an article with a provocative headline and the following opening, Gizmodo sells the false perception that Microsoft has changed. It hasn’t [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].
The other week, we explained how Apple influences a ton of what goes on in tech by shaping industry-wide standards. This week, we’re gonna look at Microsoft, and what’s it’s done with standards.
Microsoft obviously has a more complicated relationship with “industry” standards, because anything it decides is its standard—even proprietary ones—becomes a kind of de facto standard for everybody else, simply because of Microsoft’s overwhelming marketshare.
As we showed yesterday using a document from Microsoft, the company sees itself as the only standard. It refuses to accept standards that are created outside Microsoft. But to make matters worse, it is attacking anything that ‘dares’ to pose a threat to this Microsoft ‘standard’. For instance, patent law does not apply to Microsoft if it puts Office at jeopardy, never mind the case of the victim [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
Microsoft Corp. marketed i4i Inc.’s XML software to potential customers at the same time it planned to drive the small company out of business by infringing on its patent for the technology, according to court documents filed last week.
In a brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District in Washington, Toronto-based i4i argued that an injunction blocking Microsoft from selling current versions of Word should stand.
American software giant accused of stealing Canadian software in latest version of word processor
Since the trial takes place in the United States, it is likely that Microsoft will summon enough political support to win the case, settle in a self-serving fashion, or drive i4i to total bankruptcy by dragging things on in the courtroom.
The only positive outcome of this case is that Microsoft Office is distracted and there is uncertainty over its future. Google and Free software are among those which capitalise on it; According to the pay-to-say firm IDC, Google Docs is gaining very fast.
The poll, conducted in July, showed 19.5% of respondents claiming Google Docs is widely used in their organization, up from 5.8% a little more than a year and a half ago. Some 27% of respondents are either already widely using Google Docs or expect to be widely using Google Docs a year from now.
Google announced today at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., that it’s tailoring cloud computing services for agencies within the U.S. government. That means, for instance, that an agency can get its hands on the Web-based Google Apps that meet regulatory requirements.
For the record, it’s not just Google that’s gaining. From Business Week:
Google, Zoho Challenge Microsoft Abroad, Too
In India and China, upstarts aim to erode Microsoft’s dominance by delivering business productivity software that’s cheaper and more accessible
The money made from Microsoft Office has declined for quite some time now, even in the financial report of April 2008. That was despite the crimes Microsoft had committed to have OOXML passed by ISO on the very same month. █
“Microsoft corrupted many members of ISO in order to win approval for its phony ‘open’ document format, OOXML. This was so governments that keep their documents in a Microsoft-only format can pretend that they are using ‘open standards.’ The government of South Africa has filed an appeal against the decision, citing the irregularities in the process.”
Summary: For Vista 7 perception management Microsoft compensates journalists, pays ‘promoters’ handsomely, pays analysts, uses kids, Twitter and other forms of hypnosis — all in attempt to promote a product that CIOs already reject
THE reality behind Vista 7 is rather grim because it is just another Vista and it will fail to sell based on early surveys and predictions that we covered. Microsoft bets the entire farm on Vista 7 by deliberately ignoring Vista. In the past week, for instance, we found just two headlines about “Vista”, compared to 23 that are about “Windows 7″. This buzz gets generated organically by the business press, which in turn affects what people speak about in personal blogs, chat rooms, the office, etc. Today we will show how Microsoft is doing it, based on citations from the past week alone.
Company executives’ private opinions of Vista were much more revealing, however. According to internal Microsoft e-mails disclosed in 2008 during a class-action lawsuit, senior executives and a board member griped about Vista shortly after it was released in early 2007, saying it was missing drivers and crippled their new PCs.
The reality is that Vista 7 continues to lack good driver support. Under the hood, Vista 7 is virtually identical to Vista. Three of our readers who tried Vista 7 reported exactly these types of issues which they encountered [1, 2, 3].
Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott Get Paid to Promote Microsoft’s Vista 7
We often emphasise that those who hail Microsoft products are being compensated by Microsoft. This is especially true once prudent observers realise that gentle bribes come in all sorts of forms. Consider the Bing sponsorships for example; that $100,000,000 marketing budget does end up landing somewhere. That’s how people like Todd Bishop are paid. Likewise, Mary Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott present not just literature; they also get invited to Microsoft events and here they are invited to hype up Vista 7 (paid talks):
Microsoft in 2010: Is Windows 7 Enterprise Ready? What IT Managers Need to Know
[...]
Speakers to include:
* Mary Jo Foley (Keynote), Microsoft Author and Editor of the All About Microsoft blog (http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/)
* Paul Thurrott, Author of Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows blog (http://www.winsupersite.com)
* Ben Armstrong, Microsoft Program Manager (Virtualization) and Author, Virtual PC Guy’s Weblog (http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/)
* Andrew Hopkins, Microsoft veteran and Principal Consultant for Chrysalis BTS (http://www.chrysalisbts.com)
The author of “All About Microsoft” should maybe be assigned to run “All About Marketing”, as that’s what Vista 7 is all about. There are many of her colleagues out there in ZDNet who are on a similar boat (e.g. Bott, Ou) and even Microsoft employees. They get bribed by Microsoft to promote Vista 7 under the guise of “news” (ZDNet no longer does much news, just blogs, which get aggregated in news feeds nonetheless).
Vista 7 Stickers/Branding
How far would Microsoft go with marketing? Here is some more ‘fluff’ like “Compatible With Microsoft Windows 7 Logo” — selling people the impression that there is something unique about it. For a long time Microsoft has been trying to ‘stamp’ hardware components with its logo/s, giving the delusion that a keyboard gets designed for Windows (it has a key with the logo on it), that entire computers are designed or certified for Windows, and even monitors are somehow ‘approved’ for Windows. It’s all just an antiquated stunt and someone is paid or rewarded to play along with that stunt, which deceives average consumers and acts as an advertisement (fake endorsement) too.
Microsoft to pay Windows 7 promoter HK$7,777 a day
[..]
Microsoft Hong Kong is now recruiting Windows 7 promoters who will be paid HK$7,777 (US$1,004) each for a day’s work in late October when the software giant launches its new OS.
The vendor has created a group on Facebook to invite individuals aged 15 or above, speaking fluent Cantonese and English, and possessing basic computer knowledge to post their one-minute self-introduction videos on the Chinese-language page. As of 3:20pm Monday, there are only four videos uploaded.
This is covered also in NetworkWorld. Who is Microsoft kidding? For Mac fans to become Windows shills Microsoft offered to pay $15,000. This is the type of stuff that should be covered and pinned at the front page of the technology section at the BBC, New York Times, and other such high-profile publications. It’s truly a blunder, but the world does not pay attention simply because the business press conveniently ignores the facts. The BBC only advertises Vista 7 at the moment, just as it advertised Windows Vista and hailed it wholeheartedly back in 2006/7.
Crooked Research
Are paid shills not enough for Vista 7? Warped coverage also? Well, Microsoft is already busy paying a favourite pay-to-say agency, namely Forrester ‘Research’, to do its thing. Previously, Microsoft was paying Forrester to attack GNU/Linux [1, 2] and now it pays to help promote Vista 7.
A Microsoft-commissioned study by Forrester shows that worker mobility and office decentralization will become key issues for the enterprise and SMBs (small- to medium-sized businesses) in coming years, possibly creating substantial challenges for IT administrators. Microsoft is using the report as the basis for a promotional push for Windows 7, its upcoming operating system due for general release on Oct. 22.
A recent Microsoft-commissioned study also claimed that Internet Explorer was the most secure Web browser. Shouldn’t such practices of conducting ‘studies’ be banned or at least their outcomes embargoed? Professor Larry Lessig currently studies this type of corruption, especially where pharmaceuticals are concerned.
It’s official. Microsoft has no shame. None. They should just stop paying rent on that storage unit where they keep their shame because they, as I said, have none.
The new TV ad campaign for Windows 7 (Crispin Porter & Bogusky) kicked off this week with a masterpiece of emotional manipulation that brings back Kylie, the precocious 4-year-old girl from the “I’m a PC” series. The slightly lispy Kylie — who pronounces the product as “Windows Theben” — is sitting at a table in front of a PC. “My name’s Kylie, and I found these happy words all over my dad’s computer. . . .” (Uh-oh, I hope dad’s been behaving himself with his PC.) The “happy words” are rave reviews for Windows 7 from tech magazines, which Kylie then puts into a slideshow with images of a unicorn, a kitten in marshmallows, a bunny in a straw hat. “Happy words need happy pictures.” Uh-huh. We can only assume as the campaign rolls out to the Windows 7 launch date of Oct. 22 that we’ll see baby penguins and water-skiing squirrels hawking for the Redmond, Wash., software giant.
[...]
This is advertising as hostage situation: Buy Windows 7 or the little kid gets it.
It is similar to what Microsoft does here in the UK, where Microsoft exploits toddlers (put in Windows TV adverts) to hide is real image of thugs who willfully break the law time after time because it pays more than abiding and obeying rules.
The PR industry, which thrives in superficial imagery and deception, hails the above as a success and uses the headline “Microsoft ‘Good News’”.
Kylie seems to know that cute goes a long way towards snagging viewers’ attention and kindling the warm fuzzy feelings only images of kittens, marshmallows, a bonnet-wearing bunny and a pint-sized pitch-gal can produce.
Microsoft PR agencies would see nothing wrong with it, either. They are in the business of deception and are often lacking a real sense of consciousness. They find justifications for what they are doing and viral videos are just business as usual to them. Then there is Microsoft AstroTurfing at Twitter, which we wrote about in:
The Wall Street Journal published this new article which has Microsoft’s senior marketing manager explain “Tweet Assignments”:
Marcus Schmidt uses one called Tweet Assignments for his job as a senior marketing manager at Microsoft Corp. He oversees two company Twitter pages where consumers post about 300 questions and comments a day. He says Tweet Assignments helps him generate swift responses from the appropriate Microsoft employees by allowing him to send consumers’ tweets to colleagues instantly, without having to copy them into email messages. The recipients can then respond directly to consumers with tweets of their own or send responses back to Mr. Schmidt.
At Twitter, Microsoft has a huge number of accounts for promotional purposes, with extra assistance coming from agencies that Microsoft hires. As we showed yesterday using a confidential memo from Microsoft, the company identified “constant indoctrination” as the way forward.
The Vista 7 discount which we wrote about the other day is being promoted by other Microsoft de facto PR folks like Shane O'Neill, who are essentially embedding advertisements, turning discounts on products that do not exist into articles.
In summary, Vista 7 is a huge deception. People must not fall for the hype. Windows Vista enjoyed the same type of hype ahead of its release. There is quite a lot one can achieve with billions of dollars that are exclusively dedicated to imposed ignorance and mind shaping. █
“I am currently testing the Beta of Win7 in a closed VM environment. I am considering deleting it. It’s actually worse than Vista. Multiple program crashes, refusal to install any software, naff looks and many other complaints.”
The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world’s premier Linux certification organization (http://www.lpi.org), announced a new affiliate for their program in South Korea: OpenPlum, Ltd. OpenPlum (www.openplum.co.kr) is a leading Open Source solution provider in Korea and its President and CEO, Kwangjei Cho, is also director for the Linux Foundation Korea (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/staff).
F-Secure says the site has been going up and down since the event, and it’s not responding when I check it (from a Linux test machine, probably not a good idea to visit underground hacking sites using your Windows desktop). Let’s hope the site stays down.
This week on the show: Beer from hell, deep packet inspection, MOTOROLA’S NEW ANDROID UI, Microsoft vs. Zim Jemlin and the Linux Foundation and much more.
To be happy, there’s no need for you to spend your money every time. And not all expensive things are better than those that are cheap. Before, I thought that the only way to get high-quality software is to spend more. But since I discovered Linux, and then Firefox, OpenOffice, Apache, and so on and so forth… I realized that I was wrong.
The “desktop” has been getting all the attention for the past score of years or so, and it was a big improvement from the “command line”, which is what we had to deal with prior to that. The desktop metaphor opened up all kinds of possibilities for people who had never used computers before, and unleashed a wave of new applications development the likes of which had never been previously seen.
On this happy note, it’s time to wrap this article. Don’t take me too seriously, after all, this rant was meant to be fun. Still, as the popular saying goes, behind every joke is a grain of joke, I think my article does have merits.
Linux is a tool, a lovely, friendly tool. To use it properly, you have to possess a certain skill set. Otherwise, the experience won’t be pleasant. My hope is that future Linux converts will take to their hearts the advice given here and carefully consider the implications of making such a drastic move.
Moving to Linux is just a beginning. Staying around is the journey. And being satisfied with the choice made is the end. Hopefully, we can all have a happy ending.
Since mainframe software is charged based on the usage of the core mainframe processor, IBM has developed “specialty” processors, which provide a way for businesses to lower the software by offloading applications to a second, lower-cost processor. The IFL specialty processor runs Linux applications, while zIIP focuses on databases and zAAP on Java.
Most of the following relates to using XP Pro as host. As soon as you feel comfortable using Ubuntu or some other Linux as host do it since you will see a performance increase in the VM.
By comparison, the 1,024-core Altix 4700 Linux super from Silicon Graphics could handle an order of magnitude more, at 4.1 TB/sec of bandwidth. This machine uses 1.6GHz, dual-core Itanium 2 processors. A 64-core Power 595 machine from IBM (using the dual-core Power6 processors running at 5GHz) can deliver 787 GB/sec, or a little less than twice the vSMP setup, while a Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu M9000 server with 128 cores (using the quad-core Sparc64-VII processors) hits 222 GB/sec. An Integrity Superdome machine from Hewlett-Packard, equipped with dual-core Itanium 2 chips and a total of 128 cores, delivers 167 GB/sec of bandwidth on the Stream test.
We all know that computers tend to gather all kind of stale files that pile up in different temporary or cache folders, ultimately slowing down the system and occupying valuable disk space. Any self-respecting geek takes on the job of manually cleaning those files every once in a while, but no matter how through you are, you certainly won’t be able to purge them all.
Yesterday afternoon, the Google Chrome team released another update with performance gains for platforms, but Mac and Linux users will see the greatest boosts and new, useful functions.
Google Chrome and other WebKit-based browsers aren’t the only ones getting improved 3D graphics handling capabilities. As of September 18th, Firefox trunk builds include support for WebGL.
This type of software application is responsible for retrieving and presenting information held on the World Wide Web, a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the internet. Web browsers allow users to view web pages which often contain a mixture of text, images, videos, and other multimedia.
There are many different web browsers available for Linux, the most popular of which is Firefox. However, the market dominance of Firefox does not mean that this is necessarily the best web browser for every situation.
NAEV 0.4.0 is out, a game of the space trading and combat simulator genre, inspired by the non-free Escape Velocity. Win32/lin32/lin64/mac binaries are available here.
LGP announced the release of Shadowgrounds Survivor, a third-person/top-down alien-invasion action game:
As promised! Shadowgrounds Survivor is now available. We’ve had reports that some people have neglected sleep playing Shadowgrounds for the last two days, and are close to completion. We ask you please to sleep at least once before starting Survivor, yes we know the game is good, but, we don’t want anyone dying from too much Shadowgrounds goodness!
Quake Live is great fun. It’s a tremendous invention, game quality and graphics notwithstanding. What more, it looks well, it plays well. You get reasonable graphics, lots of fast-paced killing action, for free, inside your browser, on any operating system. It’s a dream come true!
Finally confirmed: single window mode is coming for 2.8! But thats not the whole story yet The plan for 2.8 also includes lots of other cool new usability and interaction features!
This is a short show about how to extract the colours out of an image and put them into a palette. The next version of GIMP will allow the export of the palettes in a lot of designer and programmer friendly ways.
In fact, if you need a lightweight tool that can help you to manage and tweak your photos with a minimum of effort, Fotoxx can do the job just fine. Fotoxx’s interface looks deceptively spartan: the main window sports a single menu and a toolbar that contains buttons for frequently used functions. But behind the simple interface hide quite a few powerful features like support for the RAW format (this feature requires the UFRaw package installed on your system), an easy-to-use panorama stitching function, and the ability to create HDR photos.
For the many years I’ve been writing about Linux, it has always amazed me that no distro ever wins, in the sense that it vanquishes many opponents in the marketplace. Instead success breeds other successes through forks, variants and derivations by other labels.
I do not really need Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Instead, I could use one variant that let me choose my desktop environment and applications during install time. The installer could use either a network repository, or on disc repository depending on the ISO file.
Barry Kauler is back at the helm of the Puppy Linux project, and he just released version 4.3 of the popular lightweight Linux distribution. Puppy Linux 4.3 is a massive upgrade from the 4.2 series, with almost all the components updated or replaced. Also, the whole system through which this Linux distribution is being built has been replaced with a completely new one, called Woof. The switch imposed the creation of a new package management system, called Puppy Package Manager, which supports the use of packages from any distribution within Puppy.
As far as Zenwalk is concerned, version 6.2 cements its place as one of the most highly-respected and well-liked distributions. As for Salix OS, well, we shall see.
Djl is an open-source (GPL licensed) game manager written in Python 2.5 for the GNU/Linux Operating Systems. It is inspired by Valve’s Steam software for Windows. djl currently hosts over 118 games you can download and play on your Linux system with such hits as Alien Area, Planeshift, Scorched 3d, UFO and many many more. Please note most games require gl drivers so a good gaming video card is needed.
Frields, of Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat Inc., is a real player in the open-source world, and he lives and works in Fredericksburg. He’s Red Hat’s Fedora Project Leader. Fedora is a community-supported free and open-source Linux-based operating system.
The event essentially asks the question: “Why pay for proprietary software that often isn’t as good as free software?”
KDE 4.3 is Great but I would suggest all newbies to try the last, KDE 3.5.10 release of Mepis 8 (8.0.10) before it moves into KDE 4 world (cos i don’t know what will happen then).
At the Atlanta Linux Fest, Mark Shuttleworth announced that Ubuntu 10.04, the next major release of Ubuntu after version 9.10 Karmic Koala, will be code-named Lucid Lynx. Ubuntu 10.04 will also be a Long Term Support (LTS) version of the Debian-derived Linux distribution.
The Ubuntu art team has been hard at work preparing a new look for Karmic Koala, which is set to be released on October 29th. While no final theme has been chosen, here screenshots of some of the art I like.
Washington – Thinking of trying Linux? If you are, you’ll quickly discover that there are dozens of different distributions – or “distros” – of the operating system floating around on the internet. Which should you choose? These days, the consensus favourite for easiest to set up is Ubuntu. Based on the stable Debian distro, Ubuntu comes with most drivers and productivity applications that you’ll need to start working right away.
Meshcom Technologies, Inc. today announced its new brand name – EmbedOne – for its new embedded Linux line of business. At the same time, new publicly available suite of software and services for the embedded Linux community was announced.
Wind River, which was taken over by Intel in early June, has released version 5.7 of the Tilcon Graphics Suite, software for developing graphical user interfaces for embedded applications. WindRiver acquired Tilcon Software in February 2009.
Wind River introduced Wind River Linux 3.0 in March this year, including compliance with the CGL 4.0 for PowerPC and x86 architecture-based processors from Freescale and Intel.
The Nokia N900 is not shipping yet, but Amazon (Via Pocktables) already dropped the pre-order price of the unlocked Nokia N900 (U.S. Version) to $588.99 (down from $649).
Now I have cyanogen’s ROM running on my phone. It is a very nicely customized rom with good performance. The improvements in the ROM includes Multitouch support, better camera options, Faster applications, 5 desktops etc. Anway I am addicted to Android. Trying out more and more hacks these days.
Pre wins a lot of points for style. The black, shiny and uniform exterior looks great and the device is slight enough to fit easily in your pocket and in the palm of your hand. Its curved edges and simple design – there’s only one visible button when the keyboard is closed – make it approachable. It’s a phone you’ll want to hold.
I used the partition editor (gparted) to reduce the Windows partition from 300 GB to 32GB, and left the Recovery partition intact (just in case). I then set about installing (or trying to install) various Linux distributions. This was what I was really interested in, seeing how Linux dealt with the CPU and graphic controller, and specifically how the whole thing compared to the ASUS N10J with its Intel Atom CPU and nVidia graphic controller.
For an OS that is still in alpha testing, Jolicloud is impressive. Surely there are plenty of bugs still need to be sorted out, but for the simple, yet user-friendly and easy to use interface, it really worth the praise.
Anyhow, I think that this boils down to people not doing their homework. For sellers, or those who bundle netbooks with their services (like telcos), they should research on their offerings before they do the marketing so that they will not make messages that could lead their customers to confusion. It matters what they say in their marketing copy before anything else. Sometimes catchphrases and slogans are culprits in giving customers the wrong impression. I hope that those who are selling netbooks will learn how to NOT give false expectations. Especially because Linux on netbooks is not what users know about all the time. If they don’t want high return rates, then they should do their homework first. If they know that they might have to add trained customer service representatives who will be called for help, then they should make a way. Just because it’s a netbook with Linux shouldn’t make their customers that it is an inferior product.
Earlier this month, I found myself embarking on a last-minute journey to a One Laptop per Child workshop in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. They are preparing for a 6000 XO laptop deployment in that region of the country. I attended to support the 5-day event, which was coordinated by Michael Tempel and Claudia Urrea.
A buddy of mine purchased an OLPC when they were first released. He wasn’t impressed with it, but I can’t say the same… Sugar on a Stick runs great on my old Eee PC 900, and is a lot more intuitive than you’d think, even for a grup!
But so what? The war is over. Open Source won. The whole IT industry now depends on a vast amount of Open Source code and many key Open Source projects.
• Office suite: Review site Cnet.com calls the free suite Open Office “a credible rival to MS Office.” You can save and read files in the common Microsoft formats, such as .doc. The interface is similar to older versions of MS Office. Besides writing and spreadsheet programs, it offers counterparts to Microsoft PowerPoint and the Access database program. Download it at openoffice.org.
Open Source Software (OSS) has been a part of the IT market for over two decades. Recently, the commoditization of IT markets, changing attitudes to the production and distribution of intellectual property, and the global economic recession have put the OSS firmly in focus. Nevertheless, the OSS remains an elusive phenomenon.
Sourcesense, the European provider of open source solutions and The Go To Group, Inc. (Go2Group), a leader in the field of Software Production Line Automation (SPLA), today announced a broad technological partnership to extend middleware alternatives into the software development environment. With the combination of Sourcesense’s open source expertise and Go2Group’s best-practice services, the partnership aims to bring the power and value of open source solutions to customers looking for an option to today’s traditional enterprise solutions.
And I added a quote from a very respected source, Freeform Dynamics director Dale Vile: “The fanatics and evangelists that push Linux in your face as the answer to everything actually put normal IT professionals off considering it”.
Veda Informatics have launched open-source-developers.com, to offer website development services using open source technologies. It is to be focused on the needs of individuals and small businesses.
The American database manufacturer Ingres was therefore well aware when it chose a golf tournament with the aim of bringing decision-makers and senior management from IT and business together in a relaxed atmosphere near the Main metropolis of Frankfurt. The managing director of Ingres Germany, Bertram Mandel, said in the business news of finanzinform.de: “Open source left the stage of experimental student life a long time ago. Open source software has arrived in the company”
Ann All spoke with Mark Madsen, founder and president of Third Nature, a research and consulting company specializing in business intelligence and information delivery and the technology infrastructure required to support them. He authored a recent study of open source adoption in the business intelligence and data warehousing markets.
There’s still time to insert open source into an SAP and Oracle projects. Go forth and prosper! Or at least use the open source product for better overall prices from SAP and Oracle.
Open source software like Magento, Joomla, ZenCart, Drupal, Elgg, phpBB, Typo3, WordPress, osCommerce, Mambo, X-cart, OpenPHPNuke and Sugar CRM are established to develop a complete E-commerce website development.
Jigsaw, a Data as a Service, or “DaaS,” systems provider, has launched a new developer program for companies, such as open source CRM software provider, SugarCRM, to integrate Jigsaw products to benefit both companies and their customers.
Open Source Enterprise CMS vendor Nuxeo (news, site) is trying to make it easier for anyone interested in using its technology stack to bring those dreams to reality — from top to bottom.
Rackspace’s support ideology – termed Fanatical Support – is something they are very proud of and has made Rackspace one of the world’s leaders in hosting. I assume this Drupal-based support site is very important to their business.
Solr is a branch of the Apache Lucene project, which has also spawned other powerful spin-offs such as the Hadoop distributed computing system. Lucene itself is a Java library used as a core component for multiple search systems. Solr was originally developed by Yonik Seeley while at CNET Networks, where it is used on the CNET Reviews site to help visitors drill down through search results by category. Seeley has since joined Lucid Imagination, a firm formed to provide commercial distributions, training, and support for Lucene and Solr.
A content management system provides the foundation for an easy to maintain a website. A key factor in deciding which CMS to use should be the customization factor. When I say customization factor, I mean the how difficult it is to develop custom functionality particular to your project. Some CMS systems make this easy while others present more of a challenge.
Veda Informatics, a fast-growing internet visibility optimization company, has launched http://www.open-source-developers.com , offering website development services focused on the needs of individuals and small businesses. Start-ups and small businesses are typically tight on funds, but cannot forgo having a web presence.
The fourth edition of a guide to help small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt Open Source software has been published. This guide (developed in the context of the FLOSSMETRICS and OpenTTT projects) present a set of guidelines and suggestions for the adoption of open source software within SMEs, using a ladder model that will guide companies from the initial selection and adoption of FLOSS within the IT infrastructure up to the creation of suitable business models based on open source software.
There are companies such as Sun/Oracle, RedHat and Canonical that provide commercial support for specific bundles of software. RedHat offers commercial support for what they call RedHat Enterprise Linux which is a bundle of software they have put together that forms a complete operating system. Canonical does the same with their own distribution of Linux, and has a support center in Montreal.
Appearances to the contrary, OpenOffice.org and its various offshoots aren’t the only choices available to you in terms of full-scale, cross-platform open source office suites. Although alternatives in this space are few, the KDE Project’s KOffice is now coming on quite strong, while GNOME Office and Siag Office keep attracting fans, too.
Building on its commitment to empower developers and students across the globe, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) is sponsoring more than 300 community style events in more than 30 countries for Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 19, 2009. With an emphasis on emerging markets such as India, China, Indonesia and Russia, Sun’s Software Freedom Day events are designed to help developers on all levels to better understand and generate increased involvement in open source technologies.
So really Software Freedom Day is not so much about software but about our rights and how they apply to technology. At least that’s my two cent take on these matters. Go on, throw in your own two cents. I dare you!
Today I attended the Saigon Software Freedom Day 2009 organized by the Saigon Linux User Group at the University of Education in District 5. This is actually my first ever SFD that I attended. It was nice to meet Prof. Nguyen Thai Son again, a long time advocate of open source and Linux in Saigon. I made many valuable contacts from this event today including the Ubuntu-VN team.
Now besides the ‘freedom’ it represents, how does using a FOSS product benefit a common user? For starters, everything is zero cost. Every possible application that you can think of comes bundled with GNU/Linux OS and can be installed by clicking on the ‘add or remove’ function. So, no chasing different vendors to buy different applications. And given that FOSS is user-centric and mostly a community project, applications here are often the most superior and interoperable ones on offer.
The software Freedom Day 2009 was marked in Accra on Saturday with a call on businesses to deploy open source software products in their operations to become competitive.
Open World Forum, the leading global forum for free, libre and open source software Relevant Products/Services (FLOSS) worldwide, today announces the shortlist of 20 innovative open source start-ups who will be invited to present their companies to an expert Jury at the Open Innovation Summit, part of the Open World Forum on October 2nd, 2009. The international Jury will then present an award to the company perceived to be the most innovative and promising.
Open World Forum, the world biggest global forum for free, libre and open source software Relevant Products/Services (FLOSS) today extends an invitation to journalists and analysts covering open source news to register for the second Open World Forum event in Paris on 1 and 2 October 2009.
I also got to sit in on a session presented by the eApps technical team on, “How To Bring Open Source Network Management Tools into Mission Critical Roles in Your Organization” I was jazzed to hear that they were using Zenoss Core to monitor over 5000 Virtuozzo containers.
It’s important to note that HTML 5 isn’t one big difficult leap like moving from Windows XP to Vista, or from IPv4 to IPv6. According to Google’s Mark Pilgrim, the HTML 5 specification is simply a collection of detailed feature implementations that browsers can support. In fact, some browsers already support features like geolocation, local storage, offline apps, canvas, and the new audio and video tags. Apple’s Safari 4 and mobile Safari on the iPhone already do.
OpenOffice.org 3.2 introduces a new set of document icons (a.k.a. mime type icons). The new set gives ODF documents a clean and unique visual identity, and removes any product or vendor specific brand.
For alpha release software, this is a very promising show. I like almost everything about this — the size of the installation, the desktop look, the clean way the system applications and desktop widgets handle themselves. If I can track down why the network was inaccessible I definitely plan on reinstalling it and giving it another whirl.
The global political process to counter runaway climate change has become, for practical purposes, irrelevant. None of the currently proposed emissions reductions being seriously considered in policy making are appropriate to meet the severity of the situation. This overwhelming failure on the part of world governments is pushing the rapid unification of environmentalists, activists, scientists, and others to push for direct, immediate change.
[...]
Many other websites, such as Coal Swarm, post constant updates on direct actions and resources for radical change. Twitter and similar online social networks are being utilized to outpace the communications and organization capabilities of the state and police. Independent media coverage of these events will be almost instantly shared throughout the internet, inciting resistance and solidarity across the world.
FreedomWorks receives funding from the tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris, as well as from Richard Scaife, another business tycoon, who for years helped fund dirt-digging investigations into Bill Clinton. Local branches of Americans for Prosperity have also received tobacco money; the group has opposed smoke-free workplace laws and cigarette taxes. … ExxonMobil was a sponsor of Citizens for Sound Economy, and both FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity have campaigned vigorously against Obama’s plans to reduce CO2 emissions through a cap and trade scheme, working closely with the American Petroleum Institute.
Matt Kibbe, who heads FreedomWorks, a national conservative group that led the push behind last Saturday’s rally, goes further. He says that the movement has stolen from Obama the techniques he used to such effect last year and is now redeploying them as a stick with which to beat the president.
When Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, FreedomWorks studied how he did it and then copied him. They set up a ning site, a Facebook-like platform that allows members to talk to each other without having to go through the parent body. The result was explosive.
FreedomWorks now has more than 800,000 members who largely organise and fund themselves; all the group itself does is arrange permits for demonstrations and advise on logistics.
The plan for 2.8 also includes lots of other cool new usability and interaction features!
