12.21.09
Posted in Database, Europe, Free/Libre Software, Microsoft, Oracle, SUN at 2:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“As if you could kill a dolphin by swallowing the ocean…”
–Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL
Summary: Oracle commits to swallowing but not devouring the dolphin, whereas the creator of MySQL database, who is now with Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation, lobbies with Microsoft against it
WE HAVE mostly abstained from saying whether MySQL should or should not be acquired by Oracle. Sun is at stake too, along with projects like Java and OpenOffice.org, so it’s a tough situation. Either way, based on reports, there is at least a promise from Oracle, which means that pressure from the European Commission paid off in some way.
A pledge in Oracle’s commitments to European regulators would continue to license MySQL, a key Web site software, for five years after Sun is acquired
An approval for Oracle is foreseen despite all the lobbying from Microsoft and SAP. Groklaw points out that Microsoft has just acquired the Toronto-based Opalis, which is a MySQL partner. Could this be strategic and intentional in some way? Who knows, but Groklaw found that important enough to mention.
“Monty could have changed the license prior to selling it to Sun, and he didn’t, so it’s a bit late now to worry about who owns it.”
–Pamela JonesNow that Michael Widenius is lobbying to block the acquisition, Groklaw’s Pamela Jones also writes: “I’m a MySQL user on Groklaw, and I think he’s serving up baloney, and definitely not anything to do with Open Source, since he’s suggesting the license on MySQL be changed to one that allows him proprietary possibilities. Monty could have changed the license prior to selling it to Sun, and he didn’t, so it’s a bit late now to worry about who owns it. I doubt the EU Commission will care about emails like this, but there’s no reason why people can’t send emails if they so choose. If so, it’s to comp-merger-registry@ec.europa.eu and mine, if I wrote one, would say, I see nothing wrong with Oracle buying MySQL.The GPL rights are irrevocable, so it doesn’t matter who owns the copyrights.”
Here are some opinions that Groklaw cites for support:
But the Oracle filing quotes several customers who said practically the opposite in response to the EU’s market survey. Vodafone Group PLC said it “does not consider that Oracle’s database offerings constitute direct substitutes to Sun’s offerings.” McAfee Inc. also said the two don’t “constitute direct substitutes.” As did General Electric Co., which added that while “both parties’ offerings may on the face of it share some functionality, they are qualitatively different.” Said Fujitsu Services Ltd.: “They operate in different markets.”
Widenius has said that Oracle’s promise is useless, but Jones disagrees when she writes: “If he claims the promises are empty, I’d not call that a success. If it is a success, then the promises must not be empty.”
What do our readers think? Is the European Commission doing the right thing by obstructing Sun (and Oracle)? Is it defending MySQL from a hostile takeover? We lost a great deal of confidence in the European Commission when Steve Ballmer met Neelie Kroes and bamboozled her until she accepted software patents. The president of the FFII wrote a few hours ago: “Nellie Kroes in bed with Microsoft for protecting their soft patents, commercial software redefined, champagne in Redmond!”
This was indeed a disappointment which we wrote about yesterday and also covered in [1, 2, 3]. Initially, the Commission caved and obeyed Microsoft lobbyists, later inviting Microsoft again. With several Microsoft cronies inside the Commission, this might not be entirely shocking. As someone who maintains about 20 MySQL databases, I’d appreciate input from readers. Who’s “right” and who’s “wrong”? █
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Posted in Apple, Free/Libre Software, Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Patents at 1:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The USPTO needs advice from the public as flaws are realised and a solution is seen as required
THE USPTO is not particularly bright if it truly decided to issue some of the statements Patently-O speaks about:
PTO Asks for Comments on Improving Patent Quality
The PTO is on a mission to “improve the quality of the overall patent examination and prosecution process, to reduce patent application pendency, and to ensure that granted patents are valid and provide clear notice.”
This is an admission that the USPTO has problems with the “overall patent examination and prosecution process”, the backlog, and the validity of patents (i.e. ensuring that they are not trivial and not attributable to prior work by others).
It is nice to know that the USPTO understands that there is work to be done. Removal of software patents would help.
Microsoft, the company which uses patents to attack GNU and Linux, is already facing 50+ lawsuits for patent infringement. In the news we also have:
• Microsoft sued in patent spat
A Massachusetts software company filed suit in Boston’s District Court against Microsoft Corp., claiming the Redmond software giant infringed its patent on a business method for extracting data from spreadsheets.
• Apple, Others, Hit with Remote App Activation Patent Infringement Suit
Apple, Adobe, Microsoft and several other companies were hit with a patent infringement suit on Monday by BetaNet for violating a patent it owns. The case alleges the companies are violating a patent that describes a process for securely activating software remotely, according to The Loop.
• Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, others sued for patent infringement
It is hoped that if Microsoft gets sued massively, then the benefit of their patents will no longer exceed the cost, so the patent spiel will be outlived by some sanity. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, Finance, Microsoft, Rumour, Steve Ballmer, Windows at 11:11 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Photo via Wikipedia, speech bubble added
Summary: Speculations about Ray Ozzie preparing to move on and Microsoft’s CEO getting the boot
EARLIER this month, Microsoft’s chief financial officer (CFO) announced that he is quitting, having sold many shares. Kevin McLaughlin from ChannelWeb is one among two people (one of whom is a Microsoft booster, Mr. Gralla) who read some writings on the wall and suspect that “Ray Ozzie [May Be] On His Way Out At Microsoft”
Does the executive reshuffle that accompanied the unveiling of Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT)’s new Server & Cloud Division (SCD) in early December mean that Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie is leaving Microsoft?
The ‘Microsoft press’ wonders about this too. For those who do not know, “On June 15, 2006, Ozzie took over the role of Chief Software Architect from Bill Gates.”
McLaughlin wrote another short article about Newsweek’s prediction that Steve Ballmer will “get canned”.
2010 will be the year when shareholders finally decide they’ve had enough of Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, Newsweek said in its Predictions For 2010 report issued this week.
Newsweek noted that Microsoft’s stock has fallen almost 50 percent since Ballmer ascended to the CEO position nearly a decade ago and claimed that distractions like Windows Vista have kept Ballmer from moving into “every new big tech market of the past decade.”
Some investors want Ballmer out and one Microsoft shareholder likens Steve Ballmer to Bernard Madoff. Many articles called for him to be fired around March of 2008 after he had made the catastrophic bid for Yahoo!
“What about the piles of failed products, worse than useless technologies, illegal unethical and anticompetitive business practices, price gouging, growth-though-acquisition, and so on?”
–AnonymousMeanwhile, one of our readers has identified what he considers to be “Microsoft whitewash” [1, 2]. Matt Asay is trying to blame Ballmer for Microsoft’s failure (the company has debt now). Maybe Asay just reads too much CNET, but either way, our reader wrote to us two hours ago: “It’s pretty ****ing sick how Asay is trying to whitewash Bill Gates’ past activities at Microsoft.
“What about the piles of failed products, worse than useless technologies, illegal unethical and anticompetitive business practices, price gouging, growth-though-acquisition, and so on?
“Gates built the crappy reputation that Microsoft has today. What is Matt getting out of whitewashing him?”
Actually, Bill Gates continues some of his old (and nasty) practices under the umbrella of the Gates Foundation.
As Comes vs Microsoft exhibits show, a lot of Microsoft’s crimes were masterminded by Bill Gates himself, not just his minions. In fact, Ballmer is a lot more benign than Gates based on the court’s evidence.
Microsoft has just made some financial announcements about dividend and the next financial report:
Microsoft Corp. will release fiscal year 2010 second-quarter financial results after the close of the market on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010.
In the previous report, which Microsoft concealed by releasing it on the same day as Vista 7‘s overly-hyped up release, Windows revenue was down 40% and more layoffs came just 2 weeks later.
The Microsoft crowd does not know how to properly counter claims that “it is game over for Microsoft in consumer” (maybe because it’s true).
This new press release reveals the loss of another Microsoft veteran, who is finding a new host in MediaTrust.
MediaTrust (www.mediatrust.com), the digital performance marketing company, has named Microsoft veteran David Coburn to the new position of Head of Product.
One real problem is that as Microsoft disintegrates it sheds off a lot of pro-Microsoft people, who in turn join other companies and have influence there. █
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Posted in Finance, Fraud, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 10:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The fat cats from Redmond take taxpayers’ money, pay almost no tax, and also use their political power to make the system more discriminatory
Microsoft just cannot help ruining the word "open". Microsoft used this word in order to describe a NASA platform that it built to exclude "open source" platforms. A few months ago Microsoft also snatched NASA data which was owned by US taxpayers and it is currently blocking GNU/Linux users [1, 2] from a new service that NASA contracted Microsoft to build. It is amazing that all these projects are described as “open”, even though they serve just proprietary platforms and also fill the pockets of a multiple-times convicted monopolist.
While pretending to be “open”, Microsoft ventures forth and strives for even more control of the United States government.
Microsoft Taps Into Open Government Market
With the open government movement in full swing and the Obama administration’s Open Government Directive finally in federal agency hands, vendors such as Microsoft are looking to offer up their help.
[...]
For example, Microsoft recently worked with NASA to develop a Website called Be A Martian…
Well, too bad this Web site excludes users of Free software, eh?
Should people give up their rights and purchase proprietary software from convicted felons in order to access services that they have already paid for? It was a similar situation with the British iPlayer.
What about the security implications? As many people know from personal experience, using Windows also means loss of security. To give one of the latest examples:
Microsoft has decided that it is better to disable a 17-year-old video codec in older versions of Windows rather than patch the thing.
There are other new issues:
According to Andrew Brandt, a security researcher with the IT security vendor, the fake Microsoft security certificates appear in the properties sheets of both the installer and two of the three executable payloads dropped by the installer.
Going back to the issue of taxpayers being denied access to services which they paid for, who are those taxpayers anyway? Does Microsoft pay tax at all? Former Microsoft workforce still speaks about Microsoft’s tax evasion/dodging [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and reduction of wages with territorial tactics.
Here is another infuriating reminder from the news:
That spigot of revenue may be short-lived due to the state’s stance on data center tax incentives. Microsoft announced in August that it was migrating its Windows Azure cloud computing infrastructure from its data center in Quincy to another Microsoft facility in San Antonio. The reason: Microsoft’s unhappiness with tax policies in Washington state.
Well, that’s right.
Microsoft is so poor. Why should it pay tax at all? Let all those other (less affluent) citizens fill the pot of tax money, which in turn will be passed to Microsoft thanks to a government filled with cronies (NASA contracts for example). To make matters worse, using lobbyists they can pass the costs (or tax) down to poor people, even though wages have declined for decades. Well, not for the top 0.01%, whose wage rose on average by 600%.
Also from last week’s news:
More companies are disclosing their political activity
[...]
Monday, the Center for Political Accountability will announce that software giant Microsoft, Time Warner, Campbell Soup and Wisconsin Energy have agreed to detail their trade-association donations, along with other political spending.
Dan Bross, Microsoft’s senior director of corporate citizenship, said the company wanted “to lead by example.” Microsoft has posted its political-related dues online for the first time. The largest payment: $2.1 million in fiscal year 2009 to the Computing Technology Industry Association, a high-tech trade group.
That is just one firm. $2,100,000. Microsoft has a huge number of them and loads of lobbyists too. Many are located offshore, in Europe for example. To properly understand the impact of this, one need only look at the Gates-Abramoff scandals. Abramoff is in prison, Microsoft is not. Maybe it just has enough political clout to stay out of jail no matter how serious and heinous the crimes (which continue to this day).█
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Posted in Asia, Bill Gates, Boycott Novell, Finance, Fraud, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 9:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft’s lobbying with convicted criminal Abramoff (for cheaper labour) comes back to haunt them
EARLIER this year we wrote a great deal about EDGI. It is an anti-competitive programme that Microsoft was running for years in order to just block competition such as GNU/Linux. Antitrust exhibits also showed the role of EDGI in India, e.g.:
As we last showed one week ago, Microsoft is expanding its operations in India in order to reduce workers’ wages. The following new article from the Economic Times speaks about both the expansion and EDGI (which Microsoft publicly calls “Unlimited Potential”, even though it is a euphemism).
Convergys and Microsoft set up community technology centre in Bangalore
[...]
Vikas Goswami, Community Affairs Manager, Microsoft India, said, “Under our global Unlimited Potential initiative, we are committed to reaching the benefits of technology to those currently underserved by it. This alliance with Convergys is another step in that direction, and one that we hope will have a positive impact on scores of lives.”
Here are some more new deals and partnerships for Microsoft in India and from the India Journal we learn that “Max H-1B Visas Taken By Wipro, Microsoft, Infosys”
The U.S. economy is still reeling under the impact of recession and even though unemployment continues to rise, employers have stepped up the hiring of skilled workers from abroad, according to data from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The acceleration in recent weeks has put companies close to exhausting the 65,000 visas allotted each year for foreign hires under what’s known as the H-1B program, reports Business Week.
[...]
Non U.S. outsourcers still claimed six of the top 10 places in fiscal 2009, although the numbers were off for the largest operators. India’s Infosys Technologies topped the list in fiscal 2008, with 4,559 visas, but last year got only 440. Wipro was the largest visa recipient in 2009, with 1,964, down from 2,678 in 2008. Sridhar Ramasubbu, Wipro’s Chief Financial Officer for International Operations, says that the drop is the result of lower demand caused by the recession and changes in the company’s workforce. “We’re now operating in 58 countries,” he says.
We have already explained what Wipro does for Microsoft in India [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. For background about Infosys, see older posts that are about a year old. Not much has changed since then. Infosys is helping Microsoft legalise software patents in India [1, 2, 3], it is exploiting Indian people, and it also helped OOXML [1, 2]. There is lots more [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. In essence, Wipro and Infosys are helping a neo-colonialist, a foreign digital invader. It is not about helping India but about making India more dependent on Microsoft.
Some people do realise how Gates and Abramoff have scammed the system in order to reduce wages and increase working hours. A new blog post from ABC News, which has received a lot of comments, includes the following comment:
How can the US Create jobs? Here’s a simple way that won’t cost taxpayers a dime.
How? Eliminate H-1B and L-1 Visa Fraud and abuse.
What can I do right now to change this?
Boycott Microsoft. Microsoft is the largest and most abusive foreign visa worker employer.
* Foreign H-1B workers “displace qualified American workers”
* H-1B workers “substantially deprived U.S. citizens of employment.”
* 20% + USCIS audited guest worker visa applications are fraudulent
* Foreign H-1B workers “substantially exceed” 241,000 unemployed American tech workers in the same field
How did this happen?
Corporate Greed and bottomless lobbyist funding from corporations including Microsoft. Convicted felon and H-1B program mastermind, Microsoft lobbyist, Jack Abramoff convinced Congress (without opposing testimony) to pass laws that make it legal for employers to lay off American citizens, and recruit their foreign visa worker replacements exclusively offshore.
The good news
S887 – This bipartisan Durbin/Grassley bill reform will crack down on corporate visa fraud and abuse and outlaw the corporate bypass of US talent and exclusive recruiting offshore for US jobs in the USA.
Employ Americans Act – The Sanders/Grassley bill will outlaw US employers from firing US citizens and exclusively hire their replacements from other countries.
Simple things YOU can do TODAY to change the US jobs crisis
1. BOYCOTT Microsoft.
2. Insist your elected officials support Employ America Act and S887.
If they don’t support these bipartisan bills, ask why and CHASE THE MONEY. Who are their corporate funding contributors?
Actions and Deeds NOT Lip service.
What are YOUR politicians doing about the jobs crisis?
Are they co-sponsoring/sponsoring these bipartisan bills?
What’s their voting record?
Are they fighting for unemployment and COBRA benefits?
Dead giveaways your politician will do ZERO to create US jobs for US citizens
Political funding from Microsoft, Compete America, and Indian companies
B.S. Detector Corporate Greed funded lies – keywords “Innovation”, “Best, and Brightest”, globalization, xenophobia.
This issue is the bulls eye of corporate greed and political corruption. Hence, a consumer boycott of Microsoft has more impact than expecting a broken, corrupt system to change.
Remind your elected officials they were elected FOR the people, BY the PEOPLE, not BUY Corporate GREED.
Tell them to end corporate visa fraud and abuse. American citizens, people who have paid their dues and taxes must have a fair chance to compete for jobs in our own country.
This is not an issue of ethnicity or race. It is an issue of commerce. Microsoft is abusing a class by reducing wages and decreasing worker security, which may be good for the economy in the sense that it keeps people terrified and obedient while corporations pocket more money, but at the same time it is an horrific stomp on people’s civil liberties. It also squashes any prospects of organising unions and narrowing of the class gap. █
“As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.”
–Bill Gates
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, Google, Microsoft, Search at 8:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Asa Dotzler, via WIkipedia
Summary: Asa Dotzler surprised by media reaction to comments of his which were misinterpreted and also attributed to his employer rather than himself
A COUPLE of weeks ago Mozilla’s Dotzler was (mis)quoted as saying that people should use Microsoft and not Google. Since several of our readers brought it up we thought it would be worth commenting on very briefly.
Basically, as in most cases where people look for controversy, words and ideas get distorted (ours too). The original words get lost in the mix and disinformation spins out of control. Dotzler has already removed the post in question (and in a subsequent post he also explained why).
“The editors modify headlines to create drama and controversy (emotion at the expense of information).”At Groklaw, Pamela Jones wrote: “Folks need to read more carefully. What he said is that *all* search engines are subject to the Patriot Act, and that would include Bing, which also retains your information. So he is showing you how to jump from the frying pan into the fire. I changed the title also, because this was a blog comment, not a Mozilla official statement, so I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Mozilla did this. Journalists don’t usually write their own headlines. Just so you know.”
That is my experience as well, having written for publications before. The editors modify headlines to create drama and controversy (emotion at the expense of information).
Here is an example of inaccurate reports about Dotzler’s remark. Some of the most distorted headlines came from the typical Microsoft boosters, who were totally spinning Dotzler’s words so as to advertise Microsoft’s Bong [sic]. █
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Posted in Courtroom, Deception, Free/Libre Software, FUD, GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft at 8:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“[Nicolas] Sarkozy and his family have been vacationing at a lakefront estate in Wolfeboro owned by former Microsoft Corp. executive Michael Appe.”
–MSNBC, 2007
Summary: The press whose purpose is to serve Microsoft’s interests is spreading inaccurate and alarmist propaganda against Google and GNU/Linux
SOME OF THE LATEST posts about Nicolas Sarkozy and Microsoft [1, 2, 3] have been good reminders of this special relationship. Sarkozy is currently slapping Google over its book-scanning project, but he never had a problem when Microsoft did this.
Now that Google’s book-scanning is under additional attacks, there are suspicions that Microsoft is behind it because it was behind it before, about a year ago. We wrote about this on numerous occasions and we also pointed out that Microsoft was being a hypocrite; it did — after all — directly compete against Google book-scanning service by doing exactly the same thing. It just happens to have lost the race.
“Having failed to compete on technical merit, Microsoft increases the public’s fear of Google, as it has been doing for years.”“Who’s behind the criticism of the Google book deal,” asked a reader of ours who pointed to this latest development. Given that Microsoft did participate in such criticisms before (the book settlement, for instance), it is only natural to be suspicious.
Having failed to compete on technical merit, Microsoft increases the public’s fear of Google, as it has been doing for years. Microsoft even decided to block Google and remove it as merely an option by allegedly paying Verizon half a billion dollars. Let’s not forget the Rupert Murdoch plot [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13].
Doug Barney from the ‘Microsoft press’ is serving Microsoft’s agenda by uttering more of the same things:
Let’s face it: Google pries into our lives, takes pictures of our homes when the kids are playing in the yard, and indexes much of our personal information. Google is the Patriot Act on steroids.
Is Microsoft any better? Let’s see. Microsoft is offering all the same services.
The Seattle press, which is aligned with Microsoft’s agenda, is doing the same thing against Chrome OS (GNU/Linux) at the moment. It includes some distortions or lies in a new article that ridicules Chrome OS:
No computer-makers have announced plans to sell computers with Chrome OS yet, but Google is planning on netbooks with Chrome OS to start selling in the fourth quarter of 2010.
That’s not true. Some have already committed. The Seattle press sure pays off for Microsoft. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 7:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Larry appears on the Fresh Ubuntu podcast. Harlem Quijano and Peter Nikolaidis welcome Larry as their guest host for this episode.
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Kernel Space
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Simple NVIDIA driver fixes this year were scattered all over the board from addressing issues with Plasma in KDE 4.x to fixing up some GPU memory problems that was present in the 180.xx series to cleaning up many other areas of this binary-only driver.
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Applications
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Screenshot tool ‘Shutter’ shuffles into view as we continue our 12 favourite applications of 2009 countdown.
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Instructionals
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Lots of important changes happened in Mandriva Cooker during the last few weeks. Here is a quick summary:
* GNOME has been updated to the development version 2.29.3. There is a new game, called LightsOff, Empathy has improved IRC support, Evince supports PDF file attachment annotations and opens each document in a separate process, more and more applications support Seed and more applications have been ported to new APIs such as GtkBuilder.
* KDE is now at version 4.4 beta 1.
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New Releases
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The Sabayon Linux CoreCD 5.1 release is available for download now at Sabayon’s mirror sites:http://www.sabayonlinux.org/mirrors
This updated release keeps with the tradition of the CoreCD 4.2 release. The CoreCD is designed with a minimalistic feature set to provide a foundation for building a customized installation tailored to the users specific needs.
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Also removed Brasero (CD Burning) as it is too dependent upon Gnome and switched to simpler xfburn. Has a few xfce-related dependencies but these are small and also allow easier development for users if they want to use the libraries. You may also notice that wxGTK libraries are in the base install, used by the the chm help viewer and also support Audacity, now compiled and sitting on CD2 in the multimedia folder.
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The first update version of Parsix GNU/Linux 3.0 aka `Kev` is available for immediate download. This version merges all security and bug fix updates published on the APT repositories.
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Parted Magic 4.7 adds and removes some programs and fixes a few bugs.
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Red Hat Family
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Tech companies reporting next week include electronics-component maker Jabil Circuit (JBL) on Monday and memory-chip maker Micron Technology Inc. (MU) and open-software developer Red Hat Inc. (RHT), both Tuesday.
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By now you would know that the next Fedora release, Fedora 13, will be named “Goddard”, after the famous Rocket scientist Robert H Goddard. After deciding on the name, fedora contributors have started working on the designs, themes and other artwork for the next release. There are a few ideas in the air about Rocketry related artwork but they are also looking of other fedora users and enthusiasts to come up with their more innovative stuff.
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Smooth and easy. That’s how Linux should be. My compliments to the UNetbootin author, and to the Fedora team, for a painless experience!
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Debian Family
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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #173 for the week December 13th – December 19th, 2009. In this issue we cover: Mark Shuttleworth: My new focus at Canonical, Lucid Community Team Plans, Michal Zajac (quintasan) Interview, Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter Notification, New update coming for the Ubuntu Israeli website, Ubuntu Catalan: What a LoCo November, James Westby: Ubuntu Distributed Development Overview, Ubuntuforums: In a month, Ubuntu’s Jono Bacon: Managing an Open Source Community, Cloud-oriented netbook distro arrives in beta, and much, much more!
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simavr is a software simulator for the AVR line of microcontrollers. You might be asking why anyone would write this sort of thing considering the simulator provided with AVR Studio is a wonderful tool? Well, a lot of folks don’t run Windows and don’t wish to use that development environment even if Wine or Virtualbox could make it happen.
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Nokia N900 is the final product which opens up a new path for the Finnish smartphone producer. After Google, which launched its new open source operating system for mobile phones, Nokia raised the stakes a few months later with its own vision, which is called Maemo. Android OS, as well as Maemo are both based on the well-known Linux platform, but they are pretty much different because they are the results of two different working teams. Before getting into more in-depth information, do not overlook the fact that we will be reviewing an Internet tablet, with some limited phone capabilities.
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Sub-notebooks
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In San Francisco, a startup company called Fusion Garage showed off the JooJoo, a touch-screen device that looks like the iPhone’s big brother. The JooJoo is one of the first of a new generation of tablet computers expected to hit store shelves in the coming year.
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After much deliberation I settled on a black friday Amazon deal, $431 for an Asus Eee Top ET2002 (video review) with free shipping. This is an all in one box with a 20″ monitor, Atom 330 processor, and 2gb of RAM , and ~240gb drive. This is quite an amazing deal so I went with it. Having seen one of these at an Ubuntu booth at Ontario Linuxfest I was confident that everything would just work. Keep in mind at this price this is the non-touchscreen screen. (EDIT: Correction to the price, this PC was $431, not $331, that would be ridiculous!)
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I’ve been in Free Software for a few years now and learned a ton from it. Sure, I learned how to use new types of software, became efficient on them, and honed my programming skills, but stopping there would be missing the point. Free software has so much more to offer than just computing and technical benefits. In fact, the technical side is the least important thing I’ve learned from my experiences. Free Software has brought me far beyond knowledge of its source code and taught me lessons I will value for a lifetime.
1. Centralized control isn’t worth it
When one single governing body gains absolute control over something, it is only a matter of time before that governing body increases its power tremendously. Many times, it does this in order to avoid vice, but counterintuitively, only ends up creating more of it in the process. Take any modern established proprietary software company that started out in the 60’s or 70’s for example. These software companies were revolutionary in their decision not to share their software for the benefit of learning, but rather, keep it a secret in order to make money from it. As time went on, the companies began imposing slightly harsher methods upon users in an attempt to foil the plans of those who refused to pay. This was the beginning of techniques such as license keys. As users developed ways around the methods, the methods kept getting progressively harsher, severely punishing casual proprietary software users who had been legally using and paying full price for the software since the beginning.
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To make sure you realize all the benefits of open source, run these simple background checks on an open source project.
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This edition of Netspeak features a few open source tools that facilitate the research process with special reference to the free statistical software ‘R’.
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Open-source software – free-to-use programs donated by developers which can then be customised to particular needs – has proved to be a boon. Computer Aid has employed its own research and development officer, Ugo Vallauri, to collect feedback from African users.
Putting a Braille machine in front of a child costs an initial $600 (£375). A digital book stored on a USB stick with open-source software to read aloud to the child costs about $3. “This has been a big step for us,” says Martin Kieti, the head of KUB. “We’re looking at a 95 per cent reduction in costs.”
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Open Source: Such software has a great opportunity to benefit, because more and more organisations realise the importance of BI as a key business strategy, even while striving to keep a check on the huge licensing and maintenance costs associated with commercial software.
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One example is Sahana, a free and open source disaster management system. This Web-based collaboration tool addresses the common coordination problems during a disaster, such as finding missing people, managing aid and volunteers, tracking camps effectively between government groups, the civil society (NGOs), and the victims themselves.
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CMS
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As part of my annual Drupal prediction, I was going to predict that in 2010, someone would get a Drupal tattoo. Of course, Kristof De Jaeger (aka swentel), fast as always, would get one just before the start of the new year. Who else has a Drupal tattoo?
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Another fantastic addition to 2.9 is the WordPress image editor. With this, you can edit an image inside WordPress, like cropping, flipping and do more magical stuff that no other blogging platform can do.
What I like most about 2.9 is the batch plugin update. You can update 5, 10 or even 20 plugins at the same time with just one click. Now that’s what makes WP2.9 really awesome!
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Licensing
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As director of intellectual property strategy for the Linux Foundation and an attorney at Choate Hall & Stewart, Karen Copenhaver knows a bit about open source software licensing. She recently spoke with Dr. Dobb’s editor in chief Jonathan Erickson.
Dr. Dobb’s: Are open source and public domain the same thing?
Copenhaver: Not at all. Open source licenses are granted by the copyright holder and the license is an exercise of the copyright. In order to enjoy the benefits of the license, you must comply with its terms. If you don’t comply with the license, you’re not licensed–and another word for unlicensed use is “infringement.”
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If it wasn’t for technology, I’d be tempted to leave a note for future time travelers to please, somehow erase the years 1999-2009 from all memory and reality. But even though every other culture and category is weeping in its collective beer, the 2000s might go down in history as the best decade ever for technology!
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“Today’s FTC announcement highlights the industry-changing impact of the GPU and the importance of our work,” he says. “Our innovation is making the PC magical and amazing again. I can now imagine the day when Intel can no longer block consumers from enjoying our creation and experience computing in a way we know is possible.”
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The Obama administration “artfully pursues a policy of smiles and handshakes all around while undermining democratic forces through proxies whenever the opportunity arises.” Washington reserves its rawest deceits for the small countries of the Americas like Honduras and Haiti.
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The Haitian government-under-US/UN-occupation has again excluded Haiti’s largest political party from participating in upcoming elections financed, orchestrated and supported by the United States and the International Community. This time, the February and March 2010 legislative elections where the 99 seats in the Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies will be at stake, along with, one-third (10) of the 30-member Senate seats.
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Anyone who’s a regular Google search user will know that the only way to avoid the company tracking your online activities is to log out of Gmail or whatever Google account you use. Not any more.
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Environment
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While protests are expected to start later this week in Copenhagen, tens of thousands of people marched throughout Europe on Saturday calling on world leaders to reach an agreement to reduce emissions in Copenhagen. Protesters took to the streets in Belfast, Glasgow, Paris, Brussels, Berlin and London. The largest protest was in London, where organizers of the Stop Climate Chaos protest put the crowd total at 50,000. Participants in the march included Britain Climate and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, actor Peter Capaldi and former BBC weather presenter Michael Fish.
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Finance
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The ex-wife of Wall Street magnate Steven Cohen, founder of the $13 billion hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, has filed a civil racketeering suit against Cohen in which she accuses him of committing insider trading violations.
The suit, according to The New York Times, was filed Wednesday in federal district court in Manhattan under a civil version of RICO laws used mostly against organized crime figures. The suit accuses Cohen of understating his income during divorce proceedings and hiding money from his ex-wife, Patricia. She is seeking $300 million. Her attorney, Paul Batista, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. An attorney for Cohen could not immediately be located.
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Citigroup’s planned exit from the bailout — like Bank of America’s earlier this month — would be welcome if the banks were the picture of health. But their main motive is to get out from under the bailout’s pay caps and other restraints. The Treasury Department’s approval is a grim reminder of the political power of the banks, even as the economy they did so much to damage continues to struggle.
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Why has there been NO serious investigation of ANY kind of the recipient of such extraordinary taxpayer largesse? Why has virtually NOTHING been demanded of them? Why the unseemly rush to let them off the hook and let them “pay back the TARP”? This is completely unwarranted in the case of AIG, which has had its deal with the government retraded in AIG’s favor a full four times. Why has AIG at every turn gotten a better and better deal, each time at the public’s expense, and is now allowed to lobby that it should be freed of its obligations? No private sector lender would allow a troubled borrower that could not meet its commitments to renegotiate and get IMPROVED terms. The inability to meet the terms of the original funding (one on terms private sector lenders were willing to consider, and that per Sorkin, AIG itself proposed) only strengthens the case to continue with the original plan, which is to break up AIG and sell the pieces for what they can fetch. This is the course that would yield the highest returns to the public, and that program will not produce a systemic event, which should be the ONLY offsetting consideration. There is no business rationale to have an agglomeration of diverse insurance businesses, particularly one that has been as badly managed as AIG (Sorkin’s account also reveals a shocking lack of financial and operational controls).
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AstroTurf
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Kevin Wolf, a partner in the Washington office of Bryan Cave who raised money for President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, is the president’s pick for a top trade position.
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Internet/Censorship/Web Abuse/Rights
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I make no bones about my ferocity in support of open government. I believe religiously in the time-honored words spoken in 1933 by Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, “Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.” I write about open meetings and public records issues at my Media Law blog and lobby around them on behalf of my state’s newspaper association.
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Thus, it should surprise no one that I consider it outrageous that a coalition of Texas municipalities and elected officials have filed a federal lawsuit claiming they have a First Amendment right to conduct the public’s business in secret. The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Pecos, by four Texas cities and 15 elected officials, alleges that the Texas Open Meetings Act violates officials’ free speech rights by preventing them from speaking in private on issues facing the public. No, I’m not making this up.
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Intellectual Monopolies/Copyrights
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The video is not only an unwanted internet triumph – it has got the Jeunes Populaires into legal hot water. The group obtained permission to use the song, written and recorded by the French-Canadians Luc Plamondon and Christian St-Roch in 1976. By mistake, the video used another version, recorded recently by a Quebec singer, Marie-Mai. Legal negotiations are in progess.
Joerg Heilig, Sun Microsystems Senior Engineering Director talks about OpenOffice.org 05 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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