03.30.10
IRC Proceedings: March 30th, 2010
To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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For this testing of the latest Snow Leopard and Lucid Lynx operating systems we used one of our newer Apple Mac Mini systems that had an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 clocked at 2.00GHz, an Apple Mac-F22C86C8 motherboard with NVIDIA MCP79 Chipset, 1GB of DDR3-1067MHz system memory, a120GB Fujitsu MHZ2120B SATA HDD, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400 graphics. Mac OS X 10.6.2 uses the 10.2.0 kernel, X.Org Server 1.4.2-apple45, GCC 4.2.1, and a Journaled HFS+ file-system. With Ubuntu 10.04 LTS not being officially released for a few weeks we used a daily snapshot from 2010-03-28 with the Linux 2.6.32-17-generic 64-bit kernel, GNOME 2.29.92, X.Org Server 1.7.6, NVIDIA 195.36.15 graphics driver with OpenGL 3.2.0, GCC 4.4.3, and an EXT4 file-system. Both the Mac OS X and Linux operating systems were left with their defaults.
Available with Linux and IPv6, the EDS1100/2100 provides simple-to-configure, enterprise-level protection of electronic data using security protocols such as Secure Shell and Secure Sockets Layer.
· Announced Distro: Parted Magic 4.9 Comes with GParted 0.5.2 and Parted 2.2
· Announced Distro: Tiny Core 2.10 Comes with Some New Art
· Announced Distro: Trisquel 3.5 Released
· Announced Distro: openSUSE 11.3 Milestone 4 Switches to Upstart
· Announced Distro: Sabayon Linux 5.2 with KDE 4.4.1 and GNOME 2.28
· Announced Distro: SliTaz GNU/Linux 3.0 Has Arrived[...]
Product engineering and enterprise solutions company Calsoft, a 100-per cent subsidiary of the US -based Calsoftlabs, today announced its entry into the digital home market.
[...]
The company said it would target services towards software platforms based on Linux, Windows and Android.
5. My budget is $1400
What? That low a budget for a new, and surprisingly beefy laptop? Sure! Why not? I know this is doable. Granted, it isn’t doable with a vendor like Emperor Linux — as a matter of fact it flatly rules them completely out — but it leaves in plenty of other options for me.
Canonical has definitely made some ISV progress in recent months, working more closely with companies like Groundwork Open Source. Still, Canonical insiders starting around September 2009 because to focus quite heavily on even better ISV support heading into the Ubuntu 10.04 launch. ISV support is particularly critical as Canonical strives to compete more effectively against Red Hat and Novell SUSE Linux on servers.
IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) celebrated a decade of Linux on its System Z mainframe by recognizing the top winners, one of whom is Canadian, of the annual Master the Mainframe Contest.
Over the years the number of customers, vendors and use cases for running Linux alongside z/OS have grown, said Tom Rosamilia, general manager for IBM’s System Z division, during a presentation at the company’s Poughkeepsie plant and the focal point of much of the development and manufacturing of mainframes.
The default image viewer in Ubuntu, Eye of GNOME, now offers up a helpful dialogue when viewing a picture that has been set as your desktop wallpaper.
All in all, we see Quanta Plus as a web development tool that’s almost there. Given some more time and a steady growth to its user base, this software can become the best free alternative to the IDEs that cost hundreds of dollars.
Debreate is a graphical utility to aid in the creation of Debian packages. It automates packaging, so there is no need to create a build tree, Debreate will automatically construct one and build the .deb.
Huzzah! New version of Rhythmbox is released with lots of bug fixes and other goodies!
Rhythmbox holds a special place in my heart: not only is it the best Linux audio player I’ve ever used (and I’ve tried every one I’ve ever ran across), but it’s one of those driving forces that keep me motivated.
I have been following the WINE project for quite a few years. These guys are doing an incredibly hard job in trying to keep up with a moving target and basically re-writing an operating system to run natively on top of another operating system.
Many people think of the WINE project as an emulator for windows yet the very name of the project explains that it is not true. The name WINE is, as you most probably know, a typical open source acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator. The very goal of the project is to recreate, without breaking any law, the functional equivalent of the windows operating systems libraries so programs written for windows can run natively under Linux.
[...]
When there is equivalent Linux functionality for any available windows program out there, why would people still want to use windows programs? If you must use a windows program, then pay the piper and buy yourself a copy of the operating system. Or even better, learn how to effectively use the equivalent Linux program and wean yourself off of the nipple and be a big boy for a change.
Back in November there was an official announcement from Skype concerning an open-source Linux client. Details since then have been scarce on what exactly Skype plans to provide as open-source software, with some speculating just the user-interface/front-end side will be opened up.
A few weeks ago we looked at some of the GNU utilities that you can use to work with files, check MD5/SHA1 sums and check your disk usage. This time around I want to cover some of the utilities that you’ll use for working with text files.
While there are quite a few services that offer free blog hosting, there are situations when you’d want to run a blog on your own server. This approach has its advantages, but setting up a server and then installing and configuring a blog system can be a daunting proposition – unless you choose to use Tonido, that is. This solution offers everything you need in one neat , easy-to-install package.
Hello again to all the KDE people. We are here with a third interview. Last time we had Tobias König, a KDE PIM developer. Today it’s the turn of Aleix Pol, a contributor to KDE EDU and KDevelop. As usual, there is also the original interview in Italian if you prefer to read that.
SliTaz 3.0 (release announcement) is upon us and we decided to take this tiny distribution for a spin and see how well it caters to the minimalist crowd. This distribution weighs in at an incredible 30 meg download, but does it contain the applications one needs to have a functional machine? Let’s take a look.
Element 1.1 is a distribution designed specifically for home theater or media center computers. This is obvious when you boot up Element 1.1 which brings users Firefox, Transmission, XBMC, Decibel Audio Player, VLC, and many other useful multimedia apps together on this customized version of the XFCE desktop.
Unity Linux is not a conventional distribution of Linux. It’s a core on which developers can build their own distribution of Linux. We’ve set out from the start to provide an excellent minimum graphical environment that gave developers “just enough graphics” for them to create something. The smaller, the better. We elected to go with Openbox because of it’s size and stability. We selected using Mandriva as our base because of the number of packages they provide and the quality of those packages. We pushed lxpanel as a minimal panel because it provides just enough functionality for distro developers to see what they’ve installed after they’ve installed it…it also is familiar to most people whereas Openbox right click menu’s may not be. All in all, our target for the core release is developers. We’re not designing this basic desktop to be used by end users. We’re not trying to win any awards with our awesome minimalistic desktop skills. Why would we do this? To answer this, you have to take a look at our developers.
Developer Steven Shiau has announced the release of version 1.2.4-28 of Clonezilla Live. Clonezilla is an open source clone system with features similar to Symantec Ghost Corporate Ed and Partimage.
One of the reasons why I said PCLinuxOS is “A real distro-hopper-stopper is its ability to auto detect your devices. I have read elsewhere that mostly, only branded tvturner cards can work with linux. To my surprise, this is not the case with tvtime, the native tvturner software in PCLinuxOS and I guess it is available out-of-the-box on every versions of PCLOS (excellent job guys!).
This software (tvtime) is so easy to use. Just right click on it and a menu will pop out for you to select a task. To get your tvturner working, simply click on “channel management” then “scan for signal” and start watching your favorite tv show!
Looking to dress up your PCLinuxOS desktop? Check out these nice PCLinuxOS wallpapers created by sakasa.
Red Hat’s commercial implementation of its open-source KVM hypervisor, Enterprise Virtualization 2.1 (RHEV) is just four months old, but changes in server hardware and end users’ desire to run fatter virtual machines has compelled Red Hat to kick out another release.
The beta testing program for RHEV 2.2 opened up Monday, and with the next release, Red Hat is doubling up the number of virtual CPUs that a virtual machine can employ to 16 and is quadrupling the main memory that can be addressed by a VM to 256GB.
Red Hat launched Enterprise Virtualization Nov. 3 based on yet another hypervisor, KVM. Red Hat had arrived on the scene late, what with VMware, Citrix and Microsoft already partying like it was 1999 all over again. I wondered how long it would take for Red Hat to be able to demonstrate some uptake of KVM.
Linux vendor Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) today announced the beta availability of its next virtualization platform — Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) 2.2.
The RHEV 2.2 release is the first public announcement that Red Hat has made about the virtualization platform since its initial public release in November 2009. The RHEV solution suite includes a standalone KVM hypervisor as well as a server virtualization management product.
On the performance side, RHEV 2.2 can now support up to 256 GB of memory for a virtual machine, which is a four-fold increase over the 64 GB that RHEV supported in November. Additionally with the RHEV 2.2 beta, Red Hat is expanding the platform to support both desktop and server virtualization management.
Linux specialist Red Hat has announced the release of the first beta for version 2.2 of its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization product. The latest development release of its virtualisation solution adds several new features and capabilities, including support for both virtual server and virtual desktop environments from the same management platform.
The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the first beta release of Ubuntu 10.04 Desktop, Server, and Netbook editions and of Ubuntu 10.04 Server for Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) and Amazon’s EC2.
Codenamed “Lucid Lynx”, 10.04 LTS continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.[...]
Ubuntu Netbook Edition is optimised to run on Intel atom based netbooks. It includes a new consumer-friendly interface that allows users to quickly and easily get on-line and use their favourite applications. This interface is optimised for a retail sales environment. It includes the same faster boot times and improved boot experience as Ubuntu desktop.
Ubuntu 10.04 is now about five weeks away, which means the announcement of Lucid+1 (our vote is still for Manky Monkey) is around the corner. To kill the time between now and the announcement of what’s to come in the next version, we decided to take a look at the keywords used to describe previous Ubuntu releases to see how priorities have changed over the years
Intrepid Ibex users are advised to upgrade to one of the current standard releases, Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) or version 9.10 (Karmic Koala), to continue receiving updates.
Here’s what you need to know. End-of-life (EOL) is a normal part of the software lifecycle, whether it’s an application or a full-blown operating system. Software doesn’t actually die: once the EOL date passes, your application won’t pop up a dialog box with a tombstone on it that says “so long, and thanks for all the data.” In reality, it means that the developers who wrote the software and the community or vendor that supports it simply does not have the resources to keep providing support.
Empathy is an open source instant messaging client that is built on top of the Telepathy framework. Empathy became a part of the GNOME desktop environment in 2008 with the release of GNOME 2.24 and is gradually gaining acceptance as the default instant messaging client in a number of mainstream Linux distributions.
Although it has the potential to bring a lot of value to the GNOME desktop, Empathy still suffers from some limitations and lacks several key features that can be found in alternatives like Pidgin. For example, it doesn’t support metacontacts or message formatting. It also hasn’t traditionally offered a whole lot of compelling GNOME integration to make it a must-have. The program is maturing, however, and will soon offer some impressive new features.
USB 3.0 promises up to 5 Gbit data transfers. Manufacturer Lindy now brings two SATA hard drive enclosures and a hard drive docking/cloning station with USB 3.0 to the marketplace.
Zerion Software is collaborating with SDG Systems to provide ruggedized Android solutions to the mobile workforce. Together, the two companies are working to build a field data-collection solution running the offline capable exZact mobile platform on rugged Google Android computers. Both firms see a tremendous opportunity in the marketplace for such a ruggedized solution to be used for Field Service, Task Management, and Work Order Management.
Why is Android getting such traction? For a couple of reasons, but mainly because it is free. Google is offering Android as free open source software optimized for communications. That combined with an growing library of applications and capabilities makes Android reasonably attractive as an embedded operating system.
Zerion Software is collaborating with SDG Systems to provide ruggedized Android solutions to the mobile workforce. Together, the two companies are working to build a field data-collection solution running the offline capable exZact mobile platform on rugged Google Android computers. Both firms see a tremendous opportunity in the marketplace for such a ruggedized solution to be used for Field Service, Task Management, and Work Order Management.
The JooJoo, originally called the Crunchpad, has a 12.l-inch capacitive touchscreen, Wi-Fi, a 4 GB solid-state drive and built-in Webcam and microphone for video chat. The device is powered by a proprietary, Web-centric version of Linux that boots in less than 10 seconds, the company says.
Italy-based Ekoore is shipping a tablet PC that runs Ubuntu Linux or Windows on an Intel Atom N270. The Ekoore ET10TA10 offers a 10.2-inch, 1024 x 600 backlit touchscreen, as well as 1GB of RAM, flash expansion, a 160GB hard disk drive (HDD), and WiFi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, and USB connections, says Ekoore.
‘Year of Linux on the Tablet’
LXer contributor H.Kwint dug deeper into the specifics, even putting together a handy table that compares some of the contenders, including Notion Ink’s Adam Tablet and Always Innovating’s Touchbook.
“It’s safe to say 2010 is the year of Linux on the tablet,” Kwint went so far as to say.
A first version of an open source tool to help manage electronic petitions has been published on the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) for European public administrations.
IELO, Mandriva, Nexedi and TioLive join forces to create the Free Cloud Alliance (FCA), an alliance of Free / Open Source Software publishers which provides 100% Open Source solutions for the fast growing market of Enterprise Cloud Computing. The Free Cloud Alliance (freecloudalliance.org) is the first Open Source Cloud Computing Stack which covers both Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS) with a consistent set of technologies targetted at high performance and mission critical applications.
The Midgard Project has released the eighth maintenance release of Midgard 8.09 Ragnaroek LTS. Ragnaroek LTS is a Long Term Support version of the free software Content Management Framework.
He had ported his software to Digital’s Unix system, and now the workstation hardware only cost 50,000 to run it, so the TCO had been reduced from 2.5 million dollars to 550,000 dollars, and was really only taking twice as long to run on the workstation than it had been running on the mainframe, but at one-fifth the cost. He was selling a lot more copies of his software, and of course he was also selling quite a few of our workstations. That was why Digital had invited him to our booth.
Despite all that, the FOSS law community is still growing- which is a testament to the power of the collaborative model. To me, the heart of the test for ‘are people a community’ is ‘can I call on a known group of people for help in a pinch, and would they feel comfortable doing the same of me.’ In this informal, unstructured way, there is definitely a growing FOSS legal community of shared interests and relationships. When Mozilla started the MPL process I could list at least a half-dozen people who I knew would want to be involved and would give of their time. A few months in to the process, and the list is now much longer. This informal community- a diverse group including partners at high-profile law firms, counsels at FOSS-using companies, individual practitioners, and others like SFLC- was very helpful in laying the early groundwork for the MPL process, and has continued to be helpful as we’ve gotten further into it.
What can I say? These regional Ruby conferences, they’re all good, based on my experience. This one was only weakly regional; about half the attendees were Scottish, others from all over Europe, and with a strong faction of Americans whom I presume were thinking about the Ruby-and-Whisky combination. If you haven’t been to a Ruby conference, you should go sometime.
Interested in working with EFF or Tor, and getting paid for it by Google? If you are a student and a coder, then we have good news for you: A few of our projects have been accepted for Google’s Summer Of Code 2010.
The rise of ODF and demand on the part of governments for “openness” in formats and interoperability of applications has coincided – not coincidentally in my view – with a surge in offerings (desktop, web-based, mobile) in the office productivity space, providing the public sector for the first time in recent memory with greater choice and potential cost savings. It is no wonder that more governments are jumping on the ODF bandwagon.
I think something becomes inevitable when the positive aspects are overwhelming. Consider Marion Marchich’s points in favor of ODF:
* Avoiding lock-in
* Thinking beyond the desktop
* Ensuring long-term access
* Saving money
* Creating meaningful documents
* Enabling interoperabilityNot only are these all things that users want, but they are things that are inherent in an open format, and which incur additional effort to achieve (if they are even posssible) in a closed proprietary format!
I don’t know about you, but the presentations I create today are much simpler in design than those I created ten years ago. For example, I now never create presentations that include
* animation and builds
* slide transitions
* sound
* video[...]
So just how much is really needed to create and represent presentations like those above? For the representation question, an appropriate query would be “what subset of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) is necessary to include all the information necessary, and nothing more?’.
The creation side can vary quite a bit. Assuming you are using ODF, it would be possible though tedious to use a text editor and command line tools to create a file. I wouldn’t want to do that and would expect something with a better user interface to make slide creation and reuse easy.
With BIS 3.0, your BlackBerry now supports the following: OpenDocument presentations (.odp), OpenDocument spreadsheets (.ods), OpenDocument text (.odt), OpenDocument text templates (.ott) and Windows Media Audio (.wma).
A recent campaign to add more videos to Wikipedia is being used to try and push the advantages of the open source Theora video format over those encumbered by patents. For our imminent podcast, we’re asking whether you think this campaign will work despite poor results in a recent quality comparison, or whether this issue is less about quality and more about freedom.
Without significant political changes, none of which appear likely, the United States is going to collapse. When and how it happens is hard to say, but the U.S. government’s spending is fiscally unsustainable, as the Government Accountability Office has been warning since 1992. As one such report said, that which is unsustainable will not be sustained.
Internet cafe users in the British capital may want to watch what they download. Scotland Yard is advising administrators of public Web spaces to periodically poke through their customers’ files and keep an eye out for suspicious activity.
Greenpeace activists unfurled banners of every size today outside the offices of Dell in Bangalore, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen, just as Dell executives meet to discuss a roadmap to finally remove the worst toxic chemicals from their electronics. The message around the world to Dell’s founder and CEO: “Michael Dell: Drop the Toxics!”
Billionaire tycoon David Koch likes to joke that Koch Industries is, “The biggest company you’ve never heard of”. But the nearly US$50 million that he and his brother Charles quietly funneled to front groups which deny that climate change is a problem is no joking matter. Our new report shows how that cash, between 1997 and 2008, went to groups working to prevent action being taken against climate change.
In 2,615 pages of financial reform legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress, there are no rules to ensure that banks keep enough cash-like assets when credit disappears.
The Treasury Department announced Monday that it had selected Morgan Stanley to handle the sale of its massive stake in Citigroup, spurning an offer from Goldman Sachs, which was willing to do the job at virtually no cost to the federal government.
Indeed, the big Wall Street firm has held off on plans for a major publicity plan designed to change public opinion.
FOX Business Network’s Charles Gasparino reported on Monday that Goldman Sachs’ (NYSE: GS) weakened image may have kept the firm from being chosen to advise the massive government sale of its stake in Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C).
They see it as counterproductive to issue bonds and then encourage institutions to trade against them, which in their minds might create some market pressure to tank the bonds. Goldman Sachs no doubt smelled some fat fees in the nascent market for CDSs on municipal bonds. In some ways, it was an ideal situation. Lots of hedging and speculative business to be had, and the bonds back then weren’t seen as likely to go belly up. They may have found a way to lay off the risk. The state thinks Goldman should have at least informed it of its efforts to get people to bet against their bonds.
Goldman Sachs is no longer portrayed as an impeccable monetary binge, but as a greedy giant who continues the bonus party even after taxpayers helped them out of the financial crisis, the Norwegian newspaper observes, adding that the bank has become like a swear word among the bloggers by the name of “Goldman Sucks”.
Two women have filed complaints against Wall Street banks, claiming they were discriminated against in their jobs after taking time off to have children. They are both seeking financial compensation.
An auditor had raised red flags about Olson’s dealings in the Congo and referred its findings to the U.S. Justice Department for potential anti-bribery-law violations. As troubling, Terralliance had yet to close its books on 2007. Two lead board members, Joe Lacob of Kleiner Perkins and Joe DiSabato of Goldman, informed Temasek’s lead negotiator, Nagi Hamiyeh, that they intended to demote the charismatic but free-spending founder to chief scientist.
Facebook has once again decided to tweak its privacy policy, but this time the Mark Zuckerberg-run company has told its users to expect another overhaul ahead of making the changes – presumably in an effort to prevent the kind of protest the Web2.0rhea site suffered last year.
Suddenly (1954)
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Summary: Any strong preference for any of the following?
Summary: Suggestions needed for a name that better reflects this site’s new scope
LONGTIME readers may already know that, but “Boycott Novell” is not a site name that I like*. In fact, I never liked the name, never chose the name, and it is possible that Novell will be sold within weeks or months, so the name “Novell” will fade away, just like “Sun”. Despite opposition from some readers, we might rename the site, but not before the issue is discussed with regular contributors over at the IRC channel. If people have an opinion on the subject, then it’s time to join the discussion right now. █
____
* It’s just too negative, like “Mono-Nono”, which got replaced with “The Source”.
To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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Summary: Microsoft’s continued attempts to remove Free software and standards from Europe’s agenda sure call for action
A FEW days ago we quoted David Hammerstein as saying that Microsoft had a “coup in process” against EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes. Glyn Moody discussed this with Hammerstein and called for European citizens to file complaints about Microsoft’s improper abuse of power via front groups. [more in BoingBoing]
Open source is under attack in Europe. Not openly or obviously, but in the background, behind closed doors. The battleground is the imminent Digital Agenda for Europe, due to be unveiled by the European Commission in a month’s time, and which defines the overall framework for Europe’s digital policy. According to people with good contacts to the politicians and bureaucrats drawing up the Agenda, Microsoft is lobbying hard to ensure that open standards and open source are excluded from that policy – and is on the brink of succeeding in that aim.
[...]
That’s clearly very positive about open standards and open source. And then, back in November of last year, a draft version of the revised EIF was leaked [.pdf]. It revealed a staggering re-definition of what openness meant by suggesting that “closed” was part of the “openness continuum”…
[...]
The extraordinary gulf between the original and proposed versions of the EIF gives us perhaps a hint of what is going on behind the scenes, but on its own might not be sufficient grounds for concern about the Digital Agenda itself. But last week a series of worrying tweets were posted by David Hammerstein, whose Twitter bio is “European Advocate for Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue. Spanish Green Member European Parliament 2004-2009”. They read as follows:
SOS to everyone as sources confirm that Kroes is about to eliminate “open standards” policy from EU digital agenda
Kroes has been under intense lobbying pressure from Microsoft to get rid of interoperability and open source goals of EU
Kroes wanted the EU institutions to practice what it preaches and migrate to open standards in its own software. Big backlash
DG enterprise and “revolving door” EC officials from Microsoft torpedo Commissioner Kroes open proposals. Coup in process.
As to those “sources” he mentions, I’ve been following Hammerstein for a while on Twitter, and he does seem to have very good contacts within the European Union machine – doubtless from his time as an MEP. Moreover, the French site PC Inpact not only confirms Hammerstein’s fears, but it has also managed to get hold of a copy of the draft Agenda.
I have sent several E-mails and hereby encourage European readers to do the same. I said that it had “come to my attention through former MP David Hammerstein that [...] I would like to ask and hopefully receive reassurance that the EIF retains its original goals of emphasising standards. I have been covering quite extensively the lobbying done to subvert Kroes’ work and I wish to see it not suppressing the European software industry, of which I am a part.”
Here is what the FSFE had to say on the subject [via]. █
More on EIFv2:
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Summary: The story of Apple, Microsoft, and about 1,100 patent-trolling satellite firms, which Apple, Bill Gates, and Microsoft are sponsoring (via Intellectual Ventures)
Apple’s lawsuit against HTC [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] shows that not only Microsoft is the problem; Android is being challenged because it is rapidly becoming an industry leader in one of the fastest-growing areas of computing.
IDG argues that “Android Ecosystem Is Not Immune from Lawsuits”
While everyone focuses on the patent infringement suit Apple filed against HTC, there are many smaller skirmishes happening in all of software development, and the Android ecosystem is far from immune.
Some developers have been the target of patent claims, such as for displaying city of a caller on an inbound call. Some developers get attacked for more nebulous concepts, such as look-and-feel of applications.
Microsoft has already hinted that there might be more such action on the way. iTWire covered it:
This morning AEST, we have Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice-president and deputy general counsel, issuing a statement in support of Apple’s lawsuit.
Of course, Gutierrez, like many of his colleagues, loves to instill as much fear as he can among all and sundry in order to hike up the fear factor. This is a tactic that has been used by companies, governments and individuals since time immemorial. (As an aside, the BBC’s Adam Curtis released a wonderful documentary about this a few years ago.)
Microsoft never misses a chance to try and scare smaller companies for all kinds of reasons.
A few days ago we wrote about the world’s largest patent troll, which has about 1,100 shell companies (and investments from Apple, Bill Gates, and Microsoft), arming one of its shells with a patent that can be used against just about any modern phone [1, 2]. Here is what The Register wrote about it:
Paczkowski has now discovered that the current owner of the patent is Intellectual Ventures (IV), a self-styled “invention company” which The Reg wrote about just this Wednesday in conjunction with its TerraPower division’s work on small-scale nuclear reactors.
Those reactors may be small-scale, but IV certainly isn’t. According to a 1,989-page report published by the “Strategic IP Counseling” group Avancept LLC in January of this year, IV has a patent portfolio that could include as many as 25,000 to 50,000 patents squirreled away in around 1,100 shell companies.
“Apple display patent enslaves sun,” says another article from The Register and a final one says that “Apple director [was] ‘disgusted’ by Jobsian health secrets” (there are also patent extortion secrets from Jobs).
The web is abuzz with instant replays of Thursday’s revelation by the Wall Street Journal that recently deceased Apple board member Jerry York told the paper that he was “disgusted” with CEO Steve Jobs’ secrecy over his health problems.
Here is the original report and IDG’s comments about it.
The recent passing of Apple director Jerome York has left a hole in the company’s board of directors, but it’s also revealed that the group is not quite the unified front that it’s often thought to be.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal , York was unhappy with the way that Apple CEO Steve Jobs handled his health problems last year. In a 2009 interview with the Journal–comments from which weren’t published until this week–York said Jobs should have publicly announced his health issues when he backed out of appearing at Macworld Expo, less than a month prior to his taking a leave of absence.
Several other news reports say and also show that Jobs and Schmidt met to discuss business over coffee. The details are unknown because secrecy prevails. What we do know is that Telstra is adopting Android.
Telstra has put its weight behind Google’s Android mobile operating system, announcing plans to make its applications available through the Android Market app store.
The news comes with the launch of the HTC Desire Android-based handset, which will be exclusive to Telstra for three months from April 27.
We are rather surprised by this move because Telstra has also tightened its relationship with Microsoft, which seems to have some kind of a big shuffle in Australia (Microsoft New Zealand too has been in somewhat of a state of turmoil recently [1, 2, 3). Two days ago we wrote about Telstra’s relationship with Microsoft [1, 2] (Microsoft executive entering Telstra) and iTWire now tells the following story.
Telstra-Microsoft tie up spawns international copycats
Six months into its cloud computing hook-up with Telstra, the president of Microsoft’s business division has made clear this is how the software giant will manage SME access to its cloud globally, with similar deals with international telcos now in the wings.
Speaking exclusively with iTWire on his first visit to Australia since joining Microsoft, Stephen Elop said one of the key reasons for the trip was to meet Telstra. “What we are doing with Telstra in taking advantage of a large and successful telecoms company in a country to help us extend our reach is a strategy for the world.”
Stephen Elop is the man who is responsible for Microsoft Office. Let’s not forget how Telstra stifled OpenOffice.org a few years back. █
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Summary: Microsoft’s obey-or-be-ostracised method for daemonising and thus silencing opposition expands to GNU/Linux through former employees and other collaborators
THE FSF already knows that Mono and Moonlight are a patent liability. It doesn’t take an expert investigator to look at the simple facts, but it does take some thick skin to face insults from Mono bullies. Several of those Mono advocates who try to poison Ubuntu (Canonical) just like they poisoned Novell are former Microsoft employees whom we prefer not to name. Both Mark Shuttleworth and Matt Asay are currently being pressured by former Microsoft employees whom we see, which leads to entryism and newer Mono incursions [1, 2] (Canonical hired some people who worry us). Microsoft influence probably ruined SUSE, which had the best desktop distribution at the time of the Microsoft deal (I used only SUSE on all my computers at the time, except one which ran Ubuntu 4.10). It becomes increasingly important that people stand up and talk about the Pandora’s box or the jar of worms that is Mono. It’s about assimilating GNU/Linux to Microsoft and saturating job ads with “.NET” and “Silverlight”. It’s about ruining Free software not just with patents but with the notion and tool of control. Microsoft could adapt to Java, PHP, Python and so forth; but instead, it is trying to persuade Free software developers to work in reverse and coming to its rescue are former employees, existing Microsoft MVPs, and people whose wage comes via Novell from Microsoft. Mono would not pass the ‘smell test’ if it was developed inside Microsoft.
“Mono would not pass the ‘smell test’ if it was developed inside Microsoft.”We are occasionally seeing people dismissed as “paranoid” if they suggest that Microsoft has something to do with slow adoption of GNU/Linux on the desktop. Honesty is important. Setting information free is important for the goal of spreading the software, at least through education of people, distributors, and decision-makers. “Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent,” argued Napoleon Bonaparte.
We sometimes suspect there is a PR effort to make labels like “Microsoft hater” [1, 2] and “patent piracy” (yes, they now say this about patents too) more commonplace until people repeat them. Bruce Byfield prefers using terms like “conspiracy theorists” (Miguel de Icaza called Jeremy Allison just that because he had criticised Mono [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]) and there is a plethora of other terms to capture mental pictures. McCarthyism was similar to this (“Soviets sympathiser” and the likes of that).
If more people get the courage to speak out against Mono, then Microsoft and its followers will struggle to just paint everyone a “Microsoft hater”. They try to classify and separate. Mono disdain should be the norm, not the exception or the silent sentiment. █
“I saw that internally inside Microsoft many times when I was told to stay away from supporting Mono in public. They reserve the right to sue”
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