01.16.09
Posted in Microsoft, Review, Vista 7 at 5:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“If you flee the rules, you will be caught. And it will cost you dearly.”
–Neelie Kroes (about Microsoft), February 27th, 2008
Last year we foresaw a situation where Microsoft would use a new (rebranded) operating system to promote its own Web services and formats, thus abusing its monopoly. According to the following short report, this may already be actualising.
Now it is time for the Windows 7 Anti-Competitive in Nature part. I opened IE8Beta2 and it prompted me to choose either express settings or customizable settings….. which do you think I picked. I did not want to search with Live Search. I do not want to Define with Encarta. I never want to blog with Live Spaces. Most of all I just want to use Google Mail instead of Windows Live Mail. Not that I have anything against Live mail as I do have an account and it does look really nice as the designers have finally figured out what we the customer wants. 
I had decided to go to customize the preferences… Guess what! The Windows Live stuff is still recommened in every box that pops up afterward! it doesn’t want you to use google search. It doesn’t want you to use maps with google or yahoo. This started to just get plain Silly as all I could do was to keep myself from deleting the IE8 executable from the computer and not leave any marks on that nice computer.
As for the quality of Vista 7, reviewers are sometimes underwhelmed, but then again, it was expected all along.
I take the Windows 7 Beta plunge and find the waters a bit choppy.
This remains an exercise in marketing at Microsoft [1, 2] and marketing of this kind is best tackled by search for evidence [1, 2, 3]. █
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12.22.08
Posted in GNU/Linux, Novell, OpenSUSE, Review at 5:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Some early reviews of OpenSUSE 11.1 are beginning to trickle in and several of them highlight the problems in more obvious ways than reviews which we mentioned on Saturday.
Here is one person’s horrific start with OpenSUSE 11.1:
In the past 24-hours with the latest openSUSE 11.1, I’ve had a horrific experience. And while I’ve not given up on the distribution, I’m putting down my experiences here neither as a call for help nor as a rant to keep people away. Rather, an honest approach spreads honest knowledge… and hopefully I will be proved wrong, and others will not make the same “mistakes?” I made. What follows is a quick historical recount of my experiences with openSUSE and also my current trauma.
This one was posted in USENET:
Message-ID: <%Fc3l.12739$i_6.11499@newsfe11.ams2>
From: The Lost Packet <jmthelostpacket@googlemail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: OpenSuSE 11.1 PPC Part II
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 20:34:49 +0000
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.18 (Windows/20081105)
Organization: virginmedia.com
Not much to tell, I haven’t tested it (the memory) and have no intention
to do so ‘cos it works thus far and that’s all that matters to me.
Really all I did was to add the 11.1DVD to a virgin 10.3 install as an
update repository. After adding kernel, KDE and proprietery ATI drivers
as the update package and resolving the few dozen dependencies that
cropped up (which mainly consisted of “<i>gnore this conflict and carry
on”), YaST updated the install to 11.1 and after that, allowed me to
autoupdate everything else via YUM. Have fun! Warning, when you get a
stack of XML files downloading it’ll take an hour or so on a fast link;
you know the kernel update’s worked and it’s updated the version key as
well, it’ll be downloading the latest patches for 11.1 rather than for
10.3 which seems to be AWOL. Though, for some reason it requires the
10.3 disc to clear the update cache the first time round… hohum.
(cc of a reply to a private message)
There are a few more positive experiences that we will mention later, but either way, comprehensive reviews typically conclude that SUSE is matched or surpassed by its competition that has no ties to Microsoft. █
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10.14.08
Posted in Deception, Fork, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, IBM, Java, Microsoft, Novell, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice, Review, Standard, SUN at 9:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Downtime and Novell hecklers out of the way
The word “sabotage” is a bit strong, so we put it in scare quotes. But the word sabotage was previously used to describe Microsoft’s malicious interception of a big OSDL announcement [1, 2], the sabotage of PlayStation3 launch parties, and similar not-so-laudable conflicts throughout VMware’s big event [1, 2, 3]. There is a whole long history there and Novell is inheriting Microsoft’s tactics now [1, 2].
Ryan Paul sort of fell into Novell’s trap in his coverage of the release of OpenOffice.org 3.0. It does begin with some good bits though.
OOo supports several file formats, but uses OASIS’s OpenDocument Format (ODF) by default. ODF is rapidly gaining widespread acceptance and is also supported by Google Docs, Zoho, IBM’s Lotus Notes, and KDE’s KOffice project. ODF is increasingly being adopted as the preferred format by government agencies in many different countries. This trend has placed pressure on Microsoft, which has agreed to include native ODF support in future versions of Office.
Towards the end, it becomes rather clear that Novell — albeit through its programmers (well, companies are just people) — is trying to throw mud at this announcement in order to gain greater control over the project.
“There is a whole long history there and Novell is inheriting Microsoft’s tactics now.”The headline used by Ars Technica is deceiving because it’s based on the words of a senior Novell employee, whose message is disguised in a seemingly-innocent post about the success of OpenOffice.org. The gentle insults are piggybacking the limelight earned by Sun for a few days.
For clarification, see the other side of this debate. There is no “development stagnation.”
Why would Novell do this? And no, please don’t buy the “I’m just a hacker” defence — an excuse or exemption from “an uncontrolled community” that shelters Novell from many critics (same tactics are being used to defend Mono). It’s possibly done in order to give this illusion that CIOs cannot depend on OpenOffice.org or that “the future is not bright.” It’s a contamination of an important announcement and message at a very strategic time. This timing is not a coincidence and there was possibly a plan and preparation of this.
Either way, the timing of this actual release was good. This came at a good time for special reasons:
OpenOffice 3 launch timed perfectly but will Sun, IBM exploit opportunity?
[...]
As the global economic crisis dries up credit and whacks IT budgets, corporate chiefs and administrators are going to be more open to a Microsoft Office alternative that is more compatible with Microsoft Office.
Novell wants to make more/most of the money from the project (support contracts) while at the same time ably adding some unwanted elements (and potential costs) to this hugely popular software. Novell/Microsoft use as an excuse Sun’s control, but it’s intended to increase their own control (Novell along with Microsoft) as they exaggerate existing and perceived issues in the process. It’s self serving, brutal, and dishonest. It’s about choking Sun, not just subverting Free software using patents, OOXML, and .NET (Sun is a JAVA company).
There is a rebuttal to the Novell FUD, which was posted in the GullFOSS blog. It draws some figures and concludes with the following:
OOo 3.0 was a Major Release and in it many general restructuring and refactoring was started. Also from now on the default file format is based on ODF 1.2 (the standard will be approved soon) instead of ODF 1.1 in OOo 2.x. All these changes could be done in a major step only, because of possible incompatibilities to the the 2.x code line.
This major release was a challenge for all release driver on OOo. Also the OOo teams for QA and L10N had many new things to organize, which didn’t exists on OOo 2.x code line or wasn’t a problem for that updates. Thanks to all the teams for their hard work.
The release was a success if demand is something to judge by, but enormous demand knocked down the key server (index to mirrors) at a most crucial of times. NBR has some more details on that:
One major hitch: intial interest in Open Office 3 was such that the openoffice.org download site crashed, unable to cope with the traffic (and as I write, half a day into the release, there are still “technical difficulties”).
As the world turns to cost savings and real standards like ODF, such demand needs to be expected and appropriate preparations made. As Bob Sutor indicates in his latest essay, the world is rapidly embracing ODF as a national standard. He presents a map of nations extracted from his presentation slides.
What always strikes me at such gatherings is the passion of those who have committed to adopting ODF. You get people who have decided for all the usual reasons that ODF makes sense for their use, or that of their department, or their agency, or their government. We’re seeing interesting and varying bottom up, top down, and middle out patterns of adoption in different parts of the world.
Any smart CIO (or small business) should invest in software which is controlled by customers and end users. Anything other than that, especially in schools, is a case of letting people become ‘addicted’ — as Bill Gates put it — to a particular vendor. Moreover, in the case of education, there is a chance and even a responsibility to teach children transferable skills using Free(dom) software. This can help them build their own economy (just watch Brazil go). All countries should do this and some already do.
Lastly, Ovum has this so-and-so analysis of argumentation involving document formats.
The debate on ODF versus OOXML continues to rage, with ISO offering to take on the maintenance of the ODF standard that is currently under the care of the standards body OASIS. This follows resignations from the Norwegian standards body, Standard Norge, with accusations that there were improprieties in the OOXML adoption vote.
Added below is some press coverage for a sense of completeness.
Release Coverage
Here is the press release.
Celebrated at a launch party in Paris today, and just in time for the eighth birthday of the project, the OpenOffice.org Community today announced the release of OpenOffice.org 3.0. The third major update of the leading productivity suite delivers significant enhancements and advanced, extensible, productivity tools for all users, including Mac users, as OpenOffice.org now runs natively on the Mac OS X platform.
Other coverage includes:
Heise: OpenOffice.org 3.0 Reviewed
OpenOffice.org is a free cross-platform office suite, originally developed as the proprietary StarOffice suite. It combined a word processor, spreadsheet, database and presentation tools and was available for Unix and Windows based systems. The StarOffice code was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999 and released under a LGPL/Sun licence in 2000. In 2005, OpenOffice.org’s licence became LGPL only, prompting greater adoption by the open source community and Linux distributions. Now, OpenOffice.org is about to release their third major version of what is the de facto standard in open source office productivity.
iTWire: OpenOffice 3.0 released, ready for download
Finally out of the beta and release candidate versions, Sun Microsystems’ OpenOffice.org 3.0 has been released for anyone to download and try for themselves. Here’s my “first look” at this brand new Office suite!
Linux.com: OpenOffice.org 3.0 is an incremental improvement
At least OpenOffice.org’s frumpy interface is familiar. And with all the changes in version 3.0, most users will probably discover at least half a dozen ways in which their office productivity is suddenly easier.
Ars Technica: OpenOffice.org 3.0 officially released
The new version offers some aesthetic enhancements and usability improvements, including a new icon set that makes the user interface cleaner and a convenient slider control for adjusting page zoom. OpenOffice.org 3.0 also has a new launcher interface, improved support for annotations, and a handful of other new features.
Examiner: Treat yourself to a suite alternative: OpenOffice.org 3.0
Your mileage will definitely vary, and how much it varies depends on just how you use these productivity applications. Although, given the fact that OpenOffice.org is one free 150MB-ish download away, it can’t hurt to give it a run in your own productivity environment.
IT Pro: OpenOffice 3.0 now available for download
New features in the word processing software ‘Writer’ include multilingual support, better zoom tools for editing, and the ability to edit web-based wiki documents. The spreadsheet, called ‘Calc’ now supports 1024 columns per sheet and a collaboration mode for multiple users, as well as a new equation solver. Graphics program ‘Draw’ can now manage images up to three square meters in size, while presentation software ‘Impress’ now has a table designer.
Web Monkey: OpenOffice 3.0 Embraces Microsoft File Formats and Adds Mac Support
Other changes include a “Start Center”, some new, more legible icons, and a zoom control in the status bar. On the whole the beta doesn’t look much different than previous versions, but each of OpenOffice’s apps have received some welcome new changes features like improved PDF creation throughout and a much better Notes tool in Writer, the OpenOffice word processor.
This last article wrongly claims that “OpenOffice 3.0 Embraces Microsoft File Formats.” It’s a common mistake that’s repeated in some other Web sites.
There will be many more articles, but most of the actual news is already out there for everyone to see.
A certain Novell hacker contacted us a couple of hours ago, so the contents of this post were changed slightly. █
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07.01.08
Posted in Novell, OpenSUSE, Review, SLES/SLED at 3:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The morning week+ after
It hasn’t been long since the important release of OpenSUSE 11.0. Novell is already trying to downplay the viability of OpenSUSE in order to sell its proprietary software-enhanced SLES/D. Watch this:
The differentiation for corporate customers is what comes next. Why is openSuSE not well suited for corporate use? It’s built by great people, with the purest of intent, and they will want to make things better. The problem is that corporate needs something more.
Given an in-house skilled person (or people), this just isn’t true. Moreover, support can be called from the outside even for a community-driven distribution. That’s how Free software works, and that’s how profit is extracted. Acquisition costs are belittled by maintenance costs no matter if the software deployed is Free or proprietary.
Unconvinced Users
The above example may seem like a bit of a stretch, but OpenSUSE’s woes needn’t be tied to Novell’s attempt to overshadow its presence. Quite a few people were displeased with the following elaborative report, whose conclusion is as follows.
openSUSE 11.0 is a difficult system to qualify. Highlights include good availability of current packages and YAST GUI configuration tools for some advanced features. However, these advantages are largely eclipsed by a chaotic, dysfunctional package management system and marginal performance. New Linux users with more complex network configurations or challenging hardware may be forced to use openSUSE due to its unique innovations in GUI system configuration. Yet, experienced and inexperienced users alike may find themselves increasingly frustrated by the grave lack of refinement in what is an otherwise capable Linux distribution.
Here is another interesting take from Steve Carl (BMC).
As usual, I have to ask the question, is OpenSUSE 11 a viable desktop for an enterprise. Not for geeks like me but for the average computer user that does not want to know anything about the computer itself: they just want a tool to get a job done.
The desktop itself is easy to use, easy to configure, easy to update, and a strong preview of what is to come in the next release of SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop). It has all sorts of standard Open Support, from Wikis to mailing lists to online doc.
There are still those who suggest that Ubuntu, for example, is an inch ahead.
In my own choice of categories and tests, and in my own judgment alone, Ubuntu 8.04 has beaten openSUSE 11 but only by a very slim margin. It only shows that openSUSE is worthy to be called the second most popular Linux distribution at the moment, and Ubuntu is still the cream of the crop.
Admittedly, it’s very user- and PC-dependent, but the reviewers in this case are experienced ones and their PCs are definitely not Linux-hostile.
Technical Assessment
We gave some examples of technical deficiencies a few days ago. There are some more minor peeves, which probably ought to be seen as bug reports. Here is one about suspend to RAM.
In my notebook computer, HP Compaq NX7300, the “suspend to RAM” functionality had worked without any problem in OpenSUSE 10.3, with kernel 2.6.22.5-31. However, it suddenly did not work after an upgrade to OpenSUSE 11, with kernel 2.6.25.5-1.1. I became nervous, tried to find out the solution, and fount out: downgrading kernel to 2.6.22.5-31.
This one is about Beagle-ReiserFS incompatibility. The former is Mono and the latter is better off forgotten.
I installed OpenSuse 11.0 today. Beware that if you install using reiserfs andl KDE your computer will freeze periodically in KDE. It took me 6 hours of debugging to figure out that beagle was causing the problems.
We apologise for being hard on OpenSUSE, but it’s clear that Novell continues to use OpenSUSE as a ‘free sample’ to lure users in to its Microsoft-taxed distribution. It’s also a case of free labour.
As a side note, I received my new PC just a few hours ago. Without going into specifics, the plan is to multi-boot it, with a 64-bit distribution that’s already installed and probably Mandriva 2008, which I’ve just downloaded. All the setups (e.g. need to buy another monitor tomorrow morning) are likely to affect activity on this site for a few more days. Summertime is a good time for readjustment. █
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