01.29.09

IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: January 28th, 2009

Posted in IRC Logs at 7:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Enter the IRC channel now

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Links 29/01/2009: Knoppix 6.0 Released; KDE 4.2 Raves

Posted in News Roundup at 6:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• Linux vs. Unix Values Evident in Red Hat, Sun Market Valuations

  Who might buy Red Hat is a game that can be played endlessly, and just about everyone who is anyone has been mentioned in the past — Microsoft, Dell, Google, Oracle, you name it. So what about another name that’s been mentioned less frequently in the past: Sun? Much of Red Hat’s business is selling support services for open source software, which is an activity Sun would like to be doing more of. Sun’s pretty much got the cash, and such a move might get its share price moving north again.

• Users Turn To Grid Computing for Performance

  Acxiom’s grid infrastructure is designed to improve efficiency, maintain consistency across its systems and logically partition resources to meet client demands. Red Hat Enterprise Linux’s certification system lets Acxiom save money by making hardware decisions independent of the operating system, the company said.

• Small Universe: LinCity-NG 2.0

  Lincity-NG (the NG means Next Generation) is a graphical and game-oriented city planning simulation, now updated in version 2.0, that not only includes graphic enhancements but provides entire ecosystem simulation.

  Improvements went into water simulation and landscape elements, such as grass, trees and desert areas, which are rendered more realistically. Elements include various types of bridges (including for railroads), street surfaces and fountains. Life near tainted industrial areas isn’t depicted as particularly pleasant, although parks help in reducing the damage.

• Are we really wasting $1T USD annually?

  The paper has over 50 citations and references, and I am indebted to all, living and dead, who provided this basic material. I especially want to thank several folks who have probed the same territory, and have built the strong foundations of this argument. In no particular order: David Wheeler, Stephen Vaughn-Nichols, Sean Michael Kerner, Rishab Ghosh, and Eric Raymond.

• How Vista’s total failure hurt Linux

  Once I got a good look at Vista, I knew desktop Linux was in for good times. Vista was, and still is, a disaster of an operating system. I was right too. When netbooks started coming out, it was Linux, not Vista, that ruled.

• Attractel Releases Two New Versions of ZoIPer Softphone for Linux and Mac OS X

  The Linux 2.09 version features similar additions and fixes.

• KDE

  • KDE 4.2 Is The Answer

    For the first time, the KDE 4 series achieves feature completion to make it a great rival to KDE 3 and a perfect choice for future KDE distributions. Sure, I found some issues with this release, but all the great features and improvements more than make up for it, and not everyone is as picky as I am. Overall, KDE 4.2 is used happily on all of my comptuers and I look forward to further developments from the KDE team.

  • a big day

    Lots of dancing and drinking afterwards at the after parties (plural and when I eventually got up mid-morning I had a couple hundred emails waiting for me, way too many of which required my attention. I ended up unexpectedly in a few online meetings which altered my expected schedule significantly. Oh well, tomorrow’s another day … on which I have two more presentations to give.

    In that same time, The Dot got a great new look and KDE 4.2 was released.

    Exciting times indeed!

  • New features in KDE 4.2

    The KDE team has released version 4.2 of KDE 4. The release of KDE 4.0 a year ago laid the foundations for reinventing the KDE desktop – as well as attracting plenty of criticism, with the initial release of KDE 4 containing numerous bugs and overall, looking far from being a mature product.

• Distributions

  • Knoppix 6.0 released

    Knoppix 6.0 has now been released with several new features and updates. The last update to Knoppix was in March of 2008 with version 5.3.1. Knoppix is a bootable CD distribution of Linux that incorperates automatic hardware detection. The CD can be used to demo Linux, as an educational CD, a rescue system, etc. It uses on-the-fly decompression so it can have up to 2 GB of data and software installed on it.

  • What IT means to me: ‘Suddenly everyone’s happy to meet me’

    Technology was a black box to me, even though it represented $100m of costs.” This is how Jim Whitehurst, former chief operating officer of Delta Airlines, describes his relationship with IT until just over a year ago.

  • Ubuntu

    • 5 Things Mark Shuttleworth Has Learned about Organizational Change

      Mark Shuttleworth is not your average IT manager. A few weeks ago, he posted a question on an Ubuntu list. Not an order. Not a policy decision. A question: “Should we think about…?” he asked. Collaboration, community and teamwork are part of his personal style.

    • Adventures In External Media With Kubuntu

      My new ASUS X83-VM laptop has a very capable, whisper-quiet 320 GB SATA drive. For some jobs, like storing my photos, that disk simply isn’t big enough. It was time to look at external USB media options. Good thing the new machine has five USB 2.0 ports.

      After successfully installing Kubuntu (kernel version: 2.6.27-11-generic, 64-bit), I searched all over for information about hooking up an external IDE USB drive to recover data from the 2.5 inch disk out of my dead HP Pavilion laptop. I also thought that a 500 GB Western Digital MyBook might work for photo storage duty. Alas, I couldn’t find diddly. There was much speculation, but nothing saying “yes, these things work with Linux”.

    • HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition User Review

      The HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition (Mini 1110NR) is a cool-looking, low-cost netbook focused on easy Web access and entertainment. It uses the same design as the Mini 1000, but runs the Mobile internet (Mi) software rather than Windows. Mobile internet is an easy-to-use interface built on Linux, but is it enough for most people to enjoy their e-mail, Internet, digital photos, music, and video?

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux touch-panel PC targets HMI

    Techsol is shipping a customizable, Linux-ready touch-panel computer aimed at human machine interface (HMI) applications. The TPC-35B Medallion Touch Panel Computer is built on a Samsung s3c2410a ARM9 system-on-chip (SoC) and is equipped with a 3.5-inch QVGA touchscreen and dual Ethernet ports, says the company.

  • You ready for Kindle 2.0?

    The Amazon Kindle book reader appears on the verge of showing off a new makeover.

  • Phones

    • Fennec (aka Firefox Mobile) To Debut Next Week

      Fennec, the mobile browser developed by Mozilla, makers of Firefox, will soon be making its way to Windows Mobile handsets. According to notes from this week’s meeting posted on the Mozilla wiki, the new version is expected the first week of February and will target the HTC Touch Pro.

    • Motorola ditching Windows Mobile?

      Rumour has it that Motorola is ditching the Windows Mobile platform for its smartphone handsets in favour of Google’s new Linux-based Android.

      As reported over on BetaNews, the company has announced to the State of Florida that it is to shut down its Windows Mobile development centre in Plantation, Florida – with 77 jobs for the chop as a result, added on to the 4,000 jobs the company has already ‘restructured’ this month.

    • Google conference does the robot

      Google announced several sessions on Android for its Google I/O 2009 developer conference. Scheduled for May 28-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Google I/O will feature Android sessions on the UI toolkit, visual design, and supporting multiple devices with a single binary, says Google.

    • Bringing Up Open Source, Part 3: The Mobile Movement

      The arrival of Android was a boon for relatively young mobile open source developers like a la Mobile, which quickly changed its business course to cater to Google’s handset platform. Other startups have also made headway in the open mobile space.

  • Sub-notebooks

    • Kuki Linux 2.0 for the Acer Aspire One

      Kuki Linux 2.0 is based on a minimal install of Ubuntu 8.10. It’s meant to be a better Linux distribution, than Linpus Lite that comes pre-installed on some Acer Aspire Ones.

      It uses the lightweight Xfce user interface for the desktop environment. The bundled applications are lightweight as well.

    • Dell Mini 9 Has a More Pro Screen Than MacBook Pro

      Using an Eizo ColorEdge CE240W as reference monitor, professional photographer Rob Galbraith compared the screens on the three bestselling notebooks in their respective categories MacBook Pro, Dell Mini 9 and Lenovo W700 and that of the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 whose in-plane switching LCD panel is well-regarded. His conclusions are amazing -

    • The Net Net of Netbooks

      Again, this emphasises that people have a very clear idea of what a netbook is, and what it is for. It is not simply the latest twist on the notebook. In some ways, that’s good news for notebook manufacturers (and Microsoft), since it means that they can still sell such machines. But it does emphasise the different dynamics of the netbook sector, and that’s bad news, because these may allow completely new manufacturers – and operating systems – to take a much bigger slice than in the mature notebook market.

    • Emtec debuts Linux-based Netbook with removable SSD

      Emtec, a supplier of laptop peripherals, is setting up a new Netbook, called the Gdium, based on Madriva’s flavor of Linux.

      The 10-inch Netbook runs on 512MB RAM from a 16GB removable USB thumbdrive, a unique configuration. Wi-Fi, VGA-out, and an integrated Webcam are all included. It weighs in at just over 2.5 pounds.

    • Waiting for the HP Mini Mi Edition with Linux

      It is coming with a 60GB HDD, but the most interesting thing on this new model is that HP distributes the device with a Linux-based OS, with apparently very fast boot times and some other uber-connected software features.

Free Software/Open Source

• Developing software on an open source stack

  Web developers are enjoying a renaissance. After spending much of the previous decade toiling on server-centric code, programmers are now putting code front-and-center, turning the Web browser into its own computing platform.

• AccessStream releases open source identity access management package

  As the new year came in, a new project was revealed to the public: an open source identity access management package from AccessStream. The package was released as a Beta 1 version but AccessStream said it should be treated as alpha code. A second release is imminent, though, so maybe it’s time you took a look.

• Top five trends in open source

  Presenting the top five trends in open source in the Infrastructure space by Satish Mohan, head engineering centre, Red Hat India.

• Kamyshev and Lee: Open-source software defies theory

  Imagine a group of Yale students is conducting a research project on their favorite economics topic of supply and demand. They open up Firefox, type in Wikipedia and sift through a few pages. Somewhere on the background, a piece of software called MediaWiki — run by an Apache Web Server — renders a page by using data from a MySQL database; most of the data is hosted on the operating system Ubuntu Linux. A good day’s work is done, and the students close their computers.

• Government

  • Brazilian government lists preferred Open Source applications

    The Brazilian government wants its public administrations to check an Open Source reference guide before launching new IT projects. This moves taken by the Government of the 5th world economy, confirms Brazilian leadership and long term commitment on open source software.

  • Open source may have a role in government

    The enormous economic stimulus plan known as the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” currently before Congress will no doubt filter down to the IT business in the form of government spending on a wide variety of tech-based programs. One of the more worthwhile of many such programs is the proposed $1 billion for an Education Technology program, designed to create “21st century classrooms” with more computer and science labs and teacher technology training, although there are several different verticals beyond education that will derive benefit.

    [...]

    On this subject, I had an interesting email conversation with Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, who differentiated for me the difference between “open source” and “free software,” which I had always thought of as the same thing; but there is a subtle difference (that will no doubt be lost on the politicians in Washington).

• Business

  • Day releases open source version of CRX development environment

    Day software announced this week that they were releasing an open source version of the CRX development environment as part of a multi-pronged approach to CRX licensing. CRX is Day’s commercial implementation of Apache Jackrabbit and Apache sling for building web applications. In fact, Day’s own commercial content management product CQ5 is built on top of CRX.

  • Why I’m short on BBBB

    2) Open Source – This is related to #1 in a way. Schools can effectively cut budgets by switching to open source solutions. Why pay for Blackboard when there are open source technologies like Moodle and Collab available? I’m perfectly aware that Blackboard provides a better quality service (at a price), but I’ve personally used all three services and its advantages are few. Also, many public schools (especially at the High School level and below) are out of the loop as far as open source technologies go. You’ll see open source more at the collegiate level.

• Funding

  • EnterpriseDB Completes Another Exceptional Year

    EnterpriseDB, the leading enterprise open source database company, today announced the company’s 2008 results, including growth in new customer accounts of more than 50% and comparable bookings growth. Other accomplishments in 2008 included the launch of the Postgres Plus product family, a $16 million Series C financing, two key strategic partnerships, and new company leadership. For more information about EnterpriseDB and free downloads of EnterpriseDB’s award-winning Postgres Plus products, visit www.enterprisedb.com.

• Sun

  • Making menus a little nicer

    So now that code freeze for 3.1 is almost upon us, work for 3.2 begins. As a first little step I looked through some old issues and noticed Issues 42227 and 48965 which I must admit went a little under in the load of my intray. The problem described in there is basically an aesthetic one: currently menus reserve two “columns” for checkmarks and item images, because menu items can be checked as well as have an image and both should be reflected of course in the display. But this creates a large area where most of the time nothing appears on the left of the menu, making the menu look clunkier than necessary.

  • Sun ‘can be biggest open source company’

    Ulf Michael Widenius, better known to open source folk as Monty, has a few things in common with Linux creator Linus Torvalds.

  • Sun will Rock in 2009

    Sun’s president and chief executive officer Jonathan Schwartz declared yesterday that the company’s long-planned Rock processors remain on track for release this year.

Leftovers

• The Publisher’s Pushback against NIH’s Public Access and Scholarly Publishing Sustainability

  The dying light of the George W. Bush presidency was marked by, among other things, a legislative move to derail recent gains in the federal government’s opening of science. In particular, the innocuous sounding “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” (HR 6845) introduced into the House by John Conyers, Jr. (DEM-MI), on 9 September 2008 [1] was poised to shut down the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy [2], as well as forestall the spread of this open-access spirit to other areas of federally sponsored research and scholarship. Hearings were held, but the bill did not make it through the House. End of story? Not quite.

• EU proposal puts confidential communications data at risk.

  Civil liberties groups La Quadrature du Net, European Digital Rights (EDRi) and AK Vorrat are urging the European Parliament to heed advice given by the European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx and scrap plans dubbed “voluntary data retention”.

• Italy gets ready to censor the web

  These controls are ostensibly aimed at protecting children, but the way the law is written it could keep reporters from commenting on an illegal strike, for example.

• Inside Views: The Last Defence Of The IP System: An Interview With Jamie Boyle

  James Boyle is a leading thinker on copyright and knowledge access, and is author of a new book called The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (available at thepublicdomain.org or here as a PDF). He is a law professor and cofounder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. Boyle spoke recently with William New of Intellectual Property Watch on his book and recommendations for the new leadership of the World Intellectual Property Organization, European Union and the United States.

• Google Wants To Help People Check Their Broadband Connection For Traffic Shaping

  Well, well, well… With Cox getting aggressive with traffic shaping, it looks like Google is trying to give users the tools to find out what their ISP is actually doing to their broadband connection. The company has teamed up with the New America Foundation and Planet Lab to offer a platform for tools to measure what’s happening on internet connections.

• Cox Gets Aggressive With Traffic Shaping

  In a move that’s basically baiting the FCC and Congress to see if they will act, Cox has announced that it’s going to experiment with rather aggressive traffic shaping, granting priority to bits that it feels have a great priority. Why Cox gets to describe what gets a priority and what doesn’t seems pretty questionable. Cox is also the company that implemented a three strikes policy on file sharing without telling anyone.

• Bulgarian web browser to challenge IE

  A Bulgarian company has released a new browser which sounds like a beer brand and is being marketed as a rival to Internet Explorer and Firefox.

  Web Visions Black Label is really browsing for dummies with just two basic file options ‘file’ and ‘help’

  Creative Lines CEO Atanas Avkov said the browser was written using Volish Visual Basic Express and is supposed to go twice as fast as Internet Exploder and Firebadger and needs a third of their resources.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

John William Templeton looks at Free Open Source Software and African American culture and innovation 07 (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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01.28.09

New Year, New Readers

Posted in Site News at 7:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Record traffic was reached this month. In fact, it almost doubled in just one month. This leaves out a lot of file requests which were ‘offshored’ to The Coral Content Distribution Network. Coral handles extra loads — a couple of millions of uncounted hits in the case — so as to allow this server to gracefully handle and survive surges such as Slashdot or Digg Effect.

January excludes traffic handled by Coral
Content Distribution Network (first 27 days)

First 27 days

Here is a breakdown by countries:

1. US Commercial
2. United Kingdom
3. Australia
4. US Educational
5. Germany
6. Canada
7. Netherlands
8. Finland
9. Italy
10. Sweden
11. Belgium
12. Brazil
13. India
14. Portugal
15. Poland
16. Non-Profit Organization
17. New Zealand (Aotearoa)
18. France
19. Denmark
20. Switzerland
21. Austria
22. Norway
23. Mexico
24. US Government
25. Greece
26. Japan
27. Romania
28. Spain

This list leaves out unidentified domain suffixes (and .net). █

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Silver Lie: The New Music DRM

Posted in DRM, Microsoft, Novell at 6:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Fail.

DESPITE help — even promotion — from Miguel and Novell, Microsoft was unable to leverage Silverlight and elevate XAML as an alternative to HTML which is encumbered with patents, DRM, and other nasties.

Much like music DRM, no matter how hard Microsoft fights for it^[*], it doesn’t get any real traction. Microsoft, in turn, blames the economy.

Silverlight’s real promise for the business customer — to improve user interfaces for day-to-day applications — has been thwarted by tightening budgets.

By sharing some figures last year, book publisher O’Reilly showed that Silverlight had failed to gain momentum and there were also substantiated accusations that Microsoft was faking acceptance. Exceptions appear to be Microsoft’s media allies [1, 2]. █

____
^[*] C/f Comes Exhibit px06472, page 4 [PDF], Exhibit px06564, page 18 [PDF], Exhibit px06986 [PDF] and Gutmann’s presentation on Vista DRM [PDF])

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Antitrust: How Microsoft Schemed to Derail Dell GNU/Linux

Posted in Antitrust, Dell, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 5:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

IT’S NOT UNCOMMON to state the obvious, but concrete proof can make all the difference in the world, especially in court. As we’ve already shown, Microsoft’s strategy has less to do with self improvement & development but more to do with targeted sabotage against attempts of competitors to… well, just to compete. Much like a totalitarian regime, Microsoft spots areas of friction and addresses them before they become uncontrollable; If not by force, then by brainwash [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] (control the minds to avoid direct and out-of-hand confrontations).

“Much like a totalitarian regime, Microsoft spots areas of friction and addresses them before they become uncontrollable…”Last week we gave evidence of this strategy occurring at Wal-Mart and this week we share antitrust material which shows how Microsoft reacted to GNU/Linux at Dell .

Exhibit px09280 (2002) [PDF] from Comes vs Microsoft contains correspondence between Microsoft seniors Bill Veghte and Paul Flessner (the guy who said “we should whack [Dell over GNU/Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value”).

They swap opinions and plans with Windows executives like Brian Valentine and Jim Allchin [1, 2, 3] in the background, in addition to anti-Linux characters like Orlando Ayala [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], even some of today’s chiefs like Craig Mundie and Bob Muglia.

The subject of the messages is “Goldman Sachs Linux Panel.” The Goldman Sachs Group is close to Microsoft and also a shareholder, it is backer of PSI and EDGI taker too. Here are some bits of interest. The text, in full, is appended below.

Bill Veghte writes:

It’s not $50 of margin for Dell. It will get passed directly back to the customer and they are stuck with the same margin they have today. That is what happened on the desktop any time we made pricing changes broadly with OEMs and that is what will happen on the server (it is already happening on Linux pricing). It is just a fact.

Bill Veghte also writes:

Let’s start by articulating Dell’s perspective relative to the comments Russ made… Linux is Unix on x86. Dell sees it as the cheapest way to convert Unix LOB servers to being Dell customers. Dell sees no partnership with us on databases and partnership with Oracle as a way of pushing further into the enterprise. Oracle sees partnership with Dell and Linux as a great way at going after us at the lower end of the database market. Dell sees Linux as great negotiating leverage in their relationship with us.

[...]

Now, lets interject what I am asking into the picture…. We invest big, big $$ in Dell. We will continue to invest big, big $$ in Dell. I am asking that we do this investment with our eyes wide open. I do not want to invest $$ in Dell to fund their Red Hat efforts. I am asking that:
a) we be quite prescriptive in our investments with Dell relative to the competitive threats we see with Linux
b) we constantly benchmark ourselves against the actions they do with RedHat

Paul Flessner writes:

Now — there is nothing to disagree with me on around what we should do. We should whack them, we should make sure they understand our value, we should do all of the things you and Brian suggest. I totally agree.

In the end, if I were them, I would do all I could to see Linux succeed because it would put $50/pc(or whatever our OEM license costs) back into my pocket. Sure Windows has greater value and lower TCO and all of that. I would keep my relationship with MS and customers and do the dance. But every chance I get I would invest in Linux and try to make more sales on Linux because I increase my margin by $50/pc. It is an advantage for Linux.

Bill Veghte replies:

Dell’s behavior is predicated on us not acting in response to their actions. I want them to understand that every day they lead with Linux over Windows in Unix migrations they turn our field against them (take the southeast region mail thread as an example). I want them to think very very carefully about when and which forums they decide to push Linux very, very hard. Today, they do not. When they do, you can bet, behavior will evolve.

Veghte also expresses this concern:

He said their basic strategy is around open standard systems of which there are two; Linux and Windows. He said Windows three times during the whole discussion (it was a Linux panel tho) and then proceeded to push Linux very hard, never mentioning Windows. Ironically, the guy on the panel that was most balanced in their comments was the CTO of the BEA.

He wrote in the briefing:

Russ Holt (Server VP) was there representing Dell. He was introduced as the man behind Dell’s Linux strategy and the guy driving the Linux initiative at Dell. He started off by saying, Dell is the #1 OEM distributor of Linux and they are committed to seeing that position grow. He said that he believed Linux was ready for the enterprise and as way of evidence said Dell was a significant customer of RedHat and runs it on key mission critical environments; specifically their order entry system. He said he was seeing growth not only in the “traditional” areas of web & f/p but also web, Unix LOB and HPC. He then talked about how good the Oracle/Linux solution was and the strong partnership they had with Oracle around Linux. Later when he was asked about the open source development model he said he saw significant advantages to it because it enabled much closer interactions and synergy with RedHat.

[...]

Every other panelist underscored (a) that Linux was ready for prime-time in the enterprise, and (b) they were committing significant resources and product to make it even more so.

To summarise, Dell supported GNU/Linux, several companies praised the platform, and Microsoft pumped money into Dell, potentially in attempt to pressure it out of GNU/Linux. █

Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit px09280, as text

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Links 28/01/2009: New NVIDIA Drivers, DRM Stumbles

Posted in News Roundup at 3:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux

• Location-aware software comes to the Linux platform

  A multitude of factors are contributing to a mobile computing renaissance. Some of these factors include the growing availability of ubiquitous mobile Internet connectivity and the rising popularity of netbooks and other Internet-enabled small form-factor devices. These changes are inspiring a renewed interest in location-aware software and web services.

• 10 ways to help users transition to Linux

  Sheer economics are driving the increasingly widespread usage of the Linux operating system. It’s free, it’s reliable, it’s safe, and (did I mention?) it’s free! But when adopting a new operating system, there is always a learning curve for the user base. Not only that, many users think Linux is hard to use. This, of course, is not necessarily so. But it’s your job to overcome their reluctance and to train them to use Linux so that it becomes second-nature to them, as Windows is. Without sending your users to some sort of boot camp, this may seem like a rather daunting task. But there are ways to ease the pain of learning Linux. Let’s examine some of them.

  1: Standardize on a Windows-like desktop

  [...]

  2: Get users familiar with applications before you switch

  [...]

  3: Choose the right distribution

  [...]

  4: Have a machine up and running for your users to play around with

• PlayOnLinux 3.3 released

  Here’s the First version of PlayOnlinux for the year 2009 !

  It is a major change in WineVersion’s behavior, not about the graphics or the script implementation but on the internal code
  This change allows the use of wine packages that have been intended for PlayOnLinux.
  This means that we’re no longer dependent on the debian repository, which was a source of problems for certain distributions, but on a repository maintained by a member of the team (MulX).

• Kernel Space

  • NVIDIA Releases Four New Linux Drivers

    The NVIDIA 180.22 Linux driver was released less than three weeks ago, but today NVIDIA has released a new 180.xx display driver update. In addition, NVIDIA has updated all three of their legacy display drivers.

• Devices/Embedded

  • Linux-ready XScale net board ships

    Gateworks Corp. is shipping the first of its new line of power-sipping networking boards called the Cambria Network Platform. The Cambria GW2358-4 ships with an OpenWrt Linux-based board support package (BSP) and optional dev kit, and is primarily designed for wireless applications, says Gateworks.

  • Phones

    • A more “persistent” OODBMS adds Android support

      McObject released new versions of its Linux-compatible, object-oriented embedded database for Java and .NET. Now with persistance for “any” object, the open-source Perst 4.0 and Perst Lite 4.0 enable application development in Java ME, and include sample Android applications such as the ContactsIndex, pictured at left.

  • Sub-notebooks

    • Microsoft’s Netbook Woes Also Mean Linux Yays … Right?

      When Microsoft specifically cited netbook PCs as a big reason for its weakening sales, the “L word” didn’t get mentioned by name — but it wasn’t difficult to tell this was the flip side of that news tidbit about Linux-equipped netbooks being returned. So what’s this mean for Win7 vs. Linux in what is fast becoming the battleground for the new desktop?

    • New features in the upcoming Easy Peasy 2.0 release

      Easy Peasy (netbook optimized Ubuntu Linux) which was released a few weeks ago will have a few nice new features in the upcoming 2.0 release, according to developer Jon Ramvi.

    • Netbooks hit right spot for schoolchildren

      Netbooks typically range in price from just over $300 to $800, depending largely on the size of the screen and other extra features such as a bundled wireless broadband plan for connecting to the internet when out of the house.

  • MID

    • Moblin v2 Alpha Linux for netbooks released

      Moblin v2 Core Alpha has been released. Moblin is a custom Linux Operating System optimized for netbooks & mobile internet devices (MIDs).

    • Moblin 2.0 alpha posted — and targets netbooks

      The Intel-sponsored Moblin Project has released an alpha version of its second-generation “Moblin V2″ Linux-based toolkit for mobile devices — and it targets netbooks initially, rather than mobile Internet devices (MIDs). The Moblin V2 Core Alpha for Netbooks is available for testing now, says Moblin.org.

F/OSS

• Open-source storage explained

  Open-source storage software is freely available, but it’s the rare IT department that’s willing to cobble it together with hardware to build a storage system.

  Corporations are more likely to use it by happenstance, acquiring it through storage systems they buy from major vendors, some of which embed open-source technology into their products.

• New Open Source Maven Repository Manager Launched

  The leading commercial supporter of the open-source Maven project recently released a new version of its Maven repository manager. Sonatype, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company founded last year by Maven creator Jason van Zyl, announced Nexus Professional, a version of its flagship repository manager enhanced with a superset of features aimed at commercial Maven users.

• Enterprise Search Reaches Open Source Maturation Point

  We’re on the cusp of yet another evolution in maturation of open source with the advent of open source search engine technology. Over the past few years we’ve seen the Apache Lucerne and Solr projects grow from being interesting computer science projects to mission-critical tools that over 4,000 companies now use. As a result, it was only a matter of time before start-up companies such as Lucid Imagination started to form with the goal of making it easier to bring open source search engine technology into the enterprise.

• Winding Road Leads Skyway to Open Source Code-Generation Framework

  It’s hard to overstate the impact that open source technologies have had on the software industry. One recent example: Skyway Software, provider of an open-source code-generation framework for Spring-based applications, called Skyway Builder. The Tampa-based company last week announced the general availability of Skyway Builder 6.1, which is all about delivering Java EE apps for Spring. But the company started out going in a different direction.

• Events

  • Google I/O 2009, Developer Conference

    I’m excited to announce Google I/O 2009, our two-day developer event that will take place May 27-28, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Last year, over 3,000 developers participated in I/O and they attended 90+ sessions across all of our developer products. This year, much of our content will feature Android, App Engine, Chrome, GWT, AJAX APIs and more.

  • OSScamp Delhi March 2009

  • Knowing Compiere’s Leadership

    The event is a major effort to boost Directive Soft specific training initiatives and quality focused on the development of the Spanish Business and Industry as its name suggests, the Free Software that freedom brings to users and developers of it, so it is possible to take this freedom and economic benefits while promoting the growth of local industry and national levels.

• FSF/GNU

  • Winning the Gnu

    The CUSEC convention’s last keynote speech was Richard Stallman’s presentation titled Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks. It’s similar to the one he gave at the University of Toronto in the summer of 2007; you can see my detailed notes on that presentation here.

  • GCC Libraries Get Updated License Exception

    A new license exception will allow the entire GCC codebase to be upgraded to GPLv3, and enable the development of a plugin framework for GCC.

• Government

  • Local Government Open Source Conference 2009 (PSF 033/09)

    Open, Competitive Choice for IT Users

    Faced with unprecedented financial pressures, Open Source is fast attracting increasing attention from councils as a viable, credible alternative to vendor-proprietary software that can deliver long-term cash savings and business value.

  • What Role Will Open Source Play In Government?

    With a sizable portion of the Obama administration’s proposed $825 billion economic stimulus plan expected to go to IT infrastructure projects, solution providers are licking their chops at the prospect of more business opportunities, many of which could involve open-source technologies.

    But some open-source experts wonder if Sun Microsystems Chairman Scott McNealy, who has been asked by the Obama administration to produce a paper on how open-source software and technologies can be channeled toward more cost-effective government, is the most appropriate voice for the community.

• Finance

  • Zenoss Closes 2008 with Over 100 New Enterprise Customers, $15M in New Financing, and Numerous Industry Honors

    Zenoss Inc., the leading provider of commercial open source systems and network monitoring, today announced tremendous momentum through the end of 2008. In addition to astounding growth in commercial enterprise sales throughout the year, the company raised an additional $15 million of financing, was recognized with many awards including being named a finalist for a Jolt Award in the Enterprise Tools category and secured twice as many downloads as its nearest competitor in commercial open source IT management for 2008.

  • Open source zigs in a zagging VC market

    And if you treat Washington state as a proxy for Microsoft-related funding (a poor proxy, to be sure, but…), well, TechFlash reports that venture funding there dropped 82 percent from 2007 levels.

DRM

• Is DRM In Retreat?

  Ed Felten has a post up noting that it appears DRM is in retreat, at least in certain areas, such as music. Of course, he points to Apple’s agreement to get rid of DRM as a key factor — but also notes that the former “DRM Watch” blog, from one of DRM’s biggest supporters, is now called Copyright and Technology.

  http://techdirt.com/articles/20090123/0742383503.shtml

  Not A Music Industry Crisis — It’s A CD Crisis

  Hal Bringman has a writeup on Midem for Digital Media Wire, where he notes that the director of the event, Dominique Leguern, says that they’re considering merging MidemNet into the wider Midem as the industry is evolving into a fully digital domain. Also, Leguern made a key point that plenty of people have been making for a while:

  “It’s not a music industry crisis, it’s a CD crisis.”

• The Fight Against the DRM

  In fact, according to http://www.defectivebydesign.org/itunes-drm-free Apple still employs the DRM to restrict many of its other technologies:

  * DRM is used to lock iPhones to AT&T, and other networks around the world.

  * DRM is used to lock downloads from the App Store, even downloads at no-charge.

  * DRM is used to prevent iPod/iPhone being used with software other than iTunes.

  * DRM is used to prevent OS X from loading on generic PCs.

  * DRM is used to prevent the latest MacBook computers from working on certain types of monitor and HDTV.

  * DRM is used to keep accessory vendors for the iPod and iPhone limited to a subset of the devices features via an “authentication chip.”

  * DRM is used to lock up movies, TV shows, ringtones and audiobooks purchased through the iTunes Store.

Copyright

• Proposed EU Copyright Term Extension Faces Vocal Opposition In Parliament

  Strong opposition is being voiced by members of the European Parliament over plans to extend the copyright protection applying to sound recordings from 50 to 95 years.

  Both left and right-leaning Parliament members (MEPs) have signalled that they intend to vote against the proposed extension at a crucial meeting of the assembly’s legal affairs committee scheduled for 11-12 February, rejecting arguments that the move is necessary to guarantee higher pay for session musicians.

• Copyright dogmatism ridiculously strikes the European Parliament.

  Paris, Jan 26th – The European Parliament’s committee for legal affairs (JURI) voted the Medina report on Copyright last week. This report goes against its initial objective to account on the failure of the 2001 copyright directive. It only contains ridiculous repressive measures dictated by the entertainment industries, and goes as far as denying the Commission’s ongoing studies. Among its recommendations are “graduated response”, content filtering, Internet service providers liability, denial of copyright exception, etc. It will be up to the Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to protect their electors by strongly rejecting this report.

Leftover

• you can’t make this stuff up

  Not only are some of the most non-trusted companies in America blatantly trying to buy off Congress, but they’re using our bailout money to do it.

  This will ONLY change when elections are citizen funded. Join our strike4change to (1) starve the beast, (2) just say no, or (3) fix this absurd system — now. No money until a candidate commits to citizen funded elections.

Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

John William Templeton looks at Free Open Source Software and African American culture and innovation 06 (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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“GNU/Linux ALREADY Kicks Windows to the Curb”

Posted in FUD, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 2:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Then they fight you…

“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

THERE is a typical, coordinated campaign (or “Slog”) to demoralise those who think about or contribute to GNU/Linux. This is a good sign. It means that opponents of GNU/Linux are feeling pressured… pressured enough to put their integrity at stake and viciously attack GNU/Linux out in public.

The most important thing is never to feed them but instead to recite facts — real facts. GNU/Linux is entering the desktop and it already hurts Microsoft badly (its investors also), no matter how hard the company tries to deny this. █

“Forty percent of servers run Windows, 60 percent run Linux…”

–Steve Ballmer (September 2008)

Click image for full-sized version

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Windows Mobile, Vista, and Zune Injure Microsoft: Time to Go, Say Journalists

Posted in Hardware, Microsoft, Vista, Windows at 2:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Zune Death Watch

A reader has just told us that “Windows Vista [is] among the finalists for Fiasco Awards.” This is the Internet page which, according to our source, “was [also] featured in a local newspaper (in printed form, one of the most read in Catalonia).”

The title (in Catalan) reads: “Windows Vista and Second Life compete for the prize to biggest technological fiasco of the year.”

Here is the website, which is open to voting.

Windows for laptops and desktops (Vista) is not the only version that’s under siege. Microsoft’s distribution of XP for sub-notebooks is costing it dearly, Windows CE is unattractive to developers and Windows Mobile is still lagging.

Microsoft-sympathetic writers have already advised Microsoft to drop Windows Mobile [1, 2, 3], which is performing badly. Well, it’s happening again, even though it comes from a Microsoft-bent source (CNET), which adds intensity to the argument:

Is it time to ditch Windows Mobile?

[...]

The biggest problem for Windows Mobile has always been that it’s bloated and runs too slowly.

The Register advocates axing the Zune as well. This sounds familiar and it comes from Mary Jo Foley’s buddy.

In a season – the Christmas shopping period – when consumer gadgets are supposed to fly off retailers’ shelves, Microsoft’s Zune experienced a stunning $100 drop in revenue, a 54 per cent plunge. Even Microsoft was surprised.

The Register was not alone. A huge number of similar articles were published to express similar opinions. Among them (from this week only):

• Follow your muse, Microsoft–get out of hardware
• Microsoft hit by Zune sales crash
• Microsoft’s Zune: $100 Million Sales Drop Plus Layoffs Equals Questions
• Microsoft To Exit the Zune Business?
• Microsoft Zune Revenue Fall More Than 50% In 2Q
• When Will Microsoft Get a Clue?
• Yes, It’s Time For Microsoft To Kill The Zune (MSFT)
• Zune Sales Tumble As Microsoft Tries To Compete With Apple iPod

Microsoft denies that we’re seeing the end of the Zune brand, but then again, it also vigorously denied layoffs just a couple of months ago. It lied [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. It routinely lies without reluctance or shame. █

Tom Davis took this photo of a Zune which was smashed in anger

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