07.28.09
Posted in Apple, Finance, GNU/Linux, Google, Marketing, Microsoft, Vista 7, Windows at 6:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft has no immediate response to sharply-declining margins, so it hastily points to products that do not exist yet
THE TRUE impact of GNU/Linux [1, 2] on Microsoft's poor results (and subsequent sharp fall, which was expected [1, 2]) is one that even Mac sites have taken note of. From Roughly Drafted:
The Vista Myth: Why Windows 7 Won’t Turn Microsoft Around
After posting a spectacular 17% revenue drop, the company’s first ever year over year decline, Microsoft and its satellite pundits have assembled a seemingly plausible distraction/solution going forward: Windows 7 will boost sales of generic PCs back into orbit and erase the crater caused by Vista and the recession. They’re wrong, here’s why.
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Microsoft is facing multiple competitors in the low end arena as well. One is the threat posed by free distributions of Linux and Android, which can potentially stand in place of Windows on low end hardware, resulting in major savings to manufacturers. So far, Microsoft has been able to scuttle adoption of Linux on netbooks by dumping Windows XP licenses on manufacturers for free. That’s obviously not a long term strategy, as Microsoft simply can’t run the Linux community out of business, nor can it keep giving away software for a growing segment of the PC business.
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Mr. Ballmer, welcome to 2009. It’s not developers, developers, developers that you need, it’s customers, customers, customers.
It remains a sad fact that Microsoft uses a product which does not exist yet (Vista 7) to justify its fantasy about marvelous comebacks. █
“[W]e’re not going to have products that are much more successful than Vista has been.”
–Steve Ballmer, 2008
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Posted in Antitrust, Apple, Europe, FSF, Microsoft at 6:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Exclusion of competition, courtesy of the largest providers of non-Free operating systems for desktops
A FEW days ago we wrote about the European Commission's progress with Microsoft — a progress that still discriminates against Free software. Bloomberg has updated coverage of all that and the FSFE has just written a semi-formal response of its own. It rightly calls for global action because not only European citizens were injured by Microsoft’s abusive and illegal behaviour.
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) congratulates the European Commission on its firm stance in the antitrust investigation against Microsoft, which has led the company to offer a settlement. For any such settlement, getting the details right will be crucial for competition and innovation in the web browser market.
“To ensure genuine consumer choice, the ballot screen must be made available to Microsoft Windows users around the world, not just in Europe”, says Karsten Gerloff, President of FSFE. “The company is upholding its dominance thanks to the network effects created by its illegal practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows operating systems in all markets where it sells its software. In a globally interconnected market, remedies must be global.”
Be aware that Web sites which spin this as a scapegoat scenario where Apple and GNU/Linux should be similarly treated are conveniently ignoring the fact that the European Commission punishes Microsoft for criminal behaviour and illegally-obtained monopoly; it is not solely about leveling the playing field, which would be trivialisation of the big issue.
“Microsoft allowed us to [remove Internet Explorer from Windows] but we don’t think we should have to ask permission every time we want to make some minor software modification. Windows is an operating system, not a religion.”
–Gateway Computer Chairman Ted Waitt
Another company to keep an eye on would be Apple, whose latest mischiefs we wrote about several days ago. Apple is not a friend of Free software. Add to this list its new attack on VoIP that ts may be carrying out at the behest of AT&T, which would not only violate neutrality regulations but also constuitute collusion.
Now it’s hard to say with certainty who’s to blame for these app rejections, but a good many fingers are pointing to the cellular carriers — and given AT&T’s previous statements about the SlingPlayer app, it’s hard to argue with that. For its part, the company hinted at finding a workaround via web apps, much like they did when Apple gave Latitude a cold shoulder — but doesn’t that feel just a little 2007?
This is also covered here. According to one source, Russian Telcos are generally attacking Skype at the moment, using FUD to conceal competitive reasons. █
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Posted in Deception, FUD, Marketing, Microsoft at 5:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Professional who manipulates the news becomes a Microsoft Vice President
AS we have shown before, Waggener Edstrom is Microsoft's external PR department. Microsoft is moving unethical behaviour outside the company because if anything goes badly, then Microsoft can blame some “naughty company” and pretend that Microsoft is innocent.
Steve Ballmer’s wife, for instance, came from Waggener Edstrom and we feel obliged to pass on this report about Waggener Edstrom’s Microsoft head moving right into Microsoft where he shall replace Mr. "talking points" Cohen.
Microsoft’s newest Corporate Vice President, who picks up his blue employee badge at the end of August, will be someone very familiar with the inner workings of the company.
Frank Shaw, who currently heads the Microsoft account at PR agency Waggener Edstrom, will become the company’s new Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications.
For those who do not remember, Waggener Edstrom is oriented around brainwash, bribery of bloggers, and stalking/harassment of journalists [1, 2]. Maureen O’Gara, whom we mentioned in the previous post, is also connected to them [1, 2]. █
“I’m a huge fan of guerrilla marketing.”
–Joe Wilcox, Microsoft Watch
Update (29/07/09): It turns out that Simon Sproule left after just 5 months in this role.
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Patents, SCO at 5:12 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Sys-Con responds to critic whom it exploited with “Jihad”
AD HOMINEM attacks are a convenient method for shooting down not only those who disagree but also those who expose.
In all sorts of ways, Sys-Con has been promoting Microsoft and SCO agenda for quite some time. One person in particular, Maureen O’Gara (MOG), stood out as suspect because of the sheer SCO bias and the relationship with Microsoft [1, 2]. This is not a personal attack because it refers only to professional details, such as those that may (and obviously will) lead to bias.
“In all sorts of ways, Sys-Con has been promoting Microsoft and SCO agenda for quite some time.”Sys-Con went way too far when Maureen O’Gara, whose relationship with the publication goes beyond just employment, stalked Pamela Jones (even her family), and then published personal smears that had nothing to do with the subject at hand. One of the regular trolls who harass this Web site has been doing the same things to other people, but that’s another story.
Sys-Con has just fallen quite deep into the mud, again. When exposed, it started to personally prosecute and harass the messenger, who finally speaks out. It is primarily about Ulitzer, which is really just an offshoot of Sys-Con.
Carla at Linux Today adds: “Linux Today readers might recall that Fuat Kircaali, CEO of Ulitzer, is also the CEO of Sys-Con Media, notorious for publishing the infamous Maureen O’Gara’s “expose” of Pamela Jones of Groklaw.”
Anyway, about Ulitzer/Sys-Con:
It all started at the end of March, 2009, when I discovered that I was listed as an author on a site called Ulitzer (http://ulitzer.com)*. They had used my name as a subdomain on their site (aralbalkan.ulitzer.com; this has since been removed) and the site presented a photo of me, stating that I had been an author with them for several years. They had also scraped my blog posts and were reproducing them on the site under a different license to the one that I had published them under.
Beyond simply using my content without permission, they had misappropriated my identity by stating that I was one of their authors. And I wasn’t the only one. To this day, David Heinemeier Hansson (http://davidheinemeierhansson.ulitzer.com/) is a Ulitzer author (he’s apparently been writing for them since November 24, 2005), as is – quite ironically, I may add – Matt Cutts (http://mattcutts.ulitzer.com/), head of Google’s webspam team, who has apparently been a “Ulitzer author since September 3, 2008″.
Other prominent Ulitzer authors include Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly, http://timoreilly.ulitzer.com/), Jeremy Allaire (@jerBrightcove, http://jeremyallaire.ulitzer.com/), Dion Almaer (@dalmaer, http://dionalmaer.ulitzer.com/), and Michael Arrington (http://michaelarrington.ulitzer.com), among many, many, others. Needless to say, I can only assume that many of these authors don’t have a clue that their identities are being misappropriated and that their content is being used without permission.
[...]
Following that first article, they published another article, titled “Turkish Web Designer Declares Death on Twitter” in which they stated that I was “said to be organizing an underground group to kill or bodily harm the company representatives according to his Twitter logs” and continued to compare me to the Turkish assassin who “shot and wounded Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981″. The details of that article are documented here.
[...]
I am not the first person Sys-Con have attacked like this – they also very publicly attacked Jame Ervin, calling her (among other things) a “bitch” as documented here – but I would like to make sure that I am the last. This is an opportunity for us to say “no” to Sys-Con once and for all and to make them understand that we will not put up with online bullying.
I do not have, nor have I ever had a “cihad”, jihad, or any other “*had” with Sys-Con but what I have had is enough of their bullying.
So what can we do? Well, several things.
Boycott Sys-Con
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Ad revenue: or, how Sys-Con spams Google with duplicate content
In order to get ad revenue, Sys-Con and Ulitzer scrape the RSS feeds of authors (sometimes without their permission or knowledge) and then display this content alongside a deluge of advertising from their sponsors.
For years we have openly complained that Sys-Con was spamming Google News with name/word-loaded pages that contain almost no story or just a press release with tons of arbitrary words/brands appended.
Moreover, after years of pretending that Maureen O’Gara was kicked out for what she had done, this lady was permanently brought back, unmasked, and then shown with a full name rather than an old alias (with some very old photo of hers). She is still boosting the SCO agenda and Microsoft’s patent racket against Linux. We watch it closely but rarely remark on it as that would draw attention to known troublemakers. █
“Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!”
–Friedrich Nietzsche
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Posted in News Roundup at 4:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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The phrase “Iron Linux” had become a motto for Promwad Innovation Company when preparing reports for V International LVEE conference. Company’s employees presented a range of presentations, the main goal of which was to show to the audience uncommon examples of application of Linux on different hardware platforms, or, in other words, show “Linux life forms in hardware and how to locate it there”.
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UNIX
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Whenever an operating system — however obscure — comes up with a killer feature, it’s worth sitting up and taking notice. And there’s no doubt that OpenSolaris’ Time Slider feature is heavily armed and dangerous.
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AT&T-owned Bell Laboratories withdraws from development of Multics, a pioneering but overly complicated time-sharing system. Some important principles in Multics were to be carried over into Unix.
Ken Thompson at Bell Labs writes the first version of an as-yet-unnamed operating system in assembly language for a DEC PDP-7 minicomputer.
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Applications
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Recently I profiled the latest LiVES video editing system, and in that article I mentioned that I intended to buy a camcorder for use with LiVES and other video editing software. Since then I purchased a Samsung SC-D382 midiDV recorder. Studio Dave is now on its way to becoming Studio DV.
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And just for the sake of completeness I must mention that VLC can read from V4L (Video for Linux) and V4L2 devices, i.e. your webcam. Too cool.
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Desktop Environments
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These are not the only desktops available for GNU/Linux. Many regard LXDE, another lightweight desktop, as an up and coming choice, although it lacks some of the polish of Xfce. Others prefer one of the time-honored window managers, or simple graphical environments, such as IceWM or FVWM, or the tiled window managers like ratpoison. Without straining, you should be able to find several dozen alternatives, most of them catering to a specific need or design philosophy.
But, mostly, GNOME, KDE, and Xfce are the deskops that people are likely to see most often. Each is a useful place to start, and, if it doesn’t suit you, one of the others can be installed in minutes. Graphical environments can be confusing in GNU/Linux, but one thing is sure — you’ll never lack alternatives.
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I am a big fan of light desktop environments. Well, most people looking for a lighter alternative normally settle for a lightweight window manager, such as Fluxbox or AwesomeWM.
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Thasunke Witko is the Oglala Lakota name for the native American more commonly known as ‘Crazy Horse’, one of the main leaders of the tribes who fought the white man at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.
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Overall, Mint 7 offers most of the software that an average user needs. Though I have issues with the OS, it still can be used as a “light” desktop.
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Matthew Szulik, Red Hat’s former CEO and current chairman, has been in semi-retirement for the past two years, but you’d never know it from listening to his interview with the BBC’s Peter Day. Szulik, ever the revolutionary, talks up open source’s opportunity to disrupt conventional software and promote social reform.
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Ubuntu
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As I scour the market for a potential Ubuntu netbook purchase, I’ve stumbled onto two interesting tidbits of info: First, Ubuntu netbook demand recently exceeded supply at System76. Second, another niche Ubuntu PC maker will introduce a netbook this August.
Sorry I don’t have specific “sales figures” for you. But I do have anecdotal pieces of info…
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CrunchBang is a fine distro. It is very fast, and thanks to OpenBox, full of configuration options for the power user. The initial drab desktop can be configured to a very graphical environment, or left as-is.
A casual Linux user might be better served to start with a more standard distro like Ubuntu or OpenSuse, with all the graphical eye-candy. CrunchBang ain’t pretty out of the box, but it surely gets the job done quickly!
If you have an older machine, or are looking for a fast distro with many customization options for you to design the desktop of your dreams, then you will definitely want to try CrunchBang Linux.
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GE Fanuc has announced a Linux-compatible SBC (single-board computer) using the military-friendly VPX format. The VPXcel3 SBC341, “available in five ruggedization levels,” includes an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, DDR3 memory, and 1GB of flash storage, according to the company.
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Atmel announced a new member of its Linux-compatible ARM9-based SAM9G family of industrial-focused embedded processors. Touted for supporting DDR2 memory and 100Mbps+ data rates, the “AT91SAM9G45″ clocks to 400MHz, supports LCD touchscreens and 3.3 V power, and offers a 480Mbps USB interface, says the company.
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VDC Research issued a report estimating that Wind River has pushed past MontaVista Software, taking the top spot among commercial embedded Linux providers. In a separate study on the overall embedded market, meanwhile, VDC said that real-time solutions outperformed the general embedded market last year, with nine percent growth over 2007.
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Timesys Corporation (http://www.timesys.com), provider of LinuxLink, the first commercial software development framework for building custom embedded Linux based products, today announced LinuxLink availability for the new OMAP-L137 processor from Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI). This represents the first LinuxLink release for the low-power OMAP-L1x applications processors and will be followed by support for the OMAP-L138 processor.
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With our international program still developing, technological kinks being worked out, and our local teacher and University students still exploring and researching ways for the XO’s to be integrated into the California 3rd grade curriculum, we have not yet done extensive documentation and created a resource model. We have been conducting sit-in observations of the class, and working with the teacher to understand his needs, concerns, and ideas for the future.
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Today we are going to create some realistic graffiti in the Gimp. This tutorial is partially inspired off of Photoshop tutorial by DreamDealer v5.0 at DreamDealer.nl Let’s get started!
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The open source project that aimed to get iPods and iPhones working with Linux and other software should be re-posted next month.
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As a college student, open source philosophy has a lot to offer you. You can not only take advantage of the great resources open source has, but also become a part of a movement that shares more freedom of ideas. In these lectures, you’ll learn more about the open source philosophy and what it can be used for.
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The current stable release of Plex is version 0.8.1 released under the GNU General Public License (GPL2), apart from the Plex Media Server which is currently closed source and connects to the GPL licensed client over the network.
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This “Community Edition” is a free version under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.
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Calibre is under GPLv3 license for Linux, Mac OS and Windows download.
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Office Suites
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OpenOffice.org 3 is developed using an open-software, “no secrets” approach. Anyone can look at the programs and suggest improvements, or fix bugs. Anyone can report problems or request enhancements, and anyone can see the response from other users or developers. The status of current and future releases is displayed on a public wiki, so you can decide if and when you want to upgrade to take advantage of new features. Anyone used to commercial software and its hyping and marketing speak will find OpenOffice.org 3 refreshingly different. Enjoy the benefits of open-source!
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What’s not to like about Google Apps? It has a ton of features, it’s incredibly easy to collaborate with other people, and it’s free. Well, how about the fact that your data is only as accessible as Google decides to make it? If you’re looking for the usefulness of a Web-based collection of office apps but want complete control over your data, OpenGoo might be just the answer you’re looking for.
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Hours before the second P2P file-sharing trial in the US gets underway, the judge finally rules that defendant Joel Tenenbaum cannot claim “fair use” in the case. The proposed defense would be “so broad it would swallow the copyright protections that Congress has created,” she wrote.
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TASER International has – at least for now – dropped a trademark infringement suit against Linden Lab, which operates Second Life.
Luis Casas Luengo, Director of Extremadura’s Fundecyt foundation 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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Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, GPL, Kernel, Microsoft at 9:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Image from Wikimedia
Summary: A red-handed Microsoft did after all violate the GNU GPL, according to the SFLC
Microsoft’s rather belated claim that its self-serving [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] loadable module for Linux was in compliance all along is more or less being refuted or at least contradicted by the SFLC.
Kuhn had a few words to say on the subject:
Microsoft violated the General Public License v2 (GPLv2) when it distributed its Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC) without providing source code, says the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).
The violation was rectified when Microsoft contributed more than 20,000 lines of source code to the Linux community last week. The drivers are designed to improve the performance of the Linux operating system when it is virtualized on the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hypervisor-based virtualization system.
[...]
“It seems to me that Sam [Ramji] is likely correct when he says that talk inside Microsoft about releasing the source was under way before the Linux developers began their enforcement effort,” said Bradley Kuhn, a policy analyst and tech director at the SFLC.
“However, that talk doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a problem. As soon as one distributes the binaries of a GPL’d work, one must provide the source for those binaries, so Microsoft’s delay in this regard was a GPL violation.
“The important thing to note from a perspective of freedom is that this software, whether it is released properly under the GPL or kept proprietary in violation of the GPL, is a piece of software designed to convince people to give up free virtualization platforms like Xen and KVM, and [to] use Microsoft’s virtualization technology instead,” Kuhn added.
Almost a week after the initial announcement, two pro-Microsoft journalists from IDG are still pushing this old news as though it is an endless PR campaign which struggles to portray what Microsoft did as an act of goodwill. It was a selfish deed. Get over it. The GPL was a requirement, neither a privilege nor choice. And it’s all about selling Windows. █
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Posted in News Roundup at 9:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Contents
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Linux is a fantastic platform for audio production. Find out how to build the perfect production environment.
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ALSA, or the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, sits within the Linux kernel itself as a series of hardware drivers. Audio data is passed from ALSA to the user-level applications that manipulate the audio. But despite this low level integration and a built-in potential for good low latency performance, most default Linux installations make poor audio production computers. That’s because there’s still too much going on in the background, and too many throwbacks from the time when Linux was designed primarily for server installation.
Luckily, Linux is a highly configurable operating system, and this means that you can create the perfect audio platform just by making a few tweaks. We’ve chosen the latest version of Ubuntu to be our guinea pig.
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The Linux Foundation, the non-profit that supports the growth of the Linux kernel, is today announcing an affinity Visa Platinum credit card for people who want to contribute to advancing the OS through the organization’s initiatives. Reading the press release announcing the new credit card made me raise my eyebrows, but after giving it a bit of thought I think that this is actually not that bad an idea.
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But I highly doubt that! Simply, GNU/Linux equates to Communism and we have to be aware of this.
Also, if you think even for a second that I am being serious, then you might have some serious issues…
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And now in 2009, their conclusion still holds true, I guess. You can run all the applications that a normal user will want to run – be it in Windows or Linux, in a PC or laptop which sports just 1 GB memory. Windows Vista doesn’t count, as it is an aberration.
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This future in automotive linux is a possible reality. Fast booting and reliable embedded systems, hardened open source linux and willing manufacturers will make it work.
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Desktop
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It’s typical, sensible, and useful for a conference wrap-up keynote address to look at the big picture, with session descriptions like, “Where Linux has been and where it’s headed.” At last week’s Open Source Convention, the role of identifying the major Linux trends and challenges was given to Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.
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There are essentially two types of software: proprietary and open source. Proprietary software may be sold (Microsoft Windows comes to mind) or given away (shareware or freeware). In either case, the source code behind proprietary software is subject to legal protections. Programmers are not to access, modify or redistribute proprietary code. Open source software, on the other hand, is has completely “open” (accessible) code which can be manipulated and shared freely. It is my opinion that although much of what is in common use today is proprietary, such will not always be the case.
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Rather than buy proprietary software, companies can (and should) grab open source software and either use it as is or pay developers to tailor it to specific business needs. This, I think, is the future of software.
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There are four different app bundles to choose from, depending on the age level of the user: Tertiary for university-level students, Secondary for 13-18 year-olds, Primary for 6-12 year-olds, and Preschool for the five and under set. Alternatively, you can download the complete educational desktop and receive all four bundles at once.
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If you are going to wipe your hard drive, but before you pay a dime for Windows 7, try a Linux desktop distribution. If you don’t like it, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You spent no money other than for a burnable CD or DVD, a little time, and you just have to wipe your disk again before installing Windows 7.
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Linux does not lack user friendliness any more. Ubuntu. openSUSE. Try them out.
Linux does not lack quality software. Openoffice.org. Firefox. Pidgin. Thunderbird. They all run on Linux.
Linux does not lack power. It runs on the widest range of hardware.
Linux does not lack company backing. Novell. Canonical. Red Hat. They are large corporations.
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Server
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The new offering is available as a standalone product or in an Enterprise package. Both packages include Sun Grid Engine software. The Enterprise package also includes Oracle VM, Oracle Enterprise Linux and a version of Reliance, which is reportedly Univa’s proprietary infrastructure and application service governor.
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Applications
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# Patches rarely receive feedback – positive or negative – on the wine-patches list
# Patches that are rejected aren’t labelled as such, or publicly given a reason for why they were
# Hundreds of patches don’t get in, that just need a tweak or two, that would REALLY improve the wine experience
# These failed patches can’t easily be seen by anyone unless they know exactly what to Google for
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Gnaughty is a program to automatically download adult sex content, i.e. porn movies and pictures, from a known Internet porn directory.
Providing a friendly interface, users who feel like having some porn can have it served fastly and directly to their desktop.
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Celtx is a media pre-production editor that allows you to easily create screenplays and storyboards for your next movie. You can use it to create a whole assortment of media, including theater, comics, advertising, and video games.
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The game is set in the not too far future of London 2099, where climatic catastrophes have changed the Earth’s climate permanently. In this interactive novel, bionic beings and complex technologies, clash with complicated relationships and even more complicated romance. Wise decisions build relationships with other characters, but one wrong move could ruin a friendship forever.
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K Desktop Environment 4.3
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Overall though, KDE 4.3 is shaping up to be a nice release, and it brings some much-needed fit and finish to the KDE4 desktop environment.
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With KDE 4.3, I think I will start using KDE part-time again, so congrats to the KDE team for their bold move to rebuild their desktop from scratch! I hope Gnome 3 brings an equal amount of innovation.
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Hannah Montana Linux is clearly geared toward those who are, in fact, Hannah Montana fans. I’m guessing that this group must be comprised mainly of very young people. I can’t imagine adults really being fans of this obnoxious little TV pop tart.
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An update of the noteworthy Cooker changes was long overdue. Here’s a short, incomplete summary:
* KDE is now at version 4.2.98 aka KDE 4.3 RC 3. Other KDE related updates include KOffice 2.0.1, Amarok 2.1.1, Digikam 1.0 beta 3, Kipi plug-ins 0.5.0. The KMess MSN Live instant messenger had its first stable KDE 4 release with version 2.0.0.
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Africa
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The Linux4Afrika development help project that is active in a number of east African countries has released the next verson of its software distribution. The donated used hardware will be expanded by new functionality.
The newest version of the Linux4Afrika terminal server solution will no longer require interested parties to buy from One Laptop per Child (OLPC) to test its Sugar learning interface. The GUI can be installed optionally and, after registration, started simply from the dropdown menu.
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Ubuntu comes on a live CD which you can try without having to touch your existing installation. And if you like it, there is an icon right on the desktop where you can install the system as you are testing it.
These are just a few of the reasons why I would very much encourage my African brothers and sisters to give Ubuntu Linux and other Linux distros a try. After all, they are free, great, safe and you become part of a worldwide community.
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Red Hat
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Red Hat, a leading provider of open source solutions, will host a series of sales enablement boot camp sessions by Red Hat’s worldwide sales trainer, Brian Cole.
The camps are available to Red Hat Ready Partners and Red Hat Advanced Business Partners across Australia and New Zealand.
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Going back to May before the release of Fedora 11, features that were planned for Fedora 12 (the release that’s codenamed Constantine) began to get laid out. Among these features were LVM enhancements, replacing nash/mkinitrd with Dracut, and using Empathy as the default instant messaging program. With time more features have come about for Fedora 12, such as re-basing the desktop environments to KDE 4.3 and GNOME 2.28, updating the kernel, etc. Over the weekend though, the Fedora Project Wiki was updated to reflect a whole batch of new features that are now planned for Fedora 12. Below are some of these new features.
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Ubuntu
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Canonical has organized its Ubuntu partner program into three segments — business partners, technology partners and training partners. But to spot the next generation of potential Ubuntu channel partners you need to check out two areas: Cloud computing and the so-called Ubuntu Marketplace. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.
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Dig a little deeper and you’ll find a new segment listed as Cloud Partners — a critical area that could make-or-break Canonical’s server strategy. Early cloud partners include Eucalyptus Systems, Amazon Web Services, Cohesive Flexible Technologies and RightScale.
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READY: One thing we underestimated was the number of semiconductor engineers and partners working on Linux to enable Linux on chips. That happened faster and at a larger level than we thought. When we started out building MontaVista Linux earlier in the decade, we had to make the assumption that Linux may not exist on a given piece of hardware, or that if it was available, the kernel version might be four or five rev’s back. Beyond that, Linux was still somewhat unstable. So we developed a set of requirements and industrial processes to produce a commercial quality Linux that could go into any device. But now Linux has gotten really deep into the fabric of the chip business, and we are now adjusting to that reality with our new MDE approach in MontaVista Linux 6.
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Two versions will be available, the Linux-based G60 and the Windows Mobile 6.1-based M20, both of which have touch-screen displays that feature three primary icons: Call, Search and View Map. All other features are available through a gesture-based interface.
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It’s got an HDMI port, though don’t expect to be pumping out lots of HD without that Ion chip, and it’s got a very low energy consumption, as well as recyclable packaging materials. It comes pre-installed with Vista, XP or Linpus Linux.
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Active Media Products (AMP), manufacturer of SSDs and WWF series USB drives, today announced immediate availability of a bootable Linux USB (BLU) drive that is compatible with Windows® 7 and benefits WWF. These new penguin BLU drives are preloaded with the full installation of Ubuntu Linux 9.0.4.
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Phones
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Meet Proxoid, a proxy server application that lets you use your phone as a modem without hacking its system. Making Proxoid work does require a few steps, but the entire process is simple enough even for uninitiated users. Here is how to make Proxoid work with an Ubuntu-based system.
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The move is another sign that the Linux-based OS is picking up some steam, and Google said it expects up to 20 handsets to be released by the end of the year. Because it is a free OS, some of these handsets will be from relatively unknown manufacturers, but Android has drawn interest from top-five cell phone makers like Samsung, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson.
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While Android has enjoyed the lime-light of being the “open source, linux based” mobile platform — and it is all of that and more, the Palm webOS is heavily invested in Linux
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Sub-notebooks
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The $499 version of the Mini 110 weaves its wallet-friendly magic by opting for the free Linux operating system instead of Windows XP. HP has done much to make Linux a doddle to use, including a customised home screen that looks slicker and more professional than anything we’ve ever seen out of Microsoft. You’ll also find some bespoke programs, such as a multimedia player that resembles Apple’s Front Row.
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Zimbra, a Yahoo company, offers next-generation open source e-mail and collaboration. With this partnership, Linux Warehouse hopes to satisfy the local market’s growing demand for more sophisticated and cost-effective collaboration tools, says Linux Warehouse MD, Johnny Martins.
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Wookie, a Java based server application which eases deployment of Web widgets, such as the W3C Widgets, has begun incubating at the Apache Foundation. The Wookie project started life at the University of Bolton, where a team, supported by the TenCompetence EU project and supported by the CETIS Widgets Working Group…
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Browsers
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The new Chrome with the 3D acceleration features is all set to be introduced in the second half of 2010.
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Mozilla
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Mozilla has released mockups that show how Firefox 4.0 conceivably might look, and two words spring to my mind: Google Chrome.
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Last week we took a look at initial design mockups for Firefox 3.7, and now the busy designers at Mozilla are back with some theme mockups for the even-further-into-the-future Firefox 4.0.
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Keeping up with the evolution of Mozilla platform, Thunderbird 3 Beta 2 was released a few months ago with a number of cool features and massive bug fixes. Mozilla’s desktop email client includes archiving like Gmail and a new Activity Manager that helps you get a clearer idea about what Thunderbird is doing. Further, Thunderbird 3 beta includes new Add-ons Manager, improved address book and more. For Mac users they’ll be able to see better Growl notification and have more keyboard shortcuts.
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OSCON 2009
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I’d be hard-put to say whether OSCON or RubyConf is my favorite conference of the year; when I miss either I’m grumpy. Here’s a brief report from the latest San Jose instalment, with pictures.
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If you weren’t at OSCON this morning, here is what I spoke about in my keynote, Standing Out in the Crowd. I’m including most of the key visuals, so my apologies for the image-heavy post. I’ll also be uploading to slideshare.net (with voiceover I hope) and I’m told there will be video up at the OSCON blip.tv channel in due course. (ETA: it’s up.)
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Funding
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The initial round of funding was also used to create the Schooner MySQL appliance. This unit puts a highly optimized version of the InnoDB 1.0.3 transactional storage engine in a System x box equipped with solid state disks and an OEMed version of Sun’s MySQL 5.1 Enterprise Edition database, which Schooner has shown in benchmark tests can deliver about eight times the oomph of a plain vanilla x64 server running Linux and MySQL. The MySQL appliance costs $45,000 as well.
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Government
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It began at the dinner table with two software engineers at a VistA Community Meeting and ended 3 weeks later with Graphic User Interface Scheduling for VistA.
While coming equipped with powerful text-based scheduling capabilities, the private-sector VistA and WorldVistA(tm) Electronic Medical Record system communities have long wanted but lacked a Graphic User Interface scheduling front end. Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS reports “The wait is over. Sam has done it.”
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Standards/Consortia
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Last week, at OSCON, a San Jose startup known as Cloudkick unveiled an open source project that hopes to provide a single programming interface for a host of so-called infrastructure clouds, including Amazon EC2, Rackspace Cloud Servers, Slicehost, and GoGrid. Dubbed libcloud, the project reaches for a world where developers can build an app that’s easily shuttled from one cloud to another.
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Over in Russia, for example, it appears that a bunch of telco execs are complaining about Skype. They at least try to pass off a plausible non-save-our-asses reason: mentioning security, but they don’t do a very good job hiding the truth.
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Censorship/Web Abuse
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A few folks have submitted the news that, apparently, AT&T is blocking access to a certain subdomain of 4chan. I just checked on my own AT&T DSL account and it’s true that I can’t get there (I can get there if I don’t go via AT&T). That doesn’t mean that AT&T definitely is blocking it, but there are reports that folks at AT&T have admitted that it’s true. If you don’t know what 4chan is, the 4chan Wikipedia page is probably the best way to understand it.
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Those designing the DRM “simply refuse to face reality,” he concluded. “I have a machine with an AMD 7550 Dual Core, a ton of RAM, and most importantly nearly a TB of hard disc space, and yet I am supposed to keep my games and my movies piled around my machine so I can stuff in a disc every time I want to use them? What good is all that space for if DRM won’t let me use it?”
In short, “and it pains me to write this,” hairyfeet said, “I have to agree with RMS for once. DRM is simply too nasty to allow it to infect Linux.”
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Intellectual Monopolies
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It’s becoming more and more and more clear that the Associated Press does not like the rules of the Internet and intends to resist them. That’s actually pretty predictable when you think about it, because the Internet doesn’t like the AP either.
Luis Casas Luengo, Director of Extremadura’s Fundecyt foundation 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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Posted in Finance, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 3:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“Before I turn and talk about how all of that then can amount to growth, I do want to talk a little bit about the fact that there are risks in our business. We have risks, people love to talk about them. Challenges: People talk about the challenge we have from open source software. Yes, we do, and we’re focused in on it.”
–Steve Ballmer, 2005
Summary: The impact of GNU/Linux on Microsoft’s profitability becomes more evident
Microsoft’s stock collapsed after very disappointing results that were partly caused by Free software and GNU/Linux. All of these are issues that we addressed before and last night a reader brought to our attention this article about Microsoft’s shrinking margin.
CEO Ballmer is increasingly willing to accept lower margins in exchange for higher overall profits
Microsoft has long enjoyed Olympian profit margins, using its monopoly power to maintain prices on its software even in tough times. But now, amid a terrible downturn and rising competition, CEO Steven A. Ballmer is shifting to a scrappier approach. He is cutting prices on a variety of fronts, from flagship Windows and Office products to newfangled Internet services.
It is no secret that Microsoft would rather give Windows for free than lose market share to GNU/Linux. According to some, Microsoft would even pay people/companies to use Windows, but this is not a sustainable strategy. █
“It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.”
–Bill Gates
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