06.16.09
IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: June 16th, 2009
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Canonical to Look Into the Question of Mono/Microsoft Patents in Ubuntu
Summary: Canonical responds to Mono issues
AFTER persistently ignoring those who warned about Mono, Canonical finally follows Fedora's (Red Hat's) footsteps and takes a closer look at the Mono licensing question. Here is a new statement:
Mono has been the subject of various heated discussions recently. While there is no urgent question to resolve, it seems appropriate for the TB to give it some consideration.
We recently considered the topic of alleged patent violations in some detail. Although the TB meeting in question does not appear to have been written up, logs are available here:
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2009/03/24/%23ubuntu-meeting.html
“At present, were there to be an issue, Mono would be easy to extricate.”To summarise briefly, we will of course engage with patent holders who contact us with a claim of a patent violation in Ubuntu; the technical board is the correct point of contact for this. Although others are welcome to inform the technical board of allegations of which they have become aware, and any developer with a question or concern about a particular patent should contact the TB who will advise if they are aware of an issue, we will not in general act solely on third-party allegations or rumours. In the case of Mono, Canonical (who would bear most of the liability for any violation) does not currently believe this to be a major risk, as should be evident from the fact that it has been shipped in Ubuntu main since 5.10 and in the default desktop since 6.10.
In general, we will ship the best available free software applications, in the judgement of the relevant development team; the desktop team has responsibility for desktop application selection, as is natural. In a small number of cases, Mono applications have been selected there on their merits. At present, were there to be an issue, Mono would be easy to extricate. Making it more of a core requirement is likely to encounter some performance concerns at present anyway, since the budget for desktop startup is increasingly tight as we work on boot performance.
In short, at the moment, Mono is very well-maintained in Ubuntu and there appears to be no significant cause for concern over its IP situation. We will attempt to clarify in suitable places what developers and/or rights holders should do in the event that they have evidence of a problem.
It’s a small step in the right direction. One point they seem to be missing is the strategic dangers of Mono.
Mono advances Microsoft (Windows, Visual Studio, etc.) at Ubuntu’s expense. Thus, it’s detrimental to everyone. █
Reader’s Article: What Makes Microsoft’s Business Unethical
[Skip to the end for the Executive Summary]
With the further recent action taken against Microsoft by the EU antitrust investigators – who Microsoft “supporters” denounce as “scum”, for having the audacity to enforce the law against these gangsters, it seems the nature of Microsoft’s unethical business practises needs to be spelled out in the simplest terms, so that these “supporters” might finally understand the “problem”.
“They spread lies that Free Software alternatives to their software is “unamerican” and “communist” in nature…”I’ll omit any arguments relating to proprietary licensing, since I think I’ve already covered that quite adequately elsewhere, so instead I’ll just concentrate on how Microsoft runs its business in general, regardless of the nature of the “product”.
So here’s a simple breakdown:
- Microsoft is a business, and the purpose of any business is to make money. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, indeed it is absolutely necessary in a developed society.
- Microsoft competes with other companies for business, in order to ensure their continued operations. Again, this is perfectly reasonable and expected. Competition is good and necessary, as it drives innovation, stems inflation, and facilitates choice.
- Microsoft advertises its products, so that potential customers will be aware of them, and subsequently buy them. This is also perfectly reasonable, ostensibly. However, advertising is open to abusive practises, such as false or misleading claims, or a more recent development variously called “guerilla” or “viral” advertising, where supposedly impartial recommendations aren’t impartial at all, but are in fact paid sponsorship. This isn’t ethical business, but it is a sadly common practise. Microsoft are more guilty of this behaviour than most, in fact they have refined it into an art form.
- As part of its business strategy, Microsoft combines different products into “bundles”, so that (for example) customers don’t need to obtain a Web browser or a media player before they can start using their new systems. On the face of it, this seems a perfectly reasonable thing to do, if the motive were purely an honourable one. But the fact is that Microsoft do not sell any of these “bundled” products separately, so this isn’t design to promote any of those products. But even more substantively, exactly those same features are available (also for free) from other places (e.g. Firefox), so the assertion that the whole purpose of the “bundles” has anything at all to do with either providing missing functionality or “helping” customers is an obvious lie. In fact the only reason Microsoft bundles these products is to exclude others. They make no profit from it at all, and they need not provide something for free if it can be obtained elsewhere. Bear in mind, that it costs Microsoft a huge amount of money to develop these bundled products, that they then give away for free, even though this is completely unnecessary. So the question is, why?
- In addition to unnecessarily providing free bundles, Microsoft also unnecessarily develops its own competing standards, for such things as networking and documents, even when those other standards are Free, work perfectly well, have been established for years, and precede Microsoft’s questionable reinvention of those standards. Since Microsoft cannot immediately capitalise on something as intangible as a “standard”, again one must ask the question, why?
- Microsoft maintains a network of so-called “partners”. This is not a typical business to business relationship where one firm simply touts another for business, but instead it’s a means of guaranteeing loyalty from those firms by means of contracts, and coercing continued loyalty with the threat that firms will lose competitiveness with other “partners” if they back out of this “arrangement”. This is a common but nonetheless unethical business practice, made all the more unacceptable by the sheer size of Microsoft’s “network”, that essentially forms a global monopoly. Western laws dictate that the mere existence of such monopolies is not a crime, but there must be some demonstrable abuse of that monopoly to warrant any remedial action. It is my contention that the means by which Microsoft maintains this monopoly is inherently unethical, since it has no basis on the quality of their products, but is instead enforced by this threat of failure, a threat that only exists because Microsoft created it in the first place. The result is a business that’s operated like a global racketeering operation, with “partners” too scared to back out, and customers who are left with little or no real choices, as no real competition has any chance of even being established, much less thriving.
- The foundation of Microsoft’s monopoly is its operating system called “Windows” and office productivity suit called “Office”. If it were simply the case that these two products were always the best examples of their kind, and that customers chose this software in preference to competing products, for that reason, then I would see nothing especially unethical about the way in which Microsoft operates its business, although it would still be true that they have a monopoly, because this monopoly would exist for a legitimate reason. But that simply isn’t the case. And this is where we come back to the issues of “bundling” and “standards”. The reason that Microsoft spends a vast amount of resources unnecessarily creating competing (and even inferior) standards, is to establish dependence on those standards. This dependence is then propagated by the distribution of equally unnecessary bundles of free software, which is not designed to benefit the customer, but is just a delivery vehicle for these standards, which Microsoft can ensure exclusive rights to with the use of patents and copyrights. On the other side, there is Microsoft’s network of partners (nearly the whole distribution channel), ensuring that Windows is bundled with nearly every computer ever built, and suddenly the big picture becomes very clear: Microsoft are in fact engaged in racketeering, with all the angles sewn up so tightly that no competition can possibly be established against them. This, of course, is no accident.
- But as if Microsoft’s despicable behaviour were not bad enough to warrant action against them, there’s also their enforcement of this monopoly (against those few brave souls who attempt to breach it) by using more palpably criminal tactics, like smear campaigns and bribery. In fact they would even go so far as to sabotage charities, just to inhibit the spread of alternatives to Windows and Office, lest those who gain experience of these alternatives should learn the truth … that such alternatives are viable, and therefore Microsoft’s software is completely unnecessary. It is essential to Microsoft’s strategy that most people remain ignorant of the viability of alternatives, which is why they also spend vast resources on propaganda – and yes, it certainly is propaganda. Legitimate advertising usually does not employ such devices as shills, corrupt analysts, fake “recommendations”, and sabotage. As I wrote earlier, Microsoft has refined this into an art form, even to the extent of using political and pseudo-scientific methodologies, to secure their vile agenda of domination. They spread lies that Free Software alternatives to their software is “unamerican” and “communist” in nature, they abuse their power to influence government with so-called lobbying (legalised bribery), they plant supporters, whom they euphemistically refer to as “Technology Evangelists” into every walk of society, to infiltrate and uppress any and all dissent against Microsoft, whilst teams of researchers, in a dark basement, study “Perception Management”, to improve the manipulative effectiveness of the “evangelists” agents working in the field. No, this is not a plot from a John le Carré Cold War story – this is the reality of the Microsoft War Machine – their war on our Freedom, their quest for domination, and this sick right-wing extremist agenda of Corporatism – the doctrine of greedy, selfish, cold-hearted megalomaniacs. It may well be that Microsoft are merely a small part of a greater whole, and that the source of this sickness is actually the fundamentally flawed tenets of American society in general. If so, then that is a rather damning indictment of American society, and it may explain its institutionalised narcissism that causes such fear and loathing of anything perceived to be “unamerican”, such as the hysterically McCarthyistic backlash against the “EU scum”, for their “diabolical deeds” of enforcing law and morality.
“Businesses should provide products, then advertise those products honestly, and allow consumers to choose whether or not they like them.”For those who may be having difficulty conceiving of alternative business methods to the above (i.e. the morally deficient thugs) let me give you a clue. Businesses should provide products, then advertise those products honestly, and allow consumers to choose whether or not they like them. Products should sell on their own merit, and not rely on devices such as deception and sabotage to guarantee sales. The former is a Free Market Economy, the latter is a bunch of animals ripping each other to pieces out of greed. Let’s be humans, not animals. Microsoft needs to be caged or put down, and it’s the European Commission’s job to do it, since the DOJ seems to have relinquished the task out of a misguided sense of loyalty (“unamerican”). If aspiring to gangsterism is what it means to be “American”, then I’ll proudly count myself as one of the “EU scum”, a Free Thinker, and a Free Software advocate.
Executive summary for the attention-deficient:
Channel and Partner racketeering (market saturation of Windows).
Lock-in dependencies on proprietary software and standards.
Corporate guerilla terrorism using false advertising and shills.
Thuggish “enforcement” using bribery, blackmail and sabotage.
The four walls of Microsoft’s monopoly.
Footnote: I wonder if Miguel de Icaza will ever be bold enough to actually state his position on these antitrust investigations and rulings against his friends in Redmond. Well that might be a bit tricky, because he’d either have to condemn or condone their criminal behaviour, and thus take one of those dreaded “black or white” positions that he’s so terrified of. Quite a dilemma, but I think the dilemma is not so much in the choice, as in exposing his true nature – officially that is. █
Article by Slated.
Novell and Xandros Are Promoting Windows, Again
Summary: Novell elevates Windows in datacentres, Xandros wants to live with Windows
IT HAS BEEN a long time since we last pointed out that Novell supports ActiveX, Windows Vista, Internet Explorer, .NET, and even XAML.
Novell’s relationship with Microsoft is simple. Like a relationship where the guy gets love and the woman gets his bank account, in the Novell/Microsoft relationship Novell is given some coupons and endorsement in exchange for GNU/Linux FUD like "IP peace of mind". Additionally, Microsoft advances its APIs with Novell’s help. The examples above include .NET and Silverlight, but there may be more, such as Active Directory. Novell markets this as a necessary bridge while Microsoft uses this to keep regulators away and attract GNU/Linux users to Windows (poaching). When the goal is merely to mimic Windows, then the outcome is naturally inferior for that who is mimicking.
As we wrote some days ago, both Xandros and Novell are giving Microsoft more control over GNU/Linux in the datacentre [1, 2]. Here is the next natural step.
Suse Linux and Windows will become more closely integrated next week, when Novell releases a product allowing Microsoft management tools to monitor the open source operating system.
Novell makes Microsoft the captain in the DC. In simple terms, Novell says that it will help develop a tool that makes GNU/Linux subordinate to Windows where GNU/Linux is already very dominant. Back in 2006 and 2007 Ron Hovsepian insisted that this was part of the arrangement all along. In exchange for cash infusions from Microsoft, Novell will ensure that Windows gains/keeps the upper hand in some areas.
As the article above states, what Novell now boasts are “joint sales of Linux support certificates.” This is just a sophisticated name for “patent protection”. It comes from Microsoft. It is granted only to clients of Novell, but Xandros too has a 'protection' programme. It is worth emphasising that Xandros is "kind of getting away from being a Linux company," to quote its product marketing manager. The company is also assuming that Linspire customers are Windows users whilst selling software that absolutely requires Windows. David at ITWire asks whether Xandros is now “a Microsoft stooge” just like Corel.
Xandros President Michael Bego told DesktopLinux.com that Xandros would announce at the coming LinuxWorld conference a complete desktop solution aimed specifically at low-powered PCs, making it “a practical solution for machines which have no hope of running resource-hungry Microsoft products.”
While such a statement proclaims a chief achievement of Linux, namely its ability to effectively and efficiently run modern software on low-powered hardware, it is surprising and telling by today’s standards that Bego did not also claim Xandros would be a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows on contemporary hardware.
It was not known then but Xandros was soon to become central to one of the greatest farces in Linux history, known as LindowsOS.
[...]
These objectives are good and right. Yet, has Xandros gone too far, becoming a proprietary system of its own? Is Microsoft actually waging a war against Linux through cross-collaboration agreements by diluting the message of open source software and software freedom?
Hence the purpose of Boycott Novell. █
More Cost Cutting and Device Xenophobia at Microsoft
From fimoculous
Summary: Microsoft pressures its employees not to buy from Microsoft’s competition
Microsoft may soon be debt-saddled (if it is not secretly debt-saddled already), but the following article was interesting not due to Microsoft’s cutting of expenses but rather because the company is pressuring employees to use Microsoft products.
Microsofties lose their iPhones
Microsoft’s cost-cutting measures are costing more than just jobs at the software giant – staff are also having to give up their iPhones and BlackBerries.
If employees want to hang onto the devices they’ll have to pay for their own data subscriptions. Redmond will only pick up the bill for a Windows Mobile device – not Palm, not Android, not RIM and certainly not any Mac-based gadgets.
Shades of Microsoft's open source xenophobia and amnesty bins (for iPods). This shows a company which is intolerant of competition.
In other news, SJVN wrote about “The five best things about Vista SP2.” Remember Vista? The operating system Microsoft wants you to forget about?
What are the five best things about Vista SP2?
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Sorry. I couldn’t resist.
On Sunday we looked at two weeks of news headlines, aggregating about 1,500 items. Among those, only 4 contained “Vista” in the headline; over 60 contained “Windows 7″ in the headline. This is called vapourware tactics. █
“The purpose of announcing early like this is to freeze the market at the OEM and ISV level. In this respect it is JUST like the original Windows announcement…
“One might worry that this will help Sun because we will just have vaporware, that people will stop buying 486 machines, that we will have endorsed RISC but not delivered… So, Scott, do you really think you can fight that avalanche?”
Debian is Not Including Mono by Default, Yet
Summary: Refutation of common misconception that irreversible moves have already been made
A FEW DAYS ago we wrote about ongoing discussions in the Debian project — mostly a controversy that arose when some new push was made to put Tomboy inside. According to the leader of Debian, this supposed inclusion of Mono by default is only under “under discussion”. Contrary to some reports, this is not final and people can still enter this debate.
The Debian GNU/Linux distribution may include Mono in its default install, with the project leader Steve McIntyre telling iTWire today that “there’s a chance that it might do, but it’s under discussion at the moment.”
The fight for Mono is often a principles-driven fight — not one which revolves purely on legal and technical considerations. To give a new example, this new blog post shows that Mono is not even necessary. Better programs exist for GNOME (GTK), which do not rely on Mono.
There’s again a whole slew of arguments going back and forth about mono.
Me, I don’t use mono-based applications anymore. I used to be a Blam! user, until I found Liferea. I used to be an f-spot user, until I switched to digiKam. The reason, in both cases, was that the mono-based applications were much, much slower than their non-mono-based alternatives.
The person above is a Debian developer. It is his reasonable and moderate argument where he expresses no special interest in Mono. So why enter this uncertainty in the first place? █
Links 16/06/2009: Fedora 11 Reviewed, Palm Pre GPL Incompliant
Contents
GNU/Linux
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Tim O’Reilly: Open source purists trying to answer the wrong question
And yet, as O’Reilly points out, the open-source world continues to fixate on the wrong battles:
The whole context of free and open-source software is not about Linux taking over the world and replacing Windows. That might even happen, just as the PC replaced the mainframe. And it probably will happen. But it doesn’t change the dynamic….
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I.B.M. to Help Clients Fight Cost and Complexity
In 2000, the Linux operating system was a hot technology, but it had not spread much beyond scientists, researchers and computer programmers. Then I.B.M. declared that it would back Linux with investment, research and marketing, and the technology moved swiftly into the corporate mainstream.
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Trolls and Astroturfers and Shills, Oh My!
The question of Linux vs. Windows suckiness riled the blogosphere this week, with fans questioning the drivers behind the perception that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop and is only suitable for the technologically superior few. Is it a question of user skill levels or marketing talents?
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Desktop
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Leading Chinese PC Company and NComputing Partner to Bring Sub-$150 Computing to Governments and Educational Institutions
The Macedonian government chose Ubuntu Linux for its “one-computer-per-child” program. By combining NComputing virtual desktops with Haier’s scale and price advantage on monitor and host PCs, the joint solution can be offered for 60-75 percent less than traditional desktop PCs or thin clients.
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Thinking Mobile, Summer Style
Earlier this year, I bought an old-issue netbook, a refurbished Asus EEE PC 900A with a 9-inch screen, built-in wireless, no CD-ROM drive and 4-gigabyte drive that barely has enough room to hold the Linux operating system and generic bare-essentials software. It cost $175, or $50 less than my iPod Touch. This is carefree computing: If it’s lost, stolen or damaged this summer, I’ll survive.
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Product Spotlight: System 76 Meerkat NetTop PC
Desktop systems are following the trend set by netbooks by getting smaller and smaller. And it makes perfect sense. Not only do you save space, but in most cases you save on energy costs. System 76, a company producing Linux-based hardware, is offering up an outstanding smaller form-factor PC – the Meerkat NetTop PC.
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ZaReason Ion Breeze 3770
While this is the first NVIDIA ION nettop that we have tested under Linux (along with being the first ZaReason system we have reviewed), we were left being quite pleased with the Ion Breeze 3770. When using the proprietary Linux driver from NVIDIA, the GeForce 9400M GPU works great with an Intel Atom processor and delivers excellent video playback capabilities and is able to even run some games. Aside from faster graphics, when factoring out the other hardware differences with today’s tests, the NVIDIA MCP79 performs about the same as the Intel 945 with ICH7 Southbridge.
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Ubuntu Sucks Like a Shopvac and Other Linux Rants
Almost 100 articles and blogs on the topic of “ubuntu sucks” were published in the past month alone, and about as many were published that unequivocally state Windows is better than Ubuntu.
But upon closer examination, I found that a substantial portion of these negative reactions to Ubuntu stem from unrealistic comparisons.
Almost all of the hurdles people seem to have when switching from Windows to Ubuntu appear to be errors in judgment and assessment, rather than actual problems with the OS.
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Linux in Libraries an Overdue Concept?
Both institutions deal with free materials, yet Linux and libraries haven’t always turned out to be an ideal match, according to Tom Curl, a consultant and entrepreneur with a couple of library implementations to his own credit.
Linux-enabled back-end systems are in very widespread use for cataloging books and other library content, acknowledged Curl, who heads up Medfield, MA-based Enertex Systems. But when it comes to end user terminals, the PCs accessed by patrons in actual physical library settings, Curl considers only a handful of deployments in the US to be real success stories.
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Server
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Aussie SkyMapper Telescope to “open new windows of exploration”
Data hosting will be done on a data storage cloud hosted next to the supercomputer to allow for easy access for data processing. This cloud is based on a hybrid of software and hardware including: SAN QFS software from Sun to help manage the storage domain; virtualization software from VMware; Linux as a core operating system; Solaris ; and databases from MySQL and PostgreSQL.
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Kernel Space
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A Visual Expedition Inside the Linux File Systems
This is an attempt to visualize the relationships among the Linux File Systems through the lens of the external symbols their kernel modules use. We took an initial look a few months back but this time the scope is much broader. This analysis was done on 1377 kernel modules from 2.6.0 to 2.6.29, but there is also a small dip into the BSD world.
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Linux 2.6.30′s best five features
1. Fast boot. Older versions of Linux spend a lot of time scanning for hard drives and other storage devices and then partitions on each of them. This eats up a lot of milliseconds because it looks for them one at a time. With the 2.6.30 boot-up, however, instead of waiting for this to get done the rest of the kernel continues to boot-up. At the same time, the storage devices are being checked in parallel, two or more at a time, to further improve the system’s boot speed.
There are other efforts afoot to speed up Linux’s boot times. The upshot of all this work will be to keep Linux the fastest booting operating system well into the future.
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TTM, Radeon KMS Pull Request Goes In
David Airlie has asked Linus Torvalds to pull in the TTM memory manager and Radeon kernel mode-setting code into the Linux 2.6.31 kernel.
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Applications
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Develop Websites with Bluefish
Linux is at the forefront of web development, and Ubuntu is a great distribution to use to build and design a website for the first time. Recently, I’ve been developing web applications using frameworks, and Linux in general makes these things quite a bit easier. Therefore, I figured I should present some of the basic tools you can use to create, develop, and host a website. This may abstract a bit away from the idea of “applications” in and of themselves, but I thought you may all be interested anyway.
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Dropbox vs Ubuntu-One
My request for using Ubuntu-One Beta was approved by Canonical, so I immediately made a small (& un-scientific) test. I put 13 files, totaling 23,4MB, first in Ubuntu-One and then in Dropbox.
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Upbeat about Updates
Once again I hope you’ve enjoyed this report. I know that I promised a build HOWTO, and it is under construction so stay tuned.
By the way, I’m happy to see that OSC is becoming more popular (developer Nick Copeland may add OSC support to his Bristol synth, mentioned in my previous article) and I hope that more audio software developers utilize it in their work.
This article is dedicated to the memory of my friend Fred Kwis who passed away recently after a lengthy battle with the effects of Parkinson’s disease. Fredy was only a year older than me, and we had been friends since childhood. He was a life-long musician and like an older brother to me. RIP, my friend, I know your spirit is still rockin’ the heavenly house.
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7 of the Best Free Linux Revision Control Tools
Version control systems play an essential role for developers. First up, they allow developers to safely store successive versions of source code. Besides providing a secure backup of the source code, this type of software lets developers revert back to a stable release if subsequent code changes have unforeseen consequences.
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Desktop Environments
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Introducing KDE 4 plasmoids
Plasma, the desktop shell of KDE 4, improves the desktop experience with its simple Plasma applets, plasmoids
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Gnome – The Curtain Is About To Go Up
I was told once by a third party that the reason Nautilus did not include these simple features was because they did not want to be perceived as copying the KDE guys. I honestly hope that isn’t true. If it is, that means the development of the première environment for file management is being fueled by ego.
So given the fact that Gnome via Ubuntu is going to be the face of Linux, what changes do you see as an evolution of the system? Post them here and we’ll cull the best and send them forward. No they probably won’t listen, but you can’t give up until you try at least once. You people are pretty smart…we’d like to know what your ideas are.
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Screenshots with Xfce
The Xfce Screenshooter for the Xfce desktop with the current Version 1.6.0 has no cause to fear the competition.
With Version 1.6.0 of Xfce4 Screenshooter, Xfce has gained considerable ground against Gnome and KDE when dealing with screenshot capabilities. The option to choose using the mouse pointer to hide or to display aspects over the graphic user interface is a new one.
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Distributions
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Fedora
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Fedora 11′s Biggest Improvements Are in Virtualization, eWEEK Labs Finds
Fedora 11 provides a sneak peak at what’s coming in the more staid and stable Red Hat Enterprise Linux. During tests, eWEEK Labs found that the biggest improvements in Fedora 11 come in the area of virtualization, although Fedora still lags systems from VMware in functionality and polish. Fedora will also serve well in desktop roles, but will need more care and feeding than other desktop Linux distros.
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Linux & Open Source: Labs Gallery: Fedora 11 Shows Significant Virtualization Gains
Fedora 11, the latest release of Red Hat’s community-oriented Linux OS, can serve in a full gamut of Linux roles on the server and desktop. And, as usual, Fedora 11 gives users of Red Hat Enterprise Linux an early look at what’s to come in their operating system of choice. In my review of Fedora 11, I took note of the distribution’s improvements around virtualization, where Fedora boasts improved facilities for creating, accessing and managing virtual machines across multiple hosts.
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Ubuntu
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Canonical to boost Ubuntu usability by tackling “papercuts”
Canonical aims to improve the Ubuntu user experience by fixing a multitude of minor usability glitches. The project, which is called One Hundred Paper Cuts, will entail a collaborative effort by Canonical’s new design team and the Ubuntu community to fix one hundred usability bugs before the release of Ubuntu 9.10.
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Taking Gloria out for a spin: A review of Linux Mint 7.0
The main point of the review is that I personally consider Linux Mint as the easiest distribution for new Linux users. Everything has been thought out to make the transition easy for those users without sacrificing what makes Linux unique. Nice touches like the screenshots in the software manager show a level of polish and user friendliness rarely seen in a Linux distribution. Linux Mint is also interesting for more advanced users that want a distribution that install quickly and include all the multimedia components without the need of adding codecs and flash from the repositories. If Linux Mint continues to provide such high quality releases I may well switch back from Ubuntu by the time of the next Long Term Support release.
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Devices/Embedded
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Silicon Turnkey Express Selects Timesys’ LinuxLink as Default Linux Environment for ADS512102 Platform
Timesys Corporation (http://www.timesys.com), a premier provider of embedded Linux software solutions, today announced it has been selected by Silicon Turnkey Express (STx) as their Linux partner in enabling and supporting open source Linux for their ADS512102 board.
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Chip vendor spins multi-core networking security stack
Freescale Semiconductor announced the availability of Linux-ready embedded software that provides security and networking functionality tailored for its multi-core, PowerPC-based QorIQ and PowerQUICC system-on-chips (SoCs). The “production-ready, application-level” Vortiqa software provides a base platform for developing firewall, IPSec-VPN, IPS, anti-virus, and anti-spam software, says the company.
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Palm
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More Pre Hacks and Inner Details Revealed
PIC: This means use of the Pre as a full-fledged Linux computer is/will be quite doable – and it won’t interfere with the built-in Palm stuff?
RW: Correct. Exactly that.
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Native Linux Nintendo Emulation for Palm Pre
It seems that some more details on the capabilities of the newly launched Palm Pre and on its webOS platform have made it into the wild, and among them the fact that the handset can easily run unsigned firmware, a piece of information coming from the iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith. A wide range of other things that the handset is capable of have made it into the wild as well, though it seems that some hacking skills are required to be able to access some of them.
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Palm Pre is shipping GPL incompliant
As it has been reported at many places online, the Palm Pre has started to ship as a CDMA model in the United States. However, as it seems, at this time it is not GPL compliant and thus a copyright infringement!
The Pre undoubtedly contains Linux and other GPL licensed software. So it ships with the GPL license text as well as a written offer indicating to obtain the source code. So far so good.
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Dell Ready to Deal for Palm?
Michael Dell has a few bucks burning a hole in his pocket. But is a company hanging on by one product the best place for his money?
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A New Hope For Smartphones
The Pre’s system software, based on the open-source Linux operating system, stayed responsive most of the time, although music playback stuttered once as I launched its camera program. Once the Pre’s working memory fills up, it won’t let you run any more programs but will advise, “Dismiss unused cards to free memory.”
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Android
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eReader on Android Soon, Planned for Palm Pre Later
Google Android handset owners can expect eReader availability in “mid- to late summer,” according to TeleRead. They spoke to Scott Pendergrast of Fictionwise, which is owned by Barnes & Noble.
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Android Headlines: The Hits Just Keep Comin’
There are approximately 30 new Android handsets coming from top manufacturers this year, several companies are putting Android on netbooks (a hot hardware category), and there are even new strains of Android appearing. Here are just a few of the notable Android developments from the past few days.
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Google Maps for Android: Speak and Ye Shall Find
It’s about to get a whole lot noisier in the real “land of the lost.” Google just outed a Maps update for Android handset owners, and one of the new features is voice search. Unlike prior updates, this one won’t be pushed out over-the-air. Instead, you’ll need to hit up the Android Marketplace and download it. Once you do, you’ll have not only the voice search, but some other digital cartography goodies as well.
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Sub-notebooks
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ARM Android netbooks more “snappy” than Windows 7 on Atom say analysts
Of course, there’s a big leap from snappy performance to an appealing platform, and that’s something that Linux still needs to address for mainstream users. Sales figures of Windows and non-Android Linux netbooks suggest that buyers are willing to put up with slower performance in return for the familiarity and app-flexibility of Microsoft-based devices. Internet browsing, while perhaps the netbook’s primary purpose, is not all the budget ultraportables are used for; similarly, the absence of Flash support for ARM processors could prove a major stumbling block for an audience used to streaming video content.
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Free Software/Open Source
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Cloud computing and open source face-off
And Linux will make IBM money when used in cloud-based products which are metered to customers, often by the hour. One big reason that open source will help fuel the rise of cloud computing, while often becoming second fiddle to platforms in the cloud, is that software is only a component of a computing environment, albeit an expensive one and cloud economics almost always favor the incorporation of open source products. However, something that open source has only been partially successful at incorporating as a value creator (essentially, only the cost of development) is what IBM’s Sutor clearly stated: economies of scale.
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OpenBSD Enters “I’m a Mac/PC” Ad Campaign War
Calgary, Alberta – Theo De Raadt, founder of the security-minded OpenBSD operating system, has announced plans to launch a series of television commercials to battle software giants Microsoft and Apple.
From the beginning of the first “I’m a Mac…” ad, OpenBSD has seen a sharp decline in users from the hip 18-35 demographic. As Microsoft and Apple have slugged it out on the television set, OpenBSD has seen fewer and fewer installations from sorority girls, coffee shop denizens, and young entrepreneurs.
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Open source vs Microsoft: further progress in Switzerland
The Swiss Open Systems User Group and the canton of Berne treasurer’s office have reached a rapprochement. The open source advocacy group had criticised the fact that a contract for revamping the canton’s 14,000 workstations was awarded to Microsoft without a tendering process. Although the canton is insisting that the contract should stand, the Swiss Open Systems User Group has decided not to pursue the case in the courts.
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Firefox.next peek: profiling yourself
One of the features planned for the next version of Firefox (tentatively named Firefox 3.6, but most accurately referred as Firefox.next) is about:me, a specially crafted web page that will let you see your browsing habits profile including most visited sites, time of the day and days you navigate most, how you access sites.
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Something very special happened – The birth of the first official FLOSS nonprofit organization in Romania?
Something very special happened after eLiberatica 2009 ended; I’m talking here about the initiative to organize a nonprofit organization that would support and help Free Software and Open Source spread in Romania.
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Google Wave Extensions: An Inside Look
It’s undeniable: Google Wave has captured the imagination of techies, social media enthusiasts, and web users everywhere. Its combination of email, real-time chat, wiki tools, and social networking have generated an incredible amount of buzz.
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Hemlock: An Open-Source Real-Time Web Platform
Hemlock, a new open-source framework for building real time web apps in Flash with an XMPP back-end has been released by MintDigital, a development shop in London and New York. Real time apps that use efficient methods of communicating information between the browser and the server are all the rage these days. Now Flash developers will have an easy way to get in the game.
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Commercial and Open Source Options: A Strategic College-Wide Initiative
In hindsight, Wellesley’s comprehensive approach and methodical process enabled them to make a truly educated choice. Their diligent requirements gathering efforts gave them the confidence to choose a solution that would address not only their immediate needs but also serve the institution well into the future. Their willingness to consider a variety of commercial, open source and commercial open source options enabled them to find a solution that not only met their functional requirements, but was extremely cost-effective as well.
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Cos switch to open source technologies to cut costs
Indian enterprises, private and public, are opening up to saving costs by using free for use technologies. Governments, institutions and companies are increasingly turning to open source technologies to turn frugal as these softwares, hardwares and applications are often free but also to avoid falling into the trap of a proprietary IT environment.
[...]
“We invested only about Rs 8 lakh (Rs 4 lakh for a Dell server). We will incur a saving of Rs 50 lakh, because of a migration from a proprietary software to an open ERP solution running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on Dell X86 servers,” says Mankotia.
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How to Sponsor an Open Source Sprint
Your company’s IT department probably depends on at least one open source application. The software does the job, is budget-friendly, and it has an active open source community which is constantly upgrading the application. But few applications are perfect, whether proprietary or open source. While the software may do most of what your business needs, you may consider having a few in-house developers add customizations. That’s a perfectly reasonable idea. But there may be a better way that benefits the community, is dirt cheap, and oh yeah – is also fun.
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Indiana District Funds Classroom Makeovers with Open Source Savings
Indiana’s Michigan City Area Schools is in the midst of renovating hundreds of classrooms at fourteen school sites. Through a new technology initiative, called HiTEC (“High Technology Educational Classroom”), the district is outfitting its classrooms with a wide range of interactive A/V technologies and control systems and funding the whole thing through savings realized through an open source initiative.
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NSC stresses importance of open source software
A sophisticated electric walking cane for the blind is ready for mass production by this summer, the National Science Council (NSC) said yesterday, stressing the need for increased development and training for open source software (OSS) technologies.
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Events
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Event: FOSS Fans to Gather at Open World Forum in Paris
Forget Paris in the spring. Do it in the Fall this year, particularly if you are involved, interested or even vaguely curious about open source software.
That’s because in October, the second Open World Forum with the Open Source Think Tank will take place in Paris and bring together the key global players in the Free, Libre and Open Software (FLOSS) community.
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Open Web Vancouver 2009: Open Source Business
Liza Kindred of Lullabot (news, site) began her talk at the Open Web Vancouver conference on open source business with a video of Dr. Vandana Shiva discussing saving seeds to preserve the right of farmers to grow their crops the way they have for thousands of years. Dr. Shiva referred to this practice of preserving traditional knowledge as open seeds, and compared it to open source.
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LinuxFest to highlight open-source software
Twenty of the biggest brains in open-source software will descend on Clemson University Saturday for the SouthEast LinuxFest. Open-source programs differ from commercial software in that the former can be tweaked by virtually anyone. And they’re free.
The open-source alternative for Windows, for instance, is Linux. A popular open-source alternative for Internet Explorer is Firefox. Several cell phones run on open-source platforms.
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Business
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Ingres “code sprint” yields new features
Among the new features created at the event were a compressed backup option to save space when archiving databases, an enforced logging system for databases and the ability to suspend logging when copying a database, a command line history for the Ingres SQL utility and improved Soundex routines for better matching. Emma McGratten of Ingres, who organised the sprint said “It’s a testament to the open source community when we can get together and make improvements on features and programs that are being used every day, by the people who depend on them”.
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Over 10 Ways to Find Paying Work in the Open Source Arena
Despite some encouraging upticks, the economy is still suffering, and many people are out of work. This is also the time of year when new graduates from college get set to find jobs, many of them looking for tech opportunities. The good news is that there are jobs available all over the open source community, and open source skills can be very valuable in a career.
[...]
Red Hat always has many jobs available, but you can even find many open source-focused positions at big Internet companies such as Yahoo. Yahoo makes extensive use of open source technologies such as Hadoop (which underlies its search technology), and usually has positions available for serving these efforts.
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SRI LANKA OPEN SOURCE FIRM STARTS FREE ‘SUMMER SCHOOL’
WSO2, a Sri Lankan software firm, is starting a free ‘summer school’ this month on open source software and service oriented architecture (SOA), the company said.
The eight week program will help at enterprise IT architects and developers to become more familiar with SOA concepts, technologies and best practices, the company said.
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KnowledgeTree Updates Open Source ECM, Adds Key Enterprise Features
Open Source solutions seem to be in high demand in this down economy. So what do open source enterprise content management providers do to meet this demand? They add new features and functionality of course. At least that is what KnowledgeTree (news, site) has done.
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KnowledgeTree Makes Upgrades to its Open Source Document Manager
KnowledgeTree, the open source document management system for the enterprise, has a new release featuring some small but significant updates to their software.
In the 3.6.1 version announced yesterday, KnowledgeTree has ramped up their alerts feature with specification by document type, and added configurable electronic signatures, easing the burden of regulatory compliance.
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Yahoo releases parallel software
Web search pioneer Yahoo officially released its source code for Hadoop, a parallel programming framework many see as the key ingredient for cloud computing services. The software could fuel a broad class of future Web-based applications, said an IBM executive at the second-annual Hadoop Summit.
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Yahoo Releases Hadoop Source Code
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Government
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BE: Government publishes source code for election software
The Belgian government this week has made available to the public the source code of the applications used for the regional and European elections held on 7 June, Digivote and Jites.
The same software will be used in upcoming elections.
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NHS tech agency touts use of open source
NHS Connecting for Health is using open source to collaborate with other countries’ health services in building specialist informatics software.
Ken Lunn, CfH’s director of data standards and products, said the organisation is agnostic towards open-source software, and uses it where it makes sense to do so.
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Openness
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The Size of the Public Domain
Having already obtained estimates of the number of items (publications) produced each year based on library catalogue data our next step is to convert this into an estimate of the “size” of the public domain. (NB: as already discussed, “size” could mean several different things. Here, at least to start with, we’re going to take the simplest and crudest approach and equate size with number of publications/items.)
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Riversimple to Unveil Open Source Car in London This Month
The idea to build an open source car isn’t a new one, but you’ve got to give vehicle design company Riversimple credit for originality. The company plans to unveil its first car in London later this month, a small two-seater that weighs roughly 700 pounds. If you agree to lease one for 20 years (yes, 20), Riversimple will throw in the cost of fuel for the lifetime of the lease.
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Hyrban: The Open-Source Hydrogen Car
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The world’s first Open Access Mandate?
In the process of writing something about the current state of Open Access (OA) mandates I became intrigued by the mandate introduced at Geneva-based particle physics laboratory CERN.
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United Nation launches world’s first free online university
For hundreds of millions of people around the world higher education is no more than a dream. The United Nations hope to make this dream a reality with their global tuition-free online University.
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Wikipedia begins content licence migration
The free internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia is beginning its licence migration today. In the future, the content of Wikipedia will be dual licensed, under the current GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL) and under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike 3.0 (CC-BY-SA). The update is beginning with the English Wikipedia projects, as a reference implementation of the licence change, and will expand to Wikipedia in other languages in the near future. From this point on, GFDL-only licensed content will no longer be accepted.
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Open Source Embroidery: Technology Embraces Its Craft Side
A legitimate artistic movement known as Open Source Embroidery has sprung up to explore the relationship between, no joke, software engineering and needlework. It’s pretty awesome.
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Geek Art: Needlework Brings Together Programmers, Crafters
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Open Source Robotics Venture Shows the Way Forward
First, look at the team behind it. Willow Garage founded by Scott Hassan (one of the designers of the original Google search engine) has set out to develop both the hardware and software for personal robots unlike any previous venture. By promoting an open source and open platform approach they are pulling in ideas and assistance from specialists in North America and Europe.
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Leftovers
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Censorship/Web Abuse
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Virgin Territory, Perhaps, but Still not a Universal Solution
The really problematic part is at the end: “No customers will be permanently disconnected and the process will not depend on network monitoring or interception of customer traffic by Virgin Media.” Well, yes, but intermittent disconnection is just as bad: if you don’t know when your connection is available it becomes pretty useless. Similarly, you have to wonder how Virgin Media will know who to disconnect in this way, if they are not monitoring or intercepting traffic. The worst case would be if they just took Universal’s word for it, pretty much along the lines of the increasingly-discredited “three strikes and you’re out” in France.
So, although there is much to welcome in this announcement, it represents just the first baby steps towards a full and fair solution.
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Into the DTV era, with no broadcast flag mandate
Just a few years ago, some broadcasters and movie studios argued that this transition couldn’t happen without a DRM mandate — a legal requirement for devices to obey the broadcast flag and apply DRM restrictions to free, over-the-air broadcasts. And they said they would hold up and obstruct this transition unless they got their way.
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BT Throttling Online Video For Competitive, Not Congestion, Reasons
Case in point? BT. The British telco is starting to heavily throttle all video — especially the BBC’s online video player. This is the same BT, by the way, that just two years ago was saying there was no need to traffic shape or break net neutrality, and that it could handle all traffic issues with basic upgrades. So what happened? Well, it appears BT didn’t like the competition from online video providers, so it decided to pretend it needed to do this for congestion purposes.
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Bell Canada Shuts Down Crappy Video Store That No One Used… But It’s Still Throttling
Apparently, it took all of a year for Bell Canada to realize that it wasn’t getting any use whatsoever, and Joe McEnaney points out that Bell Canada has quietly shut down the site… though, it’s still throttling traffic from resellers. Maybe, next time, instead of trying to limit competitors and offer something crappy, Bell could spend its resources investing in bandwidth. That would have made everyone a lot happier.
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Copyrights
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Court Orders P2P News Site To Dishonor Convicted Pirates
Following a request from the entertainment industries, a French court has ordered the P2P news site Numerama to cover the cases of 27 convicted file-sharers. For their efforts the site receives 10,000 euros which they promise to spend wisely by supporting a pro file-sharing cause.
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Media Analyst Calls Hulu ‘Anti-American’ For Providing Free Content
We see all sorts of confused analysis when it comes to how “free” works in economics — which goes back to our assertion that the human brain tends to run into a mental block when it encounters a zero and rather than recognize the rest of the economic equation, it just pops out an error message. That’s the only explanation I can find for the so-called analysis by Media Metrics’ Laura Martin of how Hulu is “anti-consumer, anti-media employees, and even anti-America” and supposedly putting $300 billion worth of market value “at risk” (thanks Ben for sending this in).
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Obama Administration Reiterates Its Support Of Secretive, Industry Written ACTA
We’ve been bothered by the incredibly secretive (except if you happen to be in the entertainment industry) ACTA Treaty negotiations for quite some time now. This is the industry-led effort to get a bunch of nations to agree to draconian and damaging new copyright laws by sneaking them through as a secretive “international treaty,” such that countries are then compelled to change their copyright laws to “be in compliance with international agreements.” It’s a really sneaky trick that Hollywood has used for years.
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Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day
Digital Tipping Point: Kina Grannis, YouTube celebrity 01 (2007)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
Case Study: The Harms of Mono
The following chat took place 2 hours ago. Someone who goes by the name “IsBob” shared his story. Here are the unedited logs, which are hopefully as self-explanatory as they need be. █
| *IsBob () has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:01 | |
| splosion | https://www.furk.net/ here | Jun 16 11:01 |
|---|---|---|
| IsBob | hi there | Jun 16 11:01 |
| DaemonMDV | you know that Ubuntu has used a DMCA Take Down order once? | Jun 16 11:02 |
| DaemonMDV | ironically it was used against the MPAA | Jun 16 11:02 |
| DaemonMDV | so I’m all for it | Jun 16 11:02 |
| *fewa has quit (Read error: 60 (Operation timed out)) | Jun 16 11:03 | |
| DaemonMDV | the MPAA was distributing a “University anti-piracy toolkit” which used Xubuntu as its base | Jun 16 11:03 |
| DaemonMDV | in violation of the GPL | Jun 16 11:03 |
| DaemonMDV | so Ubuntu ordered them to remove it from their site | Jun 16 11:03 |
| DaemonMDV | which they did | Jun 16 11:03 |
| IsBob | I’m looking for some advice | Jun 16 11:04 |
| IsBob | my boss asked me (not directly of course) to make some public statements about Mono | Jun 16 11:04 |
| IsBob | we’re in a deal with Microsoft currently | Jun 16 11:04 |
| IsBob | the idea is to help a client migrate from Mono to pure .NET | Jun 16 11:05 |
| IsBob | and well, they found the ongoing fuss about Mono is not helping our company’s image | Jun 16 11:05 |
| IsBob | the fact is, I’m not comfortable with doing such things | Jun 16 11:06 |
| schestowitz | Hi, IsBob | Jun 16 11:06 |
| schestowitz | What advice do you need? | Jun 16 11:07 |
| schestowitz | And how do I know that you’re not pulling our leg? | Jun 16 11:07 |
| IsBob | huh? | Jun 16 11:07 |
| schestowitz | We’ve been trolled a lot recently | Jun 16 11:07 |
| IsBob | My problem is, I’m in an untenable position now | Jun 16 11:07 |
| schestowitz | So I am being cautious | Jun 16 11:07 |
| schestowitz | A company using Mono does not have a problem | Jun 16 11:08 |
| IsBob | I’ve made some public statements about Mono and how Microsoft intends to use it | Jun 16 11:08 |
| schestowitz | Not in the sense of public image | Jun 16 11:08 |
| schestowitz | The issue is with packagers who want to force people to spread it | Jun 16 11:08 |
| schestowitz | Not with users | Jun 16 11:08 |
| IsBob | and now, either I have to rescind them, or I risk being in a very bad position with my management | Jun 16 11:08 |
| *mib_q79ffb has quit (“http://www.mibbit.com ajax IRC Client”) | Jun 16 11:08 | |
| schestowitz | Microsoft spreads its API | Jun 16 11:09 |
| schestowitz | Mono is good for Microsoft | Jun 16 11:09 |
| schestowitz | For more than one reason | Jun 16 11:09 |
| IsBob | I know all of that, I’ve seen it from the inside | Jun 16 11:09 |
| schestowitz | it is preferable to use Java, Python, Perl, CGI, etc. | Jun 16 11:09 |
| schestowitz | Depending on the area of use | Jun 16 11:09 |
| schestowitz | Mono is about monoculture | Jun 16 11:09 |
| schestowitz | Making all enterprise do it the One Microsoft Way | Jun 16 11:10 |
| schestowitz | c#, AD, VS, XAML, erc. | Jun 16 11:10 |
| schestowitz | *etc | Jun 16 11:10 |
| *oiaohm (n=oiaohm@unaffiliated/oiaohm) has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:10 | |
| schestowitz | Hi, oiaohm | Jun 16 11:12 |
| IsBob | schestowitz: I’ve tried to explain that to my management; we used to have our clients work on free software, and now we’re stuck in a deal where we’re making them migrate away | Jun 16 11:14 |
| oiaohm | Hi schestowitz | Jun 16 11:15 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: how deep is this dependency on Mono? | Jun 16 11:16 |
| *Tallken (n=f2f93bf5@2001:690:2380:7770:21b:24ff:fed0:3f98) has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:17 | |
| schestowitz | If it’s some C# code, then you can still port to Java | Jun 16 11:17 |
| schestowitz | Oracle is very committed to Java | Jun 16 11:17 |
| schestowitz | It’s one of the main reasons for oracle buying SUN. I read last year that Ellison wanted to rip .NET apart | Jun 16 11:17 |
| IsBob | there are 500 kloc already, it’s way too late to migrate to another language | Jun 16 11:18 |
| schestowitz | Oracle is about as big as Microsoft and its market cap is not muchly shy. In fact, Oracle just deliberately spends a lot less on marketing… | Jun 16 11:18 |
| IsBob | but anyway, that’s not my problem right now | Jun 16 11:18 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: what’s running it? Mono? | Jun 16 11:19 |
| schestowitz | Mono is a ramp for VS+.NET adoption | Jun 16 11:19 |
| schestowitz | Mono too slow? | Jun 16 11:19 |
| schestowitz | Migrate to .NET | Jun 16 11:19 |
| schestowitz | Like free supper | Jun 16 11:19 |
| IsBob | currently Mono, and we’re migrating to .Net yes | Jun 16 11:19 |
| schestowitz | Or trial versionware | Jun 16 11:19 |
| *mib_v1wqax (i=4e965300@gateway/web/ajax/mibbit.com/x-facdafd52c83c84f) has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:19 | |
| schestowitz | Oracle might do something similar with mysql | Jun 16 11:19 |
| IsBob | my problem is about my management wanting me to do public statements I disagree with | Jun 16 11:20 |
| schestowitz | Why migrate to .NET? I’m curious. | Jun 16 11:20 |
| oiaohm | IsBob: remember this year websites that can run ofline is coming. | Jun 16 11:20 |
| IsBob | I’m not sure why, since M$ made a deal with our client they’ve been pretty elusive about that | Jun 16 11:21 |
| oiaohm | I am looking at it for a lot of client side work internal. OS netural and will need nothering more than a Upto date webbrowser installed. | Jun 16 11:21 |
| IsBob | one of my co-workers suspects they paid a big trip to Hawaii for some of the managers of our client | Jun 16 11:21 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: so you think they might come to them and say “look, you’re using our IP and all, so either you pay or move to .NET?” | Jun 16 11:21 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: yes, Microsoft gifts people | Jun 16 11:22 |
| schestowitz | It’s a form of bribe | Jun 16 11:22 |
| IsBob | clearly | Jun 16 11:22 |
| schestowitz | Common. Many examples in MS’c ase | Jun 16 11:22 |
| schestowitz | *MS’s | Jun 16 11:22 |
| IsBob | I don’t think they might do it, i think they already did | Jun 16 11:22 |
| schestowitz | Mono is a ramp | Jun 16 11:22 |
| IsBob | assorted with a nice “gift” | Jun 16 11:22 |
| oiaohm | You are aware as of yet mono does not work on arm and mips. | Jun 16 11:22 |
| schestowitz | had they used Java, migration would be complicated | Jun 16 11:22 |
| schestowitz | But this is EEE – embrace, extend… | Jun 16 11:23 |
| oiaohm | So clients are being locked out of furture more power effective client options IsBob | Jun 16 11:23 |
| oiaohm | There are technical issues with mono. | Jun 16 11:23 |
| oiaohm | That can be targetted avoiding the complete IP issue. | Jun 16 11:24 |
| *mib_v1wqax has quit (Client Quit) | Jun 16 11:24 | |
| *mib_kcgay0 (i=4e965300@gateway/web/ajax/mibbit.com/x-fac017cbd0fac013) has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:24 | |
| DaemonMDV | http://www.macworld.com/article/137… | Jun 16 11:24 |
| DaemonMDV | The guy buys 2,419 DRM’d 129k tracks | Jun 16 11:25 |
| *mib_kcgay0 has quit (Client Quit) | Jun 16 11:25 | |
| IsBob | my N+2 ordered a complete blackout about what happened, and we’re strongly “encouraged” to publish things that will increase Mono’s acceptance | Jun 16 11:25 |
| DaemonMDV | then complains that he was cheated when Apple wants more money to upgrade him to what he should have had in the first place | Jun 16 11:25 |
| DaemonMDV | (256k no DRM) | Jun 16 11:25 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: encouraged by whom? | Jun 16 11:25 |
| schestowitz | Novell? Microsoft? | Jun 16 11:26 |
| IsBob | by our management | Jun 16 11:26 |
| DaemonMDV | dear god, if he has $2500 to spend on iTunes tracks, you’d think 30 cents apiece would be easy to fork over | Jun 16 11:26 |
| DaemonMDV |  |
Jun 16 11:26 |
| IsBob | not sure who’s behind | Jun 16 11:26 |
| IsBob | of course we already have a big contract with Novell | Jun 16 11:26 |
| schestowitz | It’s the same with MS/Novell cotnracts | Jun 16 11:26 |
| schestowitz | I know cause I was told | Jun 16 11:26 |
| IsBob | and they probably don’t want to have to renegociate it | Jun 16 11:26 |
| schestowitz | They go to clients… | Jun 16 11:26 |
| splosion | be a whistleblower. this is the sort of thing wikileaks was invented for | Jun 16 11:26 |
| schestowitz | And they tell them to put “IP” in the press releases | Jun 16 11:26 |
| schestowitz | As in, we’ll sell you SUSE coupons at a discount is you publicly promote these | Jun 16 11:27 |
| DaemonMDV | yeah, of course you will no doubt be fired if they figure out it was you | Jun 16 11:27 |
| schestowitz | I.e. promote ‘Linux tax’ (MS patents | Jun 16 11:27 |
| IsBob | splosion: I’m pretty sure I could be identified very quickly if anything leaks | Jun 16 11:27 |
| schestowitz | For a bribe | Jun 16 11:27 |
| DaemonMDV | (goes without saying) | Jun 16 11:27 |
| IsBob | I already made some statements against Mono and M$ in the past | Jun 16 11:27 |
| oiaohm | Does not matter really IsBob. IBM is gearing up to go after the Small business market with Linux. | Jun 16 11:27 |
| schestowitz | splosion: +1 | Jun 16 11:27 |
| splosion | IsBob: bummer | Jun 16 11:27 |
| DaemonMDV | Easy URPMI is still not back up | Jun 16 11:28 |
| DaemonMDV | odd | Jun 16 11:28 |
| oiaohm | Basically your bosses should be asking who is going to win. IBM and Orcale or MS. | Jun 16 11:28 |
| DaemonMDV | but shows how much people depend on less than legal stuff | Jun 16 11:28 |
| DaemonMDV | frankly it kind of sickens me that Vorbis is free and hardly anything uses it | Jun 16 11:29 |
| schestowitz | So basically, Microsoft lets Linux embrace .NET | Jun 16 11:29 |
| schestowitz | Then it can start shouting “IP” and “thieves” and offer .NET (Windows only) | Jun 16 11:29 |
| schestowitz | It’s so predictable | Jun 16 11:29 |
| oiaohm | Both Orcale and IBM have cards in play schestowitz. | Jun 16 11:29 |
| oiaohm | As with all battles there are some wins and some losses. | Jun 16 11:30 |
| DaemonMDV | I found out this Sansa thing is a PlaysForSure device | Jun 16 11:30 |
| DaemonMDV | probably why it’s so unfriendly with non-Microsoft media players trying to sync it | Jun 16 11:30 |
| oiaohm | In the scale of importance a few wins here and there for .net are not going to help MS long term. | Jun 16 11:30 |
| IsBob | schestowitz: so I will probably have to make public statements about Mono soon | Jun 16 11:31 |
| IsBob | and I wonder how many of the similar statements we’ve seen recently have been made by people in the same situation | Jun 16 11:31 |
| oiaohm | Can you still cover emerging techs IsBob | Jun 16 11:31 |
| oiaohm | like vala from gnome and state of samba. | Jun 16 11:31 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: bought opinions | Jun 16 11:32 |
| schestowitz | Microsoft does lots of it | Jun 16 11:32 |
| schestowitz | E.g. Tesco example from last week in BN | Jun 16 11:32 |
| schestowitz | ASUS’ fake “Windows is better” | Jun 16 11:32 |
| schestowitz | “vendor recommends Vista” (Microsoft bribes for this too) | Jun 16 11:32 |
| oiaohm | Creativity the say not to say anything bad against mono. There is nothing stopping talking about the competing techs. | Jun 16 11:32 |
| DaemonMDV | of course it is, you know just what to expect out of it | Jun 16 11:32 |
| DaemonMDV | *cough* | Jun 16 11:32 |
| schestowitz | “We’re interested in IP peace of mind” (not exact quote) | Jun 16 11:32 |
| schestowitz | But I never expected better from a company of thugs | Jun 16 11:33 |
| schestowitz | Bribing people to utters marketing lies | Jun 16 11:33 |
| IsBob | I wonder whether similar things are happening at Canonical, given their recent moves | Jun 16 11:33 |
| schestowitz | And later they point to it.. | Jun 16 11:33 |
| schestowitz | And say… | Jun 16 11:33 |
| DaemonMDV | schestowitz: According to Alexa’s site rank, almost every Linux-related site is going up | Jun 16 11:33 |
| schestowitz | “Look, Dell recommends Vista” | Jun 16 11:33 |
| DaemonMDV | but Microsoft.com has gone down over 5% | Jun 16 11:33 |
| schestowitz | and “HP recommends Vista” | Jun 16 11:33 |
| DaemonMDV | in this quarter | Jun 16 11:33 |
| schestowitz | And “everyone loves Mono” | Jun 16 11:34 |
| DaemonMDV | despite all the Windows 7 blitz | Jun 16 11:34 |
| schestowitz | “Lyons and Enderle and Didio say that SCO is going to win the trial” | Jun 16 11:34 |
| schestowitz | Don’t get me started on the Vista7 slog | Jun 16 11:34 |
| schestowitz | They bribe bloggers | Jun 16 11:34 |
| schestowitz | They bribe journalists | Jun 16 11:34 |
| DaemonMDV | it still dwarfs any Linux distro’s website hits | Jun 16 11:34 |
| schestowitz | And they attack those who say the truth | Jun 16 11:34 |
| DaemonMDV | but it is on the way down | Jun 16 11:34 |
| oiaohm | Are those hits counting windows update DaemonMDV | Jun 16 11:35 |
| schestowitz | It plays dirtty | Jun 16 11:35 |
| schestowitz | [on its way down] | Jun 16 11:35 |
| DaemonMDV | well, that’s not good for them, that their site is getting less popular despite so much advertising | Jun 16 11:35 |
| DaemonMDV | no | Jun 16 11:35 |
| DaemonMDV | only browsers | Jun 16 11:35 |
| DaemonMDV | Microsoft.com is the 18th most trafficked site in the United States | Jun 16 11:36 |
| IsBob | it pains me to see all of that because I’m exactly in the same situation, with hands tied | Jun 16 11:36 |
| DaemonMDV | Ubuntu was like 2400-something | Jun 16 11:36 |
| schestowitz | Windows Update is Akamai (Linux) | Jun 16 11:36 |
| IsBob | I wonder what we can do to stop people from using that Mono crap | Jun 16 11:36 |
| schestowitz | DaemonMDV: nope | Jun 16 11:36 |
| schestowitz | Alexa is no gold standard | Jun 16 11:36 |
| oiaohm | People finding out information on patches from windows update show up as hits DaemonMDV if it covering technet. | Jun 16 11:36 |
| schestowitz | It’s stupid to even make it believable | Jun 16 11:36 |
| schestowitz | IsBob: join the fight | Jun 16 11:36 |
| DaemonMDV | technet is a different domain | Jun 16 11:36 |
| schestowitz | Expose what you can | Jun 16 11:37 |
| schestowitz | It’s possible to do both | Jun 16 11:37 |
| schestowitz | Do the job and leaking the truth | Jun 16 11:37 |
| schestowitz | Many things in BN are based on whistle blowers | Jun 16 11:37 |
| oiaohm | Just had to ask some stats sites group them DaemonMDV. | Jun 16 11:37 |
| *PetoKraus (n=pk@fsf/member/petokraus) has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:37 | |
| oiaohm | IsBob: when you are forbin to talk about something always ask what you are not forbin to talk about. | Jun 16 11:37 |
| oiaohm | sometimes the not forbin can block what you are forbin to talk about. | Jun 16 11:38 |
| schestowitz | Forbidden = “we are doing something bad” | Jun 16 11:38 |
| schestowitz | Or “don’t ask” | Jun 16 11:38 |
| schestowitz | Honest people work openly | Jun 16 11:38 |
| schestowitz | Like here in BN | Jun 16 11:38 |
| schestowitz | We don’t do PMs | Jun 16 11:39 |
| schestowitz | And some people still try to trip us up this way | Jun 16 11:39 |
| oiaohm | I have had to work under all sorts of different conditions. | Jun 16 11:39 |
| DaemonMDV | http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/06/15/th… | Jun 16 11:40 |
| oiaohm | Lot of times taking a positive line in a different direction is simpler than dispute and still can be long term effective. | Jun 16 11:40 |
| DaemonMDV | Also, the comments on the Times Web site are truly disheartening: “This invention is stupid die die die.” Calm down, sirs. | Jun 16 11:40 |
| DaemonMDV | lmao | Jun 16 11:40 |
| oiaohm | God that knife is useless. | Jun 16 11:41 |
| oiaohm | Slash stab method would still work perfectly with it. | Jun 16 11:41 |
| DaemonMDV | well, it was invented in Sweden to be sold in the UK | Jun 16 11:43 |
| DaemonMDV | can’t really go too hard on it | Jun 16 11:43 |
| oiaohm | Besides I do use the point of knife when cooking at times. | Jun 16 11:43 |
| DaemonMDV |  |
Jun 16 11:43 |
| DaemonMDV | well, if I bought the knife, why would I have bought it? | Jun 16 11:44 |
| DaemonMDV | so *I* can’t stab anyone? | Jun 16 11:44 |
| schestowitz | People will DIY their knives | Jun 16 11:44 |
| schestowitz | What a stupid idea | Jun 16 11:44 |
| DaemonMDV | Maybe I’ll just make up my own damned mind whether I want to stab someone | Jun 16 11:44 |
| DaemonMDV | heh | Jun 16 11:44 |
| schestowitz | Maybe they should also make hands that work only in the kitchen | Jun 16 11:44 |
| schestowitz | And ban metal | Jun 16 11:44 |
| schestowitz | Or… | Jun 16 11:44 |
| schestowitz | “Honey, will you please come to the kitchen?” | Jun 16 11:45 |
| DaemonMDV | well get this, you buy them, then get rid of your old knives | Jun 16 11:45 |
| DaemonMDV | then someone breaks into your house | Jun 16 11:45 |
| schestowitz | They relocate the crime | Jun 16 11:45 |
| *Np237 (n=joss@diva.malsain.org) has joined #boycottnovell | Jun 16 11:45 | |
| DaemonMDV | and you wish you had a knife to protect yourself with | Jun 16 11:45 |
| Np237 | heya | Jun 16 11:45 |
| schestowitz | Good luck going to people’s house confiscating all the old utensils | Jun 16 11:45 |
| schestowitz | Np237: hey, what’s up? | Jun 16 11:45 |
| *IsBob has quit (Remote closed the connection) | Jun 16 11:45 | |
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