06.26.08
Posted in GNU/Linux, KDE, Novell, OpenSUSE at 1:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Early adopters urged to beware
OpenSUSE aficionados and Novell sympathisers teased us a little by claiming that OpenSUSE 11.0 was well received. They urged others to believe that there were no negative reviews, but there are actually quite a few, most of which will be shared on Saturday. Here is a brand-new one which stands out.
For anyone who has used SuSE Linux for a while, the mixed bag that comprises an x.0 release shouldn’t be any su[r]prise. For the unfamiliar, SuSE (and now openSUSE) follow the Windows upgrade rule: wait for SP1. In the case of openSUSE, that’s the x.1 release. In my experience (which started with SuSE Linux 7.2) the release cycle is like this:
* x.0: Big bang, big casualties.
* x.1: Bugfix to x.0 to get back to x-1.3 quality/support/compatibility.
* x.2: Incremental improvements since x.0 that were held up bugfixing for x.1.
* x.3: A stable, polished, albeit aging release.
So, needless to say, I’ll be doing my day-to-day work on openSUSE 10.3, for at least a few more months. 11.0 is installed on my laptop, too (thank you grub for making that easy), but I don’t see myself touching it until I see some bugfixes come out of Novell.
Over at the IRC channel, it was suggested some hours ago that OpenSUSE may have given KDE4 a bad name because it included an old version++ and claimed it to be the most polished experience. SJVN was grumpy about it yesterday; Aaron Seigo seems to have shut the gates of his blog.
To be fair, KDE 3.5 is still included on the OpenSUSE DVD, but there is no LiveCD installer for it. Why?
At the end of the day, herein we find more reason to choose GNU/Linux distributions, not Ballnux. █
___
++ Fedora did too, but at the time of its most recent release (9), including 4.1 was less practical.
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Posted in Marketing, Microsoft, Novell, SLES/SLED at 1:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Marketing: an art of twisting facts, sometimes lying
A few month ago, Bruce Lowry left Novell. It happened around the same time that the company’s General Counsel, Joseph LaSala, left as well. A week after the departure of a Vice President, the belated replacement of Bruce Lowry finally arrives.
Quick, late introductions – I’m Ian Bruce, the new director of PR at Novell. I’ve taken over from Bruce Lowry (being called ‘Bruce’ is a requirement for the job), who held the position for over 8 years and did amazing work driving visibility and awareness for Novell.
Mr. Bruce will need to get used to preaching about the wonderful relationships between Microsoft and GNU/Linux (or Novell), which essentially means lying . Mr. de Icaza could kindly teach him.
Speaking of PR, be careful what you read about SUSE and Novell at the moment. Novell recruits boosters and it also has talking heads in the media. █
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
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Posted in News Roundup at 4:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
- Red Hat net up slightly, rev climbs 32 pct
- Open source phone goes mass-market
Openmoko has begun shipping its Linux-based, open source Neo Freerunner phone to five newly announced distributors, in Germany, France, and India, says the company. The Neo Freerunner features an open hardware design, and a Linux-based operating system that users are free to modify.
- Freedomware conquers the mobile world
- [Release] Linux 2.6.26-rc8
It hasn’t been a week, I know, and this is a pretty small set of changes since -rc7, but I’m going to be mostly incommunicado for the next week or so, so I just released what will hopefully be the last -rc.
- Stop the Blob?
- Windows Price Ruling Not Enough, Says French Consumer Group
A French electronics retailer must display separately the price of computers and of the software bundled with them, a Paris court ruled Tuesday. It stopped short of ordering the retailer to sell computers without bundled operating system software, however.
[...]
The ruling will give little comfort to those wanting to buy a PC on which to run Linux: they will still have to pay for Windows, although they will at least know exactly how much they had to pay for it.
- The new wave of Linux Lite – lean, mean and green
Linux is coming to an ultraportable near you! Sure, the oft-touted “year of the Linux desktop” is seen in the same light as such notable phrases like “the cheque’s in the mail”, “I’ll respect you in the morning” and “Duke Nukem Forever is being released” but there’s no denying the smash-hit success Linux is enjoying in the budget price ultraportable market. These are the Linux desktops that will catch on and here’s why.
- My Newfound Love for Xfce!
Devices
F/OSS
Leftovers
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Posted in America, Bill Gates, Deception, Free/Libre Software, Patents at 4:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Harsh realities
The mainstream press seems to have picked up the scent of a very hot topic. Some important publications, such as the Financial Times, have turned their attention to those who endorse the message of monopolies/oppressors using daemonisation terms or — contrariwise — glorification terminology. Here are some good examples that political blogger are all too familiar with.
One sure sign of a lack of political vision is a rise in the number of pieces of acronymic legislation. After September 11, the US Congress passed the euphoniously named “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act” the initials of which spell out “USA – Patriot.” The Patriot Act is a pretty bad piece of legislation, but at least its drafters worked hard on the acronyms so that opponents could be labelled “anti-patriot” – a perfect level of analysis for Fox News. Admittedly, in this administration, having public officials torturing acronyms rather than detainees might be counted as a plus, but I still find the whole practice distasteful. I’d suggest that politicians vow to vote against any piece of legislation with its own normatively loaded acronym, no matter how otherwise appealing. It might make them focus a little more on the content.
In any event, Congress has been at it again. The House just passed, and the Senate is considering, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 – or “Pro-IP” Act. (If it passes, a version is sure to be urged on Europe as a matter of “harmonisation.”) Are you pro-intellectual property? Then surely you must be for this piece of legislation! The name says it all.
This will hopefully raise more people’s awareness. Harmonisation in this case is somewhat like the joining of oxygen and methane. Not every combination is a healthy one, especially knowing what we already know about people who scream in protest against the USPTO. It is a system whose poor state is irreparable, having permitted too many people to invest in patents that should not have been granted in the first place.
We shall continue to keep track of those who are involved in ruining the system on a global scale for smaller players to suffocate [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. It’s well disguised and a lot is happening behind closed doors.
Apropos — patents are not unique here; it has been the same problem when it comes to copyrights. According to Larry Lessig, such corruption is very common. He’s venting backed by historical evidence.
On a massive display screen, he [Larry Lessig] loaded up a portrait of legendary New England statesman and eventual Secretary of State Daniel Webster, whose professional conflicts of interest would have been enough to make even the most lukewarm of political bloggers cringe.
“Bribery wasn’t even a crime in our Congress until 1853. The 19th century was a cesspool of this kind of corruption,” Lessig explained. “Up to 25 percent of the voters literally sold their votes. I’m not talking about a golden past.”
[...]
“Just putting money on the table removes the conditions of trust,” Lessig said. “Money destroys the opportunity for trust. Eighty-eight percent of the people in my district believe they have their votes bought.”
[...]
He left his role as founder and CEO of copyright reform advocacy group Creative Commons in April to focus on Change Congress.
Over at IEEE Spectrum (latest issue), more problems with the intellectual monopolies systems get highlighted, but it’s not specifically about software patents.
You can learn a lot by searching patents, but what you learn can sometimes be dangerous. If a court should ever find that you infringed on a patent knowingly, you might have to pay triple the damages, together with attorney fees.
The message to a programmer (in the US, Australia, Japan, etc.) seems clear:
-
Spend your time reviewing patents instead of developing and at the same time increase risk;
OR
- Ignore patents, reduce risk and penalties, dive straight into actual work
Some laws are simply too ridiculous — if not impossible — to comply with and obey. Welcome to a world where mathematics is a minefield because politicians are foolish enough (or compensated sufficiently) to do the unimaginable. █
“If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.”
–Bill Gates
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Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, Rumour, Xandros at 3:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
To stay Microsoft-independent, ASUS should boot Debian, give Xandros the boot
The following curious observation is made by Linux Loops.
This message on the Debian Eee PC mailing list reveals that Asus and Debian are working together, or at least planning to, on software for the Eee PC. This, presumably, means that future versions of the Eee PC could run a modified version of Debian, rather than a modified version of Xandros, as they currently do.
Wonderful news if there’s substance to it. █
Related video in: How Much Did Mr. Typaldos, Mr. Carmony, and Mr. Hovsepian Get Paid to Stomp on Linux? (Updated)
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Posted in Europe, Finance, Microsoft, Windows at 3:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
How to cover one’s back when funneling taxpayers’ money
Over the past few days we have mentioned a couple of new Memoranda of Understanding [1, 2] which resemble the infamous one from the UK [1, 2, 3, 4]. According to the latest report from Mark Ballard, Richard Steel and his colleagues at Newham (or Microsoft) not only referenced their own ‘studies’ for validation, but they also resorted to ad hominem attacks against Ballard himself. How noble.
Steel had claimed the first MOU had been superseded when we put it to him that the original deal had failed to meet its key objectives. He insisted the objectives had been met. After we published evidence that the original MOU had not met its objectives, Steel tried to discredit your humble correspondent in his blog. He also shared confidential reports for publication in an apparently desperate attempt to find ways to show how the Microsoft deal could be justified.
The reports were benchmarks produced by the Society of IT Managers, of which Steel is now president. The MOU had achieved all its objectives bar some spurious commitment to develop with Microsoft a methodology for measuring the performance of the Microsoft deal, said Steel. This done, “We had therefore agreed new actions with Microsoft in a progress review last year,” Steel repeated in his blog. But the original agreement had stipulated that the Microsoft deal would propel Newham into the top performing quartile of UK councils and that this would be demonstrated in benchmarks drawn up by the UK’s independent Audit Commission. Councillors opted Microsoft over Open Source on this promise in 2004. The deal has failed to meet this objective.
Yesterday we shared a video that exposes the similar situation at the BBC. They struggle to justify their choice of a monopoly abuser that grossly overcharges taxpayers. Having failed to do so, as Microsoft often does, they produce (or manufacture, as in “manufacturing consent”) their own ‘studies’ or case studies.
Only yesterday, the following new article about Larry Lessig’s work was published; it analogously applies here.
And then there’s the big one: global warming, and the “junk science” research put forth at the behest of the oil industry.
Also interesting are Lessig’s remarks on money that changes hands and its impact on the industry as a whole. █
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Posted in Bill Gates, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 2:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
I
n recent days we have been sharing various examples of the never-ending whitewashing [1, 2, 3] which goes on in the media. Microsoft’s brand value has been sinking, as judged by several different and independent ladders, so the company is trying to use Gates’ departure and capitalise on sentimental value. A readers of our shares some insights on this and looks at the brighter future which lies ahead:
Waggener-Edstrom is filling the media with hagiographies of the man who made bad engineering acceptable, but here is something else to reminisce upon as the Botnet King steps down:
By 1995, two years after the launch of the first popular graphical web browser, the WWW was growing explosively and would continue to do so for several years. Nowadays the growth has leveled off, but is still growth. The WWW, built upon the Internet, is synonymous with e-Business and e-Commerce.
By 1995, nine years after the official launch of the Internet and about 20 years after the first Internet connections, it was still growing explosively and would continue to do so for several years. Nowadays, too, the growth has leveled off, but you now find Internet connectivity in everything from coffee pots (really) to Linux-based mobile phones.
By 1996, in the midst of ten and three years of explosive growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web, respectively, what was the Botnet King’s position? It was that the Internet was a passing fad and unimportant. █
See also:
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