Summary: Dynamics Mobile is officially dead and Microsoft decides to betray Windows Mobile partners by launching own phones
AT Microsoft, there are many dead products that keep being revealed (several per month for quite some time now). Here is the latest addition to this long list:
Microsoft on Thursday said it has discontinued the mobile versions of its Dynamics ERP (enterprise resource planning) products.
“[When] Microsoft released Zune everyone stopped making CE based media players other than Microsoft.” –OiaohmJust days ago, Steve Ballmer was quoted as saying that Windows Mobile is something Microsoft “screwed up with.” Microsoft seems to have decided to go it alone with phones and sell hardware, not just software. There are already leaked photos of rather ugly gadgets (Zune showed that Microsoft lacks style) which are said to be in the works and are reportedly months away.
“Think music players,” writes Oiaohm. “[When] Microsoft released Zune everyone stopped making CE-based media players other than Microsoft.”
Oiaohm says the same goes for the AV market, where Microsoft decided that it was worth betraying and agitating partners.
One of the biggest challenges with using Ubuntu on a MacBook is getting used to all the “fun features” offered by the Synaptics touchpad, especially if you have big, clumsy hands like I do.
Having many labs, some of our manuals have 60 labs, are essential for learning in small segments. Labs should provide clear directions on how to accomplish precise goals. The labs need to lead the student on a road that they clearly understand leads to success. Having created labs to be used in a training situation over 11 years now, one thing I learned was that the labs need to be short, something that can be accomplished in 15-20 minutes. That length of time provides a challenge and offers reward based on one goal not multiple goals. One thing that I have seen with the 45 minute labs is that some students struggle early in the lab and bail out by not finishing the lab. Face it, learning Linux, especially from the command line is a real challenge for today’s graphically orientated users.
At the Ohio LinuxFest yesterday, two Linux geeks were married — or had their projects merged into a single trunk, as the officiant, Lord Drachenblut, put it. The wedding of Randy Noseworthy (proprietor of the Juiced Penguin) and Janet Edmonson was announced last week and was live-tweeted by at least one attendee — here’s his photo of the happy couple.
Thus I am now starting to wonder if at the end of this recession it will be Linux that will become a dominate operating system? I am thinking that Linux in conjunction with Google are going to be the next juggernaut. I know Nokia with its N900 has completely jumped on the bandwagon with Linux.
Does this mean I will buy Redhat at these lofty levels? No. But it does mean I am kicking myself for not paying more attention to Redhat.
These needs could be financial, philosophical, technological or even educational (lets just call them al :). For financial I don’t just mean struggling businesses or people. Countries and governments also have a financial need. This was one of the reasons behind the OLPC project. Poor and third world countries can greatly benefit from Linux to help give them a leg up into the modern world.
Peter Hutterer, who has been working on the X.Org input code for some time and is the developer behind MPX, late into the X.Org 7.5 release cycle decided to step up to the plate and personally get this important X.Org update out the door. Peter is not stopping after X Server 1.7, but has already made a proposal regarding the release and development changes going forward for X Server 1.8 and into the future.
Groupware software (or collaborative software) is designed to enable users to collaborate, regardless of location, via the internet or a corporate intranet and to work together in a virtual atmosphere.
In an organisation, productivity rests on the intranet, and a groupware or collaboration server is what helps to make the intranet productive. This type of software provides critical services like email and address books, and establish communication via instant messaging.
Although it was already possible to enable Flash support in Chromium quite easily, the developers have now implemented the Flash player out of the box so you won’t have to configure anything after installing it.
I meant to post this quite some time ago, but that’s moving for you: Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted a preview of Heroes of Newerth, the DoTA-inspired multiplayer strategy game from the Linux-friendly developers S2 Games.
This week you’ll get both hosts of the show in one package. Philippe (southern France) and I (northern Germany) discuss the results of the Double Book Challenge in the “From Scratch” section. We use Skype and the connection is not as good as we were used to it between Chile and Germany. So expect some funny noises added to the accents.
Here you will find links to the topics we cover as well as links to software, websites articles, and other resources mentioned in the episodes of Going Linux.
I recorded it in Portland a couple of days ago but there was some trouble with my server and I had a lot of traveling to do, so the release has been delayed.
Just recently, an advertisement has been running on Texas Radio stations for Linux! It explains what Linux is, why it’s awesome, and where to find more info!
Seven days after the release of the Tech Preview 1, we released the latest stable Windows build of Fotowall [1] that was based on Qt 4.6. Somebody could argue that this is a bit imprudent. We did that because the benefits of the 4.6 release are worth the risk of the move!
I’ve always felt that PCLOS was receiving too much hype for what it was worth, but man was I mistaken. I love living on the bleeding-edge of software and PCLinuxOS 2009.2 certainly caters to that.
Canonical, the business arm of Ubuntu, has one of the most promising business models in the Linux world, and also the most misunderstood. First of all, Ubuntu is in a market termed by economists as a perfectly competitive market. This means that it cannot charge any price beyond that which is determined by the market. The only way to make profit, as has rightly been identified by Canonical is to create an ecosystem of products and services around Ubuntu, which would complement the functions of the OS.
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu, sat for a video interview with Dell Cloud Computing Evangelist Barton George. In it, Shuttleworth takes a “service pack” shot at Windows 7 and covers numerous questions about Canonical’s business and cloud strategy. Here’s the video — plus some perspectives from WorksWithU.
* Command and Conquer
* How-To: Program in Python – Part 3, LAMP Server – Part 2, Virtual Private Networking.
* My Story – One Man’s Journey, and Walk With Ubuntu.
* Review – Kompozer.
* MOTU Interview – Iulian Udrea.
* Top 5 – Physics Games.
* Ubuntu Games, as well as all the usual goodness!
Linux has been an emerging operating system for quite some time now, but its use has been limited mostly to back office servers, embedded devices, and geeks. More recently, Ubuntu linux has taken the lead in the desktop Linux area. Many enthusiasts hope that Ubuntu will revolutionize the way we use our computers. Unfortunately, with all the hype there are a lot of misconceptions about Ubuntu and Linux in general and I thought I’d take some time to expose them.
* Stick using Gnome 2.0
* “Sleek and stylish” new theme.
* Harnessing the power of Upstart
* Few new “features”
* Stable
* Bigger better Software Centre replacing, well, everything.
* User Interface Improvements
* Implement features that weren’t able to make it into Karmic (Wine Integration, Gwibber, etc)
Emlix, a company specializing in providing free and open software, embedded, has prepared a package of BSP (Board Support Package), designed for devices equipped with x86 processors.
Openmoko is a geek’s delight. Its not yet targeted at general users and is currently recommended to advanced users only (read developers and techies!).
Its got everything a geek could dream of (well almost everything)
Our final write-up regarding Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix and the Moblin Netbook Remix will come in October. Beta releases of all the distributions in the Ubuntu family are planned for the first of October followed by the final releases on the 29th of October.
UNR Karmic contains both the excellent Messaging and Session Indicators. The message indicator allows you to quickly see how many unread emails/IM messages/Twitter replies you have. The session indicator allows you to easily set your IM presence and also lets you switch users (if you hardware supports it) and log out easily.
There may well be something I’m not getting here, but I honestly can’t see what the big deal is about this new Jolicloud distro.
I should point out that my experience was with an installation of Jolicloud within Easy Peasy, another netbook Linux with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. But I did try out Jolicloud proper on a previous occasion, and it didn’t seem any different…
To get the perfect Web site with all the functionality that you require for your particular application may take additional time and effort, but with the Joomla! Community support that is available and the many Third Party Developers actively creating and releasing new Extensions for the 1.5 platform on an almost daily basis, there is likely to be something out there to meet your needs. Or you could develop your own Extensions and make these available to the rest of the community.
ILUG Cochin September 2009 Meeting to be held at Jay’s Internet Club, Broadway on 27 Sep 2009. The meetup being an all day event, will begin by 9.00 AM in the morning and will continue till 5.30 PM in the evening.
OWC will also host the European Open Source Think Tank 2009 and the Open Innovation Summit, along with a FLOSS Communities Summit, an Open CIO Summit and a FLOSS Competence Centers Summit.
If we read this right it means there is real local government preference for Open Source. Now right now they’re going into because of costs instead of control, but I think a taste of freedom tends to stick around once you’ve deployed a FOSS solution and it’ll be more difficult for Microsoft or even IBM, Novell etc to get back in without offering serious concessions.
I also like that they are informing people that students can take advantage of OpenOffice, because it’s free too and supports all the same formats. That’s very good news as it’s an aspect of Free Software in schools which is often overlooked (that what is taught can be taken home without pressuring poor students to buy expensive software).
My final solution to “software piracy”? Leave the PCSS behind and do a complete switch to FOSS. Ernie Ball Incorporated did and as far as I can tell from all reports I can find they are better off after doing so.
LWN last talked to Leslie Hawthorn, Google’s Open Source Program Coordinator, in September, 2007 about the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). GSoC is a project where Google pays students to work with a mentor to write open-source code. The 2009 Google Summer of Code recently concluded, marking the end of the project’s fifth year.
Google Summer of Code has again been a huge success for KDE this year. 37 out of 38 projects were finished successfully. Much of the work done during these projects is already merged into trunk and will be available for the users with the KDE 4.4 release in January 2010. Thanks to all students and mentors for their great work! Below you will find a short interview with each of the students, asking them about the cool things they have been working on for the past few months.
Just a month after Pfizer came under fire for allegedly using strong-arm tactics against a potential key witness in the multidistrict litigation over its Neurontin anti-seizure medication, the pharmaceutical giant lodged a similar complaint against a plaintiffs expert.
And TI’s DMCA claim fails for another reason, as well: running software of your choice on your calculator has no “nexus” with copyright infringement. The courts have made it clear (1, 2) that you need a nexus with infringement if you want your DMCA claim to stick. This is not about decrypting copyrighted code so that you can distribute it to the four corners of the Internet. This is about running your own software on your own calculator. So where’s the copyright infringement in that?
Surprisingly, AT&T has reversed its position, and is now passionately supportive of net neutrality. What, you may ask, caused this dramatic shift? Why, Google, of course. AT&T filed a letter with the FCC today complaining that Google Voice blocks calls to certain rural locations. According to AT&T, blocking phone calls is a violation of net neutrality — dictionary, anyone? — and thus Google is in violation of the rules that aren’t rules which AT&T vehemently despised but now passionately adores.
“We are concerned, however, that the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of Net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America: wireless services,” he said.
He argues that wireless networks differ from wireline broadband networks because bandwidth is more limited on a wireless network. And he said that imposing new rules on how carriers operate their wireless networks would stifle investment.
Summary: Microsoft pays people for house parties that create an illusion of anticipation; Silverlight adoption by Intel/Moblin a sign of Microsoft grasping at straws to gain at Adobe’s expense
In my opinion the desperation of Microsoft in wanting you to use its products is displayed perfectly in the Windows 7 Party campaign (below video) where it takes a Tupperware/Ann Summers type approach to try and get YOU to promote its software with the enticement of chances to win prizes etc (IMO). As I’ve said before, it appears to me that Microsoft gets its advocacy by enticements. A little different to someone who recommends Linux eh?
The above also mentions ITV dumping Silver Lie. It is one among many departures from Silver Lie (“cross-platform” is a lie), which Microsoft is now trying to advance with Intel’s help [1, 2], not just Novell’s.
So another trend of hype has constantly surrounded Microsoft’s Silver Lie (phrases like “Flash killer” thrown out and about), which as Sean Michael Kerner puts it, is hardly required by anyone.
Does anyone really need Silverlight on Linux?
For better or for worse, the vast majority of video content online today is delivered via Adobe’s Flash media. Silverlight is still the underdog in that fight and is likely to remain so for the immediate future.
As one person has just put it, “mono proponents should focus on explaining why we should trust Microsoft and stop complaining about @rms”
He added that because upgrading the server OS underneath an existing Exchange server wasn’t supported, MS has made the painful decision to ditch Exchange 2007 SP2 support and focus instead on the existing Exchange 2007 deployment on Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controllers.
[...]
All of which might leave Microsoft open to criticism it is probably all too familiar with. IT departments might complain that such a decision was simply an attempt by Redmond to swiftly shunt Server 2008 R2 customers over to Exchange 2010.
According to a report by Microsoft virus specialist Chun Feng at the Virus Bulletin malware conference in Geneva, criminals spying out users’ online gaming login data in Chinese internet cafes and subsequently selling this information are said to have caused 1.2 billion US dollars in damage. The criminals use the Dogrobot trojan, which hides in the system and can even survive a Windows system recovery.
A new, freeware game, based loosely on Space Invaders, serves up quirky game play that can result in files being deleted off a player’s computer permanently.
Summary: A deeper investigation of the forces at play and routes of funding for SCO
BACK IN July, SCO was found in the midst of a major scandal which might not relate to its litigation against Linux but might as well do. We wrote about this in:
An investigative report from from Capital Madrid has just unraveled some more details and Groklaw has the translation.
If you are interested in the Pelican Equity litigation against Darl McBride and the gang, here’s an article in Capital Madrid, a Spanish financial newsletter, that provides some background on the parties. If you don’t read Spanish, you can use Google Translate. Here’s the English translation.
The article particularly focuses on Robert Brazell’s accomplishments, because one of his businesses is in the news in the Spanish language press, and it mentions that Steven Norris is “a friend of the Bushes and of Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud” (“amigo de los Bush y del príncipe saudí Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud”).
I always remember at the beginning of the saga a SCO executive, Chris Sontag, saying we shouldn’t be surprised if the government submitted an amicus brief in the SCO v. IBM case. That implied to me that they expected an appeal, at least, at which point they thought the government would support them, allegedly because of concerns about terrorists using Linux. If you recall, one of SCO’s allegations in its complaint is that IBM had violated export regulations. Mozilla actually inquired about that issue in connection with Firefox, by the way, and it seems SCO’s dreams were misplaced. It received a letter stating Firefox does not violate export regulations, which likely will impact the IBM case. Of course, SCO executives have said a lot of things, so maybe that hope of an amicus brief was more a dream than not, and the administration has since changed, but then again, who knows? My job is just to let you know everything I find, and others can do the rest.
There’s that connection again between “terrorists” and Free software. The previous post refuted this FUD which had come from CBS/CNET/ZDNet. Several weeks ago we showed that Microsoft is still trying to compare Free software to terrorism when in fact, the only real “terrorist” here (by definition) is Microsoft [1, 2, 3]. Jim Allchin, Microsoft’s President of Platforms & Services Division at one time, was quoted as saying: “I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”
As market forces show, there is nothing more capitalist than robust Free software which is sold commercially, as opposed to a monoculture where people are forced to buy one particular brand and nothing else. As SJVN puts it after Red Hat’s fantastic results, GNU/Linux is heading upward while Microsoft’s income has been down sharply for two consecutive quarters (with more of the same likely to come).
Take Red Hat for example. In Red Hat’s latest quarter, which ended on August 31st, the company reported higher than expected revenue and profits. “Profits minus one-time expenses and including a 4-cent per share tax benefit hit $39.4 million, or 20 cents per share, up more than 30 percent from 2008.”
It’s not just Red Hat though. Novell recently reported a much more typical quarter for a tech. company in 2009. That is to say Novell also had a poor quarter. Except for their Linux lines — that was a different story. There, Novell saw its Linux revenue go up 22% from the same quarter last year.
Microsoft? Oh, they’re still worth billions and billions, but “Microsoft revenue declined 17% and net income declined 29% year over year in the company’s fiscal 2009 fourth quarter due to continued weakness in global sales of PCs and hardware servers.” Funny, that didn’t seem to bother the Linux companies.
In another new post from Groklaw, insight is offered into the cleaning up that SCO’s new Trustee ought to make.
Here’s what the Chapter 11 Trustee has been doing:
9. The Trustee has been diligently reviewing the Debtors’ pending litigation and business operations and prospects. Indeed, the Trustee’s recent appointment has not allowed for sufficient opportunity to review and evaluate fees incurred and sought in these cases. Moreover, the Trustee is evaluating the retainers received by professionals and any unused retainers available to certain professionals. The Trustee interposes this Reservation of Rights to request additional time to review and evaluate the reasonableness of the Fee Applications that have been filed. Absent a more fulsome review of the Fee Applications, the Trustee is unable to take a position on the reasonableness of the fees requested by the Fee Applications.
10. Accordingly, the Trustee files this Reservation of Rights to reserve all rights to object to interim and final allowance of the Fee Applications, if any, until the Trustee has completed the review process. Any failure by the Trustee to have filed or to file an Objection with respect to a Monthly or Interim Fee Application shall not serve as a waiver to the Trustee’s right to object to the reasonableness of any Professional’s fees on a final basis.
With closer inspection (by an outsider) of what SCO has been doing, more dirty secrets are likely to come out. █
Summary: Rather than ignoring, some news sites decided to publish articles refuting the latest FUD from ZDNet
IT IS not exactly news that ZDNet employs many writers who are favourable to sponsors and advertisers, by selection. It shows [1, 2] and it impedes realistic thinking; it’s almost indoctrinating. To complain about it blindly would not be productive and some other sites “feed the trolls” — so to speak — by posting lengthy technical refutations of the recent FUD from ZDNet.
The first one is an incident that we wrote about last week — one where crime and Free software were tied together as means of daemonisation (it was published in silicon.com, ZDNet, and CNET for maximal impact). Maximum PC has posted a rebuttal to this.
If you think about the actual definition of open-source for a moment, you’ll wind up being as confused as I am about this latest bit of fad reporting to pass around the Web. According to an article from CNET, virus-makers are apparently transforming their wares into open-source projects and using the power of the group to achieve advancements in virus deployment, nasty features, and scanner obfuscation.
That’s all well and good (for the virus-makers), but that’s as open-source a situation as an apple is an orange. What’s being described is an example of collaboration and communication based around a common or to-be developed piece of code. That sounds like open-source–an apple and an orange are both pieces of fruit, after all. But that’s not really open-source because we’re ignoring the critical elements that help define what open-source software truly is. Virus-makers aren’t going open-source in the slightest. They’re spinning derivative works from older viruses and developing free code while holding hands and singing the Pirates of the Caribbean song, but that’s it. And it’s hardly a new fad.
Here is a response to another piece of FUD which we highlighted the other day because it turned out that a major conflict of interest had been concealed by ZDNet.
Nominum executive Jon Shalowitz’s attempt to explain what’s “wrong” with BIND, however, is absolutely priceless.
I’ll skip over Shalowitz’s muddled claim that “open source” equals “freeware” — a whopper that he follows with a disingenuous attempt to associate “freeware” with “malware.”
“Gates is trying to make sure that he has a proprietary position in controlling the tools that allow you and me to access information. And that’s profitable by definition. How would you like to own the printing press?”
Summary: Another Microsoft-taxed Linux phone debuts; Microsoft’s CEO says Microsoft “screwed up with Windows Mobile”
THERE are particular Linux phones which ought to be avoided because they help Microsoft establish a practice whereby devices using Linux pay a ‘tax’ to Microsoft for software patents it claims exist (but won’t show, ever). It’s racketeering. One set of phones to avoid is LG's Android phones and another is Samsung's LiMo phones, which are now coming to Vodafone (links to news appended below).
Why did Vodafone pick a company that pays Microsoft for Linux? One possibility is that the head of Vodafone, being Microsoft’s former head of the failing Windows Mobile unit, is looking to obey Microsoft’s will [1, 2]. Ex-Microsoft staff also tends to favour SUSE, as we have shown before.
“Ballmer says they screwed up with Windows Mobile. Wishes they had already lauched WM7. They completely revamped the team,” reported venture capitalist Paul Jozefak.
Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s second largest handset maker, said Friday that it released its first open source-based mobile phone exclusively for a British mobile carrier.
Samsung Electronics Co. (KSE:005930), the world’s second largest handset maker, said Friday that it released its first open source-based mobile phone exclusively for a British mobile carrier.
The company’s new handset, the Vodafone 360 H1, made exclusively for British carrier Vodafone Inc., is its first open source mobile phone, running on “Vodaphone 360,” built on the the Linux for Mobile, or LiMo, platform.
Samsung Electronics will supply Linux-powered mobile phones to Vodafone, the world’s largest wireless carrier, company officials said Friday.
The Vodafone 360 H1, a “smart” phone that enables Web browsing and multimedia features atop of voice, is the industry’s first commercial handset using the latest version of the LiMo operating system, Release 2.
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