At around the same time as my trip to Walt Disney World (give or take a few years), the Disney animation studio was adopting Linux. The animators wanted Photoshop running on Linux. Since Adobe wasn’t providing this, Disney decided to fund a project to port the Windows version of Photosop to run on Linux under Wine. And that’s why, thanks to Disney, Photoshop runs on Linux.
[...]
And that’s the main point of today’s blog post. Photoshop runs on Linux! Some folks out there may not want to make the move to Linux because they think they wouldn’t be able to use Photoshop. Not so. Photoshop runs on Linux!
Despite the fact that I’ve been running, on and off, Linux on the desktop for the last fifteen years or so, my primary work machine at Podomatic ran Windows XP.
It made me feel a bit like a traitor, honestly. I owe my career and a large part of my outlook on the world to Linux, GNU, and the free (as in speech) community. All that aside, I couldn’t justify the time it would take to install Linux on my (pre-installed with Windows) PC and then get everything working to my expectations.
[...]
A few minutes later, I whipped out my trusty Gentoo 2008.0 amd64 CD (left over from some server installs) and converted the machine to Gentoo Linux. This would be about my 20th time installing Gentoo, so it went smoothly. 100% of my hardware works perfectly, and I was running Firefox in wm2 (provisionally until kde compiled) by 3. I’m not looking back. TTYN, Windows!
My Answer : Linux is an Open Source operating system, a large piece of software that manages a computer.The accurate name is GNU/Linux but “Linux” is used more often.
Finally, Amarok 2 has been released. The 1.x series were the champions on music management (on BSD and Linux) and playing during KDE 3.x time. Actually, it was preferred on all desktop environments, shells or plain windows managers.
You may have noticed that I have been quiet for the last couple of days. The reason is I have been working on a windows computer, trying to fix it. Reformatting and reloading was an option but the pain and time taken to reconfigure the thing was prohibitive. Besides I knew what the problem was and I could fix it.
An increasing number of hardware vendors are adopting practices that benefit the open-source and Linux communities from AMD releasing documentation and code to Creative Labs open-sourcing their X-Fi sound driver. One of the companies holding back on better embracing Linux has been Broadcom with their WiFi adapters being ill supported. However, open-source developers have stepped up to the plate and have improved the situation on their own.
we have been involved in the past few months in testing modifications to the standard 802.11 MAC for research purposes. During this time we did some tests with Broadcom 802.11b/g boards and we wrote down a simple 802.11 compliant firmware that we used as a starting point for the modified MAC algorithms.
While you were likely to be opening up Christmas presents, Linus Torvalds was giving Linux users around the world a special present: the release of the next major Linux kernel: Linux 2.6.28.
Btrfs, the next-generation Linux file-system conceived by Oracle and designed to compete with some of the features found in Sun’s ZFS file-system, has just been merged for the Linux 2.6.29 kernel.
If you sometimes wish that your favorite Linux distro should have a mascot, then you may like what I’m about to show you. But before that, let me give you a short intro.
Live CDs are commonly used by end users who only requires a web browser, instant messenger or an Office suite. It may be nice if the Fedora community takes steps to include OpenOffice in the Live CDs so that it can gain more popularity among end users.
At Red Hat, Linux is old news. Sure, Red Hat Enterprise Linux sales continue to accelerate. But consider this: The company’s JBoss middleware business is growing twice as fast as Red Hat’s Linux infrastructure business, according to a company spokeswoman. For solutions providers there are some important lessons here.
Here’s how it works. You take the ParaScale software and load it onto a bunch of servers running Red Hat Linux. The ParaScale software makes all these servers look like a single IP address and single storage address to whatever systems you connect to it.
The one thing that we can count on is that Linux will run on ALL of these systems, even if some soldering may be required. Furthermore, for much of the world, complete dependence on Microsoft is an undesirable thing (of course it’s undesirable here in the States too, many people just don’t realize it yet). I think there is a certain inevitability for a general purpose hardware-agnostic operating system that can be easily customized for local needs. Microsoft can’t or at least won’t provide that any time soon. Maybe one day the company will “grow up”. I’ve stopped holding my breath waiting for that though.
I’ve been working on Ubuntu since just before Breezy Badger was released (around September of 2005). I got involved with Edubuntu later on around May of 2006.
MythDora 10.21 has arrived. That’s right we’ve jumped ahead a few versions to catch us up with our Fedora baseline. The intent is that going forward we’ll release versions in-line with current Fedora versions.
Known for his software work – he runs a web development company called Internet Vision Technologies and is a developer for the free Debian GNU/Linux project – back in 1990, Oxer was very much into auto electronics.
Mainly working with rotary-powered vehicles at the time, one of the more successful products he developed was a turbo timer that kept cars fitted with aftermarket turbochargers running for a few minutes after the ignition was turned off.
China Mobile (0941.HK), the world’s largest wireless carrier, plans to launch a 3G handset built on the Android platform in the first quarter, a source with direct knowledge of the issue said on Friday.
The handset, named “OPhone”, will be the first phone in China that features Google’s (GOOG.O) Android operating system and will use China’s homegrown third-generation mobile network, the source said.
After posting those Linux-powered cellphone articles late last year, I told myself: One of the topics that are going to dominate my posts in 2009 should be the Openmoko project. This project gives open source developers an oportunity to develop a phone that they can truly call their own. While there are other Linux-based cellphone OS’s out there, IMHO, this is the one that allows you to really “free your phone”. So, before I do any serious writing, allow me to open 2009 with a series of Neo Freerunner (the cellphone) unboxing videos. I hope you enjoy them.
There, I’ve confessed, and I’m feeling better already. And the current object of my unfathomable desire? The Palm Pre smartphone, unveiled last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada.
A common inside joke on Slashdot is the “Year of the Linux Desktop”, a revelation about each upcoming year being the mythical time when Linux will obtain wide-scale adoption on desktop PCs. Although the number of PCs running Linux has increased each year, a new emergent trend is that Linux is becoming a popular on more consumer handheld devices.
Sony announced a mini-laptop that weighs 1.4 pounds and is just 4.7 inches deep. Shipped with Vista and a fast-booting Linux Xross environment, the “Vaio P” (VGN-P) includes a 1.33GHz Atom processor, eight-inch, 2GB of RAM, GPS, a cellular modem, and 8-inch 1600 x 768 screen.
Especially in the remote booths where Chinese and Taiwanese manufacturers are offering a rainbow of netbooks. Bestlink of Shenzhen City, China, is offering these at wholesale prices starting around $140 for Linux systems and $150 for those with Windows CE. Systems with Windows XP are wholesaling for around $200…
Much noise has been made in the past week or so about President-elect Barack Obama’s creation of a governmental chief tech officer position. My question is: What will be their stance on open source? Will they lean towards it, mandate it, forbid it … or ignore it entirely? I looked into it, and came away feeling we had much bigger problems looming.
Festival Represents a Significant Milestone in Jordan’s FOSS Awareness
JUST Open Source Group started the new year with a brilliant and exciting installation festival, which clearly reflected the enthusiasm and determination of group members to inform people about Linux and free software.
Students of different faculties expressed their interest in Open Source / Free software culture and philosophy. Most of them appreciated the idea of trying an alternative to commercial closed-source operating systems, a relevant number brought their laptops awaiting for Linux to be installed.
Free VoIP platform software FreeSWITCH is now in version 1.0.2. Enhancements include a fax module and new codecs for higher sampling rates.
Thanks to a cooperative effort with Polycom, FreeSWITCH can use Polycom’s Siren codecs for wideband and super-wideband audio. The software also adds a free open source codec using Constrained Energy Lapped Transform (CELT) technology that should provide sample rates of 44.1 to 48 KHz with minimal latency, especially suited for speech and music.
Please note the assertion – as I read it – is not the failure of a company that started off being based on Open Source; but rather the assertion is that failing companies adopt some sort of Open Source-based strategy to no avail.
I’m honestly not sure what to make of Mr. Blankenhorn’s thoughts here, so I’m just looking for some facts to support — or refute — his assertion.
Pop the hood on our new Web site and you’ll find one very powerful engine. It’s called Drupal, a free, open-source platform that powers all of our content entry. As many healthcare IT workers know, the value of open-source solutions isn’t just the (lack of) price tag: it’s the fact that the products are user-developed, community-tested and constantly improved.
If you are evaluating ECM solutions, particularly if you are interested in cost, you need to take a look at Alfresco’s TCO Whitepaper. In it, Alfresco uses licensing numbers they snagged from the United States government to compare the first year costs of their solution with EMC/Documentum, OpenText, and Sharepoint.
The free software world is in great evolution, and among the new projects and new versions of old projects, there is always something new that appears on the horizon. OpenSolaris is one of them news, even if it is not really a news. The Solaris operating system, from Sun Microsystems is not new, indeed, but the project was on its bases, and i’m honoured to write a review. OpenSolaris is a novelty that is part of the vast landscape of alternative operating systems, with many promises, great enthusiasm, and features that i’ll illustrate in this review.
In addition, Boxee will be totally opening up its Mac, Linux, and Apple TV alphas to anyone who wants to sign up. The Windows version, however, will not be entering an open alpha, but rather an invite-only alpha while it scales.
During the past decade the phenomenon of Free Software has become successful and well-known. It is still amazing how in the realm of software the creativity of so many volunteers leads to products which are useful for the whole mankind. In 1999 the Oekonux Project started with analyzing this phenomenon and trying to understand the special features of Free Software as a social and political enterprise.
Please ask Apple to support Ogg on their iPods, iPhones, and iTunes! It wouldn’t hurt to also sign this petition (and maybe this one), though I don’t know how strongly they’d influence Apple. Here’s why, as good news and bad news.
Hudson sez, “Fictionwise used Overdrive to provide DRM encrypted ebooks to their customers and Overdrive has informed them that they will be shutdown on 30 January with no reason given. Since Fictionwise doesn’t have the decryption keys, they are not able to provide new versions of the books to all customers.”
Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day
Digital Tipping Point: IP attorney Julian Summers 01 (2005)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
Vista 7 (technically Windows 6.1) is making some headlines at the moment, so it’s time to put things into perspective. Other people have already done that, so we reference rather than repeat.
PR and the supposed ‘leak’
It should be clear to all of us that these versions floating around various torrent sites – and especially the beta 1 – are carefully planned by public relations. And it’s brilliant. Why?
* Because they reach their target audience, people with tech skills who are still enthusiastic about Windows and are taking time to download, install and test the operating system. Most of them have blogs and will surely post something about it and creating hype for the next release.
* Zero distribution costs via peer-to-peer networks; no responsibility for download speed or failures.
* Press coverage on all the major blogs with little adverse consequences; even if the review is negative – the release is not official.
* A large, no-consequences, zero logistics, no expense beta test; Judging by ThePirateBay seeder/leecher ratio and the time of upload, more than 30 000 tech savvy people are running Windows 7 beta 1 right now and probably submitting bugs, crash reports and hardware information.
* Frameworks inside Windows 7 allow remote deactivation or ‘crippling’ via de WGA scheme. Your copy of Windows 7 works because Microsoft lets you. And they know a new machine is online the minute Windows connects to the internet.
So either they’re saying that they didn’t expect Windows 7 beta to be popular and their infrastructure doesn’t scale, or they’ve let this happen on purpose to generate a little buzz. In other words, in order to make Windows 7 desirable, first you make it unobtainable….
This bogus ‘crisis’ and the phony hype were created in accordance with screenshots of Microsoft’s guerrilla marketing blog. They appeared in The Register and in IDG, which repeatedly published to create a buzz about Vista 7 (more than once).
Vista 7 is just another Vista. It’s a little more advanced, but being a slightly advanced bad operating system does not make it a good one. The early adopters of pre-beta and beta builds just happen to be its anticipating fans, so the coverage will naturally be uneven and biased.
With the digit “7″ in many headlines, it has become abundantly apparent that Microsoft is burying Vista’s promotion, regardless of those $300 million (some sources said $500 million) in renewed advertising budget. The FSF has meanwhile taken the opportunity to declare the death of Vista in this press release, with a similar message at the front page of the BadVista campaign, which was a great success.
On December 15, 2006, the FSF launched its BadVista.org campaign to advocate for the freedom of computer users, opposing adoption of Microsoft Windows Vista and promoting free — as in freedom — software alternatives. Two years later, the campaign has nearly 7,000 registered supporters, the name Vista is synonymous in the public eye with failure, and we are declaring victory.
Vista is likely to be remembered as the point where Windows went horribly wrong and Vista 7 is a frantic response to negativity. The response to 7 is eerily similar to that which Vista received in early 2006 when mostly enthusiastic testers took it for a test drive. Little did they know that the many problems they had experienced would not go away when the beta tag gets removed. Moreover, the average user does not have equally-capable equipment on which to test — or actually use in a mission-critical setting — the operating system.
Even the Microsoft sympathisers at InformationWeek have just acknowledged that “Windows sales and market share, though robust, are in decline. The company’s efforts to expand into new markets are floundering, and key executives are jumping ship.” █
FOR NOVELL’S SUSE Linux side, the past week has been a quiet one if the trade press is any indication. Among the little that existed there was this eWeek article (LinuxDevices) about the H-P Mini 2140 with SLED 10.
HP announced a netbook targeting “business applications” and “instructional use,” and available with SUSE Linux. The HP Mini 2140 features a 10.1 screen up to 1366 x 768 pixels, Atom N270 processor, 160GB hard disk drive or 80GB SSD (solid state drive), plus an ExpressCard/54 slot.
This miniature notebook received a score of 8.6 out of 10 from a Web site which rarely covers GNU/Linux.
The bankrupt SCO Group is planning to hold an open auction of its OpenServer product line and mobile business in an effort to separate its controversial intellectual property litigation from its product business, the Lindon company announced in a Chapter 11 reorganization plan filed Thursday.
The plan is the second one filed after New York private equity firm Stephen Norris Capital Partners and a group of Middle Eastern investors last year backed off their initial $100 million offer to fund SCO’s comeback. York Capital Management, another New York private equity firm, also failed in its efforts to buy the company.
[...]
If and once the two assets are sold, SCO will focus entirely on its ongoing litigation over the disputed Unix code with IBM, Novell and others, which is now stayed because of SCO’s bankruptcy filing, he said.
So the strategy is… more litigation.
Norris, are you listening [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]?
According to this new report from SD Times, SCO refuses to just die. It requests another extended deadline, aiming for next week.
The legally embattled SCO Group has requested an extension on the submission of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan. SCO has asked for the deadline for handing in its reorganization plan to be extended to Jan. 16, in what is the company’s fourth extension request. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2007.
“…Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit against IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux.”
Today we turn our attention to exhibit px09683 from Comes vs Microsoft[PDF]. It’s all about EDGI and it contains more details that we did not divulge before.
This exhibit opens up with David Driftmier telling Orlando Ayala and Kevin Johnson, two chiefs who are closely involved in these GNU/Linux-hostile initiative, that:
A cross-group team has been working for the last two weeks on a proposal to have a more planned response process to defend against Linux and other low-cost/no-cost competitors in large education/government deals in both developed and developing subs.
According to this message, Jim Allchin wanted to focus on education first (ensuring children are made ‘addicted’ to Microsoft software), with the possibility of expanding to governments.
This is followed by a document which states that:
A common current scenario is one where a government wants to provide for a common technology platform across all schools in the country/province/state. They are either seriously considering open source due to cost and political pressures or are using Linux and StarOffice as levers to negotiate price with Microsoft.
Later on it mentions “two major issues that need to be solved.” The second among them is:
How to effectively win against the no-cost/low-cost competitor in large government deals (i.e. “Don’t lose to Linux”).
Yes, it says “Don’t lose to Linux.” We saw this before.
According to Microsoft, “A completely ’free’ model for education is not desirable” because:
Approx. $1B annual revenue stream currently being realized through sales to academic institutions
They also used the term “naked PCs” to daemonise whatever is not saddled with Windows.
Regarding price, writes Microsoft:
We cannot and will not compete with Linux/StarOffice solely on price, however the price allure of ’free’ must be addressed as part of competitive response.
Also:
Scenarios not limited to Linux/StarOffice, nor are they limited to developing subs, although these are our current primary areas of urgency
Another interesting bit:
3) When local management determines that local empowerment will not provide the flexibility needed to win a deal, they will escalate to a regional response team. An example of potential members of the regional response team:
Regional Education Director (or Government Director in the case of a non-Education deal)
Regional Linux Competitive lead / Product Management
“Regional Linux Competitive lead…”
Here is Microsoft talking about “donations”:
8) It is recognized that there will be times when software donations are part of the overall solution presented to a customer. In these instances we need to work closely with LCA to ensure these are managed and tracked in order to ensure that we receive the benefit and mitigate the impact on other deals. It may also be appropriate to institute a process whereby the product group funding provided through the special fund gets returned when donations are made, as it represents monies that do not end up flowing back through the product revenue stream.
Page 6 is telling. Microsoft says that stuff like these “donations” will “Increase our win percentage against competition” and at the same time:
Improve our partnership with governments
Improve Microsoft image
It’s interesting to note that Microsoft refers to those which it donates to as “customers”. Maybe it’s long-term thinking (get a free sample to become a dependent customer later on). Maybe schools children too are just “customers”. Maybe it refers to governments though.
Microsoft gives some examples of “wins”. For instance:
Name: Girls Schools in Saudi Arabia
Desktops: 20,000 (1200+ servers)
Revenue: $4MM (50% OEM)
Competitor Linux/StarOffice
Product Mix: Windows2000 Server, Windows 2000/XP Pro, Office XP Pro, Front Page
2002, VB 6.0
Microsoft Investments to win:
Create special package including media and guidance
Highlight customer accomplishments (shared PR)
Commitment to invest in E-Ministry ($450,000)
SE and two admin for a year (Contingent Staff)
Train 220 FTE’s on Office Tools
Initial implementation services
Minimal application development
Story: The local team created a special 3 CD kit that included CD’s for Tools, Teachers, and Students with appropriate content and products They also agreed to fund a special ministry of education training pilot. This investment ($450k) was funded through the additional margin on the per desktop price.
We previously wrote about Microsoft corruption in Hungarian education [1, 2].
Check this out:
Name: Hungary Higher Education
Desktops: 235,000 students, 18,000 teachers
Revenue: $2.2M over 3 years
Competitor. Linux/IBM
Product Mix: Windows XP, Office XP, Front Page, Visual Studio, BackOffice CAL
Microsoft Investments to win:
66% discount = $4 4MM off of normal Campus Agreement pricing
Story: In this deal, the total amount of the deal represented the maximum amount of money that the customer had to spend. If we did not do the deal for this price, then IBM was ready to execute. As a higher ed customer, there was requisite technical knowledge to support a successful implementation, so additional services were not imperative. The sub also had a successful evangelism and knowledge transfer program in place with the technical universities.
The document has many tables appended. These shed light on where Microsoft was dumping software. For the tables, view the original PDF.
The last page is rather fascinating too. It’s a presentation slide on the face of it. It says very explicitly that the goal of EDGI is:
- Ensure primarily education (and secondarily government) customers can experience the value of Windows, Office and other Microsoft products
So primary education must lead the children become dependent on “Windows, Office and other Microsoft products.” They always use perfumed words like “value” to hide the odor of their real motives. They perfume it only to themselves.
The “Opportunity” is to:
- Increase our win percentage against competition in education and govt accounts, especially in developing countries
- Protect our product price points by removing discounts below empowerment guidelines
For the inquisitive, the full document is appended below as HTML. It took a long time to produce this. █
Appendix A: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit px09683, as text
“Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry.”
For obvious reasons, geographical at the very least, Seattle P-I has always been pro-Microsoft about 90% of the time. The bad news for them (and positive news to competitors of Microsoft) is that this “fan press” won’t last for much longer, not in its current form anyway.
Hearst announced today that it’s putting the Seattle Post-Intelligencer up for sale. If no buyer is found in 60 days, the newspaper will either cease operations or move entirely online. Whatever happens, it looks like a lot of good journalists will be losing jobs.
[...]
“Awful. Angry. Depressed. Stunned,” were the four words P-I reporter Mike Lewis used when asked to describe how he was feeling after the news was announced internally today following a report by KING 5 last night.
The P-I has been around in various forms since 1863, making it one of the oldest businesses in the city. It has survived dozens of ups and downs over the years.
Ziff Davis (notoriously called “Ziff|Gates” because of the editorship, funds, and the Microsoft employees who post there under pseudonyms) declared that it was on the verge of bankruptcy last year and CNET, which had received investments from Microsoft’s co-founder, suffered staff cuts too.
In absence of such publications, Microsoft’s ability to control minds is diminishing. Well, it can always bribe bloggers and employ "technical evangelists". It also keeps publications of IDG alive [1, 2, 3] by paying excessively for IDC contracts (anti-GNU/Linux 'studies' and the likes of them). We’ll have more details about that soon. The corresponding antitrust documents require further processing. █
“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”
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