08.14.09

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers
• Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

GNU/Linux

• The Three Button Mouse Phenomenon: A cultural trait found in those who love their computers

  Where I come from, we call that a de-lusion. And it is pretty typical of Mac Lovers, to be delusional about their operating system and their hardware. But they should not feel bad. It is also typical of Windows users. They think their system is great, that it works fine, and that they have not been assimilated into the Microsoft Borg.

• Sharma: Big-Name Distro Disenchantment

  The results are plain to see. All three of the big names – Fedora 11 ‘Leonidas’, Ubuntu ‘Jaunty Jackalope’ and Mandriva 2009.1 ‘Spring’ – have taken different approaches to reducing boot times, and boy has it worked. Booting up is also much cleaner, with service start-up messages hidden behind beautifully crafted splash screens. The desktop itself loads in about 30 seconds, and the remainder continues to load in the background, which is exactly how things should be.

• Desktop

  • Fighting against the Microsoft Tax (Original: Kamp mod Microsoftskatten)

    I have paid for at least 10 Windows licenses over time, all the machines were purchased to run only FreeBSD.

    We must stop this distortion and Lenovo would not reimburse the Vista license for my new laptop, I have chosen to sue them.

  • Podcast: Why ZDNet AU loves Linux desktops

    In this podcast, ZDNet.com.au staffers Renai LeMay and Chris Duckett discuss why they use Linux full time where they can and what they like and don’t like about it.

  • Desktop Choices: Mac, Linux, Windows, Browser — Browser?

    First up is Always On PC. Sweet and secure, Always On PC presents you with a full Linux GNOME desktop environment with 2GB of storage via a Java-based Virtual Network Computing (VNC) console. It’s a full-blown desktop system, and it’s Linux. If you aren’t a Linux user, you might want to pass on this one. However, if your heart belongs to Linux, you’re set.

• Server

  • IBM Unwraps Linux-Powered Mainframe Packages

    IBM today announced the System z Solution Edition Series, seven combined packages it says are designed to assist customers migrate off older HP and Sun Unix systems and onto IBM’s mainframes running Linux.

• Kernel Space

  • Signs show Linux moving into the driver’s seat

    Kroah-Hartman said Linux has reached mainstream status on the desktop, at least on the enterprise space. “There are very large companies that are well known users of Linux in this manner: all of the movie companies, Ford, Peugeot, all of the Wall Street companies, almost all banks [and] the stock exchanges,” he said.

  • Which operating system is best for SSDs?

    According to Far, Mac OS X runs “a little faster than Vista” with an SSD drive, but Linux is “always faster” than Vista or Mac OS X – to the tune of 1 percent to 2 percent – because like Windows 2000, “it never runs anything in the background.”

• Distributions

  • [New Migration] Odyssey Logistics & Technology Migrates from UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux On Intel® Xeon®Pro processor-based IBM servers to Run Mission-Critical Supply Chain Operations

    Migration Path: HP-UX and Microsoft Windows to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and multicore Intel Xeon processor based servers

• Devices/Embedded

  • Overcoming the challenges of embedded Linux product development

    Linux is the OS of choice for an increasing number of embedded devices. Markets for devices such as home automation systems and health monitoring, which previously did not require an OS, are now adopting Linux as a way to provide enhanced product features at low cost.

    [...]

    Maciej Halasz is director of product management at Timesys Corporation, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

  • Phones

    • Palm responds to Pre privacy talk

      Palm has responded to the story that its Pre handset was beaming information back to customers – insisting that it offers ways to turn off the collecting ‘services’.

      Joey Hess’ ‘Shy Jo blog showed codes being sent back to Palm, but the company insists that the information only includes information about “potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience”.

Free Software/Open Source

• VistA HTML Note Rendering Now Available

  A whole new era for Veterans Affairs VistA has begun with Kevin Toppenberg, MD’s new TMG-CPRS 1.0.26.76 (TMG v1.1) client. The new tmg-cprs client enables clinical notes to be rendered in html.

• Mozilla

  • Mozilla invites dark lords, Lando to play code swaps on Bespin

    Mozilla Labs has added collaboration services to the latest version of its cloud-based development project – Bespin.

  • Firefox 3.6 a1: new CSS features, faster JavaScript

    Mozilla has released the first alpha of Firefox 3.6. Ars takes a look at the new features, such as CSS gradients.

• Business

  • KnowledgeTree Takes Root in New ECM Markets

    Entering the ECM market with an open source product gave Chalef a leg up. The ECM world of documents and files has few open source options in it, according to Alan Pelz-Sharpe, analyst at CMS Watch.

  • The patron model of open source commericalisation

    In short, while the company’s web content management software is not open source, Day Software makes use of and contributes to a number of community open source projects, such as Apache Jackrabbit, Apache Sling, and Apache Felix. In fact, as the company notes: “in total, Day Software contributes to over 12 Apache projects and 25 open source projects. www.ohloh.org, an independent website that tracks open source contributions, shows that over 75% of Day engineers are active committers to open source projects.”

  • Talk Slides: The Commercial Open Source Business Model

• Fog Computing

  • Doug Cutting joins Cloudera

    Back in October, I promised to keep marketing and sales out of this blog. We wanted to concentrate on technical topics and to choose signal over noise. Mostly, that’s meant that I let other people do the writing.

  • Why open source clouds are essential …

    In a world where the standard is provided as such an open source reference model (under GPLv3), then you’ll need the creation of an assurance industry to provide end user assurance that providers still match the standard (despite of any competitive modifications or operational improvements). This is how you create a truly competitive marketplace and by encouraging diversity overcome the most dangerous risk of all which is systemic failure in the cloud.

    We have already staked the ground with Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud, our intention is to continue to push this and create truly competitive markets in the cloud using the only viable mechanism – open source. Of course, this is at the infrastructure layer of the computing stack. Our attention will shortly turn towards the platform.

• Licensing

  • EvoRSR: an integrated system for exploring evolution of RNA structural robustness

    EvoRSR is object-oriented, modular, and freely available at http://biotech.bmi.ac.cn/EvoRSR under the GNU/GPL license.

• Openness

  • Sony Recognizes That Openness Is A Competitive Advantage

    It may have taken the (very) long way to get there, but it looks like at least some folks over at Sony have figured out that openness can be a competitive advantage, and have decided to support the open ePub ebook format for its ebook reader.

  • Sony to support open ebook format

Leftovers

• Censorship/Web Abuse

  • Oz gov suggests world’s worst copyright protection scheme

    In their submission, Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) have expressed concern that “the proposed legislation provides a very broad exception to the prohibition on interception of network communications for the purposes of ensuring that a network is “appropriately used””.

  • Australian Law Proposal to Turn ISPs Into Copyright Cops

• Legal

  • Recap The Law: Getting Public Legal Data Back To The Public

    There’s been a push by people both inside and outside the government to get public court documents out to the public. As it stands now, most court documents can be found via PACER, the court system’s own online service, which charges $0.08 per page. PACER notes that it’s charging for the documents to cover its own costs of managing its system, but this still bothers many who don’t like the fact that important public domain case law is so costly. There are some private services, like Justia trying to fill the void, and Carl Malamud is pushing hard to get the government to put public documents up for the public to read.

  • Use RECAP To Bypass Court Document PACER Paywall

    If the RIAA can’t stop music sharing, the U.S. government is going to have an even harder time trying to stop the sharing of federal court documents hidden behind a paywall. Those documents aren’t protected by copyright law.