10.29.08
Posted in News Roundup at 5:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
GNU/Linux
- Germany: ‘Cost of Open Source desktop maintenance is by far the lowest’
The Foreign Ministry is migrating all of its 11.000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other Open source applications. According to Schuster, this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in comparison with other ministries. “The Foreign Ministry is running desktops in many far away and some very difficult locations. Yet we spend only one thousand euro per desktop per year. That is far lower than other ministries, that on average spend more than 3000 euro per desktop per year.”
- BoycottNovell: just another website pushing a point of view
Four days ago, an article purporting to analyse the raison d’etre behind the website BoycottNovell.com appeared on the linux.com site. The author, Bruce Byfield, who styles himself as a “computer journalist”, however, failed to tell his reading public that the piece was just a thinly disguised and veiled attack on the person who runs the BoycottNovell site.
- Linux Reaches Out To Portland – Lindependence 2008
So a success? Yeah, I’d call it that. We can do better and we will. Next stop? Sometime after the holidays in a little place called Taos New Mexico. First though, look for some upcoming articles and Spotlight blogs on TouchStone Technology, Loye Young of Issac and Young Computer company and of course…one of the people you might least expect to become a Python Scriptor.
- Wal-Mart’s revamped online music store plays nicely with Mac, Linux
- Open Source Innovations
“Open source copies from commercial software.” “Without commercial software spending so much money on research, open source software would have no new ideas.” “Open source needs commercial software to survive.” These are some of the statements about open source software made by those with a vested interest in seeing it fail or flounder – but are they justified or merely FUD?
While there are several logical arguments against this, and we will touch upon a couple, the best argument is real world evidence: cases where open source developers have been the innovators, and often where commercial software has followed.
- Linux: The Latest MF Operating System?
- What I Learned using Linux over the last 10 years
- VMware users await Windows-free VirtualCenter, VI Client
- How Different Are Linux Distributions from One Another?
- SimplyMEPIS 8.0 Beta 4 Adds New Broadcom Support
- Sharpen Your Mind and Have Fun With Tux
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David Gerard said,
October 29, 2008 at 9:42 am
I expect the BoycottNovell article on linux.com provoked much snickering. Is this the point at which they shift from “ignore” to “fight”? Bypassing “laugh” altogether. Here’s to hits!
Roy Schestowitz said,
October 29, 2008 at 9:51 am
Bruce just did another article and it’s backfiring.
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-10-28-036-35-OP-CY-0001
“Bruce your ability to offend people and then disingenuously crying wolf does not amuse… ”
“This was a common trick by Rob Enderle [...] Back in the anti-trust trial/sco trial days; put out something that is nothing more than flame-bait and then cries of “poor me” or worse “those open-source meanies”.”
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-10-28-036-35-OP-CY-0000
“Ah brucy [...] He must be torqued off about the backlash from his boycott-novell article on Linux.com. Here’s news for you bruce: It’s not just FOSS.”
“The fact is the FOSS community is a community plagued by fears; fears about Microsoft, sellout Linux vendors, patent trolls, SCO, Apple, you name it. And when people get afraid, they get irrational, and everyone starts looking suspicious.”
David Gerard said,
October 29, 2008 at 10:02 am
Voltaire was right.
Roy Schestowitz said,
October 29, 2008 at 10:14 am
That too was said, in several places in fact.
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-10-24-030-35-NW-CY-0005
“‘Tolerating’ an opinion just means to not otherwise
try to prevent people from voicing it except by
arguments to the contrary. This implies that people
who call publishing an opinion which is not in line
with some or all of their own ‘intolerant’ are actually
themselves guilty of being intolerant. ”
In general, LinuxToday readers are quite supportive of us.
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-10-24-030-35-NW-CY