2006 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Award Winners Announced

February 18, 2007 Leave a comment

The polls are closed, the data has been audited and the results are in. Here are the official results for the 2006 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards:
Distribution of the Year – Ubuntu (26.44%)
Live Distribution of the Year – Knoppix (26.22%)
Browser of the Year – Firefox (74.61%)
Database of the Year – MySQL (61.68%)
Office Suite of the Year – OpenOffice.org (89.79%)
Desktop Environment of the Year – KDE (56.58%)
Video Media Player Application of the Year – mplayer (41.93%)
Video Authoring Application of the Year – Kino (27.81%)
Audio Media Player Application of the Year – amaroK (57.07%)
Audio Authoring Application of the Year – Audacity (67.07%)
Multimedia Utility of the Year – K3b (69.51%)
Messaging Application of the Year – Gaim (51.52%)
Window Manager of the Year – Fluxbox (21.44%)
IDE of the Year – Eclipse (34.47%)
Mail Client of the Year – Thunderbird (52.74%)
Text Editor of the Year – vi/vim (38.42%)
Graphics Application of the Year – GIMP (65.60%)
Security Application of the Year – nmap (20.94%)
Windows on Linux App of the Year – Wine (50.10%)
Web Development Editor of the Year – Quanta (36.34%)
Shell of the Year – bash (89.45%)
A big congratulations to all the projects that were nominated this year. We once again had a record turnout, so a thank you is in order for the LQ members who make initiatives like this such a success. For winners, a certificate and site badge will be available soon. As always, the full results will be available at http://www.linuxquestions.org/awards until the nominees for next year are announced. As with most polls, a number of winners were fairly easy to guess ahead of time. Many polls were closer than in past years, which I think is indicative of the increasing number of quality projects OSS is putting out. The number of quality projects out there is truly impressive. The biggest surprise for me was probably how close Beryl came to beating Fluxbox, but looking at this chart maybe I shouldn't be surprised. As always, if you have any questions or feedback please do let me know.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Linux on Delta

February 18, 2007 Leave a comment

I ran into the exact same screen during my Delta flight to LAX last week. The reboot occurred for me when the power seemed to blip for a second. I too was surprised that there was no customized boothsplash. From what I could tell during boot it's a 5-6 year old Red Hat variant that was doing a PXE-like boot and then remote mounting /usr/apps2 before going into a custom GUI. It still amazes me where and how consistently you see Linux pop up these days. I admit I was hoping it would reboot again so I could get more details, but no such luck.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

The Nokia N800

February 17, 2007 1 Comment

After a long series of delays I am still in the airport waiting to fly home. They hope I'll be able to make it home tonight by about 2:30AM, but there are no guarantees. JFK is a huge mess. On to more interesting news, at the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit Nokia was kind enough to lend an N800 to any speaker or media person who was interested in one. I gladly took advantage of the opportunity. For those of you who have seen the 770, this is an updated model. The end result of the demo? I walked to the Nokia Flagship Store on 57th and bought my own ;) The device is extremely slick and is 100% Linux based. In talking with a Nokia rep, over 90% of the stack is fully Open Sourced. That's the kind of products you just have to support. The network support in the device is quite good and it supports both WIFI and Bluetooth DUN via my Treo. This will allow me to leave my laptop home for short trips (I hope). The device has a ton of polish too. Touch a text input field with the stylist and a small touchscreen keyboard pops up. Touch it with your finger and a much larger touchscreen keyboard pops up. Those small niceties are all over the device. I'll likely post more as I really get into using it, but so far I am very impressed.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit Wrap-up

February 15, 2007 Leave a comment

The Summit is now officially over. All and all a good show. The 'Ask the Experts' panel was the first unconference like event held at a LinuxWorld and based on this one they will likely move forward with future ones, which I was glad to hear. We tried a more conversational approach today and I think it worked much better. There is even some talk of remote video questions being an option in the future. I once again meet a bunch of great people and of course got to catch up with some people I haven't seen in a while. Chatted with Evan Prodromou about OpenID and MediaWiki for a while and I'm happy to announce we'll be rolling that out in the very near future. While not on the Ask the Experts panel I was able to attend a couple sessions. While some were not quite as technical as an expo like SCALE, the content was still very good. Microsoft threw a reception last night at the top of the hotel which was fairly well attended. The 49th floor rotates and has an amazing view of the city. Afterward I grabbed some dinner with a group that contained only one non-Jeremy (what are the odds on that ;) I think Jeremy White was kind enough to offer Don Marti temporary honorary Jeremy status. I definitely look forward to participating in this unconference style event anywhere they plan on offering it in the future. Thanks for having me Don.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, LinuxWorld, Main Page, Open Source

Red Hat joins Microsoft interop initiative

February 14, 2007 Leave a comment

A post in CBR points out that Red Hat has joined Microsoft's Interop Vendor Alliance. As the article points out though, this seems to be related to JBoss only (remember that JBoss was already working directly with Microsoft on interoperability). There is no mention of any other Red Hat related bits, such as RHEL or RHN. From the article:
While Red Hat has vowed not to pay Microsoft an “innovation tax” via a patent deal with the software giant, it has proven that it is not averse to working on interoperability and has signed up as a member of Microsoft’s Interop Vendor Alliance.
The IVA was formed in November with 25 other software and hardware vendors to ensure that their offerings are able to interoperate with Microsoft's Windows operating system and applications.
IVA members included Novell, of course, as well as other open source vendors including Sun, SugarCRM, XenSource and Centeris, as well as BEA, Business Objects, Citrix, Software AG, and Quest Software.
Missing from the list of open source vendors Microsoft had already struck an interoperability deal with was JBoss, despite their November 2005 integration agreement.
Red Hat’s decision to join the IVA makes sense given that agreement, and appears to be limited, at least at first, to the JBoss middleware stack.
Matt Asay says that the need for a group like this underscores that the market is currently broken in ways. From his post:
The strange thing in this announcement, and in the existence of the VIA, is that we have to talk about interoperability at all. It is precisely because the system is broken – with intellectual property rights driving vendors apart, rather than together – that something like this VIA is even remotely interesting.
But still I wonder if an industry alliance is the way to resolve the problem. Yes, you need scale/network effects to make something like this work. But in a large room filled with vendors who inherently distrust each other, I don’t see much interoperability emerging. Just lots of meetings about interoperability.
If the goal is to get one-on-one interaction, what good does the Alliance provide? Not much, in my view.
Since JBoss and Microsoft were already working together, it's hard to say what additional will be gained by this. It may have simply been to formalize the relationship and get a little PR, which is fine. What I wanted to point out here and what I think is important for some Novell execs to realize is that you don't see anyone freaking out about this… despite the fact that Microsoft is involved. The response by some seemed to be that the only reason the community reacted to the MSFT-NOVL deal the way they did was because it was a deal with Microsoft. Hopefully this points out that was definitively untrue. Working with Microsoft in places that are genuinely mutually beneficial is fine – some would even say it makes sense. After all, interop is absolutely key for customers and customers are really what it's all about in the end.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source, Red Hat

See you in NYC

February 13, 2007 2 Comments

My plane leaves in a couple hours (yes, packing would probably be a more judicious use of my time right now than blogging) and if the weather cooperates I should be in NYC by 6PM. A reminder that if you're in the area make sure to check out the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit. I'll be participating in the “Ask the Experts” session. I hear it's going to be unconference style and the rest of the panel looks awesome. If you are in NYC and would like to connect, feel free to drop me a line.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, LinuxWorld, Main Page, Open Source

Free Linux Driver Development Questions and Answers

February 12, 2007 Leave a comment

A quick follow up to this post. It's wonderful to see that Greg's Linux driver announcement got so many responses that he had to write a FAQ. I'd like to highlight one point from the FAQ:
Q: This is a lame publicity stunt, Linux development has always been done this way.
A: Well, the NDA program that we have set up with The Linux Foundation is new. But yes, other than that, this is exactly how Linux kernel development has been done. But it is good to point out exactly how it all works for those who are not familiar with how it works.
When you do this day in and day out for a long time, it's sometimes too easy to forget that things you take for granted are not common knowledge. It's important to take a step or two back every once and a while to get some perspective. Kudos to Greg for doing so.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Novell, Open Source

Novell-Microsoft pact not about interoperability, says Open Source leader

February 12, 2007 Leave a comment

Don Marti recently posted an outstanding interview with Jeremy Allison. One item covered in the article was rumors that some companies have been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Open Source, even previous to the recent Novell deal. From the interview:
LinuxWorld: One of the persistent rumors that’s going around is that certain large IT customers have already been paying Microsoft for patent licensing to cover their use of Linux, Samba and other free software projects. And the Novell deal — isn’t it just taking that and doing the same kind of thing wholesale?
Allison: Yes, that’s true, actually. I mean I have had people come up to me and essentially off the record admit that they had been threatened by Microsoft and had got patent cross license and had essentially taken out a license for Microsoft patents on the free software that they were using, which they then cannot redistribute. I think that would be the restriction. I would have to look quite carefully. So, essentially that’s not allowed. But they’re not telling anyone about it. They’re completely doing it off the record.
The problem with the Novell deal is — Novell gave Microsoft what Microsoft dearly wanted, which is a public admission that they think that Linux violates the Microsoft patent. So, that’s the difference between this and the sort of off-the-record quiet deals. This one is public. This one is Novell admitting, “yes, we think that Linux violates Microsoft patents.” Now, of course, Novell has come out and said, “no, that’s not what we said at all. We don’t think that.” To which, of course, Microsoft publicly humiliated them and said, “oh, yes, that’s really what you were saying.” It’s kind of funny. They couldn’t even wait until the press conference was over to start threatening users with a Linux system.
LinuxWorld: Watching Novell management being subjected to this was like watching a child eating a bug for money. It’s embarrassing.
Allison: It is humiliating. I was horrified to say. It was humiliating. Yes. It really is like, “Go on. Eat a bug. Go on. Go on. Here’s some money. Eat a bug.” Yes, sad but true.
This isn't something I've heard a lot about, but you have to hope it's untrue. If we're talking about public companies, I don't think shareholders would look too kindly on paying potentially large sums of money to Microsoft under the table for highly questionable reasons. We'll have to see if any concrete evidence of this surfaces. If it does, I'd expect a lawsuit.
The interview covers a variety of topics including Jeremy stepping down from Novell, his recent work on CIFS, some patent talk, additional Microsoft coverage and even some talk on burritos. Additionally there is also some really good GPLv3 commentary including some common misconceptions (one of which I had fallen prey to). The interview concludes with:
Allison: No problem. I’m looking forward to seeing you in New York.
Of course, he's talking about the LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit where I'll be in the “Ask the Experts” segment along with Jeremy Allison and a host of other great people including Donald Becker and Evan Prodromou. If you'll be near NYC on Feb 14-15 make sure to stop in. I'm looking forward to the Summit and it's really an honor to have my name associated with each and every person on the “Ask the Experts” panel. See you all in a couple days.
–jeremy

Filed under Google, Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Novell, Open Source

IBM aims to lower cost of using Linux, Apple PCs

February 12, 2007 Leave a comment

This article contains an announcement that I think may be interesting. The one problem is that I can't actually figure out exactly what it is. From the article:
IBM said on Sunday it will offer an open desktop software system for businesses that puts the cost of managing Apple or Linux computers on a more equal footing with Microsoft's Windows software, improving the economics of Windows alternatives.
The product – which the company calls its “Open Client Offering” – pulls together software IBM has developed in-house and with partners Novell Inc and Red Hat Inc to answer questions over the cost-effectiveness of managing Linux or Apple desktop PCs alongside Windows PCs.
International Business Machines Corp said the new software makes it feasible for big businesses to offer their employees a choice of running Windows, Linux or Apple Macintosh software on desktop PCs, using the same underlying software code. This cuts the costs of managing Linux or Apple relative to Windows.
What I'm unsure of it what “same underlying software code” actually means. Also from the article:
“We worked with the open source community and found a way to write software once that will work regardless of operating system. It will run on Windows, Macintosh or Linux,” said Scott Handy, IBM's vice president of Linux and open source.
As an alternative to Microsoft, IBM will offer its own Open Document Format (ODF) software for tasks like word processing, spreadsheets or presentations, along with Lotus collaboration, instant messaging and blog tools, and the Firefox Web browser, which is the biggest rival to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Fantastic that IBM continues to support ODF, but I'm still lost. Is this something based on emulation or Virtualization? A custom selected collection of Java apps or some kind of Java desktop? A slick management tool? After a bit of poking around I found this official IBM presentation, which answers some questions but I'm still not 100% clear. It seems that this is some kind of portal based on Rich Internet Applications, Web Services, the Eclipse framework and J2EE. I look forward to a less marketing driven explanation :) If anyone finds something along these lines (or is familiar with the product), I'd appreciate a pointer.
–jeremy
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Filed under IBM, Linux, Main Page, Open Source

SCALE Wrap-up

February 12, 2007 Leave a comment

Sitting in LAX at the moment, waiting on the arrival of a delayed flight. This marks the end of another fantastic SCALE. Ilan and crew once again did a remarkable job. The speakers were superb and I again learned quite a bit and got a few good laughs out of the presentations. The slides and audio should be up on the SCALE site soon and I highly recommend you check them out. I actually made it out of the hotel this year, even if it was only for a quick walk to a local restaurant with Jono and Dave. The after conference was once again lively and it was great to be able to both catch up with some people who I haven't seen in a while and meet some really good people for the first time. I'd say a good time was had by all, although by the end of day two quite a few people seemed fairly worn out. Time to start making plans for SCALE 6 as this is a conference I'll certainly make a point of attending each year.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

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