Dell Pre-Installing Firefox in UK?

December 27, 2005 Leave a comment

Looks like there is a lot of speculation that Dell is preinstalling Firefox in the UK. While that is fantastic for Firefox, it may not make a huge difference in actual acceptance numbers, since IE appears to be the default. It will likely make a small difference though as some people will click it out of curiosity. The bigger news here to me is that Dell is finally standing up (albeit in a very small way) to Microsoft. They simply would not have done this 3 years ago. One can only hope that this goes well. OpenOffice.org seems like the next logical step if it does, and from there a true Linux preinstall hopefully won't be too far off. Maybe that EU decision did have an impact, even if only a psychological one.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Unpatched IE Flaw Is Worse Than Expected

November 29, 2005 Leave a comment

It looks like a security hole that was reported many many month ago, but considered minor by Microsoft and therefore never corrected, turns out to be a remote arbitrary code execution flaw. My question is why IE holes go uncorrected for this long – this isn't the first time something like this has happened. One thing I found scary is that a full third of the visitors to the SANS site are vulnerable to the problem. Keep in mind that anyone who has even heard of SANS is more security conscious than the average user, so if that amount of people actually visiting the site are vulnerable..well, the situation is bad. In other news, Firefox 1.5 has been released.
–jeremy
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Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Microsoft to Open up Office Formats?

November 23, 2005 1 Comment

This is a topic I've covered quite a bit recently and one that I think is extremely important. The main problem I see with this press release is the lack of details. I've seen rumors that only the information to write will be included, which would seem odd, considering MA's main concern was people being able to read Government documents. It should be noted that this is at least 12-18 months off (an eternity in this industry). It should also be noted that this is going to be an ISO standard, not a completely “open” standard. This could get Microsoft the ability to say their documents are a “standard”, without being beneficial to others in the way a standard developed transparently in the open would. How? Let's say they release office version X and then submit to ISO. 12-18 months later the standard is available and people like OOo can properly implement. By the time that is done though, Office version X+1 will be nearing release. Microsoft could completely change the format, submit to ISO and then the waiting game begins again. In reality, the competition's access to the format lags so far behind that it's nearly useless. Sneaky. This is something I'll be watching closely and I'll be sure to post updates as more information becomes available.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Birthday Memo leaked on Purpose?

November 12, 2005 1 Comment

Robert X. Cringely thinks the birthday memo may have been leaked on purpose. Some of the reasons he gives really make sense. Is Microsoft using this as a PR stunt meant to both entice Wall Street while painting Google as the bad guy (and itself as the good guy)? Here's a snippet from the article: These Microsoft memos look like a plan to do the same thing Microsoft “thinks” Google will be doing. By publicly stating their plans and putting those plans in the hands of Wall Street, Microsoft is giving the perception they are doing the same things as Google, so Microsoft will be as good an investment as Google.
The real questions to me are: 1) Is Microsoft sincere in its focus change (whether the memo's were leaked on purpose doesn't matter in this context) and 2) If it is sincere, will it be able to execute. Don't forget that, historically, Microsoft is not willing to do anything that even has a remote chance of in any way damaging their cash cows – Windows and Office. What are others saying about this? Scoble has a summary post. I find it interesting that mini-MSFT has been completely silent on this topic.

–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Gates/Ozzie Challenge Microsoft to “Alter Its Business” – Birthday Memo

November 9, 2005 1 Comment

Another leaked memo from Microsoft (Dave has posted the full emails here). “This coming 'services wave' will be very disruptive,” Gates said in an Oct. 30 e-mail to top Microsoft employees. “We have competitors who will seize on these approaches and challenge us.” The service wave has been coming for a while, it's all part of the ever popular Web2.0 meme. Microsoft once again finds itself waking up late to the party and realizing that they've been left behind. A day late, but never a dollar short. On the bright side for them, they aren't as late to this party as they've been for some others. However, unlike some previous occasions, they won't really be able to leverage their desktop monopoly in this case – at least not to the degree they have in others. Google transcends the OS. Beyond that, though, it's tuned into a verb… it has mindshare. While Microsoft can throw a huge amount of eyeballs at their offering, that doesn't always help. Take the auction space for instance. Amazon and Yahoo! throw huge amount of eyeballs at their respective offerings, but neither has put a dent in eBay. Like Google, eBay has mindshare in their space. Microsoft has proven to always be a worthy adversary, but outside the desktop and related areas they don't always win. The Xbox is still a loser to the PlayStation, MS-based MP3 players are losing big time to the iPod, Windows-based phone aren't what Microsoft hoped – you get the idea. Unlike say Netscape, from the past, I think Google is in this one for the long haul and is positioned well to hold its own. Scoble, who you have to think has had some influence on this thinking (be it directly or indirectly) is still reeling from the memos. It should be interesting to read what he has to stay when he stops reeling. This should be a battle the like of which the space hasn't seen in years. In the end, the consumer will be the ones who benefits from the competition. Should be a fun ride.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Microsoft: Open Source Not That Open

November 8, 2005 1 Comment

This article is about a presentation that was made at the OSBC. LQ was a show sponsor and I had hoped to attend, but that didn't work out. Jason Matusow, director of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative, claimed that Open Source is really not all that open. He bases this on the following:
Red Hat issues patch updates for its premium offering, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and keeps customers' IT infrastructure secure.
“But if a customer modifies the source code, [Red Hat] can't help you [without charging you extra]. They have to lock things down to provide value,” Matusow said. “As open source becomes commercialized, it becomes less open.”
Sound reasonable right? No, not at all. He's missing multiple points and is trying to create FUD (or is misinformed). First, you can make all the changes you want and still get support from Red Hat – as long as you can prove you didn't cause the breakage. This just makes sense. Change some Firefox code and have a kernel problem? The kernel would be 100% supported by Red Hat. Change some kernel code and have a kernel problem? Obviously you'll need to recreate the problem with a stock kernel or diagnose the problem yourself. That's not less open, it's common sense. In fact, it's the way many many industries work (Change the tires on your car and have an engine problem, Ford will help you. Change the engines internals and have an engine problem, you're on your own). Beyond this though, he misses one of the main benefits of Open Source from a client perspective. You avoid vendor lockin! Don't like the kernel support you are getting from Red Hat? What if they discontinue support for a product you use? Go to Novell, IBM , Progeny or one of the other myriad support services that will be happy to help you. You can even hire a whizzbang kernel guy and do it in house. The choice is yours. Have that same problem in a closed shop and your options are 0. Once Microsoft abandons a product it is 100% unsupported…and worse it's 100% unsupportable! No code upgrades, no bug fixes, no security patches – ever.
One final thing that I found amusing was the following comment: We are building intellectual property into software and trying to sell it. We throw code over the wall for the community to build on it. Throw code over the wall?? Seems like an odd choice of words to me, almost condescending. And he said this in a room full of Open Source people, which means that statement made it past the PR people! Do you really want a vendor that not only talks that way, but thinks that way? The choice is yours.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

No Respect for Windows Open Source

November 2, 2005 Leave a comment

I've been meaning to blog about this one for a while now, but I've been putting a good deal of time into the upcoming LQ code update so haven't been blogging much at all. In a recent post, Shaun Walker laments that Windows Open Source apps/programmers get no respect. Let me start out by saying that I am not all that familiar with DotNetNuke, which is the main app in question here. It looks like a nice app and is certainly 100% Open Sourced as it's using a BSD license. It looks like they have created a nice community there, which is always something to applaud. A few zealots aside though, I don't think the problem people have is with Open Source code that runs on Windows. The fact is, Windows has a huge market share and anyone that is dedicating their time to writing an Open Source App should be applauded. Now, writing an Open Source App that only supports Windows seems silly to me, but it's certainly someone's prerogative. What you lose there is choice. Also, one thing you'll notice about Open Source software is that it's often extremely portable. MySQL, Firefox, OpenOffice.org, PHP, etc all run on Windows – but they also run on Linux, OSX, Solaris and a variety of other platforms. Choice is good. The thing I'd guess that DotNetNuke is taking a beating about is that it requires .NET which brings you right back to the vendor lockin that Open Source tries to get you away from. Mono will hopefully change this, but that's not a reality yet. Right now, if you are a PHP developer and Zend and the php.net developers go crazy and do something you don't like you are free to pick up the last Open Source licensed version and go on your merry way. If Microsoft does the same thing with .NET, you as a DotNetNuke developer will be robbed of all your hard work and your entire community of users will be left searching for alternatives. The PHP developer also has a choice of OS and web server, instead of being locked into Windows and IIS. All that being said, in the true spirit of Open Source (as I've said many times now, but will reiterate) choice is good. If you choose to use an encumbered language that locks you and your users into a single company, that is your choice. For what you want to do, it may not even be a bad choice. What matters is if it's a choice you and your users are happy with. Your choice will of course have repercussions and may impact how others choose, but I hope that doesn't translate to a lack of respect. In the end, I'd say ignore the zealots and do what you like to do – write quality Open Source code. If I were one of your users though, MONO support couldn't come fast enough though.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

MS To Launch Internet Versions of Office And Windows

November 2, 2005 1 Comment

Has it finally happened? Has Microsoft realized (at an exec level, many non-CEx's there have realized for a while) that the world is changing in a direction that will eventually severely hurt their two cash cows, Windows and Office? It would seem so. Unfortunately, I currently get a Firefox support is coming soon. Please be patient :-) message, but the fact that they even admit that someone may come to the site not using IE is a small step in the right direction. One has to wonder how much the rumors of a “Google Office” along with their recent hiring of OOo developers had to do with this. One also has to wonder how crippled Microsoft will make these online versions, as they are surely not ready to put the two cows out to pasture yet. One very encouraging thing I noticed was that Bill Gates says that data will be able to easily flow in and out of these live offerings. Fantastic. Microsoft really lost most consumer trust long ago, and this would be a good way to start getting it back. It needs to be more than lip service though and whether that will happen remains to be seen. Right now it looks like the bottom tiers of the offerings will be free and ad supported, with paid higher tiers coming soon. It also looks like you can run this online via Microsoft servers or run it on your servers. I'd guess some of the details are still being worked out and they wanted to get this thing out as soon as possible. Scoble says that, while Windows Live just looks like a portal now, there's more to come. Tim seems optimistic about the offering while Russell thinks that Live isn't about Web 2.0 at all, it's all about Monopoly 4.0. These really are interesting times and it looks like we may finally have some competition in spaces we haven't had any on a long time. That's a good thing on all counts, IMHO.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

OpenDocument Debate Heats Up

November 1, 2005 Leave a comment

As you may have anticipated, this debate has turned political. The amount of FUD getting thrown around is amazing. What's also amazing is that people who clearly don't understand what is being decided are the ones making the decision. I guess that's not so surprising when you think of how Government is run sometimes. There seems to be some confusion that the move is to OpenOffice.org, when the move it to OpenDocument and anyone that is willing to support it, including Microsoft. How a senator could say “it appeared that no cost analysis had been done before ITD committed to OpenDocument, and that the agency had moved forward unilaterally without input from other agencies.” is beyond me. Was a cost analysis done when the choice was made to move to Microsoft Office? Was one made on the basis of remaining with Office? If so, did it take into account vendor lockin, constant upgrades, the potential of getting locked out of your own data and restricting access to Government documents to the subset of citizens that run Windows or Mac OSX in addition to being able to afford a multi-hundred dollar office suite? It also escapes me why “training” is always lumped into the migration side and not the upgrade side. Let's face it, moving from Office 97 to OpenOffice.org 2.0 is not that much more of a stretch then moving to Office 2003. Both are completely different than Office 97. If someone can figure out Office 2003 based on their Office 97 experience, they won't have much trouble with OOo 2.0. The reality here is that Microsoft doesn't want to fully support OpenDocument because it would require them to compete on a level playing field. While some people inside the company are willing to do that, clearly most aren't. Some at the company even want educated consumers, while clearly others just want a check to cash.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

On Educated Consumers

November 1, 2005 Leave a comment

Scoble points out 12 reasons that people may not go with Microsoft products. There, of course, are more – but on many accounts he hits the nail right on the head. So why is a Microsoft employee listing these things out? He wants educated consumers. That's something everyone should want. In the end, it really is best for everyone. Unfortunately, many reps (be it at Microsoft or at VAR's) do not feel this way. They want to make a sale regardless of what is best for the client. Let's face it – Microsoft is not always the best solution, but either is Linux. The right tool for the right job. Anything else and it's everyone but the sales guy who gets his commission that suffers. If everyone at Microsoft thought like Scoble, they'd clearly not have the reputation that they have. Unfortunately for everyone, that's not the case. The Scoble post was sparked by this post by Socialtext CEO Ross Mayfield, whose post was sparked by this post by Steve Gillmor. You should read all three posts.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

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