10 common misunderstandings about the GPL

August 30, 2006 Leave a comment

Here's a decent article regarding common misunderstandings about the GPL. My single bone of contention is #1. The GPL most certainly is viral. Not in the way they indicate in the article, but saying it isn't (when it is by design) in an article meant to dispel misconceptions seems..well, confusing. The article prompted me to re-read the GPL FAQ and I have indeed cleared a couple things up mentally and will admit I was partially prone to one of the misconceptions myself (#8). In the end, I can see why some people choose not to use the GPL. While they claim not to be anti-commercial (you can sell GPL software!), this is not something many software company are going to want to deal with. Of course the loophole to that is to distribute your product with something like trademarked logos, which means it can't be simply redistributed without ripping those out (ala RHEL->CentOS). As I was reading the FAQ and misconceptions, one thing became clear to me – plenty of people, some of them well intentioned and some of them not, are definitely violating the GPL. I wonder what the actual compliance rate is?
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Eric Schmidt Joins Apple's Board of Directors

August 30, 2006 1 Comment

Apple has recently announced that Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be joining the Apple board of directors. People seem to think this will mean more support for Mac OS X in Google products, but it hasn't exactly worked out that way for Oracle or Intuit (Larry Ellison and Bill Campbell have also been on the Apple board in the past). I've always found it ironic that Safari defaults to using Google for search, yet many Google apps either don't run at all or run degraded in Safari. I'd guess this is more an Apple response to the Microsoft Zune. Whatever the reasons, it's clear that there is definite potential for some partnerships that benefit both companies here. Google searches for music giving the iTunes store as an option, being able to purchase videos from Google Video in iTunes, etc. Both companies are very heavy into digital media, without a lot of overlap. Should be interesting to see where this leads 18 months or so out (and if you're a regular reader of my blog, it's sure starting to look like 18-24 months out is going to be an interesting time, at least from a tech standpoint).
–jeremy
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Filed under Apple, Google, Main Page

Google Apps for Your Domain

August 28, 2006 Leave a comment

Today Google released Google Apps for Your Domain. From the release page:
Now you can offer private-labeled email, IM and calendar tools to all of your users for free*, so they can share ideas and get things done more effectively. You can design and publish your organization's website, too. It's all hosted by Google, so there's no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.
Basically, it's Gmail+Google Talk+Google Calendar+Google Pages hosted at Google, using your own domain. Why most articles I see are calling it an “Office Suite”, when it lacks a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation program is beyond me. It seems people really want to see Google vs. Microsoft, to the point that they'll pretty much make it up if they have to. The program is ad supported now, but in the future you'll be able to pay to remove the ads. Having just made it clear I don't consider this an office suite in any way, it would not at all surprise me to see Google roll their online word processor and spreadsheet into this in the future. In fact, I'd be surprised if they didn't. I'd guess they're just waiting until the two are a little more polished. Even then though, this won't be a direct Microsoft Office replacement. It serves a much different audience and comes with much different advantages. The real power in this will be in the collaboration. It's a real pain for small offices to share extremely simple spreadsheets. That's where a product like this could excel (ok, that one was bad…I'll admit). Before this could even be in any way potentially considered an “Office-killer”, Google would have to offer a version you could host yourself, and that's not something I've seen any indication of yet. This is something that I think is going to take a while to play out. The world isn't quite ready for a mainstream online office suite yet, and the product aren't quite where they need to be. Given some time and additional technology though, this could be a space that is extremely compelling in the next 18 months or so. Being able to collaboratively edit a document from anywhere in the world, from any OS (including your mobile phone) is one of those paradigm changing events that will cause major disruption. When a company can put that technology behind their firewall and allow access via VPN…that's when we'll see enterprise adoption. My guess is that it will be Google and/or IBM that realizes this goal first.
–jeremy
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Filed under Google, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize 2007

August 28, 2006 Leave a comment

Just ran across this and it seems like a fantastic commemoration. From the article:
The APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize recognises initiatives that are making it easy for people to start using free and open source software (FOSS). The prize is awarded to a person or group doing extraordinary work to make FOSS accessible to ordinary computer users.
The APC FOSS Prize has been established to honor Chris Nicol, a long time FOSS advocate and activist who for many years worked with APC.
The fact that “Small-scale activities are encouraged to apply” is great. There are so many deserving projects that I'm sure the soon-to-be-decided jury will have its work cut out for it.
–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

FairUse4WM strips Windows Media DRM

August 28, 2006 Leave a comment

It was just a matter of time before something like this happened. Interestingly, engadget has written An Open Letter to Microsoft – Why you shouldn't kill FairUse4WM, but I wouldn't be surprised if this one gets fixed before the next patch Tuesday hits. For regular readers, you'll know that I am not 100% anti-DRM. But, I am anti-DRM when it's used in ways that work against consumers, which unfortunately these days is most of the time. The greed and hubris of most media companies these days is simply appalling. They'd prefer that you'd have purchased the very same song via LP, then tape, then CD, then PSP and then digitally. The best part is, for the last one..you don't even own it. You're just borrowing it, and in most cases the cost is more than you purchased it for previously. Their costs are shrinking by leaps and bounds, yet they want to pass none of that along. What's worse, if you use an OS such as Linux then you can't even legitimately purchase songs via most services in the first place. It's as if they want to drive people to P2P networks so they have an excuse for failing, and fail they will if they keep up the current trends. They are learning the same lesson that Microsoft is just starting to learn – if you squeeze your customers who are legitimately trying to play by the rules to the point that those customers feel you're being predatory, in the end they will find a way to leave. It may take a long time for a viable alternative to come in the case of monopolies, but it is inevitable. It's not that complicated. Give me a music service that doesn't have absurd TOS and arbitrary limitations and I will happily send you my money. Not only that, I will tell everyone else to do the same. If you can find a way to do DRM in a way that does not limit my legitimate use in any way but prevents mass distribution, I could care less to be honest. I don't want to steal…I just don't want to feel like you're stealing from me.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Flash9 on Linux Update

August 28, 2006 7 Comments

A quick follow up to this post about Flash 9. It looks like things are progressing nicely, which is good as a number of sites that I'd really like to use are now requiring Flash > 8. Whether you like Flash or not, some cool things are happening on the platform. It's encouraging to see the developers testing so many distributions, even if they aren't ready to give an officially supported blessing yet.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Microsoft patch opens users to attack

August 24, 2006 Leave a comment

Microsoft has spent a lot of time and effort trying to improve their security image. Part of that was gaining mindshare among admins, so that patches would be trusted and deployed in an expeditious manor. It seemed that the Microsoft vision went as far as to wish everyone simply enable automatic updates. Obviously, for a variety of reasons, that simply hasn't been the case. Recently, Microsoft has been taking some heat for machines rebooting despite automatic updates being off. Yes, someone actually sent Bill Gates an invoice because of it, and the media and blogosphere have been having a field day with it. In the midst of it though, Microsoft released a patch that fix about eight issues, but also actually opened a completely new vulnerability. It also causes IE to crash for a variety of business critical apps, such as PeopleSoft, Siebel, and Sage CRM and any site that uses HTTP 1.1 compression. What's exacerbating an already bad situation is that the proposed fix has now missed it's target release and is currently delayed indefinitely. When you have someone at a large security firm saying things like “They basically butchered that patch.”, it doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. These incidents will almost certainly undo much of the work that Microsoft has done on the “improving its security image” front, and they make you wonder just how much they'll be able to deliver on the promises made for Vista. The fact that part of the issue still seems procedural and not technical doesn't bode well.
–jeremy
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Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Fresh Rumors Erupt over Red Hat-Oracle Buy

August 24, 2006 Leave a comment

After multiple rumors that Oracle would offer Red Hat support, the new rumor seems to be that Oracle will simply acquire Red Hat. While Oracle certainly has the cash to do this, I can't see the logic from either side. The rumor includes numbers as high as $6b and even the low side appears to be about $5b. It would really complicate things on the Oracle side of the house and would likely cause irreparable damage to the “Open Source” image that Red Hat currently has. While you never know, and Oracle has pulled off the acquisitions of multiple OSS companies such as Sleepycat and Innobase, none of them were the size of Red Hat. I think Red Hat has a vision; one that could not be achieved as a vestige of Oracle. Novell on the other hand seems like a more likely acquisition target, if I had to pick one. They are a bit more closed source friendly due to their history and are struggling right now, so they'd be a bargain. Oracle could also assemble their own support team, or scoop up a smaller distro…not for the distro itself but to get a small talented team. In the end, it seems certain that Oracle will eventually do something in the Linux distro space, it's just not clear what. I'm guessing that when it finally does happen, it will begin a new chapter in the way Linux is looked at by a lot of non-OSS people.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Open source guru advocates ideological shift

August 20, 2006 Leave a comment

I have to admit I was a bit surprised after reading this article, which include the following:
Eric Raymond has told the community that painful compromises are needed to the way it deals with closed source platforms and formats to avoid losing ground on desktops and new media players.
Raymond said the community is not moving fast enough to engage with non-technical users whose first-choice platform is either an iPod, MP3 player or Microsoft desktop running Windows Media Player.
Binary drivers are considered an evil for open source because of their proprietary nature, however Raymond called support for them in Linux “a necessary compromise.”
Raymond, a champion of all things open, said it is vital to the future uptake of Linux that the community compromise to win the new generation of non-technical users aged younger than 30. This group is more interested in having Linux “just work” on their iPod or MP3 player and “don't care about our notions of doctrinal purity”
Take a moment to process that. Now, while I completely agree that Linux too often does not engage with non-technical users, that's sort of by design and ingrained into the hierarchy of things. To be fair though, that's changing. Since Linux historically was a “by programmers, for programmers” kind of project, the non-technical users really didn't have a voice. With the entrance of companies like Novell and Linspire, that's no longer really the case. What I disagree with is the assertion that “The end of the 64-bit transition happens at the end of 2008. After that the operating system gets locked in for the next 30 years.” I honestly don't see how a move to 64-bit is going to lock any OS in. There's just no logical progression there. People (especially on the desktop) just aren't clamoring for the 32->64 conversion right now. It makes sense on the server, but the real benefits just aren't applicable to the average desktop PC. What I'd guess we'll see is a slow transition where by people will get 64-bit by default as the upgrade their PC – and they won't even know it happened. Because they won't know it happened, I'd hesitate to call it a “major architectural shift”. At least not when compared to the painful 16->32 change. That's why Linux OEM deals are so important… the average user simply doesn't care about their OS.
This brings us back to a topic I've discussed before. What are we, as a community, willing to give up to get mainstream adoption. I completely agree with ESR that “painful compromises” will be needed to gain more desktop penetration. Probably very painful compromises. I still question if the Linux we'd end up with is a Linux we'd all still be so passionate about. In the past I've indicated that I was unsure. Unfortunately, I'm still not. It's a very precarious thing, and I don't think people appreciate that there's a very real chance that Linux could end up being a victim of its own success in many ways. Luckily our communities are varied and resilient. While we're divided on many topics, in the end I hope we have the fortitude to persevere.
This article brings up a couple other topics that I'd like to break out into other posts (and will soon), including binary driver, Linux with an iPod and working with commercial and proprietary software vendors.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, LinuxWorld, Main Page, Open Source

Real to plug Windows media support into Linux

August 18, 2006 Leave a comment

RealNetworks will release open-source software this year that will let Linux computers play Windows Media files. No word on if Real will ever open its own codec unfortunately. This deal is “a result of a licensing deal RealNetworks signed with Microsoft and its settlement of an antitrust suit against the software giant”. It good to see companies actually starting to focus on the codec problems we currently have on desktop Linux, but I'm not sure what this gets us that ffmpeg/libavcodec doesn't already offer. On a related not, Novell is going to ship this in SLED, which is really looking like it may be a popular product at this point.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

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