IBM takes potshots at OpenSolaris

August 18, 2006 Leave a comment

In a trend that seems to be increasing, IBM recently took the time to deride Sun on OpenSolaris. While I'd agree that Sun has been a bit skiddish at times and has certainly waffled more than any of us would have liked, saying that “OpenSolaris isn't a true open-source project is a bit disingenuous. It falls under an OSI approved license and it 100% forkable. It really is Open Source. Whether Sun is doing all it can to foster an active community is a whole other issue, but the wording in the article really seems like headline grabbing, which is IMHO not how companies should act. A couple quotes from the article:
“Sun holds it all behind the firewall. The community sees nothing,” Dan Frye, the IBM vice president who runs the company's Linux Technology Center, said Tuesday in an interview at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo. “It's a facade. There's lots of marketing, but no community to speak of.”
IBM was concerned that OpenSolaris could become a “competitive threat,” and Frye assigned a programmer to monitor OpenSolaris goings-on. The company concluded there is no threat.
I guess if it's no threat, why are you taking the time to talk about it. The reality is that IBM and Sun have both done a ton to help Open Source. They have both contributed massive amounts of code, countless man hours and much more. This seems like a cheap shot with not a lot of upside. Come on guys, you're better than this. One can only hope that sensationalist journalism spun this into more than it was meant to be. These days, the odds on that are unfortunately quite high.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

OSL Rackathon 2006

August 16, 2006 Leave a comment

If you're looking for a place to donate money that will benefit Open Source related projects, the OSL Rackathon 2006 may be just what you've been seeking. From the OSL description:
Greetings! We are looking for individuals to help sponsor the OSL in our new fundraising campaign. However, this is a campaign like no other. When you make a donation to the OSL, we will stick your name on one of our racks as our own way of saying “Thanks!”. These racks host some of the top names in open source software.
For those of you unfamiliar with OSL, they help host and maintain servers for Open Source projects. Who, you ask? The likes of Mozilla, Slackware, KDE, Gnome, Debian, Drupal, kernel.org and so many more that you should really go check it out yourself. The team there is great, and at a recent LinuxWorld they made it clear that if LQ ever needed help it would be there. A great project and one that LQ was proud to be able to donate to.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Firefox crop circles

August 16, 2006 Leave a comment

You have to hand it to Firefox enthusiasts, they're a dedicated bunch that continue to show incredible ingenuity. They've funded a full page NYT ad, launched a Firefox weather balloon and now we have a Firefox crop circle. Yes, an actual crop circle. In fact, a 220 foot wide crop circle. There are loads of pictures available and it really is quite an impressive feat.
On the topic of Firefox, I recently noted that the 1.5.x branch had been unstable and slow compared to earlier versions (and the post got a lot of corroborating feedback). I've updated to the latest 1.5.0.6 recently, so I'll give an update. Performance has definitely been improved. The odd delays on tab switching is completely gone and interactivity in general feels better. Stability is improved, but not quite to the original level. I still get the occasion crash and I still get the issue where the window pops out of the frame (for lack of a better quick description). All in all though, a very good release that has made significant progress. I suspect by 1.5.0.8 I'll be extremely happy.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

The Real Lenovo Laptop Deal

August 16, 2006 1 Comment

Contrary to the details in the original story, Lenovo will not be preloading Linux on a new Thinkpad. From the article:
The new “Linux-enabled” Lenovo laptop launched this week at LinuxWorld will not actually come “pre-loaded” with Novell SUSE Linux, a high-ranking Lenovo official said today, contradicting some industry reports stating otherwise.
Aggarwal maintained that Lenovo will be the first mobile PC maker to provide full phone support for a Linux laptop. Moreover, all Linux drivers needed for the T60p will be downloadable directly from Lenovo's Web site.
But he told LinuxPlanet that the T60p–an inch-thin, 4.7-pound laptop based on Intel's Centrino Duo processing technology–will be sold with a “blank hard disk.”
Not quite as exciting as the original speculation and certainly not the breakthrough deal for OEM Linux. That being said, it is a step in the right direction and it's good to see proper phone support and Linux drivers available directly from Lenovo. At over $3,000USD for a 14 inch screen though, I don't see this being a big seller in the end. This is another small iterative step in the evolution that will probably realistically take another couple years.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

First open source Java code promised for October

August 16, 2006 Leave a comment

Following up on an earlier promise, Sun will be publish the first parts of Open Source Java in October. More code will follow soon after, with the process being completed by 2007. The first bits to open will be Java C and the Hotspot VM, which isn't surprising since decent Open implementation already exist here. A license hasn't been decided yet, which was a bone of contention after the original Sun announcement. With the missing license info and details on exactly what Sun will be Open Sourcing extremely light (will it include the mobile stuff or the class libraries), the article doesn't give us much more than we knew on the direction of this initiative, but we do finally have a firm date. It's good to see Sun quickly following through on their promise and we're all anxiously anticipating watching this unfold. In the end, this could have far reaching implications, not only for OSS (especially projects like OOo), but mobile computing and really computing in general.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

HP offers Debian Linux support

August 14, 2006 1 Comment

Hewlett-Packard is throwing its support behind Debian, and is the first tier one hardware maker to align itself with the noncommercial community-based Linux offering. From the article:
“We've had a number of customers continuing to ask us to have broader support for Debian,” and HP decided to oblige, said Jeffrey Wade, worldwide marketing manager at HP's Open Source and Linux Organization. Red Hat and Novell will remain HP's main Linux partners globally, however.
According to the article, HP will offer technical support for installation and configuration during a server's warranty period and later this year, it will begin selling “care packs” to help customers with Debian problems (although no details on what a care pack constitutes was in the article). HP has had a long history with Debian, and many will likely find it surprising that there is no mention of Ubuntu. I think this is an interesting move, but you should take note of the following:
Debian won't be on the same level as Red Hat or Novell, though, Wade said. HP won't market it, and customers will have to download the software on their own. Software combinations with partners such as BEA Systems or Oracle won't be available with Debian. And HP won't formally certify Debian for its servers.
Despite those caveats, this should serve to further solidify Linux in the server market and it will be interesting to see how other OEM's react. I think HP could be a possibility as an OEM that jumps into the Linux on the desktop game. They're looking for any way they can to get a leg up on Dell at this point, and a good Linux strategy on both the server and the desktop may give them an extra boost.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, LinuxWorld, Main Page, Open Source

Open Source: Architecture or Goodwill?

August 10, 2006 Leave a comment

Sparked by a debate between Jeremy Zawodny and Matt Asay about whether companies like Yahoo! and Google are good Open Source citizens, Tim O'Reilly has posted an interesting Radar piece about the future of Open Source in a world that is increasingly web-based. From the post by Tim:
There are a lot of reasons why people make their code open source. I believe that one of the strongest original motivations has often been overlooked. Our hagiography tells the tale of how it all started with the quest for software freedom. But contemporaneous with Richard Stallman's story, other people were taking the same path (releasing source code) for a very different reason: the architecture of Unix.
The Software as a Service movement certainly has the potential to shake up what Open Source means to software. Tim makes some insightful points.
But in the world of Web 2.0, applications never need to be distributed. They are simply performed on the internet's global stage. What's more, they are global in scope, often running on hundreds or thousands or even hundreds of thousands of servers. They have vast databases, and complex business processes required to keep those databases up to date.
As a result, one of the motivations to share — the necessity of giving a copy of the source in order to let someone run your program — is truly gone. Not only is it no longer required, in the case of the largest applications, it's no longer possible.
That's why companies are having to think about new ways to “open source” their product. In the O'Reilly Radar Executive Briefing at OSCON, we looked at three of those ways:
The GPLv3 does make an attempt to address some of this issue, but the software world is rapidly changing and we could very well be at an inflection point. Open Source may very well have to go through an evolution to keep pace. Here's hoping our leaders and visionaries are listening. Indeed, as Tim says, the story has not been written.
–jeremy
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Filed under Google, Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Jono is the new Ubuntu Community Manager

August 10, 2006 Leave a comment

A quick congratulations to Jono, who will be the new Ubuntu Community Manager. I had a good number of beers with Jono at the last SCALE and he's a good guy who's well deserving of the position. He should have his work cut out for him trying to toe the line between Debian, Ubuntu and Canonical. Good luck Jono.
–jeremy
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Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Andrew Morton Moves To Google

August 9, 2006 Leave a comment

In a move I somehow missed a couple days ago, Andrew Morton is now employed by Google, where he'll continue to maintain the 2.6 Linux kernel. From the article:
The reason for this odd statement is explained by who was funding Morton's employment to begin with. Morton was named a full-time Open Source Development Labs Fellow in July 2003, and it is a common misperception that he was directly employed the OSDL. In actuality, Morton was employed by Palo Alto-based Digeo Interactive.
“My position there was funded by OSDL so that I could work on the kernel full-time,” Morton said in an interview with Linux Today.
Until recently, the arrangement worked very well for the developer, who is oft-times referred to as Linus Torvalds' right-hand man. But recently, changes began to take place.
“There were reorganizations at Digeo which would have changed my work situation in ways which were not attractive, and it was time to move on,” Morton explained.
The OSDL offered to directly employ Morton while he worked from home, but Morton indicated that he preferred to work in an office with other engineers. Thus a search for a new home was underway.
He also added his desire to work for a company that did not have a vested commercial interest in the kernel.org kernel. On the heels of the Google Code Project Hosting announcement, Google is clearly stepping up its Open Source support.
–jeremy
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Filed under Google, Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Niall Kennedy is Leaving Microsoft

August 9, 2006 Leave a comment

That didn't take long. Niall Kennedy, who was seen as an ad hoc blogger evangelist replacement for Scoble at Microsoft, is already leaving. From his post:
The stock plummeted on the announcement Microsoft did not have its costs under control. Microsoft's market cap lost close to $59 billion in the six weeks after I joined and second quarter financials were released, more than the GDP of Ecuador and over half the market cap of Google. What do you do when the market responds to your 6 month-old online services strategy by reducing your valuation by 1.5 Yahoos? Windows Live is under some heavy change, reorganization, pullback, and general paralysis and unfortunately my ability to perform, hire, and execute was completely frozen as well.
Looks like Microsoft may be taking the short sighted approached and be letting the Street dictate a bit too much. Microsoft, in a bit of irony if you ask me, is in the middle of what Clayton Christensen calls the Innovator's Dilemma. A disruptive technology is upon us, but the sustaining technology for Microsoft (in the form of Windows and Office) is just too much of a cash cow. They can't move away too fast, lest they loss too much of their incoming cash, but at the same time they face a very real possibility of being left behind. Add to that attempting to placate Wall Street and you have one snarky situation on your hands. Now, Microsoft has a ton of cash to help them in this, but at the rate they are going to have to spend, that cash could go away faster than one might think. Now, I'm not one of those Open Source fanatics that will claim Microsoft will be irrelevant this time next year. They'll be relevant for a long time to come. But there is a strong possibility that a major snafu now will mark the beginning of the end. Keep in mind though, the “end” won't be a company that goes out of business, but one that looks like the railroads or Xerox does today. I continue to wonder how history will look back on Ballmer.
–jeremy
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Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

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