Ward Cunningham leaves Microsoft for Eclipse

October 18, 2005 Leave a comment

Ward Cunningham, the father of the Wiki, has officially left Microsoft and will be joining the Eclipse Foundation. Luckily for Ward, when Ballmer said “just tell me it's not Google”, he could calmly say no and avoid another aeron getting tossed. This marks a huge change for Ward. Not only is he going from proprietary to Open Source, but he's only Eclipse's 10th employee. His new title is Director of Committer Community Development, but the article seems to indicate that he'll be doing more than just that (which you'd expect in an organization of 10). It's great to see names like this join the Open Source world and hopefully at some point, moves like this will stop the silly you can't make any money with free software that Microsoft and other keep spouting off. This is a great time to check out WardsWiki or the LQ Wiki, which aims to be the largest general Linux knowledgebase on the web.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Desktop Apps Coming to the Web: Google

October 18, 2005 Leave a comment

In this article, a Google engineer makes a couple comments on Google Maps. That's not what I find interesting though. While Google Maps is amazingly slick, it has some major usability holes IMHO (no ability to save your location, no ability to do multiple-stop trips, an odd propensity to label streets with names that no one actually seems to use). Those problems aside, there is no question that the design of Google Maps fundamentally changed what people expect out of a Web app – and that is a good thing. So, if I didn't find the Google Maps bit interesting, why am I pointing you to the article? About half way down, you get this: “A number of people are now working on a Linux port of Google Earth, but Rasmussen did not offer a release date.”. Fantastic to see that Google is continuing their commitment to support Linux in their apps. I've commented on this before and was extremely happy to see this reaffirmation. I also found the comment “According to Rasmussen, Google's design philosophy centres on end user loyalty not money, going beyond the browser's lowest common denominator, to develop simple Web applications that are as dynamic as native applications, and to launch early and often to learn from users.”. I'd have thought it was clear that, for Google, “end user loyalty” and “money” are inextricably tied and quite possibly always will be. The kind of lockin you see with Microsoft just will never be possible for Google. In the online world, the barriers to using another search engine, another ad publisher, or another are exponentially lower than switching something like an OS.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

20 Years of Windows

October 14, 2005 Leave a comment

Microsoft Windows just turned twenty. For a full history of Windows, here's the Wikipedia article. What I find ironic, and didn't know, is that the very first version of Windows shipped quite late and vastly understated hardware requirements. Seems not much has changed ;) Truth is, I never used Windows 1.0 so I can't testify to how it was. My first version of Windows was Windows/386. From there I went to 3.1->3.11 and finally the “Chicago” (Windows 95) Beta. That beta was the last version of Windows I have used as my daily desktop. I've played with various versions of Windows after that, from 2000 up to and including 2k3. The one notable exception is XP, which sans a single class I took I've never really logged into. While Windows 2003 isn't all that bad, to me the sad part is that it's not all that good. There's finally some semblance of stability, but it still has myriad security issues, questionable architecture decisions and lacks so much basic functionality that it's astounding. To me, Windows represents just how far you can get in the computing world by being good enough. In fact, Microsoft seems to have turned that into an art. Rarely the first to market, rarely the best value and rarely the best. BUT, they are perceived to be good enough and are a known commodity. The reality though is that after billions of dollars and twenty years of work, Windows is still only good enough. To me that is a monumental failure. It could have been so much more. When you put it in that perspective, I think Linux has made great strides and has done so with way less money behind it and only twelve years of development. In the Windows world, twelve years puts you just past Windows95. Linux is way beyond that in comparison, IMHO. Now, Linux still has a long long way to go and has a ton of places where it needs improvement. We'll get there though and it's been a pleasure to be along for the ride.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Open Debate About OpenDocument

October 13, 2005 1 Comment

FOXNews recently ran a story about the MA decision to move to an OpenDocument standard. The article was quickly blasted by their own readers, who pointed out that the article was one sided, full of FUD and neglected to mention that the author was funded by Microsoft. From the followup article: “The column “Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument” that appeared on FOXNews.com Sept. 28 identified author James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, but failed to disclose that Microsoft is a founding member of that organization.”. Now, it's good to see them update the article, but why is this practice so prevalent? Kudos to the readers who took the time to mail FOXNews, you clearly made a difference. It's time news agencies started doing more news reporting and less headline grabbing. Educated viewers and readers is what is going to get us there.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

Nessus Closes Source

October 11, 2005 2 Comments

Looks like as of version 3, Nessus will no longer be an Open Source app. In doing a little research here, it looks like many people have been suspicious of Tenable Security for a while now though. One of the main reasons Renaud gave for this change was “A number of companies are using the source code against us, by selling or renting appliances, thus exploiting a loophole in the GPL”. That's not a “loophole”, one of the main ideas of the GPL is to avoid vendor lockin. Tenable doesn't seem to get this and clearly wasn't able to differentiate themselves in a way that allowed them to make money. He also claimed that there were very few contributions made from the community. This seems to be a direct result of the attitude of the Tenable, as I've seen more then a few “we tried” stories around. In the end, having a successful Open Source project is about so much more than having good code. I've said this dozens of times – IMHO the success of Linux has more to do with Linus' personality and leadership skills than his coding ability. I stand by that. Now, this doesn't mean that he's not a good coder, just that you need so much more. Here's the CNet article and also a response from Fyodor. It's good to see that nmap won't be following suit. I had the pleasure of meeting Fyodor and can say that he really gets it – both from a technical *and* non-technical perspective. His response has some good pointers. It should be interesting to see if someone forks Nessus2-GPL (I am already hearing rumors that someone will) and what will become of Nessus3 (the non-GPL version) and Tenable. I also wonder how they will handle code that was contributed to Nessus under the GPL by non-Tenable employees.
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page, Open Source

The Value Dell Puts on Microsoft Windows

October 11, 2005 1 Comment

Anyone who's dealt with Dell knows the voodoo involved in their pricing. It does seem odd though, that a PC with no OS would cost more than one with Windows. Now, I know the argument – the companies that pay to preload Windows only trial software offset the cost of the Windows license. But is the claim seriously that it covers that and the price of a 17″ LCD? If so, I need to get into the preload trial software business I guess. The reality would seem to be the Dell is still quite inextricably tied with Microsoft. Why else would they make non Microsoft systems so convoluted and difficult to find? Now, they are a business and need to do what the can to maximize their profits, but it's just another case of the consumer coming absolutely last. On a side note, it was interesting to see that Dell accidentally hosted their anti-Sun campaign on Solaris 9 for a while due to an ISP snafu. Hilarious.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Microsoft, Open Source

CheckPoint Acquires Sourcefire

October 11, 2005 Leave a comment

The money sure was flowing while I was in the UK, wasn't it? By acquiring Sourcefire, CheckPoint gets the Open Source Snort IDS along with Marty Roesch and a ton of other expertise. In a letter from Marty, he states: “I’ll start by stating again what I’ve stated in the past, Snort is now and will continue to be free to end-users.”. What definition of free that is remains to be seen, but I've dealt with CheckPoint long enough to know their sole motivation is money. Marty has been a really stand up guy and Sourcefire has been a model company in the Open Source world, IMHO. They made money, but still usually did the right thing. I hope this trend continues while under the thumb of CP, but I have my doubts. If nothing else, Open Source in the business world is certainly being legitimized. Should be an interesting OSBC next month (which , incidentally, LQ is a sponsor of).
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Oracle Acquires Innobase OY

October 10, 2005 Leave a comment

Oracle recently announced that is has acquired Innobase. For those who have never heard of Innobase, they are lead by Heikki Tuuri and develop InnoDB. InnoDB brings transactions, row-level locking, foreign keys and other ACID features to MySQL. Who uses InnoDB? Sites like Yahoo! finance, Wikipedia and Google among many many others. LQ has been looking into it quite seriously lately too (the one thing holding us back was the lack of FULLTEXT support, but we can work around that). Until now, InnoDB and MySQL were fairly tightly coupled. You have to think this will soon change and there will likely be at least one additional front end for InnoDB released by Oracle at some point. Beyond that, Oracle is clearly not going to be as receptive to MySQL AB as Heikki was. Despite their public comment, MySQL can't be too happy about this one. They are now beholden to Oracle to supply their only transactional backend. That's not a good position to be in. I have no idea why MySQL didn't acquire Innobase a long time ago, but I'm sure there's a story there. The Oracle press release does state that “InnoDB is not a standalone database product: it is distributed as a part of the MySQL database. InnoDB's contractual relationship with MySQL comes up for renewal next year. Oracle fully expects to negotiate an extension of that relationship.” At a minimum, I'd guess the terms won't be as good for MySQL AB as the current ones. You have to wonder what the Oracle play is here. Will they release an “OSS” or “community” Oracle with InnoDB as the backend? Did they do this to crush a competitor, as with the Peoplesoft and J.D. Edwards acquisitions? Or is there more to it? This could be a move to attempt to hurt SAP, which recently aligned itself quite closely with MySQL AB with the MaxDB release. SAP is really one of the only main competitors Oracle has left in some spaces. I have to admit I'm a bit skeptical on this one and I hope MySQL AB comes out alright, as I really like the product and the company. Sure, InnoDB is GPL – but that just gets you the current code. With something this complicated, you still need the expertise to continue to develop that code and much of that will surely be locked up at Oracle now. You have to assume this acquisition had something to do with the recent “MySQL wants to be Ikea of the database market” comment from Marten Mickos. If anyone has any more information on this one, be it on or off the record, I'd love to hear about it.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Main Page, Open Source

Money Coming into the Blogosphere

October 9, 2005 Leave a comment

A ton of news came out while I was away, and I'll be slowly catching up here over the next couple of days. One bit of news that has seemed more and more likely recently, is that some major money from some huge companies is coming into the blogosphere. You had to see this coming. The least surprising of the two deals is that Weblogsinc was sold. AOL is a content network and Weblogsinc has content. $25 Million seems like a bit much to me, but what do I know. I'd expect Blog Networks to spring up from every direction now. The more surprising of the two deals is that Dave Winer sold Weblogs.com. In itself, that's not too surprising as he has mentioned that the site was becoming a bit too much for him to handle alone. At first I was surprised though, that the acquiring company was Verisign. That's the exact kind of company that Dave usually hammers on. Look at some of the things they've done in the recent past (Sitefinder anyone?) and you know they don't “get it”. But, after reading Dave's explanation that they are an “infrastructure” company I can see some logic to it. Let's hope they treat it differently then some of their other holdings, although I see no reason why they would. You can read what Verisign has to say about the deal here. At any rate, Dave has done a ton for blogging (among other things) and certainly deserves some remuneration for his efforts. You can just see Bubble2.0 starting to lift, can't you?
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–jeremy

Filed under Main Page

LinuxWorld UK Wrapup

October 8, 2005 Leave a comment

With LinuxWorld come and gone, here's a quick wrapup. London was once again a great time. While I was extremely late the first day, I still had a full day to explore the city. Between this year and last year I got to see a fair bit of the city, and I must say I quite like it. One thing I did find odd was how early most things close, but this year we were able to find the spots you need to go to avoid that. Both David and Chris stayed in the same hotel as me, which I think worked out well. Ray and Peter both made the trek from outside of London each morning.
The .Org Village this year was much better than last year as far as the layout goes. While last year we had to stand in the aisle, this year we had a proper booth. As usual the .Org was busy. Overall, the show definitely has a much different feel than either of the US ones (although, to be honest those have a much different feel from each other). The one thing lacking this year was any kind of usable wifi, though that's not for lack of trying. As usual we got to meet some current LQ members and also meet some people who never heard of the site. Both are fun IMHO. We ended up getting a ton of feedback. Once again the pub ended up also being a great place for feedback. Any time a bunch of mods get together in person and start chatting I always learn a lot – both on the LQ topic (some brilliant ideas spawned in the pubs of London will certainly eventually make it into the LQ code) and just in general. A huge thanks goes out to all the mods who were able to attend. I have every intention of making LWE UK a yearly trip, as long as UKLinux and IDG make the generous offer.
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–jeremy

Filed under Linux, LinuxWorld, Main Page, Open Source

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