Free Software Linux

… by my reckoning at least. Take a look at this chart (click for a bigger image): That looks to be a rough average of about 300,000 downloads of the free and open source OpenOffice.org application suite every day for the last 28 days, which means about 8.5Million downloads this month. So to me, that works out something like this: If MS Office is worth about £100 (I guess that’s a reasonable average price) then that’s about £30Million pounds worth of software being downloaded for free every day.

I used to work in the Computer Networking Industry and Cisco was, by far, my biggest competitor in almost all areas. You had to respect them however. Not only did they have a very full war chest of products, sales execs and money to pour into the channel but also they were the absolute best for the way they managed acquisitions (and they did a lot of them). They had such a thorough and well-honed process that the acquired companies almost always integrated swiftly and with minimal pain. Those individuals who stayed were made welcome on Day 1. And those who were not wanted were given their severance fairly and swiftly.

I would like to announce the launch of a new social networking site, specifically catering to the needs of people called Alan. The idea came to me after a Friday night in my local pub, and being told by one of our colleagues at Canonical, that we are now simply known as “The Alans”.

They say you learn something new everyday don’t they? I came across a little gem in this article, via the Ubuntu Weblogs aggregator that really surprised me! Now, this may be well known, but I hadn’t seen it before. So I guess that this might be of interest to others too…

I was presenting to a bunch of corporate folk a few weeks ago, one of my questions to the audience was “Where are you on the Software Freedomometer?” and I knocked together a few simple slides in OpenOffice.org Impress to illustrate the discussion. Even though the slides are rough, it turned out to be too good a concept not to share with a wider audience so here it is, the Software Freedomometer. The flash version above was created simply by exporting the presentation from OpenOffice.org, here is the original file in ODF

About 15 hours ago, I posted an article on how to remove Mono from Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex. A similar thing happened the last time, when I did a piece on doing the same thing for Hardy heron. This: is the Mono effect…

As this was such a popular How To for Hardy Heron, I thought I’d document the same exercise for Ubuntu’s latest version Intrepid Ibex (8.10). With a default install of Ubuntu Desktop 8.10, there are quite a few mono packages installed as standard. In fact there seem to be quite lot really (I counted 28!), especially considering they are only there to support two fairly minor applications: Tomboy and F-Spot. Although the good news is that Intrepid Ibex comes with one less Mono application than did Hardy; which also included Banshee.

As if we needed another reason to dislike Microsoft… Accounts for Microsoft Ireland Research, an Irish subsidiary of the global software giant, show that the company paid just €460,000 in tax, on profits of more than €1.2 billion last year, by using provisions in Irish tax law to take its corporation tax bill down from €158m. Much of Microsoft’s international profits are channelled through Ireland, but because the main company for Microsoft’s activities has unlimited liability, it does not have to file detailed accounts. That is so totally disgraceful.

I came across Playlist.com a little while ago. What a cool idea! I’ve added the little player to my widgets selection so you can share in a few of my auditory jewels. I’ve had a great time thinking about some of the songs that brought back really good memories of my misspent adolescence and early adulthood. My wife bought me one of those USB turntables for my Birthday and I managed to get a couple of albums (you remember them. The black discs of vinyl that are full of clicks and dust and scratches) converted to Ogg, but then my Dad saw it and borrowed it… I haven’t seen it since.

Thanks to Matt Assay for bringing this to my attention. I Haven’t laughed so much for ages… (Do watch to the end, it is only a few minutes long)

WOW! Early on Sunday morning, the OpenOffice.org Community passed the ten million downloads mark for the latest version of its software, just four weeks after the launch on October 13th. The week also marked the first time the OpenOffice.org Annual Conference has been held outside Europe. And this is only from the OOo servers. This doesn’t include mirrors and installs from distribution packages.

So, it’s out.

Ubuntu 8.10 started shipping yesterday and I’m sure the world’s download servers are groaning yet again.

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to the Launch Party last night in London which was a really fun event. And I even managed to have a brief conversation with SABDFL.

This is such a great story that needs no further comment from me. http://pythonide.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-make-money-with-free-software.html. So cooooool.

Glyn Moody (See blogroll) has an absolutely cracking post on his Open Enterprise blog regarding a recent announcement from Russia. The really interesting bit for me is not the article itself so much, although it is indeed great news and very inspirational, but the comments that follow. Firstly, the main story. It is that Russia has had such a successful time using Open Source software in some School pilots that the government have decided to roll it out across ALL schools in Russia.

Remember this?