opinions
You Can Hack An OS But You Can't Hack People - part 6: The Black Hand
Why is this part titled "The Black Hand"? Well, because I started this series using a nations metaphor. Citizens of Windows who expatriate and immigrate to Linux will be "foreigners" in Linux.
Patents in a Standard and Standards That Won’t Inter-operate
Digistan has just published an open letter signed by some high-level figures. It calls for people to adopt the right approach in the embrace of open standards. It’s worth a quick glance.
You Can Hack An OS But You Can't Hack People - part 4: Godzilla moves in with Bambi
I assure you, this situation is far, far graver than any of the rest of you seem to know. As much guesswork as it is figuring out who runs what, I'm going to take this recent Ars Technica article and give both Apple and Linux the benefit of the doubt. I'll hedge their numbers up to 4% desktop market share for Apple, and 2% for Linux. That leaves Windows at a mere 94%.
Microsoft to FOSS Poster Child: Come And Join Hands with Us
Remember ThinkFree? There are many situations where Microsoft approaches or acquires projects to ensure it can successfully exclude competitors and make third-party software developers (including their end users) more Microsoft-dependent. Watch what Microsoft is up to with Bldender at the moment. Blender is a FOSS poster child.
Microsoft U-turn to stop Linux dominating ultra low cost PCs
Microsoft is launching a program to promote the use of its Windows OS in ultra low-cost PCs, one effect of which will be to limit the hardware capabilities of this type of device, IDG News Service has learned.
Google’s open source problem is Affero
The best open source protection for “the cloud,” as Gordon Haff notes today, is the Affero GPL license. (Picture from our Tech Republic’s GeekEnd blog, written by Jay Garmon.)vv
Software Patents, Microsoft Trolls and Intellectual Monopoly Miscellany
The intellectual insanity resumes. Let’s take a quick look at some highlights from the news.
Linspire, Xandros and the Stories Only eWeek Will Tell You About
A certain pattern has become a bit difficult to ignore. It would be easy to just let it pass or make a quick observation (as we did several times before), but this has gone on for too long and it cannot be coincidence.
You Can Hack An OS But You Can't Hack People - part 2: The Computing World
Penguin Pete gets into the fairytales... welocome to the computing republics of Windows, Apple, and Unix; all ruled in remarkably different ways.
Categorizing OSS customers
I've been thinking about this statement from Sun/MySQL's Marten Mickos: "There's a difference between organizations that have more time than money and organizations that have more money than time."
Running Only on Open-Source Software
Open-source software has found increasing acceptance within IT for infrastructure application - but many may still wonder, 'Is it possible to run a company almost entirely with open-source offerings?'
"Can we fix it? Yes, we can!"
Jeremy Allison on free software, Samba clusters and world domination...
OLPC Mission Has Changed
Has the mission of OLPC changed so much? I say it has. No longer are the five core principals initially employed when the project started valid. The original Five Core Principles were:
An update on the war against Microsoft's war against Linux
Regular readers will know that I've rallied against Microsoft's so-called "Get the facts" site for the last fortnight. Rather than give legitimate comparisons facing off Windows servers vs Linux options the site opts for bunkum and hogwash with sensational headlines that have no underlying substance. Here’s the state of play.
What Might Be Behind OpenBSD’s Attack Against Peers
Yesterday I attended an inspirational talk from Richard Stallman that contained many familiar bits, a healthy dose of humour and an interesting questions session, which touched on the AGPL, GPLv3 and other currently-debated topics that are more about the present than about the past.
