View all entries in the 'Open Source' Category

Mac moves to Intel as the Windows tax grows heavier

by eleanor on 8 Jun 2005 @ 7:28 pm in Open Source   ++

This is terrible to write, since I’ve mocked friends who’ve moved to Mac as shiny-object-with-a-price-premium-loving poseurs, but I’m starting to consider it.

In the last two weeks I’ve moved to Open Office which is barely adequate, had spam-virii invasive enough in Thunderbird to trigger Norton alarms continually (but ineffectually), and, as the kicker, just now updated Norton which changed my firewall settings sufficiently to knock me off our home wifi.

Since I had to reclone to get back to native WinXP SP2 Bluetooth support, the trial clock on Norton was reset; they will inevitably ask for money to support the Windows tax, and I will refuse and go to Grisoft. So even this rant is about a temporary problem, but it still rankles.

Where, oh where, is my Linux desktop alternative? That dream of running a highly configurable system on commodity hardware?

The newly converted and devout preach alike of the benefits of the BSD infrastructure underlying OSX, but even with Apple’s announcement of a move to the Intel chipset, industry bets seem to be that Apple will keep the system closed. Where does that really get us?

That’s always what’s consoled me about staying on Windows - at least you have a wide range of kit on which to run your bloated, insecure OS. I can go super light with Japanese notebooks, or I could go beefy with a casemodded gaming machine. Just about every peripheral works. Yeah, it’s worse with Linux, but that’s where the world was headed before all the alpha hackers moved to Mac.

With Apple kit, choice is simulated with a coat of paint and dismissed as not being nearly as cool as thinking different (yet so monolithically). Think different, yes, oh yes - different from commodity pricing pressure of the rest of the industry (but not too different). Best a kind of vertical different that accepts the requirement of a matching set of Mac-dedicated components. I admire it as a marketer, but revile it as a consumer; they free as much as they control.

I’ll post this and reboot (as was requested by Norton), hoping that my wifi settings will be restored automagically. I hardly expect success if I have to play with the settings in their tool. Of course I could always disable it and go for the Windows Firewall.

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OpenOffice 1.1.4: motivation for switching and review

by eleanor on 31 May 2005 @ 4:23 pm in Open Source   ++

I got a spiffy new Vaio back in March, which came with a trial edition for Microsoft Office 2003, which I eventually activated and used. I’ve used this sw for years, and probably use more of the power features than 95% the norm, but it’s a classic problem of an over-engineered product. And what is the cost barrier they need to overcome with me? The sub-$100 employee discount version. I’ve installed OpenOffice and we’ll see how it goes. Maybe I’ll need the upgrade, and maybe not.

One thing’s for sure though: the dinosaur campaign is a sure-fire dissuader. I haven’t commented on it previously but it’s been going on for months, and is — bafflingly — still in progress (some choice Flash platitude filled marketing here).

Microsoft exec’s need to revisit The Innovator’s Dilemma to get their thinking back in line with the reality of their market position. If your product has been goldplated to the point where customers no longer see value in the cost and disruption involved in an upgrade, you sure as hell don’t mock them for being… For being what exactly? For being customers who find your past products useful enough to keep wanting to use them?

I am no one’s advertising maven but this is where you’re supposed to tell them why it’s in their absolute money-making interest to upgrade right now. You can’t berate people into product adoption, certainly not in the current climate of business IT investment. The mere fact that this campaign exists is admission that there is no value proposition for customers: they’re seeking to play on emotions of being “behind the times” to sell their upgrade. What’s in it for customers? Features that will probably be never used, and the satisfaction of having “evolved” (to far more memory intensive applications). What’s in it for Microsoft? More money upfront of course, but the more subtle benefit is that every copy will need to be validated (as was not the case previously). From the Microsoft website:

Product activation is a technology created to help protect consumers and software manufacturers by reducing software piracy; it helps verify that you have a genuine, high-quality, virus-free copy of Office XP that has not been used on more personal computers than is permitted by the software license.

And sure, I’m antipiracy, but that’s not a feature that’s valuable to me as a user. Microsoft’s policy of bundling OS with each new pc, yet not allowing license transferability (I think I bought about 4 Windows 2000, and so far 2 Windows XP licenses) doesn’t bode well for user experience during the inevitable sytem restores, reclones, and hardware upgrades.

And upgrading is such a hassle with Microsoft products! I’ve never sat in front of one single install — even reclones — where Outlook has ever behaved and looked exactly the same. It can be argued that’s due to the vicissitudes of Exchange and various service packs and whatever, but it’s just bogus. The amount of customization it takes to make Office usable out of the box is insane - from turning things off (clippy, all that clipboard eyecandy, the pseudo-useful menu hiding) to pointing at defaut directories to configuring my toolbars with additional buttons.

You know, it’s only during upgrades and reinstalls that I really ever feel like a loser for using Microsoft products. That I ever feel like I’m flailing with a large, sensory obstructing dinosaur head on.

Note: in cleaning out my drafts 12-Jun I realized that I both needed to post this item and to write up a real review of the current state of Open Office after having put it through its paces, so I’ve backdated this.

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Intel assisting Asian OEMs with support for Linux installs for desktop machines

by eleanor on 26 Nov 2004 @ 6:17 pm in Open Source   ++

Cynthia Webb, in her Filter column in The Washington Post has a great rundown of the news around Intel’s move to simplify Linux installation for Asian PC manufacturers. Check out the full piece Linux Ready for Prime Time, Intel Says.
Intel’s assistance comes chiefly in the form of drivers - long the hardest part of Linux installs since manufacturers haven’t placed a premium on porting drivers to Linux. Driver availability has made such routine things as printing, scanning, supporting graphics and sound cards a challenge for Linux, and can be see as a key criteria for desktop usuability.

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Open Source projects gaining adoption

by eleanor on 16 Nov 2004 @ 1:44 pm in Open Source   ++

I’ve been looking at open source this week (as I sit in the SDForum Open Source: Entering the Mainstream event). I ran across an older NetworkWorld piece
talking about enterprise adoption of open source expanding out from the LAMP stack. The article gives a good overview of the open source projects and tools that are entering “mainstream” of the open source environemt.

Somewhat less developed, but more ambiitious is IBM’s Eclipse framework project. For a good overview of what Eclipse is and where it’s at now, check out this eWeek article discussing how Eclipse is coming out from IBM’s shadow and taking on life as an independent open source project. From a keeping-track-of-important-open-source-projects point of view, the piece gives a good precis of the relationship between Eclipse and other players:

Yet, while IBM no longer dominates the Eclipse Foundation, the organization’s failure to reel in two other Java heavyweights—Sun Microsystems Inc. and BEA Systems Inc.—has not gone unnoticed. BEA is, however, working indirectly with Eclipse on a project called Pollinate. The goal of Pollinate is to build an Eclipse-based IDE and tool set that leverages the open-source Apache Beehive application framework. Beehive is based on BEA’s WebLogic Workshop.

How I read that is that BEA is using Eclipse to build the IDE for Beehive, which is an open source version of WebLogic Workshop…. but one thing is for sure - industry leaders are making investments in open source tools development far beyond LAMP. We’ll watch to see what enterprise adoption looks like…..

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Novell’s leadership carries open source pedigree

by eleanor on 15 Nov 2004 @ 9:04 pm in Open Source   ++

From an eWeek piece, Novell Open Source Carries on Without Stone, talking about the sudden departure (reported without comment as being “within days” of the announcement of the settlement with Microsoft) of Novell Vice Chair and top open source advocate Chris Stone, we have a comprehensive list of what open source ’superstars’ still remain at Novell:

Novell spokesperson Bruce Lowry, in San Francisco, said that Novell’s Linux and open-source business is still in good hands. “Our platform business is now being run by David Patrick, the former CEO of Ximian,” Lowry said. “Our European operations are run by Richard Seibt, the CEO of SuSE Linux. Nat Friedman, the co-founder of Ximian, runs the group that just brought out the Novell Linux Desktop, and Miguel de Icaza is running Mono.”

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Novell proclaims intent to back open source with patent arsenal

by eleanor on @ 4:57 pm in Open Source   ++

After acquiring SuSE Linux, Novell has joined IBM as a key large corporate supporter of Linux. In part to quell FUD around licensing and IP risks, Novell has announced a policy of using its patents in a (presumably) retailiatory way against any company that brings a challenge to open source. This is all pretty vague, and as Bruce Perens notes in this InfoWorld article, InfoWorld: Novell to defend open source software with patents, not legally binding. It’s also somewhat of a strange approach since the SCO-IBM case is still ongoing. I wonder how much impact this policy of deterrence would have on those who might bring challenge.

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Novell releases Linux Desktop 9 as competitor to Microsoft Office

by eleanor on @ 4:20 pm in Open Source   ++

Novell made their Linux Desktop 9 broadly available last week. The product is based on SuSE’s Linux Enterprise Server, and Novell is aggressively selling it to enterprises as a viable alternative to Windows. It must be noted that they’re targeting specific job functions, including call centers, and not the broader knowledge worker segment who often uses more of the capabilities of Microsoft Office. The package, which includes Open Office, is priced (MRSP) at $50/user and is expected to appeal first to the public sector and education. See Linux Insider for more coverage.
ComputerWorld notes that the migration won’t be an easy sell, and discusses some of the issues enterprises will confront in evaluating Linux Desktop 9:

“We’ve been looking at Linux for a long time as a cost savings over Windows,” said Joe Poole, manager of technical support at Boscov’s Department Store LLC, a 41-store retail chain. Linux-based desktop systems are especially alluring for use in the back offices of stores, “where we don’t need specially written applications,” Poole said.

But Poole noted that many of the 9,500 workers at Reading, Pa.-based Boscov’s are dependent on Windows applications, such as a homegrown program that’s written in Visual Basic and used by 120 merchandise buyers.

“It’s a critical app, and until it’s rewritten in Java, it’s going to continue to require a Windows OS,” he said.

Tom Pratt, information systems manager at Coastal Transportation Inc. in Seattle, uses Novell’s enthusiast-aimed SUSE Linux Professional 9.2 desktop software but keeps a Windows 2000 machine nearby for applications that don’t support Linux. Pratt said he likes his Linux system but would have reservations about requiring workers to give up Windows, partly because of the different look and feel.

“Technically, it would be easy to switch to Linux,” Pratt said. “But it would be hard for users to adapt, and that would provide no real advantage.”

Given all this talk weighing the attractiveness of stripped down pc’s running an almost-free OS, it’s worth it to revisit Sun’s thin client offering. As cost reducers and Microsoft-free solutions, they certainly must both be on the consideration lists of many prospective customers. Sean Gallagher of eWeek grives his assessment of Sun’s BluRay thin client offerings.

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SuSE Linux Gaining Traction

by eleanor on 28 Oct 2004 @ 8:23 pm in Enterprise IT | Open Source   ++

We have a couple reports of SuSE Linux gaining traction with Novell’s backing and enterprise experience. Bolstered by Novell ’s promises of continued support,
Dell has announced that it will offer SuSE Linux-Based PowerEdge Servers.

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Q3 Sales of Smart Phones, PDAs show strong growth

by eleanor on 27 Oct 2004 @ 3:30 pm in Mobility | Open Source   ++

Handheld devices are seeing brisk sales worldwide, with the introduction of new models that push convergence closer to a reality.

According to Canalys, mobile device shipments grew 83 per cent in that quarter compared to Q3 2003. While PDA shipments were up 18 per cent over the same period - that’s those with and those without wireless connectivity of some form - smart phone shipments were up 190 per cent.

See more comments and data on The Register
Global smart phone sales soar

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Clayton Christensen on Open Source

by eleanor on 20 Oct 2004 @ 7:13 am in Emergent | Strategy-Marketing | Open Source   ++

Clayton Christensen teaches at Harvard’s Business school and is author of two highly influential books, The Innovator’s Dilemma (TID) — a classic from 1997, and The Innovator’s Solution (TIS) — released last year. TID is an excellent, valuable read for comapnies of all sizes, but is of primary usefulness to large companies seeking to profitably commercialize innovation. TIS is newer (ed. note - I haven’t read this yet), but focuses more on how small companies can use innovation to grow.

Prof. Christensen’s influence is beginning to seep into the more popular business communities. He spoke at the Open Source Business Conference 2004 in March, and an archive of the presentationis available for listening at IT Conversations.

Also ZDNet reports that Prof. Christensen is giving Microsoft strategy advice on coping with the threats posed by the innovation-run-wild that is the momentum around Linux and Open Source.

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Report from SDForum Open Source SIG Oct 2004 meeting

by eleanor on 23 Sep 2004 @ 12:48 pm in Events & Happenings | Open Source   ++

I attended SDForum’s Open Source SIG monthly meeting “Facts and Fallacies of Open Source Licensing” with Larry Rosen, counsel for OSI (chief licensing gatekeeper for open source) and Steve Mutkowski, corporate counsel for Microsoft in charge of advising on internal use of open source (in tools, embedded, code snippets, running on servers, etc). This meeting attracted mainstream attendees, far different than many open source events. Among the attendees were lawyers from most of the Valley’s big firms and corporate counsel for companies like Cadence. People were very interested in how they could use open source in their businesses, and where specifically the GPL/LGP would present problems. As such, there were a lot of basic questions, which showed that awareness of open source has penetrated to new groups that are just learning about the issues. That is the most significant data point I absorbed from the meeting.

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IBM open sources 2 chunks of speech-recognition code

by eleanor on 14 Sep 2004 @ 7:03 pm in Emergent | Mobility | Open Source   ++

The New York Times has a piece entitled Speech Code From I.B.M. to Become Open Source, where they report IBM is donating two separate blocks of code related to speech recognition to open source groups. “IBM is donating code that it estimates cost the company $10 million to develop. One collection of speech software for handling basic words for dates, time and locations, like cities and states, will go to the Apache Software Foundation. The company is also contributing speech-editing tools to a second open-source group, the Eclipse Foundation.”
The article continues to give additonal insight into IBM’s motivations for this gift. “”We’re trying to spur the industry around open standards to get more and more speech application development,” said Steven A. Mills, the senior vice president in charge of I.B.M.’s software business. “Our code contribution is about getting that ecosystem going. If that happens, we think it will bring more business opportunities to I.B.M.”
This is development is important because it will speed development of technologies to bridge the important gap preventing voice from being effective input to systems and a mode of interaction. Speech recognition and processing still have a long way to go and a huge variety in specific applications. Open source development excels in applications where a high degree of customization and tweaking are important: we’ll see the value when open source developers start hacking to bring speech recognition to such wide ranging things as hobbyist (home electronics), improved usability for the blind, and as well as general interactions with devices.

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Why on Ruby

by eleanor on 20 Feb 2004 @ 9:07 am in Open Source   ++

Ruby is a programming language - lightweight, open source. Like Perl or Python, except it’s from Japan. I’ve known a few enthusiasts, but have never been able to place it firmly in the firmament of tools.
Even as I write this, I say, hmmm - I know python because of the Zope project. Where do I know Ruby from? What made it interesting? Bitsplitter is on his way to Mardi Gras (poor foolish humans) otherwise, I’d have him explain it to me.
All this comes up from the most delightful little book, Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby. Open source itself (under the Creative Commons licencse, interesting since we just heard Larry speak yesterday), this book fits my entertainment and education goals perfectly. The online version, at least, is chock full of weird little comics and cartoons. Check it out for yourself and see if you can find a way to make Ruby useful in your life and work.

I’ll probably pick it up myself. I’ve been wanting to script vim for spell checking and other things I take for granted in things like MSWord - and it might be a good chance to learn about Ruby instead of going back to Perl.

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Resistance to Licensing6.0 Hits the Bottom Line for Microsoft

by eleanor on 30 Jan 2004 @ 10:55 am in Open Source   ++

Marcelo Prince in The Wall Street Journal reports on the increasing signs that Microsoft may have overplayed its hand in introducing its new licensing scheme, Upgrade Advantage. This plan is one of the first implementations of the ’software as a service’ model in a situation outside of the ASP (application service provider) space. The concept is that you pay Microsoft annually for the use of the software, moving away from the notion of buying rights to use a particular version as a one-time charge. Microsoft finance chief John Connors discusses the slow going:

“We have a $1.1 billion hole from Upgrade Advantage that we’ve got to fill going into” the fiscal year that starts July 1, Mr. Connors told investors at meetings Tuesday and Wednesday that were Webcast. As for how many customers will choose to renew, Mr. Connors said, “If it were 10%, we would be disappointed. If it were higher than 30%, we would be very surprised.”
Many customers will opt to simply buy one-time software licenses rather than pay extra for subscription plans that give them the right to product upgrades because new versions of Office and Windows are several years away, some analysts say.

This comes in robust contrast to the situation back in 2002, when Microsoft results doubled quarter-over-quarter (July to September $2.7bn) when the first incarnation of the program was first announced. The program offered two flavors - annuity model Software Assurance and supposedly limited-time offer of the transitional Upgrade Advantage. The scheme proved so confusing to customers that IT consulting firm Gartner put up a mini-site devoted to explaining the intricacies and advising the proper course of action.
As a historical note, the Upgrade Advantage mentioned above as performing poorly was originally slated to close September 30, 2002 and is still continuing…

Sources: WSJ.com -
Microsoft Says Revenue Growth Will Be Harder, Guardian article Software lock-in helps double Microsoft profits 10-18-2002, and Gartner’s mini-site for Microsoft Licensing issues and a good blog on the topic

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Speaking of free Microsoft stuff……

by eleanor on 14 Jan 2004 @ 12:40 pm in Open Source   ++

TechSoup, an online resource for non-profits just announced an “IMPORTANT CHANGE TO MICROSOFT SOFTWARE DONATION PROGRAM” whereby

all qualified nonprofits may now request a donation of Microsoft products one time per one-year period. This is a change from the previous “two year rule” (one order of MS products per two year period) that was established when the enhanced Microsoft Product Donation Program was introduced on March 1, 2003.

This development further example of exactly the sort of thing that Charlie Demerjian wrote about in his 12/29/2003 article in The Inquirer. You can read my entry about this here .

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Web Server Wars

by eleanor on 13 Jan 2004 @ 2:49 pm in Open Source   ++

Check out this beautiful graph from Netcraft counting webservers.
Come to think of it, it has been perhaps a year since I’ve heard about web server statistics, and this quiet expansion of Apache’s market share would be a good explanation.

Source: Slashdot | 2003: Year of Apache

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Read your contracts

by eleanor on 10 Jan 2004 @ 8:46 am in Open Source   ++

Today we’re brought a reminder to always carefully read contracts to be sure of what you’re getting. Did SCO actually buy what it thought it bought? from Aussie journal, The Age.

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The IT industry shifts away from M$FT

by eleanor on 30 Dec 2003 @ 5:20 pm in Open Source   ++

People sometimes fault me for just posting a link to an article, without comment or summary. I’ve made a conscious effort to put down my ’so what’ thoughts within most of these postings.
However, sometimes we see an article that bears no more summary than just ‘read it’. I like this one for that reason: The IT industry is shifting away from Microsoft
A choice tidbit:

The fact is, if you are negotiating with Microsoft, and you pull out a SuSE or Redhat box, prices drop 25 per cent from the best deal you could negotiate. Pull out a detailed ROI (return on investment) study, and another 25 per cent drops off, miraculously. Want more? Tell Microsoft the pilot phase of the trials went exceedingly well, and the Java Desktop from Sun is looking really spectacular on the Gnome desktop custom built for your enterprise, while training costs are almost nil.

This article, for me, reads like Justice Penfold-Jackson’s decision back in 1999 - a scathing, point by point, cause and effect indictment. I’ve been watching M$ as it’s gone through each of these flails - from back when I was at Xerox and got to read Gartner’s defense of licensing 6.0. Altogether this is very satisfying.
Read it and wave your penguin flag.

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SCO-Linux copyright battle not damaging OSS adoption

by eleanor on 24 Dec 2003 @ 4:12 pm in Open Source   ++

IT consulting group, Robert Frances Group (http://www.rfgonline.com), reports the results of their survey of 15 companies (ed. note - not a huge sample) on Linux adoption, which indicates that the momentum to move to open source software has not been impacted by the legal fight. The article quotes Evan Bauer, a principal research fellow with Robert Frances Group.

“Many feel they are absolutely protected by the GPL [General Public License],” Bauer said, referring to the open source software license (also called GNU GPL) that details how the open source operating system software and its source code can be freely copied, distributed and modified.
The companies in the survey represented a cross-section of sectors such as manufacturing, retail, financial services, and universities.
Bauer, a former chief technology officer with CSFB who is active in securities industry technology working groups, said the companies were queried about their return on investment regarding Linux, and whether they felt legal issues might slow their deployment of Linux in their IT environments.

Source: Internetnews.com New Survey Finds No Linux ‘Chill’ From SCO Suit.

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