[Mon Sep 26 15:12:24 CDT 2005]

While reading a short interview with GNOME and OpenOffice developer Michael Meeks published by LinuxFormat, I come across the following thoughts that emphasize Linux's ethical side in Richard Stallman's tradition:

— How did you first get involved with Gnome?
— Well, that's quite a long story. I became a Christian in my gap year. I'd like to point out I was using Windows exclusively, some pirated version of Windows 95, stolen compilers and writing assembler games for fun. And me and God had a big argument about this, that it was unethical and wrong. In the end he won, and I thought I'd switch to this useless Linux operating system, which was graphically hopeless —there was no way it was a development environment for what I liked doing— and all these years later, having got involved so early, it's still stoold me in brilliant stead. In terms of my professional career that was a turning point where faithfulness paid off. But because of that at university I was playing with it, high-speed networking...

As I said, it is sort of refreshing to read about the ethical side of Linux and open source coming from someone who is, after all, making money out of it. It is precisely the same way I feel when considering the possibility of using my wife's MacOS X system more often than my Linux system. Do not get me wrong, I like MacOS X way better than Windows which, simply put, would not allow me to be nearly as efficient in my computer use. Still, in the case of Linux there is also a whole ethical side of the story, a real feeling of being part of a community that, at least in my case, does not have religious roots but is completely compatible with my left-leaning political ideas. {link to this story}

[Mon Sep 26 13:35:28 CDT 2005]

By now, it has become a common place to state that Linux, and open source in general, allow for a high level of customization, therefore making it possible to come up with new products to satisfy the needs of a very small niche. However, in reality, and with the exception of point of sale solutions perhaps, the truth is that we have seen little of this advertised customization. For one reason or another, we seem to stick to the traditional GUI when it comes to interfacing with a computer (see, for example, both the KDE and the GNOME desktop projects) and the old distribution model so we can count on a reliable support to make us feel better. I have the feeling in the end this (human habit) is what is to blame for the lack of large customization projects in the open source world, at least at the OS level. However, earlier today I came across an interesting project: Symphony OS. Using Knoppix as a base, and mixing it with elements of Progeny and the Mezzo Desktop Environment, these guys have managed to build an appliance-like desktop that could prove quite appealing to novice users and is especially well suited for Linux terminals and kiosks. Mind you, it is not something completely new (I heard of something similar a few years ago, a product called OEOne that showed a lot of promise but never seemed to make it to the mainstream, although their website is still online and they appear to be alive and well), but I find it interesting how more projects like this have simply failed to materialized and we have instead managed to settle for something far more prosaic: your usual Linux distribution with your usual support package (I have heard little of customization packages) and your usual desktop environment that looks just like Windows. {link to this story}

[Mon Sep 26 08:19:36 CDT 2005]

Sun's managers are always a good source of headlines for the technology media. They tend to be funny, witty and cocky. Now, whether they are right is a completely different issue. For instance, Slashdot tells us today that, according to Jonathan Schwartz, the PC is increasingly becoming a relic. So, what is being substituted for? The network, of course. Schwartz points out to Google, eBay, Yahoo and Amazon as clear examples of companies that are benefitting from web services. It is a story we have heard from Sun managers before, and it truly makes sense: the more advanced our technology is, the more mature our networks are, the more chances we will see a heavy use of new devices to function in a truly networked economy. Of course, what is not so clear is whether Sun will be the one that will benefit from it, although it seems clear that the vision we are discussing here must be more or less correct. After all, even Microsoft is trying to position itself in that new market.

Jonathan Schwartz also makes a few aggressive comments about both IBM and HP:

First of all, they [IBM and HP] don't have an operating system, which gives you some sense that we may have some structural competitive advantages.

(...)

IBM in my mind is repeating the past mistakes of its PC division, when it said, "It's all about the box, just go fetch your operating system from another company". And so what they've done is said, "It's all about the box, just get a XSeries, get a BladeCenter box, and then just go find an operating system and it will run great". And unfortunately, what we see happening with IBM is they're retreating into that strategy, so they'll only support their applications running on Red Hat. It seems like that is the only OS on x86 they're going to support other than Windows.

That's causing customers to say, "Hold on, I'm feeling kind of trapped and locked in here. I thought IBM was supposed to be this whole open source company, but oops, they don't have any open source products. In fact, why on earth would I want to run DB2 when I could just go fetch MySQL?" And for 80% of the apps that we see out there, why would you want to run DB2 when you could just run MySQL?

{link to this story}

[Fri Sep 23 08:40:32 CDT 2005]

I cannot tell you how many times I have thought about the possibility of starting a Linux-based business, but then actually never even tried it, mainly because it would be a lot of work, I would need the right partners, and definitely do not have the capital to quit my job and get started. What could that business be? Lots of things: backup boxes for people who work from home, multimedia servers for the home user, a TiVo-like box based on open source software such as MythTV, servers for the SMB market, etc. Well, XYZ Computing published an article reviewing the process of putting together a Mini-ITX project that could be quite useful for such a business. The Mini-ITX form is ideal for home and small business projects, providing the flexibility to build Linux-based projects with a low-entry price point and without the noise and annoyances of using a large tower. {link to this story}

[Mon Sep 12 08:22:50 CDT 2005]

Tectonic, Africa's source for open source news, tells us today about HP's plan to ship Ubuntu PCs. According to the company's open source technologist, Michael Schulz, HP uses Linux heavily for internal purposes:

Schulz said the company today has as many as 15,000 Linux-based devices on its own internal networks and uses free software for many critical roles from its mail system, to DNS servers, and even its LaserJet development laboratories.

Schulz said that HP's entire email infrastructure —including a webmail client based on Squirrelmail— is run on Linux and delivers in the region of three terabytes of mail annually.

HP's internal instant messaging services are also run on open source software, using the Jabber platform, said Schulz.

The company's domain name services are also run on Linux using services such as Bind and NPT, said Schulz. The decision to use Linux for these services has paid off, he said, realising savings in the region of around 33%.

So, what are they going to sell with Linux preinstalled? Apparently, it's both desktops and notebooks (the HP Compaq nx6110 Notebook PC). As for the Linux distribution to be installed on them, HP has settled on Ubuntu. This brings up the ages old issue once again: will Linux ever be able to win a significant market share on the desktop? In this sense, Brian Proffitt, LinuxToday's editor, recently published an interesting piece about Microsoft, Office and the wild idea that Gates & co. might start to see the operating system as a loss leader.

While it is interesting to watch Microsoft squirm on the hook a bit, I expect them to have something up their sleeve to protect their sacred cash cow, Office. Because that's what Office is to them: pure unadulterated revenue. Microsoft makes little revenue, comparatively, on its operating systems —certainly not on the consumer-level Windows XP. The Windows Server line is more profitable than XP (and presumably Vista), but when it comes to cash, Office is the top of the heap.

So what will Microsoft do to protect Office?

Conspiracy theorists will say that Redmond will somehow convince Sun Microsystems to drop its support of the OpenOffice.org project. If that were to happen, the theory goes, the already manpower-low project would have to pull in a lot of community help to get back into a full production mode.

(...)

No, I think Microsoft may be planning to do something outrageous to try to solidify their hold on the desktop.

It's my suspicion that Windows Vista will be free.

I have to agree with Proffitt that the first strategy (putting pressure on Sun to drop any further development of OpenOffice) is not very likely. In any case, even if they dared to follow this path, chances are that Red Hat, Novell and others (perhaps even many world governments) would step up to the plate and lead the project from that moment on. As for his wild idea, what can we say? It is not the first time one hears these things, and I seriously doubt Microsoft will release any free operating system in the near future. Let us be realistic. Microsoft is, after all, a large corporation, and large corporations are not prone to taking this sort of risks. They are conservative by nature. As Proffitt says, it would be outrageous, and there simply is no reason for Microsoft to take that step right now. It just would not have that much to gain, and it is definitely not in a desperate position that could justify any such measure either, as it was the case of Netscape when it decided to release its browser under an open source license.

Incidentally, Jack Messman, of Novell, is convinced that the migration to Windows Vista will prove so costly to companies that it will provide the chance for Linux to finally expand to the desktop.

"The cost of migrating from Windows XP to Vista will be higher than the cost of migrating to Linux and that will push migrations to Linux", Messman said.

Novell says that it is making real gains on the desktop in Europe currently and that many organisations are choosing its Linux Desktop product especially in vertical industries that required locked-down clients with limited functionality.

"Instead of a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, Novell Desktop can be customized to provide the right fit across different workstations in the enterprise", said David Patrick, general manager of open source platforms for Novell. "So businesses finally have a secure and cost-effective alternative to Windows that serves the customer's return on investment rather than a vendor's proprietary licensing program".

Messman added that moving to desktop Linux has functionality benefits as well as cost benefits. He claimed that the fact that Novell's desktop Linux offering has less functionality than Microsoft Office is actually a positive rather than a negative thing.

Messman claimed that certain features of Office allowed employees to waste time at work by making it easy for them to browse non-work related sites. "Do you really want to pay for all the excess functionality in Windows that distracts your employees and reduces their productivity?"

{link to this story}

[Wed Sep 7 14:58:26 CDT 2005]

If you are one of those people who still relies heavily in good old plain shell scripts, and needs to run them on several flavors of UNIX and Linux, you will love this month's Shell Corner article on date-related shell functions. Julie and Michael Wang write about five date-related shell functions they created based on the date that will help you calculate things like the day of the week for a given day, the previous and next X day of weeks relative to the given day, the end of the month of a given month and similar things. You can reuse these in your own scripts or source them as a part of your own dotfile. {link to this story}