Showing headlines posted by Herschel_Cohen

With SGI Altix Option, New and Existing SAP Customers Can Improve ROI With Flexible Linux Environments

[ED: Just wish SAP(ians) would make up their minds: either F/OSS stinks or it's Great! Come on, you been studying out in the Sun too long. - HC]

Virtually the same day I read Joe Barr's article "Do LUGs still matter?" I received an email message saying that someone was setting up a new Linux user group (LUG) in my hometown. I attended the first couple of meetings of this group with Joe's article in mind, and with the perspective of a free software advocate, not a Linux or open source advocate. The experience made me realize LUGs do still matter, perhaps more than ever, although for different reasons than they once did.

A test has revealed that a Linux server is far less likely to be compromised. In fact, unpatched Red Hat and SuSE servers were not breached at all during a six-week trial, while the equivalent Windows systems were compromised within hours.

[ED: Read this elsewhere, but worth repeating. Nonetheless, do not become over confident, stay current on security. - HC]

SAP’s love-hate relationship with Microsoft took another turn Thursday after the German business software giant said it will make it easier and cheaper to run business software like human resources management on Microsoft’s operating systems.

SAP is extending its “adaptive computing” capabilities, which allow customers to run applications as services and distribute them across various pieces of hardware and software, to Microsoft databases and operating systems. For example, instead of running software on a large mainframe computer, companies can do the same on a few smaller servers that cost less than one large mainframe.

[ED: This is absolutely terrible news for all those mainframe manufactures that are now going to go bankrupt with this important, strategic moves by all those Saps. End of the line IBM. Your next Oracle. And F/OSS - worthless, as Sapians pointed out when it didn't rise to saving their business. Wait ... is this just a move propelled by bitterness? Who knows, better yet: who cares. - HC]

Novell is determined to see the renamed and rebranded SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 surpass Windows Vista on many fronts.

An upcoming version of Firefox will include protection against phishing scams, using technology that might come from Google.

The phishing shield is a key new security feature planned for Firefox 2, slated for release in the third quarter of this year, Mozilla's Mike Shaver said in an interview Tuesday.

[ED: Odd: "... already in Netscape 8 and Opera 8, both released last year." and will be in IE later in 2006. I wonder if Firefox will at least beat out MS on this needed feature. - HC]

A report issued today by Symantec Corp. seeks to satisfy users of both Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox browser and Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer.

In its latest Internet Security Threat Report, covering the last six months of 2005, the company now features two different ways of counting browser bugs: one that finds that Internet Explorer has the most vulnerabilities, and a second that reveals Firefox as the bug leader.

Firefox had the highest number of "vendor-confirmed" vulnerabilities, with 13 bugs reported during the six months covered by the report, compared with Internet Explorer's 12, said Dave Cole, a director of Symantec Security Response.

[ED: Color me cynical, but does Symantec's revisionism mean: that they are attempting to be more truthful? Or is it recongnition the market is changing? Or even more likely, recognition that their partnering with Microsoft and cash flow is ending with the release of Vista? When the latter occurs MS becomes the sole protector of the mass of ignorant users. - HC]

Commercial software can be costly in more ways than one. As if hefty license fees weren't bad enough, product support is limited to whatever services the vendor agrees to sell you, at a price that's tough to negotiate. Of course, you could fix program bugs yourself if you had access to the source code—but the typical software maker doesn't provide this.

So how do you break the cycle of vendor dependency? One popular choice is to explore open-source alternatives.

Even if American voters are ready to use open source systems to cast their ballots -- meaning publicly available code under an open source license -- no vendor offers open source software and systems that are ready for voting.

[ED: Why not some effort to do it? Any vendor not wanting to play can be excluded. Remember, a republic is built on the belief you have some say in your vote. If that proves true, over throwing the current holders of power becomes the only option. Hence, this is too important an issue to say it's a nice concept. - HC]

When you see your business model threatened, there are two options: confront the problem, change strategy and adapt to the new situation or, if you are powerful enough, try to destroy the threat.

Paraphrasing Richard Stallman ... “free software” is not referring to getting something for nothing, but to “market freedom.”

[ED: Consider this along the lines of a competitive alternative to the Internet desktop that is indepent of the OS of the device. In this case a cd or a thumb drive will do nicely without most of the data security issues raised by the former. That is, the user carries a set of simplified programs and data that temporarily run off an available machine. - HC]

" ... John T. Haller, a Queens financial systems programmer, proposed an open-source project that would lead to a new paradigm ... in theory, be possible to cut Mozilla loose and run it by itself, on removable media - just like my old copy of Wordstar. Those little tiny pen (aka USB, aka thumb) drives ... the old Microsoft paradigm of immovable software has been obliterated ..."

[ED: Interesting read, but I will stay with Linux for now myself - HC]

Counter point in the musical sense when different instruments combine in a pattern to heighten the music? Perhaps, here in a main line business media publications the Microsoft shady business practices that this company employed are many of the same issues the LXer Editor-in-Chief has been pounding upon.

Will there finally be enough volume to finally bring this issue to the fore? Will it arouse enough of the public to incite action?

Good questions, which may not turn out positive, but at least begin to have the possibility of being addressed. Watch for more.

Just an announcement the latest issue: 124 is out.

Here is one way to build a market, almost literally stealing from Windows.

A PDA-like Windows Mobile phone has been successfully coaxed into running Linux. The "Universal," created by Taiwanese ODM HTC and re-sold under various brands, has successfully booted several Linux OSes, after a flurry of collaboration on a developer community forum.

[ED: I guess they began rejecting the shrink wrap license. I wonder if they got a OS refund? In any case, they should apply, since it could lower the cost to the customer - HC]

This caught my eye, due to my thinking the projects came out of Chinese efforts, however, not with a name like McGuire. He wrote these applications. Since McGuire is now teaching in China perhaps some return with be encouraged by just his presence.

We get tons of press releases touting the release of this or that program as open source. Thanks for letting us know, PR people. But you need to understand something: While we're glad your client or employer chose an open source license, it's such a common decision these days that it's no longer newsworthy in and of itself.

[ED: Anyone want to hazard a bet when we do the same? - HC]

Debate in preperation for the election of the Debian Project Leader.

Caboodle Networks has launched an open source search engine based upon semantic web standards. This new search engine, Kit, (available for free at http://semantical.org) is ideal for finding digital content and services otherwise poorly suited to discovery by traditional text-retrieval search engines the company claims. Kit can intelligently recommend related digital content such as games, music, images, and video, thereby truly leveraging the value hidden in the “long tail” of published content.

[ED: This will be usable only if we can stop those that want to lock everything up. These same types will wonder later why no one is buying their product. Hence, they offer no other solution than sueing the malefactor non-users or having government imposed charges to subsidize their ownership expenses plus a fair profit. Make sense, provided you own one. - HC]

This may not be of universal interest, however, Firefox is being configured to be a base installation on set top boxes in the U.K. that are to appear later this year. Every niche adds to the total.

As with all surveys, I tend to lean strongly skeptical despite having used Mozilla and Firefox now for years. Nonetheless, this is nice to read, since many voting are voicing a perception of a product they may have never used. Hence, it bodes well for the future and can entice others that may be either fearful or skeptical to give it a try.