Showing headlines posted by vainrveenr

Hewlett-Packard is taking a swing at Cisco Systems by acquiring networking equipment maker 3Com for $2.7bn cash. HP said the deal will dramatically expand its Ethernet switching product offerings, add routing technology, and secure itself a major presence in China. In addition, HP will pick up a large research and development operation in China that's dedicated to HP's future networking pursuits. 3Com also provides network security capabilities through its TippingPoint portfolio.

Jason Perlow has written an article about Richard Stallman, Watch Out for That Meteor, Stallman. There are some factual errors in the article, so let me step up to the plate and fix them. Here's Perlow's theme in a nutshell, as published in an extended caption under a disrespectful cartoon of Stallman: "Richard M. Stallman (RMS) the founder of the Free Software Foundation, has labeled prominent Open Source software developer Miguel De Icaza a “Traitor” for joining the Board of Directors of Microsoft’s CodePlex Foundation as well as for his creation of the Microsoft .NET-compatible Mono software development framework. While RMS’s hatred of all things proprietary has fueled the FSF’s and GNU’s mission to create Free software alternatives for what seems like eons, the overwhelming desire for interoperability between open and proprietary systems makes this narrow-minded Cretaceous world view ripe for extinction." I have some news for you. The GPL ensures that Free Software will never be extinct. Thank you, Mr. Stallman, for inventing it. For that alone, he will go down in history. Perlow will not. And Miguel will not. You and I will not. But Stallman will. Do you know why? Because with just his brain, he changed the world for the better.

Please join the Free Software Foundation as part of an international day celebrating software freedom. We'll be one of the many groups around the world hosting an event that day (see http://softwarefreedomday.org).

To address rising information technology costs, the government is making a major commitment to cloud computing, a move that aspires not only to cost and labor efficiencies, but also to environmental responsibility and openness to innovation. In a speech at the NASA Ames Research Center in California on Tuesday, federal CIO Vivek Kundra said that the government cannot continue to invest in traditional data centers to support its IT needs, citing a doubling in the energy cost at federal data centers between 2000 and 2006. Cloud computing, said Kundra, can simplify acquisition, budgeting, policy planning, and architecture. And to help that happen, he announced the launch of Apps.gov, a GSA-operated Web site that government agencies can use to buy and deploy cloud computing applications.

You know what Microsoft doesn't get? -- For one thing, the Internet. Microsoft doesn't control it. What it used to be able to do in the dark now falls out of its noxious bag of tricks into the Internet's bright light, stage front and center. And there stands Microsoft in the spotlight, with its pants down, and let me tell you, it's not a pretty sight. Microsoft also wants, I take it, exactly what Darl McBride wanted and still wants for SCO -- that every Linux install means payment to Microsoft (or SCO, depending on the dreamer). Not to put too fine a point on it, they want billions from Linux without having actually developed it themselves. Microsoft of course has larger dreams -- it wants to replace Linux, the kernel, and be everything to everybody.

The advent of the next iteration of the Windows client represents yet another opportunity for operating system measuring contest, and the Redmond-based company is not the one to back down from a comparison that would push its product to the foreground. In fact, the software giant has put together its own Windows 7 vs. Linux comparison and is offering it to retailers in a "Linux vs. Windows 7" module as part of the Microsoft ExpertZone training. GodofGrunts, self-described as a Linux Lobbyist, made the contents of the "Linux vs. Windows 7" module public by posting them on Overclock. The training is designed to allow retailers to “explain how Windows 7 can provide a richer and more engaging experience than Linux. [And] discuss the specific benefits of running Windows 7 on a netbook.”

Good educational software is hard to come by. And with budgets tight, it is understandable that many schools are turning to Linux and open-source software to save money. Most people have no idea how many outstanding educational applications there are for the Linux operating system. Here are 10 of the best.

Updated: Microsoft and Yahoo made it official on Wednesday. The two companies announced a 10-year pact where Microsoft will power Yahoo search. Yahoo also becomes the sales force for Microsoft’s premium properties. The companies said the search deal will accelerate innovation and bring more value to advertisers and Web users. Yahoo and Microsoft also get to focus on their core strengths. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz says there will be “boatloads of value for our users and industry.” Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says the Yahoo deal gives Bing the scale to compete.

A normal litigant would just fold up shop and call it quits, now that Novell has been ruled the owner of the copyrights that SCO was suing AutoZone about. Not SCO. It is addicted to litigation, I guess, or someone is making them do it. Like the Devil.

Give a man Ubuntu, and he'll learn Ubuntu. Give a man SUSE, and he'll learn SUSE. But give a man Slackware, and he'll learn Linux. Well, so the old internet maxim goes, but while it's normally used with a touch of humour, there's a great deal of truth in it too. Slackware is a curious animal, minding its own business while other distros roam the popularity plain and strive for dominance among their peers.

To Jim Zemlin you need no longer care about your operating system. You don’t buy an operating system. You buy a gadget that runs a program. The gadget and its software are one unit. I call this Invisible Linux.

The Eclipse Foundation, a not-for-profit, member supported corporation that hosts the Eclipse projects, recently announced the Eclipse Community Survey 2009 in The Open Source Developer Report. According to the report, Linux has become the most common deployment platform for the developer community. There is a shift from the Microsoft Windows to Linux and Mac OSX for their desktop development operating system.

Implementing Linux desktops is easier than IT staff expect, a new study concludes. You just need to pick the right users. A study commissioned by IBM and carried out by Freeform Dynamics found that Linux on the desktop was most easily achieved when first targeted at groups of non-technical users, such as those with moderate and predictable use of email and office tools.

Microsoft Office SP2 claims to have a fully compliant version of ODF, and that’s probably true, as defined by the specification. It’s just completely useless at inter-operating with other vendors’ products. This is not interoperability, it’s an attack on the very concept.

Here it is, the moment many of you have been waiting for: the U.S. Trustee's office, through its counsel Joseph J. McMahon, Jr., has filed a motion in the SCO bankruptcy proceeding to convert the SCO's Chapter 11 to Chapter 7. And I think this will be your favorite sentence: "Additionally, not only is there no reasonable chance of "rehabilitation" in these cases, the Debtors have tried — and failed — to liquidate their business in chapter 11." So what's left? Dismissal or, more logically, Chapter 7.

JauntyJackalope is coming, scheduled for release in April 2009. For every Ubuntu release we like to organize parties all over the world. At these parties everyone is welcome and we get together to celebrate, meet new friends and often introduce people new to Ubuntu to our community and our Operating System. Release parties are not only a great way to meet people but they are a lot of fun!

Microsoft has published its .NET architectural pattern under an OSI-approved open-source license to a mixed reception. The company's ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC), released at Mix 09 just last month, has been published under the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

IBM is reportedly in talks to buy Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion and the deal is long overdue. The companies mesh on the open source software front, Sun is struggling and IBM can consolidate some server market share. First, the headlines. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM could acquire Sun as early as this week (Techmeme). IBM would pay all cash for Sun. The Journal also reported that Sun has approached a number of large companies about an acquisition; a move that throws cold water on CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s everything is fine video.

Think Bilski. Are Microsoft's FAT patents *hardware* patents? No? Then what makes you assume they are valid in the post-Bilski world? Don't even get me started on obviousness. Let alone who really "invented" that stuff. This may turn out to be an opportunity, frankly. If you read the ITC complaint, on page 23, by the way, you'll find that Microsoft is currently dealing with a nullity action in Germany regarding a foreign counterpart to the US FAT patents. It's also dealing with a Canadian challenge.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday that he still wanted to form an alliance with Yahoo to combat the dominance of Google in search advertising. But in his annual forecast to financial analysts of Microsoft’s plans for the year, he ruled out any revival of last year’s aborted deal to purchase Yahoo.