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I'll admit that I'm not a Marvel Comics fan (color me Vertigo), but this one's got me genuinely stumped: Iron Man is fighting the dark forces of Linux. That's direct from the writer's mouth, in fact -- Matt Fraction (how's that for a great comic-book name?), the fellow scripting the new Invincible Iron Man series debuting next month, had this to say concerning arch-villain Zeke Stane to an interviewer at Comic Book Resources:
Zeke is a post-national business man and kind of an open source ideological terrorist... He has absolutely no loyalty to any sort of law, creed, or credo. He doesn’t want to beat Tony Stark, he wants to make him obsolete. Windows wants to be on every computer desktop in the world, but Linux and Stane want to destroy the desktop. Go ahead, make that make sense. (Heck, make that make for a decent comic book.) Stane's a security threat because he's running Linux? Stane's agenda is developed by a worldwide group of evildoers? Stane is remarkably virus-resistant but takes forever to whomp up a driver? Stane names his evil schemes things like "Garrulous Giraffe?" What the heck is Fraction trying to tell us here?! (HT to io9.) PS. -- Image courtesy of Comic Book Resources. Note center panel, in which Iron Man is involved in a crash of some sort. Original link: http://blogs.computerworld.com/l... In the tech industry these days, when you lift a rock you often find a bunch of Indian programmers hard at work under it. So it goes with the LiMo Foundation, which is building a stack of open-source middleware and an application programming interface to run mobile phones. Azingo, a four-year-old mobile software company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., is on the board of LiMo and is performing a lot of the development and test work for the consortium. (LiMo has 30 members, including the likes of Motorola, Samsung, LG, and NTT DoCoMo) That work is being done by some of the 300-plus Azingo programmers in Pune and Hyderabad.
But this is no all-volunteer army. Azingo’s main business is taking the open-source software stack and the API and turning it into a commercially-hardened and supported software product, which it’s selling to handset makers and mobile operators. Azingo got a $30 million cash infusion from private equity firm Garnett & Helfrich last year and is in the midst of raising another major round of financing to pay for its business ramp-up. The company demonstrated its software running on a handheld a few weeks ago, and CEO Mahesh Veerina expects to have two major-player phones running the package in the market early next year. “We see it as Red Hat for the mobile industry,” says G&H partner Terry Garnett. The main threat to Azingo, and LiMo, is Google… Google, of course, is pushing Android, its software package that runs on top of Linux for mobile phones, and its Open Handset Alliance. Wrap it all together and it's basically LiMo--only controlled by Google. Most of the mobile service operators and major handset makers who are members of LiMo have also pledged allegiance to Android and the Open Handset Alliance. Azingo's Veerina insists that he doesn't see Google as a major threat, though. "Ours is a more operator-sympathetic platform," he says. "Operators will launch Android phones, but, privately, they're threatened by Google. They don't want somebody else controlling the API and controlling how applications get on the phones." A wild card is Nokia, with a 40% share of the handset market, which has not joined either alliance. The other handset makers and the mobile operators are threatened on all sides. Nokia, Microsoft, and Google all seem to have designs on mobile hegemony of one kind or another. So the rest of the bunch may find strength in togetherness. If so, they'll depend on Azingo and its Indian programmers to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Original link: http://www.businessweek.com/glob... Gartner analysts are running about in Las Vegas, hair on fire, shouting that Windows is collapsing. Or about to collapse. Or something.
This is easy to get snarky about, but there is a real issue here. With each new release of Windows, it adds capability, it adds code, and it gets bigger. It’s the Moore’s Law of Windows, Gates’ Corollary. Windows Vista is a bigger piece of software than XP was, XP was bigger than Windows 98, etc. etc. etc. With all those dependencies there is bound to be trouble, and if you run Vista, you know what that is. What’s the solution? Linux followers may consider me apostate for mentioning this, but just take a page from Linux’ book. Linux is Linux, but not all Linuxes are created equal. The Linux you run on a mobile phone is not the same as the Linux you run on a blade server. The former contains only those kernel functions it needs to do what it needs to do. That’s what all these various Linux vendors are really up to, slicing and dicing and parsing and picking what the Linux Foundation delivers into something custom made for their customers, like cooks creating meals from an ingredient list. Microsoft has never done that. It’s tried to, with things like Window Mobile. But eventually everything it touches turns to bloatware, in the name of compatibility. There’s your problem. Instead of looking at Windows as one product, Microsoft might do well to look at it as an ingredient list for a host of products, custom-made by Microsoft’s wizards (and its ecosystem) for your delectation. For Linux’ sake I hope it never happens. Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for nearly 25 years. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations. Original link: http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-sour... Seems like everyone's getting into the low-end notebook market these days. Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) is the newest of the bunch to step up to the plate with its VIA-driven HP 2133 Mini-Note, a nifty-looking machine that clocks in at $499 for a Linux edition. A little pricier than the ASUS Eee, but it looks like low-cost computing is one niche for Linux to derive wider market penetration.
It's been shaping up like that for a while, but this -- and promises of similar devices from the likes of Dell (Dell) -- further clinches the case. Linux has gone from being "just a kernel" to a whole ecosphere for hardware, a way not just to make an inexpensive OS but a whole galaxy of things for less, and we're now finally seeing a lot more than just proof-of-concept work in that realm. This isn't to say that low-end computing is the niche for Linux. There are people from all walks of the computing life that use Linux successfully. It's just that the low-end / educational niche may be one of the best places for Linux to develop a case for adoption by the broad mass of computer users. If you spend $299 on a computer that gets as much done for you as someone else who spent $899, that's a strong argument -- especially if the other guy can sit down with the argument and play with it on his own. Some of this, I think, revolves around the fact that for most people, changes in OS are "forklift upgrades". They get the new OS with new hardware, and generally do as little thinking as possible about their computers because, well, they're trying to get work done with them and not obsess about them as things unto themselves. Give them a new PC with Linux already on it, one where they can pick up more or less where they left off -- especially a machine that's markedly cheaper than a Windows box -- and they may find it that much easier to gravitate that way. Do you think the low-end machine market will bring Linux to the masses in a way that live CDs and preloads on existing higher-end machines haven't? Original link: http://www.informationweek.com/b... The first time I ever wrote about the Asterisk open source VoIP PBX was nearly four years ago when the 1.0 milestone was released. I met Asterisk creator Mark Spencer a few months later in Toronto where he delivered a keynote at the VON (Voice on the Net event) of that year.
Fast forward three years and Spencer is back in Toronto, again keynoting at an event. Spencer's key mantra this time around? Asterisk is 'boring' and it's the applications that people use Asterisk for that make it exciting. Frankly I personally still find the simple fact that I can set up a full PBX system with Free/Open Source Software that is equal to (or better) than anything I can find in the proprietary world to still be an exciting concept. Whenever I tell a peer/friend/general passerby that they can have their own full telephony system of their own they too find it exciting (though to be honest maybe that's just my own take on people's responses). Asterisk and Digium (the commercial sponsor behind Asterisk) still have much to do before they actually achieve their full potential. Digium still (to the best of my knowledge) has not officially launched their AA250 appliance that I spied at NXTcomm. The AA250 will handle 250-500 users and would be a significant step up for Asterisk. I suspect that somewhere in Digium's testing facility they've already got an appliance in the works for the next step up from that even -- to handle thousands of users. So while the simple fact that you can have a full VoIP PBX system may not necessarily be an incredibly interesting thing to some -- I personally still think there is a whole lot of excitement left to be had for the opportunity that Asterisk/Digium may yet have in the market as a whole. Original link: http://blog.internetnews.com/ske... |
For some months, strange goings-on have been reported in branches of Toys 'R' Us. Shifty-looking middle-aged men and younger males wearing ponytails and Grateful Dead T-shirts have been observed leaving the premises with small cardboard boxes which they then gleefully tear open upon reaching the safety of their cars. Exclamations of 'Yes! And 'Yeehaw!!!' have been heard by security guards, who are as puzzled by all this as their checkout colleagues.
'I can't figure it out,' said one store manager, when quizzed by this columnist a few months ago. 'The things are just walking out of the store. They sell out the minute we get a delivery.' 'They' refers not to a cuddly toy, but to the ASUS EeePC, a small sub-notebook computer made in Taiwan. It's small and light enough - about the size of a paperback book - to fit in an overcoat pocket. It has a 7in screen, a small but fully equipped keyboard and boots up in a few seconds - partly because it has no hard drive. It does, however, have two USB ports which can take flash drives, connect to printers etc, plus a VGA port for connecting up an external monitor, an ethernet socket for hooking up to local area networks or broadband modems, a built-in camera, microphone and wi-fi. And it costs just over £200, including VAT. The EeePC, which was designed for children, has found its market niche among adults. This tells us a lot about the state of the computer industry. The device is designed to be an information appliance rather than a computer per se. It runs Linux but you don't have to know that because it comes pre-configured: you switch it on and there it is. What you see are tabs labelled with words like 'internet', 'work', 'learn', 'play', and so on. Click on 'internet' and up come icons for web mail, web, Messenger, Skype, Wikipedia and Google Docs. Click on 'web mail' and you get icons for Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Click on the 'work' and you get OpenOffice- the Open Source equivalent of Microsoft Office. The key thing about the ASUS machine - and the reason for its popularity - is that it bypasses most of the complexity of operating a standard computer. To see whether it really could replace my Apple laptop, I took the EeePC with me on a recent trip abroad. When we arrived at the destination I plugged the ASUS machine straight into our hosts' broadband modem and in seconds was on the net. Later in the same trip I noticed that a friend was online in Spain, so clicked on the Skype button and in seconds was engaged in a video call with him. Everywhere I went, it picked up the available wireless networks without fail. On a train journey, I plugged my 3G modem into one of the USB slots and the ASUS detected the device and configured the connection. Easy as falling off a log. (And easier, as a matter of fact, than persuading the aforementioned Apple laptop to work with the same modem.) It would be misleading to say that the ASUS machine is perfect. The screen is a bit too small for extensive browsing (though OK for word processing), the keyboard is a mite too small for most adult fingers and the battery life is disappointing. But these defects are easily remedied - and ASUS reportedly has a Mark II version in the works which will fix most of them. Besides, the limitations of Mark I ought not to blind us to its significance - which is the cruel way it highlights the baroque complexity of conventional computing machines with their bloated operating systems, security problems, flaky hard drives, overheating processors and overweight chassis. Some day, our great-grandchildren will marvel that the industry once standardised on software that required its users to press the 'Start' button when they wished to stop their machine. Especially when all we really needed was a life-support system for a browser. The days of the cumbersome, expensive, overweight laptop are ending. There is a huge latent demand for a network appliance like the ASUS machine that just works. And - bang on schedule - last week Hewlett Packard launched an assault on this emergent market with its Mini-Note, which with a bigger screen and keyboard than the ASUS machine but still running Linux and not having a hard disk, retails at just under $500 (£250). But will HP be happy to see it selling in Toys 'R' Us? Original link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/... Techlogg.com has just released its new freeware multi-file, multi-format audio-video transcoder for debian-based Linux. Called Avocado, it handles all the major file formats, in and out.
Avocado is a native Linux application (no WINE required) that runs on most 32-bit Debian-based Linux distros including Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Kubuntu and Australian PC User magazine's UserOS ULTRA. It handles a wide range of input files including AVI, MKV, FLV, DVR-MS, M2TS, VOB and more. Output file support includes AVI (XviD or MPEG4 ISO), MP4 (XviD or H.264), MPG (MPEG1 or 2) and WMV. In standard mode, it uses two-pass encoding for higher quality and allows you to encode to a particular file size - no bit rates or quality settings to remember. It also supports user-created profiles - if you find a set of parameters that work well, save them as a profile and you can instantly call them up whenever you need them. The software is freeware for personal use and is available for download now at http://techlogg1.com . Original link: http://techlogg.com/index.php?op... I recently caught up with BitRock's CEO, Erica Brescia, & founder Daniel Lopez to hear more about BitRock & BitNami. BitRock's goal is to help drive the widespread use of OSS products by reducing barriers for both customers and OSS ISVs.
The company is best known for its BitRock InstallBuilder cross-platform product that competes with the likes of InstallShield. While the product itself is not OSS, BitRock offers open source projects free licenses to the product. As OSS ISVs began to use BitRock's InstallBuilder, they started hearing that customers didn't just want the standalone ISV product. Customers wanted the whole stack that the ISV product runs on. In response, BitRock now offers ISVs Custom Stacks (for a fee). BitRock counts OSS leaders such as MySQL, SugarCRM, JasperSoft and Funambol as customers. In fact, over 20% of SugarCRM downloads are attributed to a Custom Stack that BitRock provides to SugarCRM (including SugarCRM & the relevant stack underneath). BitRock is also expanding into a SaaS-based "Network Service", similar to the Red Hat Network. This offering is targeted at OSS vendors who want to push updates, check configurations, etc. at their end customer sites. While everything BitRock does is closed-source in nature, (and pays the bills), the company has introduced BitNami to further the use of OSS as a community outreach service. BitRock hopes that BitNami will become a leading destination for end users and the average developer that wants an OSS product or an OSS development environment respectively, but doesn't want to hassle with dependencies etc. Since December 2007, BitNami has served up over 100,000 downloads of popular OSS Stacks. BitRock plans to open up the site so anyone can build and host their own OSS stack. Nearly half of the visitors at BitNami are coming from non-techie sites and are downloading stacks for popular OSS applications such as Wordpress or Joomla. The other half are developers that don't want to collect and install their OSS development environment one piece at a time. Of note, the WAMP distribution is getting more than its fair share of traction as OSS usage continues to grow on Windows. It will be interesting to track how BitNami evolves. Simplifying the finding, installation and on-going updates to OSS products will surely help the adoption of OSS. The expanding reach of OSS to folks that program out of necessity should help create more 'developers' out of relatively "non-technical" people; and they’ll have an affinity to OSS. PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions." Original link: http://weblog.infoworld.com/open... Hi,
The winner of the election is Steve McIntyre.
I would like to thank all the candidates for their service to
the project, for standing for the post of project leader, and for
offering the developers a strong and viable group of candidates.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Steve McIntyre, the
Project Leader-elect, for his success.
The details of the results shall be soon up at
http://vote.debian.org/2008/vote_001.
In the interim, the results are temporarily also visible at:
http://master.debian.org/~srivasta/leader2008/results.txt
http://master.debian.org/~srivasta/leader2008/results.png
The tally sheet is at:
http://master.debian.org/~srivasta/leader2008/tally.txt
The list of people voting is at:
http://master.debian.org/~srivasta/leader2008/voters.txt
Total unique votes cast: 401, which is 37.302% of all possible votes
|------+------+--------+-------+--------+---------+--------+-----------|
| | Num | | Valid | Unique | Rejects | % | Multiple |
| Year | DDs | Quorum | Votes | Voters | | Voting | of Quorum |
|------+------+--------+-------+--------+---------+--------+-----------|
| 1999 | 347 | 27.942 | | 208 | | 59.942 | 7.44399 |
| 2000 | 347 | 27.942 | | 216 | | 62.248 | 7.73030 |
| 2001 | ?? | ?? | | 311 | | | |
| 2002 | 939 | 45.965 | 509 | 475 | 122 | 50.586 | 10.33395 |
| 2003 | 831 | 43.241 | 510 | 488 | 200 | 58.724 | 11.28559 |
| 2004 | 908 | 45.200 | 506 | 482 | 52 | 53.084 | 10.66372 |
| 2005 | 965 | 46.597 | 531 | 504 | 69 | 52.228 | 10.81615 |
| 2006 | 972 | 46.765 | 436 | 421 | 41 | 43.313 | 9.00246 |
| 2007 | 1036 | 48.280 | 521 | 482 | 267 | 46.525 | 9.98343 |
| 2008 | 1075 | 49.181 | 425 | 401 | 35 | 37.302 | 8.15356 |
|------+------+--------+-------+--------+---------+--------+-----------|
#+TBLFM: $3=sqrt($2)*1.5;f3::$7=100*$5/$2;f3::$8=$5/$3;f5
manoj
--
"I'd love to go out with you, but I want to spend more time with my
blender."
Debian Project Secretary <secretary@debian.org> <http://vote.debian.org/>
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Original link: http://lwn.net/Articles/277693/ Looking to boost the Web, Sun is working on a royalty-free and open video codec and media system, company officials said Thursday afternoon.
"The main benefit is that you don't have that now and there are markets, key markets like the Web, that are in need for the Web 2.0 experience a foundation of royalty-free for the media element," for audio and video, said Rob Glidden, global alliance manager for TV & Media at Sun. Detailed at the Sun Labs Open House event in Menlo Park, Calif., the project is called Open Media Stack or the Open Media System. It was derived out of Sun's Open Media Commons initiative for development of royalty-free and open solutions for digital content. Currently, proprietary solutions are relied on, such as Adobe's Flash or royalty-bearing specifications like H.264, Glidden said. OMS is a recent project. Asked about the availability of OMS technologies, Glidden said, "Stay tuned. I have no announcements on any commercial implementations or time frame." OMS video is to be based on H.26x technology. Original link: http://www.pcworld.com/businessc... What's the secret of success for open-source software projects? The same as other teams: trust, cooperation and a broad network of external contacts. Those are the main findings contained in an important new working paper by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Texas at Dallas. The paper is entitled "Network Effects: The Influence of Structural Social Capital on Open Source Project Success."
The researchers studied 2378 projects hosted at Sourceforge.net--a site where, according to the study's authors, 90 percent of all open-source projects are hosted--and found: (1) "Teams with greater internal cohesion are more successful." Open-source projects are more successful when members trust one another, communication is strong, and there's a strong spirit of cooperation and belonging to a team. (2) "External cohesion (cohesion among the external contacts of a team) has an inverse U-shaped relationship with the project's success; moderate levels of external cohesion are the best for a project's success, rather than very low or very high levels of this variable." Open-source projects benefit when team members can draw upon people they know outside the team for advice, information and expertise. Too much "cohesion" and everyone draws upon the same outsiders; too little and there's not enough trust in the advice coming from the outsiders. A moderate amount is just right. (3) "The technological diversity of a contact also has the greatest benefit when it is neither too low nor too high." This is the same dynamic as the second finding: It helps to draw upon a wide range of technical knowledge and backgrounds. (4) "The number of direct and indirect external contacts are positively correlated with a project's success." What does this mean to managers and hosting sites? Here's what the authors of the study--Param Vir Singh and Yong Tan of the University of Washington, and Vijay Mookerjee of the University of Texas at Dallas--suggest: "Open source hosting sites should try to develop a recommendation system to provide an appropriate pool of developers that a manager of a new project can target. [Team] Managers should try to recruit developers who have either successfully worked together in past or worked separately with a common third party. Further, such developers should be put together in the team who tap into moderately cohesive external groups. The managerial focus in open source should be at identifying, recruiting and retaining such developers. Open source developers, who do multitasking, work on multiple projects at a given time, should choose to work on projects that are moderately technologically diverse from each other. In established firms that promote their employees to work on open source projects, the managers should encourage them to work on such projects which are moderately technologically diverse or help the developer tap into distinct bodies of knowledge." Singh, Param Vir; Tan, Yong and Mookerjee, Vijay, "Network Effects: The Influence of Structural Social Capital on Open Source Project Success" (April 2008). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1111868 Original link: http://blogs.cioinsight.com/rese... |
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