Showing headlines posted by vainrveenr

The sad tale of how the hope and excitement of a promising distro turned to fear and loathing in Linux land. Puppy Linux Most distro reviews focus on installing and using one release of a recent distro. But when people decide to stick with a distro, or abandon it after a longer period of use, the reasons are more to do with the entire distro experience, which includes the distro technology, its package management, the size and reliability of its package repositories, the ease and speed with which bugs are reported and fixed, the quality of the documentation, and the social experience of being part of the distro's community, as exemplified by its forum and IRC channels. Here I relate my personal experiences with Puppy Linux over the course of approximately one year.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. -- Believe it or not, on my way to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at the Googolplex this week, I realized that I knew at least one more Linux distributor would form a partnership with Microsoft, and that the most likely one was Linspire....... ................ So, who's next? Well, that same morning, I was thinking about Ubuntu as another possible candidate. Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical Ltd., the company behind Ubuntu, had never been as hostile towards Microsoft as some Linux leaders. I mean, this is the Linux leader who's recently said "I'd love to work with Microsoft..."

Back in the early 1990s, when Linux initiator Linus Torwalds and open source software started to make headlines, the idea of giving software away seemed crazy. Looking at the headway the movement has made since then, you might be forgiven for wondering why Linux desktops have failed to become as ubiquitous as Linux servers are.

So when I read about Microsoft's General Counsel Brad Smith telling Fortune magazine about the 235 Microsoft patents upon which Linux is supposedly infringing, my first question was why? My next question was, why now? The timing of this bit of FUD has me very curious. As in comedy, timing can be very important in business. So why is it that, after trying this exact same line of FUD in 2004, Microsoft is trying again?

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday accused Dell Inc. and its financial services affiliate of "bait and switch" advertising and failing to deliver on promised customer service. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell lured customers with zero percent financing, then switched them to a higher rate without their knowledge at the time of purchase, according to the lawsuit.

A Microsoft move to seek patent royalties from open-source distributors and users may be an attempt to use legal threats to deflect attention from company problems. Microsoft Corp.'s aim to seek patent royalties from open-source distributors and users may be an attempt to use legal threats to deflect attention from larger questions surrounding its business, including lack of interest in new versions of core products and lackluster profit from new wares.

Microsoft Corp. is resuming its pursuit of search engine operator Yahoo Inc. that could help it better compete with Web search leader Google Inc., published reports said Friday.

[Its not Open Source related but certainly of interest around here. - Scott]

The Supreme Court sided with Microsoft Corp. on Monday in a case that restricts the reach of U.S. patents overseas. In a 7-1 decision, the court found that Microsoft is not liable in a patent dispute with AT&T. The decision could impact other lawsuits against Microsoft and save the company billions because of the global scope of its operations. (footnote: although perhaps not directly affecting Linux/FOSS now, subject could impact other pending FOSS-related issues in the future)

In just a few short days our choices in desktop operating systems seem to have tripled. Not only has Dell agreed to distribute Linux on certain desktop models, but it's also given XP a new lease on life. Responding to user requests on its Ideastorm site, Dell has agreed to offer consumers the option to get XP and not Vista on select Dimension desktops and Inspiron notebooks -- at least until Microsoft sends XP off to the OS boneyard in January 2008. Even Michael Dell is running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn on one of his home notebooks.

WITH TWO OVERLAPPING events, Microsoft admitted what we have been saying all along, Vista, aka Windows Me Two (Me II), is a joke that no one wants. It did two unprecedented things this week that frankly stunned us.

Well, Microsoft never committed to play fair. The company has entered into two more patent agreements with Fuji and Samsung, as reported by Matthew Aslett. As ever, Microsoft doesn't actually say there are any IP infringement problems with Linux (there aren't, at least, no more than Microsoft has in its own products), but rather uses these cross-licensing deals, innocuous and common in and of themselves, to hint at IP infringement. Wink. Wink. Nudge. Nudge. Know what I mean?

I thought it would be worthwhile to collect from the FSF's rationale document the explanations of Section 11 on patents in GPLv3 draft 3. That is the section that addresses the Novell-Microsoft patent agreement, particularly the fourth and fifth paragraphs. I think when you read it, you'll see the Novell trajectory....... The rationale document includes condemnatory language of the patent deal and of Novell's conduct. The company certainly can't any longer after this pretend that the deal has not affected how it is viewed by the FOSS community or that it has not disrespected the GPL, I don't think.

More unpleasant insinuations, as you may have noticed by Paul McDougall on Information Week with the unbiased (ha ha) title, "IBM Helps Fund Web Hosting For Anti-SCO Site Groklaw." Yessir. No point of view there. What a stretching of facts to suit a purpose! May I please be the first to say out loud what you are all thinking? -- So what?

Yankee Group's response to the Feb. 6th Linux Watch column "Weather alert: new Microsoft FUD storm expected." Mar. 12, 2007 The Yankee Group send us a rebuttal to a recent column by Steven J. Vaughan Nichols entitled, "Weather alert: new Microsoft FUD storm expected." Research fellow Laura Didio's response appears below, in an effort to allow our readers to hear both sides of the story and form their own judgments.