Archive for March, 2007
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Judging this weird story from The Builder isn’t possible right now as the key part is said to be at
http://www.linuxpersonas.com/
whose sole content currently is the message
This material is being updated and will be made available to Microsoft partners shortly.
Posted in General, Levity | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
This story has been around for a while (it appeared last year here in The Independent!) so its appearance in today’s Guardian is a little puzzling. Much more puzzling is the total absence in these reports and Computer Aid International’s Annual Report of any mention of software.
Posted in General, Print media, International, Community | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Here from Computerworld.com is six-page piece by Sharon Machlis, its online managing editor, asking the question
Are you looking for a Windows alternative for serious office work? Many people are starting to wonder about their non-Microsoft operating system options, especially given Windows Vista’s hefty hardware demands, upgrade costs and license restrictions.
and coming to the conclusion that
After […]
Posted in General, On-line media, Desktop Linux | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
Now that Sinn Fein and the DUP are on the verge of an agreement (BBC news item here) could the parties to the free v. open wrangle at least agree not to provide ammunition for this kind of piece in Information Week (or anywhere else!). No doubt the protagonists will brand the report […]
Posted in General, Open philosophy, GPL revision | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
This story has been around for about a week, with Microsoft’s press release being pretty much reproduced by dozens of outlets; this short piece in Computing seems to have been (one of?) the first. There is a longer item at Computer Business Review emphasising Novell’s perspective and one from eWeek looking at it from […]
Posted in General, On-line media, Private sector use, Corporate, Press releases | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 21st, 2007
This piece from Internetnews.com reports that
Brad Abrams, group program manager at Microsoft for ASP.NET AJAX … declared that Microsoft is not the cathedral and that open source isn’t really a bazaar when it comes to AJAX, a claim that undermines one of the core underpinnings of the open source movement.
There is a […]
Posted in General, Browsers, Open standards | No Comments »
Monday, March 12th, 2007
How did we miss this on Forbes.com a month or so back and the thousands of follow-ups?
Posted in General, SCO vs IBM | No Comments »
Monday, March 12th, 2007
This jargon-free piece in the highly prestigious MIT Technology Review is just the thing to show your boss, partner, MP, … or anyone important who thinks FLOSS is just for geeks.
Posted in General, Public Awareness, Open philosophy | No Comments »
Monday, March 12th, 2007
According to this on the amazing Grolaw, quoting this piece on Computer World
The International Standards Organization (ISO) agreed Saturday to put Open XML, the document format created and championed by Microsoft Corp., on a fast-track approval process that could see Open XML ratified as an international standard by August.
At the time of posting, this appears […]
Posted in General, Open standards | No Comments »
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
The Boston Globe tells the unlikely tale of
a bunch of Danes who seem to have missed the meeting that made clear this was just a metaphor. “Free as in free software,” they explained when rolling out Free Beer, or, as their website now says, “Free as in free speech.”
Posted in General, Levity | No Comments »
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
… says the headline of this piece in The Noblesville Ledger; does this local newspaper in Indiana know something we don’t? Unhappily not; for the good folk of Hamilton County, NHS is the TLA for Noblesville High School so only a small victory for open source.
Warming to the theme of open source in education, […]
Posted in General, Schools, International, Cost benefits, Software, Community | No Comments »
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
“Were they ever out?” one might ask, but this week:
CNET has this piece from Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith offering Two cheers for intellectual-property law and opining that
nothing is more effective at focusing attention on the arcane subject of patent law than a $1.52 billion jury verdict–in a case that could affect everyone who […]
Posted in General, Legal, Software Patents | No Comments »
Thursday, March 8th, 2007
No surprise about that, except open source was the issue.
Reported here on ZDNet are these comments from George Osborn MP, the shadow chancellor:
Too many companies are frozen out of government IT contracts, stifling competition and driving up costs. Not a single open-source company is included in Catalyst, the government’s list of approved IT suppliers. […]
Posted in General, Broadcast media, On-line media, Politics | No Comments »
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
The launch earlier this week in the Houses of Parliament of the National Open Centre is reported by The Reg (including a photo - spot yours truly!), Public Technology, Linux World, and PC Advisor.
Posted in General, Politics, Events, Community | No Comments »
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
… for
the NYT hoax which gives The Reg pause for thought and comment here;
conservapedia about which this entry on Guardian Unlimited says
A group of religious zealots and social rightwingers in America are taking on the might of Wikipedia. Based on their belief that Wikipedia’s liberal and secular bias is polluting young American minds, they have […]
Posted in General, On-line media, Wikipedia, Blogs | No Comments »
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
According to Engadget
… the Linux community has just launched Show Us the Code, a website / movement humoring Steve Ballmer’s repeated claims of burgled Microsoft IP within the open source OS
Network World has the same story here.
This is our post from last November when this was last in the news.
Posted in General, On-line media, FUD, Operating systems | No Comments »
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
This story has been around for more than a week; the time line in the dozens of posts can be seen in an early upbeat piece from PC World, a rather more measured piece from Information Week, a much cooler assessment from ZDNet UK and, today, a recapitulation of the story so far in The […]
Posted in General, Print media, Computing press, Desktop Linux | No Comments »