Software is a unique development in human history and should be treated as such by the patent system. That’s the argument from Gervase Markham in the latest “Man from Mozilla” column over at The Times.
The uniqueness of software means that software and patents have unique interactions. For example, a drug is usually covered by a […]
OpenOffice.org is looking to take advantage of Microsoft’s latest anti-piracy drive by advertising their software as the quickest, and cheapest, way to “get legal.”
ZDNet called on the EC to stop prevaricating over the adoption of ODF following promises from Microsoft over it’s OpenXML “standards”.
The European Commission wants an open standard for documents. ODF has been […]
Hollywood beckons for the collaborative Project Orange as the movie Elephants Dreams, created using open source software such as Blender3D and the GIMP, gets its DVD release.
The content of the movie, including production files such as models and textures, will be made under the Creative Commons 2 licence and are to be included on […]
John Naughaton, writing in Sunday’s Observer, looked at some of the reasons behind Microsoft’s problems with Vista:
The really interesting comparison is [between Vista and] Linux, a product of comparable complexity developed by an independent, dispersed community of programmers who communicate mainly over the net. How come they can outperform a stupendously rich company that can […]
Andrew Morton, the Linux lead maintainer and Torvalds’ right hand man (also not a confidante of the late Princess Diana, as helpfully pointed out by The Inq) has called for an overhaul of the Linux kernel in order to squish more bugs. Speaking at the LinuxTag conference in Germany, Morton opined that the problem was […]
The ODF finally got the nod from the International Standards Organisation this week, a grand event met with stony silence from Microsoft. In light of their continuing refusal to consider adding support for ODF to their Office suite, the OpenDocument Foundation announced yesterday that it has finished testing a plugin for the suite which will […]
Internet Explorer is the root of all Microsoft’s problems, and the only reason for its existence is the paranoiac corporate culture at the company. That according to an interesting and widely-blogged column from the pen of John Dvorak over at PC Mag:
All of Microsoft’s Internet-era public-relations and legal problems (in some way or another) stem […]
Oracle has set the rumour mill going again with hints that it may further embrace the products of the open source community by moving into the Linux market. In an interview with the Financial Times, CEO Larry Ellison, not known for his love of the open source community, professed his company’s love of Linux and […]
Nicholas Negroponte, head of the One (lime-green) Laptop Per Child project, called last week for Linux to be slimmed down for use on the project’s devices.
[Linux] suffers the same code bloat as Windows, [Negroponte] said Tuesday.
“People aren’t thinking about small, fast, thin systems,” said Nicholas Negroponte, chairman of the One Laptop Per Child nonprofit […]
With Vista’s delay adding to claims from the likes of Novell and Red Hat that this is the year Linux is going to break through, a senior analyst from the leading IT analysts the Meta Group has suggested that everyone should take a serious look at open source or web-based alternatives to Microsoft’s next generation […]
Following a re-evaluation of their IT strategy, Bristol City Council have decided to consolidate their office software - currently a mixture of Microsoft Office, Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect - around a single software suite. The “obvious choice” of Microsoft Office was rejected in favour of Sun’s StarOffice on the grounds of cost, licensing and standards […]
Vista’s delay has grabbed the headlines in recent days with a tenacity rare for a tech story, Microsoft or not. The news hit just in time to give Novell’s Brainshare conference in Utah an extra shot in the arm and led to some widely reported jibes from senior Veep John Dragoon:
Dragoon found the timing of […]
Search Open Source has a piece on one of the barriers to Linux adoption, the lack of an iteration of Microsoft Office for the platform. Focusing on the inevitable comparisons between OpenOffice.org and MS’s offering, it includes the sage advice “Stop whining and embrace change”:
There’s a contingent of IT folks, however, who discount these complaints […]
The Sunday Times carried an article yesterday that opened with an idea that’s been around for years - that Linux is only difficult to learn for people who are already used to Windows - but has, for some reason, failed to embed itself in peoples’ minds.
Danny and Linda Lee, who are both in their mid-50s, […]
Redmond raised eyebrows after it offered - without prompting - access to the source code and documentation for its Windows Server in order to try and fend off the legal (and possibly-soon-to-be penal) assault from the EU over server protocols. Nobody except the media seemed particularly impressed by the move; an unnamed representative of the […]
ZDNet reported on Tuesday that Firefox now enjoys brand status comparable with the likes of Starbucks and Apple, and ahead of that of eBay (who?) and Sony (never heard of ‘em). The annual survey, conducted by a marketing industry website, has never previously had an open source project featured so highly in the rankings.
Part of […]
French analysts XiTi have published a study on Firefox’s market share by geographical location. Worldwide, Europe and Australia lead with 20.11% and 18.60% respectively, with North America close behind on 15.88%.
Stats from within the EU show (perhaps not surprisingly) Finland leading the game with a massive 38% - something eFinland noticed - followed by […]
According to research by the 451 group…
…open source software and business strategies are a “powerful force of change” that companies can no longer afford to ignore.
While open source has the potential to bring about significant profits, the report also found a potential downside in that — if used improperly — open source strategies can do […]
The Guardian on Thursday had an article slating OpenOffice, calling it “dire” and demonstrative of the “futility” of the open source ideology. The piece has the occasional good point - coders shy away from OOo because of its fearsome size and complexity and hence much of the work is done during office hours on Sun’s […]
Well, will they won’t they? It appears the governor’s office may have welched with this statement:
“The Commonwealth is very pleased with Microsoft’s progress in creating an open document format. If Microsoft follows through as planned, we are optimistic that Office Open XML will meet our new standards for acceptable open formats.”
The “progress” referred to is, […]