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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
… 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 […]
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.
Earlier this year the European Union published a very upbeat landmark assessment of the economic impact of FLOSS in Europe despite heavy pressure from you-know-who. How heavy is described here:
according to its lead author Rishab Ghosh.
“There were critical comments from CompTIA. There were others: Microsoft, the software alliance [The Initiative for Software Choice] — […]
In an email the House of Lords Judicial Office confirms that
The petition for leave to appeal in the case of Macrossan (Petitioner) v Comptroller-General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (Respondent) and one other action was refused on 05 February 2007.
The importance of this case in the ongoing struggle over software patents in the […]
The new Web site Me.dium.com is built to change something that most of us probably take for granted: the fact that cruising the Internet is a pretty solitary activity.
Me.dium is based on the opposite idea - that people should be able to check out sites together, much as people get cues from one another and […]
At least that is what the Daily Telegraph says.
Just in case you have missed the more than 200 stories on the Web, go here, or here, or here or … , to read about the world-wide brouhaha caused when
Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it […]
Unlike our previous post with a similar heading , this piece from Information Week, and similar stories from other outlets, is serious.
NASA is nervous about its software, and it’s got a right to be. Its James Webb space telescope is scheduled to be launched in 2013 and it is being built by NASA, Canadian […]
The story we reported last week is appearing all round the world, including the BBC, in New Zealand, in the USA courtesy of ZDNet and, not surpringly, Brussels.
… and a lot about open source in this review, from Korea! The writer is a little behind the times in referring to “nineteen Members of Parliament” - 116 MPs have now signed the Early Day Motion.
… is analysed here; it is markedly more up-beat than our previous post on this topic and ends by quoting a definitely tounge-in-cheek suggestion that
If somebody sues you [for patent infringement], you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
… in this interesting piece.
More from CES here - this time about smartphones.
In February 2003, the program “Open Standards and Open Source Software (OSSOS) for the Dutch government” started, funded by the Dutch government. One of the main tasks was to make the government independent from single software suppliers, among which are Microsoft and SAP. After three years, the effort starts bearing fruit. Ten big municipalities - […]
A month or so ago we mentioned an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons. A vigorous campaign by the UK FLOSS community and the increasing number of signatories (97 at the time of writing) keeps it in the news (here and here).
… here. More technically oriented pieces can be found here and here and here and in lots of other places. The Inq’s inimitable take is here and Mozilla’s own account is here.
We post from England and Wales so need to be circumspect in our comments about goings-on in Scotland. However, this annoying piece caught our eye; looking further into it only increased the annoyance:
The Government Leaders’ Forum Europe is one of Microsoft’s flagship events for government, parliamentarians, education and business leaders across the continent and […]
This is a big story - 126 posts at the time of writing according to Google News - reported fairly dispassionately here.
Microsoft’s own press release is here and that from the hither-to deeply obscure ECMA is here.
Despite the hype, Open XML is not yet achieved the holy grail, becoming an ISO Standard, […]
Somebody in this company has been reading “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There”:
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’
Of UK interest is a claim in this story of penetration of the UK government market by […]