Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Tuesday 6 November 2007, 1:39 PM
How important is open source to the Google Android?
Google's open handset alliance is based on open source, but is that a game-changing thing in the mobile market?
Here on ZDNet, there's a thread about how Android kicks open the mobile open source door, which may well be true. If nothing else, it finally looks like a mobile Linux alliance that could just succeed.
But I still need convincing that the open source community has actually evolved a model that works on mobile devices. Linux is diverse, and it has had enough trouble dislodging the monolithic alternative on the desktop, where there's plenty of screen all the user interface options you could want.
Phones are even more monolithic - big players like Symbian and Microsoft succeed, others don't. Can the Linux community produce something that monolithic? It would have to line up behind the Google brand, something pretty alien to Linux. Or can it succeed in the mobile business with a non-monolithic approach?
Here on ZDNet, there's a thread about how Android kicks open the mobile open source door, which may well be true. If nothing else, it finally looks like a mobile Linux alliance that could just succeed.
But I still need convincing that the open source community has actually evolved a model that works on mobile devices. Linux is diverse, and it has had enough trouble dislodging the monolithic alternative on the desktop, where there's plenty of screen all the user interface options you could want.
Phones are even more monolithic - big players like Symbian and Microsoft succeed, others don't. Can the Linux community produce something that monolithic? It would have to line up behind the Google brand, something pretty alien to Linux. Or can it succeed in the mobile business with a non-monolithic approach?
Friday 2 November 2007, 12:38 PM
Unix - worth $36 million?
Anyone doubting the end of Unix, in favour of Linux, should check into some of the details of the imminent bankruptcy of SCO.
SCO has asked a court for permission to sell its assets as it goes into Chapter 11 bankruptcy - and the price of Unix is $36 million, according to one dissection of the case.
There's plenty more legal wrangling to go, and Groklaw is all over it, rubbing its hands in glee.
The $36 million is about two years' revenue for SCO's declining Unix business, and the company might be hoping for a higher offer, according to the Inquirer, which also suggests a link with IP Innovation, the company that has followed in SCO's wake, and sued Red Hat and Novell for patent infringement.
SCO has asked a court for permission to sell its assets as it goes into Chapter 11 bankruptcy - and the price of Unix is $36 million, according to one dissection of the case.
There's plenty more legal wrangling to go, and Groklaw is all over it, rubbing its hands in glee.
The $36 million is about two years' revenue for SCO's declining Unix business, and the company might be hoping for a higher offer, according to the Inquirer, which also suggests a link with IP Innovation, the company that has followed in SCO's wake, and sued Red Hat and Novell for patent infringement.
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