Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Tuesday 26 February 2008, 3:41 PM
Update: Lenovo's x300 hits the right targets
At Lenovo's launch of its x300 in Paris, we raised the topic of Linux. It seems the Chinese laptop-maker won't be jumping quickly in that direction.
We also had a good lok at a machine which, we have to say, looks very covetable.
The x300 is a thin laptop - but Lenovo rejects the idea that it's competing with the much-hyped MacBook air. That's clear enough, as it's better than the Air. It has a bay for a DVD burner (or you can use the bay for an extra battery which take it to a claimed 10 hours life) and it also has Ethernet, and three USB ports.
Lenovo spokespeople went into a bit of detail about the physics of thin laptops. Perhaps unexpectedly, a lighter laptop actually needs a strontger case than a heavy one. Because it's lighter, users can hold it by one hand. When you do this, the laptop is supported by one side or one corner only, and this produces a greater bending stress on the laptop - and potentially on the motherboard.
So a lightweight laptop needs to be stronger. The phsyical size means that it will have corners cut - but the only obvious one is in the processor, which only runs to 1.2GHz.
This sparked a suggestion that maybe we'd be better off running Linux on the x300, instead of Vista, to make better use of the processor cycles. Lenovo's David McQuarrie acknowledged the logic, but said that Linux wasn't a big draw for the high-end corporate road warriors who use Thinkpads.
I could see Lenovo making a Linux-based machine in its Idea range, but we're probably a little way off from that. Lenovo has a lightweight laptop there but it's still a relatively high-end machine. I wouldn't expect a Linux machine until Lenovo has grown its consumer business (currently around 20 percent of the company's laptops) a bit.
Thursday 21 February 2008, 5:31 PM
Microsoft embraces open source?
This story will go ballistic. It's coming over right now like the biggest change at Redmond since the company finally "got" the Internet. But the details are all going to be in the coded press announcements going on right now.
The Register leapt in with "Microsoft goes open source - almost" but although there's some mention of open source in there, it looks like that isn't the main thing going on here.
Microsoft's own press release, and Ballmer in the press conference, are pretty clearly talking about opening up communications APIs not code.
"We will document all of the application programming interfaces of all the communications protocols used by Microsoft products and developers would not need to take a licence," said Steve Ballmer, quoted in Clomputer Weekly.
That is new. But a lot of this will be spin. This is a strategic direction change, but in a direction which has been obvious to everyone outside Microsoft for some time, and - I would have to be - still a grudging change that is as limited as Microsoft can manage under the circumstances.
Microsoft's main promises are
"(1) ensuring open connections;
(2) promoting data portability;
(3) enhancing support for industry standards; and
(4) fostering more open engagement with customers and the industry, including open source communities."
Microsoft has been publicly claiming to support every single one of those for at least the last ten years.
I'm betting that the underlying strategy is the WAMP not LAMP thrust we noted here earlier.
Monday 18 February 2008, 5:49 PM
Novell buys into collaboration
Coillaboration is a big part of open source (making any software is collaborative, but in open source the collaboration goes beyond the team making the product) . So it's interesting to see Novell buying into collaboration, with its purchase of SiteScape.
The company has offered Sitescape products to its GroupWise customers since last year, and has now agreed to buy the company. "The acquisition of SiteScape fits squarely into the corporate strategy we have laid out," said CEO Ron Hovsepian in a press release. "It allows us to move aggressively to give customers a new, open option for collaboration, helping them escape vendor lock-in and offering easy integration across platforms, whether Linux or Windows."
Sounds like useful stuff for enterprise customers wanting to glue together multiple platforms, and pretty well-rooted in the real world. The purchase is another instance of the consolidation I've noted before in the open systems world.
SiteScape is one of those useful minnows, with a turnover of around $10 million according to reports. With big competition from the likes of IBM and Microsoft, it probably feels it's safer in than out.
Tuesday 12 February 2008, 3:25 PM
MWC: New phones, Android prototypes, but not much Linux
I'm at MWC, the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where the hype level is reaching new records. But we're seeing comparatively little on Linux.
According to MocoNews, Motorola, LG and Samsung have all launched Linux phones.
There's also four or five prototype versions of Google's Android tucked away on stands, including Marvell, ARM, Qualcomm and others. Some of these are packaged up so you can pick them up in your hand, and ARM's has a nice user interface, that integrates Google's mail and maps well.
But overall, there's not much Linux. In smartphones, Symbian goes from strength to strength and - the CEO Nigel Clifford tells us - has been taking market share from Linux in Japan and China, where Linux had achieved quite a lot.
Clifford's most telling remark was that "Linux share" is meaningless anyway. While the Symbian block is fairly homogeneous - give or take a choice of S60 UIQ or other UI - the Linux one is fragmented.
Will Android make this better? I would have said probably, but Clifford is telling us it will get worse.
Tuesday 5 February 2008, 9:54 PM
Microsoft wants WAMP not LAMP?
I've been wondering what Microsoft is doing with open source. A few years back, when the company realised there was something viable happening in open source, that might challenge its own licencing model, Microsoft tried something called "shared source".
Now, with its Novell deal, Microsoft seems to be actually working with open source to some extent, and even has an Open Source Lab, and open source collateral.
Over at ZDNet.com, Mary Jo Foley has been talking to Sam Ramji, Microsoft’s director of platform technology atrategy - and director of its open source lab, and the picture is a bit clearer: anything open source except for Linux (and presumably OpenOffice).
So - WAMP, not LAMP
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