Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Tuesday 29 April 2008, 12:36 PM
All the open source security you need?
There's a list of 75 good open source security applications, on eSecurity Planet. OK, some of them are variations or extensions of each other, but that's quite a lot to look through...
The list covers encryption, anti-virus, VPN, remote administration and plenty of other aspects of security.
If nothing else, the list - which we found linked from Linux Today - is a strong argument in favour of open source within security, and evidence of its increasing presence there: a year ago, the site's list of recommendations only reached ten apps.
The list covers encryption, anti-virus, VPN, remote administration and plenty of other aspects of security.
If nothing else, the list - which we found linked from Linux Today - is a strong argument in favour of open source within security, and evidence of its increasing presence there: a year ago, the site's list of recommendations only reached ten apps.
Thursday 24 April 2008, 10:14 PM
Coming soon - open source movies?
We all know by now that the open source model doesn't just apply to software - but can it make movies?
Wreck A Movie thinks so. The group, based in Finland, but open to all over the web, is working on a film called Iron Sky. They hope that the film - and other projects - can be made, like an open source software project, "almost for free".
As you'd expect, Iron Sky is a geek's breakfast - in the year 2018, the world is suddenly attacked by renegade Nazis, who've been based on the dark side of the moon since they perfected anti-gravity in the last days of the war.
Cnet reports that the project developed from the Finnish language Trek-spoof Star Wreck, apparently an Intrenet cult which I have to admit ignorance of till now.
What's actually happening on the Wreck A Movie is a series of discussions to of plot and settingsm adding details to the moonbase like exploding oil barrels. Actual filming will happen in a low-cost way that's not entirely clear, there's another film starting discussion - and the promise of visitors starting their own projects.
Wreck A Movie thinks so. The group, based in Finland, but open to all over the web, is working on a film called Iron Sky. They hope that the film - and other projects - can be made, like an open source software project, "almost for free".
As you'd expect, Iron Sky is a geek's breakfast - in the year 2018, the world is suddenly attacked by renegade Nazis, who've been based on the dark side of the moon since they perfected anti-gravity in the last days of the war.
Cnet reports that the project developed from the Finnish language Trek-spoof Star Wreck, apparently an Intrenet cult which I have to admit ignorance of till now.
What's actually happening on the Wreck A Movie is a series of discussions to of plot and settingsm adding details to the moonbase like exploding oil barrels. Actual filming will happen in a low-cost way that's not entirely clear, there's another film starting discussion - and the promise of visitors starting their own projects.
Thursday 17 April 2008, 11:22 AM
Vista gets the rock'n'roll treatment
It's great to see Microsoft Vista entering the highly regarded field of corporate musical nonsense - this Springsteen-influenced number is a classic.
My erstwhile colleage IT Anthems would love this one. Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band is a genuine spoof from Microsoft. Also, it's actually funny enough to fool the gadget-freaks at Gizmodo who updated their horrified posting to say "The video is an internal spoof, an insider confirms". Well duh.
Enjoy the in-jokes in this one, like the CEO on the sax (Philppe Kahn anyone?), and tell me - are any of these people real MS sales staff with actual names?
My erstwhile colleage IT Anthems would love this one. Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band is a genuine spoof from Microsoft. Also, it's actually funny enough to fool the gadget-freaks at Gizmodo who updated their horrified posting to say "The video is an internal spoof, an insider confirms". Well duh.
Enjoy the in-jokes in this one, like the CEO on the sax (Philppe Kahn anyone?), and tell me - are any of these people real MS sales staff with actual names?
Wednesday 16 April 2008, 2:46 PM
Ubuntu takes early lead in Open Source Census
They announced it in December, but OpenLogic's census of open source software is now actually open for business.
I've downloaded and run the client software from the census site, and added one desktop to the database so far. It turns out I have 11 open source packages on that machine.
That puts me below average for the survey's participants. Apparently, there are only 29 machines on the survey so far (it's early days), and they have an average of more like 15 packages.
At this stage, the most common application in the census as a whole is commons-logging, a utility connected with Apache. followed by the Xerces XML parser.
Further down the list are packages more end-user oriented packages like gimp, firefox, and zlib compression.
Ninety percent of participants have Ubuntu, and about half are in the US (with an impressive and results-bending 33 percent from Finland). Two thirds of them are small businesses (ten to 49 people).
It's not statistically useful yet, but let's try refreshing the Census page to see how fast it's changing
I've downloaded and run the client software from the census site, and added one desktop to the database so far. It turns out I have 11 open source packages on that machine.
That puts me below average for the survey's participants. Apparently, there are only 29 machines on the survey so far (it's early days), and they have an average of more like 15 packages.
At this stage, the most common application in the census as a whole is commons-logging, a utility connected with Apache. followed by the Xerces XML parser.
Further down the list are packages more end-user oriented packages like gimp, firefox, and zlib compression.
Ninety percent of participants have Ubuntu, and about half are in the US (with an impressive and results-bending 33 percent from Finland). Two thirds of them are small businesses (ten to 49 people).
It's not statistically useful yet, but let's try refreshing the Census page to see how fast it's changing
Tuesday 15 April 2008, 2:08 PM
Iron Man versus Linux?
It's the perfect promotion for Linux - and also for the Marvel Comics hero, if he needed any. Iron Man is going head-to-head with Linux.
In his venerable forty-five year career, Iron Man has always kept a finger somewhere near the technology pulse. In his 1960s incarnation, millionaire inventor Tony Stark gained incredible strength, "repulsor rays", and the power of flight, all due to the magic power of "transistors" (which also acted as his heart pacemaker, if I remember rightly).
Presumably in the 1970s and 80s, he got even more powerful, thanks to integrated circuits. Certainly, in the 1990s, he went a bit cyberpunk with virtual reality storylines, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and alcohol (somewhere, surely, he may have become a convicted monopolist, but I fell asleep somewhere in his oh-so-thorough Wikipedia page, so I'll never know).
Anyway, according to Comic Book Resources, the next bad guy to take on Iron Man will be an "open source ideological terrorist" called Zeke Stane, who who is "the open source to Stark’s closed source oppressiveness"
Stane "has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He’s a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile," says Iron Man writer Matt Fraction. "That absolutely flies in the face of Tony’s received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He’s a much smarter, more mobile and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist.”
That's a clear open source ideology, and an open source bad guy caused some consternation when Computerworld spotted this.
But the bottom line must be good, according to one poster there: "Think about it, if you tell kids that something is bad they WILL try it."
In his venerable forty-five year career, Iron Man has always kept a finger somewhere near the technology pulse. In his 1960s incarnation, millionaire inventor Tony Stark gained incredible strength, "repulsor rays", and the power of flight, all due to the magic power of "transistors" (which also acted as his heart pacemaker, if I remember rightly).
Presumably in the 1970s and 80s, he got even more powerful, thanks to integrated circuits. Certainly, in the 1990s, he went a bit cyberpunk with virtual reality storylines, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, and alcohol (somewhere, surely, he may have become a convicted monopolist, but I fell asleep somewhere in his oh-so-thorough Wikipedia page, so I'll never know).
Anyway, according to Comic Book Resources, the next bad guy to take on Iron Man will be an "open source ideological terrorist" called Zeke Stane, who who is "the open source to Stark’s closed source oppressiveness"
Stane "has no headquarters, no base, and no bank account. He’s a true ghost in the machine; completely off the grid, flexible, and mobile," says Iron Man writer Matt Fraction. "That absolutely flies in the face of Tony’s received business wisdom and in the way business is done. There are banks and lawyers and you have facilities and testing. Stane is a much more different animal. He’s a much smarter, more mobile and much quicker to respond and evolved futurist.”
That's a clear open source ideology, and an open source bad guy caused some consternation when Computerworld spotted this.
But the bottom line must be good, according to one poster there: "Think about it, if you tell kids that something is bad they WILL try it."
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