Fri, 28 Sep 2007
Update
Microsoft is working on the problem.
This is a screen shot of a new computer I am setting up. It shows
an improper answer to the product of 850 and 77.1. All updates
and patches to the OS and MS Office 2007 have been applied.
More info here...
On the other hand, the latest version of Open Office does not have this problem. I suspect if any updates to it were implemented and this bug turned up, it would not last for long, assuming that it even could make it into a production version.
[/technology/foss] 8 comments permalink
Wed, 27 Jun 2007
Open Source: Innovation or Imitation?
The recent charges by Micro$oft of patent infringement by Open Source
applications are enforcing the idea that there is no innovation with Open
Source software and that it is purely a copying or imitating way of
development. As in many things, the answer to this question is
a little more subtle than it might first appear. Software, like
many other forms of technology, tends to evolve gradually and not
necessarily in a drastic sort of way. Many FOSS (Free/Open Source Software)
applications take an existing idea and build on it, adding and extending
the ideas and thus improving on them. The real admirable thing here is
that most FOSS projects are iterating their versions on a faster cycle
than their proprietary counterparts. This is simply due to the fact
that there are more people working on many of them.
So what I wanted to do with this post is highlight a few FOSS applications that I use and that have no equivalent in the Windoze world. Some of these are not directly available in the MAC world either but using things like the Fink project will allow you to use them.
- There are two primary GUI desktop initiatives that are FOSS based. KDE and Gnome. KDE tends to be a bit more conventional. For several years I have been devoted to Gnome but recently I switched to KDE. I like the way applications in KDE are integrated. Everything just works so well together.
- Both of the above GUI applications feature virtual desktops. That is, you can actually have more than one desktop which can have different applications open in them. I believe there are some ways to get this on Windoze by using some FOSS apps. You could also run X Windows by compiling it via Cygwin but this capability is not supplied nativly.
- Now besides KDE and Gnome, if you just want to run a very resource light desktop, you can use a window manager alone. This does not include all the convenience of a full GUI but it may be useful on an older machine. And there are dozens of window managers to choose from.
- One of the KDE applications (which will also run on Gnome) is the Krusader project. This is a file manager that is incredible. There is nothing like this in the Windoze world that I can tell.
- The idea of a live operating system was pioneered by the Knoppix project. This is simply a whole Linux operating system which runs completely off of a CD. There are many advantages to having one of these around. Being able to boot one of these on a crashed machine is invaluable to name just one useful thing.
I am really just scratching the surface of things here. I haven't talked at all about server applications or the powerful command line shells such as Bash, or programming languages such as Python (to name just one of many). Perhaps I will revisit this in the future. But the main point I wanted to get across is that there is really tremendous innovation going on in the Open Source world which is significant even though it is evolutionary in nature for the most part.
I should mention (since I brought up the MS Patent thing at the start) that no claims of patent infringement have been shown to any FOSS project that I know of and no infringement charge has held up in court up to this time. And Microsloth has not shown any of the supposed 230 patents to anyone. They are simply making noise in the media about it.
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Wed, 27 Dec 2006
Gnome 2.2
Friday, I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my work
computer to Gnome 2.2. The anti-aliased fonts are
a definite welcome. Also included in the upgrade (using
Debian Unstable) is Evolution 1.4 beta. Again, having
nice fonts (on a par with every other desktop computer)
in the e-mail client is worth the trouble.
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Open Source Legal Perspective
Here's a very good summery of Open Source/Free Software
from a legal perspective. Don't worry, it doesn't read
like a legal document. One thing it makes very clear
is that the
GPL is a copyright which carries penalties
if violated. Also explains very clearly the meaning
of "Free" in
"Free Software."
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Firefox 2 Upgrade
There's a bit of a flap within Debian regarding Mozilla and their
products. The problem revolves around copyrighted trademarks and
names. And so there is currently not a Debian package available
for Firefox 2 in any of stable, testing, unstable or backports.
No problem, I just downloaded the tar ball and unpacked it to my
/opt directory. Uninstall Firefox 1.5 (apt-get remove Firefox)
and make a link from /opt/firefox/firefox to /usr/bin/firefox. Now
you can click on your Firefox icon and it should run, find your
themes and extensions and upgrade them and then come up. It
appears to run faster and looks a little crisper. Cool!
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Samba Leader Resigns from Novell
And is promptly hired by Google. Groklaw has
Jeremy's letter of resignation with some commentary. Well
at last we have one of Novell's Open Source experts leaving over the deal
with Microsoft. Will there be any more?
It is also interesting that windoze Vista does not work with Samba out of the box. The forked tongue of the great Borg from Redmond has clearly raised it's head a bit. despite going to various Open Source conventions and trying to sound like a nice guy, they are clearly pointing their biggest weapons at what is their strongest competitor. In other words, the Borg is getting a bit scared of the Open Source geeks and is starting to raise the stakes.
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Mr. CEO, Tear Down the Wall, Let Java Go!
Good open letter by Eric Raymond to Sun. This is a quick
read and to the point. But it's also a good case for
Open Source against critics who think there's no revenue
to be made by adopting an Open Source strategy. Here's a
little quote:
But the casual equation between "open source" and "zero revenue" suggests that on another level you don't really know what you're talking about. Open source is hardly a zero-revenue model; ask Red Hat, which had a share price over triple Sun's when I just checked. Or ask IBM, which is using Linux as a lever to build a huge systems-integration business in markets like financial services that Sun has historically owned.
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Firefox Rocks
I've been using the latest release of
Mozilla Firefox
for the past couple of weeks. This is preview release 1.0 (almost ready
for prime time v1.0 in other words) and it is really nice.
Today there is
increasing speculation that Google will
release a browser based on Firefox. Now even though it's an
open source application and has no big company behind it to
do marketing, the Mozilla people are not ignoring this. They
have collected enough money to
launch an add in the NYT. They
are hoping to achieve 10 million users. If the Google stuff is
true, they might make 10 million and more. Can you say, "Browser
wars II"?
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
Debian Package a Day
If you are using Debian (or finally get up the nerve to try),
you will notice the tremendous amount of software available
in the Debian package format. In fact, there are 7 CD's
included in the current stable release (count on many more
for the upcoming stable release). So how do you make sense
of all those packages? Well, you can browse the package
repository using apt-cache search. You can also look
at the
packages
at the Debian site. But here's a more
serendipitous way to explore: the
Debian Package a day blog! I have already found a couple of
new gems just by checking this blog occasionally.
[/technology/foss] 0 comments permalink
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