When I read the first few sentences of the Dana Blankenhorn/Paula Rooney blog post on Steve Ballmer I got the feeling of deja vu. It felt like he was describing the war on terror, in particular what is currently being waged against the likes of Al Qaeda.


"You can’t fight open source as you would fight IBM, or Novell, or
the U.S. Justice Department, the enemies from the 1990s. Those foes put
their pants on one leg at a time, just like Microsoft did.

Open source
is not like that. Open source is not a person, or a company, but a ...<< MORE >>

When Microsoft decided to talk about its 235 patents claim against the Open Source communities,  several pundits talked about the reasons for them doing so. From the usual Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) to the publicity Microsoft needed to further its own lobbying against software patents, the rumors have been flying thick and fast. Among many comments, I liked Fabrizio Capobianco's actions the best. Perhaps we can circulate dozens of his t-shirts to places like Think Geek and others to sell.
...<< MORE >>

I recently blogged in another one of my blogs about Microsoft pulling the plug on game compatibility between the original Xbox console the and newer Xbox 360. Many people like me have invested significant amounts of money in the old console as well as many games. Now that they are not longer going to promote game developers to develop compatibility I would recommend turning development to the Open Source community. And by Open Source I do not necessarily mean GPL, a term that is obviously anathema to not just Microsoft but most of the proprietary software world. << MORE >>

This is not one of my usual entries about OSS and Enterprises. In my home network I run Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) on an old Dell Optiplex system of 2000 vintage. I also have a well specced out Alienware Area 51 system running Windows XP Pro. Understandably, the Alienware (suitably named Vulcan!) has lots more disk space. So most of my shared files reside in an XP Shared Documents folder. While I have permission to read and write files on that folder from my Ubuntu system, I had a pesky problem I was trying to overcome. I use Gmail on the ...<< MORE >>

Many OSS projects seem to be going through a recurring cycle these days: (1) Build the core product with a small team; (2) Build a community and enhance the community version of the product; (3) Finally, with a long-term business model in mind, they build a commercial version. I call this the MySQL business model although I may not be strictly correct in my assumptions.<< MORE >>

For years, Microsoft has run a series of commercials, advertisements and infomercials touting the lower TCO of Microsoft products through independent studies. Given the somewhat backgrounds of some of these studies, it would seem that a better discussion would be on the exact parameters used for such studies. Alex Fletcher mentions the key cost drivers for a TCO analysis in his blog. I agree with one of his arguments in favor of Open Source - Ease of Integration. In actual fact, integration ...<< MORE >>

And now, a drumroll please....HERE's to the Open Source franchise. OpenForum Europe provides a certification framework and a platform to standardize Open Source services. It helps organizations planning to take the Open Source plunge to understand the risks of going with specific vendors. It also enables organizations analyze their existing portfolio to identify lock-in risks and mitigation paths and plans. Although the potential service providers and service users are expected to be small companies, there is no reason why this cannot be scaled at either end to support larger companies. The platform also suggests a judicious mix of open and ...<< MORE >>

Is Linux just immitating features in Windows, Vista and OSX? That is what Emmett Dulaney would have you believe. In his article in CertCities he suggests that Linux is mostly playing copycat via Mono, Wine, OpenOffice and the X/Windows desktop managers like Gnome and KDE. He then suggests in his blog that he is going to "be quickly blasted" for writing this article and asking these questions. As of this read, one reader (Ray Reynolds of NYC) came out swinging against Mr. Dulaney.May I suggest something to people like Emmett Dulaney? First - Mono, Wine, OpenOffice, Gnome and KDE are ...<< MORE >>

Forbes magazine published an article in October 2006 in what I would term was a hatchet job on Richard Stallman. I do not know Stallman personally nor am I writing to defend GPLv3. However, much of the article was in poor taste, particularly when dwelled on Stallman's personal idiosyncracies in somewhat gory, gruesome details. Subsequently, Novell wrote about the article and refuted some of the assertions made by Forbes. In particular, while the Forbes article mentions that Novell refused to comment on the issue, Novell's blog says that they told Forbes "the industry will works its way through the problem". ...<< MORE >>

I read an article on Backcountry.com in Inc. magazine's latest issue. I also found an interesting article about the them here.The Inc. article mentions a number of very important things. However, I think many of the "problems" of going for OSS can be addressed and fixed. ...<< MORE >>