a blog

  • links for 2006-12-27

    The Open Source Desktop Myth > Microsoft Won. Get Over It. Forget about winning on the desktop, the author says. Open source developers should look toward new, less machine-bound, horizons. (tags: linux windows)

  • links for 2006-12-23

    Research In Motion’s Record Year “For its fiscal third quarter, Waterloo (Ont.)-based RIM reported sales of $835 million, up 49% from the same period a year ago, and profits of $176 million, or 93 cents a share. That beats the year-ago quarter by 46%.” I guess NTP didn’t hit them too hard. (tags: rim wireless…

  • links for 2006-12-22

    Pirates crack Vista Activation Server | APC Magazine (tags: windows vista licensing) Has the Desktop Linux Bubble Burst? – OSNews.com A rather melodramatic title — my first thought was, “what bubble? — the author asks where are the next-gen GNOME and KDE to go up against Vista and OSX. From my vantage (a GNOME 2.16…

  • links for 2006-12-20

    Outlook 2007: Linux and Open Source YAYEOS (Yet Another Year End Outlook Story) (tags: linux redhat novell xen vmware virtualization oracle)

  • Notes on the Microsoft/Novell Webinar

    I missed today’s Microsoft and Novell joint webinar, but I cruised over to Novell’s website to download the slide deck from the presentation. Perhaps not surprisingly, the slide deck was pretty short on content, but a couple of items caught my eye.  For one thing, there’s a slide early on that lays out the sort…

  • links for 2006-12-19

    Debian/Ruby Extras – Position on RubyGems I’ve been messing around with Ruby, and also reviewing Ubuntu and OpenSUSE. The two projects are taking separate tacks regarding Ruby packaging. Debian, and therefore Ubuntu, sticks with its own packaging system, and doesn’t ship with Ruby’s rubygems… (tags: linux ubuntu debian ruby) Ubuntu How-To Nice-looking collection of post-install…

  • News Flash: If Your ISV Doesn’t Support Your OS, Software Installation is Tricky

    Ian Murdock, the founder (and second syllable) of the Linux operating system Debian, is sounding off about his displeasure with software installation on Linux. For instance, he cites the install procedure for Sun’s Java Studio Creator.  On Windows, you double click the exe. On Linux, make the install script executable, run it to extract an…

  • Support and Services Matter

    Yesterday, a blog post I read from rPath CEO Billy Marshall piqued my interest. Marshall dismissed the idea that open source software firms can be successful on the strength of their service and support offerings–a point of view that runs counter to conventional wisdom that when you’re selling something that’s free, you’d better surround it…

  • Give Novell a Break

    I just read the Open Letter to the Community from Novell’s probably rather flummoxed CEO Ron Hovsepian, and if you’re someone who’s been wringing your hands over the collaboration and patents pact that Novell and Microsoft announced recently, you should read it too. I sort of blew off the deal when I first read about…

  • Installing Vista RTM on VMware

    During our recent Vista tests, we came across a bug in the Vista installer that prevented us from installing the OS onto VMware using an iso image of Vista.  The OS booted normally for us from an iso image, but then complained about not having a driver for the virtual DVD/CD drive from which we’d…