The Open Road

If you're a Mac user with a need for speed, you'll struggle to find a better browser than Mozilla's Camino. Apple's Safari will win a drag race, but it lacks the customizability that comes with an open-source browser like Camino. Unfortunately, both Safari and Camino fall incredibly short against Firefox because both are heavy on speed and light on community.

For those who want a highly optimized, lightning fast browsing experience on the Mac, you can't do much better than Camino, as TechCrunch writes. But most of us want more than that. We want Adblock Plus to filter out ads from our browsing experience. We want Bitly Preview to be able to launch and track tweets from the browser. And more.

Sure, you can "PimpMyCamino," but you won't get nearly the level of detailing that comes with Firefox's impressive community. It's not hard, technically, to migrate from Firefox to Camino, but in the move you're going to end up losing most of the add-ons that make Firefox so powerful.

Camino has ad-blocking functionality built into the browser, and you can find an array of themes to dress it up. But really, the primary reason to use Camino is if you want raw speed. But if that's all you want, Safari is likely a better choice, given the somewhat limited customizations and add-ons available for Camino. Or Google Chrome, which hasn't fully launched on the Mac yet but promises a big speed boost once it does.

Browsing is about more than speed. Firefox delivers a global community with a diverse array of needs and solutions, which is why it remains my preferred browser, even as Camino sprints by, unadorned.

Though Keith Curtis (@keithccurtis), author of After the Software Wars, spent 11 years programming for Microsoft, once he bit into the open-source software apple, he bit hard. In Curtis' enthusiasm for open source, however, he sometimes confuses his beliefs and aspirations for what open-source software can achieve with the market as it actually is.

I can relate. I have that problem, too, at times.

Curtis makes a wide array of valid points, but sometimes they contradict each other. As just one example, he cites Stanford University research that reveals just .17 bugs per 1,000 lines of code in Linux to highlight Linux's reliability compared to Windows and other proprietary software, which tends to average 20 to 30 bugs per 1,000 lines of code.

This sounds great for Linux until Curtis points out that the median age of those bugs is ten months, roughly three times longer than the Linux kernel's release schedule. This wouldn't be such a problem if Curtis didn't point out the cause for bugs' longevity: developer whimsy.

The good news is that it is easier to fix bugs than to write code because writing code involves design, which in turn requires difficult decisions to be made....In the bugfixing phase of a software product cycle, most of the hard decisions have already been made, so it is mostly a matter of maknig small tweaks....

Fixing these bugs might be tedious, especially when the developer doesn't have access to the hardware he is trying to debug, but everything about hardware is tedious so they may as well just do it now.

Except that they don't. Bugs sit there, as Curtis documents, for an average of 10 months. Willing the developers to fix them faster is not a viable strategy.

Nor is castigating commercial open-source developers like IBM and Red Hat, both of which Curtis takes to task for not making the Linux desktop better. Curtis views the desktop as the key to winning on the server, a lesson learned from long experience at Microsoft, and is dismayed by IBM's (Linux desktop code "will not become functional until IBM understands free software can achieve world domination if they do their part!") and Red Hat's (Its "concentration on its for-profit Enterprise offerings has distracted it from creating a healthy community of interested geeks") apparent indifference.

Overlooked in Curtis' analysis is that IBM and Red Hat are minting hundreds of millions (billions, even) from their "wrong" open-source software strategies. They simply don't care about the traditional Linux 'desktop' as much as he does, which is understandable since no one has managed to monetize that desktop.,/p.

Hence, while Curtis' book is a useful guide for those looking for an exit from the proprietary software thicket, his too-ready willingness to believe open-source software is the answer to every software problem leads him into arguments that don't withstand much scrutiny:

I think proprietary software, if it becomes popular and long-lived, is destined to become a mess because it does everything by itself rather than leveraging free software components, and it doesn't receive the constant tending that a garden the size of a city would require.

Curtis and I agree that there are huge benefits that derive from open-source software, but it's hard to dismiss Microsoft's, Apple's, Google's, etc. outsized successes by saying, "30 years from now they'll really be in a pickle!" The rewards far outweigh the risks, in that decision calculus.

Open source is, or should be, a pragmatic tool, not an ideological screed. I believe Curtis views open source through a pragmatist's lens, but derives overly broad generalizations from his data. As noted before, I can relate. This is a problem that plagued me for years.

Curtis has written a good book, but will become an even more potent voice for open source once he marries the positives from years at Microsoft with the positives of years of open source outside it.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

There are times when I think open source is an unstoppable force. And then there's OpenGoo.

OpenGoo declares its mission to be to "make the best Web Office. Period." But then it proceeds to undermine every benefit that a true Web office productivity application, like Google Docs, provides to its users. Like the Web, for starters.

That's right. The first thing that struck me when trying to use OpenGoo (aside from its rather unfortunate name, which is yet another reminder that marketing is an essential function, not an afterthought, for open-source projects) was the download page.

Download page?!? I thought this was a Web office productivity suite. Why would I want to download an application?

I never found out. Once I had downloaded and unzipped the file(!?), I was greeted with this:

(Credit: Matt Asay)

I tried finding the application launcher, but couldn't. More pertinently, why should I? It's a Web application, right?

I finally gave up and used the demo, instead. It works fine, though it's nowhere near as polished as Google Docs, and still left me wondering, "Why do I care, as a lay consumer, that this is open source?"

Yes, there is value in having access to source code should OpenGoo go down (particularly as it appears one is meant to install and run OpenGoo inside the enterprise firewall, which sort of defeats the purpose of it being a "Web Office," but...). But would open source make OpenGoo a more resilient service, in the way that some are (wrongly) claiming open source would make Twitter more impervious to denial-of-service attacks?

Of course not.

The OpenGoo site brags that by using OpenGoo, "you are free of vendor lock-in." But I would gladly trade a little lock-in for some ease of use.

There is tremendous value in open source, but the OpenGoo developers have mistaken where it begins and ends. Open source should be invisible to the end users that care about a Web-based office productivity suite. By making it a feature, OpenGoo demonstrates misunderstanding of its audience.

Zoho also uses a lot of open source, but it doesn't sell open source as a feature. This is probably why you've heard of Zoho but, until this article, you likely hadn't heard of OpenGoo.

UPDATE @ 12:12 PT on 8/18/09: My post above was written in some haste, which prevented me from adequately explaining my points. I apologize for the confusion. I understand (and clearly implied) that OpenGoo is not a direct competitor to Google Docs, as it's meant to be run behind the firewall (i.e., it's an on-premises installation, not a cloud application).

But this, as I noted, is its biggest deficiency (well, after the name). It is neither fish (locally installed Microsoft Office) nor fowl (cloud-based Google Docs), and so it's unclear what value, if any, it provides, simply on architecture/installation alone.

No one is going to beat Microsoft Office with a light upgrade in deployment options, least of all OpenGoo, which I continue to find underwhelming in its UI and feature set. Open source is unlikely to improve on this. Given how much OpenOffice has struggled to attract significant development from outside Novell and Sun, in part because the development community isn't interested in rebuilding Microsoft Office (why would it? I doubt many developers have a Microsoft Office "itch" to scratch).

So, OpenGoo isn't Google Docs and doesn't want to be. What does it want to be? The premier Web Office, according to its website. It's not, as I note above and underline emphatically here, because it's light on Web and not innovative in its approach to Office.

I apologize for my hastily written post, but OpenGoo doesn't get any better on further reflection.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Some in the open-source camp would have you believe that open source is an all-or-nothing proposition. For such people, to believe that Linux makes for a superior server operating system is also to dedicate oneself to using open source for business applications, personal productivity, mobile, and likely brushing one's teeth. Open source on a proprietary platform like Mac OS X? Perish the thought!

But life is more complicated than that, and it turns out that there is exceptional open-source software for the Mac (or for Windows, for that matter).

The H Online has kicked off a nice "Open Source Stars for Mac OS X" series, one that I'd recommend all Mac users review. But for those who just want to know the best of the basics, here are my favorites:

• Firefox (Web browser) - Given Firefox's availability for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, this one won't be a surprise to anyone, but if you haven't used it lately, do give it a try. It continues to be the most feature-rich Web browser due to its large and variegated add-on community.
• Adium (instant messaging) - We will use Adium in heaven. Not only does it let me dress up my icon in an Arsenal uniform, but it manages all of my different instant messaging accounts (AIM, YIM, MSN, Skype, Facebook, Gtalk, and even Twitter/Identi.ca). It's like Trillian for Windows, only about one trillion times better.
• Zimbra (e-mail) - While geared toward enterprise-class messaging, you can use Zimbra (either the Web client or desktop or, in my case, both) for personal e-mail, as well. With the ability to extend its functionality through Zimlets and a Web user interface that continues to be best in class, Zimbra rocks.
• OpenOffice.org (office productivity) - I don't use this open-source alternative to Microsoft Office for word processing or spreadsheets, in part because I rarely use Word or Excel except for contracts and the occasional spreadsheet, two things with which I don't want to risk file format compatibility. But I actually prefer OpenOffice's presentation program to PowerPoint. It has some functionality that PowerPoint lacks.
• Handbrake (video converter/ripper) - I travel a lot and want my movies to travel with me, without having to carry DVDs around with me. So I rip them to my hard drive with Handbrake. It's a tremendously powerful (because it's so simple) program. It's now available on Linux and Windows, but it grew up on the Mac and is still best on OS X, in my opinion. Get it. It was created by angels.
• VLC (media player) - If it has a codec, VLC will play it. Heck, VLC will probably play it if the file even remotely resembles video or audio. It just works, and it works with everything.
• Audacity (audio editor) - Have a music file that you want to convert to a ringtone for your Blackberry? Or simply want to clean up that podcast before you publish it? Audacity is powerful and fairly easy to use.
• Seashore (image editor) - Seashore doesn't have nearly as many features as Adobe's Photoshop, but if you want a basic image editor with more-than-basic functionality, check out Seashore. Based on Gimp, Seashore is easy to use, though I do wish it had image transformations. I do so like making my pictures look even more cartoonish.

There you have it. That's the basic list of open-source applications I use on my Mac. I use them because they work, and in some cases work exceptionally well, far better than their proprietary equivalents.

This, incidentally, is also why I prefer the Mac. Life is too short to use a given application simply because it's open source (or Microsoft, or whatever). Use what works. Increasingly, this will lead you to use open source. But for me, the Mac is still the best desktop platform available, period. I'm therefore loving the combination of Mac OS X and a variety of open-source applications.

Maybe you will, too.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

VideoLAN VLC's logo

VideoLAN's VLC media player, arguably the world's best media player, hit version 0.9.9 in early April. Three months and more than 78 million downloads later, VideoLAN has announced VLC 1.0.0, or "Goldeneye."

Your media will never be the same.

In fact, with VideoLAN's VLC media player for Windows, Mac, and Linux, it doesn't have to be. One of the amazing things about VLC is that it can play anything that you've ever even thought about playing. That random media format that one site in Ecuador requires--VLC likely plays it, while Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. likely will not.

This is, in part, a natural result of VLC's open-source heritage. Licensed under the GNU General Public License, VLC attracts a diverse array of developers with disparate media interests. Those interests translate into a media player that really can play every obscure media format I've ever thrown at it. (And in my hunger for Arsenal videos, I've found many different video formats that Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. didn't know what to do with.)

Here are a few of the features now available in VLC 1.0.0:

• Live recording
• Instant pausing and frame-by-frame support
• Finer speed controls
• New HD codecs (AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Blu-ray Linear PCM, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0, ...)
• New formats (Raw Dirac, M2TS, ...) and major improvements in many formats
• New Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
• Video scaling in full screen
• RTSP Trickplay support
• Zipped file playback
• Customizable toolbars
• Easier encoding GUI in Qt interface
• Better integration in Gtk environments
• MTP devices on Linux
• AirTunes streaming

I regularly use VLC to transcode media files, including files I originally streamed from the Web:

VLC can transcode virtually any media file.

(Credit: Matt Asay)

If you don't have VLC, I encourage you to download it and give it a try. It really is an amazing media player, one that has far more tricks up its sleeve than the proprietary media player that came with your computer.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Red Hat has taken heat over the past few years for allegedly neglecting the personal computer in favor of more profitable enterprise servers. It's a fair critique: Red Hat is an enterprise software company, a decision it made years ago, and to good effect.

But anyone thinking that Red Hat has somehow forgotten consumer markets in its rush to win the enterprise need only try the final release of Fedora 11, its community-focused operating system for desktops and laptops. I've been evaluating Fedora 11 for the past week and find it polished and professional while meeting or beating Windows in key performance areas.

Reading through Fedora 11's feature list, the geek in you may get giddy seeing the use of ext4 as the default file system. Not me. I don't care about the underpinnings of the operating system. I just want it to work.

This is, in fact, Fedora 11's biggest selling point: it just works. And fast, too: from powering on to logging in takes 20 seconds or less. Beat that, Windows!

(Ironically, if Windows hopes to catch Linux in boot-up performance, it's going to have to turn to Linux, like DeviceVM's Splashtop, for help.)

This, however, is an experience I've been having with several Linux distributions, including Moblin Beta 2, Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (reviewed here), and OpenSUSE 11.1. While none is perfect, the same is true of my preferred Mac OS X and Windows (Vista or XP). They all work, with little or no fiddling required.

In fact, as an experiment I've been leaving my Linux-based Netbook around the house and have given my children and wife free rein to use it whenever and however they want. My wife looks up actors on IMDB. My daughter writes a school paper. Not one of them has struggled to perform these basic tasks, set up the wireless, etc. Everything just works, and works in a way very familiar to a Mac or Windows user.

This is the state of "desktop" Linux today: it really has nothing left to prove. It took years to become user friendly, but it has arrived, helped along by the world's move to browser-based computing. At this point, the only thing that Fedora and the other Linux distributions can do is embrace and extend the Windows or Mac computing experience, because they've largely matched them (especially Windows).

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth has targeted the Mac as the "desktop" operating system to beat, with plans to do just that.

In fact, my only real complaint with Fedora 11 is that it doesn't yet have a Netbook-focused "spin." I'm not alone in seeking a "Fedora Netbook Remix," but Fedora Mini, as it's called, is not yet ready for prime time.

In the meantime, yes, Fedora 11 provides support for cross-compiling Windows applications directly on Fedora Linux using the MinGW environment, and yes it provides the latest and greatest in open-source software like Firefox 3.1 for Web browsing.

Just don't expect it to be weird/geeky anymore. Those days for the Linux "desktop" are gone. It still needs some spit and polish but, again, so does Windows. The Mac is the closest any 'desktop' operating system gets to being both beautiful and super user friendly. Linux, however, if Fedora 11 is any indication, isn't far behind.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Linux has been growing in importance for years in the darkened server closets. In the server world, Linux's cost and performance benefits have trumped its early weaknesses (Ease of use, etc.), making Linux the heir apparent to the Unix throne.

But that's the server, where geeks write software for other geeks. In the consumer world of personal computers and mobile devices, however, Linux hasn't fared particularly well precisely because the developers of Linux differ so markedly from the vast majority of the user population.

Linux developers, in other words, scratch very different "itches" from those plaguing most would-be Linux users.

It seems clear to me that, as Bill Weinberg astutely argues, the way forward for Linux is not in replicating Microsoft's desktop dominance, but rather in forging a new, consumer-friendly mobile Linux experience, one focused on the youth that are growing up mobile.

This "way" is being paved by Intel, Canonical, Novell, and other companies that have significant experience writing software for normal users, and not merely the alpha geeks of Linux. I've spent the past two weeks fiddling with different variants of Linux-based Netbooks, in particular the Linux Foundation's Moblin Beta 2 (Developed by Intel and Novell) and Canonical's Ubuntu 9.04 Remix for Netbooks, and I believe they are onto something.

The first thing that struck me when using Moblin is how it breaks new ground in defining a new personal computer experience, one designed for the narrow (hardware) confines of a Netbook but offering a limitless portal to social networking and a broad Web experience beyond.

This is perhaps why Acer has committed to Moblin in a big way, and why Canonical is joining up with Moblin, as are others.

As for Ubuntu, it's an even tighter user experience (though, to be fair to Moblin, it's still in beta and so many of its rough edges will be smoothed over by general release, I assume). This isn't surprising given Ubuntu's singular focus on usability. It doesn't require any specialized knowledge of Linux though it does give the user too much information on what's happening under the hood. The lay user simply doesn't care. We just want it to work.

The experience hasn't been without its difficulties. My experience with Ubuntu, for example, was plagued by constant nagging to install yet another package to be able to play proprietary codecs. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols suggests that this problem is going away, but it can't leave fast enough. It's asking way too much to expect consumers to have to work in order to watch a YouTube video.

We are users, after all, not developers.

Slowly but surely, however, vendors are getting the Linux experience "right" for Netbooks and other mobile devices. I've been leaving my Intel-loaned Acer Aspire One Netbook around where my kids, ages four through 12, will open it up and experiment. Each one has quickly managed to find the games in Moblin and Ubuntu, and my older children were quickly browsing the Web and even typing up school reports. In minutes. With no coaching.

To me, this suggests the path forward for Linux is in new, as yet underdeveloped markets like mobile, and for an as yet under-monopolized audience: youth. My kids have grown up with Macs, but they're hardly grown up yet. Their experience with computers has been as much about mobile phones as laptops.

They are the most mobile-inclined generation the world has yet seen, making them an ideal target for new Linux-based mobile devices. As the Bible notes in Proverbs 22:6:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Children's conceptions of what a computer must look like and feel like have yet to calcify into a Windows mold. They are the audience to win for those vendors interested in dominating the next decade of personal computing.

Old dogs strain to learn new tricks, making the Microsoft-conceived desktop a poor target for Linux vendors. The market is mobile. The market is children.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.

Eating tends to be a social thing. Dropping the pounds that result from such sociability, however, is mostly a solitary experience, requiring lonely denial in the kitchen and often lonelier miles on the footpath or bike trail. Small wonder, then, that most attempts to lose weight fail.

It doesn't have to be this way, of course, and an application I've been using on my iPhone suggests a way to open-source the weight-loss experience, making dropping pounds a social, fun experience.

Adding calories with Lose It!

(Credit: FitNow)

CNET recently profiled several weight-loss applications for the computer, some of which have a social element to them.

It's a good list, but my favorite application by far in this category is Lose It!, a free app for the iPhone.

Lose It! makes it easy to track calories, monitor exercise, and track progress toward weight-loss goals. Because my iPhone is always with me, Lose It! follows me around, too, reminding me how much that bar of chocolate is going to cost me in terms of gym time, facilitating rational calorie intake/burn.

Where Lose It! fails, as do all of these weight-loss applications, is in making this process truly social.

Fixing this would give FitNow, the developer of Lose It!, a serious revenue model that would turn a seemingly universal human desire to look/feel better into a great way to make money.

Here are a few ideas for the FitNow team, several of which Bryce Roberts, a good friend and fellow Lose It! junkie (in fact, it was Bryce's example that got me using the application), offered up while we were mountain biking last week (so that we could gorge on high-calorie foods later in the day :-):

Linux Foundation president Jim Zemlin talks up Moblin

(Credit: Matt Asay/CNET)

For years, Linux enthusiasts have tried to win an unwinnable war: displacing Microsoft's hegemony in personal computers with Windows clones. Though Lindows was perhaps the first to make a serious attempt at replicating the Windows experience, all the Linux "desktop" vendors have tried it, and all with the same result:

Failure.

This isn't because Linux isn't any good as a personal computer operating system. It's because such copycat tactics have doomed Linux to always being a cheap facsimile of Microsoft's idea of what the personal computer should look like and do.

With Moblin version 2.0, the Linux-based operating system Novell and Intel designed specifically for the Netbook market, the Linux "desktop" crowd seems to finally have the right idea: change the game, not simply the price tag.

I spent Thursday working on the Moblin-based Asus Aspire One (AOD150-1165) Netbook. I am still getting used to the somewhat cramped keyboard (with a hyperactive trackpad that is hard to avoid given the lack of space), but Moblin, itself, is pretty impressive, even though it's still very much in beta.

Having used various Linux "desktops" over the years (Canonical Ubuntu- and Novell SUSE-based, primarily), the thing that most impressed me about the Moblin experience is that it's nothing like traditional Linux "desktop" experiences. In fact, it's not really much like Windows, either.

The closest it comes to being a clone of anything is in paying tribute to some of the best Mac OS X features (like Expose), which perhaps isn't surprising given that Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth has suggested Linux must outdo the Mac to win.

One of my favorite things is the concept of the M-Zone ("Me-Zone"):

Diagram of Moblin's M-Zone

(Credit: Moblin.org)

You can think of it as "home base," as it offers a central place to capture your recent activities (e.g., documents you've been working on, music you were listening to, etc.). Someone that had been using the machine before me had The Pixies geared up on Last.fm, which I simply clicked on and, Voila! "Monkey Gone to Heaven" started to play. Score one for Intel for knowing my musical tastes.

If that sounds business-y and grown up, I suppose it is, but Moblin is about much more than how to get one's corporate job done. Like the Mac, Moblin takes notice that life is more than corporate drudgery, and the UI reflects this. One part that I really liked was the "People" option on the Toolbar panel:

Moblin's People panel

(Credit: Moblin.org)

This is a great view into instant messaging conversations and a reflection of Moblin's nod to the real life "work" that we do, and how we do it. Again, very similar to the Mac in its emphasis on "the other work" we do.

Over the next week or two, I expect to spend more time with Moblin, and to give neighbors, co-workers, and family time on the machine to see how they fare. Stay tuned.

Some are projecting that Linux will regain 50 percent of the Netbook market. Perhaps. But if so, it won't come as a result of the clone wars Linux developers have been promoting for years. It will come from the game-changing tactics that Moblin, now under the guidance of the Linux Foundation, and others bring to the personal computer party.

At present there are arguably too many mobile open-source platforms. Based on what I've seen with Moblin, however, it may well be the Linux distribution to beat in the mobile market, at least for Netbooks.

Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.