software

Trying to install Solaris in the past was one of those experiences that made me pine for a prebuilt virtual machine disk format. A new version of Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris-based operating system, though, attempts to amend that.

As of Monday, Solaris Express Developer Edition is now in its third version, craftily named 9/07. Sun gave the installation routine, for the first time in 12 years, "a complete and massive rewrite," said Dan Roberts, director marketing for Solaris and OpenSolaris. The new installer has the same plumbing underneath, but presents a much less technically nitty-gritty interface. However, it'… Read more

First, a little Radiohead to celebrate the occasion (from "Where I End and You Begin"):

I've been meaning to put together a presentation for OSBC that has this song blaring and statistics of open-source adoption flashing across the screen. Undoubtedly, new data from Gartner Group would provide excellent fodder for such a presentation.

What did Gartner say? That open source is and will continue eating proprietary software alive.… Read more

Carl Icahn has thrown another log on the fire he's lit under BEA Systems, raising his stake to 9.88 percent in the enterprise applications software maker.

The billionaire shareholder activist, who last week called for the company's sale and raised his stake to 8.5 percent, went on the offensive again Thursday by adding more BEA shares to his holdings.

Icahn and his related entities now own a total of 38.7 million shares. That's a pretty large match to wave around, as he tries to ignite movement on BEA's board to put a "… Read more

It seems that most of the world's open source-related lawsuits emerge from Utah, for whatever reason. First there was Caldera vs. Microsoft (which, of course, didn't have anything to do with open source, but for Caldera's inclusion). Then there was SCO. Somewhere along the way there was Linksys, which didn't have anything more to do with Utah than that I used to visit its offices, and I'm from Utah.

And now we have BusyBox (through the Software Freedom Law Center) suing Monsoon Multimedia, with BusyBox's project founder, Erik Andersen, a former colleague of mine … Read more

Intel plans to launch an effort called LessWatts.org on Thursday, a combination of open-source software and helpful hints to reduce power consumption of Linux servers, PCs and gadgets.

LessWatts, to be detailed during a Intel Developer Forum speech by Renee James, vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group, is geared toward technically sophisticated folks from programmers to system administrators. It gathers together a number of Intel projects, such as the PowerTop utility for finding which software is pestering the processor and preventing it from dozing in low-power states.

Taking Intel's advice and fixes … Read more

Mi amigo Dave Rosenberg has a thoughtful post on why open source wins against SaaS (Software as a Service). The answer, in a nutshell, is "community." SaaS sets up a one-way relationship with consumers, whereas open source breeds both consumers and producers, and so sustains itself better.

Dave writes:… Read more

Trolltech has been working for years on open-source software for Linux-based mobile phones, but the company took another step Tuesday by making its full package available as open source.

The software, called Qtopia Phone Edition, has been available under either open-source or commercial licenses, but the latter option included more features. "Until now some Qtopia components, like the telephony, DRM (digital rights management) and the safe execution environment software stacks, were only available under the commercial development license," the company said. Now, though, all the components will be available under version 2 of the open-source General Public License (GPL). … Read more

Them's fightin' words!

That was my reaction when later last night I got the official Microsoft comment on my story about the Mozilla Foundation pumping new energy and funding into development of the Thunderbird e-mail software.

I'd asked about whether Microsoft was worried about competition from the project, given that Firefox has fared relatively well against Internet Explorer, and whether Microsoft would help Thunderbird programmers get their software working with Microsoft's Exchange e-mail server software.

What I got from Clint Patterson, public relations director for Microsoft's Unified Communications Group, went a couple notches beyond the "… Read more

The obvious answer is "Use something else." Some, however, don't like simple answers to obvious questions, so I'm now going to spend 1,000 words or so saying, "Use something else." You have been warned...

For a variety of reasons, I've been thinking lately about what to do when open-source software is not good enough for a given set of needs/requirements. There are some who believe that we should use open-source software, even if it's rubbish. I'm not among that group.

Fortunately, this is less and less an issue as open-source software becomes better--even superior, in a growing number of instances--to proprietary software. I use Adium (open-source instant messaging application) because it's better than Apple's iChat (though I turn to iChat when I want to do video chat because, well, Adium doesn't offer this feature). I use NeoOffice (OpenOffice for the Mac) increasingly because I actually prefer its presentation program to Microsoft's PowerPoint, but I have to head back to PowerPoint when I want to embed video in a presentation.

And so on.

For those who think that open source is something to impose, I disagree. I believe that open source can carry its own arguments. When it can't, I don't use it, but hope for people to come along who will fill the void. They almost always do.… Read more