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June 8, 2009 2:26 PM PDT

Joomla! turns 10,000,000 and other news

by Matt Asay
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I thought of just Tweeting a few of these news bits, but some deserve to be blogged. Alas! I lack the time today but....

  • Joomla has surpassed 10,000,000 downloads. It's hard to describe just how impressive this is, and particularly given the fact that these have come in the past four years, and after a fractious fork from Mambo.
  • The University of Southern Mississippi and the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate have launched the Homeland Open Security Technology (HOST) program, along with Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) and the U.S. Navy, to invest $1.5 million in the development of open-source technology.
  • A new report from Gartner suggests 42 percent of CIOs surveyed chopped their IT budgets in the first quarter of the year. Less budget almost certainly will mean more open source.
  • MindTouch (Disclosure: I am an advisor to MindTouch) CEO Aaron Fulkerson asks what's the big deal with Google's new Wave collaborative platform, given that wiki technology (like MindTouch's Dekiwiki) has been "waving" for years. Rafael Laguna, Open-XChange CEO, agrees. I still think Wave is cool.
  • Speaking of Google, the company recently launched Page Speed, an open-source Firefox add-on that "web developers can use...to evaluate the performance of their web pages and to get suggestions on how to improve them. Google continues to demonstrate ever-stronger commitment to feeding the open-source community.
  • Given that no one has yet settled on the optimal open-source code contribution model, MySQL developer Brian Aker discusses the Drizzle fork of MySQL and how he and the project team is handling third-party contributions to it. Very interesting insight into code contribution policies, copyright assignment, etc.
  • Acer, meanwhile, is crippling its Android Netbooks by having them dual-boot Windows. I don't have anything against Windows (well, that's not really true...), but this seems like an exercise in futility. If customers want Windows, give it to them. If they want the lower price (and different experience) of Linux, give that to them. But don't give them both, or they'll likely revert to Windows out of sheer habit.
  • Cloudera CEO Mike Olson indicates that Web applications are just the beginning for Hadoop. Indeed, Cloudera's easier-to-use commercial version of Hadoop is doing so well that Cloudera had to raise another $6 million just to keep up. Fortune, for one, thinks that Hadoop might be perfect to help power the electrical power grid.
  • Back in Redmond, Microsoft is coming under increased pressure from the European Commission, reports The Register, which may force Microsoft to offer rival browsers with Windows. Microsoft probably feels pretty beleaguered, but Roy Schestowitz offers up some data that indicates it's spending its free time pressuring European groups to side with it. It doesn't seem to be working.
  • Finally, Oracle executives didn't mince words in a town hall meeting with Sun employees, stipulating that some tough choices will be made about Sun technology and personnel. Indeed.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay.
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by forever4now June 8, 2009 2:45 PM PDT
"Acer, meanwhile, is crippling its Android Netbooks by having them dual-boot Windows"

I REALLY like the Acer Android dual-boot idea! If you want/need to use Windows, you can. Otherwise, Android offers you the benefits of fast boot & runtime, super long battery life, touch-optimized UI, location-based services, cell phone calls, SMS/MMS, multi-media playback, and access to all the other cool apps in the Android Market.

A similar approach could be used on smartbooks, with Ubuntu instead of Windows (since Windows does not run on ARM). This would be awesome! You would run Android most of the time, but if you need OpenOffice, or any other Ubuntu-supported app (developers could even run Linux dev tools!), you could launch them.

My vote is for this Android dual-boot configuration to be standard on all netbooks?perhaps with Windows/Ubuntu as optional add-ons.
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by Matt Asay June 8, 2009 4:14 PM PDT
I think the dual-boot is a good idea...just not for anyone hoping to see Linux take off. I just can't see many people going with Linux if their old comfort zone, Windows, is sitting there.
by forever4now June 9, 2009 1:07 AM PDT
@Matt Asay

If people want to:

- boot-up quickly,
- extend their battery life,
- make/receive cell phone calls,
- send/receive SMS/MMS,
- make use of some great location-based services,
- etc.,

they will have to get use to it.

Android provides a UI that is about as simple as it gets. If people can click on an icon, they can use it.
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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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