As part of Mozilla’s ongoing stability and security update process,
Firefox 3.6.6 is now available as a free download for Windows, Mac, and
Linux from http://www.firefox.com.
This release makes a small change to the crash protection feature
introduced in Firefox 3.6.4, increasing the amount of time that Firefox
will allow a plugin to remain frozen before terminating it. For more
information, see the Mozilla
Blog announcement about the release.
We recommend that all Firefox users upgrade to this latest release.
If you already have Firefox 3.6 you will receive an automated update
notification within 24 to 48 hours. This update can also be applied
manually by selecting "Check for Updates…” from the Help menu.
All Firefox 3 and 3.5 users are strongly encouraged
to upgrade to Firefox 3.6 by downloading it from http://firefox.com/ or by selecting
"Check for Updates…” from the Help menu and clicking on "Get the New
Version”, then checking for updates again once Firefox 3.6 is installed.
In our previous post, we discussed how mainstream media is adopting
linux('Stop
using Windows, Use Ubuntu instead'). And a lot of people started
complaining how not-user-friendly Linux really is. Before saying such
far fetched statements, one thing they all need to consider is this, Linux!=Windows!
It
is not the friendliness factor, it is the user familiarity factor that
is giving a lot of bad name for Linux. Most of the Linux users are those
migrating from Microsoft Windows and it requires a certain amount of
time to get familiar with the new OS.
I have my own experience to substantiate this statement. I
was not much of a computer user at all till I bought my laptop 4 years
ago. I installed Ubuntu as dual boot with Windows XP. I instantly
started liking Ubuntu, it was fun to use and all the compiz eyecandy was
just overwhelming. To that day, I considered linux as an outcast or
never really though about it at all.
But even a guy like me with minimal Windows experience
took 2-3 months to get fully familiar with Ubuntu. But once I got
familiar, their was no looking back. To this day, there was not even a
single instance where I had to go back to the Windows era.
That is probably the issue. Most of them are so
too familiar with Windows and so are they, in a way, expecting
everything in Linux to be just as like in Windows. That has to change.
Another good example of this 'familiarity
factor' is the IT@School project introduced in Kerala, India in 2002.
Kerala government completely shut
down windows, and made schools to use only Linux. Students or
parents didn't protest, they just went on with it. And now Kerala is
among the states having the highest e-literacy rate.
Here is another guy proudly proclaiming Ubuntu is NOT
user friendly and that he is going 'back' to Windows. He never
'came' to Ubuntu to go 'back' to Windows.
All I have to say to those who say Ubuntu is
tough to use is, spend some more time on it before quitting. It is worth
it. I can't even think about using Windows now, partially because I am
all too familiar with Ubuntu and Linux. So please do bear that in mind
always.
Linux have a special place in Robotics. Many Robots built by multi
billion organizations like NASA for advanced space exploration and other
complicated tasks are powered by Linux. Robotics and automation is the
key for human progress and it is good to know that Linux holds a special
advantage when advanced Robotics is concerned. Here is a nicely
compiled list of Robots powered by Linux from around the world.
K-10 - NASA's Linux Based Space Exploration Robot
K-10 was created
by the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) at NASA's Ames Research Center,
as part of a project to build exploration rovers for future robotic
missions to the moon and to Mars.
K-10 runs Red Hat Linux, which NASA says was chosen for
its large user base and application compatibility. According to NASA,
"Linux's flexibility and scalability enable us to easily add, remove,
and extend devices with minimal difficulty."
Scout - NASA's Yet Another Space Exploration Robot
The Scout is
a fully autonomous vehicle that can also be teleoperated, or controlled
by touchscreen and joystick.
Its control system is based on a pair of Dell D400 laptops
running Gentoo Linux.
Low-cost,
user-programmable humanoid robot targeting educational and research
applications.
The Choromet stands about 13-3/4 inches tall, and is
capable of walking upright on two legs. It can also assume supine or
prone positions, and stand up from either.
The Choromet is based on several technologies developed by
AIST, including an operating system said to provide a user-space
real-time Linux environment called "ARTLinux".
Humanoid Robot
called HOAP-1 (Humanoid for Open Architecture Platform) developed by
Fujitsu is designed for wide range of applications in research and
development of robotic technologies.
Fujitsu miniature humanoid Robot runs on RTLinux. The basic
simulation software and user-developed programs are designed to run on
RTLinux.
Owned by
Switzerland-based Neuronics. The Katana Robotic Arm is typically used
for handling, measurement, or testing applications in assembly,
production, and laboratory automation, says Neuronics.
Operating system that runs on Katana is Linux 2.4.25 with
Xenomai hard real-time extensions. The robot is billed as an
"intelligent" industrial robotic arm with safety features that "allow it
to work directly hand-in-hand with human operators without the need for
any additional safeguards or fences," says the company.
Nao - Humanoid Household Service Robot Running Linux
Aldebaran
Robotics, of Paris, created Nao - a humanoid household service robot
running Linux.
"Nao" household robot will compete with robotic research
prototypes in terms of functionality. The walking, talking, WiFi-enabled
bot will stand 21.6 inches tall, and will feature 23 degrees
of freedom of motion.
ROB-1 is actually
a robot with a built-in digital camera that you control from your Sony
Ericsson mobile phone using Bluetooth.
It is equipped with a VGA camera (640x480) that will
transmit the video back to the mobile phone. The camera is a mini
computer running on Linux, powered by a 200Mhz ARM processor and 2MB of
memory.
Robosoft RobuROC Autonomous Vehicle
French transport
and cleanliness robot specialist RoboSoft has used real-time Linux in a
six-wheeled outdoor autonomous vehicle aimed at reducing human risks in
reconnaissance, monitoring, and safety operations.
RoboSoft says that despite its relatively small size, the
RoboROC 6 boasts "incomparable crossing capabilities" thanks to its
flexible, articulated design.
The 17-inch, 4.5-pound humanoid robot can speak, learn, interact
with its surroundings, and even recognize faces, according to creator
Hanson Robotics.
Linux is responsible for the robot's "physical brain,"
controlling its animation, while Windows XP is responsible for its
"verbal brain," controlling its voice recognition and interaction with
others.
Sony's AIBO
(artificial intelligence bot) platform with a canid design and an open
API (application programming interface), was among the most widely used
platform in robo tournaments like Robocup.
However, Sony announced in January of 2006 that it would discontinue
AIBO.
der neue Roboter
(the new robot), the would-be AIBO replacement, also had a canid design
similar to the AIBO. der neue Roboter is much larger than the
AIBO and has 15 joints, including three for each leg, and three for the
neck.
Five years after uTorrent was released for
the Windows platform the development team has announced that it’s
working on a Linux version of the torrent client. The massive demand
from users is cited as one of the main reasons why Linux users will have
a native uTorrent application this coming summer.
uTorrent for Windows saw
its first public release in September 2005 and soon became the most
widely used BitTorrent application. Every month, more than 50 million
people use uTorrent and this number continues to grow alongside
BitTorrent’s ever-increasing user base.
Ever since uTorrent was released, Mac and Linux users have begged the
developers to release a version of the client designed to work on their
computers. In 2006, when uTorrent was sold to BitTorrent Inc., the
company announced that a Mac version was coming. In 2008, nearly two
years after the announcement, it was finally released
to the public.
With the the release of the Mac version, Linux users were the only
ones left out in the cold, but this is about to change. The uTorrent
development team has just announced that they are working on a Linux
version of the client. Further details on the time line and an eventual
release date are not available at the moment.
The Linux version is the most backed idea on µTorrent’s recently
introduced Idea Bank. The Idea
Bank is prominently featured on uTorrent’s website and allows users
to submit and vote for ideas they want to see implemented. In just a
few weeks the idea of a Linux version has been supported by 3254 people.
This huge demand from users is one of the main reasons why the Linux
version is now in progress.
"Since launching our Idea Bank on uTorrent.com there has been
significant demand for a native client for Linux,” BitTorrent Inc.
spokesperson Jenna Broughton told TorrentFreak. "We obviously want to do
our best to deliver whenever we see a good fit between our goals and
capabilities and what our users say they want.”
"We are committed to bringing a lightweight uTorrent client that
embraces the usability and features of our Windows and Mac clients to
Linux users,” Broughton said. The exact feature-set of the Linux client
will remain a secret for now, but in common with other versions of
uTorrent it wont be Open Source.
The release date for the client is unknown at this point but unlike
the Mac version it should come out relatively quickly. "While the exact
specs as well as the timing are still being developed, we expect
uTorrent for Linux to be available for download later this summer,” we
were informed.
Whether or not the uTorrent Linux release will ever reach the massive
market share it has on Windows remains to be seen. The Mac version has
been well received but it is by no means the most used BitTorrent client
on the platform. Whatever happens, it’s definitely good to see that
uTorrent will soon be available on all three major platforms.
Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns, according to several Google employees.
The directive to move to other operating systems began in earnest in January, after Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, and could effectively end the use of Windows at Google, which employs more than 10,000 workers internationally. "We’re not doing any more Windows. It is a security effort,” said one Google employee.
"Many people have been moved away from [Windows] PCs, mostly towards Mac OS, following the China hacking attacks,” said another.
New hires are now given the option of using Apple’s Mac computers or PCs running the Linux operating system. "Linux is open source and we feel good about it,” said one employee. "Microsoft we don’t feel so good about.”
In early January, some new hires were still being allowed to install Windows on their laptops, but it was not an option for their desktop computers. Google would not comment on its current policy.
Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems. The greater number of attacks on Windows has much to do with its prevalence, which has made it a bigger target for attackers.
Employees wanting to stay on Windows required clearance from "quite senior levels”, one employee said. "Getting a new Windows machine now requires CIO approval,” said another employee.
In addition to being a semi-formal policy, employees themselves have grown more concerned about security since the China attacks. "Particularly since the China scare, a lot of people here are using Macs for security,” said one employee.
Employees said it was also an effort to run the company on Google’s own products, including its forthcoming Chrome OS, which will compete with Windows. "A lot of it is an effort to run things on Google product,” the employee said. "They want to run things on Chrome.”
The hacking in China hastened the move. "Before the security, there was a directive by the company to try to run things on Google products,” said the employee. "It was a long time coming.”
The move created mild discontent among some Google employees, appreciative of the choice in operating systems granted to them - an unusual feature in large companies. But many employees were relieved they could still use Macs and Linux. "It would have made more people upset if they banned Macs rather than Windows,” he added.
Google and Microsoft compete on many fronts, from search, to web-based email, to operating systems.
While Google is the clear leader in search, Windows remains the most popular operating system in the world by a large margin, with various versions accounting for more than 80 per cent of installations, according to research firm Net Applications.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
A decade ago, the Linux operating system helped spark a revolution in
how software is developed. A move by GlaxoSmithKline PLC could
test how well similar open-source principles work for developing new
drugs.
The pharmaceutical giant last week opened to the public the
designs behind 13,500 chemical compounds that it said may be capable of
inhibiting the parasite that causes malaria.
Glaxo
and others hope that sharing information and working together will lead
scientists to come up with a drug for treating the mosquito-borne
disease faster than the company could on its own. Other researchers "may
look at these structures in quite a different way and see something
that we don't," said Nick Cammack, head of Glaxo's Medicines Development
Campus in Spain.
The move is one of the largest experiments yet by the pharmaceutical
industry to apply techniques of open-source development to drug
discovery, based on the idea that collaboration by volunteers will
create products that aren't owned by a single company.
In
software, the approach has spawned the Linux operating system, MySQL
database and an array of other programs. Those community-born
technologies now compete with products from Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and other
traditional, commercial software makers. Open-source developers share
programming instructions called source code that software companies
traditionally kept confidential.
Similarly, large pharmaceutical
companies tightly guard their formulas for drugs and other intellectual
property. Any given chemical compound holds the potential to be a
blockbuster drug—and a cash cow, like Microsoft's Windows software. But
diseases like malaria afflict mainly poor populations, and drugs to
treat them don't hold the promise for such a big payoff—making
experiments like Glaxo's less risky.
The Glaxo effort builds off
earlier open-source drug efforts that included a nonprofit organization
called Tropical Disease Initiative and a project started last year that
opens compounds from Pfizer Inc. to researchers at a nonprofit called
Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative.
The Glaxo data will be
hosted by three websites, two of which are government-funded (one in the
U.S. and one in Europe). The third is a Silicon Valley company called
Collaborative Drug Discovery Inc. CDD, as it is called, was spun off in
2004 from drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. and has funding from the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation and Founders Fund, a venture-capital
firm.
CDD's Web service combines elements of a Facebook-like
social network with an Oracle-style database. Any researcher who
registers on the CDD site will be able to see graphical depictions of
Glaxo's compounds and relevant chemical and biological data. The
database will allow them to upload their own data to be viewed by other
researchers.
The service is free of charge. If a
researcher wants to combine the data with proprietary information, CDD
alsooffers a fee-based, secure version of its site that allows
researchers to lock up information they want to keep secret.
Developing
a new drug is a trial-and-error process of testing which chemical
compounds produce a certain effect on a biological target. In the case
of malaria, the target can be the Plasmodium parasite that causes the
deadly disease or human red-blood cells that it needs to survive. Over
the past year, Glaxo has tested two million compounds, culling the
13,500 molecules that it says have some effect. However, narrowing down
the compounds to a handful that might yield a drug is an increasingly
complex process.Any compound that proves promising in the current effort
will take years of testing and investment to turn it into a malaria
drug.
Glaxo says that it won't seek patents on
any malaria drug that the compounds yield, and hopes other researchers
will also donate their intellectual property to a patent pool for
so-called neglected diseases like malaria. If the Glaxo compounds are
used to develop a drug for other types of diseases, then the company
"would consider" the intellectual-property issues, a Glaxo spokeswoman
said.
Researchers including James McKerrow, a professor at the
University of California, San Francisco, have used CDD since 2007 to
share data about diseases including malaria and schistosomiasis, a
parasite that can cause liver and kidney damage. The group shared data
on tens of thousands of compounds to speed up the process of picking a
handful of compounds (for diseases such as malaria) that are the best
options to try on animals, Dr. McKerrow said.
Barry Bunin,
CDD's chief executive, believes that the work on neglected diseases is a
precursor for big pharmaceutical companies to eventually use the
open-source techniques for developing commercial drugs.
Some drug experts doubt that will happen. The reasons
include the nettlesome problem of managing intellectual property and
various uncertainties. Any given compound, for example, could wind up
affecting more diseases than expected and turn out to be more valuable
than expected. Glaxo, for instance, found that drugs that inhibited
growth of the parasite that causes malaria were of a type that is also
marketed to treat cancer.
"I think that's a
potentially interesting model but I don't think for-profit institutions
would participate," says Brendan O'Leary, general partner at Prism
Venture Management, a venture-capital firm that invests in life-sciences
companies.
Yet Glaxo'sMr. Cammack doesn't rule it out. He hopes
the open-source work will influence Glaxo more broadly in the future,
particularly given the challenges big pharmaceuticalcompanies face in
launching new drugs. "The pharmaceutical industry needs to look at lots
of ways of doing business in the future," he said.
Worldwide mobile phone sales to end
users totalled 314.7 million units in the first quarter of 2010, a 17
per cent increase from the same period in 2009, according to Gartner,
Inc. Smarpthone sales to end users reached 54.3 million units, an
increase of 48.7 per cent from the first quarter of 2009. Among the
most successful vendors were those that controlled an integrated set of
operating system (OS), hardware and services.
"In the first quarter of 2010, smartphone sales to end users saw
their strongest year-on-year increase since 2006," said Carolina
Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. "This quarter saw RIM, a
pure smartphone player, make its debut in the top five mobile devices
manufacturers, and saw Apple increase its market share by 1.2 percentage
points. Android’s momentum continued into the first quarter of 2010,
particularly in North America, where sales of Android-based phones
increased 707 per cent year-on-year.
Growth in the mobile devices market was driven by double-digit growth
of smartphone sales in mature markets, helped by wider product
availability as well as mass market price tags. "Increasing sales of
white-box products in some emerging regions, in particular India, also
drove sales of mobile phones upward. We expect sales of white-box
products to remain very healthy for the remainder of 2010, especially
outside of China,” said Ms Milanesi.
The first quarter also saw some
movement outside the top five mobile handset vendor rankings (see Table
1), Hong Kong-based manufacturer G-Five made its debut into the
top 10, grabbing 1.4 per cent of market share in the first quarter of
2010. The rise of white-box manufacturers from Asia has also helped the
"others" section, as a proportion of overall sales, increase its market
share to 19.20 per cent in the first quarter of 2010, up 2.7 percentage
points. "This is having a profound effect on the top five mobile handset
manufacturers’ combined share that dropped from 73.3
in the first quarter of 2009 to 70.7 per cent in the first quarter of
2010,” said Ms Milanesi.
Table 1 Worldwide Mobile Terminal Sales to End Users in 1Q10
(Thousands of Units)
Company
1Q10
Units
1Q10 Market Share (%)
1Q09
Units
1Q09 Market Share (%)
Nokia
110,105.6
35.0
97,398.2
36.2
Samsung
64,897.1
20.6
51,385.4
19.1
LG
27,190.1
8.6
26,546.9
9.9
RIM
10,552.5
3.4
7,233.5
2.7
Sony Ericsson
9,865.6
3.1
14,470.3
5.4
Motorola
9,574.5
3.0
16,587.3
6.2
Apple
8,359.7
2.7
3,938.8
1.5
ZTE
5,375.4
1.7
3,369.6
1.3
G-Five
4,345.0
1.4
Huawei
3,970.0
1.3
3,217.9
1.2
Others
60,418.1
19.2
44,972.2
16.5
Total
314,653.50
100.0
269,120.10
100.0
Source: Gartner (May 2010)
In the first quarter of 2010, Nokia's
mobile phone sales to end users reached 110.1 million units, a 1.2 per
cent decline in market share year-on-year. Although Nokia's
midtier products sold well, Nokia lacks a high-volume driver in the
high-end. "MeeGo based devices and other high-end products will not
rejuvenate Nokia's premium portfolio until the end of the third quarter
of 2010 at the earliest, and Nokia will continue to feel pressure on its
average selling price (ASP) from vendors such as HTC, RIM and Samsung,”
said Ms Milanesi. The reorganisation announced last week demonstrated
that Nokia is trying to streamline the reporting process to deliver
results quickly, which we believe shows its recognition of the pressure
it faces from investors.
Samsung sold 64.9 million devices in the first quarter of 2010, an
increase of 26.3 per cent year-on-year. Samsung was one of the five
vendors in the top10 vendors ranking to grow its market share, which
increased by 1.5 percentage points year-on-year. Samsung saw healthy
margins in the first quarter of 2010 and was also able to grow its
presence in developing markets such as India and the Commonwealth of
Independent States.
RIM’s mobile phone sales reached 10.6 million units in
the first quarter of 2010, a 45.9 per cent increase year-on-year. RIM is
making its debut into the top five worldwide mobile handset
manufacturers ranking. RIM's focus this quarter was centred on its
ecosystem strategy, its tightly integrated control of store, OS and
device played to RIM’s strengths.
Sony Ericsson sold enough units to remain in the top
five mobile handset manufacturers, but its market share declined 2.3
percentage points in the first quarter of 2010. The channel held some
inventory for Sony Ericsson in the first quarter of 2010 as some new
products reached the channel late into the quarter. One of Sony
Ericsson's most important future differentiators is its relationship
with its parent company, Sony. This partnership, combined with Sony
Ericsson’s ownership of the strongest portfolio it has had since 2007,
place it well to lead the trend toward increasingly connected consumer
devices.
The first quarter of 2010 was Apple’s strongest quarter
yet, which placed the company in the No. 7 position with a 112.2 per
cent increase in mobile devices sales. "Growth came partly from new
communication service providers in established markets, such as the UK,
and stronger sales in new markets such as China and South Korea,” said
Ms Milanesi. "The second quarter of 2010 will be a very important one
for Apple. We expect that Apple will present its new iPhone in June
during its Worldwide Developer Conference, which will be the first to
feature the latest release of the iPhone OS that includes welcome
improvements for developers and users, such as multitasking.”
In the smartphone OS market, Android
and Apple were the winners in the first quarter of 2010 (see Table 2).
Android moved to the No. 4 position displacing Microsoft Windows Mobile
for the first time. Both Android and Apple were the only two OSs vendors
among the top five to increase market share year-on-year. Symbian
remained in the No. 1 position but continued to lose as Nokia remains
weak in the high-end portfolio.
Smartphones accounted for 17.3 per cent of all mobile handset sales
in the first quarter of 2010, up from 13.6 per cent in the same period
in 2009.
As seen with the iPad and web books based on Google's
Android platform, mobile OS ecosystems are developing and will move
beyond smartphones to continue to deliver consumer value and a rich user
experience,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research
analyst at Gartner.
Table 2 Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users
by Operating System in 1Q10 (Thousands of Units)
Company
1Q10
Units
1Q10 Market Share (%)
1Q09
Units
1Q09 Market Share (%)
Symbian
24,069.8
44.3
17,825.3
48.8
Research In Motion
10,552.6
19.4
7,533.6
20.6
iPhone OS
8,359.7
15.4
3,848.1
10.5
Android
5,214.7
9.6
575.3
1.6
Microsoft Windows Mobile
3,706.0
6.8
3,738.7
10.2
Linux
1,993.9
3.7
2,540.5
7.0
Other OSs
404.8
0.7
445.9
1.2
Total
54,301.4
100.0
36,507.4
100.0
Source: Gartner (May 2010)
Mobile e-mail, rich messaging and social networking will continue to
drive demand for smartphones and enhanced phones that feature full
qwerty hardware keyboards. "To compete in such a crowded market,
manufacturers need to tightly integrate hardware, user interface, and
cloud and social networking services if their solutions are to appeal to
users,” said Ms Cozza. "Just adding a qwerty keyboard will not make a
device fit the communication’s habits of today's various consumer
segments.”
Additional information is in the
Gartner report "Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 1Q10."
The report is available on Gartner's website at www.gartner.com.
The French company Mandriva, which creates and sells the Mandriva Linux
distribution, appears to be up for sale, according to information at a
website dedicated to news about the distribution.
The site, Mandriva Linux Online, said the distribution had hit financial problems two years ago and things were now at a critical stage.
Two companies, LightApp and Linagora, are said to have expressed an interest in purchasing Mandriva.
The distribution
began life as Mandrake Linux in 1998. It was based on Red Hat Linux,
and for a long time was known as "Red Hat with KDE", a reference to the
fact that the Red Hat distribution used GNOME as its desktop
environment.
The name of the distribution was changed in 2005,
following the loss of a case filed by Hearst Corporation which had the
rights to the name. The company changed its name from MandrakeSoft to
Mandriva and acquired Conectiva, another Linux company.
Financial problems are not new to the company; in 2003, it filed for bankruptcy and then emerged from that state the following year. In 2008, the company was hit hard by the global financial crisis.
Taiwanese hardware manufacturer ASUS has announced plans for a low-cost tablet PC. With a nod to the Eee PC, the low priced machine which, three years ago, helped netbooks make the breakthrough into prime time, the tablet is to be called the Eee Pad.
ASUS CEO Jerry Shen plans to demonstrate the device, which will run Android, Google's mobile operating system , at Computex in Taiwan in June.According to DigiTimes, the Eee Pad will be available in the shops from late June and will be priced at around $500. ASUS says it will produce 300,000 of these devices in 2010. In contrast to Apple's iPad, the Eee Pad will include USB ports, a camera and Adobe's Flash Player. beta phase.According to Forbes, in addition to the Android tablet ASUS is reportedly working on a Windows version. Dell is also reported to be working on an Android tablet called Looking Glass, which is expected to be launched in November. Android tablets are already being sold by Archos.
European IT and telecom ministers called for the introduction of open standards and interoperability in government procurement of IT on Monday, sparking applause from the industry.
The ministers' statement, part of a broader declaration concerning Europe's digital agenda, comes as the European Commission tries to draw up a framework for how governments should in the future procure software that runs their online public services.
Public sector IT procurement represents a massive chunk of the overall IT market in Europe. Historically, only the largest software vendors have been considered by city, local, regional and national government departments. As a result, citizens are forced to use software programs compatible with those companies' offerings when performing administrative tasks such as submitting tax returns, renewing their ID cards or applying for a dog license online.
One part of the Commission, led by Commissioner Neelie Kroes, is pushing hard to open up the public procurement market, and to break the stranglehold of vendors of proprietary software, including Microsoft. Meanwhile, another part of the E.U. executive, responsible mainly for internal IT procurement, is busy drafting guidelines dubbed the European Interoperability Framework (EIF).
But advocates for open and interoperable computing claim that the EIF has been watered down due to intense lobbying by the proprietary software makers, to such an extent that the document will have no impact on the market.
The EIF is important because it will serve as a "metaframework" for all national guidelines on how public offices should purchase information and communication technology (ICT) services.
The declaration by ministers Monday should strengthen Kroes' hand, as she prepares to publish her game plan for Europe's digital agenda next month.
Government departments across the E.U. should "embed innovation and cost effectiveness into eGovernment through the systematic promotion of open standards and interoperable systems," the ministers said in their declaration.
Kroes welcomed the statement, describing it as "a milestone, a crucial building block for a truly European Digital Agenda."
"We do not seek to dictate the design and scale and direction of future ICT. But we are determined to create a new set of conditions for ICTs and the Internet ecosystem of the future," she said.
Trade groups were quick to praise the declaration too.
"Europe will be best served if it spends less time looking backwards on preserving the status quo and current business practice, and more time on encouraging new opportunity and innovation", said Graham Taylor, CEO of the Open Forum Europe (OFE) -- a trade group that ranks Google, IBM and Oracle among its members.
Linux Collaboration Summit Android's deviant Linux could be readmitted to the main kernel following talks at the Linux Collaboration Summit in San Francisco today and Friday.
Developers from Google's Android team are due to meet the Linux kernel devs in the hope of working out their differences and closing an awkward chapter in the history of Linux.
Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin, whose group hosts the annual summit, told The Reg: "I think they can hopefully work it out... the purpose of this event is to table those conversations."
Google open source programs manager Chris DiBona told us it would be a "multi-year" process. "I think it's going to take more than a couple of days to sort things out."
He noted, though, that reintegration would not be too hard because Google has deliberately stuck very close to the main Linux kernel with Android.
That suggests the issue is more political than technical, for two main reasons.
One is that Android has entered the rats' nest that is the mobile phone industry, and Google must now balance any desire to respect the wishes of the Linux community for compatibility with the more diverse, competing - and not always logical - interests of those now adopting Android and its own plans.
It's an industry where a maze of chip makers, handset manufacturers, and carriers have competing hardware, software and service demands, and retain an obsessive paranoia about keeping new launches secret from each other and the world. Keeping new features secret is harder when everybody shares the same code or kernel.
It's a maze Java's been bogged down in for years.
"Android is very complicated," DiBona said of the ecosystem earlier during the Summit. "I firmly believe over time a lot of the technology we've been working on [in Android] will make it into the mainstream kernel, we have to do better."
The other could be the personalities involved, who might not care for the politics of the phone industry compared to the purity of the kernel.
Appearing on a panel ahead of DiBona was Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Novell fellow and Linux developer who booted Android from the Linux kernel last year by deleting the Android drivers. Kroah-Hartman said that at the time nobody cared about the Android code and that, ultimately, Google had forked the kernel with a "sometimes bizarre" security model.
Judging from earlier comments Kroah-Hartman has made, he meant no one cared about making sure the code was merged with the main Linux tree. The world certainly cares about Android.
More than 30 phones ship on Android, with more planned, while the Linux is found on tablets and e-book readers such as Barnes & Noble's Nook.
Android had 7.1 per cent market share in the US smart-phone market January - up 4.3 per cent since October according to comScore. Since October, Android has grown faster than Apple's iPhone, up 0.3 per cent to - an admittedly already robust - 25.1 per cent, while Windows and Palm both shrunk.
If it was hoped Google would be brought to heel by being ejected from the Linux tree, it was a hope that was never realized. "Just because our code was booted out of the fork doesn't mean we aren't releasing code all the time - we are," DiBona had told summit attendees.
As far as DiBona is concerned, not all the features in Android will be relevant to mainstream or enterprise Linux kernel users because they are geared towards handsets - such as specific Qualcomm chip sets.
The dilemma of success
This has been an awkward chapter in the history of Linux. Summit speakers and Linux people around the event down played the problem, either calling it "a little fork" or saying "forks are good".
Google's operating system is helping propel Linux to new devices and even greater market share - advancing the common cause. It has done so, though, at an apparent price to unity of the kernel and in a way that's been played out in the public arena.
But attendees saw this as an issue and wanted clarification, with questions to DiBona during his session and speakers in an earlier panel about future of the kernel kept coming back to the Android fork.
James Bottomley, Linux SCSI subsystem maintainer and Novell distinguished engineer, said during the kernel panel forks are prevalent in embedded systems where companies use the fork once then "throw it away".
"Google is not the first to have done something like this by far, just the one that’s made the most publicity," Bottomley said.
"Hopefully the function of this collaboration summit is there is some collaboration over the next two days and we might actually solve it." ®
No one is better qualified to talk about the state of the KDE desktop than Aaron Seigo. A former member of the board of KDE e.V, the German non-profit that oversees the project, Seigo is a lead developer on the desktop. Last weekend, I interviewed him at the Calgary Open Source Systems Festival, COSSFest, in front of an audience, on where KDE is today and where it is heading.
According to Seigo, the large-scale changes that began two years ago with the release of KDE 4.0 are mostly complete now. "We've reached the stage with the 4.4 release that happened in January where we've got this nice feature set on the desktop and we have applications available for it and some nice refinements in the look and feel. That's where we are. But where are we going? That's always the difficult question. Once you've arrived at a place,what are you going to aim for?"
Seigo's answer to his own question is that KDE is currently moving in three directions: adding functionality to the desktop in both small features and within specific applications, extending the concept of the social desktop, and the introduction of KDE on to every possible hardware platform. Each is a small story in itself.
Fine-tuning the KDE Desktop
In contrast to some of the earlier releases in the KDE 4 series, Seigo says, now "we have the features that people expect [and] we've given people a lot of new things they can do." The next step, he says, is "putting an emphasis on fit and finish -- working on performance, really ratcheting down the screws on stability."
Something of this direction can already been seen in the current 4.4 release, with the addition of new features such as the ability to group many windows into tabs in a single one. However, tabbed windows are only the beginning, Seigo says.
He suggests that future releases will make the taskbar aware of tabbed windows, and allow users to save them for use in a latter session. Similarly, he sees the recently-added geolocation feature as a first step towards a KDE version that will automatically change the contents of the desktop according to where you are -- for instance, opening one set of icons and files when the computer starts at your office, and another when it starts at home.
In addition, many of the changes to the desktop are occurring within specific applications. For example, KOffice has received funding from Nokia to develop a document viewer for the Maemo 5 mobile platform. Nokia," Seigo says, "is investing a lot, not only so it's fast, but also so it has import/export filters for Open Document and Microsoft Office format, so if you create a document in OpenOffice.org, it will work perfectly on your phone."
Another example is the new direction for Krita, KOffice's rasterized graphic program. For a long time, Seigo says, the sub-project wasn't sure "If they were a drawing app, or maybe a photo retouching app, or what-the-hell were they?"
At a recent developers' sprint, Krita enlisted design expert Peter Sikking, who has also worked with the GIMP, to help the sub-project find direction.
"At the end of this experience, they decided that what they really were was a natural process drawing application," Seigo says -- that is, an application that simulates as closely as possible such aspects as brush strokes and color-mixing. "Other things like photo editing are plugins now, something that you add afterwards."
"The other exciting area of development right now is in business support," Seigo says. "Things like groupware. KDE is working a program called OpenChange which is doing a compete reimplementation of MS Exchange," Seigo says. "They were actually at the Samba conference this year, and I always refer to them as the Samba for Exchange. KDE is being ported to the new Akonadi framework [for personal information management], so in the not-too-distant future, you'll be able to choose your server of choice, including Exchange. That's really a first for us."
KDE and the Social Desktop
The second major direction is the increased use of the social desktop. According to Seigo, this trend began with introduction of Nepomuk, the social semantic desktop that maintains a database of files and their tags.
Nepomuk is primarily an academic project, but, thanks to sponsorship from Mandriva, KDE was one of the first to implement it in a desktop.
"That's reached the stage now where you can tag files, annotate them, search for them, and create a timeline to see the order in which you've used things in the file manager," Seigo says. "That's nice, but it's really the tip of the iceberg. The end goal is to connect all this metadata with people and the way people work."
KDE already includes widgets for keeping track of people via OpenDesktop.organd to access the KDE Knowledge Base, but future developments could see tools for keeping current with both friends and KDE contributions, and even seeking answers to hardware problems from others who own the same hardware.
Seigo calls this trend "freeing the web from the web browser," adding that "it's a shame the web is stuck with the web browser." In direct contrast to Google's Chrome OS, which replaces the desktop with the browser, the goal of KDE is to distribute access to web resources throughout the existing desktop.
"That means using web technologies in our desktops," Seigo explains. "It's really erasing the boundaries between what is local and isn't local, and, most importantly, in the spirit of free software, putting the control and the choice into the hands of the users."
New Hardware Platforms and Their Influence
The largest current direction for KDE is the extension on to new platforms. KDE has already released Plasma Netbook, a netbook-specific interface that Seigo describes has "about 99% the same stuff under the hood" as the traditional desktop.
Now, KDE is expanding to other hardware platforms as well. "We've got mobile going right now," Seigo adds. "We're working on a mobile interface that is designed to be a phone/PDA-type interface. Our target platform is MeeGo, and we're working on things such as the Jax10 device, which is Intel-based. We're also working on a media center. So, at the end of the day, we'll have this collection of shells that go from desktop to netbook/tablet to mobile."
One result of this hardware integration that is already having an effect is the influence of netbooks and mobile devices on the traditional desktop. Screen size, available RAM and hard drive size all place limits on interface design, although the hardware distinctions between portable devices and workstations is starting to narrow.
Even so, differences remain. As an example, Seigo points out that a mouse is too precise a tool for a mobile device.
"This leads to things like having clickable widgets," Seigo says. "so that if I have a list of things, I might be able to click it with my finger. And because we use the same technologies for the primary user interface, we now have clickable widgets o the desktop as well. We probably never would have invested the time in doing clickable widgets if we were just focusing on the desktop."
Other Changes, and Lessons Learned
Other changes are happening that are external to the software. Realizing that KDE no longer referred only to a desktop, but to a community engaged in building related technologies, the project announced a rebranding last fall in the hopes of better reflecting what the project is about.
The near future should also see a change from SVN to Git for version control. Seigo anticipates that the greater accessibility of GIT will lower the barriers for contributors.
Some KDE projects like Amarok have already switched to Git, and, according to Seigo, "They're moving at an amazing pace, and the main reason is that the number of contributors have gone up." Seigo does expect "a week where everyone's going, 'What the hell am I doing?'" because KDE has over five millions lines of current code, and some 58 gigabytes of archives to transfer. But "hopefully, when we all move over, KDE development will go even faster."
But, whatever changes are in store for KDE, Seigo suggests that they should occur with a minimum of problems. In particular, Seigo says that, because the KDE 4 series is designed to be more easily altered than previous release series, code bloat is less likely to be a problem, because fewer kludges are needed to work around hard-coded limitations.
Moreover, "in cases where there is bloat, we disable it at run time if your battery starts to run out or if your machine is too slow. You give up some of the bling, but you still have a fully functional, good system."
Seigo does express some concern about another user revolt like the one that happened with KDE 4.0. However, he blames the revolt partly on distribution's efforts to be the first with new software, and partly on inevitability.
"We have a very bad habit in free software in general that, whenever necessary development happens -- something that has to be done -- we're not good at creating new products around that," Seigo says. "We just say, 'Here's a new thing,' and we throw it out and see how it goes. The distributions really need to get better with how they deal with such things, because upstream can't realy stop and ossify our code. We need to do this every so many years, and the distributions have to learn to deal with it. And it's not exclusively a KDE thing; we saw the same thing with PulseAudio"
And when will the KDE 5 series roll out? Seigo says that the version number might change to keep it in sync with that of the Qt toolkit, but that, otherwise, a new development series is unlikely.
"We're maybe halfway through what we want to achieve with KDE 4," Seigo says. "The frameworks that we have are not being fully utilized, and wwe're not looking at things and saying, 'Dang, I wish there was something we could do.' We were really doing that with KDE 3, and we don't have any of that on our plate right now. We're kind of like a kid whose mother buys a shirt three sizes too big and tells him that he'll grow into it -- we still have lots of room for growth."
In a few years, KDE 5 will probably happen, but Seigo predicts that the change would be more like the one between the KDE 2 and 3 series, and not nearly as radical as that between KDE 3 and 4. "I think we've probably got a good decade of development in the framework we have right now," Seigo says.
Long-Time Open Source Contributor Collabora Joins Linux Foundation
Collabora’s team of open source development veterans will contribute to MeeGo project
SAN FRANCISCO, April 15, 2010 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Collabora Ltd., has become a member and will participate in the MeeGo project (http://www.meego.com).
Collabora is a globally distributed team of open source software consultants who are also active maintainers and contributors to a variety of open source projects. The company provides development, consulting and project management services, among others: http://www.collabora.co.uk/services/.
Collabora has a long history of contributing to mobile open source projects and developing applications for a variety of platforms that include GNOME, KDE, Moblin, Maemo – and now, MeeGo.
"The Linux Foundation provides a home for important projects such as the MeeGo platform,” said Philippe Kalaf, director and co-founder at Collabora Ltd. "We’re excited to join the Linux Foundation so that we can participate directly in upstream development of the MeeGo platform, attend online and face-to-face meetings and do what we can to invest in the project’s success.”
"MeeGo is one of the many projects that benefit from Collabora’s contributions,” said Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs, The Linux Foundation. "We’re excited to have such a veteran group of open source experts join the Linux Foundation and collaborate on important projects such as MeeGo.”
Collabora is attending this week’s Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit, which includes day 1 keynotes from MeeGo leadership as well as project meetings on days 2 and 3. For more information about the Summit, please visit:http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit.
About Collabora Ltd. Headquartered in Cambridge, UK with a network of developers worldwide, Collabora Ltd. is a software consultancy specializing in delivering the benefits of open source to the commercial world. Collabora combines years of open source software expertise with hard-won experience from working in the mobile and consumer electronics industries. They help clients effectively take open source technologies from the community to real-world consumers, re-using existing components to reduce time to market and focus on product differentiation. For more information please visit www.collabora.co.uk.
About the Linux Foundation The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by hosting important workgroups, events and online resources such as Linux.com. For more information, please visit www.linuxfoundation.org.
###
Trademarks: The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.
10 years ago, IBM had a single mission for Linux: Make it better. Now in 2010, IBM (NYSE:IBM) has a decade of experience in working to do just that, and is sharing its knowledge about how companies and developers can better participate in the Linux community.
Speaking in a keynote session at the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit, Dan Frye, vice president of open system development at IBM, provided his insights into some do's and don't when trying to work with Linux.
For IBM, one of the hardest lessons it had to learn was one about control. Mainly, there is none.
"There is nothing that we can do to control individuals or communities, and if you try, you make thing worse," Frye told the audience. "What you need is influence. It goes back to the most important lesson, which is to give back to the community and develop expertise. You'll find that if your developers are working with a community, that over time they'll develop influence and that influence will allow you to get things done."
Frye noted during his keynote that an early question that IBM asked internally about Linux was how it could control a chaotic development process. As it turns out, Linux development isn't a chaotic process, though it may appear that way to some looking from the outside.
Joining the Linux community as a participant in a broader ecosystem also proved to yield a key lesson for IBM.
"It's easy to form a community around yourself," Frye said. "It's much harder and more valuable to participate in a community that you do not control -- it took us time to learn that."
Fry recalled that a few years back, IBM wanted to push its own Linux scalability effort -- an initiative that didn't work out, as IBM did not get any community input for the project. The problem was that IBM didn't know how things worked in the Linux community, Frye said.
For example, he said someone would send a note on a mailing list about an IBM effort, and then the IBM people in turn would have a team huddle to determine a response. Frye noted that it would take IBM a lot of time to respond, and by the time it did, the interested community individuals would be long gone.
"We spent far too much time behind the IBM firewall, discussing things, and we tried to polish our external communications," Frye said. "So we banned internal IBM communication on the Linux kernel. Anyone working on the kernel at IBM was not allowed to talk to anyone else inside the company. All communications had to be external."
That effort led to IBM having more success in dealing with the community. In addition, IBM learned that it doesn't work to make large code donations, either. Frye stated that it's far more effective to start working inside of a community and then deliver incremental pieces of work.
While IBM discovered that it can't control the process, Frye noted that it is possible to work on the things that were important to IBM even within the community model.
"It is perfectly acceptable to scratch your own itch," Frye said. "You can work on the things that are important to you and your company, and things will work out."
The other lesson that IBM has learned is that it's the end result that matters in Linux, and not who runs a project or starts a particular effort.
"It does not matter whose code is eventually shipped," Frye said. "If your folks drop code and someone takes that code, rewrites it and makes it better, that is fine."
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of Internet.com, the network for technology professionals.
MeeGo Developer Community Grows As Software Ecosystem Support Broadens
The MeeGo project receives industry-wide support while it gets down to the business of writing code
SAN FRANCISCO, April 12, 2010 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that companies from a broad range of sectors have committed to and are participating in the MeeGo project.
Participants today include leading device manufacturers, operating system vendors (OSVs), chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and development communities. Supporting statements are attached from Acer, Amino, Asianux, Asus, BMW Group, Collabora, Ltd., CS2C, DeviceVM, EA Mobile, Gameloft, Hancom, Linpus, Maemo Community Council, Mandriva, Metasys, Miracle, MontaVista Software, Novell, PixArt, Red Flag, ST-Ericsson, Tencent, TurboLinux, VietSoftware, Wind River, WTEC, and Xandros.
This participation translates into millions of developer hours dedicated to cross-device compatibility, application portability and the user experience for MeeGo-based devices. Contributors are attracted to MeeGo because it extends reach beyond just smartphones to also include connected televisions, in-vehicle infotainment systems, netbooks and more.
The MeeGo project, which merges Intel’s Moblin™ and Nokia’s Maemo Linux-based platforms, was announced earlier this year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. An opening (http://meego.com/community/blogs/imad/2010/day-1-here-opening-meego-development) of the MeeGo distribution infrastructure and operating system base was made available last month, and the first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of this year with applications available in both Intel’s AppUp Center and Nokia’s Ovi Store.
"The MeeGo project is being met with enthusiastic support from companies and developers who want to seize the market opportunity that exists for the next-generation of computing devices,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. "By working with a common set of tools and open technologies for building these devices, MeeGo developers will be able to easily reach the biggest addressable market available.”
As an open source software platform, MeeGo will help to reduce market fragmentation and complexity, while helping to accelerate industry innovation and time-to-market for next-generation devices, Internet-based applications, services and user experiences. MeeGo is designed for cross-device, cross-architecture computing and is built from the ground up for a new class of powerful computing devices.
Intel’s Imad Sousou, co-chairman of the MeeGo Technical Steering Committee and Nokia’s Ari Jaaksi, vice president of MeeGo Devices, will deliver keynotes at this week’s Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit on April 14, 2010. MeeGo project meetings will also take place on days 2 (April 15, 2010) and 3 (April 16, 2010) of the Summit. For more information about the Summit program, please visit:http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/agenda
About the MeeGo Project
The MeeGo project combines Intel’s Moblin™ and Nokia’s Maemo projects into one Linux-based, open source software platform for the next generation of computing devices. The MeeGo software platform is designed to give developers the broadest range of device segments to target for their applications, including netbooks and entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, media phones and more – all using a uniform set of APIs based on Qt. For consumers, MeeGo will offer innovative application experiences that they can take from device to device. The MeeGo project is hosted by the Linux Foundation. For more information on MeeGo, visit www.meego.com.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by hosting important workgroups, events and online resources such as Linux.com. For more information, please visit www.linuxfoundation.org.
Trademarks: The Linux Foundation and Linux Standard Base are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. MeeGo is a trademark of the Linux Foundation. Moblin is a trademark of Intel.
Ubuntu Linux is gearing up for the debut of its latest release with Ubuntu 10.04, codenamed "the Lucid Lynx" and scheduled for general availability at the end of the month. It's a release that offers multiple new features on the desktop and a new look to Ubuntu Linux.
The Lucid release could also help to further accelerate adoption of Ubuntu, which has been growing over the last several years. In 2008, Canonical, the lead commercial sponsor behind Ubuntu, pegged the number of Ubuntu users at 8 million. It's a figure that could have increased by as much as 50 percent or more since then, insiders say.
"We have no phone home or registration process, so it's always a guesstimate. But based on the same methodology that we came up with for the 2008 number, our present belief is that it's somewhere north of 12 million users at the moment," Chris Kenyon, vice president for OEM at Canonical, told InternetNews.com
Usage numbers aside, the upcoming Lucid release from Ubuntu is a big one for the Linux distribution as it is the first new Long-Term Supported (LTS) release in two years. An LTS release provides three years of support on Ubuntu Desktop, and five years on Ubuntu Server. In contrast, non-LTS Ubuntu releases come out every six months and have only 18 months of support. The last Ubuntu LTS release was the 8.04 release, "Hardy Heron," which made its debut in April 2008. Kenyon expect that users still running the 8.04 LTS will now make the jump to the 10.04 LTS when it becomes available.
Ubuntu Desktop
On the desktop, the Lucid release is the benefactor of a new branding initiative from Canonical, which transforms the traditionally brown-colored Ubuntu interface into one with a new purple look it calls "aubergine".
The desktop also benefits from the inclusion of the new Me Menu, which combines a user's chat and social networks into a user interface button. With the Me Menu, users can access and update instant messaging and social networks including Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Identica, Google Talk, MSN and IRC.
The Ubuntu One desktop service synchronization effort is also being expanded in the Lucid release.
Although Microsoft is beginning to acknowledge that the rich ecosystem of open source software can bring a lot of value to Windows users, the most popular open source software projects are largely developed on other platforms, which means that they aren't always easy to deploy on Windows. A relatively complex open source server stack can be rolled out on Linux with a few clicks, but it might take hours to get the same software installed and properly configured on Windows.
Microsoft developer Garrett Serack has identified a compelling solution to this problem. He is launching a new project to build a package management system for Windows with the aim of radically simplifying installation of popular open source software on Microsoft's platform. He calls it the Common Open Source Application Publishing Platform (CoApp).
Much like the package management systems that are a standard part of popular Linux distributions, the CoApp project will provide a delivery platform for packaged open source software libraries and applications, with support for dependency resolution and automatic updates. It could be a powerful tool for system administrators who want a WAMP stack or developers who want to port Linux applications to Windows.
Serack wants to use Microsoft's MSI format for the packages and intends to take advantage of WinSxS in order to deliver parallel binaries so that users will have access to multiple builds of the same library generated by different compilers. The project will also seek to establish some basic standards for filesystem layout so that files are put in consistent places.
He is coordinating the project with Microsoft's blessing, but the actual development effort will be community-driven—an approach that will hopefully enable CoApp to evolve in a way that best serves its users rather than being directed by Microsoft.
"The folks here at Microsoft have recognized the value in this project—and have kindly offered to let me work on it full-time. I'm running the project; Microsoft is supporting my efforts in this 100%," he wrote in a blog entry about the project on Wednesday. "The design is entirely the work of myself and the CoApp community, I don't have to vet it with anyone inside the company."
Making open source development on Windows suck less
Having ported several of my own Linux applications to Windows, I know from personal experience how insanely difficult it can be to set up a proper environment for developing open source software on Microsoft's operating system. For the last Qt application that I ported, the process of getting all of the dependencies installed took hours. I had to install CMake, find just the right version of Automoc, and compile OpenSSL from source.
My current Windows VM has a half a dozen different build systems and three separate sets of version control tools, all of which had to be installed individually. I also have two completely separate installations of MinGW and a rather heavy Cygwin setup. I need all of this crap in order to port my software to Windows, but it's a nightmare to maintain. I have to meticulously document every step of the setup process if I ever want to be able to do it again on a different Windows installation.
These headaches are enough to deter many open source software developers who would otherwise be releasing Windows versions of their applications. Spending a few hours developing on Windows often serves as a painful reminder of how much I depend on my distro's super cow powers. That is why I'm convinced that CoApp is a very good idea.
Cygwin arguably constitutes a package management system by itself, but it tends to be somewhat insular and isn't very native. Serack believes that CoApp offers an opportunity to do it the right way and close the gaps that isolate ported open source software components from the rest of the Windows ecosystem. If it's done properly, that could be very significant.
Although Linux enthusiasts tend to disdain Windows, porting Linux applications to Microsoft's operating system can open up a lot of opportunities. A Windows port can expose your application to a whole new audience, making it possible to attract new contributors. We have seen a number of prominent open source software projects benefit in that manner from Windows compatibility in the past.
A positive side effect of that phenomenon is that it introduces Windows application developers to open source frameworks and technologies. Broader adoption of cross-platform Linux-friendly software and toolkits on Windows would obviously help boost the availability of software for Linux.
Although I'm really impressed with Serack's vision, I'm a bit skeptical that a task of such magnitude and complexity can be fulfilled to an extent that would truly deliver on its potential. Such an undertaking will require considerable manpower. Ars readers who want to participate in the project or learn more can check out the CoApp page on Launchpad.
For the first time in its 16-year history, the Debian GNU/Linux
project has a woman in the running to become leader of the project when
voting for the post takes place between April 2 and April 15.
Margarita Manterola,
a software developer from Argentina, mostly Python, teaches programming
at a university. She has been involved with Debian since 2003, became a
developer in 2005 and has been part of the Debian Women project since
it kicked off in 2004.
Manterola, who submitted her nomination just before the deadline, will have to defeat three others if she is to win.
Stefano Zacchiroli, who ran last year and lost to the current leader, Steve McIntyre, was the first to cast his hat in the ring.
Also in the running is Wouter Verhelst,
who says he decided to contest simply because for quite some time
Zacchiroli was the only candidate and that would not be good for the
project. Verhelst ran for the post in 2007 but was not successful.
Zacchiroli is a post-doctoral fellow at a university in Paris, France, Verhelst runs his own free and open source software business, and Plessy is a molecular biologist whose main contribution has been to the Debian Med project.
Campaigning ends on March 31. The new leader's term begins on April 17.
But she's no outsider swooping in to take over Ubuntu Linux's corporate
sponsor. She joined Canonical in June 2004, two months after previous
CEO Mark Shuttleworth founded the company with a few programmers he
recruited from the Debian Linux project on which Ubuntu is based.
Since then Canonical has grown to about 320 employees and has
made Ubuntu a major presence in the world of Linux--version 10.04, one
of the important "long-term support" versions that arrives every two
years, is due in April. It's an unusually sustained effort to make
Linux a force on desktop and laptop computers, and among Canonical's
accomplishments is a mainstream foothold on Dell PCs.
Canonical CEO Jane Silber
(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)
What hasn't changed is the company's insistence on making the
version of its software it gives away for free identical to the product
it supports commercially--a move that still contrasts with Linux
incumbent Red Hat. And another thing: six years on, Canonical still is
not profitable.
Being in the red now doesn't mean that the company--funded in
part by Shuttleworth's proceeds from selling his earlier company,
Thawte Consulting, to VeriSign for $575 million in 2000--doesn't plan
to be in the black. Canonical has three main businesses: selling server
management services to companies using Ubuntu Linux; working with
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Hewlett-Packard or
processor companies that need help with Linux; and most recently, an
Internet-based tool for buying and synchronizing music files and other
personal data.
I sat down with Silber, who moved from chief operations officer
to CEO on March 1, in the company's London headquarters. This is an
edited transcript of our chat about desktop Linux, cloud computing, and
the company's profit plans.
Q: When Canonical announced the change in management in January, you signaled that there wouldn't be a cataclysmic difference from the Shuttleworth CEO era.
Silber: This is very much a continuation of what we've been
doing before. I think it's hard for people from the outside to see how
Canonical has been run over the last couple years, but there has been a
strong partnership. To the two of us, this feels like a natural
evolution and shift in our responsibilities rather than some dramatic
knife-edge change. My role is to lead and drive us to accomplish the
same goals on the same strategies we've had over the last couple years.
So if little is changing, what was the reason?
Silber: Canonical is changing in its life cycle. We're maturing
as an organization. We're six years old now. We are 320 people--of that
order. We have a much more robust set of relationships with partners
and customers and the open-source community, and the type of work we're
doing is different now and needs a different type of leadership and
focus. It's the type of focus I'd like to bring. Mark has gotten more
interested in elements of product design and strategy, and he's gotten
more focused there. What the organization needs now we believe fits
more naturally into the new sets of roles and responsibilities than the
old ones. It allows both of us to focus where our strengths and
interests are and on what Canonical needs at this stage in its life.
Start-ups often change from the visionary founding leaders to new
management that focuses more on execution and operations. Is this that
transition for Canonical?
Silber: It's part of that. We are still a very visionary
organization. The work we're doing is still very disruptive. Some of
the work we're doing on cloud computing on the server side is
visionary. We are still breaking the model, exploring the boundaries
between commercial and community. An element of this was about a drive
toward operational excellence--benefiting from the foundation we've
built over the last five years.
Investors who might not see eye to eye with management often
pressure start-ups, but Canonical has funding from Mark Shuttleworth.
Silber: We are a for-profit company. We have product goals and
technical goals that have been the case in the past and will continue
to be the case on my watch.
"We
are not going out trying to target Red Hat customers and convert them
to Ubuntu. Our main opportunity is in a different area than the one
where they traditionally play."
But is there more urgency about profit now?
Silber: There is a sense of great opportunity right now. When
we started Ubuntu in year one, we didn't put a strong push on trying to
sell Canonical services, not because we were not interested, but it's
hard to build a business around selling services around an operating
system that nobody is using. We knew we needed to gain a user base and
momentum before we could sell services. That user base is now there.
There is urgency and momentum around that at a level we hadn't
necessarily seen in the first couple years.
I've heard for years that Linux on the desktop will catch on, and
it's had some modest success among programmers and developing
countries. Where is it popular, where will is going to be popular, and
where are you going to make it popular?
Silber: Is this the "Is 2010 the year of the Linux desktop" question?
I'm not going to go that far. Mac OS X is not the market-leading
operating system, but it's reasonably successful. You can have success
that isn't 90 percent of the market.
Silber: Creating a platform to get vastly widespread consumer
use takes time. Nothing in that platform-changing realm will happen
overnight. I think there are signs of change. We notice a dramatic
change even in dealings with OEMs. If you think about the hardware
ecosystem--the process of developing new components that find their way
to end-users' hands--changing the dynamics of that industry. Where
their staff is trained, where they drive product management from where
innovation happens. There's a subtle but really important change
happening across that whole ecosystem.
We see companies now having operating system that five years
ago you'd never think needed an operating system. There's still going
to be a lot of change in that industry. Lots of people today are trying
things. Some things are going to work, a lot are not, it's going to be
very dynamic over the next couple years. But what we're seeing is the
result of the opportunities that open source and Linux have provided.
The opportunity for choice and for innovation is coming out. In these
disruptive environments, there's opportunity, and we think Ubuntu is at
the forefront of that.
It seems like Netbooks would be pretty high on that list.
Silber: Netbooks are high on the list. I was at Mobile World
Congress in Barcelona a couple weeks ago walking around the floor. It's
primarily a mobile conference, but similar to what you'd see at places
like CES where most of the products you see being shown are Linux-based
and coming from quarters that traditionally have accepted other
people's software products and put them together. There's so much
activity in the area of taking what has been a Linux desktop and
spreading it across that spectrum of form factors, from desktops to
laptops to Netbooks. I think Ubuntu plays across all that spectrum. We
have a core with common technology. It allows us to span that spectrum
efficiently.
It seems to me Netbooks got a lot more popular once Windows began to
show up on them. People are familiar with Windows, and they have
software they want to run. I see Linux-based Netbooks coming out
Taiwan, but I'm not convinced they're succeeding in a big way.
Silber: I think broadly as a category they're succeeding in
the marketplace. There's exploration going on in terms of where the
sweet spot is. Some companies are trying to discover where their skill
set is. Lots of companies think they can make an OS, and they don't
have that DNA in the company to really do that. There's exploration and
experimentation happening. It produces a lot of devices and projects
which aren't going to have a lot of staying power.
Linux has been successful in the server market. That's where Red Hat
made its business. What are you doing differently to crack the server
market?
Silber: Our main opportunity is in the cloud, both as a guest
OS and in the infrastructure-host OS piece. I'm sure you're familiar
with our partnership with Eucalyptus to build Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud?
Basically an in-house version of Amazon Web Services.
Silber: Right. It allows a company to build its own private cloud
behind a firewall. That plays to our strengths for a number of reasons,
including the simple fact that Ubuntu instances are free. You want to
scale up, you want to burst? That's very hard in a Red Hat model where
you need a licensed subscription for each of those instances. There's a
good match between the inherent characteristics of that sort of cloud
computing and Ubuntu. We're seeing a lot of interest there.
Red Hat is a great company that is going to be around and has a
good business model in certain areas. We are not going out trying to
target Red Hat customers and convert them to Ubuntu. Our main
opportunity is in a different area than the one where they
traditionally play.
So if using Ubuntu is free, where does the revenue come in?
Silber: Support and management services. Those instances,
whether they're cloud instances or virtual instances, need some
management services. This is our Landscape product offering. Landscape
comes in two forms. One is a software as a service that we host. We
also have something called Landscape Dedicated Server, which is an on-site version. There's a slightly different pricing model for that. It's basically per-machine under management.
Your third big business is Ubuntu One. Where is the money coming in there?
Silber: That's our newest business unit. The core offering is the
storage and syncing capability. That is a freemium-based model. A
certain amount of storage is free, and there's a subscription for
larger amounts of storage. With Ubuntu 10.04, we're introducing Ubuntu
One music store, which is through a partner providing the digital
content. It's a purchasing MP3 model.
One of the most fascinating things now facing desktop operating
system companies is cloud computing. For Linux in particular, it seems
a blessing and a curse. It gets around a lot of the application
availability problems. Quicken is a great example. For years people
would say, "Oh, there's no Quicken on Linux." With Mint, now there's
Quicken on Linux--with a lot of qualifiers, but you get the idea. The
curse is the operating system just becomes a piece of the stack, down
there below, not something that the end users even is recognize is
there necessarily. It's not as much an opportunity to sell in one way
or another to end users. How do you see it?
I think ultimately it's a benefit. It certainly is a changing
dynamic. I'm not sure how many people will go completely into the cloud
in the near future. This is a pendulum that swings back and forth from
local client apps to centralized apps somewhere else that may or may
not be under your control. The sweet spot is in that middle ground.
It's naive to think everything will always be running on your machine
locally, but it's equally naive to think everything will move to the
cloud. The challenge for us is playing to strength, finding that sweet
spot for the Ubuntu user base, what they need and want, and providing
an appropriate set of local applications and Web-based services.
"Creating
a platform to get vastly widespread consumer use takes time. Nothing in
that platform-changing realm will happen overnight. I think there are
signs of change."
I've seen the pendulum, too, with time-sharing and whatnot. But the
Internet strikes me as profoundly different from the old days of
running stuff on a server, the green-screen terminal days. It's just so
pervasive and you must be connected to it for a bunch of routine
things, even if you're not jumping into cloud computing whole hog. I
don't know where that pendulum is going to end up, but it seems it's
going to be a lot more toward the cloud.
Silber: It's not something we're fighting against. We're
trying to leverage this opportunity rather than cower in a defensive
corner. For instance, another 10.04 feature is an initiative we're
calling Social from the Start, which is making desktop this social
gateway to your social networks, to your online life, in a very
seamless integrated manner. One of the key features is what term the Me
menu, a menu in the top panel bar. With just one click, it'll drop down
and let you post to Twitter, Identica, Facebook, in a very simple,
elegantly integrated into the desktop interface. It's that merging of
online worlds and your local desktop world we think is very
interesting.
Linux has been persistently popular with software developers.
There's a lot of benefit there to having serious local computing
horsepower when you're compiling your code. What are some other
examples of software running locally where Ubuntu can make a
difference? You don't have Photoshop, you don't have Final Cut Pro, you
don't have a large number of games.
Silber: A lot of things related to media are still very
valuable in a local perspective. The notion of being able to have
access to your content locally, even if you're using a cloud-based
application to deal with that, is very compelling to people. There are
environments still, while we are moving to pervasively connected online
world, there are still instances where you want offline horsepower to
do things as simple as editing documents.
You mentioned Photoshop. The open-source community has really
powerful photo tools like the GIMP. Inkscape is a great app for
illustrations. There are a number of strong client applications like
that. There are a number of good Web-based implementations of tools
like that as well.
When you look at your three big business, OEM, customer support, and
Ubuntu One, what are the ones that are going to bring you into the
black?
Silber: It's going to be a combination of those three. Our OEM
relationships are going from strength to strength. Some of the work
we've done in the last couple years in terms of aligning hardware
ecosystems around Ubuntu, getting people to enable various components
on Ubuntu, are really starting to pay off now. When somebody wants to
put together a computer, the components they're selecting from all work
with Ubuntu as the base Linux platform. That's taking off in a very
significant way.
Online services is a newer business unit. We have a ways to go
there. It's not as mature as our OEM services offering, and in some
areas, we're still finding out what's going to be successful. With
corporate services we have a solid base of enterprise users now, and I
think the cloud in the next couple years is going to make that grow
quite substantially.
Under your management, is the profitability push going to be stronger than it has been under Mark Shuttleworth?
Silber: Certainly driving us to profitability is one of my
important goals. People might not give Mark credit for how much that
was one of his priorities.
It was clear to me it was a priority. It just wasn't clear when it was going to happen.
Silber: We are closer to it now than we have been before. I'm
determined to drive us there. But it has been a priority for Canonical
all along. It is one of my focal areas as I take on this job.
Even though the idea of formal alignment between the freezes of
Debian and Ubuntu didn’t hold, there has been some good practical
collaboration between the maintainers of key subsystems. There are real
benefits to this, because maintainers have a much more fruitful basis
for sharing patches when they are looking at the same underlying
version.
Harmonization for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Debian Squeeze
I think this is where we stand now:
Ubuntu
Debian
RHEL
SLES
Kernel
2.6.32 + drm-33
2.6.32 + drm-33
2.6.32
2.6.32
GCC
4.4
4.4
Python
2.6
2.6
OpenOffice.org
3.2
3.2
Perl
5.10.1
5.10.1
Boost
1.40
1.40
I’m sure there are inaccuracies, please help me keep this up to
date, sabdfl on freenode is the best way to reach me. The RHEL and SLES
numbers are third-hand, so up-to-date information would be appreciated.
The actual release dates of Ubuntu LTS and Debian will vary of
course, because of different priorities. And there’s no requirement
that the same base version be used for every major component – there
may well be differences allowing for different approaches. But where we
do have it, we’ll be able to collaborate much more effectively on bug
fixes for key upstream pieces. If a lot of distributions pick the same
base upstream version, it greatly increases the value of extended
shared maintenance and point releases of that upstream.
Why every two years?
Two years is a compromise between those who want 1 year releases for
better support of cutting-edge hardware and those who want 7 year
releases so their software stack doesn’t change before their job
description does .
A whole-year multiple has several advantages. It means we can
schedule the processes that are needed for collaboration at the same
time of year whenever we need them – unlike 1.5 or 2.5 year cycles.
Three years was felt to be too long for hardware support. Two years is
perceived to be the Goldilocks Cadence – just right.
What are the criteria for choosing a common base version?
In both the Ubuntu and Debian cases, we’ll be making a release that
we support for many years. So be looked for versions of key upstreams
that will pass the test of time. Sometimes, that means they can’t be
too old, because they’ll be completely obsolete or unmaintainable in
the life of the release. And sometimes that means they can’t be too
young. In general, it would be better to be reviewing code that is
already out there. But there are also lots of upstreams that do a
credible job of release management, so we could commit to shipping a
version that is not yet released, based on the reputation of the
community it’s coming from.
What if there’s no agreement on a particular kernel, or X or component-foo?
We will almost certainly diverge on some components, and that’s
quite OK. This is about finding opportunities to do a better job for
upstreams and for users, not about forcing any distro to make a
particular choice. If anyone feels its more important to them to use a
particular version than another, they’ll do that.
Open invitations
It’s really helpful to have upstreams and other distributions participate in this process.
If you’re an upstream, kick off a thread in your mailing list or
forums about this. Upstreams don’t need to do anything different if
they don’t want to, we’ll still just make the best choices we can. But
embracing a two year cadence is the best way you have to be sure which
versions of your software are going to be in millions of hands in the
future – it’s a great opportunity to influence how your users will
experience your work.
Of course, we’d also like to have more distributions at the table.
There’s no binding commitment needed – collaboration is opportunistic.
But without participating in the conversation one can’t spot those
opportunities! If you represent a distribution and are interested, then
please feel free to contact me, or Matt Zimmerman, or anyone on the
Debian release management team about it.
I think this is a big win for the free software community. Many
upstreams have said "we’d really like to help deliver a great stable
release, but which distro should we arrange that around?” Upstreams
should not have to play favourites with distributions, and it should be
no more work to support 10 distributions as to support one. If we can
grow the number of distributions that embrace this cadence, the
question becomes moot – upstreams can plan around that cycle knowing
that many distributions will deliver their work straight to users.
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Since then Canonical has grown to about 320 employees and has
made Ubuntu a major presence in the world of Linux--version 10.04, one
of the important "long-term support" versions that arrives every two
years, is due in April. It's an unusually sustained effort to make
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accomplishments is a mainstream foothold on Dell PCs.
Even though the idea of formal alignment between the freezes of
Debian and Ubuntu didn’t hold, there has been some good practical
collaboration between the maintainers of key subsystems. There are real
benefits to this, because maintainers have a much more fruitful basis
for sharing patches when they are looking at the same underlying
version.
.