InformationWeek Open Source Weblog

Wireless Carriers, Open Source Still At Odds

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:12:56 -0500

That's the thesis behind a piece by Sascha Segan over at PC Magazine, where he blames a good deal of the lack of geek-friendly Linux handsets on the wireless carriers themselves. But how much of it is also end-user indifference?

Open Source In A Parallel Universe

Serdar Yegulalp — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:43:15 -0500

Something crossed my desk recently that embodied one of my major criticisms of how open source is promoted. It can't be something that lives in its own alternate universe and follow its own laws of physics -- or economics.

Will Sun Pull MySQL's Teeth?

Serdar Yegulalp — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 08:30:19 -0500

That's the feeling former MySQL shareholder and strategy adviser (and NoSoftwarePatents.com prime mover) Florian Muller has about Oracle's new peace offering to the European Union over MySQL. It isn't about giving MySQL real autonomy, but putting it in a whole new cage.

Open Source: An 'Advertisement On Steroids'

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:17:54 -0500

That's one of the many analogies and observations drawn by Vyatta CEO Kelly Herrell in a blog post about the economics of open source. The open source business model is tremendously effective, in his eyes -- it's just that its effects are not always measured in dollar values, and that can drive the money men crazy.

Got An App? Make It A PortableApp

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:46:29 -0500

Readers of this blog know I'm a fan of the PortableApps.com suite of open source programs. Now, its curators have made it that much easier to take your app -- freeware or open source -- and make it a PortableApp.

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Android And Chrome OS: Google Vs. Google?

Serdar Yegulalp — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:19:48 -0500

Would Google's Chrome OS spell more competition for Android than anything else? That's one of the possibilities looming for Google's browser-centric Linux distro, as on each closer inspection it looks that much less like a Windows killer.

Be Transparent To The (Open) Core

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:33:24 -0500

"Transparency" is a vital term in open source: how easy is it to find out about some aspect of an open source project or product? Matthew Aslett of the 451 CAOS Theory blog went to find out how a number of vendors of open core products stacked up in this regard.

Google's New Chrome OS Partner: Ubuntu

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:58:04 -0500

Among the people Google's partnering with to build Chrome OS, there's now a very familiar name: Canonical, the folks behind Ubuntu. In their words: "Canonical is contributing engineering to Google under contract" (for Chrome OS).

Proprietary Software: Still Not Doomed, Sorry

Serdar Yegulalp — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:50:27 -0500

These days, I can scarcely click a mouse without running headlong into some variety of punditry regarding the imminent death of proprietary software thanks to open source. Sorry, I don't believe proprietary software is digging its inevitable collective grave any more than the sun is about to go nova.

Keep Cool Over Open Source License Violations

Serdar Yegulalp — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:02:06 -0500

Shortly before I wrote my post about responsible disclosure of open source licensing violations, Bradley Kuhn (of the Software Freedom Conservancy and Software Freedom Law Center) wrote a post of his own about the same subject. His take: GPL violations are common, everyday things -- and as such should be handled with cool, calm, and collected heads.

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Google Chrome OS Unveiled: Nothing But The Web

Serdar Yegulalp — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:00:00 -0500

Today Google aired a webcast where they whipped the curtains all the way off Google Chrome OS for the first time. It's about what most people expected: Chrome OS running on top of a thin layer of Linux, designed for netbooks -- and designed for people whose sole computing experience is the web. It's Google's netbook answer to Android.

Open Government: A San Francisco Treat

Fritz Nelson — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:14:07 -0500

DataSF.org is San Francisco's major foray into open and transparent government; it is the city giving its vital data back to its citizens. We talked with the city's mayor, Gavin Newsom, several members of his technology team, led by CTO Blair Adams, and some of the early developers who have already built applications around the data. We've captured all of this in a new video documentary.

The Trouble With Movable Type 5

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:46:17 -0500

I've been using Movable Type as my blogging system of choice for several years now -- not just because it's open source but because it's a good program with great features. And yet the newest revision, version 5, feels like it falls far short of what could -- and needs -- to be done.

Linux's Future: Google?

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:02:09 -0500

Laugh (or cry) if you want. But with each successive release of Android, and with each new iteration of Chrome -- soon to be ChromeOS -- it's looking more and more like Linux's future as any kind of mainstream product is in Google's hands. There's a lesson here.

Let's Have Responsible Disclosure For Open Source Violations

Serdar Yegulalp — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:18:22 -0500

Last week brought news about Microsoft inadvertently using open source code in one of their binary-only tools -- code that had to be redistributed with the tool itself. When this does happen, what's the best way to bring such a mistake to an offending company's attention? Is shouting about it far and wide always wise?

Communities Vs. Teams: Open Source Needs Both

Serdar Yegulalp — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:53:11 -0500

A curious insight has come from all the recent talk about MySQL / Sun / Oracle. People talk about a community around a given open source product, but there's at least as much talk about a team within it. Let's not neglect the importance of either of those things.

Amazon Bids For Windows Developers On Eve Of Azure's Launch

Charles Babcock — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:35:37 -0500

Four days before Microsoft launches its Azure cloud platform to developers at a conference in L.A., Amazon has come up with a .Net software development kit to help Windows developers produce code that runs in Amazon's EC2. It's probably just coincidence. But let's see what they're getting with AWS SDK for .Net.

Does Microsoft's 'Sudo Patent' Protect User Account Control?

Serdar Yegulalp — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:49:45 -0500

Has Microsoft gone one step closer to patenting the words "May I?" That's been the general sentiment about the granting of Microsoft's "Rights elevator" patent -- which would cover User Account Control ("UAC") in Vista and Windows 7, but possibly also the generic sudo command in Unix.

Why Google's Go Might Be A No-Go

Serdar Yegulalp — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:14:19 -0500

After news of Google's Go language surfaced, I went to my programmer friend for some additional perspective on Google's new experiment. He wasn't impressed -- and actually, neither was I. We had different reasons.

Here's What's Different About 'The Cloud'

Charles Babcock — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:46:52 -0500

What's different about cloud computing versus the forms of computing that have gone before? It's really just a matter of scale, isn't it? The Google or Amazon.com or eBay data centers are maybe a little bigger than a big enterprise data center, right? Wrong. One answer lies in an example like Hadoop.

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Miguel de Icaza And Mono: Platform-Agnostic Programming Power

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:01:42 -0500

Few names in open source are at the level of a household name, but Miguel de Icaza, of Novell's Mono, comes close. Last week I had the good fortune to chat with him for a bit about MonoTools, the new Mono development package for Microsoft Visual Studio -- and about why Mono attracts such bitterness from open source purists.

A Litl Redux

Serdar Yegulalp — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:18:59 -0500

After my Thursday column about the litl, readers pointed my attention to a blog post where the folks at litl (all lowercase) further defended their reasons for its rather top-heavy $700 price point. I went in expecting some real meat for discussion. I came away with a nearly empty plate.

Open Source You Can Use, November Edition

Serdar Yegulalp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:20:36 -0500

In this edition: two ways to browse the web, and one great way to find everything scattered across all your storage media. Read on.

Too Much Netbook For Too Litl?

Serdar Yegulalp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:15:56 -0500

A Boston-based startup named Litl is taking a big risk: they're betting people will go for a netbook that sports a Linux-based OS and focuses on Web-/network-based productivity (Facebook, Twitter, etc.). The risk is in the pricetag: $700 -- almost twice the price of computers that can do twice as much. Is there a market for this?

More Reasons Why Linux Misses The Desktop

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:52:34 -0500

As my colleague Alex Wolfe noted, Linux hasn't made a dent in the desktop after years in the wild. The climb looks all the steeper now that Windows 7 and new versions of Mac OS X have arrived. I can think of a few other reasons why Linux hasn't achieved more than a fractional marketshare with end users, and they aren't pretty. (I've already donned my asbestos suit.)