InformationWeek Open Source Weblog

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.)

OpenOffice: Go Open Core

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:23:36 -0500

Oracle's acquisition of Sun is still grinding along, but while the gears are still turning I'd like to throw in a request: Make OpenOffice an open-core product. Keep the main program free, but charge for the useful bonuses.

One FatELF Binary To Run Them All

Serdar Yegulalp — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:55:04 -0500

Even Linux's advocates are unthrilled at one of its sticking points: binaries built for one breed of Linux don't always run on another. And since unifying Linux into a common distribution is about as likely as herding a circus ring full of cats into a clown car, people who want to distribute prebuilt binaries for Linux have few choices. Here's a new choice: FatELF, or universal binaries for Linux.

Amazon Serves Up MySQL

Serdar Yegulalp — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:25:21 -0500

Amazon's newest cloud offering: MySQL 5.1 in the cloud, also known as Amazon RDS. And there's worry that it'll turn out to be a bad thing for MySQL in the long run, although that might not hold true for other open source repurposed in the same way.

Ksplice: No More Reboots?

Serdar Yegulalp — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:12:32 -0500

How'd you like to never have to reboot a Linux box again -- no, not even if you have to apply a kernel-level patch? That's the promise of Ksplice, a software technology for Linux (and maybe soon other platforms) designed to allow a system to be patched from the kernel level on up without having to be restarted. It's available right now for Ubuntu, and from what I can see, it's not digital snake oil.

DOD Says Yes To More Open Source

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:29:23 -0500

Open source in the government and military isn't a new thing; governance is one of open source's biggest target markets, so to speak. It's still all the more heartening to hear the Department of Defense come out strongly in favor of open source, and to recommend using more of it whenever possible.

Ubuntu's Future Shouldn't Be This Unpredictable

Serdar Yegulalp — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:23:22 -0500

Yesterday Canonical's Mark Shuttleworth held a phone conference to talk about the state of Ubuntu. It's clearly become more than just "Linux for human beings". But it's getting harder to avoid thinking of Canonical as a black box, and that hurts.