One of the jibes about GNU/Linux from the closed-source crowd is that the only reason there so few security exploits against it is that its market share is too small for crackers to care. Against that background, the following development must represent some kind of milestone....
On Open Enterprise blog.
Interesting:Dell’s Latitude On works by bypassing the Windows operating system so that you get immediate access to things like your calendar, email, Internet, and contacts. It’s a fully integrated technology that will appear later this year on the Dell 4200 and 4300 Latitude series notebooks, and is powered by a Linux OS, sort of as a secondary operating system.
What struck me about this article in the Sun about Asus was how it took its readership's acquaintance with GNU/Linux for granted:Interestingly, it runs Windows XP as an operating system to keep the costs down rather than Vista and a Linux version is on the way.
If that is laid out in menu terms like the Linux EEE laptops, then it's well worth a punt on one as a second PC in a bedroom.
Signs of the times....
Chris Anderson bravely tries to put a figure on the value of the "free economy" - those businesses that use free as part of their model. What struck me is the extent to which the ecosystem that has grown up around GNU/Linux dominates everything else in this admittedly back-of-the-envelope calculation: $30 billion out of a rough $50 billion. Which confirms the extent to which open source continues to be the bellwether in this area - the first and still best example of how to make money by giving stuff away.
For all its faults, TechCrunch is arguably the leading tech blog. But it has been content to remain on the sidelines - commenting rather than jumping in. Until now:I’m tired of waiting - I want a dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web. Nothing fancy like the Dell latitude XT, which costs $2,500. Just a Macbook Air-thin touch screen machine that runs Firefox and possibly Skype on top of a Linux kernel. It doesn’t exist today, and as far as we can tell no one is creating one. So let’s design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them.
What's interesting about this - aside from the fact it marks a major shift for TechCrunch - is that it takes for granted that GNU/Linux and Firefox will be the foundation of such a system. Indeed, it is remarkably close to the story I posted below.
As for the name "Firefox Tablet", I say: go for it, Mark....
There's an interesting set of data on TechCrunch derived from the consolidated activity of users of the RescueTime service. This shows you exactly how long you are spending on each app; the aggregrate results therefore provide fascinating insights into what people in general - or at least RescueTime users - are doing
One caveat is that the service seems to be aimed mostly at Windows and Mac users (although a GNU/Linux version is available), and so results are necessarily skewed. Despite this, there's an amazing result amongst the data: the ninth most-used app is Thunderbird.
Now, its usage (2.26%) may only be around a sixth of Outlook's (12.44%) but that still seems to me to be astonishing. It also suggests that Thunderbird is doing rather better than many - myself included - assumed. The received wisdom is that Firefox is storming away (unfortunately, there's no breakdown by browser in the RescueTime set: things are shown by site, rather), Thunderbird is miles behind. That seems not to be the case if these figures are at all representative of the wider world. And even if they're not, it suggests early adopters are, well, adopting Thunderbird in significant numbers.
Ha!When software is produced by a commercial company and sold in the marketplace, it’s relatively easy for the state to tax and regulate it. Commercial companies tend to be reflexively law-abiding, and they can afford the lawyers necessary to collect taxes or comply with complex regulatory schemes.
In contrast, free software will prove strongly resistant to state interference. Because virtually everyone associated with a free software project is a volunteer, the state cannot easily compel them to participate in tax and regulatory schemes. Such projects are likely to react to any attempt to tax or regulate them is likely to be met with passive resistance: people will stop contributing entirely rather than waste time dealing with the government.
Hence, free software thus has the salutary effect of depriving the state of tax revenue. But even better, free software is likely to prove extremely resistant to state efforts to build privacy-violating features into software systems.
Like many, I have been waxing lyrical about the possibilities of the new ultraportable market pretty much created by the Asus Eee PC. One of the key drivers of this sector is cost, so anything that reduces it is likely to be important. Against this background it's hard to understand the following:Asus Eee PC 4G (white, Windows XP)
Product Summary
The good: Small, light weight, and inexpensive; Windows XP for the same price as the Linux version.
The *same price*? Are they bonkers?
Fortunately, Asus is not the only player in this sector - there's probably around a dozen now. So if Asus won't do the decent/sensible thing and pass on the savings arising from using free software, I'm sure someone else will.
Update: But here it says same price, but more memory for GNU/Linux....
I've written plenty about the exciting new class of ultraportables, most of which run GNU/Linux as their primary operating system, but that's maybe led me to overlook what's happening with the ordinary PC. Like this: a PC system box (no monitor) for just over £100. The spec? Low end, but eminently usable:
* Intel® Celeron 3.2GHz Processor
* 80GB – 7200RPM Hard Disk Drive
* 512MB DDR II RAM
* DVD Rom drive
* VIA PM 800 Pro Motherboard
* Integrated shared 64MB Graphics
* 5.1 channel AC’97 Sound
* 6 x USB 2.0 Ports
* Integrated Ethernet 10/100 Mbps
* 1 x AGP 8x , 3 x PCI
* Enhance 250W PSU
* Multimedia Keyboard
* Optical Scroll Mouse
* Ubuntu Linux
At this kind of price, put together with a spare monitor or LCD, the barrier to giving Ubuntu or similar a go just got much lower. (Via LXer.)
This is restating a point I've made elsewhere: that the graph of hardware requirements for Windows keeps on rising, while that for GNU/Linux is practically flat:What all this means is that Windows is becoming more and more resource reliant while Linux essentially maintains its requirements. Microsoft is already seeing the effects of their sloppiness in bad reviews of Vista and having to extend XP’s life, but unless they change soon, they will see it even more, and pay for it too.
In the future, it seems likely that a computer with Windows will cost far more than a computer with Linux, not because of the price of the operating system (since hardware manufacturers are constantly pretending Windows is free, when in reality it is not) but because the hardware required to run Windows is so much more expensive than the hardware required to run Linux.
It's why I think the ultaportable sector is so important: it exposes this trend most brutally.
A useful article here dissecting what's wrong with the latest version of the UK Banking code, "the voluntary consumer-protection standard for UK banks", which was released last week:Until the banks are made liable for fraud, they have no incentive to make a proper assessment as to the effectiveness of these protection measures. The new banking code allows the banks to further dump the cost of their omission onto customers.
When the person responsible for securing a system is not liable for breaches, the system is likely to fail. This situation of misaligned incentives is common, and here we see a further example. There might be a short-term benefit to banks of shifting liability, as they can resist introducing further security mechanisms for a while. However, in the longer term, it could be that moves like this will degrade trust in the banking system, causing everyone to suffer.
The House of Lords Science and Technology committee recognized this problem of the banking industry and recommended a statutory change (8.17) whereby banks would be held liable for electronic fraud. The new Banking Code, by allowing banks to dump yet more costs on the customers, is a step in the wrong direction.
I also wonder what the banks' attitude to people using GNU/Linux systems might be, given the following requirement:
Online banking is safe and convenient as long as you take a number of simple precautions. Please make sure you follow the advice given below.
• Keep your PC secure. Use up-to-date anti-virus and spyware software and a personal firewall.
Since GNU/Linux users tend not to run anti-virus programs, and don't use traditional firewalls: does that mean they're always liable?
A lot has happened in the last year in the world of free software. That makes it hard (a) to remember who exactly did what and (b) to get the big picture. One invaluable tool for doing both is LWN's 2006 Linux and free software timeline, which offers all the main events with handy links to the original stories. They've also got other timelines going back to 1998, if you want to see an even bigger picture. Great stuff for a trip down free memory lane.
Update 1: And here's C|net's list of top stories in the same field.
Update 2: Meanwhile, here's Matthew Aslett's open source year in quotations.
I came across this story on LWN.net:The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software, today filed a brief with the United States Supreme Court arguing against the patenting of software.
In the case Microsoft v. AT&T, the Supreme Court will decide whether U.S. patents can apply to software that is copied and distributed overseas. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, a specialized patent court known for allowing patents on software and business methods, originally decided in favor of AT&T, expanding the international reach of U.S. software patents.
Well, to coin a phrase, I bloody well hope not.
But aside from the worrying implications of this kind of extra-territoriality, and the fact that the Software Freedom Law Center is supporting Microsoft in this case, I found the following statement from the amicus brief a little odd:One could not send or receive e-mail, surf the World Wide Web, perform a Google search or take advantage of many of the other benefits offered by the Internet without Free and Open Source Software, which also includes the Linux operating system that is today’s strongest competitor to Petitioner’s Windows operating system.
Er, sorry Eben, that wouldn't be the GNU/Linux operating system, by any chance? You remember, the one that Richard can get a little funny about when he sees it described as the Linux operating system...?
