Showing posts with label linux weather forecast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label linux weather forecast. Show all posts

29 December 2008

Business versus Business

It's pretty obvious why companies in sectors like oil production should be denying so vehemently that their products are major contributors to climate change. It's also pretty clear why many other industries would prefer not to think about the externalities of their business models, and how much they take without replacing from the environmental commons. But there are a few non-green businesses that not only believe climate change and environmental degradation is happening, but that it is large scale - and already hugely expensive:

The past year has been one of the most devastating ever in terms of natural disasters, one of the world's biggest re-insurance companies has said.

Munich Re said the impact of the disasters was greater than in 2007 in both human and economic terms.

The company suggested climate change was boosting the destructive power of disasters like hurricanes and flooding.

...

"It is now very probable that the progressive warming of the atmosphere is due to the greenhouse gases emitted by human activity," said Prof Peter Hoppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research.

"The logic is clear: when temperatures increase there is more evaporation and the atmosphere has a greater capacity to absorb water vapour, with the result that its energy content is higher.

"The weather machine runs into top gear, bringing more intense severe weather events with corresponding effects in terms of losses."

The company said world leaders must put in place "effective and binding rules on CO2 emissions" to curb climate change and ensure that "future generations do not have to live with weather scenarios that are difficult to control".

"If we delay too long, it will be very costly for future generations," said Mr Jeworrek.

Not rabid greenies talking, but hard-headed representatives of a big business sector...

15 August 2007

Linux Weather Forecast

Get your umbrellas out for the Linux Weather Forecast:

The need for a Linux Weather Forecast arises out of Linux’s unique development model. With proprietary software, product managers define a “roadmap” they deliver to engineers to implement, based on their assessments of what users want, generally gleaned from interactions with a few customers. While these roadmaps are publicly available, they are frequently not what actually gets technically implemented and are often delivered far later than the optimistic timeframes promised by proprietary companies.

Conversely, in Linux and open source software, users contribute directly to the software, setting the direction with their contributions. These changes can quickly get added to the mainline kernel and other critical packages, depending on quality and usefulness. This quick feedback and development cycle results in fast software iterations and rapid feature innovation. A new kernel version is generally released every three months, new desktop distributions every six months, and new enterprise distributions every 18 months.

While the forecast is not a roadmap or centralized planning tool, the Linux Weather Forecast gives users, ISVs, partners and developers a chance to track major developments in Linux and adjust their business accordingly, without having to comb through mailing lists of the thousands of developers currently contributing to Linux. Through the Linux Weather Forecast, users and ecosystem members can track the amazing innovation occurring in the Linux community. This pace of software innovation is unmatched in the history of operating systems. The Linux Weather Forecast will help disseminate the right information to the ever growing audience of Linux developers and users in the server, desktop and mobile areas of computing, and will complement existing information available from distributions in those areas.

Good to see Jonathan Corbet, editor of LWN.net, for whom I write occasionally, spreading some of his deep kernelly knowledge in this way.