Time for Sun to Join the Eclipse Empire?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Bristol City Council Saves with ODF

On Open Enterprise blog.

MySQL's Disappearing Anti-Patent Page

Here's a troubling observation:

Go to the MySQL Web site and try to click on the MySQL anti-software patent page, and you won't find it. It's the other shoe dropping as MySQL today became part of Sun Microsystems, which like the rest of the commercial software and services industry, considers software patents a necessary evil.

Let's hope this isn't part of a larger trend at the new MySQL....

Next Up for Enterprise Open Source: Nexenta?

On Open Enterprise blog.

Microsoft Cunctator

Here's a classic example of how Microsoft plays the delaying game:

Microsoft’s rival Sun Microsystems had complained to the Commission that the US software giant would not grant it data needed to ensure that Windows was interoperable.

“Microsoft’s defence was that the information was covered by intellectual property rights,” Hellstrom said. “This argument was never used when Sun asked for the information. It was only used in the eleventh hour. Microsoft showed one patent a day before we adopted our decision [in 2004].”

One day before: obviously hoping to throw yet another spanner in the regulatory works.

Is MySQL's Fate the Future of Open Source?

On Linux Journal.

Nokia Buys Trolltech

On Open Enterprise blog.

'L' is for 'Linux', Not 'Looney'

On Open Enterprise blog.

Trendy Open Source M&A

On Open Enterprise blog.

Extinguishing LAMP: Sun Buys MySQL

On Open Enterprise blog.

Sun Open Sources Another Chip: So?

I'm pretty much the world's biggest fan of opening things up, but sometimes you do have to ask: what's the point?

Sun Microsystems on Tuesday followed through on a promise to release the designs of a second server processor as open-source software.

The design for Niagara 2, formally called the UltraSparc T2 and currently shipping in servers, now is governed by the General Public License (GPL)--though as with Niagara 1, Sun is using the earlier version 2 of the seminal license.

I applaud the sentiment behind this move, but wonder whether anyone will benefit. How many people are actually hacking on the design of chips?

Sun Gives Prizes to Teacher's Pet (Projects)

Sun has released some more details of its forthcoming Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program:

which will foster innovation and recognize some of the most interesting initiatives within Sun-sponsored open source communities worldwide. To participate in the program's first year, Sun has selected six communities: GlassFish, NetBeans, OpenJDK, OpenOffice.org, OpenSolaris and OpenSPARC. Prizes are expected to total at least $1 million (USD) a year.

Beginning in mid-January 2008, Sun and the six open source communities will announce details on how developers can participate in the individual programs. Each community will have its own contest rules and judging criteria. Prize winners will be announced in August 2008.

So, unlike Google's Summer of Code programme, which is basically to foster generic open source among young hackers, Sun's effort is targeted at its own projects. And nothing wrong with that, especially when one of them, OpenOffice.org, is a critical component of the free software stack. But Sun should't expect to get as many brownie points as Google, which, for all its faults, has been is playing the open source card very well (about which more later.)

Soaraway Open Source

Rupert Murdoch's tabloid Sun newspaper, better known for its fascination with chest-tops rather than laptops, is nonetheless starting to grok the Joy of Linux, thanks to the Asus EEE PC:

The crucial thing about the Eee is rather than running on Windows, it uses a Linux operating system. Now I'm a Microsoft man through and through, I've never been able to face switching from XP or Vista to the likes of OS X on an Apple. There's safety in what you know.

I'd certainly never consider running Linux on my home PC but by slimming down the software on this gadget, it allows it to have a much longer battery life - crucial for a product designed to be used on the move. It will also run faster and has instant on and off.

As I've said elsewhere, the Asus could really prove to be a breakthrough machine for GNU/Linux among general users. (Via FSDaily.)

Sun Eyes Up GNU/Linux's Jugular

In the nicest possible way, of course:

Dell and Sun Microsystems are set to announce that Sun's Solaris and OpenSolaris operating systems will be supported in all of Dell's servers.

Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell and Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz plan to make the announcement during a joint appearance at the Oracle OpenWorld 2007 conference here today.

The agreement means that customers buying a Dell rack or blade server is ordered will get the option of installing Solaris or OpenSolaris. Customers picking one of these operating systems will get support from Sun's online support organization through Dell, making the experience seamless for the customer.

So while getting Dell to put GNU/Linux on its desktop machines has been the obsession of certain fanboys (oh, that would be me), that cunning Mr Schwartz has snuck up on the server side. (Via Erwin Tenhumberg.)

The Java Phoenix

What a difference a year makes.

In 2006, Java was looking distinctly long in the tooth. Widely used, yes, but hardly an exciting technology. Then Sun finally adopts the GNU GPL, and - whoosh. Two clear signs of this have appeared just recently (it takes that long for these things to work their way through the system.)

The first, obviously, is the gPhone, which seems to be using Java extensively (although it's hard to tell how, just now). The other is Red Hat's agreement with Sun:

Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced an agreement with Sun Microsystems to advance open source Java software. Red Hat has signed Sun’s broad contributor agreement that covers participation in all Sun-led open source projects by all Red Hat engineers.

In addition, Red Hat has signed Sun’s OpenJDK Community TCK License Agreement. This agreement gives the company access to the test suite that determines whether an implementation of the Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) platform that is derived from the OpenJDK project complies with the Java SE 6 specification.

Red Hat is the first major software vendor to license the Java SE Technology Compatibility Kit (TCK), in support of Java SE compatibility. To help foster innovation and advancement of the Java technology ecosystem, Red Hat will also share its developers' contributions with Sun as part of the OpenJDK community. These agreements pave the way for Red Hat to create a fully compatible, open source Java Development Kit (JDK) for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, including the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

IBM's Symphony Bolsters the ODF Choir

Goodness knows why it has taken so long, but IBM finally seems to have woken up to the fact that throwing all its weight behind ODF is much better than vaguely supporting it:

I.B.M. plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft’s dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.

The company is announcing the desktop software, called I.B.M. Lotus Symphony, at an event today in New York. The programs will be available as free downloads from the I.B.M. Web site.

...

Its offerings are versions of open-source software developed in a consortium called OpenOffice.org. The original code traces its origins to a German company, Star Division, which Sun Microsystems bought in 1999. Sun later made the desktop software, now called StarOffice, an open-source project, in which work and code are freely shared.

I.B.M.’s engineers have been working with OpenOffice technology for some time. But last week, I.B.M. declared that it was formally joining the open-source group, had dedicated 35 full-time programmers to the project and would contribute code to the initiative.

This won't lead to any sudden change in OpenOffice.org's fortunes, but it will add to the growing pressure on Microsoft's Office suite. And as Firefox has shown, constant dripping does indeed wear away the stone.

IBM Goes to Work in the (Open)Office

Some might say about time, too:

The OpenOffice.org community today announced that IBM will be joining the community to collaborate on the development of OpenOffice.org software. IBM will be making initial code contributions that it has been developing as part of its Lotus Notes product, including accessibility enhancements, and will be making ongoing contributions to the feature richness and code quality of OpenOffice.org. Besides working with the community on the free productivity suite's software, IBM will also leverage OpenOffice.org technology in its products.

Good news, nonetheless, and likely to drive the uptake of OpenOffice.org yet further and faster.

Open Source Darkstar...

...is here (and not just promised.) Well done chaps, nonetheless.

Wiki Wiki Sun

Wikis were born under the Hawaiian sun (well, the name was), so perhaps it's appropriate that Sun should have set up its own wikis, in a further sign that Sun gets it, and that wikis are almost mainstream now. (Via Simon Phipps.)

Decoupling Software and Standards

As you may have noticed, there is a big bust-up over office file formats going on at the moment. On the one hand, we have ODF, which is a completely open, vendor-independent standard that is supported by multiple programs, and on the other, we have Microsoft's OOXML, which is a vendor-dependent standard of sorts, unlikely to be fully implemented by anyone other than Microsoft.

The only reason this debate is taking place is because of the huge installed base of Microsoft Office, which is naturally biased towards OOXML. But with the release of Sun's ODF Plug in 1.0 for Microsoft Office, things have changed:

The Sun ODF Plug in for Microsoft Office gives users of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint the ability to read, edit and save to the ISO-standard Open Document Format. The ODF Plug in is available as a free download from the Sun Download Center (SDLC). Download the ODF Plug in.

The Plug in is easy to setup and use, the conversion happens transparently and the additional memory footprint is minimal. Microsoft Office users now can have seamless two-way conversion of Microsoft Office documents to and from Open Document. The ODF Plug in runs on Microsoft Windows and is available in English. More language support will be available in later releases.

This is important, because it decouples the file format from the program. Now anyone - including Microsoft Office users - can opt for a truly open format, not one that aspires to this condition.

We can only hope that the UK's National Archives, making an extraordinary amount of noise about solving a problem largely of Microsoft's making, will use the new plug-in to convert files stored in proprietary formats into the safest long-term solution - ODF.