August 17, 2025
Keeping tech free
First, let me thank those who took the time to alert me last week to the agreement between Red Hat and Microsoft on holding hands in the cloud. All the concern shown in the emails and social media posts were completely welcome, and could be broken up into two basic sentiments: curiosity about my reaction and serving me some crow to eat.
But on the whole, let’s not make this Red Hat/Microsoft agreement into a bigger deal than it actually is.
It has been a busy couple of weeks for Ansible, a provider of powerful automation solutions designed to help enterprises move toward frictionless IT.
First, Red Hat acquires Ansible two weeks ago, which is both no small feat and a coup for the folks in Raleigh. The acquisition was a smart, yet expected, move: It marries Ansible’s ease of automation to the wide portfolio of Red Hat clientele, driving down the cost and complexity of deploying and managing both cloud-native and traditional applications across hybrid cloud environments. In short, by writing a check, Red Hat expanded its leadership in hybrid cloud management.
In addition, related to the purchase or not, Ansible has also started getting some traction at this week’s OpenStack Summit in Tokyo this week, and as that show progresses we will see where Red Hat will guide its new acquisition.
On Monday, in Red Hat’s backyard at All Things Open in Raleigh, word was that Microsoft representatives were saying an “important” announcement would be made at Tuesday morning’s keynote address by Mark Russinovich, CTO for Microsoft Azure. I was expecting something earth shattering, like maybe Redmond was going to port Office to Linux, or that Red Hat and MS were going to get together on some major project.
Evidently, the news was that the company is looking for more than a few good men and women who know their way around open source software. I use the word “evidently,” because the announcement was made rather subtly and without fanfare near the end of the keynote. It was slipped in as just another note in a talk about how Microsoft is serious about becoming a good open source citizen.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
On September 3, Bitcoin Magazine’s Joseph Young reported on GameCredits, or GMC, one of the first crypto currencies specifically designed for use in games. The secure open source currency will be supported on multiple platforms, including Linux, Windows, MAC, Android, iOS and Windows Mobile. The goal is to eventually replace the current model of in-game purchases.
Hunter Banks has been a part of the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) Family for the past 13 years. When not writing about open source gaming, he’s working on creating his own games. Follow him on Twitter @SilvrChariot
Grab some popcorn — make two bowls — and get comfortable.
It appears as if Java can be added to the list of things that Oracle spent big bucks acquiring from Sun for no apparent reason. Last Wednesday, InfoWorld’s Paul Krill wrote an article around an email the site received from “a former high-ranking Java official” who said, “Java has no interest to them anymore.”
The article prompted JAXenter to speculate, “It’s possible that Oracle sees few other ways to make money with Java than by suing Google, who many might argue have boosted the Java community with [what] is arguably one of the biggest Java-based innovations in years — Android.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
“Microsoft and Google are pleased to announce an agreement on patent issues,” Redmond has said in a joint statement with Google. “As part of the agreement, the companies will dismiss all pending patent infringement litigation between them, including cases related to Motorola Mobility.”
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Highlighting the week’s activities in the FOSS realm is, say it with me, money. You know, the thing that we all want but that most of us never have enough of. Some have it and some need it — making it a good thing we’re about to tell you who is who with this weekend’s wrap up.
Open FOSS Training Indiegogo Campaign: Back home again in Indiana — Martinsville, Indiana, to be exact — Matthew Williams has taken the baton and is running with it when it comes to training folks in the use of free/open source software, or what we lovingly refer to as FOSS.
Microsoft has gone and built a Linux distro. Well, maybe it’s not a distro but some sort of Azure switch to use in the cloud. But anyway, Microsoft want’s you — meaning you open sourcers who never do anything but throw brickbats at the fine folks in Redmond — to know that it’s built on Linux. So there. Microsoft does love Linux, as if there was ever any doubt.
Great. Just great.
I’m sure they would’ve preferred to build their switch-masquerading-as-an-operating-system on Windows, but they couldn’t figure out how to pull all of the crap they didn’t need out of the Windows bloat. Of course, they could’ve used BSD and made the whole kit and caboodle proprietary, which would be more their speed, but that wouldn’t have given them any open source cred, which they’re so desperately trying to garner. Since there’s no need to make it proprietary as it’s going to be sitting on Azure where it can be used without ever having to show the source code, why not use Linux to prove their newfound love for open source?
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
Business, Humor, Media and Operating Systems
Back in the early 90s, I spent four hours of my mornings co-hosting a local AM radio talk show in Austin, Texas. Truth be told, I fell into the job. I most certainly wasn’t looking for a job in talk radio, or any job for that matter, but from the first day, the host and I clicked perfectly. She was the “straight man” in our duo. Her explosive laughter pegged the needles constantly.
We were an AM show but there was also an FM show going on at the same time in the next room, with a wall of plate glass window separating the AM and the FM folks. Often, we would cut up and the audience had no idea that the FM guy was silently doing outlandish things for the AM folks entertainment. We’re gonna leave it at “outlandish.” Sometimes, it went just a tad bit farther than that.
Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue
