Business Archives - Page 34 of 37

SUSE & Patent FUD: Who Do We Boycott Now?

By Christine Hall on July 27, 2011 |

Now that Microsoft and SUSE have announced they plan to continue sleeping together, I wonder if the folks at Techrights are rethinking their plans to pull the plug on Boycott Novell?

In case you don’t know, Boycott Novell is a project started by Techrights in response to Microsoft’s and Novell’s announcement, in 2006, that they would be collaborating on Windows and Linux interoperability and support. The deal had Redmond shoveling money to Novell’s Linux distro SUSE in $100 million increments, and included an agreement that Novell’s customers wouldn’t be sued by Microsoft for patent infringements.

Grocklaw: Schwartz Publicly Praised Android as Java Platform

By Christine Hall on July 26, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Mobile, News, Patents and Software

Yesterday’s column on Android’s Patent Wars was written on Friday and scheduled for publication on Monday. Over the weekend, the folks at Groklaw dug-up an old page from the Wayback Machine that would seem to bode well for Google in their patent fight with Oracle concerning Android and Java.

Android’s Patent Wars – A Checklist

By Christine Hall on July 25, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Mobile, News and Patents

It’s not looking good for Android. Congress could fix this in a heartbeat by doing away with software patents, the only solution that makes sense, but they’re otherwise engaged right now and not likely to be much help. In the meantime, Android is involved in so many patent disputes it’s hard to keep count. Oracle’s suing Google, Apple’s suing HTC, and Microsoft is suing, or threatening to sue, anyone who makes a handset with the Android brand. Even with Groklaw doing their best to supply legal ammunition for Android’s defenders, it’s not looking like Android is going to get out of this unscathed, which will only cost consumers and enrich the trolls

Here’s a quick rundown on Android’s patent ills, just to help you sort out the players. The game is changing daily, so I may have left something or someone out. If so, please forgive me.

OpenOffice.org and Symphony: Did IBM Do the Right Thing?

By Christine Hall on July 18, 2011 |

Business and Software

As soon as Oracle announced they were offering OpenOffice.org to The Apache Software Foundation, there went up a collective sigh of relief from the FOSS community. Some, no doubt, would have preferred the project to be turned over to the folks at The Document Foundation, whose members had worked with the code for the better part of a decade and who’d already done a bang-up job improving OOo with their fork LibreOffice, but you don’t always get what you want, and Apache is an open source organization not lacking in credibility. At least now OpenOffice is out of the hands of Larry Ellison, who is a friend to open source the same way that a fox is a friend to a chicken.

IBM Backs OOo, Evil Empire in Decline & Apple Bakes Patent Pie

By Christine Hall on July 16, 2011 |

Business, Internet, News, Patents and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Lots of interesting news this week as we reboot Friday FOSS Week in Review – so let’s get going.

IBM Lines-up Behind OpenOffice.org

Is it really a news story that IBM has decided to support OpenOffice.org? Considering the fact that Oracle’s move to push the project over to Apache was at Big Blue’s prodding, I’d say not. Still, at least now the players are clearly defined. In addition to lending moral support and giving Larry Ellison a shoulder to cry on, IBM is also donating the code from IBM Lotus Symphony.

Microsoft Ads on FOSS Sites

By Christine Hall on July 14, 2011 |

Business and Media

Quite a few years ago, a popular Linux site began displaying ads from Microsoft on their home page. Big ones, at a prominent location above the fold. Some were fancy Flash ads, attention getters, mainly for branding purposes. Others were FUD, “independent” TCO studies bought and paid for by Redmond that “proved” it was cheaper to hand MS a wheelbarrow of money to run a Windows server than to run a free Linux server.

The first time I saw a Windows ad on this FOSS site, I chuckled. I figured that if I ran a FOSS site and Microsoft came to me and offered multiple thousands of dollars for a medium rectangle ad, I’d be more than happy to redesign my page to accommodate them. You see, I believe the First Amendment’s a two way street, that if I expect free speech for myself, I have to be willing to give it to others.

Microsoft Tax on Linux Devices

By Christine Hall on July 11, 2011 |

Business, Mobile, News and Patents

Not long ago, penguinistas were bemoaning the fact that the purchase of a new computer almost always came with a built-in “Microsoft tax,” since all major OEMs wouldn’t sell a computer without Windows pre-installed. Now that things have changed and it’s relatively easy to purchase a new PC or laptop either with no operating system installed or already preloaded with Linux, that issue should be far behind us.

Guess again.

Bear Turns Open Source Shark in Deep Water

By Christine Hall on June 30, 2011 |

Business, Internet and Mobile

Storm Bear Williams comes into the the FOSS Force office and plops onto one of two big, overstuffed chairs in our conversation pit. After a howdy, he says “I couldn’t find any microcassettes, so I got this.” He hands me a new, still in the box, Sony hand held digital audio recorder with a built-in microphone, good for 500 minutes.

stormweb — Storm Bear Williams relaxing in San Francisco Bay.

He’s come for an interview. When I’d set up the appointment, I told him I was running low on microcassettes and asked if he could pick up a couple, just in case I needed them. When he discovered microcassettes are now obsolete and pretty much unavailable, he went ahead and sprang for something to get the job done.

A cynic might think this was only to curry favor, but I’ve known Storm for over twenty years, so I know better. For one thing, he doesn’t like to disappoint. For another, he’s pragmatic and always the businessman. He didn’t want the interview to go south just because it couldn’t be recorded.

LibreOffice vs OpenOffice: When the Ball Bounces Your Way

By Christine Hall on June 21, 2011 |

Business and Software

Probably the most boring open source story recently has also been the one getting the most ink. The problem with with the Apache/OpenOffice saga is that the real story already happened, it’s history.

Oracle’s “gift” of OpenOffice.org to Apache, and the change of license from copyleft to permissive, is merely an epilogue referring back to a prologue: Oracle’s sudden ownership of the open source office suite as a mere byproduct of their acquisition of Sun.

Evil Empire Buys Skype

By Christine Hall on May 11, 2011 |

Business, Internet and News

Hmm…. I never had a chance to use Skype.

All of my friends are using it; talking to lovers in Europe, or to spouses in other states, or to FB “friends” who are who-knows-where. It sounds so cool, so romantic, sitting in the familiar confines of one’s living room in front of a laptop webcam, conversing with a friend across the continent or across the ocean as if they were right there in the same room. Until now it seemed so cool that I just knew I’d have to be a Skyper soon.

But then Skype went and got sold to the Evil Empire for $8.5 billion, which seems to be an awful lot to pay just to keep me from becoming a Skyper.

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