Gina Dobrescu and Jim Hall
“Thou shalt make thy program’s purpose and structure clear … for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding.”
~ “The Ten Commandments for C Programmers” by Henry Spencer
How easily can you use your computer? Today, the graphical desktop is our primary way of doing things on our computers; we start there to run web browsers, music programs, video players, and even a command line terminal. If the desktop is too difficult to use, if it takes too many steps to do something, or if the cool functionality of the desktop is hidden so you can’t figure out how to use it, then the computer isn’t very useful to you. So it’s very important for the desktop to get it right. The desktop needs to be very easy for everyone to use.
Whenever we think of how easily you can use a program, we’re really talking about the usability of that program. Developers sometimes discount usability and think of usability as making things look nice instead of adding new, useful features. Other times, developers assume usability is too difficult, something that only experts can do. But usability is a very important part of software development.
Here’s the big surprise, especially for those of you trying to stay on top of the Microsoft tax: Choosing Ubuntu over Windows comes with a $101.50 reduction in price. That’s quite a discount — much, much more than I remember back in 2007 when Dell made its first foray into offering Linux.
However, the German online publication Pro-Linux.de this week reported (in German, but Google Translate works wonders) that 
I wholeheartedly agree. However, there are entities like Microsoft whose open source endeavors are based solely on greed and who don’t deserve to wear the mantle of open source citizenship. They’re players, pure and simple. Microsoft only “loves” Linux because it has figured out a way to sell it. Maybe one day…but not today.
That personal tidbit aside, another important part of March — especially this month — is that on the road to FreeBSD 11 sometime later this year, FreeBSD 10.3 is well along the way, with the third beta already available, according to a 
The agreement goes on to state: “There is no just reason for delaying SCO’s appeal from such Orders, as the final resolution of SCO’s claims may make it unnecessary, as a practical matter, for the Court to decide the several pending motions concerning IBM’s counterclaims, given SCO’s bankruptcy and its explanation that it has de minimis financial resources beyond the value of the claims on which the Court has granted summary judgment for IBM.”