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Mandriva to be Forked Into New Distro: Mageia

By Christine Hall on September 20, 2010 |

Business and News

We reported on Friday that Mandriva’s financial situation continues to worsen and that nearly all paid staff have been laid-off. Soon after publishing that report, we received news from Paris, where Mandriva is headquartered, that a group of the distro’s former employees and contributors have decided to fork the project into a new distro that will be called Mageia.

According to an announcement posted on the new distro’s web site, the decision to create a new distro from the Mandriva code base stemmed primarily from the current situation at the financially beleaguered company:

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Friday FOSS Week in Review – Novell & SCO Dance Separately

By Christine Hall on September 17, 2010 |

Business and News

The more things change, the more they stay the same! During the last year we’ve become used to seeing Novell and SCO in the news, and usually they’re mentioned in the same breath, given the legal battle between the two over who owns UNIX. This week they’re both in the news again, but in what appears to be separate stories. But things are seldom what they seem, especially when SCO is involved, so we’ll see.

Novell Finds Buyers

The Wall Street Journal, in a story now confirmed by several other news sources, says that Novell has found buyers. Yes, that’s buyers with an “s.” According to the latest reports, the company will be split in two. As yet, it’s uncertain whether the Novell brand will survive the deal. My guess is that it will, but only in a small way.

Continue readingFriday FOSS Week in Review – Novell & SCO Dance Separately

Can Android be More Open?

By Christine Hall on September 14, 2010 |

Business, Mobile and Software

M. G. Siegler is right. Android is not as open as many of us would like, at least for the user. But while it’s certainly not as open as any garden-variety Linux distro, it’s certainly much more open than the norm for Linux embedded on a device – and let’s face it, an Android smartphone is nothing but an embedded device. The functionality of your device is determined not by you the user, but by a combination of the handset maker and the carrier. According to Siegler, that needs to change – and I agree.

In case you missed the article, Android Is As Open As The Clenched Fist I’d Like To Punch The Carriers With, which appeared last Thursday on TechCrunch, Siegler has a variety of complaints about Android handsets, beginning with one that will be very familiar to anyone who’s ever bought a computer from Dell with Windows preinstalled:

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Android’s Market Share

By Christine Hall on September 13, 2010 |

Business and Mobile

First the good news: According to Gartner, Android is now the number two mobile OS worldwide, right behind Symbian and slightly ahead of Research in Motion. Gartner is also predicting that Android’s market share will continue to grow, from it’s current 17.7% share to 29.6% by the end of 2014. Although this would seem to be great news for those of us in the FOSS community, I’m not sure the seers at Gartner have considered all the facts in making their predictions.

The problem is Apple.

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MS Vs. Linux on Mobile

By Christine Hall on July 5, 2010 |

Mobile

Last month I posted an article on why I think Windows Phone 7 will fail to get traction in the already crowded smartphone field. It now appears that others have similar viewpoints. Yesterday, Brook Crothers wrote a blog on cnet , “Microsoft faces Android juggernaut,” in which he expresses a sentiment not too different from mine:

“A killer Microsoft smartphone may always be out of reach. And Microsoft should understand this better than anyone.”

Continue readingMS Vs. Linux on Mobile

Friday FOSS Week in Review – Android Coming to PC

By Christine Hall on July 2, 2010 |

Hardware and News

It’s been rather hectic here at FOSS Force this week. You might have read that we had to replace our old worn computer with a new-to-us (that means “used”) box, and we’ve been spending the week configuring our POS app, plus downloading and installing all of the stuff we need to operate our daily business.

This means, however, that the FOSS Force army is currently working in (ugh) Windows. We’ve got a key dreaded legacy app we use that’s Wintel, and we’re not partitioning the drive and installing Linux to run it in WINE until we’ve thoroughly tested the new/used box and determined it fully ready to go. Don’t fear, however, everything else here is open source. I’m writing in OpenOffice, doing graphics work in Gimp, emailing in Thunderbird and browsing in Firefox. By this time next week, we’ll hopefully be running Linux.

Continue readingFriday FOSS Week in Review – Android Coming to PC

No More Kin, Folks

By Christine Hall on July 1, 2010 |

Mobile and News

Again, Microsoft has thrown something at the wall that didn’t stick. Just two months after introducing a pair of faux smartphones, would be iPhone killers for the teenage set, Redmond has announced that after existing inventory is gone, Kin will be no more.

Wow. That’s pretty quick. Even Jay Leno on prime time lasted longer than that.

Continue readingNo More Kin, Folks
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