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Google’s Nexus Tablet; Maddog’s Blog; Patent News & More

By Christine Hall on June 29, 2012 |

Business, Hardware and Patents

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Lot’s of stories of interest in the FOSS world this week. Patent issues, of course, dominated the news. In addition, however, a travel site got outed for a OS bias and a hardware manufacturer discovered the hard way that ignoring open source can be costly.

We’ll start with the patent news…

The Patent Wars Continue

I don’t know what we’re going to do about the patent situation. The sensible thing would be to simply change the law and make software unpatentable, but there are plenty of reasons why that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Banning patents wouldn’t only effect the trolls, those snakes that don’t make anything but monetize their patent portfolios through the courts. If it did, we could probably get it done tonight.

Continue readingGoogle’s Nexus Tablet; Maddog’s Blog; Patent News & More

Windows vs. Android: Does Desktop Linux Win?

By Christine Hall on June 27, 2012 |

Business and Mobile

Every tech writer on the Internet seems to want to be the one to crack the code and figure out what Microsoft plans to do with Surface. I thought I was one of them until I spent three days trying to write this article. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really care what Microsoft’s plans are or if they’ll pan-out for them. They bore me. They’re irrelevant now.

I suspect we’re getting ready to see if they’re nimble enough to completely reshape their business model, much like IBM had to do more than a decade ago. Who knows what they’re going to do, now that they obviously recognize the-proprietary-operating-system-as-a-billion-dollar-property model has reached its sunset years?

Christine Hall

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

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The Time Is Right For Desktop Linux

By Christine Hall on June 18, 2012 |

Hardware

Nobody seems to want to talk about the desktop anymore. It seems that the trend followers have jumped to the next biggest thing. The glamor now isn’t in desktops and laptops, machines that do all the necessary grunt work, but in gee-whiz tablets and smart phones. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but desktops and laptops aren’t going to go away soon – not as long as there’s work to be done.

I mention this because it seems that many of the folks who write about Linux have all but given up efforts to increase the penguin’s share of the installed base. I find this curious, because I think we’ve never been better positioned to get folks to make the leap to Linux.

Christine Hall

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

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UEFI Plans & Workarounds, Skype Invokes DMCA, Microsoft’s Samba Code

By Christine Hall on November 8, 2011 |

Business, Hardware, Internet, News, Patents and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Here we go, Friday FOSS Week in Review, Special Tuesday Edition. I’ve got to find a way to schedule my time better so I can stay on deadline. This coming Friday’s going to be difficult, as I have a dentist appointment and FWIR can’t really be written in advance, so expect it to be published on Saturday – but I’m still hoping for Friday. In the meantime, I’m working on adjusting my schedule so this column will be published in a more timely fashion in the future. Like on Fridays, when its supposed to be.

That’s the bad news. The good news, at least for us news hounds, is that last week there were quite a few items of interest for the FOSS community. At least I found them to be items of interest. I’ll let you decide for yourself.

UEFI Secure Boot Gets Complicated

There were a ton of articles written about UEFI and Secure Boot last week, and the more I read about possible workarounds to allow the average Linux distro to boot on Windows 8 certified machines, the more confused I get. This bothers me, because if I’m confused what does that mean about the person who’s never dealt with anything other than Windows, DOS or one of the Apple OSes, who might be getting ready to make that first leap into the Linux world?

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingUEFI Plans & Workarounds, Skype Invokes DMCA, Microsoft’s Samba Code

Apple Patents Gestures, Secure Boot Is Here, Android Bests iPhone

By Christine Hall on October 29, 2011 |

Browsers, Business, Distros, Hardware, News and Patents

Friday FOSS Week in Review

It’s been a busy week. So busy, in fact, I was unable to make my deadline for FWIR, so here I am with a special Saturday edition. Just so you know, there’s a precedent for this. Back in the days when ABC ran “Monday Night Football” they called any NFL game they ran “Monday Night Football,” no matter what the day of the week. Hence, we were often treated to “Monday Night Football, Special Thursday Edition” and such. In that spirit, I offer you “Friday FOSS Week in Review, Special Saturday Edition.”

Of course, if I’m going to get busy and miss deadline, it’ll happen on a busy week in FOSS news. The fates work that way, I’m convinced. Indeed, after a couple of ho-hum weeks, the news flew fast and furious this week. Hold on, it’ll be a hell of a ride!

More Apps Downloaded to Android than to iPhone

It was reported on Tuesday that ABI Research says Android now leads the pack in the number of apps downloaded. According to their figures, 44% of all mobile apps downloaded are headed for Android devices, with 31% going to the iOS platform. These figures are miles away from what the research firm predicted back in 2009 as the mobile wars were just getting heated up:

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingApple Patents Gestures, Secure Boot Is Here, Android Bests iPhone

ESR Defends RMS, Google the Musical & MS Plays Bad

By Christine Hall on October 21, 2011 |

Business, Distros, Hardware, Internet, Media, Mobile and News

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Another typical week in the FOSS world. Mainly, the proprietary guys have been busy bad-mouthing the competition, while the FOSS folks have been busy finding solutions.

ESR Defends RMS on Jobs

This week I ran across a blog by Eric Raymond that was posted on October 8, in which Raymond defends the now infamous remarks made by Richard Stallman on his blog shortly after the death of Steve Jobs. I found this to me more than a little interesting, because Raymond and Stallman don’t always see eye to eye on FOSS issues. Indeed, he even manages to take a swipe at RMS while speaking in his defense:

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
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Spy vs. Spy, Spilt Blackberries & Redmond’s Lies

By Christine Hall on October 14, 2011 |

Browsers, Business, Media, Mobile, News and Patents

Friday FOSS Week in Review

It would seem to be another slow week in the FOSS news world. As always however, there were a few tidbits, and the passing of a computer pioneer who’s work has effected everyone who’s ever sat in front of a monitor and keyboard.

U.S. Predator and Reaper Drones Hit by Virus…or Not

We learned on Monday from ars technica that the U.S. Predator and Reaper drone fleet has been hit by a virus. According to the report, the malicious code logs the keystrokes of those in the “cockpit” flying missions over Afghanistan and “other war zones:”

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
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RMS – Too Crude to Lose

By Christine Hall on October 10, 2011 |

Business, Media and Politics

Richard Stallman at the University of Pittsburgh 2010 (courtesy Wikipedia)
When it comes to software freedom, Richard Stallman is a bomb throwing anarchist. That’s a good thing. The FOSS community needs a few bomb throwers in its arsenal.

His job is to keep the bad guys, those who constantly attempt to usurp our principles for their own gain, at bay. More importantly, his job is to expose them, which helps keep us FOSSers from believing the spinmasters when they use Orwellian magic to convince us that “closed is open.”

We are susceptible to such spin.

We love our Linux, we love our GPL, we love our “free and open” so much that we often jump on the bandwagon to proclaim projects “free and open” just because they contain some open source code. Look how pleased many of us are that Android runs atop the Linux kernel. That means it’s got to be FOSS, doesn’t it?

Christine Hall

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

FOSSForce.com
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Steve Jobs: The Ultimate Enabler

By FOSS Force Guest Writer on October 6, 2011 |

Business and Hardware

Town Called Dobson

A couple of years ago I literally ran into “Woz,” Steve Wozniak, the inventor of the Apple II and co-founder of Apple Computer, while wandering in one of the geeky electronic parts shops in the bowels of Silicon Valley. When I realized whom I had almost accidentally knocked over, I squealed like a child, even though I was 46 years old at the time and well out of diapers. I can only imagine the self-humiliation I would have experienced if I had accidentally bumped into Steve Jobs at the farmer’s market in Palo Alto. I probably would have needed diapers.

Continue readingSteve Jobs: The Ultimate Enabler
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