No More Solaris

The future of Solaris is looking to be bleak at best. Is this really going to have any impact on the open source community? There are countless free operating systems available. Good ones too.

Open Source Economy

An entry over at linux insider talks about the current boom that the open source market is experiencing despite the global recession. Even in difficult financial times, the open source market continues to display positive numbers. Is open source absolutely bullet-proof no matter what the global economic state is? Absolutely not. Large companies are not going to use a product or service simply because it is free. It needs to solve a real world problem and it needs to do it well.

As stated in the entry, the fact that open source software is free isn't the only determinant driving the open source market. Could this recession act as a gateway for those of us who are still timid in the face of open source? Absolutely yes. And it will only perpetuate further as more and more companies become aware of others thriving on open source.

One question that is difficult to answer is will it last? One would like to hope so although such a question would be nearly impossible to answer at this point. If one thing is clear, it is that this recession could be an important point in the open source movement's history.

Turning Off Desktop Innovation

An interesting entry brings up the always controversial discussion of innovation in the open source desktop domain. I'm not entirely convinced that this topic should be nearly as controversial as it seams to be. And who knows, maybe it isn't. Putting the desktop operating system environment aside for a moment, innovation in software as a whole is hard. It is also a requirement of doing software development. Do nothing, and nothing will happen. If there were no innovation in desktop computing environments, in open source Linux distributions specifically, the end users would be stuck in the same situation. However, as the entry asks this very question, perhaps the users are stuck where they are for a reason. Maybe they have zero need to innovation that would serve their particular purpose. They use what they are using because it helps them reach their ultimate goal. Sometimes with innovative software, users are presented with features they didn't no they needed until they became available. This, not always, but often enough, translates to they don't really need it at all. However, users aren't going to be able to use the same piece of software indefinitely in the majority of cases. So, it seems that the logical thing to strive for here is a balance between stability and new features (innovation).

When attempting to strike a balance between stability and new features, developers are faced with an additional challenge. Toward the tail end of this entry, the option of turning these new innovative features off entirely is mentioned. I think an important characteristic to think about when considering new innovative features. Think about it. You ship your existing stable features along with the brand new innovative stuff. If something blows up in the new feature set, the user simply turns it off. Simply of course not being quite accurate. This ability to turn features on and off is no easy feat. Consider the notion of extension modules. The whole idea behind them is that they extend some piece of core functionality. They can also be turned off. However, this is generally done with configuration files that a typical desktop end-user should never be expected to interface with. So, there is the the technical aspect of modularity of features.

Assuming there were a robust, modular desktop architecture that allowed developers to turn features on and off, how would the desktop compel the user to use the new "better" features? Do the new features default to "on"? There is the whole usability question in addition to a very challenging technical problem.

The Idea of Running Wine on Ubuntu For Windows Compatibility

Wine is software that acts as a compatibility layer to allow applications designed to run on the Windows platform to run on Linux platforms. An interesting entry has brought up several questions about the need to run Windows applications on Linux desktops. It is indeed a very involved question which has the potential to go unanswered indefinitely. Chances are, if you are running a Linux desktop in the first place, you didn't have a need for Windows applications. But what about when you do need them? It would be nice if all open source alternative did it all, but that simply isn't the reality of today.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the Ubuntu Linux distribution was asked how important the role of Wine and Windows + Linux compatibility in general, will be in the success of Ubuntu. The reply was straightforward, it is, and it isn't.

Wine is hugely innovative software that has no doubt contributed to the success of not only Ubuntu, but open source software in general. Not by allowing users to simply just run Windows applications on Ubuntu. If that were the reason, there would obviously be no point in running an open source operating system. Wine is a gateway application. By allowing people to use Windows applications on open source systems, there is no avoiding the exposure to lots of interesting stops along the way. But what about the native Linux user? Does Wine have any useful purpose for these users? Maybe not all of them but there will no doubt come a time where the open source alternative simply doesn't exist. In times such as these, Wine negates the need to install Windows natively or, even virtually for that matter.

When considering questions such as these, there is always lots of ego involved from both the open and proprietary sides of the table. Both sides have a cause and once joined, people tend to stick to them. On the open source side, the direction of any given project isn't dictated so much as collaborated. There really is no rank among contributing project members aside from what they are able to produce. This is what really counts, and this was made very apparent by Shuttleworth's response. I for one applaud it.

More Linux help for Windows users

Just further proof that if you are a Windows user, there is light at the end of the tunnel toward using an entirely open source computing environment.

A good entry, targeted toward Windows users, explains how software is installed on Linux distributions. A great introduction to package managers.

Presto

The Presto operating system looks to be a good alternative for Windows users. It is basically a slimmed down Linux distribution that comes with commonly used applications that Windows users would be familiar with. By commonly used applications, I mean what the good majority of office employees would use on a day-to-day basis.

The Presto operating system looks like it would be quite painless to install and is very reasonably priced.

The main reason I'm interested in Presto is not to use the software myself, but at the prospect of more open source users. I'm already using 100% open source software every day. But I only reached this point after years of lost data and experimentation to see how open source components fit together. I think this could be one of those jumping off points for many folks who hear a lot about open source and would like to try it out.

Something else I find interesting is in the slashdot entry about the operating system. Presto doesn't mention the fact that it is based on a Linux distribution. Is this a clever marketing-ploy? Marketing-ploy? Yes. Clever? Absolutely yes.

I think that hiding the intimidation of "Linux" may be a good thing for their target audience.

Teachers and open source

An interesting entry about teachers and their ignorance toward open source software has made me happy. Not the teachers, the fact that people are willing to voice the problems caused by proprietary software in the education system.

The entry states that Canada is making larger steps than the US to improve open source adoption in schools. Unfortunately, I highly doubt that is true.

I think there should be a huge sense of urgency here. Instead, it seems some of the teachers that aren't completely oblivious think "OK, there is Linux, but there is nothing I can do about it".

Perhaps teachers should encourage students to use Linux and other open source projects outside of the classroom. Rather than merely "allowing" it. Let the students insist on bringing open source into the education. I would think this would be a much easier task with student support.

2008: Linux, Python, and free software

LWN has a 2008 timeline listing significant events in the open-source world. Glad to see Python 3.0 on the list!