The latest news and views on all things Linux and open source by seasoned Unix and Linux user Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, aka sjvn, has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the cutting edge PC operating system. SJVN covers networking, Linux, open source, and operating systems.
Paula Rooney is a Boston-based writer who has followed the tech industry for more than two decades.
Microsoft is getting ready to crack down on illicit copies of Windows by denying users the ability to download additional software, and eventually security updates. A lot of pundits are complaining about Microsoft's new policy.
Europe has rejected a proposal on software patents, but that doesn't mean they won't happen. U.
The debate over software patents has now been fully joined. Personally I've been against these since I heard of them.
Linux.com has a rant from Brian Jones about the state of Red Hat's "enterprise" products.
When I see the proprietary software industry pushing lawyers to write stories like thisI do despair a bit.But at least our side is getting some reinforcements.
Today David Berlind has a great piece about Sun executives complaining that they "give and they give" but the open source community keeps demanding more. What exactly does the open source community want, Sun asks.
Peter Galli reports that the Free Standards Group is planning to break up the Linux Standard Base specification into "modules" that will allow for desktop and server standards. I'm glad to see the FSG addressing the desktop issue.
Over in England, Nick McGrath, who heads the local platform strategy group for Windows, is dismissing Linux by saying that it has "just" hundreds of developers and that no one is taking responsibility for it. Does Red Hat take responsibility for it, he asks?
Two stories in today's news, which seem quite different, are easy to connect with one sentence.Unix vendors are abandoning proprietary versions for Linux.