The irony of it all
As Sun cranks up the hype machine for Solaris 10, one of the technologies we keep hearing about is Janus. Sun's Janus is a technology that's supposed to allow Solaris users to run Linux binaries on Solaris, unmodified.
The latest news and views on all things Linux and open source by seasoned Unix and Linux user Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols.
As Sun cranks up the hype machine for Solaris 10, one of the technologies we keep hearing about is Janus. Sun's Janus is a technology that's supposed to allow Solaris users to run Linux binaries on Solaris, unmodified.
Hypochondriacs get sick. They even die. Just because you're paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.
Sun's newest version of Solaris is better than the old stuff and the price is right -- free. But Solaris is not, and never will be, Linux.
Searching, as Joe notes below, is one thing.The real "killer app" is find.
I must be under-estimating the user demand for "desktop search." It seems like all the major players are striving to create a desktop search solution.
One impact of open source is it reduces the advantage of copyright held by western companies. Here is Exhibit A.
This is a question you can answer. Do we have a shortage of open source talent?
One of the most promising features of open source is the ability to reuse code. One conspicuous example is Apple's use of KHTML, from Konqueror/KDE in its Safari browser, or Linspire's use of Mozilla with its multiplatform Nvu "Web authoring system.
George Lakoff, a linguistics professor with the University of California at Berkeley, teaches that the way to win an argument is to control how the argument is described.The note on Microsoft below reminds me of a very important verbal frame through which open source is losing the argument.
Microsoft didn't entirely waste that $50 million it indirectly put into SCO Linux. It learned how scary lawyers are to customers.
One of the worst-kept secrets of the computing world is that, after spending billions of dollars and several years winning a virtual monopoly on Web browsers, Microsoft is slowly tossing it away.There are good reasons for this.
It has been predicted that the number of available Linux distributions will continue to increase until they reach a 1:1 ratio with the general populace. That may be an exaggeration, but it sometimes seems like it could happen if you watch the Linux community closely.
The gearheads are buzzing over ZDNet's report from Friday about Chris Stone (left, from ZDNet France) leaving Novell. They're worried about what this may mean concerning Novell's commitment to open source.
I've long been a fan of Google, but it's often disheartening to see a parade of tools from Google Labs that are IE/Windows only. The Google Toolbar is IE-only, Google Compute and the Gmail Notifier are Windows-only (though Gmail itself works wonderfully in Firefox on Linux), and the Google Desktop Search is Windows-only with a Mac OS X version on the way.
Its a mark of our continued sexism that Kim Polese, who busted the glass ceiling in the 1990s with Marimba, is still described as the Web's "it girl."This despite the fact shes now a veteran executive, a serial entrepreneur, and her new outfit, SpikeSource, is a very interesting open source idea.
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