Saturday May 24, 2008 links for 2008-05-24
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And the case they make is one that many will nod in agreement as they read. Not in any way anti-OOXML or anti-Microsoft, just a coherent and detailed complaint that the process was a farce.
Posted by webmink
( May 24 2008, 01:32:23 AM PDT )
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Friday May 23, 2008 links for 2008-05-23
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Sounds like some backbone needs installing.
Posted by webmink
( May 23 2008, 01:33:10 AM PDT )
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Thursday May 22, 2008 links for 2008-05-22
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Open Source community wins? If this is true it's what I have been calling on them to do for ages & ages. I hope it shows a change of heart and that there is in fact cake.
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SD Times points out the interesting juxtapostion here. Microsoft Office will not support ISO 29500 until Office 14 ships but will support ODF in SP2. Time for everyone to switch to ODF, methinks.
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"Regardless of the motivation, today's announcement is indeed good news for everyone that believes in open document formats in general, and in ODF in particular." Agreed, as long as the fidelity of the conversion is at least as good as the Sun ODF Plug-i
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If you're in the area, come along.
Posted by webmink
( May 22 2008, 01:33:16 AM PDT )
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Wednesday May 21, 2008 Microsoft Embraces ODF, At Last
I was tidying in my office recently and found my attendee badge for the Open Source Convention held in Monterey in 2000. The big news that year (apart from the fact that the world didn't end) was that Sun, which had just bought a German company called Star Division, was releasing their flagship product StarOffice under an open source license and sponsoring a new open source community called OpenOffice.org. The t-shirts we all received just said "Freedom". We all had high hopes that simple but bold move, as well as giving all of us a great document suite, would begin to lubricate the market for document tools and get its corroded competitive gears turning again.
I'm now completely convinced that it worked. The widespread adoption of OpenOffice.org both on Windows (for which millions of copies of OO.o are downloaded each year) and on GNU/Linux (where it is distributed with almost every copy) was an early sign. The growth of OpenDocument format from a seed planted by OpenOffice.org to an independent plant nurtured by OASIS to a spreading young tree at ISO was another.
But today there are many senses in which we all in the OpenOffice.org community could be delighted at our influence on the world of software. The steady pressure has paid off. Not just because OpenOffice.org is better than ever at version 3.0 (now available in a native Mac version among others). But because we were accused of being derivative, yet it's now our innovation that is setting the pace.
Change of Heart?
I'm referring to the announcement Microsoft just made that they will be issuing a service pack for Office that adds native support for ODF. I've been repeatedly calling on them to support ODF like they do many other formats, and to do so in a way that makes it just another format that can be made the default. They've said they will as of SP2, and I warmly congratulate them on finally overcoming the NIH and FUD instincts. Way to go!
More than that, they also announced they will join the OASIS ODF TC and work to develop ODF. I've also been calling on them to do this, pretty much since the TC was formed right in front of them (they are board members at OASIS) in 2002. I'm not a member personally, but if I were I would want to warmly welcome them to the team as it enters the final straights towards completion of ODF 1.2 and submission to ISO.
Of course, I might also reflect on the fact they are finally doing exactly what Stephe Walli said they ought to do to kill ODF. But for now, it's huge, warm congratulations on giving your customers the freedom to leave and the confidence to stay - and a small British mutter of "about bloody time".
Posted by webmink
( May 21 2008, 07:13:21 PM PDT )
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Tuesday May 20, 2008 links for 2008-05-20
- When is Open Open? And When is Open Closed?
As I was discussing with a friend, the fact this question and its variants keeps coming up tells me we're squarely in the third wave of Free software, where corporate influence (and gaming) of software freedom itself has become the dominant issue. - cloudtools
Put Java EE onto EC2. - Gergely Riskó - Debian's OpenSSL maintainer should be changed
Provocative article on the debacle that admits its own flameage. But let's face it, if Sun had done this in Solaris there would be blood. As it is, the incident should cause much inner searching by FOSS proponents, me included. - Gilberto Gil's talk at Google Zeitgeist
"The revolution generated by the convergence of digital technologies obliges us to reinvent the way we do almost everything." Yes! Yes! - How open is your open source vendor?
"Does the industry need an open source definition for business and development models?" Well, not as-such, but we certainly need many more indicators now that so many businesses are actively gaming the OSD.
Posted by webmink
( May 20 2008, 12:43:59 PM PDT )
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Monday May 19, 2008 links for 2008-05-19
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Reading this now and being seduced by the portrait Iyer paints of the Dalai Lama. He is supposedly the incarnation of compassion, and everything Iyer has said so far implies he is that and more.
Posted by webmink
( May 19 2008, 01:32:23 AM PDT )
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Sunday May 18, 2008 links for 2008-05-18
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Marina summarises our track session at JavaOne.
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The range of citizen empowerment tools in the UK grows and grows.
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"Stay tuned."
Posted by webmink
( May 18 2008, 01:31:42 AM PDT )
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Saturday May 17, 2008 links for 2008-05-17
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Informative article by two of the key figures in getting OpenJDK into Fedora and RHEL.
Posted by webmink
( May 17 2008, 01:32:15 AM PDT )
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Thursday May 15, 2008 links for 2008-05-15
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It's not mentioned often but OpenSPARC continues to be very active and is having a huge effect globally in how microelectronics is taught.
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A press outing for Dalibor in his new role, and he's spot on with his comments.
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Whoa. High praise from Jason. I'd agree with most of what he says here, 2008.05 is an excellent start.
Posted by webmink
( May 15 2008, 01:34:51 AM PDT )
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Wednesday May 14, 2008 links for 2008-05-14
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Cory's new book has hit Amazon UK. Time to grab a copy.
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I've previously found that hearing poems read by their author adds a new dimension to their meaning. Hearing TS Eliot read The Waste and was transformative. So I'm looking forward to this arriving.
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While I think this correctly diagnoses the problem I think the solution is to be found elsewhere than trying to make a developer community hire a PHB.
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Truly excellent. The lesson to be learned is that the best way to get Java everywhere was to work with the community rather than expect the community to work with Sun. Let's hope that lesson sticks and spreads.
Posted by webmink
( May 14 2008, 01:33:51 AM PDT )
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Tuesday May 13, 2008 links for 2008-05-13
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Mark explains why controlling none of the components has no bearing on his ability to control the release cycle for Ubuntu.
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Dalibor gets quoted straight off the blocks. The article itself seems to lack insight, unfortunately.
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This article is depressingly ignorant of history. Clearly the author is unaware of the history of Tomcat, or of any of Sun's open source activities around OpenOffice.org, NetBeans, Mozilla etc etc.
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Very informative graphic that shows clearly why maize-grown biofuel may well be more of a problem than a solution.
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Students who review OpenSolaris or NetBeans can win prizes from Sun.
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The blogging guidelines move to v2.0 and end up as a great guiding light for all our interactions in the virtual world.
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The awards are up for nomination again.
Posted by webmink
( May 13 2008, 01:33:36 AM PDT )
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Friday May 09, 2008 links for 2008-05-09
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Gordon's argument here will warm the hearts of Apache activists, but I suspect Free software fundamentalists will still demand more protections. I'm in the middle; it takes both stick and carrot, in my view.
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What a week! OpenJDK 6 is now in Ubuntu, Fedora AND RHEL. Totally delighted.
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"Accurate numbers aren't any more useful than ones you make up."
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Huge congratulations to the OpenOffice.org team on this milestone. I am especially excited to see a high-quality native Mac version included on release day. Is that the first LGPLv3 software for the Mac?
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Oh excellent, this is the one feature I missed from Keynote. Can't wait for it to be ready.
Posted by webmink
( May 09 2008, 01:33:02 AM PDT )
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Thursday May 08, 2008 links for 2008-05-08
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Very interesting history of postings on Groklaw about Sun. Now, let's see, when did I start this job... ah yes :-)
Posted by webmink
( May 08 2008, 01:37:13 AM PDT )
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Sunday May 04, 2008 Meet Me At JavaOne 2008
If you're attending JavaOne this year, do come to my session on Wednesday at 2:50pm. It's T-7064 and I will be talking about the Adoption-Led Market and the challenges it brings to the open source and free software community of communities. It's in room 305.
Alternatively, come to the Thirsty Bear on Tuesday evening around 8pm and I'll see you at the open source un-BOF for chat, food and drink.
Posted by webmink
( May 04 2008, 04:58:19 PM PDT )
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