OPEN BYTES – cave quid dicis, quando, et cui.

Youre killing FOSS! Ahhhh. Can anyone do that? really? Are we not responsible for our own actions?

A slightly different approach today and I hope you can relate to some of the issues I cover here.  I am looking at a claim thats usually made against many outspoken people in the FOSS, but often you see it when there is no counter in an debate/argument.  When I first started writing this article little did I know I would get my own example of “killing the FOSS” directed at me and it was a sweet surprise in the middle of a rather vulgar tirade by the person concerned (more on that later) Without further ado lets look at some of the people who have been accused of “Killing the foss!!!!!!!”

From my own surfing and experiences I would say Richard Stallman & Roy Schestowitz are two of the known voices in the FOSS world who have both had that allegation thrown at them. So lets look at this for a minute, is there any one person so important on the Net that everyone sees them as the guiding light of FOSS?  (or indeed any software) I’d say no and the implication that the remarks of any one person could have a detrimental effect on an entire community is simply rubbish.  I always thought we took responsibility for our own actions and views.  If people choose to agree/disagree it doesn’t really matter, the point is the responsibility is ours. If RMS was to say that the face on Mars was actually Steve Ballmer and that was conclusive proof that Microsoft wants to take over the world, would that effect FOSS in anyway?  Would, as a result of that people leave the FOSS world in droves because of such a silly remark?  Of course not, all that would happen would be RMS would probably not be taken seriously ever again. When Steve Ballmer made the cancer remark, did people leave the Windows platform in droves in disgust?  What about when he called Google a house of cards?  Silly statements (IMO)  like that did nothing detrimental to Windows/Microsoft other than get re-quoted every time Microsoft claims to want to be friends with FOSS. The “killing the foss” or similar statements are IMO not only silly but the final act of the desperate.  No persons actions on the Net would cause damage to an entire ethos/community/software, otherwise the terrible e-crimes which we see documented that were facilitated by users of Windows would mean Microsoft would have a lot less users.  Its the individual persons views/actions NOT the communities or software itself to blame.

I thought we lived in a world were people should take responsibility for their own actions, I thought we lived in a world were we formed opinion and made decisions from multiple sources of information not just one. I covered the Jono Bacon interview of Roy a while back and whilst Jono was quoting commenters who had issue with Roy’s work, he also (IMO) made the implication/suggestion that Roy’s work was detrimental to FOSS.  I’m sure Roy would agree that he does not have that much power (although Jono was unintentionally paying Roy a compliment I think) Looking at another example, Mark Shuttleworth was recently held to task over some comments he made and once again out of the woodwork came the “killing the FOSS” type comments.  Again, complete rubbish.  Mr Shuttleworth is responsible for his own words and its up to him to either justify, clarify or apologize for them. Its now that I move onto a rather more distasteful part of this article (and in the interests of keeping this readable, have cut much from the original since recent events to me prove a far more valuable point)

Jo Shields is a name I would consider quite well known within the FOSS world.  His promotion of Mono has him both supporters and detractors.  Buts lets say for a moment that only in the last week I had picked up my first Linux disk and was currently experimenting with it. I recently engaged Jo in conversation as he had either been watching/had someone report or been examining the logs of Boycott Novell IRC chat.  You are welcome to visit my Twitter account and see the whole conversation, however it started after I took a screen grab of a comment where Jo had said a comment about MS likely to start a little bit of a battle and was possibly poorly thought out due to the feeling of distrust by some of Microsoft.  This started a discussion between the two of us and whoever was “in the right” for me became academic when I received this (letters have been hashed out by me for decency reasons and to put it in context, the apology he mentioned is where I asked him to apologize for claiming I said something and then linking to it where it clearly shows I didnt. )

hah, f#ck that. I have NEVER done ANYTHING to you worth an apology, up to and including this: you are a c#nt and a blight on FOSS

So Im a blight?  and he is?  Not wishing to dwell on that, he still is mentioning the C word whilst talking to another user even at time of writing this.

Does this behaviour have Jo Shields damaging FOSS?  I wouldn’t think so.  Jo is responsible for that tirade and it will be up to him to justify it every time its brought up as an example of rather poor behaviour.   Jo seems to think either a/ I am not serious or b/ there is no legislation to cover this type of action.  Here for you, the readers, is the legislation which I believe is most relevant to the message Jo sent to me:

SECTION 127(1)(b) and (3) of the Communications Act 2003

On *DATE* at *LOCATION* caused to be sent by means of a public electronic communications network:

(A) a message

(B) matter, namely *SPECIFY*

that was grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.

I’ll leave you the reader to consider if the message falls into that category or not, however Jo (who unless I am mistaken does not have a job involving criminal law) seems to think it doesn’t as he said in a recent message:

even the ambulance chasers who advertise on Jeremy Kyle wouldn’t take up a case like that

Jo’s opinion on UK criminal law is all academic though and not really of further relevance to this article, so I will move on.  Mr Shields also states when telling another user about the aforementioned C word post:

oh, yes, I called @_goblin a c#nt on Twitter. References to the Communications Act would be laughable if they weren’t so sad

and now that Jo Shields has had a little education into the Communications Act 2003 legislation let see if he agrees that maybe an apology is in order not only for the vulgar tirade, but the false claims he made about me.

Regardless of what happens and regardless of who anyone agrees with, in my opinion vulgarity like this do not put the attitude of Mr Shields in a very good light.  Its strange he said what he did publically since he seems very concerned with his public image by stating to me that he checked the BN IRC logs for lies about him.

CONCLUSIONS

The purpose of a blog/personal site, is to present ones opinions.  There is no one person which so much sway that they could damage anything.  Damaging FOSS would be to introduce legislation making it illegal.  Damaging FOSS would be only sell computers that ran proprietary software..these are actions and actions with (far fetched but obvious results)  There are those who will make inappropriate comments in favour of Linux and against it, there are those who will make statements that cause offence/upset, the only damage being done is to the person saying them, not the community in which they are a part of.

I had many other examples of “killing the foss” and I have been snapshoting comments since I said I would quote Jo a few weeks ago, thats really now out of the Window (no pun intended) as I think that it needs to be highlighted the behaviour of some people when at the end of the day we are talking about software (last time I checked it was hardly on the same scale as world hunger)

I think next time Roy Schestowitz receives an attack or a libelous claim, I may throw reference to the Jo Shields incident and a quote (yes I do like them) springs to mind (from the Gospel of St Mathew) :

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again

Food for thought I hope next time you hear the words “Ahhhhhh Your killing FOSS!”.   If, as Jo Shields suggested to me that Boycott Novell is a “factory of lies” what does that make Jo and his opinions?  Whoever you agree with, whoever’s work you follow I would like to think that most reasonable people would consider Jo’s words vulgar, obscene and wholly inappropriate.   Ive never seen Roy Schestowitz, Richard Stallman, Mark Shuttleworth or anyone else known in the FOSS world behave like Jo Shields has.

You can visit Jo Shields on Twitter here.

He also has a website here: http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Chromium playing nicely within a Gnome/Compiz DE (on Goblins desktop!) although recent bugs (previously non-existent) slightly spoil the experience somewhat. If you want to see a picture of Chromium running within a KDE/Compiz DE on another one of my rigs, visit: http://www.twitpic.com/nlygw/full

Before publishing an article which I am really looking forward to – Ahhh Youre killing the FOSS! I thought I would post an update on my experiences with the latest build of Chromium, that being 4.0.242.0.

Please note that this is not intended as a comprehensive review, merely an update on my observations with Chromium in its current build.

Anyone who was reading this blogazine around May 09 will remember that I went away on a trip to Poole and bought a netbook for my surfing and posting whilst I was away.  You may also remember that I had to settle for an XP one since the mobile broadband dongle would not work with a Linux system.  It was whilst I was stuck with this system that I remembered how poor IE was for me and decided if I was going to have to use XP, I would be damned if I would also suffer IE.

This was when I was introduced to Chrome and upon my return started looking at running Chromium on Linux.

Ive been with the builds since the very early days (I wish I could remember the number) and since trawling through my blog to find the earliest version I looked at is not my idea of a good Tuesday night, I thought I would skip that and simply concentrate on the state of Chromium today.

IN OPERATION

Chromium on my rigs is blisteringly fast, it always was.  In the earlier builds there were a few stability issues in respect of JAVA input boxes, but these were not frequent enough to present a huge problem.   Once Flash was implemented and was stable, for me Chromium really took off as a browser and I found myself using Firefox less and less.

Today Chromium is still blisteringly fast, JAVA input boxes are still smooth/fast and I found that they were far more responsive than Firefox (correct up to the latest version I have 3.5.1)  Incognito mode is a great little mode although I don’t really find myself facilitating it.

Somewhere around July (I think) a few builds of Chromium came with a small picture of a face in the top right hand corner of the window (without any explanation).  I really should Google that as it was a mystery I never got around to solving.

By August 09 I found that I very rarely (if ever) needed to run FF (obviously Quake Live being the exception to this) September came and went which is when I found an issue with the software.

At the time I considered it to be a bug created as a side effect to something else, presuming that it would be fixed in October, although now we are in November and the bug is still present (see below) That being said it is a minor issue when one looks at the performance boost it has over other browsers, although since then a few other bugs cropped up which I felt needed mentioning.

BUGS WITH CHROMIUM

1.  The ability to open links from external software into Chromium is no longer working.  If this had been an issue from day 1, it would not have been a problem.  This bug though only appears to have materialized around the September/October time.

2.  Java input boxes can freeze when data is copied and pasted into them from the same page.  The freeze is limited to that particular tab, but its particularly annoying when you are replying to a comment.  There is a work around that I use which is right click on the offending tab, select duplicate and then move to the duplicated tab and continue editing (as it is no longer frozen)  This particular problem appeared around the end of October.

3. WordPress no longer seems to play as nicely with Chromium.  This could be a fault of WordPress or Chromium.  Every so often I appear to get logged out of my blog account and when trying to log back in, my password is not recognized.  If I login via the main page there is no problem.  This issue seems to appear randomly and can happen if I am trying to embed a picture into my text.  The second WordPress issue Ive found is that when previewing a post, you are no longer able to save the draft.

As you can see these bugs are more annoying than prohibitive, but just as I was beginning to consider removing FF completely from my system, I will now have to wait until these issues are resolved.

A clean look, fast operation & very happy with Metal on Youtube!

CONCLUSIONS SO FAR

I still love Chromium, with the new bugs cropping up it has hampered my enjoyment of the package but then it should be remembered that its still quite early in its development.  I love the style of the tabbed browsing of Chromium and the location of my shortcuts.  Speed has and still is the most impressive part of Chromium and that trend continues.

I haven’t found any sites that crash Chromium since about August and there are so many great features of the software, I simply don’t have the time to list them all.

The Chromium themes are a nice idea, but Ive yet to find a theme that doesn’t look a complete mess.  The simple designs are fine, but some of the more fanciful ones, just look awful in my opinion on my desktop.

In closing, I cannot assume that these bugs are global and they could be localized to my particular rig/distro, but whatever the answer I am not so keen to recommend Chromium as I was a few months ago.  With that in mind I would expect these issues to be ironed out as it matures and I still think that it will be a fantastic browser in the future.

It looks like Firefox will be staying on my system for some time to come.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Armed with Microsoft's USB stick and COFEE even these two will be able to collect evidence from a live system....The courts will love that one.

It is being reported that COFEE, Microsoft’s forensic tool used in the fight against crime [1] has been leaked and uploaded to a BT tracker.  The tracker in question (what.cd) has subsequently removed the offending torrent, probably with visions of dawn raids and court cases, however I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the tools PR and what it (allegedly) offers.  Before we go any further though, its worth noting that the actions taken by what.cd have not managed to preserve the “secrecy” of this Microsoft product.  COFEE is available from thousands of sources online already.

Firstly because its Microsoft you can expect the usual blurb.  Microsoft doesn’t disappoint here with:

If it’s vital to government, it’s mission critical to Microsoft.

Which would beg the question; what happened then when various armed forces computer systems allegedly fell victim to a Windows based exploit?  Doesn’t sound very mission critical to me.

Back to COFEE though (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) is in essence software and USB solution which enable a live system to be “snapshotted” in situ.  Exactly how this code operates is anyones guess since its only provided to law enforcement and not to the general populus.  Would this software/hardware work on a rig with Linux?  I would highly doubt it and I assume it is developed to “handshake” with a Windows based system in some way.

An officer with even minimal computer experience can be tutored—in less than 10 minutes—to use a pre-configured COFEE device.

…And COFEE is being provided—at no charge—to law enforcement around the world.

So Microsoft gives COFEE away free to law enforcement does it?  Lets remind ourselves of what Bill Gates had to say about “free” some time ago:

They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade

Here you go....a USB stick for every copper! Become an IT expert in 10 minutes! Question is, why should law enforcement use what you can already get (legally) for free and why should the "mighty" Microsoft be giving it away to law enforcement?

Maybe a warning there for Law Enforcement?  “Beware of a Redmond employee bearing gifts”

From reports of users that have looked at this Microsoft GUI its allegedly only a set of data collection tools that can be found on the net anyway and there is nothing “secret” or “cutting edge” to be found in Microsoft’s freebie.

There are other issues I have with this Microsoft freebie and its in respect of evidential value.  In my opinion an in situ dump of a live system will only have real evidential worth in a court if its backed up with the original system.  I would doubt very much if a court would accept a “snapshot” on a USB stick on its own without calling into question the integrity of the data collected on it. [2]

Are we really believing some IT inept officer brandishing COFEE should be allowed to tamper with a live system of possible evidential worth even if she/he has had “a 10 minute training course”..?   I would expect any Law Enforcement Agency to call in its own experts if it encountered a situation where a live exam/retrieval was essential.

Ive often said I have great reservations when the private/public sector mix (in respect of law enforcement) You have to look no further than FACT, where I believe its funded by the very companies it seeks to protect.  No problem in itself, but when (IMO) FACT has the ear of law enforcement, you could be forgiven if you were a little dubious as to the motives of the “advice” they give to the aforementioned agency.

Although it’s a little extreme, when law enforcement and corporate mix, people will always wonder “what goes on behind the scenes” and theories of calls such as “Hi, is that the LAPD?  Its Ballmer here, we have a little trouble at Redmond, can you help us out? Remember we did give you that USB stick all those years ago…..” will always crop up.  It seems strange to me that Microsoft is so keen to help fight crime when in Bill Gates own words (as partly quoted earlier on):

As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.

You can read that full article here: http://www.cybersource.com.au/press/gates_set_to_addict_next_billion.html

There is a viewpoint from Torrentfreak.com which can be read here.

Notes

[1] Allegedly since Ive never seen Microsoft credited for any successes and its not clear which or if any Law enforcement actually use it

[2] and its all accademic really since someone booting a LiveCD and USB stick combo would be immune to COFEE (IMO)

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Beer glasses.  We’ve all had them and it now appears that the lovely first date with Windows 7 where you’ve met in a restaurant and put away a good few drinks has come home with you.

Skip to the morning, picture the scene; its a sleepy sunday and the light is streaming through your half drawn curtains.  You roll over in your warm bed with images of a lovely night with a beautiful partner only to now find yourself staring into the face of a pig.

Joking aside, it appears that whilst Windows is praised as the second coming and its faithful are busy trying to find fault with alternatives merely to boost sales, there are users who are voicing their problems in a public forum.  I am of course talking about the Microsoft Helps (itself) Twitter account.  Lets take a look at some of those issues:

I did as suggested in forum, BIOS and driver update… And then again the upgrade process rolls back to Vista at final step

To which I would reply, Im surprised they noticed.  Vista 7 may simply be lipstick on a pig, but its the same pig (Vista) at the end of the day.

I can not see the thumbnails of any filehttp://www.twitpic.com/obpmt

I’m facing this issue while doing in-place upgrade from Vista Home Premium to Win7 Ultimatehttp://bit.ly/1Tkwh6 Please help

What’s up with the weird directories with .vdm files accumulating? Is that being looked at? Fixed? New one today (5 total)

Windows 7 upgrade FAIL “user profile service service failed the logon.” can’t use explorer, control panel in safemode

Of course the story you will get from sites such as http://windows7news.com/2009/11/02/windows-7-on-the-rise/ paint a whole different picture.  Andrew (the author of that “article”) cites Windows 7 as having 3% of market share in the first two weeks of its release.  Andrew then goes onto mention that this does not include simply the RTM thats available now it also includes the pre release versions.  What Andrew doesn’t mention was that the pre-release versions were given away for free, so really the 3% figure (even if it is true) is purely rubbish IMO.

Just like any other Microsoft enthusiast, Andrew appear’s to judge the worth of an OS on how many people use it.  I wonder if Andrew would think a Vauxhall Corsa better than a Bentley because there is more of them on the road?  Probably.  What Andrew goes on to say is:

Linux has just under 1% marketshare. That’s every Linux distribution anywhere, combined.

Really Andrew?  I thought the MS faithful always say 3%?  It matters not since Steve Ballmer doesn’t seem to agree with you either and in recent MS slides Linux was shown to have a lot more than 1%.  Have your scientific figures Andrew considered how many servers on the net run Linux?  Probably not and you are probably too busy with the novelty that Windows 7 allows you to do simple tasks far better than you ever could in the last 3 years with Vista.

Unlike Andrew, when I compare Linux with Windows 7 I will be doing it having used both.  I am currently running Windows 7 through its paces and comparing it to the OS Ive relied on for years (and has never let me down, unlike Microsoft technologies) that being Linux.

NOVELL HAS A PULSE?

Many people think that Novell is controlled directly from Redmond (or certainly sits and gives a paw on command of its Microsoft master).  It matters not, the damage “the deal” did to the public perception of Novell IMO shows how insidious a Microsoft relationship can be.

Novell has announced its “Pulse” product which is similar in vain to Google Wave although this is, IMO  aimed at enterprise.  It enables team collaboration on projects whilst also offering integration with the Google Wave protocol.

Coming in mid-2010, Novell Pulse will first be delivered as a service and then later available for on-premise deployment. It will also work seamlessly with Google Wave so you and anyone you want to work with can have your choice and get down to business.

Since Ive mentioned my current beta relationship with Wave, its only fair I mention this product.  I only have one question:

Did Novell have to ask Microsoft before releasing the news of this product?  Maybe Novell does have its own “pulse” afterall.

If you would like to see more of Pulse, check out:

http://www.novell.com/products/pulse/

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Once upon a time there was a company called Microsoft who claimed there was nothing wrong with Vista and everyone wanted their products…..

Just because you live in the United States, don’t assume that everything is on Windows….

Source: Jeff Orr – ABI analyst

The age old argument of Linux V Windows market penetration may simply be a fabrication if certain stats on the net are to be believed.  It has been claimed (for as long as I can remember anyway) that Linux accounts for 1-3% of market share and that nobody wanted Linux on a netbook.  That claim always puzzled me because no matter what figures you want to put on Linux use today, you cannot argue that no more than any time in the past more people are commenting, advocating and praising it on the net.  I can remember not too long ago where a Linux opinion was a rare thing to see on a forum thread, now you have numerous posts from users celebrating and supporting Linux.  That never happened in this volume a few years ago.

I often cite Microsoft-watch.com as an excellent example.  In the days of Joe Willcox (shortly before he left) Microsoft Watch had become a forum for more Linux users than Windows and I commented many times that it was ironic a site called Microsoft Watch would be a meeting place for so many Linux users.  I personally made many friendships there, friendships which continue on this blog (and various chatrooms today)  I cannot fail to mention Will and Chips who I first met on the MS Watch site.

I digress, because the purpose of this article is to highlight that what you read being quoted about Linux market penetration may not be the whole truth.

Brandon Le Blanc, a Microsoft employee who we have mentioned before has previously had this to say:

Users simply expect the Windows experience…..It’s easier to use, just works out of the box with people’s stuff, and ultimately offers more choice.

Now I could be mean here and mention that it was Brandon himself who brought up the subject of Windows 7 party hosts trying to flog their free loot on Ebay (which to me doesn’t say a lot for peoples opinion of the Windows experience) but Brandon has made many comments in the past that have had him highlighted on numerous sites and to be fair this article isn’t really about him, although he is also alleged to have said:

When they realize their Linux-based netbook PC doesn’t deliver that same quality of experience, they get frustrated and take it back.

Now I would say that it was the fact that I didnt get the same quality of experience with Linux that I kept using the system…that being in terms of quality experience Linux was far better than Windows ever was.  Would Brandon like to make a comment on peoples experiences of Vista?  Was that quality or was that why we see a migration to Linux in the numbers we have?  Of course you can’t blame Brandon, he works for Microsoft, but do you think that if tomorrow he took a job with Apple he would still praise Windows? IMO no and its why when listening to an employee of Microsoft you have to consider the basis for their opinion.

So onto the stats I mentioned.  ComputerWorld is reporting:

Nearly one-third of the 35 million netbooks on track to ship this year will come with some variant of the free, open-source operating system, ABI Research said. The exact split is 32% Linux versus 68% Windows, said Jeff Orr, an analyst at ABI, which works out to about 11 million Linux netbooks this year.

Source: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140343/Linux_s_share_of_netbooks_surging_not_sagging_says_analyst

Mr Jeff Orr has predicted that Linux will overtake Windows on the Netbook by 2013 and whilst this is just an opinion, its just as relevant as any Microsoft would want you to believe (if they can quote stats and predictions, so can we)

Of course they say the “proof of the pudding…” and in the UK certainly you only have to walk into a high street news agents like WHSmiths and see the shelved lined with Linux magazines.  Something is happening, IMO Microsoft cannot keep a lid on the rise of an alternative to its products.

Lets end on some “quality experiences” of the Windows 7 OS (these and many more can be seen on the Twitter account MicrosoftHelps) of course minus “Goblin helpdesk” as I added that in to what would otherwise be very depressing viewing:

my win7 pc is going to sleep while streaming under power save plan default settings

Goblin Help Desk says:  Are you sure? Is that not just normal sluggish Windows behaviour? Leave it for a few days, it may wake up.

I’ve upgraded my XP to Win7 and the Audio is ignoring me; I’ve updated the driver, but it’s mute as a rock. Any ideas?

Goblin Help Desk says: Maybe you should not have listened to the MS faithful FUD that said that Linux sound drivers are problematic and Windows is so great.  Try a Linux distro like Ubuntu, you’ll probably find you have out of the box compat from day one.

Windows 7 does not play nice with my iPod Nano 5G, it won’t even recognize it as a valid device. Plz help?

Goblin Help Desk says: Windows not playing nicely with something?  Never!!!! Ask all the “happy” Vista users.  In all seriousness Microsoft has been alleged to not play nice with many things, maybe its an intentional feature of Windows to emulate company policy?

I think you get the idea now.  The only real opinion on the software thats best for you is your own.  Linux users/FOSS advocates are happy for you to try alternatives in order that you choose the right solution.  Can the same be said of a proprietary platform?

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Once upon a time there was a company called Microsoft…..

Yes readers, its story time again, although this time I don’t think there is a way Microsoft can tell its story any better (and to see the alleged quote by Bill Veghte on Vista’s problems and Microsoft stories see http://openbytes.wordpress.com/2009/11/01/bought-windows-7-windows-8-on-way-dubious-twitter-users/)

Before we go into the article it is worth mentioning that Boycott Novell reported the 800 job cuts way before the news hit the mainstream media.  Detractors to the BN website may like to consider that fact. http://boycottnovell.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

As the US is officially out of the recession (with the UK lagging slightly) more job losses are announced from Redmond, 800 (allegedly) of them, with the cuts apparently coming in the sales and marketing sections.  Could this be a reason why we saw this? – is Microsoft getting so hard up that it generates Twitter accounts to do its bidding? (and very badly I hasten to add)

The Guardian.co.uk has a take on the news of the cuts where it says in their article:

Microsoft is cutting another 800 jobs worldwide as it attempts to cope with falling demand for its products, the company announced today.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/04/microsoft-job-cuts

Falling demand for its products?  Did we ever think we’d see the day?

Of course Microsoft put their own take on this and other news by Kevin Turner allegedly saying:

We are pleased by the early positive response we are receiving for these products

To which I would say, steady there Kev.  Remember Mr Ballmer saying that Vista went wrong because of listening to early feedback?  You don’t want another Vista on your hands that takes 3 years to sort of apologise for do you?

The cuts are mostly in sales and marketing, and less in research and development, but they have cut some products.

Which cant be good news for many of the convenient MS faithful that pop up to defend and spread FUD regarding alternatives to MS?

These are interesting times and the company who tries to be everything for everybody (IMO) is finding that fighting that war on more than one battlefront is near on impossible.   When you look at the interest generated by a Google OS, Google Wave and the plethora of social networking/innovative ideas on the net that do not come from Redmond, one has to wonder how Microsoft will look in another year.  The growth of Linux/alternative usage in the last year cannot be disputed (whatever figure you want to put on it)

Lets hope Ballmer and crew can “get their story out” in the way they want to.  I get the feeling this is one fairy tell of Redmond’s which won’t have a happy ending.

NOTE: Picture from BoycottNovell and kind permission of Roy Schestowitz.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Todays article is all about Google related news, contrary to belief Openbytes does not hate large companies (an allegation often thrown at me by the MS faithful) in fact Openbytes does not hate anything.  I do not mention Apple in a bad light as I think their products are very good.  I don’t mention Google in a bad light because again I find their products an essential part of my daily computing.

Conversely I may come across hard on Microsoft.  This is because time and time again I find for me that their products are not fit for purpose, bloated and bug ridden, but worse than that they have the nerve to charge money for them.  I am spending time currently reviewing Windows 7, I want to give it a fair crack of the whip and I want to be fair when I “put pen to paper” in respect of my opinions on it.

So no Openbytes does not hate proprietary (in fact you will find we celebrate decent proprietary software) no Openbytes does not hate Microsoft (although the allegations of its actions towards FOSS it does)  I am waiting for Microsoft to prove to me it can regain its former dominant glory of the past, although when you look at the effort and quality of the alternatives on offer I would say thats now nearly an impossible task.

Now onto more decent applications and here’s a look at some Google news doing the rounds in the last few days.

GOOGLE WAVE

I would like to say Google recognised the greatness of Openbytes and rushed to give me an invitation to try out their Wave product. Who could blame them?  The only blog dedicated to those with a Gnutee beard.

As I say, I would like to say that….  Unfortunately I received an invite from a very nice chap on Twitter whose charitable act towards me meant that I could experience something which Ive been interested in for a while.  I

Moving on to the subject at hand, Google Wave is the chat and collaboration product going through its beta/preview stage.

The description of Google Wave from the people behind it is:

Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration

And to be honest, its shaping up to be a rather decent open source project.

Google Wave integrates services such as Gmail, Google Docs, Google IM and more into a single tool. Creating a Wave enables you to collaborate with your peers on documents in real time, watching them type and edit and allowing you to step in and make your own changes.

If you think of a Wave as a thread on a forum and then imagine being able to edit any part of that thread AND see those changes/typing in realtime (complete with typo’s and corrections!) you have an idea of what Google Wave is all about.

Of course there is more to Wave than just chat and whilst in this preview stage one cannot expect a full experience yet.  That being said its a great project and I’m looking forward to seeing it progress.  Share photo’s, collaborate on maps its going to be a massive environment of diverse media and social networking.  Great stuff!

If I was to describe Wave currently, Id say it was a real-time IRC/Twitter, with real-time being you actually see your contact typing, mistakes, corrections and second thought deletions intact.  Unlike IRC or Twitter where you can change your mind before committing, on Wave if someone is watching then they can see what you type and what you changed your mind in saying! much like a real conversation.

I can’t describe how much fun I am having with this at the moment, apart from it being a great social tool there are all sorts of collaboration possibilities on projects, sharing photo’s et al.  You have to hand it to Google yet again for another great product.

For those who are lucky enough to have received an invite to Wave, check out this comprehensive guide.

WAVE APP STORE, COMING SOON?

Its being reported that Google Wave will eventually come with its own App store open to 3rd party developers to provide tools/addins similar to the very successful Apple store.  Of course a percentage of the sale will go to Google but then if Wave becomes as popular as I think it will then it will be a very profitable venture for all concerned.

This is what I mean when I say that other companies create and Microsoft buys.

Wave continues to show how innovative it is and unless someone can correct me, I havent seen signs of innovation coming from Redmond for a long time (please don’t say “touch” tech. Thats certainly no innovation of Microsoft) I will wait, but won’t hold my breath.

OTHER GOOGLE RELATED LINKS

There is a test of Wave on the Iphone here (and also a video link showing it in action).

For a list of all official Google Twitter accounts: http://www.google.com/press/twitter_directory.html

Lifehacker is also good for hints and tips. Apparently that have written some for Wave: http://lifehacker.com/

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

The BBC is reporting that the results of a survey show that file sharers on average spend £77 compared to those who don’t whose spending comes in at £44.

People who download music illegally also spend an average of £77 a year buying it legitimately, a survey has found……Those who claimed not to use peer-to-peer filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay spent a yearly average of just £44.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8337887.stm

Ive been critical of the BBC and its tech reporting before, but this article in my opinion does not consider the implications of that survey.  Lets first of all look at the survey itself. To me this BBC article tries to present a £77 average as a justification for a file sharer.

This, in my opinion is typical BBC.  Im not sure if the aim is to jump on the bandwagon of the file sharing debate and thinks it can be “cool with the kids” or its simply a badly considered piece of journalism.

Lets look at the survey results and pretend that they are accurate.  What the BBC article fails to consider is that everyone of those £77 file sharers are helping to spread copyrighted material (the hints in the name BBC, file sharer) so any “benefit” of allegedly extra money being spent by them is offset by the fact that they are sharing material with others who as a result of receiving something for free WILL NOT go on to spend anything at all.

I am sure the message the BBC wants to put out is anti-piracy however are they really going to simply reprint surveys without any consideration of the results?    Who knows? and lets see if the BBC celebrates the £77 average when its Xmas shows are distributed through a BT tracker and hamper DVD sales in the new year.

Of course the BBC see it another way:

It also raises questions about the draft Digital Economy bill, which is due to be submitted to parliament later this month and proposes disconnecting file-sharers who repeatedly break the law.

Don’t be silly, the questions raised about the DEB come more from a policing and law/human rights point of view than they do any claimed £77 average .  Even if we believe these file sharers spend on average £77 (and keep in mind that they are committing IMO a dishonest act in the first place, so who’s to say they are being honest for the survey?) the act of downloading and sharing material which you do not have permission from the IP owner is surely wrong on a moral level at the very least.  If a friend asked you not to share their essay with others and you did, would that not be wrong? food for thought there.

I agree that prices are high, especially for new DVDs, thats why if there is a film that I really want to see but its too pricey, I wait until Blockbuster sells it ex-rental, I dont consider BT/NG/IRC/FTP or anything else because I can wait and I don’t believe in the “do as you please” view which seems all too common these days.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Its the Karmic Koala! Ubuntu 9.10. I am busy getting Kubuntu! Whats your flavor?

Today is the official release day of Ubuntu 9.10.  Jono Bacon ran an Ubuntu party channel in IRC (for which I was present) Its aim was to get 1000 users in the chat channel.   It took about 3 hours from the time of his first Twit inviting people to the channel that 1000 users was hit, so well done Ubuntu and Jono!

The chat room is still active and you can visit via browser at: http://bit.ly/2riV0p

Meanwhile I am downloading Kubuntu in my on-going quest to get into KDE!  So in 30 or so minutes I will be experiencing 9.10 in KDE loveliness on my distro-hopping machine.

Over on Twitter Trends Ubuntu is receiving attention just as Windows 7 did, the naysayers who claim Linux is a minority OS are starting to have less of an argument now as more and more people are trying Linux and in particular Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 9.10 is called Karmic Koala, this is a little obvious news to most Linux users who will be well aware of Ubuntu, but for those that are not, why not give Linux a try?  Ubuntu is a very user friendly Linux which doesn’t expect you to part with cash to use it (unlike Microsoft offerings).  If you were considering an upgrade to Windows 7, why not try Ubuntu first?

You can visit the Ubuntu site here.

There is a great Youtube clip below comparing the boot speeds of Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.04/9.10.  Of course Ubuntu wins hands down, but what is even more interesting is that Vista boots quicker than Windows 7!

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Is this the meaning of Chakra the distro creators had in mind? I'll let you decide as you experience Chakra with KDE 4.3.1

Ive never been a fan of KDE.  Maybe its because for me it reminds me too much of Vista and a part of my PC experiences I would rather forget, however I cannot stay with Gnome forever and since many new distro’s don’t come with XFCE it was only time before I gave KDE a run for its money.

I’d heard some good things about Chakra and since it comes packaged with KDE 4.3.1 I regarded it as the best way to test a new distro and give KDE another crack of the whip.  Chakra Alpha 3 is a distro based off Arch which has a legion of fans and is highly regarded as a Linux distro.

The word Chakra has many meanings, you can read them here.  If anyone can tell me which one is meant by the creators of the distro, I’d be very interested.

Its worth noting first of all that Chakra Alpha 3 is still in major development so its an opportunity for users to help contribute to a project whilst using the distro.  For a new user or a user wanting a complete, stable distro, at this time its probably best looking elsewhere.  As good as Chakra is, if you are wanting an out-of-the-box ready to rock and rock KDE experience then I’d suggest Mandriva or similar.

INSTALLATION

From the LiveCD installation was via a gfx front end accessed from the desktop (pretty par for the course of most distro’s) what struck me immediately was that despite it was easy to use and appealing to look at, there was no option for a default install.  Not a problem for those used to setting up swap partitions et al, but if Chakra is going to be aimed at newer users in future releases, then I’d say a default installation option is a requirement.  Installation seemed to take rather a long time, strange because the Alpha 3 is a particularly minimalist install maybe it was just me but Im sure a “package rich” Ubuntu install took alot less time than this.    I opted for ext4 for this review.

PACKAGES/ HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY

As stated earlier this is a pretty minimalist install.  They say “be careful what you wish for” and since Ive always complained about duplication of software/packages within distro’s, now Ive got my minimalist install, I find it lacking.  IRC is handled by Konversation and I must admit, having given the package a miss for a while in favor of X-Chat, its a very good piece of client software.    Internet browsing is handled by Arora and Konqueror which would not be my choice having now become an advocate of the excellent Chromium.   That being said, its a reasonable browsing experience, so no complaints there.

Smooth and visually appealing, Chakra brings you modern GFX without the need of a modern system. In my opinion Microsoft could learn alot from the KDE developers.

Media is an important feature, which is handled by Kaffeine v1.0-svn2 / Dragon player (within the DE) and as I say the basic install will not flood you with packages so I won’t dwell on any more of its pre-installed software (of which even office software is absent)

This brings me nicely onto hardware detection and Chakra, where Chakra gets kudos. Distro’s like Ubuntu are renowned for easy installation and out of the box compat, however Chakra may just have beaten Ubuntu in the most important feature for me (and thats for any distro) that being my beloved proprietary Nvidia drivers which were automatically detected/downloaded and installed without any input from me.  For most Linux users, we have done our time with fiddling around with Gfx drivers, but its a testament to Chakra and the state of Linux today that now this is more or less a non-issue.  I would add by saying that Chakra was so complete in the identification of my system, that I was left suspiciously uneasy by the fact I had nothing to configure (accept a few user account creations)

Pacman handles package management and since I havent spent alot of time with it in the past I was taken aback by how great it really is.  Simple to use, clear and quick.  I will cover this package further when I review later releases of Chakra.

MY KDE 4.3.1 EXPERIENCE

Ive always prefered the minimalist DE.  XFCE was always a favorite of mine and whilst my hardware is more than modern enough to run the latest DE, Ive always been of the opinion that no matter what your specs, you shouldn’t needlessly throw CPU cycles away on “bling features” that apart from being visually appealing serve little purpose.  Having said that I cannot live in the past forever so “onwards and upwards” with KDE 4.3.1!

I think the problem Ive had with KDE over say Gnome or XFCE is the fact that I feel it provides too much of a “soft and fluffy” buffer between the DE and your systems core, in that I mean its very pretty, very smooth but tries to hide you from the “ugly” side of your OS.  Thats my feeling and may stem from Vista having more than a passing resemblance to KDE.

For the first time in my Linux life, I had a play with some of the KDE widgets and have to ask the question, why?  Theres a lovely analogue clock up on offer for example, but why would this be of any use when its rare that your desktop is empty (and in my case I have a plethora of Windows open usually maximized) and you have a perfectly informative clock ALREADY on your taskbar at the bottom right.  You then have widgets such as RT pictures of the sun.  Why? I would consider my desktop pretty standard and I already have all the packages I need running (browser, mail client, etc) so why on earth would I want a widget to do exactly the same thing, hidden on my desktop behind all the other windows I may have open.  To me these widgets are simply giving away CPU cycles and offer little.  For me this “bling” is a reason why Windows requires pretty high specs to achieve what Linux can already do on old tech and maybe if Microsoft had concentrated more on functionality and less on “bling” they wouldn’t be coming under so much criticism.

CONCLUSION

It would not be fair to be critical of Chakra on the basis of it being incomplete in terms of default packages, if this is an example of later versions I can see Chakra being VERY popular.  Its fast, functional & compatible.  In regards to KDE I found it smooth, fast and puts Windows 7 to shame  since I was running a very GFX appealing distro on only 512mb of ram and an old rig.

Am I converted to KDE?  If XFCE hadn’t been the DE on my distro of choice then probably yes.  I am not happy with the direction Gnome is taking (this has been covered far too many times before so I won’t dwell on it) as it stands KDE will be having a home on some of my secondary rigs which don’t distro-hop.   I think it will take alot more than KDE 4.3.1 to convince me to give away CPU cycles on aesthetics.

You can visit the Chakra homepage here.

Goblin bytes4free@googlemail.com