July, 2009

DIY government: Open source for America

Today, in conjunction with the O’Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON) in San Jose, Calif., more than 70 companies, academic institutions, communities, related groups and individuals announced the formation of Open Source for America, an organization that will serve as a unified voice for the promotion of open source software in the U.S. Federal Government arena.

The mission of Open Source for America:

… is to educate decision makers in the U.S. Federal government about the advantages of using free and open source software; to encourage the Federal agencies to give equal priority to procuring free and open source software in all of their procurement decisions; and generally provide an effective voice to the U.S. Federal government on behalf of the open source software community, private industry, academia, and other non-profits.

Tim O’Reilly, Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media presented the program during his keynote at OSCON on Wednesday morning, calling it an unprecedented opportunity for people to get involved with their government. He also tried to dispel the misunderstanding that exists that Gov 2.0 is all about social media. He explained that Gov 2.0 is also about transparency, rapid application development and procurement processes that allow approval of free software for agencies without getting mired in the usual DC bureaucracy.

O’Reilly pointed out that one of President Obama’s first steps in the White House was to issue an open government directive. Gartner has estimated that by 2011 more than 25% of government vertical, domain-specific applications will either be open source, contain open source application components or be developed as community source.

As O’Reilly spoke, he contrasted the old model of government, by the people, for the people to today’s version of government that seems to resemble a vending machine – taxes in, services out. Instead, he encouraged the open source community to view the government as a platform that can provide the tools and services so that we, the people, can do what needs to be done ourselves. He encouraged open source coders to get involved in the Open Source for America project - will you?

For more coverage of OSCON, view the crowdsourced news coverage page.

New OS game changer: Hannah Montana Linux

I try to use Twitter to stay on top of breaking Linux and IT news, but sometimes I run across a gem like this that isn’t necessarily newsworthy, but is quite humorous (or RFLMAO-worthy). Today, following on the heels of the big announcement about Google Chrome, we learned about Hannah Montana Linux (or HML).

Tounge-firmly-in-cheek, Liam Green-Hughes said, “Didn’t see this coming - but it is the top development in operating systems this year!”

While some were arguing about the timing and value of Google Chrome, few could argue about the value of HML. On Wednesday, some were complaining that Google made its announcement about Chrome without having a fully developed OS, or without having finished the Chrome browser for Linux and Mac OSX. But there were almost no complaints about HML today.

Regarding Google Chrome OS, Clay Shirky was wistful about the good old days when Google would finish a product before releasing it:
“Remember, Back In The Day, when Google used to build stuff, *then* announce it? I miss those days. *cough*Wave*cough*ChromeOS”

Shirky’s sentiment was popular enough to be “RT”ed (retweeted, or forwarded) multiple times on Wednesday by other Twitter users.

But not so with HML… Ok, well HML hasn’t been met in the Twittersphere with totally open arms. My recent Twitter Search found one “Eh,” two “WTF?”, a couple of “Eeeks”, some cries about kernel defilement, an apocalyptic warning, five “LMAO”’s and quite a few retweets of Geek Brief TV’s Cali Lewis’s post:
“I am like TOTALLY installing Hannah Montana Linux on my Eee PC today!”

The most curious part of the HML announcement is the Web page, which one Twitterer pointed out was made in iWeb. The page includes the basic information about the distribution, in a strangely barely coherent format. Take for example this explanation of what it is:

So your Probably Wondering what`s the difference between Hannah Montana Linux and Windows and Mac OS X well here are some of the differences .
one : Hannah Montana Linux can`t get viruses so you could say its virus proof
two : Hannah Montana Linux is Free as in you do not have to pay for it and that you can change anything you don`t like the code is all open so its called open source
three : don`t you hate looking around the internet to find software like on Windows and Mac OS X
not on Hannah Montana Linux well you can do it like that if you wanted to…

I can look past the non-parallel list, but the utter lack of proper punctuation and leaps in logic make me wonder if this site was created by a non-English speaker, or a real, live Hannah Montana fan…

The second question I have was echoed by Clefmeister, “Isn’t that a bit of brand over-saturation?” In fact, isn’t Hannah Montana a brand controlled by one of the most powerful companies in the United States (Disney)? While it’s an open source distribution, I’m thinking the Disney lawyers may swiftly act to have it taken down. My advice is, download it quick if you want it, because I don’t think it will last long.