open source

Does the Operating System really matter?

After reading this article I started asking myself if the Operating System really does matter for most users. I finally reached the conclusion that it does. Here’s why.

For my own vote I asked myself if I would switch from Linux to Windows or Mac. After giving this some thought I decided that I would not switch.

First of all I am a firm believer in voting with my wallet. Now while I might be tempted to buy a Mac no such temptation exists with Windows. Quite simply I just do not like Microsoft as a company. Hence I have no desire to use any of their products let alone the way to expensive Windows operating system. I really, really, don’t like having to purchase the associated software that runs on Windows that I have to purchase to get the operating system to do what I want..

I like having the ability to choose which distribution of Linux and the associated open source applications that I like and downloading them via yum, zypper, Yast or what have you. I have a choice without spending a dime. Free as in freedom to choose and free as in beer. I have a choice to support the software that I use, financially or helping in some way with the project. No such choice exists with either Mac or Windows.

The article points out that most users are only concerned with web browsing, writing and generally getting their work done. From purely a corporate standpoint I agree. However I think most users today expect more out of their computers at home.

I believe multimedia is a big one. Whether it’s creating video, listening to mp3s or editing pictures most people at some point are going to do one at least one of the three.

Another point that I agree with in the article is that Windows 7 is not much more than a face lift. Users are told that it will be better than Vista and so they believe that it will. That belief alone will make it better whether or not it really is. (What administrator among us hasn’t faced this dilemma with users who thought something was “slow” and so it was slow - regardless of whether or not it was?)

The big question is this: If what they say is true that all users want to do is browse the web, write documents and generally get their work done why are they not demanding a lower cost from Microsoft or, better yet, demanding Linux from the hardware vendors or downloading and installing it themselves?

I think the operating system does matter on some level to just about everyone. Sure there are users out there that only use email, browse the web and write documents without giving any more thought to the operating system. I don’t however think that they are in the majority.

-j

And you thought conficker was dead

The conficker worm that infected millions of computers starting last October was believed to be at bay. Not so according to Vincent Weafer, vice president of Symantec’s security response group.

Computers infected with this worm are being updated with a stronger variant. The variant is designed to sidestep security measures attempting to cut the connection between infected machines and it’s hacker controllers. An estimated 20 technology companies, including Microsoft, have joined together to try and counter the stronger variant.

They are attempting to stop the worm by pre-registering domains that they believe the worm will use. According to Symantec and others in the group the worm can register up to 50,000 domain names a day. The domains are used to band together the infected computers and route the worm to other computers for infection.

The new worm is also better at resisting eradication. “It’s turning off a variety of security services,” Weafer said, as well as tools often used by security companies to dig into malware.

Weafer also believe that the number of infected computers has peaked. “The number of infected machines is constantly dropping, so we’re dealing with a much smaller pool [of devices] that are potentially getting this update,” Weafer said.

There is bright side to all of this. Linux users don’t have to worry about this. We don’t need to download Microsoft’s patch to fix our machines. What is really glaring is that so far as I know there are no open source companies joined to the group to protect the Windows computer. Maybe they should consult with them and teach them how to write software that is not so susceptible to attacks like this.

This whole thing started because of a security vulnerability in the Microsoft OS. When are Microsoft users and companies going to wake up and realize how expensive it is to continue using this brain dead OS? FWIW my definition of brain dead is an OS that has users, administrators and anyone else who uses the machine pointing and clicking to set up the OS and not knowing what they just did. No wonder that OS gets attacked so much.

If you have a Microsoft machine that is infected what you need is the MS08-067 security update. You’ll have to look it up yourself - I have no need for it. You can read more about this fiasco here.

I’ll stick with my Linux and Open Source software thank you very much.

-j

Virginia releases first open source text book

Virginia has released a beta version of the nation’s first open source text book. The book is a collaboration by state departments of Technology and Education as well volunteer educators, engineers and scientists.

The book was developed using web based resources to quickly update information and aid in the collaboration effort. The tools include technologies such as Java, Django, Ajax and the Google Web tool kit. The book was produced using the FlexBook platform developed by the CK-12 Foundation of Palo Alto, Calif.

The Virginia Physics FlexBook is an effort to update educational material more quickly than can be done with traditional textbooks. The typical review and procurement cycle of states and school systems, coupled with the several years it can take for changes to make their way into published texts, means that students in even the best schools could be using material that is a decade or more out of date.

A typical textbook can be over a decade behind current technology and events. The procurement cycle coupled with the time it takes changes to make their way into published text causes obsolete material to become a part of a schools curriculum. The speed of information change and technology makes this unacceptable in preparing students for today’s workforce.

A team of scientists and engineers studied Virginia’s science education curriculum and concluded that it was inadequate to prepare students for the 21st century workforce. Given that it discussed such things as cathode ray tubes (CRT) and had no mention of LCD, LED or plasma for monitors and televisions it is easy to understand the conclusion. It also epitomises the need for a way of producing a textbook and curriculum quickly and at low cost to keep pace with the technology that students should be studying. Open source provided the correct vehicle to accomplish this end.

The team, lead by retired NASA research engineer Jim Batterson, recommended that teachers have access to an open-source platform that would let them develop and share their own course material in a cooperative environment, such as a wiki.

Beyond the obvious benefits that such a textbook provides American students I am happy to see the recognition of open source by our government and institutions of higher education and the cost-benefit ratio that it provides.

Read more about the project here.

-j

CEOs ask Obama to mandate that agencies consider Open Source

The Collaborative Software Initiative and other backers of Open Source Software sent a letter to President Obama requesting that he mandate federal agencies consider how software purchased by the federal government is developed.

The letter stated that the open and collaborative way that open source software is developed mirrors the way that Obama wants to shape the government. It’s openness for for development and collaboration transparency is the way that Obama has said that he wants the US government to be in all of it’s dealings. The letter was signed by Collaborative Software Initiative Senior Developer David Christiansen and Chief Executive Officer Stuart Cohen, along with 14 CEOs of software development companies,

Paul Jones, an information science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill says that Open-source software is already widely used by the military and intelligence agencies. He also believes that software developers are not likely to get an exclusive open-source mandate and that open-source solutions should compete on their merits, which are many.

“In some cases, open-source, or at the very least open formats, should be required so that the software, procedures…can be audited,” Jones said. “For archiving purposes, and for Freedom of Information Act purposes, software source and format definitions should be at minimum placed in escrow.”

The letter went on to say that open source reduces costs in the areas of application hosting and development and added that “the Obama administration should consider open-source software in its effort to standardize and digitize medical records”.

I for one am all for this. At the very least it makes agencies move away from Microsoft FUD and consider other alternatives for technology needs. In turn, if the software stands on it’s own merits and provides the required functionality, which I it will, the financial burden of the tax payers is greatly reduced.

References: Federal Computer Week

-j

A response to Why are some open source people so adamant about doing a discervice to their users?

I want to respond to a post by one of my fellow bloggers titled Why are some open source people so adamant about doing a discervice to their users?

I will be the first to admit some people are close to fanatical about software that they use. Most notably I’ve seen this with Open Source users, developers and administrators and Lotus Notes developers and administrators. Fanaticism about anything causes people to do and say things without thinking them through. I am referring to the administrator in the aforementioned article. That, however, is not what this post is about.

In his post Mr. Denny states and asks the following: “However I recently saw a post on /. about how a university network admin wanted to start switching the university over to open source.The only thing that came to mind was why on earth would you want to do such a disservice to your students?” How is this a disservice?

The truth of the matter is that it is more of disservice to not want to do something like this. It is more economically responsible than just going out and blindly buying proprietary products (read licenses) without thought to less expensive open source alternatives that provide the same capabilities.

Then all of a sudden we switch gears to something more specific: “In the article he’s talking about replacing Office 2007 with Open Office. Which is a fine idea for home, or for a business; however an educational institution should be more concerned with making sure that the students have access to what they will be using in the real world when they get into the job market.”

First I want to point out that the statement contradicts itself. He says it’s “fine idea for home, or for a business” but then says that students should “have access to what they will be using in the real world when they get into the job market.”. Most people go to work for a business Mr. Denny.

Moving beyond that my personal experience with Open Office is that the learning curve is minimal with the word processor and non-existent with the slide show or spreadsheet modules. I know that Microsoft used to sell a pared down version of Office for around $10 or $15 to students. Isn’t it better for the students to have a full working version of whatever software that they are going to use?

To his credit he does state that in an ideal world students should have access to both versions. I do agree with this. It is the only way to for anyone to make a valid decision about any product that they use.

This statement is the one that really gets me though: “While open source is great, most large companies (which is where most university students want to end up) don’t use much if any open source applications.” I’m positive that what he means by this are companies like IBM, NASDAQ, Eli Lilly, Yahoo!, Wal Mart and Lockheed. Let’s not leave out government agencies like the NSA, the U.S Navy and the U.S. Army. I know these people use Open Source, Mr. Denny, from either personal experience or from talking with people that work at these places. Maybe you should get out more or, at the very least, take off the Microsoft blinders.

I could go on but I believe that I have made my point. By the way Mr. Denny, you say that Open Source is great. Have you ever actually used it consistently for longer than a week or two?

-j

Your voice, the new President and Open Source

Did you know that there is a web site called http://USAspending.gov that was created and runs on an open source platform? I didn’t until recently.

Congress passed a law in 2006 that says that every government contract along with it’s sponsors and associated costs must be made available to the U.S. public. The only exemption are those areas which are classified. Open Source software helped bring this project in under budget and on time.

That said let’s get to the meat of this. President elect Obama vowed to go over every budget item line by line to find out where the excess spending is and cut it out of the budget. Good for him.

Now as proponents of Open Source and U.S. Citizens it is our responsibility to give him some help. Because of the law that Congress passed we also can go over every budget item line by line and speak to our representatives about the “fat”. In fact this President has invited all of us to participate in this great new Democratic Experiment. And participate we should.

With this tool and a president who promises to listen to us we should find all kind of dollars that we all know are not spent in the best interest of this country. I’m certainly going to and you should as well.

-j

Russia and Cuba kick out Microsoft in favor of Open Source Software

In a recent article that I ran across the two Governments have decided that Open Source is what they should be using instead of Microsoft. They stated the normal reasons that we usually hear when a government makes this decision. Primarily it has to do with economics and the introduction of Open Source Software into their fiscal institutions, schools and government institutions.

To use their words a move like this

Alexei Smirnov said that the distribution of free software as in Cuba, and Russia is a strategic priority related to the sovereignty of countries

Like I said this sounds like pretty much the same reasons that we hear from other governments making this move.

What really bothered me though were some of the comments that were made regarding this article and Russia’s and Cuba’s decision.

OMG and this is supposed to be a “good thing”, sure russia and cuba, socialist/communist regemes, uses assinations, fear and extortion, and are very against the American way of life,

but becuase they are using linux, and supposedly again Microsoft, you know that company that employes thousands of Americans and western people all over the world.

that makes this kind of thing good.

So you would not mind if Linux was used in russian cruse missiles pointed at the US, as long as they accepted the GPLv2. ??

you guys are a freaking joke,

and

You’re absolutely right: torture, imprisonment without trial, illegal “disappearances” and a cynical disregard for international norms like the Geneva Convention are completely unacceptable, whatever the operating system.

Really now. How long has it been since Russia has been a serious threat to the US or any other country? From where I sit they get involved in the same political battles of right and wrong that we do. Their Nuclear Missiles have long been destroyed.

An speaking of supporting countries that have countless human rights violations what about China and the Olympics. Did you watch them or boycott them in favor of your idealism?

IMHO Russia and other countries are beginning to grasp the realities and advantages of the freedom of people to think and do and starting to reap the benefits of it for their own countries. Russia even acknowledged Alexei Smirnov, CEO of ALT Linux, as leader in bringing this movement to bear. If you didn’t know ALT Linux is developed in Russia.

The negative statements made above are from non thinking people who are going to find fault with anything and everything. That is their right as people living in a free country or countries. It is also the right of Russia, which is a country that is working towards freedom, to decide to build and deploy Open Source Software in their institutions and schools.

j-

Chalk one up for Linux and Health Care

When it comes to health care it always seems as though it and Linux have a strange relationship. Doctors tend to purchase software without any thought to cost or licensing. The generally leads them into a one-size-fits-all solution and they just deal with the shortcomings of the software or go and buy another one-size-fits all solution to cover the shortcomings. And so begins the “Endless Circle” of purchasing software, licensing and annual maintenance costs.

Now enter CRIX International (The Clinical Research Information Exchange), Red Hat, Alfresco and JBoss.

CRIX is a not-for-profit collaborative consortium that includes government agencies, members of the bio-pharmaceutical industry, academic researchers, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders in development of new drug therapies. Typically pharmaceutical research is slow and expensive. There is a tremendous amount of research data that has to get passed from company to company, including the FDA.

CRIX chose to use Red Hat, JBoss and Alfresco to make collaboration easier, faster and less expensive between all of the consortium members. Now as soon as a document is submitted all interested parties in the consortium have access to the information. If suggestions or editing ned to be made or done they are done very quickly and without having to send paper, cdrom’s or attachments by email to all of the parties. Alfresco’s software takes care of the version control. Alfesco is the perfect choice for this project since it is compatible with all major software suites including Microsoft Office. If you are a Windows user you can still use shared drives.

The benefits of this marriage

Will enable previously unmatched levels of collaboration among pharmaceutical companies, government agencies, academic institutions, and health care providers to make the drug development, testing, and approval process more secure and efficient while reducing costs and safeguarding the safety of the end consumer

The software that they developed became known as the CRIX Collaborative Platform. The CRIX Collaborative Platform was developed using Red Hat, Alfresco ECM and several components of the JBoss middleware. The reason for this is simple. It allows participants in the project and ISV’s to create whatever components or plugins they need to enhance the software for their particular use or need. Remember the “Endless Circle” above? Over and done with. Kaput. History. With the “Endless Circle” no longer in play now it is quicker and considerably less expensive to bring a drug to market.

Kudo’s to the folks at CRIX, Red Hat and Alfresco for making this happen. Anyone in the medical field should pay attention to this type of solution. It will pay huge dividends in the future. Not only will you get software that does exactly what you want, at a free to low cost, if your needs change you can recode the software meet those changing needs.

References: here

-j

Virus shuts down sales of ASUS eee PC’s in Japan

The virus known as recycled.exe was put on the D: drive at the factory. When the user booted the ASUS eee PC the first time the virus copied itself to the C: drive. According to ASUSTEK there were 4500 of the eee PCs made for Japan and only about 300 sold.

Now for me this begs the question…did this ever happen with all of the eee PCs sold and shipped with Linux? While I don’t officially know the answer my guess is that it did not.

That then brings myself and all Linux users to the next question…why do manufacturers insist on putting Windows on their machines rather than Linux? Market share or translated it’s what everybody has.

So let’s discuss the vaidity “everybody has it” and see if we can get some of you users to switch to desktop Linux. Yes I know all of the usual answers of why you don’t want to. It won’t do what I want it do. It doesn’t have software that allows me to do thus and such. I may have to use the command line. yadayadayada.

What exactly does it not do that you want it to do? It edits photos, plays music, plays DVDs, browses the internet and…wait for it…will even send and receive email. If you are a regular desktop user the chances that you are going to have to use the command line are about as great as the chances are that you will need to edit the Windows registry. In fact I would say that you would have to edit the registry before you would ever need to use the command line.

If you are a little more aggressive with the use of your desktop you already edit the registry. I can assure you that using the command line is much easier than editing the registry. Think about the fact that a lot of the configurations of any application that you run on Windows resides in the registry. Compare that to all of you configurations for any application that you use in Linux are text files and reside in the /etc directory. I know from experience that editing a text file is considerably easier than editing the registry.

So what then is the problem? Are you afraid to learn something new? It costs you absolutely nothing to try or buy so it can’t be the cost. If you are reading this then you have the intelligence to learn and run Linux.

Go ahead think about it. Stop buying licenses that don’t even let you own the software let alone install it on as many machines as you need to.

Download an easy to use distribution such as Ubuntu or CentOS and find the freedom of using and installing software on as many machines as you need. No cost to you unless you opt to buy a pre-burned set of CD’s for about $5. Ubuntu is more for a regular user and CentOS is more for an Administrator or Power User type who need stability and likes to run servers and experiment with software on their local machine.

When it is all said and done you will be glad that you did.

-j

Open Source products that add to the bottom line

I have often wondered when the thought processes of people would shift from equating Linux and Open Source as one and the same. I need not wonder any longer as that time is here. And this is a good thing.

In the past people, more often than not, spoke of Linux and Open Source in a way that would lead one to believe that they are one and the same. Until a year or two ago this was probably true as most open source applications were only available on Linux. Now though, open source applications are standing on their own and are becoming known as Open Source applications not Linux applications.

Kudos to the developers for causing this shift. Why? The open source developers, unlike Windows developers, are creating cross platform applications that will either run on Windows or run Windows software. They are doing this at breakneck speed as well. It is easy to understand why when you look at the economic business models of open source.

The business models of open source generate revenue by selling update and support services as opposed to selling licenses. It is the nature of open source to not sell licenses as the source code is open. There would be no point in it.

Now take a look at the economy. It’s not rocket science to see that spending, even IT spending, is slowing down. Now, if I have a product that I will let you have for free and even give you the choice of whether or not to by updates and service with it, and it will run on Windows or Linux, what are you going to do? Go buy the Windows only application with all of it’s license fees plus the annual “maintenance” fee that is 20% of the original license fee? Only if you don’t have the sense God gave a baboon.

I’ll give you some examples of open source applications that fill the need for productive and secure applications that can be done at an open source cost.

Vyatta open source routers. From their website: “Vyatta solutions combine the features, performance, and reliability of an enterprise router and firewall with the cost savings, flexibility, and security of open source to introduce new levels of economics, choice, and control into the network.”. If you interpret “enterprise router and firewall” as Cisco or HP you are probably right on the money. No pun intended.

How about Jitterbit open source integration software? Jitterbit handles integration of data between heterogeneous applications so that the information is combined. With a customer list that includes NASA and Continental Airlines who would think that they shouldn’t use open source software?

There are many others out there including Alfresco that competes with Microsoft’s Sharepoint to the point of integrating with Microsoft Office and offering shared drives. Take the Zimbra Collaboration Suite that has seamless compatibility with clients like Microsoft Outlook, Apple desktop suite, and Mozilla Thunderbird, add in the connectors for Blackberry, Smartphone and Alfresco and you have a collaboration suite that rivals any on the market for functionality and beats them on cost whether or not you purchase their services.

So given today’s economy and the fact the company needs to generate a profit to keep from laying off people, I believe you should strongly consider what open source has to offer.

-j