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- Has Ubuntu clinched the desktop Linux market?
- On the surface a two-month delay in Red Hat's release of Global Desktop Linux is no big deal. (Picture of a Dell laptop running Ubuntu from Indiecom.)The aim of the project is not just to deliver an operating system, but a complete environment, including applications, aimed at the mass market.Some...
- Tags: Strategy, mass market, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, Hardware, Distributions, General
- Blog posts 2007-08-03
- The Comdexification of Linux
- Linuxworld hits San Francisco next week with 11,000 attendees. The media is filled with stories about the "mainstreaming" of open source.Maybe. I'm more worried about open source Comdexifying, about Comdexification if you will.If you're under 30 you may barely know what I'm talking about. But back in the last century...
- Tags: mass market, marketing, Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, General, Events, business models
- Blog posts 2007-08-03
- Dear Zonbu, think server
- Zonbu is billing itself as a cheap client, a PC replacement, the true $100 laptop.But what if you called it a server?Its $12.95/month service charge is designed to pay for online updates, including security updates and backup services. If you have a home network, two kids each with a PC,...
- Tags: Database Management, business models, Applications, General, Hardware, Implementations, LANs and WANs, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, management, marketing, mass market, Network Administration, Software as a Service, Strategy, support, wireless
- Blog posts 2007-07-25
- Is Zonbu the next revolution?
- Zonbu right, a start-up from French entrepreneurs Gregoire Gentil Twingo and Alain Rossmann (EO, OpenWave), combines a cellphone business model with open source software to deliver a complete Linux-based PC for as little as $99 and $12.95/month.The box is pre-loaded with a host of open source freeware -- Linux, Firefox, OpenOffice, Skype,...
- Tags: Software as a Service, Linux Desktop OS, Hardware, General, Strategy, Linux, business models, mass market
- Blog posts 2007-07-24
- Linus vs. the GPLv3
- Linus Torvalds is like my mama.As in, when mama ain't happy, ain't no one happy. (Picture from Wikimedia Commons.)Right now, Linus ain't happy, not at all. Especially about GPLv3. He considers the anti-Tivoization provisions in the new license, which keep you from crippling hardware containing software using the license, to...
- Tags: Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, Legal, GPL, General
- Blog posts 2007-07-10
- No politics please, we're Linux!
- The first, highly-anticipated Linux Collaboration Summit is history.Great! says Andy Oram for O'Reilly. A second wind, chimes in NetworkWorld. Linux going green, says InfoWorld.But what really happened? Development promises were made in areas like accessibility, printing, power management and device drivers. Welcome stuff, but in marketing terms it reads like an...
- Tags: support, politics, Microsoft, mass market, Linux Desktop OS, Linux
- Blog posts 2007-06-18
- Hanrahan hire shows true Microsoft weakness
- Microsoft's hire of Tom Hanrahan right, formerly director of engineering for the Linux Foundation (and before that of the OSDL, one of its predecessors) says a lot about the company's true open source situation.Hanrahan will now be running Microsoft's interoperability lab, which it set up after its Novell deal. His immediate...
- Tags: support, Strategy, Microsoft, Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, General
- Blog posts 2007-06-11
- Xandros deal is Microsoft water torture strategy
- Long-time readers of this blog may remember how two years ago I sat down to lunch with Marc Fleury, then running JBoss.Fleury was celebrating because he'd signed a re-sale agreement with Microsoft. The deal was superior to one IBM offered, he told me, in that it did not interfere with his...
- Tags: Strategy, resellers, Patents, Microsoft, management, Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, Legal, Enterprise Policy, Distributions
- Blog posts 2007-06-05
- Open source does the good-cop, bad-cop routine
- One of the great frustrations in dealing with Microsoft on open source questions is its tendency to play "good-cop bad-cop" games. (The image at right is actually the logo of a record label in Boston, which you might want to visit.)Good-cop bad-cop is a great interrogation technique "As Seen On...
- Tags: Strategy, Software Licensing, Patents, Microsoft, Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, Legal, GPL, General
- Blog posts 2007-06-01
- One Laptop Per Salesman
- Following up on my previous post, and in answer to the recent piece by our own Adrian Kingsley-Hughes on the failure of desktop Linux, I would like to make a modest proposal.An all-in Linux laptop.That is you sell a laptop with a Linux, a user interface, and all the applications...
- Tags: business models, Hardware, Linux Desktop OS, mass market, mobile, Strategy
- Blog posts 2007-05-31
- Are Linux vendors predatory?
- I want to continue our discussion about penguins as predators by talking about Covalent.(This limited edition ale was described as ""a bomber you can't refuse" by its producer, Boulder Brewing.)Covalent's business is supporting open source projects, then selling direct support of the same software to corporate clients. Covalent doesn't launch projects....
- Tags: business models, Development, General, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, management, support
- Blog posts 2007-05-30
- Zemlin of Linux Foundation lets fly at Microsoft
- The reason for the merger which created the Linux Foundation was to give open source a big, unified platform from which to respond to threats. (Picture of penguins flying in the water is by Guillaume Daugard.)Given the reality of Microsoft's patent threat, it was only a matter of time before...
- Tags: General, GPL, Legal, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, Microsoft, Patents
- Blog posts 2007-05-29
- Novell document dump makes it look like a scandal
- The Washington game of dumping incriminating documents late on a Friday is well-known. When someone does it, suspicions are raised. (Image from the blog of La Shawn Barber.)Now Novell has done just that with its Friday night document dump on the Microsoft agreement. Just to make us even more suspicious,...
- Tags: FOSS, GPL, Legal, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, Microsoft, Patents
- Blog posts 2007-05-27
- Is no news good news for Red Hat?
- Red Hat held its annual summit in San Diego this week. It drew scant press coverage.There were news announcements:Red Hat announced a Linux on mainframes program. There is still money in big iron.Red Hat will build a Virtual Appliance OS with Intel, delivering virtualization to desktops using Intels vPro.Red Hat...
- Tags: Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, IBM, General, Development, marketing, Red Hat, Strategy
- Blog posts 2007-05-10
- Red Hat spins disappointing Dell loss
- What do Red Hat and Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson have in common this morning?Theyre both trying to spin a disappointing loss. Fortunately in the case of Red Hat the season is far from over. Scott Crenshaw of Red Hat has responded to this weeks news about Dell and Ubuntu,...
- Tags: Strategy, mass market, marketing, Linux Desktop OS, Hardware, General
- Blog posts 2007-05-04
- Whose is the standard Linux?
- We know who runs Windows, we know who runs the Mac. We know whose throat to choke when our PCs go ker-flooey. (Picture from Skeptico.)Who really runs Linux?By that I mean, which Linux distro is the standard, the one people write to, the one which will really take on Microsoft...
- Tags: General, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, mass market, Strategy
- Blog posts 2007-05-01
- Stuart Cohen tackling the vertical application stack
- Whatever happened to Stuart Cohen, former head of the OSDL, now part of the Linux Foundation?He sent out a press release today, and it seems hes launched an effort called the Collaborative Software Initiative CSI. The initials are cute, but the intent is to build open...
- Tags: resellers, Linux Server OS, Linux Desktop OS, Linux, Implementations, General, Development, business models
- Blog posts 2007-04-16
- Do We Need Operating Systems?
- RedHat will announce RedHat Enterprise Linux 5 today, at a dicey time for the industry.Wall Street has begun to sour on Linux as a business. Douglas MacIntyre of 24/7 Wall Street is among the disenchanted."Linux has been a bust," he wrote last week. Total revenues for RedHat and Novell combined...
- Tags: OPEN SOURCE, Operating systems, Red Hat Inc., Billy Marshall, operating system
- Blog posts 2007-03-14
- Less to Raymond letter than meets the eye, or more?
- Eric Raymond left has switched his desktop from RedHat to Ubuntu.Is that a headline? Sounds more like a celebrity endorsement to me.And make no mistake, Eric Raymond is a celebrity. At least in the corner of the computing world called open source he is. People in this world recognize the...
- Tags: General, Linux, Software Licensing, Legal, Strategy, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, mass market
- Blog posts 2007-02-23
- The commie smear against open source
- There are days on this beat when I fear Im covering politics, not business.It happens when the proprietary companies trot out their FUD that open source is somehow socialist, communist, as pink as its programmers underwear.Because proprietary companies will always spend more of their money on marketing than open source...
- Tags: business models, General, Legal, Linux, Linux Desktop OS, Linux Server OS, Microsoft, Patents
- Blog posts 2007-02-20
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