A Microsoft Veteran Embraces Open Source

That in itself isn't unique. More unusual is that Mr. Curtis, an 11-year veteran of Microsoft, the world's largest software company, believes deeply that open source is the future of software.

Microsoft, of course, has long been the archenemy of the open source community, which is built on the notion of freely sharing intellectual property for the good of the community. I.B.M. and Sun Microsystems have embraced the open source cause, as have other technology giants. Even Apple's OS X operating system is at its core open source -- an Apple executive has said that more than 50 percent of the lines of code in OS X come from the open source Berkeley Software Distribution and related projects.

In contrast, Microsoft has made only grudging accommodations to the open source movement, offering some of its source code to programmers who use its technology while valiantly arguing that for-pay software is less expensive than free software when you consider the bigger picture.

Mr. Curtis, who joined Microsoft in 1993 and left in 2004, begs to differ. And while he says he holds no grudge against his former employer, in the long run, the company "is toast."

His book, "After the Software Wars," was published last month by Lulu.com, a Web-based publishing service that makes it possible for Mr. Curtis to give the first 1,000 readers the option of downloading a free version of the book (590 people have already taken advantage of the offer) or purchasing a paperback version for $19.97 (so far he has sold 11 copies, five of which were purchased by his mom).

He takes a programmer's approach in "Software Wars," attempting to systematically build a case that software can help pave the way for a 21st-century renaissance in many fields ranging from artificial intelligence (cars that drive themselves) to the human journey into space (space elevators).
For Mr. Curtis, the strength of open source software, and why it's the future, is all about leveraging our collective intelligence.

He argues that, in the same collaborative fashion that the Linux operating system has been built and improved, many things that are now science-fiction goals -- such as those cars that drive themselves -- can be achieved.

"The key to faster technological progress is making software free," he writes. "The difference between free, and non-free or proprietary software, is similar to the divide between science and alchemy. Before science, there was alchemy, where people guarded their ideas because they wanted to corner the market on the mechanisms used to convert lead into gold."

He notes that there is an important parallel to the end of the Dark Ages, which came when society began to freely share advancements in math and science.

None of his arguments are new. What is intriguing is where Mr. Curtis comes from.

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Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 by Andreas Jaeger

Yesterday Coolo released openSUSE 11.1 RC2 internally to fix all existing bugs marked as shipstopper.  We use now the SHIP_STOPPER flag in bugzilla to mark bugs as blocking the release (see our wiki for the usage of SHIP_STOPPER) and not anymore BLOCKER (which blocks testing or development).  If you want to search in bugzilla for the currently open SHIP_STOPPERS, you can use this query.

We also found one really annoying bug in our configuration that lead to the following output:

$ rpm -q -queryformat '%{vendor}\n' glibc
openSUSEopenSUSE:11.1 openSUSE:11.1

Therefore, the openSUSE Build Service is currently rebuilding all 11.1 rpm packages with a corrected vendor tag.  Also a couple of packages where checked in to fix bugs so that we soon get RC3.

If RC3 passes all tests, we hope to release it publicly as Goldmaster - the release date is still the 18th of December.

[ Update 9:53 EST: be sure to read the red bolded information directly below --Dietrich ]

Due to the time it takes to release a build publicly, we are not releasing any RCs besides RC1 to the public.

I'm running RC2 on my machines now and I'm quite happy with this release.

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BARCELONA (Reuters) - The world's biggest mobile phone maker, Nokia, could start to use open-source Linux software on its more expensive phone models, a senior company official said on Tuesday.

"In the longer perspective, Linux will become a serious alternative for our high-end phones," Ukko Lappalainen, vice president at Nokia's markets unit, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the "Nokia World" industry conference.

Linux's role in the handset industry is growing as Google has introduced its Linux-based Android platform, but Lappalainen said Nokia was likely to stick to its own Linux development.

Nokia uses Linux maemo software in its niche offering of Internet tablets, while it uses Symbian software for its phones.

"I don't see anything in Android which would make it better than Linux maemo," Lappalainen said. (Reporting by Tarmo Virki)

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Asus is to take on the $199 OLPC XO laptop with a $200 Small, Cheap Computer for the developing world.

The company's keeping mum about the details of the machine, saying only that it'll debut in Q1 2009 for $200 (£134/€159).

Asus Eee PC and friend: even cheaper next year

Asus is scheduled to once again host a big launch event at January's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Last year, it focused on the already shipping Eee PC 4G - its first, 7in netbook - and the company's WiMax plans.

The anticipated second-gen Eee PC - later to debut as the 901 - was, however, a no show.

The 4G is still available, as is a cut-down version, the 2G, which retails from $240 (£161/€190) upward. The 2G has a 571MHz Celeron M processor, 512MB of memory and 2GB of solid-state storage.

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Songbird, the open-source, media focused web browser, has launched its 1.0 milestone release to the public. The browser, which we've covered extensively since it was first announced back in 2005, offers a number of features that make it an appealing alternative to music players like iTunes, including a feature called mashTape will automatically cull the internet for relevant content for each song you play, using sources like YouTube and Flickr. The app also includes integrated support for Last.fm, concert ticket purchases, and add-ons to further enhance the browser.

In practice the browser works well (not much of the interface seems to have changed since the .7 release that I covered in August). Since .7, most of the changes have been under the hood, enhancing music playback and performance along with a few minor tweaks (for example, users can now use keyboard shortcuts).

The experience may seem odd for first time users, as it presents a strange fusion of iTunes with Firefox (the two browsers share the same Mozilla engine). But after a few minutes the foreignness wears off and the benefits become clear, though I suspect that some people will never get over the hybrid nature of the feature-set.

The app does have some acknowledged shortcomings - you can't rip albums using Songbird, and there's no way to sync an iPhone to the app. These pitfalls would probably be enough to put off most casual users, but Songbird appeals to a more hardcore listening demographic that is more willing to embrace emerging software (90% of the app's users are on Firefox, and 80% have music libraries over 10 gigs in size).

Bittorrent declares war on VoIP, gamers

The next internet meltdown

by Richard Bennett - 1st December 2008 12:29 GMT

In the mid-80s, the internet was subject to a phenomenon called "Congestion Collapse" that frequently made it unusable. Congestion Collapse (also known as "internet meltdown") came about because the system that was designed into IP to notify systems of network congestion, "Source Quench" messages, didn't work when the network was too congested to handle additional traffic. So an algorithm was developed - the Jacobson Algorithm - to slow down the rate at which TCP offered traffic to the network when it was evident that routers weren't able to handle the traffic load. While Jacobson is highly inefficient - often causing network links to cycle between 50 per cent to 75 per cent of capacity - it does in fact lead to stability, a much more important goal than efficiency.

The ISPs' dilemma

ISPs which throttle users based on raw traffic volume (as the new Comcast system will do) are protected from the effects of the massive use of aggressive UDP inside their networks. And they should be, as these private networks aren't internets in and of themselves. The damage is going to appear inside the core internet links connecting ISPs, which will become much less responsive to load management.

One rational response is to make UDP the prime candidate for packet discard. When five per cent of users consume half the network's resources and block access to 75 per cent of its total capacity, it makes sense to target them for throttling. But such throttling will utterly destroy VoIP.

(Note: in principle, VoIP can be distinguished from P2P over UDP, but only by non-politically correct means such as Deep Packet Inspection. Nor is it consistent with the net neutrality laws proposed in the US and the EU forbidding discrimination based on protocol type, source, or destination.)

uTorrent's net-killing feature is a slap in the face to the very regulators who've sanctioned ISPs in the name of this "innovative new application": it bites the hand that's fed it with immunity from rational management. And it also gives the lie to the internet Utopians who've claimed that internet users manage shared facilities so well that throttling isn't necessary inside the network. Such idealism is simply a prescription for the return of internet meltdown, this time with a vengeance.

The internet evolved as a gentleman's system in the comfortable confines of the ivory towers of academe, but now that it's an essential part of daily life for more than a billion people, the time has come to get realistic about its management. Some of the people who use this system are spoiled children with no more concern for the greater good than junkies looking for their next fix. They can't be allowed to spoil it for the rest of us, and the only practical means to prevent their doing so is to unleash effective management upon them.

The best way to ensure that uTP doesn't kill the internet is to throttle it at the source, and any law that stands in the way of ISPs exercising that level of management is deadly to the internet. We can thank the uTorrent developers for reminding us of that salient fact.

Richard Bennett is a network architect and occasional activist in Silicon Valley. He wrote the first standard for Ethernet over twisted-pair wiring and contributed to the standards for Wi-Fi and the Ultra-Wideband wireless networks. His 11-year-old blog is at bennett.com.

Books for Geeks

November 30, 2008  by -- bookGeek @ 3:22 pm

Nokia World 2008 is taking place this week in Barcelona, Spain and the event kicked off with the keynote announcing the Nokia N97 multimedia computer. The Nokia N97 brings a QWERTY keyboard and touch screen to the Nseries or you could say it brings a phone and S60 to the Nokia Internet Tablet. The Nokia promotional materials state, "Desktop.Laptop.Pocket" as they bring you a device with a 3.5 inch touch screen display (640×360 pixels resolution) that slides up and at an angle (similar to the AT&T Tilt) to reveal a full 3-row QWERTY keyboard and directional pad. I was expecting to see S60 touch launch on a Nseries rather than the Nokia 5800 we saw last month.

Lots of people think Netbooks are the next big volume market because they allow people who previously couldn't afford computers to own one. People got so bullish on the devices that sales projections reached 50 million units by 2012.

I've had a chance to test many of the units, though, and I can say that the promise is much bigger than the payoff. Perhaps that's why Intel is rethinking whether the devices are as great as everyone's expectations.

A typical Netbook has a 7 inch screen, an Intel Atom or Via Nano processor, a solid state (flash) hard drive and a keyboard that's 80-85% standard size. Most have Wifi. Some have other bells and whistles like bluetooth, a camera, etc.

I find Netbooks unusable for three reasons: they're underpowered as PCs, the screen is too small for web surfing, and the keyboard is so small that effective typing is impossible.

Blurring of MVC lines: Programming the Web Browser.

When HTML first came out, browsers could have been called "Application Thin Clients", if the buzzword had been in use at the time. The introduction of javascript made it possible to execute code on the client, and this turned browsers into something much more than just a "display" mechanism.

Before Javascript, Web application development was simple: everything was done server-side. The concept of MVC - Model View Controller - was easy: the HTML was generated, and that was the view. With Javascript being a full-blown programming language, the lines are being blurred between which code is responsible for the View, the Controller and even the Model. The resultant split of responsibility across client and server in wildly diverse programming languages is driving many developers to alternative technologies such as Flash, and causing headaches for those Web developers who remain.

The key components of the solution - to allow the developer to create MVC applications in a single programming language, where at least the "View" source is extracted and compiled to Javascript and HTML - actually exist and are used in production environments, thanks to Google Web Toolkit and Pyjamas. RubyJS is well on the way, too.

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Intel rethinks Netbooks: 'Fine for an hour' but...

Posted by Brooke Crothers

The Netbook, take two: When Advanced Micro Devices said it wasn't going to focus on Netbooks, as Intel and its partners defined them, maybe it was on to something.

Intel is re-evaluating the Netbook market as possibly not The Next Big Thing. This from the company that makes the Atom processor and accompanying silicon that go into most of the Netbooks sold today.

HP Mini Netbook 1030NR: the next big thing?

(Credit: Best Buy)

At a recent Raymond James IT Supply Chain Conference (streamed via this Intel page), Stu Pann, vice president in the sales and marketing group at Intel, said his company sees the Netbook differently now.

"We originally thought Netbooks would be for emerging markets and younger kids, and there is some of that. It turns out the bulk of the Netbooks sold today are Western Europe, North America, and for people who just want to grab and go with a notebook," Pann said. "We view the Netbook as mostly incremental to our total available market," he added.

And the most revealing statement? "If you've ever used a Netbook and used a 10-inch screen size--it's fine for an hour. It's not something you're going to use day in and day out."

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Thursday, November 27th, 2008 by Joe Brockmeier

The openSUSE Project is happy to announce that openSUSE 11.1 RC 1 is now available. If all goes well, this will be the last testing release before the final 11.1 public release on December 18th.

This release includes a number of bugfixes and changes since 11.1 beta 5, as well as a new license.

Call for Testing

We all want openSUSE 11.1 to be the best release yet, and we need your help to get there. This release is ready for widespread testing, and we're encouraging everyone to download and work with the testing releases to find any critical bugs before release. Please run the release through your usual routine, and let us know about any bugs or other issues that you find.

Remember that this is a release candidate, and is not suitable for use on production systems, however. Though many openSUSE users can and do use the Factory distribution and/or testing releases for day-to-day work we want to stress that it's entirely possible that you will encounter serious bugs.

See openSUSE.org/Testing for more information on Testing.

To follow the testing and development process, we suggest that you subscribe to the openSUSE-Factory mailing list, and join the #openSUSE-Factory channel on Freenode to discuss openSUSE development.

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