christian.einfeldt - Slashdot User

Submission + - What's up with the Munich Linux migration? (worldlabel.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Saturday June 27, 2009 @06:27PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "The Munich decision to move its 14,000 desktops to Free Open Source Software created a big splash back in 2003 as news circulated of the third-largest German city's defection from Microsoft. When it was announced in 2003, the story garnered coverage even in the US, such as an extensive article in USAtoday on-line. Currently, about 60% of desktops are using OpenOffice, with the remaining 40% to be completed by the end of 2009. Firefox and Thunderbird are being used in all of the city's desktop machines. Ten percent of desktops are running the LiMux Debian-based distro, and 80% will be running LiMux by 2012 at the latest. Autonomy was generally considered more important than costs savings, although the LiMux initiative is increasing competition in the IT industry in Munich already. The program has succeeded because the city administration has been careful to reach out to all stakeholders, from managers down to simple end users."

Submission + - Microsoft earning only $15 per XP netbook (wsj.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Sunday May 03, 2009 @01:14AM

christian.einfeldt writes: "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is earning only about $15.00 USD for each netbook sold with Microsoft Windows XP. The WSJ cites the proliferation of netbooks as a factor contributing to the 8% decline in Windows revenue for the quarter that ended in December, 2008. The netbook market segment poses an on-going problem for Microsoft, according to the WSJ, in light of the fact that Gartner, a market research firm, recently predicted unit sales of netbooks will grow nearly 80% this year to 21 million units, while overall PC sales decline a record 11.9%. Microsoft will respond by offering Microsoft Windows 7 Starter Edition, which features limited functionality such as limited customization and a cap of three applications running concurrently. Dell, meanwhile, has said recently that its sales of Linux-based netbooks constitute about one-third of its Inspiron Mini 9s, with return rates comparable to that of Inspiron Mini 9s netbooks running XP."

Submission + - Hungary, Tatarstan latest to go FOSS (heise.de)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Saturday April 11, 2009 @07:19PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "It seems as if almost every other week there is news of another government migration toward Free Open Source Software. Two of the most recent moves in this direction come from Hungary and the tiny independent former Russian republic of Tatarstan. On April 2, The Hungarian government announced that it will be modifying its procurement rules to mandate that open source procurement funding match expenditures for proprietary software, according to Ferenc Baja, deputy minister for information technology. In Tatarstan, a Republic of 3.8 million inhabitants, the Deputy Minister of Education, Ludmila Nugumanova, announced that by the end of this school year, all 2,400 educational institutions in Tatarstan will have completed a transition to GNU-Linux, following a successful pilot program in rolled out in 2008 across 1000 schools in the Republic of Tartarstan, the region of Perm and the province of Tomsk in the Russian Federation."

Submission + - Major League Baseball dumps Silverlight for Flash (zdnet.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @06:20PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "Major League Baseball will open this week without Microsoft's Silverlight at the plate, according to Bob Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which handles much of the back end operations for Major League Baseball and several other leagues and sporting events. The change, which was decided last year but to be rolled out this spring, was due to technical glitches such as difficulties users experienced starting downloading Silverlight. Adobe Flash already exists on 99% of user machines, said Bowman, and Adobe is 'committed to the customer experience in video with the Flash Player.' MLBAM's decision to dump Silverlight is particularly problematic for Microsoft's effort to compete with Adobe, due to the fact that MLBAM handles much of the back-end operations for CBS' Webcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and this year will do the encoding for the 2009 Masters golf tournament."

Comment 1/3 of Dell netbooks are sold with Linux... (Score 1) 774

by christian.einfeldt on Tuesday April 07, 2009 @06:04PM (#27496513) Attached to: Microsoft Boasts 96% Netbook Penetration

...and the return rate for Linux netbooks is comparable for the return rate for XP netbooks, according to Dell senior product manager John New. So Microsoft's numbers are suspect.

Submission + - Flying rocks named after RMS, Torvalds, GNU, Linux (wikipedia.org)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Sunday March 15, 2009 @05:02PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who once referred to the GNU-Linux operating system as a 'cancer' and who might be hoping that Microsoft's recent lawsuit against TomTom might help wipe the GNU-Linux 'cancer' off the face of the Earth, will be chagrined to learn that GNU-Linux has instead been immortalized in the heavens. It turns out that Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, GNU, and the Linux kernel have all been acknowledged for their contributions to science by having asteroids named after them. The eponymous asteroids are, respectively, 9882_Stallman, 9793_Torvalds, 9965_GNU, and 9885_Linux."

Submission + - Dvorak likes Linux (pcmag.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Monday March 09, 2009 @08:48PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "Like him or hate him, John C. Dvorak is an opinion-shaper who writes for mainstream publications like PCmag.com, and now Dvorak is saying he's sweet on Linux. He is planning on putting it on all of his 'ancillary machines', such as his kitchen machine, where he needs 'reliability and low price.' He found that his family was using the kitchen Windows machine in such a way as to invite malware. He says he is tired of the malware and the patches which only slow down Microsoft Windows even further. Dvorak was moved to go to Linux right now because he feels that Ubuntu 8.10 performs as well as Microsof Windows 2000, which he says some observers feel was the best version of Windows Microsoft ever released. He finds that there is a decent Linux substitute for almost any Windows program, except Adobe Photoshop, and even there he likes the GIMP. Dvorak says he uses an iMac at the office, and he will still be foreced to use Microsoft Windows because he writes about it. He recommends Linux for small businesses, and recommends testing Linux with live CDs. 'You won't regret it,' he says."

Submission + - UK Government Removing Barriers to Open Source (cio.gov.uk)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Wednesday February 25, 2009 @01:00AM

christian.einfeldt writes: "On February 24, the Chief Information Officer Council of the UK issued new guidelines which changes the way that the government of the United Kingdom will acquire software. The new guidelines will require that all UK agencies 'consider open source solutions on their merits according to total lifetime cost of ownership' and seek to quantify proprietary exit costs and proprietary lock-in as factors affecting the overall costs of software. The rules also direct agencies to share their evaluations of software, so that where open source solutions are evaluated and approved by one part of the UK government, that evaluation should not be repeated, but instead shared. The new policies also show a UK preference for the Open Document Format over the 'emerging' Office Open XML format. Sun Microsystems Open Source Officer Simon Phipps thinks that the new guidelines will go a long way toward shifting the UK's software acquisition policy from a procurement-driven market model, which favors proprietary software, to an adoption-led market model, which places open source software on a more equal footing with proprietary software."

Comment a Linux sale is a Linux sale (Score 3, Insightful) 230

by christian.einfeldt on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @03:22PM (#26973675) Attached to: 1 of 3 Dell Inspiron Mini Netbooks Sold With Linux

Assuming that it is true that loads of people are installing Microsoft Windows XP on their Linux-powered Dell Inspiron netbooks (which I'm not sure is true, since the original article didn't mention that), it doesn't really matter. A Linux sale is a Linux sale. When the Dell managers evaluate their future strategies, how much will they consider whether XP was installed post-sale? Very little.

And the same is true for Dell's competitors. If Dell's competitors see that they can move product in a down market by installing Linux on the machines, will they spend much time contemplating whether XP is installed on the machines? Probably not.

Most OEMs have small margins on their sales of all but the upper-end machines. Volume is what matters. Hence the power of Microsoft Windows. At least until today. For OEMs and pretty much everyone in the channel, volume is what matters. As of today, they will know that Linux distros have proven that they can drive one-third of that volume. That is what really matters.

And it gets better. As Linux-related desktop sales increase, you will see more and more third party vendors, such as 2dBoy, port their products to Linux, as maker of the popular indy game World of Goo has recently done.

Volume is king. And now Linux is seeing some significant volume sales.

Comment New browsers won't appear for years (Score 4, Insightful) 911

by christian.einfeldt on Tuesday February 24, 2009 @01:06AM (#26965919) Attached to: EU Says MS Must Offer Other Browsers; Now What?

Microsoft is going to fight this decision tooth and nail. They will appeal it and appeal it and appeal it. Microsoft has no good faith intention of complying with this order, any more than they comply with any other order. Look at what they did with the US anti-trust case. They stalled until W became the unelected US head of state, and then Bush promptly caved in and gave Microsoft everything it asked for.

Submission + - 1 of 3 Dell Inspiron Mini netbooks sold with Linux (laptopmag.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Monday February 23, 2009 @09:21PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "According to an article in Laptop Magazine on-line, one-third of Dell Inspiron Mini 9s netbooks are sold with the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Dell senior product manager John New attributed the sales volume to the lower price point of the Ubuntu Linux machines. And the return rate of the Ubuntu Linux machines is approximately equal to that of comparable netbooks sold with Microsoft Windows XP. Dell spokesperson Jay Pinkert attriutes the low return rate to Dell's good communications with its customers, saying 'We have done a very good job explaining to folks what Linux is.'"

Submission + - Red Hat Returns To The Linux Desktop (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

CWmike

on Monday February 23, 2009 @05:01PM

CWmike writes: "Red Hat used to be in the desktop business along with all the other Linux distributors. Then, they left. Now, however, Red Hat is switching from Xen to KVM for virtualization. As part of that switchover, Red Hat will be using not only KVM, but the SolidICE/SPICE desktop virtualization and management software suite to introduce a new server-based desktop virtualization system. Does this mean that Red Hat will be getting back into the Linux desktop business? That's the question I posed to Red Hat CTO Brian Stevens, in a phone call after the Red Hat/KVM press conference, and he told me that, 'Yes. Red Hat will indeed be pushing the Linux desktop again.'"

Submission + - Lessig Crowdsourcing Fairey's legal case versus AP (lessig.org)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Thursday February 19, 2009 @08:59PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "Stanford law professor Larry Lessig has issued a call to the masses for help in assisting Shepard Fairey in Fairey's legal case against the Associated Press arising out of the dispute over Fairey's famous poster depicting Obama's upturned, thoughtful face, a poster that in the minds of many defined the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. Lessig, writing on behalf of Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society (CIS), says that the CIS team would like help finding images similar to that of Mannie Garcia's preceding photograph of then-Senator Obama appearing with George Clooney during the campaign. Although Lessig is holding his cards close to his vest as to why similar photos are being sought, commentators on Lessig's blog seem to think that as more similar photos can be found, it becomes less likely that Fairey's poster alone had any impact on the market for the Mannie Garcia's photo; in other words, defending Fairey by spreading the "blame". But the more entertaining question might be: can the Slashdot effect alter the outcome of this case?"

Submission + - Steve Ballmer pleads for openness to beat Apple (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by

mjasay

on Thursday February 19, 2009 @01:55PM

mjasay writes: "At the Mobile World Congress, Steve Ballmer took aim at Apple's closed iPhone ecosystem with an ironic plea for openness: "Openness is central because it's the foundation of choice." Ballmer has apparently forgotten his company's own efforts to vertically integrate hardware and software (Zune, XBox), vertically integrating software (Tying SharePoint into Office, IE, SQL Server, Active Directory, etc.), as well as years of illegal tying of Windows to Internet Explorer that only the U.S. Justice Department could undo. Indeed, Microsoft's illegal tying in the browser market has pushed Mozilla to get involved in a recent European Commission action against the software giant, with Mozilla's Mitchell Baker recently declaring that "A number of illegal activities were also involved in creating IE's market dominance," now requiring government intervention to open up the browser market to fair competition. Putting aside Microsoft's own tainted reputation in the field of openness, is Ballmer right? Should Apple open up its iPhone platform to outside competition, both in terms of hardware and software? Or does anyone want Windows Mobile running on an iPhone?"

Submission + - World of Goo ported to Linux (2dboy.com)

Submitted by

christian.einfeldt

on Friday February 13, 2009 @10:45PM

christian.einfeldt writes: "Lovers of both games and Free Open Source Software will be pleased to see that the popular World of Goo has been released for Linux. Designed by a small team of two ex-Electronic Arts developers, Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, who used their entire combined savings of $10,000.00 USD to create the gooey game aimed at guiding goo balls to salvation. The developers built their goey world with open-source technologies such as Simple DirectMedia Layer, Open Dynamics Engine for physics simulation, and TinyXML for configuration and animation files. Subversion and Mantis Bug Tracker were used for work coordination. Blogger Ken Starks points out that the release of this popular game for Linux could be a big step toward ending the chicken-and-egg problem of a dearth of good games that run natively under Linux."

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