Linux Community Takes On Vista With Free Driver Development Service

By Paul McDougall
InformationWeek

Jan 30, 2007 05:00 PM
Under the plan, a manufacturer of, say, video cards could submit specs to the Linux kernel community and its members will create a driver for the device that the manufacturer can ship with the product or users can download.

In the continuing saga of hell at 20 below!

Microsoft, Novell win Wal-Mart as Linux customer

"Under the agreement,(the Microsoft-Novell aggrement from late last year) Wal-Mart will begin using Novell's SUSE Linux, the open-source computer operating system, and Novell will provide support for the software, receiving pre-paid support certificates from Microsoft."
For the full story, see the link above from Mark Boslet at marketwatch.com !

Hillarys running, I never would ah guess'd

So the inevitable has happened, despite her denials Hilary Rodham-Clinton has announced an election exploratory committee, this despite he previous denials of wanting or coveting the job. This comes roughly one week after Barrack Obama announced his own exploratory committee. The one thing I note this political season is the Democrats must smell blood, as they are out of the gate far ahead of the Republicans, at least in the conventional media outlets.

It's my opinion that the Republicans will have their hands full if Obama is the democratic candidate, he brings a liberal cache with him and he's gifted with a certain amount of charisma. Here's Senator Obama's voting record
If on the other hand the Democrats do select Clinton, I foresee a republican victory, I don't think the electorate at large will want to chance the name Clinton in the oval office again. I suspect the electorate will go to the Republicans if, they select John McCain as the next party candidate for president. Time will only tell of course, I'll keep an eye on all three of these candidates, as much as they live in interesting times, they are interesting people. So I guess its time to sit back and watch the fire works.

The Iphones here Yaay well sort of

Wednesday, January 17, 2007
The Iphones here Yaay well sort of
The alternative tag line is Iphone, Lisa's sister
After all the hyperbola and spins have been spun this week I waited until now to give my opinion on the Iphone, I'll give the same opinion that I gave to friends when I saw it last weekend on the net. YAWN! Whats worse is, this phone shouldn't be a yawn, I have to admit I've deferred my new phone upgrade awaiting this phantom to appear like some unseen force from apple, rumbling unseen yet heard long and wide before its actual arrival. When the final product was revealed last week, I was impressed with the look and form factor, this was typical Apple, VERY cool.
However when it was revealed that no I couldn't put my personal warez of choice on to the phone, things like skype, or ring tones, or anything other than the apple canonized as ,good, hence factory installed software, I was seriously disappointed, in fact I did utter , "dam that's a waste of a year I won't get back." Referencing the year I waited on this disappointment.
The Arm lock they have with Cingular doesn't set well with me either, to be honest, I use Sprint, and I'm not a Sprint fan boy by any means, but in my local area, they just have better coverage,I know this two ways , One I do hardware and software testing on Palms, yup that's right I work for the enemy, well sort of. And having tested all the big networks Cingular would be my choice if, they gave me the phone and my first year of service for free. However that's not going to happen with the Iphone, at $499.00. I'll have to float the boat on this one and it's not going to happen. Two I was a cingular customer in the past, and suffered long and hard from dropped calls. My Sprint service is far better, more expensive, but in fact worth it. Add to that, I have no choice of carrier and my response is, whoa trigger, we ain't going that way! So right out of the gate Apple had two strikes on the Iphone with me. But the deal breaker is the price, its just too high for my blood, further I can get a new Treo 680, unlocked, for $100.00 less than the MSRP on the Iphone. With the limited software, service plans and a high price, I feel totally uncompelled to switch to an Iphone. Lets face it I haven't seen this big of a muck up in strategic vision since, well,, the Zune!

Sadly I predict by September the Iphone will be the Lisa of its time. Gone and only mildy remembered.

Quick some one check the temperature in hell!

http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/08/2130234

In a story reported on slashdot it seems that hell hath froze, yet again with the rumor mill reporting that IE7 just mite get ported to linux. I still remember the good old days where scuttlebutt like this was openly laughed off as ludicris and perdantic dreaming of the Linux geeks. Apparently maybe, not? Check the link out for the rest of the story.

Market analyst predicts enterprise Linux surge

This is a reported story from www.desktoplinux.com by researchers Bruce Guptill and Bill McNee.
According to their story,"Nearly half the world's large businesses will use Linux on desktops or in servers by the end of 2011, Saugatuck Technology predicts. "The data are especially impressive when looking at the expected growth in the number of companies moving beyond 'proof of concept' by the end of the decade," the analyst firm said."

This isn't news to anyone who has been watching the impending ship date of Vista come forward like a creeping giant. With the need to upgrade to new more powerful computers just to run the new OS and with still lingering memories of the entire history of XP and the early web assaults this is not completely unexpected news. Also for those of you who read yesterdays blog, this is also a hint, at the reason Microsoft did the deal with Novel, the logic being if you can't beat'em, then join'em. The long play here is Microsoft's positioning themselves just in case of a market shift they can't ,even with all their money, stop from happening.

Return from the Dead!?!

After a 6 month forced hiatus I'm back, And! The world has shifted,& apparently hell froze over as Microsoft and Novel have crawled into bed with one another in an orgy of apocalyptic partnering, the craziest I've seen since, well Microsoft and Sun pretended to partner up some years back. While many in the Linux community will decry this as absurd, and that its just the latest attempt by Microsoft to wrangle a legal hold on the Linux movement as a whole. I feel this will, in the long run, like the SCO law suit just go away, quietly, especially after all the huffing and puffing MS has made over how the open source community has "stolen" ideas from them. I'm predicting, that Microsoft's claims, will be, in a court room in the near future, after having been vetted & examined will be acknowledged as some one Else's prior art, whether or not they were paid for or not, that's when it will get sticky for the Redmond lawyers, as this will turn their largest threat into the sword they swung and cut their own throats with. When the legal perception is MS has allot of unpaid royalties hanging over their heads, then you can bet every un-hired lawyer on the west coast will be shopping their services to the people who are owed back royalties to by our Buddy's in Redmond. In the end I call it this way, if MS tries to bully the Linux community with legal actions, then this will be where the community gets to turn the tables on MS and quite probably put a legal stranglehold on the Redmond giant. On the other hand if MS plays it very cool, and they have before. Then this will all go away, quietly.