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Tomorrow is the release of Firefox 3, help spread the word.

In a press event today Microsoft announced that they will make new efforts to work with other companies and developers to ensure interoperability.

Their press release says, “Microsoft will indicate on its Web site which protocols are covered by Microsoft patents and will license all of these patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, at low royalty rates. To assist those interested in considering a patent license, Microsoft will make available a list of specific Microsoft patents and patent applications that cover each protocol.”

It continues, “Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products.”

How big of them. They first say that open source developers are using Microsoft technology without - as far as I know - really provide any evidence and certainly not try their claim in court, and then they say “we’ve now decided that we’re not going to sue you guys”.

Norway mandates use of open formats: HTML, ODF and PDF: “Government, state and regional agencies, authorities and services may also publish in other formats, but they must always publish in one of these formats. The decree is retroactive, and by 2014 all documents published prior to this decree must have been converted and made available in one of the three formats.”

(Via digg.)

Review: Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon takes on Mac OS X Leopard for the OS of the Year |

Linux Magazine: “Today we have a technological cage match involving two operating systems, both UNIX- based, both mature, both with passionate detractors and even more passionate defenders, and both released just a week apart. I’m talking, of course, about Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon), with its final release on October 18, and Apple’ s Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, which was available for purchase on October 26.

The stereotype for each OS is well known: Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time. Both have come a long way in a short time, and both make excellent desktops. So we have two great desktop operating systems out at roughly the same time. Let’s see how they stack up against each other.”

‘’Going Open’’ – Why & How? Part 1/2: “

I believe there are many misconceptions among organizations as to what can be gained by this and even more misconceptions as to how to manage the process.

Some Myths:

- Open Source is hostile to intellectual property.
- If I give away my software to the Open Source community, thousands of developers will suddenly start working for me for nothing.
- The Open Source movement isn’t sustainable, since people will stop developing free software once they see others making lots of money from their efforts.

(Via Planet MySQL.)

I wish more companies and organizations would realize how valuable and efficient open source software can be. There is a lot of ignorance out there, still, and we need to fight it

XAMPP: New betas for Windows and Linux: “Two of XAMPP’s four main components were updated within the last few days and now we’re ready with the first beta version of the next XAMPP release.

New in this beta are: PHP5 (5.2.5), MySQL (5.0.51), phpMyAdmin (2.11.3), and some Windows-specific packages in the Windows version of XAMPP.

XAMPP beta versions are always for testing purposes only. There will be no upgrade packages from and to beta versions. To all testers: Many thanks in advance!!

Get the downloads at XAMPP BETA.”

(Via Planet MySQL.)

XAMPP is a great choice for running servers for development or testing. Nothing to install, just download, unzip, and you’re done. For Mac, I recommend MAMP.

I wanted to write something myself, but James Turner does it so much better (excuse me James for quoting your entire post, but you did such a good job of writing it):

You know all those nice things I said about the Microsoft Development environment a couple of weeks ago? Well, I still stand by them as a realistic opinion of the quality of the platform for developers. However, today’s news brings the major reason you should run away from depending on Microsoft technology like it had a case of Ebola.

The murmurs and worries about Microsoft’s ongoing patent gossip campaign, which came to a roiling boil with the Novell deal, have ended. Yep, no more rumors, just the plain reality that Microsoft is going to take their portfolio of laughable patents and start sticking it to the open source community legally, as spelled out in the most recent Fortune.

I’m trying really hard to avoid descending into obscenities here. So where-ever you see the * character, feel free to insert your own vulgarities as you see fit. * Microsoft has proved what a * bunch of * they are, and shown their true colors yet again. All the * about their open source lab and the code they were releasing as open source was in the end, just * propaganda, as many of us had suspected. Faced with omens such as Dell selling Linux on the desktop, they drew their last major card from the FUD deck, and hope to steal the pot.

And this is why you should use Microsoft technologies only as a very last resort. Because they don’t play nice with others. Sure, all companies are competitive and will do pretty much anything they can do to make a buck, but Microsoft is taking things to a new level. What you as a customer are being told, in essence, is that if you use any technology but Microsoft’s (or those of a company paying blood-money to Microsoft), you are likely to be sued. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to do business with people who threaten and extort me.

I suspect that this is going to be a tipping point on a number of fronts. Firstly, if Microsoft does more than bluster, they will set in motion events which will either end with the abolishment of software patents, or the descent of the computer industry into a morass of intellectual property shenanigans that will cripple it.

Secondly, this is either going to be IBM’s finest hour, or the end of a golden era. It was easy taking on punk SCO, and making them look like fools. Now, rather than fighting the North Vietnamese, they’re facing a direct confrontation with China, to strain an analogy. No one but IBM has anything like the resources to stand toe to toe and lawyer to lawyer with Redmond. But IBM is in a quandary, because if they challenge the Microsoft claims, they’ll also be de facto trashing their own carefully horded cache of software patents. What IBM decides to do will be a very telling sign for how this story will break as a whole.

Finally, this is the do or die moment for the FOSS community. Forget whether GPL 3 is better than GPL 2, or whether it’s free as in beer or free as in freedom, or all the other silly * that has been fracturing the community for years. There’s a wolf knocking at the door, and everyone who ever committed a line of code to a project has a stake in keeping it out. Now will be THE defining moment for Free/Open Source, because if Microsoft prevails, FOSS (at least in America or any country with strong IP ties to the US) will be dead, plain and simple. There’s no way that non-commercial projects will have the resources to check thousands and thousands of bogus patents for possible infringement.

I have no idea how the end game plays out on this. The recent Supreme Court ruling on the ‘obviousness’ of patents gives me hope for that branch, at least. However, I don’t trust the collection of fools we call our legislative branch not to screw it up royally with new laws. Just think how well the DMCA has been going so far. Will other companies band together with the FOSS community to fight Microsoft? After all, if those patents stand, those companies are in as much danger as any open source project. Will we end up mired in another five or ten years of legal wranglings? Pam Jones could have a job for life at Groklaw.

At the end, there’s only one thing left to say. For shame Microsoft, for shame. You’ve twisted competition into a thuggish debacle that ranks right up there with the worst of the great robber barons. How ironic that Bill Gates is trying to reinvent himself as the great philanthropist. Andrew Carnegie took much the same route late in his life, as if it could wash away his sins. We can only hope that in a few years, Steve Ballmer will look as much a fool as Daryl McBride does today.

How many of you have ever used Wikipedia??? I just love Wikipedia, because I can always find the information that I need no matter what it is. So if you have not checked out Wikipedia, you should. But that is not what this post is about, it seems that the founder of Wikipedia, has decided to give the software and all you need to build your own community. I just wonder what wonderful communities are going to be formed from this. Read more about this at US Today.

Free software is about to get freer. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Monday his for-profit company, Wikia Inc., is ready to give away — for free — all the software, computing, storage and network access that website builders need to create community collaboration sites.
Wikia, a commercial counterpart to the non-profit Wikipedia, will go even further to provide customers — bloggers or other operators who meet its criteria for popular websites — 100% of any advertising revenue from the sites they build.

Started two years ago, Wikia (http://www.wikia.com) aims to build on the anyone-can-edit success of the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Using the same underlying software, called MediaWiki, Wikia hosts group publishing sites, known as wikis, on topics from Star Wars to psychology to travel to iPods.

“It is open-source software and open content,” Wales said in a phone interview. “We will be providing the computer hosting for free, and the publisher can keep the advertising revenue.”

That could prove disruptive to business models of websites that provide free services to customers but require a cut of any resulting revenue in return.

Wikia gives away the tools and the revenue to its users. It requires only that sites built with the company’s resources link to Wikia.com, which makes money through advertising.

Wikia calls the free-hosting service “OpenServing” (http://www.openserving.com). It runs on an easy-to-use version of MediaWiki software developed by ArmchairGM.com, a sports fan community site Wikia recently acquired and plans to extend.

Wales is betting the plunging cost of computers and networks can help Wikia support the free services offer. “It is becoming more and more practical and feasible to do,” he said.

MSNBC:

The Norwegian government said Friday it will increase its use of freely shared, open-source software to reduce its dependency on large computer companies like Microsoft Corp.

“It should no longer be necessary to use software from the major, international computer companies to gain access to electronic information in the public sector,” the government said in a statement. “Now that dependency will be broken.”

The Ministry of Government Administration and Reform said measures to increase use of open-source programs include a specialist panel to set standards for public information.

The government statement said the project will also set standards to allow various operating systems to communicate with one another.

Several countries, including Brazil, China, France, Germany, Japan and South Korea, have been actively moving toward open-source alternatives.

Proponents say open source results in quicker development of software because vast numbers of people can study, update and adapt programs without having to pay licensing fees.

The Linux operating system and the Mozilla Web browsers, led by Firefox, are examples of free open-source technology that users can copy, modify and redistribute. Microsoft’s Windows operating system and its Internet Explorer browser are proprietary, meaning the blueprints behind them are closely guarded, though IE is distributed without charge.

I guess our Sweden’s neighbor to the west is doing something right

I clicked on a link to a story at Gulf News this morning and up came an error message. Now that’s not very interesting in itself but it revealed that they use an open source content management system called OpenCMS. It’s not common to see open source being used here, companies and government seem perfectly willing to pay up large fees for commercial software.

[posted with ecto]