What Will We Use on June 30, 2011?

Yesterday when I got home from the office supply store, my husband asked, “Do you want to go to the mall?” This time we went to South Hills Village Mall which is not the same mall where I picked up my Droid. Just three weeks ago, my Droid was purchased one day after its release. My husband lovingly realizes that I am thrilled by gadgets as some girls would be thrilled by jewellery and agreed to make it my birthday present. I am still wowed by the Droid. My husband suggested that we go to the Verizon store to see if there were any Droid accessories available. They were sold out. Within line of site to the Verizon store there is a Droid display which will be staffed every holiday weekend. Yes. A whole display just for one telephone product. There were many people who stopped by to play with the many Droids on display but all but one booth employee were too shy to pose as I excitedly took a photo with my Droid. The picture you see in this post was immediately uploaded to facebook and flickr.com. No need to sync the phone with my desktop at home. This is when I realized that I was already living in the cloud.
Cloud computing that is. Google stores my calendar and contacts so I do not need to worry about backing that up to my PC. Flickr.com, a Yahoo! site, stores my photos. Facebook makes it crazy easy to share my picture that I just took on my phone with all my friends… all of this without leaving the mall. The Droid is not exactly forthcoming about being a product built on Linux and to some, this is a good idea. Still, if they would mention Linux in even a quarter of their advertising and posters, they would be by far the single marketing campaign of Linux product: far beyond the tux500. Google, Motorola, and Verizon have marketed the Droid phone as the anti-iPhone. In one TV commercial they pointed out that Google encourages open development for its “market” of apps. This is important because it allows and even encourages individuals and even competitors like Yahoo! to make applications for the Android platform. Why not go on to boast that they are built on the stability of an 18-year old operating system called Linux? The power of the Android Linux open platform is the whole power behind DroidDoes. Think that this open source mobo-jumbo can not effect the consumer, why in the world won’t Apple let Google implement voice search? Anyhow, Android Linux phones will be holiday gift giving favourite. Want your own Droid? Get it dropped straight to your back yard. My mother has already bought a phone, the Android-based Moment because she is a loyal Sprint customer. I played with it for 5 minutes and it had many of the Droid features but it was slow in comparison. Mom still intends on buying two more Moments for her sister and her brother-in-law.

At least in one corner of the South Hills Village Mall, Microsoft lacks majority market share on November 28, 2009.

Ubuntu Karmic Open Week

On November 6, 2009, I participated in an online-chat conference called Open Week. This is when the Ubuntu community discusses and celebrates their most recent release Karmic Kola. It is a no-cost version of Linux that a company called Canonical will support until April 2011. After then, you qualify for a free upgrade! Rinse and Repeat. I spoke on the topic of “Resolve Bug One” since the Ubuntu community sees Microsoft’s hold on the majority of the market as a bug.

Full chat log here.

The rest of this post is the answers to some questions I was asked during the session… Continue reading…

Thanksgiving, as an American, means

1. Being Thankful for what you have.
2. Eating way too much food with family.
3. Planning what you are going to buy on Black Friday where all of the retailers sell loss-leader electronics in the hopes of you buying other stuff in their stores.

The truth of the matter folks, I have been gluttonous too much electronic. There is a backlog of unused the hardware I have in my basement. When everyone runs out to the stores tomorrow, I am going to hold my own Linux installfest at home. Here I will make functional systems that could not run Vista or Windows 7. If you live around Western PA and you would like to help deploy these systems, please express interest in the comments. Also, if anyone has any creative ideas for using recycling a series 2 Tivo, I would be very thankful since I have one of those in my basement too.

Whatever you do tomorrow, please read Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols’ advice regarding Black Friday deals before hitting the stores. Better yet, stay at home and shop the Linux Journal store.

Recycling is one way that Microsoft will lose majority market share by June 30, 2011.

The Grand Finale to the “Road to Going Droid” story will be postponed for some exciting breaking news. Stay tuned.

Keynoters Shawn Powers and Steve Ballmer made the bold statements about how software relates to the economy in September 2009.

They differ on which kind of software brings the most economic benefit:

Linux or Windows

Powers and Linux

Mr. Powers delivered the opening keynote at the Ohio LinuxFest in Columbus, Ohio entitled “Saving the Economy with Linux” to about 1200 open source enthusiasts on Saturday September 26, 2009.

Mr. Powers advocated using free and open source software like the Linux operating system and OpenOffice. Instead of investing in proprietary software which costs hundreds of dollars per user, Mr. Powers recommended investing in people to support free software. As a professional system administrator and IT director of over 15 years, he is well familiar with the total cost of ownership of large enterprise deployments. At the school district where he works, we has been able to convince the board that savings to the tune of $90K+ of savings that Linux is worth doing, even though this means training adults to use unfamiliar Linux desktop software such Open Office. Children, according to Mr. Powers, do not care what software they use therefore they do not require Linux desktop training. As you are honest about the software’s shortcomings, moving to Linux will be worth it.

Ballmer and Windows

Mr. Ballmer delivered a speech during a customer event in San Fransisco, California touting how Microsoft’s new technologies were going to save businesses money in his speech entitled “The New Efficiency” on Tuesday September 29, 2009.

Mr. Ballmer delivered a sales pitch for Windows 7, Windows 2008 Server R2, and Exchange 2010. The point was to convince current customers that Microsoft’s new products are worth the investment. All three products are currently unreleased but were said to be proven to deliver “cost savings.” While Mr. Ballmer is suggesting that you spend money on software to save money on software, he provides zero details of what software he is comparing these new products against when he comes up with figures with statements like “One of the first businesses to deploy Windows 7 on a company-wide basis, Baker Tilly expects to save about $160 per PC by reducing deployment, management, and energy costs.” How? Is this in comparison to deploying Vista or XP? Mr. Ballmer did not say. With unemployment continuing to be high, it is unclear how trading up software licenses in the name of technology refresh is going to save any company money. Mr. Ballmer also claims that this new software will make people more productive and “do more with less.” This is part of a tag-line that you will see for at least the next 6 months from  Microsoft: “The New Efficiency.”

Let us compare the a few of the points of view from these gentlemen.

Points of Discussion	Shawn Powers, Associate Editor of Linux Journal and Technology Director of Inland Lakes Schools,	Steve Ballmer, Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft
Software and the economy	Advocates investing in people, not software.	Advocates the purchase of “productivity software” like Microsoft Exchange 2010 to “do more with less.” Microsoft itself has had to do so by recently cut the salaries of top executives and slashing more headquarters jobs in September.
Environmentally conscience technology	Recommends greener alternatives to buying new desktop systems by recycling old ones or deploying low-power thin clients with Linux Terminal Server Project.	Suggests that the Windows 7 operating system can reduce energy costs. No technical details of how that may work are shared.
On the costs of software licensing	“Linux is Free and that’s awesome” causing the community-oriented audience to cheer and applaud.	“Customers always find an approach which pays us less money” to an unhappy business-oriented crowd.
Communication of migration  issues	Advises users to be honest about the shortcomings before you introduce the new and unfamiliar software.	Uses vague business speak to sell yet to be released Microsoft products, for example, “The new efficiency will not only help companies respond to today’s economic reality, it will lay the foundation for systems and solutions that connect people to information, applications, and to other people in new ways.”
Investing in conferences	Mr. Powers said “ohiolinux dot org is a good investment” while keynoting at the Ohio LinuxFest, an educational 501c(3) non-profit conference. He was invited as a respected member of the open source community. The crowd of 1200 so glad to have him that one blogger gave his keynote a winky emoticon.	Microsoft bought the stage for Mr. Ballmer as San Fransciso event. This very same keynote is on a world tour in a Microsoft branded TechNet Live event too.  One attendee of the Netherlands event found it underwhelming. These events are so marketing-packed that not even Infoworld conferences buy into Mr. Ballmer’s keynote.  Infoworld is part of IDG who produces for profit technology conferences which Microsoft sponsors. IDGWire skeptically asks “Is Windows  7 worth the investment?”
Seeing the keynotes online for yourself	Released a creative commons video of the September 26 keynote  in several different  formats on archive.org. It is also viewable on linuxfoundation.org This grants the viewer the flexibility of downloading the file for off-line use with a player of their choice or viewing on-line.	Released a video of the September 29 keynote only viewable on-line with DRM-based Microsoft Silverlight. This requires a legal licensed modern fully-updated Windows or MacOSX with Internet Explorer. Can’t open it? Well neither could Seattle Times reporter Sharon Chan. Thanks to “Helmer’s Blog” you can see a few photos from the “TechNet Live” version of the same keynote.

The readers of this blog are free to come to their own conclusions if Linux or Windows will improve your personal economy.

Please do leave us  a comment if you bought a Microsoft product in the past 6 months or plan
to buy a Microsoft product in the next 6 months. Likewise, if you have deployed Linux for someone who is new to Linux in the past 6 months or plan to do so, please comment.

Microsoft’s market share will be less than half on June 30, 2011.

I have many computers at home. The system I am typing on right now is a netbook running Ubuntu 9.04 UNR. I do own a full sized laptop but it was out for repair. The hard drive died however the repair was covered via a store bought extended warranty.
As I said in post one, I deleted the Windows Vista partition on this computer and installed Linux instead. Everything was going fine, until the disk spun with a clug clug clug. This would have happened no matter what operating system I was using.

When I sent the system in for service, I was asked for the restore disk I made upon running Windows for the first time…. But I didn’t run Windows, anytime. Instead, I sent a note saying that I used Ubuntu, and I included the media.

Today the system arrived. I had no idea what would boot, if anything. Right now its booted and on the Vista EULA screen.

This made me consider, what should I use?

• I could install Linux like I had before. Perhaps trying another distribution.
• I could wait a few days for when Ubuntu 9.10 launches.
• I could just go ahead, approve the EULA and start using Vista.
• I could approve the EULA, then buy Windows 7 tomorrow.

Do you remember how I blogged wondering if there was going to be fanfare for the Windows 7 launch? Well, there are no Microsoft stores near me. The neighborhood Best Buy will not have any launch parties, nor do they expect any campers. The geeksquad tech I talked to told me that she expects their store to have plenty of quanties of Windows 7 in stock. No hype. Just software. Now, if I go for the Windows 7 upgrade, it needs to be a version that is suitable for the Home Premium version, 32 bit. Did you know there are 8 versions of Windows Vista? Well, it looks like there are only 3 upgrade options. Hey, I’m confused on what the migration path is for me. I’m a sysadmin with a fresh Vista install. How will the general public decide?

I’ll let you all know what I decide to use. Until then, please make a recommendation on what should I use as an operating system for my laptop and why?

This blog took a slight detour from its purpose: studying Microsoft’s market share status until June 30, 2011. After this post, I promise we will get back to our regular content. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Trigger warning: some linked pages contain hate speech and threats of violence against women.

Today is a historic day for the non-proprietary software communities. A troll, who had undermined contributors with terrorware has now been given his just desserts with the help of my dear friends from geekfeminist.org. I want to thank Eric S. Raymond for seeing the cleverness of the solution. We could have been a down and dirty flame war which would have brought productivity to a halt for non-proprietary software contributors. Instead, we preserved safety and the integrity of institutions we hold dear: freedom of speech, sourceforge.net and gplv2.

There are many others who helped in this effort who will have my eternal gratitude. Thank you very much, Beth Lynn Eicher.

Comments will not be allowed on this post.

TRIGGER WARNING: Victims of violence or sexual assault may want to stop reading. (I’ll try to be as mild as possible.)

Today, Tuesday October 13, 2009 the character known as “mikeeUSA” has been removed from sourceforge.net as well as the projects in which he was the sole contributor.

For those who do not know, mikeeUSA is an Internet troll who advocates violence against women and believes that it is his God-given right as a man to do so. He gets his jollies out of threatening women open source developers, as he has recently bothered the co-editor of this blog, Mackenzie Morgan.

mikeeUSA considers himself a significant open source contributor and has used his commits to his “projects” on sourceforge as his justification as to why he merits more than the female open source contributors he has insulted or threatened. This is not a simple difference of opinion as to what is offensive. mikeeUSA has been removed from communities, most recently the sourceforge.net community, for the extensively violent nature of his language and descriptions.

Since mikeeUSA thinks his code was of substantial quality, I downloaded a few packages and took a look for myself. There was one full program which was a text based slot machine game which displayed messages encouraging the denial of women’s rights. He also developed game add-ons, levels, and maps for already existing GPL-ed games. At best, these game components would include comments that would promote his agenda. At worst, the components would engage the player with his hateful themes. Sometimes variable names and function calls included evidence of hate-speech. Even if one were to ignore the politics of mikeeUSA, the product is not very good: low quality, dysfunctional, and not fun. The Nexuiz gaming community has repeatedly rejected his submissions. The reality is, just because you include a copy of GPLv2, it does not make you an open source rockstar. mikeeUSA’s claims of being a renowned open source contributor are unfounded. Now that the mikeeusa’s account has been disabled, it is unlikely that mikeeusa will be able to release anything with opportunity of claiming major open source contribution under a world-wide distribution ever again.

No one has the right to harass or threaten another human being. I don’t care who you think you are. If you have encountered mikeeUSA, do not be ashamed. As a community we will stand together to ensure safety in the open source neighborhood for all.

I am Beth Lynn Eicher, a director of the Ohio LinuxFest. As a concerned citizen of the open source neighborhood, I submitted a code review to sourceforge.net for and recommended removal of mikeeusa.  This was unpleasant reading but it had to be done in the name of neighborhood safety. The unfortunate content was the responsibility of mikeeusa’s alone. Sourceforge has over 230,000 projects they host. There two million users who release responsible high quality content that benefits the global society via sourceforge.net. Users who creates content that is against the terms of use are subject to review for potential removal. The volume prohibits them from verifying every project that they host, yet they are receptive to community feedback. Thanks to the reviewers at their legal team who also had to read mikeeusa’s vile code, my request for removal was approved.

I am incredibly grateful to sourceforge.net as they have proven themselves valuable parts  of the open source community by fulfilling the removal request. If you are in need of assistance, I suggest you contact sourceforge.net with the specifics. Alternatively, you can email me if you are shy at bethlynn AT ohiolinux DOT org.

To my fellow open source citizens, do keep vigilant for aggressive activity. I am not afraid to fight for the open source neighborhood to be safe and family environment.

Update: October 19, 2009

Microsoft provided the desktop operating system for the first PC in my childhood middle-class American home. The year was 1992. This thing came with DOS 5.0 with Windows 3.0, no word processor, and a trial for a faux internet online provider called “Prodigy. ” Later we installed upgraded to DOS 6.2 with Windows 3.11, installed Microsoft Works, and signed up for a real ISP who made it possible to browse the internet through Mosaic after Trumpet Winsock negotiated. Wow, did I ever love this machine and the Microsoft products on it. This was the configuration of this system when I finally retired it after saving up several Best Buy Pre-geeksquad-geeksquad paychecks in 1998 to buy a system with Windows 98, Word Perfect, and Netscape. Disappointed with Microsoft’s distancing itself from the command line, I missed the days of DOS. Also back in those days, Microsoft was making things difficult for Netscape beause Microsoft did not like the fact that Netscape had majority market share in 1998, not Internet Explorer. A multi-year lawsuit ensued. Microsoft continued to litigate to death Netscape yet the suit carried over into the company who bought Netscape: AOL. The proceeds of this lawsuit, going to AOL. Microsoft paid out $750 million to AOL and 5 years worth of litigation costs to buy themselves majority market share. With some of their judgment, AOL set aside 2 million to setup the Mozilla Foundation to own the open source the technology behind Netscape while checking out of the browser scene in 2003. This 2 million of Microsoft money turned into a thriving open source non-profit responsible for Firefox, Thunderbird, and other projects for using the internet.

I tell you this story behind Firefox because I thought the Mozilla Foundation was the only time that Microsoft’s money would go to fund a non-profit. I was wrong.

Sam Ramji of Microsoft was the spokesman to the open source community from within the Microsoft corporate veil. He left.

Mr. Ramji is now the interuim President of Codeplex Foundation, a non-profit “goal of increasing participation in open source community projects.” It does not look like this is a case of a Microsoft employee bailing due to cultural dissatisfaction, as “Initial funding for the Foundation comes from Microsoft Corporation.”

It’s too early to say what this foundation will actually do, but Novell’s Miguel de Icaza is in. While BoycottNovell has plenty of bitter things to say about this, I am going a more positive direction.

What if Microsoft sees the writing on the wall? What if they have decided they can’t compete with an entire world of open source developers? What if the next Microsoft operating system after 7 is open source? What if it has a Linux kernel?

Microsoft will not have majority market share June 30, 2011.

I will be leading a discussion on the status of Microsoft’s market share at Ubuntu Open Week. Stay tuned and save the date: Friday November 6th.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpenWeek