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  • Joe Brockmeier 10:14 AM on December 6, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Are You a Server Hugger? Don’t Be Ashamed 

    This is a new one on me. I’ve heard of tree huggers, but Patrick Thibodeau’s piece in ComputerWorld_today is the first time I’ve run into server hugger. What’s a server hugger, you ask?

    According to Thibodeau, it’s a term coined by Forrester analyst James Staten, for IT folks who “have significant concerns about their ongoing value to the company if they don’t run [IT systems] themselves.” Does the term fit, or is it perhaps a wee bit early to be labeling IT folks who haven’t put all their eggs in the cloud basket?

    Read the rest on ReadWriteCloud

     

  • Joe Brockmeier 9:14 AM on December 6, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Run ChromeOS with a Hint of Lime: ChromiumOS Lime Builds (Finally) Available 

    What’s 338 days late between friends? Last year Hexxeh promised ChromiumOS Lime builds “within the next two weeks.” Unfortunately, the schedule slipped just a little, and Lime builds didn’t come out until December 2nd. Better late than never, though.

    Read the rest on ReadWriteCloud

     

  • Joe Brockmeier 8:19 AM on April 26, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Ethics,   

    Updates, corrections, and the Web 

    How do you handle it when you find that you’ve made an error in a post or other text online?

    Though it may seem like eons ago, I took my journalism classes when print still dominated. My first writing gigs were with print magazines that had a ridiculously long lead time and plenty of time for editing and getting facts right. Also plenty of time for introducing new and interesting errors in the process, but that’s another story for another day.

    The flipside to having the time to get it right is that once you hit the presses it was there to stay. Right or wrong, when the magazine, newspaper, or book shipped it was there permanently.

    Not so much these days. I still try to write as if it were going to be fixed in stone, or at least ink and paper, but the pace has picked up. This means more errors slip in.

    So how do you handle the errors? Do you consider it fair to change bits online (even substantive ones) or even redact or rewrite parts of a story or post? Do you leave the original story whole and provide an update?

    This isn’t a new question, it was something publishers and journalists started considering almost as soon as Web publishing started. I’m not sure there’s ever been a definitive answer, though. Each publication has its own policy, and even within publications I’ve seen different editors have different takes on how errors and corrections should be handled.

    For the record, here’s how I handle it:

    • I will make minor corrections that do not affect a story’s meaning. So if I got a name wrong, wrote “it’s” when I meant “its,” or some other simple typo… then I see no harm in correcting the error without calling attention to it.
    • I will make corrections to technical bits of an article. Similar to typos, I think it’s perfectly ethical to correct technical copy without making a fuss over it.
    • I will not correct bits that change a story’s meaning without comment or notice that the story has been updated, with only one minor exception: If I see an error immediately after hitting publish, I may make a correction without comment. Sort of like the five-second rule with food hitting the floor. But if a story has been up long enough to legitimately be quoted and referenced elsewhere, I will not make corrections without an update.
    • I will not remove information from a story, even if it’s wrong, unless there’s a compelling reason to do so. If I get a bit wrong, I will provide an update to the story and use a strikeout (if available on the publishing platform) to indicate what was wrong. But I won’t just redact a bit from a story, so that the existing version remains consistent with what may have been quoted or cited elsewhere on the Web.
    • I will not correct another writer’s story unless it’s a minor correction (typo, or technical error as above) after it’s published. I often edit other people’s work, and I occasionally receive requests from others to make a correction. Generally, I feel it’s up to the writer to decide that a correction is or isn’t warranted. There may be exceptions to this, but I haven’t run into one yet.

    This came up today because I wrote a story yesterday about Dropbox and got a distinction wrong between them sending a DMCA takedown request and a takedown notice. (They sent a DMCA notice to a user, erroneously – I thought it was a DMCA request.) That was a substantive change, which I could have corrected and made it look like the story was always accurate. But I feel that’s a disservice to the readers and not entirely ethical.

    Like everybody else, reporters get it wrong sometimes. Just because we have the ability to make errors disappear doesn’t mean that we should. I don’t think readers can have faith in a writer or publication if they feel that they have covered up their errors rather than owning up to them.

     

    • Rikki Kite 9:40 AM on April 26, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      I think the way you handle corrections is appropriate. :-)

    • V. T. Eric Layton 6:34 PM on April 27, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      I’m neither a paid journalist nor have I been educated in that area. That being said, I believe that your editing methods are admirable. You correct without corrupting your material or misleading your readers. Would that all writers, professional or not, behaved in such a fashion.

      Regards,

      ~Eric

    • Carson Chittom 11:59 AM on August 1, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Like the other commenters, I think your method is perfectly fine, though I personally have no problem with changing the sense of a piece, provided an explanation is offered (“This article previously said x, but has now been changed to y due to information z that I received after writing the article”).

      That said, given the fluidity of online media, I think the only means to really be consistent “with what may have been quoted or cited elsewhere on the Web” is to bake some sort of revision control into the interface, and expose that to the reader in a transparent way; though it’d probably be overkill for 9 out off10 cases (if I’m reading a breaking news story, I want the most accurate, up-to-date information as I’m reading; I don’t really care what erroneous information was reported earlier unless it’s had some practical effect).

    • alicia eler 6:03 PM on October 29, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      thanks for this useful article, Joe! Funny, I was just thinking about this same thing myself. Now I know what to do!

  • Joe Brockmeier 11:53 AM on April 18, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    Fedora and GNOME branding drama: Missing the big picture 

    Some of the folks on the Fedora marketing list are in a tizzy over the amount of Fedora branding present, or not, in the upcoming Fedora 15 release.

    While I applaud the Fedora folks for being concerned about marketing, I think that they’re losing sight of the big picture — the actual impact of GNOME or Fedora “branding,” in the Fedora desktop is minimal at best.

    If the Fedora folks were competing for a slice of a large pie against other Linux distributions, this might be smart strategy. It might be a smart strategy if there was a danger that a large number of users were in a position to be using Fedora and GNOME without knowing that it was Fedora that they’re using.

    The actual danger of that, however, is incredibly small. First, let’s remember that we’re talking about an exceedingly small market to begin with. The Linux desktop has a tiny share of the market — and Fedora might have one-fifth of that, and that’s a very liberal estimate. Fedora 14′s Yum Data says that it’s had a total of nearly 2.3 million connections. The Fedora 13 release had a total of nearly 3.6 million, and Fedora 12 peaked at about 4.8 million.

    That’s a lot of users, but it’s tiny next to estimates for Ubuntu, ridiculously small next to Mac OS X, and a rounding error for Microsoft Windows.

    I’m not saying this to belittle Fedora — but to put this whole thing into perspective. Arguing over branding here is just plain silly. Depending on which side you’re on, it may validate your “team” (GNOME vs. Fedora, I guess) but it’s utterly irrelevant when it comes to having an impact on Fedora adoption. At best it’s a distraction from actually increasing the market share of Linux — and at worst it’s a validation of the argument that community driven projects fail due to infighting.

    The other consideration here is whether anyone is using Fedora, but unaware of it without the Fedora branding staring them in the face. It is possible that some users in computer labs may be using Fedora without knowing that they’re using Fedora (or perhaps even Linux) — but very damn few.

    That’s not to say there aren’t legitimate instances where branding should matter. Take Android, for instance. I’ve known plenty of people with Android phones who haven’t the slightest idea that they’re using Linux. However, if Google’s numbers are to be believed, they’re activating 350,000 phones a day — which means that Google will outpace a six-month Fedora release in less than two weeks. Fedora folks, you have bigger problems than branding on the GNOME desktop.

    If we pretend for a minute that branding really does matter here, the GNOME folks ought to take a cue from KDE — which has worked with distros like openSUSE to co-develop wallpaper and such to preserve the KDE artwork and ensure that the distribution is also represented.

    But, really, this is a lot of navel-gazing and politics that don’t contribute the slightest bit to promoting Fedora, GNOME, or Linux in general. Contributors interested in marketing Fedora and/or GNOME should be spending time developing materials to spread Linux to people who haven’t the slightest clue what Fedora or GNOME are rather than arguing over a few pixels on the desktop.

     

    • WL 6:35 PM on April 18, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      After using Linux for these many years ~10 , and

      – using Debian Testing for my laptop
      – Feature : my kid’s school website doesn’t work with Iceweasel but with Firefox. I understand about their difference and they should work. But fact is it doesn’t.

      – using openSUSE 11.4 for all other computer and regretted it
      – Feature : Found out that you cannot type in LibreOffice/Firefox after installing cjk input (scim or ibus). Isn’t this a critical bug? or maybe Linux is only for en locale only, other users are not considered.
      (e.g. http://forums.opensuse.org/forums/english/get-technical-help-here/applications/456496-openoffice-libreoffice-not-usable-unable-use-scim-firefox.html)

      – Ubuntu
      – Feature : Amusing, this is one distro that as it matures through time, the more unstable it becomes.

      – Fedora 15
      – Feature : Tried the new Gnome 3 and finally understands that Linux Devs actually cares more of their view of the world (and imposed it) than the actual users (sounds a lot like Microsoft and Mac to me)

      – The Canterbury Distribution
      – Feature : This is the ACTUAL type of distro that most Linux users wanted. By Linux users I mean real users, != geeks , !=l337 u3rs and definitely not distro linux devs and hacker wannabes. And this is a *&@^&*^#(*@ April Fool’s joke.

      All this happens while I am about to upgrade my hardware; looking for a hardware that can work with Linux and suddenly I got this light bulb moment that I would like to share:

      – if I use Microsoft, I am paying it with security (assuming the OS is more vulnerable)
      – if I use OSX, I am paying it with money (upfront cost of hardware is insane)
      – if I use Linux, I am paying it with time (Gnome3/Unity, in future X/wayland [we use ssh/vnc], aptitude/yum/zypper/smart and breakages like the inability to type in LibreOffice/Firefox.
      Somehow KDE4 is usable but again somehow all major distro [Ubuntu/Fedora/almost in the same in openSUSE] shun it like ghost and add it as a side-job/afterthought to tell the world that they provide choice.

      I’ve finally decided, life is short, just pay the ransom to Mac and enjoy life than to be held hostage by the linux devs.

      Don’t argue about openness,
      – most normal users don’t understand the contents of an odt even if I unzip it for them.
      – save an image in xcf (gimp) and if gimp is not maintained in future (not much gimp dev left), are we sure xcf is so easily opened?

      Or in another manner,
      I can still install all the opensource apps (gimp, inkscape, LibreOffice) in OSX and keep my files in an open format.

      Goodbye linux users, hope you won’t be taken for a ride by the linux devs.

      • Matt 2:38 PM on April 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply

        Wow, thats a bunch of typing just to be say “Peace out”.

        However, as a MAC and Linux owner I can tell you that the MAC does have it’s issues. So the grass isn’t that much greener.

        Actually with all the choices coming up in Linux land, its pretty exciting to see what will happen. Where with mac….well, I got a feeling your OSX will become iOS sooner than later.

      • Lirodon 12:03 PM on April 25, 2011 Permalink | Reply

        Lemme counter your idiotic claims with these remarks:

        1. Just download the “official” Firefox binary from the Mozilla site. No compilation needed. And they also got 4. Debian doesn’t even offer 4 yet in stable.

        2. Unity is junk.

        3. Gnome-shell is junk.

        4. That was an april fool’s day joke.

        5. XCF has specs: http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gimp/trunk/devel-docs/xcf.txt?view=markup

        They’re also working on an alternative PSD-like image format called OpenRaster

        6. After a service pack, Office 2007 can open ODT files with varying success. Or just save them as DOC. It’s not like we’re forcing it on you.

    • OL 2:00 PM on April 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      I agree 100%. I have been a Mac user now for 6 years and have no regrets.

    • Rodislav Moldovan 3:21 PM on April 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Hi, just my 2 cents.. :) )))

      @WL – you have strange point of view, you know it !? :) ))))
      @author – every wave, as the wave passes, so relax and enjoy your life! :)

    • LS 6:21 PM on April 20, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Ubuntu 11.04 is actually fairly stable at this early stage.
      No way I’m buying a Mac- to be held hostage like that.
      Can the Apple OSX run (unhacked) on my machines?
      Can I install software and updates by command line?
      I though so…..
      Gnome 3, Unity and others will rock in future.

    • cbemerine 12:42 AM on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Hey Joe where you going with that KDE in your hand? / Hey Joe, I said where you goin’ with that KDE in your hand, oh/. . . with apologies to Jimi Hendrix RIP.

      First, let’s remember that we’re talking about an exceedingly small market to begin with. The Linux desktop has a tiny share of the market — and Fedora might have one-fifth of that, and that’s a very liberal estimate.

      Than to drive your point home, you stating, “…the GNOME folks ought to take a cue from KDE — which has worked with distros like openSUSE…”

      And what is the percentage of market share for openSUSE again?

      Thanks for the humor, I honestly enjoyed it. Nothing against OpenSUSE, FYI.

      Noticed that you did not mention a specific market share for Linux, well Linux makes up 5.1% of the desktop market, not 8% like MS says or only 2.2% like MS slanted websites suggest. In fact Linux has held 3.1% or more since July 2004. And yes that is still a small portion of the total desktop market.

      I simply do not think adoption (of Linux) has been set back by having more options, more Linux distros at all. Nor do I believe differences in GUIs (Gnome vs KDE) matter in the least. Let’s face it, both the MacIntosh and Windows GUI has changed significantly between forced updates / new versions. In my opinion most non-adoption reasons are more FUD than reality.

      I don’t prefer Gnome to KDE or KDE to Gnome and could care less about wallpaper. I think its nice to be able to use a GUI. I still always want to know how (be able) to do the same thing from a command line/terminal window/console, call me old school. In my experience doing things without a GUI is more difficult in other operating systems other than Linux and Unix. Thankfully with Linux you normally have multiple ways to do the same thing and I would NOT change that, any more than I would whittle down the choices, the number of Linux Distros. Having more distros running successfully in your business might take a little bit more time, but is well worth in the reduced business risk.

      The real threat to Linux, Open Source and FOSS is none of the above. It’s proprietary pieces getting slipped into open source code without anyone stopping it.

      Remember when they said no one would ever sue a company based on Java alone, well we learned differently didn’t we.

      Companies like Linspire that chose to get in bed with proprietary companies for access to their device drivers do more damage to the adoption of Linux than anything else. Especially when they leave their user base high and dry without a viable option. Better to just not use them.

      I have used and do use Ubuntu derivatives, however I see Canonical taking all Ubuntu based derivative distros down the same Linspire proprietary-like path.

      Use this chart to see Linux distros and where they are derived from! Most people would be surprised that there are root (based) distros besides Debian and Redhat (Fedora). There is SLS (Slackware), Puppy, Tiny Core, Enoch (Gentoo), Arch and more… I stopped counting at 29!

      Ubuntu is not the only distro making mistakes that will haunt their user base down the road, though they worry me the most as they are often the first Linux distro for many ex Windows users. And proprietary pieces and parts is not the only issue I see, though it is the most troubling.

      Redhat is obscuring their Linux distro even more, some say to make it harder for other companies to support. I still like CentOS, but if my business depended on it, I would be building servers in other distros as a fall back position in case Redhat gets really stupid. I would never ‘switch’ from CentOS to Redhat because of Redhats proprietary BS, instead I would minimize my business and personal risk and switch to another derivative (non-Redhat) of Linux instead.

      Whatever a company’s reason for making how their Linux distro more obscure is never good for anyone else, time to churn to be safe…or at least plan to churn. Security by obscurity comes to mind, more often than not, the proprietary goodness obscuring reality ends up having some other negative effect, like making that distro less secure. Talk about increasing business risk, yikes. What company worth anything allows themselves to be put out of businesses by any other proprietary company.

      If a distro forces proprietary bits like .NET, Java, Mono, Wine there are so many more, but those are some of the biggest. Laughingly offering a “community promise” that nothing bad will ever happen. Java may not have called it a “community promise”, however the end result is the same. The license precluded another entity from distributing their service and/or product. Nothing wrong with choosing to install and utilize proprietary software, but to “require” it in order to run something else or in order to use the distro is a HUGE mistake. That is a clear and present danger to Linux. Smart professionals limit their business risk and sometimes churning from that distribution to another is the only solution.

      Save the flaming, I have nothing against WINE, as long as it remains optional. I know many gamers have learned that a Linux + Wine configured PC plays MS proprietary games faster than a PC with Windows 7, so I get that. But I would never use a distro there required WINE to be installed…those words Embrace, Extend and Extinguish are not just words, as they have been used many, many times over the years to stunt the growth of Linux.

      More often than not, a user that has a bad experience with Linux, blames Linux instead of the real culprit, the proprietary company that injected its pieces and parts. Historically that has NEVER ended well.

      @WL you made many good points, however MacIntosh, which I have used, was a no go from a development stand point based on their royalty requirements. (You could not develop Apple software products for use on an Apple MacIntosh without paying a royalty to Apple) Of course preventing a company from selling it outside of an Apple store is just another reason not to use Apple as a revenue stream.

      I would be equally against any distro that attempted to create an “app store” or BS approval system in order to control the software applications that their distro will work with. Everyone who has been in this industry as long as we have understands that it never works as advertised and always stifles innovation.

      A good example of a proprietary company clamping down too hard on their developers other than Apple is IBM and the Micro-channel. The Micro-channel bus architecture was superior to ISA/EISA, the only reason it did not take off like the PC did, was because IBM attempted to control its licensing like Apple does. Even IBM forgot their own lessons and history on that one. I am sure it sounded good on paper. (One of the main reasons the PC – and PC clones – took over that market was because it was open, anyone could develop hardware and software for the PC. The innovation was fantastic!

      Apple learned nothing, choosing to clamp down on Mac Clones instead of growing the platform. A huge mistake. A few years ago I saw a laptop that could boot Mac OSX, Windows Vista and Linux…actually considered getting one and paying both Microsoft and Apple for a copy of their operating system. When Apple started suing the clone maker in Los Angeles, I was very, very happy I did not waste my hard earned money!

      Its not about only cost, its about freedom that ONLY comes with options. Remember if you have only two options, in reality you have NO OPTIONS! True in every aspect of our lives.

      I would suggest that if a distro prevents you from creating your own repository (a bit of extra work granted, but a way to insure life for old hardware) that you would be wise NOT to adopt that distro. I know I will not use it. Whether it was good or bad would not be the issue, but because they limit my capability, my freedom. I never want hardware that can not be re-purposed and useful ever again. Thankfully Linux runs in only 512MB of memory in most cases. It does not matter that I purchase machines with 4 GB of RAM or more today, I want to know that down the road I can still use that old hardware.

      NO ROOT access ~ NOT SMART!

      Look at so called smart phones….if you can not use full ROOT/Admin access to configure and install the software you need/want to run than don’t waste your hard earned money, especially in this economy. Ultimately it will only let you down. All Androids are not 100% open and it is well worth your time to make sure the hardware you are buying does not have proprietary chips in it that will prevent you from using that hardware on a whim by any other proprietary company.

      Chrome is another example, way too much is done without the ability of the user to 100% control it. If I buy hardware, its mine. Period. Don’t tell me what I can and can not do with it. Any if, ands or buts and I simply refuse to purchase that hardware. I upgrade when it is effective for me to do so ONLY, not when another company wants to get another $40 – $500 out of my pocket. Way too much business risk.

      Why waste your money, honestly a few extra seconds (accessing content or booting) will not help you sleep better at night if one day your device fails because something got on to it that you did not authorize. Sounds penny wise and dollar foolish to me.

      A rookie mistake that veterans never make is to install anything on a production machine prior to sufficient testing for blind alleys, walls, gotchas, problems, etc… This mindset use to be standard industry practice. To not follow that rule, always test before deploying, well it was not IF you would hose your company’s PCs and servers, but WHEN…. Just a matter of time. Of course you could not blame them when you lack of planning cost the company money and got you fired either. Now people blindly auto-update or auto-upgrade…insane! Eventually it will bite you, that should have never been considered smart and if a distro required this as their only method of updating, well good reason NOT to use it.

      Even funnier that proprietary companies use the virus excuse suggesting that it is “smart” or “safer”, yea right I have some swamp land to sell you too…or a bridge in Brooklyn…insane.

      Of course many professionals are denied adequate time to review updates before they are rolled out by an uncaring, non-IT knowledgeable manager, well you get what you pay for. I would look for a more sound company to work for, who do you think they are going to blame when something goes wrong…again not IF but rather WHEN. Better to stand up for yourself in the beginning, get a sand-boxed test environment and use it religiously. To not do this could be a career ending decision.

      Better to find a distro that cares about their user base and provides options. A distro that will let you auto-update, but does not REQUIRE it. And they should definitely not care what wall paper you use or if your GUI is Gnome or KDE, again insane.

      Most problems, especially hardware problems, are related to a proprietary chip or driver that prevents that hardware from working effectively with Linux. Easy solution, only purchase hardware from Linux vendors, two of the best are ZaReason and System 76. Personally I favor ZaReason as their computers work with any distro of Linux out of the box. I recently acquired a laptop, dual cores with Mint installed, great box. And if Ubuntu gets stupid and/or Mint gets stupid and attempts to force something on me, I know that hardware will run every other Linux distro, no problem.

      An added plus to purchasing your hardware from a Linux vendor is that hardware will run Windows OS out of the box. However the converse is NOT true, if you purchase from a big box store with Windows pre-installed, that hardware might not run Linux by design. Sure you can get Linux to run, eventually, worst case scenario you can swap out the motherboard, disk drives, controller cards and power supply, can you say eMachines (1998 – 2004), I knew you could. ZaReason is the reason I avoid proprietary hardware issues.

      Which brings up a very, very important point. Next time your system will not run Linux, an open source software honestly think about why? Is it really that Linux distro’s fault or will it not run because of some proprietary company artificially causing headaches for their own selfish reasons, none of which are good for the Linux user.

      A few years back I was forced to switch to Gimp from PaintShop Pro, not because PaintShop Pro was bad, I loved it! Only because Corel stupidly attempted to force me to upgrade to the new MS proprietary operating system first before letting me run their new version of PaintShop Pro. Huge mistake. LMAO, what a joke, I simply borrowed a friends laptop that was running the latest, greatest version of that OS, installed PaintShop Pro to a USB device (yes it attempted to prevent me, but there are ways around everything if you know what you are doing, of course the inconvenience is insulting and worthy of churn) and continued my contract work. Once that project was finished, I never looked back…PaintShop Pro was done, sad really, but necessary to remain FREE! Obviously I was willing to pay money for quality! Now that I have gotten into using the Gimp, I am beyond impressed.

      And don’t bash me over the head with Adobe PhotoShop is better than X BS either, I could afford PaintShop Pro back in the day, not PhotoShop. Thankfully I did not have years invested in PhotoShop and the PaintShop Pro package had improved to the point were it was equivalent except one or two tasks that I would never use anyway. Same thing happened with Foxbase vs Clipper; Quattro Pro (multi-dimensional spreadsheets before anyone knew what a pivot was…) vs Lotus 1-2-3 (Excel did not exist yet);

      History is rife with examples (hardware, software and operating systems) isn’t it. Burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me…why in the heck give them a third chance? …insane

      The biggest threat to Linux is not a GUI, but proprietary wolf bits in sheep clothing. Always designed to stunt or out right stifle Linux innovation. DRM is another example. Proprietary codecs is yet another, how many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief when Google open sourced their new, recently purchased video codec! You have to admit that was not evil!

      And how many of us are looking forward to moving to a synchronous FTTH community in the near future similar to Kansas City, Google’s first Go Big With a Gig Community? Did you know there are almost 30 synchronous FTTH communities in the USA today that you could live in and get no throttling of your upstream bandwidth, no stupid useless unnecessary bandwidth CAPs and probably receive net neutrality because with synchronous FTTH, there is simply no reason to be stupid. No reason to prevent innovation or stifle creativity. Where better can a truly small web business start up on a shoe string budget, than in a synchronous FTTH community. Talk about a job creator!

      Linux adoption would be in the 30 – 50% range today, increasing steadily over the last 10 years, except for FOSS + proprietary missteps, marketing FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) and strategically placed proprietary pieces did not get introduced to an unsuspecting user base for a particular Linux distro. Of course that leaves a bad taste in a users mouth, as it is designed to do. But at least blame the proprietary company for their bits and parts, not Linux and not open source.

      Its no wonder so many people have been led down various proprietary – technology blind allies before being dropped for one reason or another. It easier not to do your homework to prevent this. Such a user would naturally have hesitations about trusting Linux again, not because Linux is bad, but because they made a poor choice. Get your hardware from ZaReason, most of your issues will be solved by that choice alone. Next pick a distro that does NOT rely on proprietary mine fields and traps. The only way truly to prevent patent trolls from ruining your company’s day or year!

      Freedom has never been easy, however its always worth the effort. Do you want it bad enough?

      A final huge warning is not having the software on CD or DVD and being forced to install ONLY via the Internet. Insane. Not a matter of IF, but WHEN it will bite you in the behind. I suggest to you that installing Linux is easier than windows for this reason alone.

      I would never purchase software and hardware that did not come with a CD or DVD allowing me to self install on a stand alone (non Internet connected) basis. And as far as getting software pre-installed for newbies, well the Linux vendors do that already so that really is a non-issue.

      Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

    • WL 2:26 AM on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Matt,
      thanks for the info.

      Rodislav Moldovan,
      I know, else I wouldn’t have post my thought (with good intent) and risk the chance to get flamed :)

      LS,
      your probably a geek (Can I install software and updates by command line?),
      or a fanboy/girl/man/woman (Gnome 3, Unity and others will rock in future)
      what’s more to say :)

      Anyway, just look at the number of opensource dev that uses Mac during opensource forum/convention/show….. Ironic :D

    • nicu 8:18 AM on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Have you considered Fedora has such a low market share, compared to Ubuntu, also because it does not push its branding enough? As a result, Fedora is seen by many as a mere testing grounds for RHEL, as not targeted at final users and as something unpolished, therefore no to be used and trusted. On the opposite, when people see a strong message of “this is Fedora and proud of it”, they are more inclined to give it a run… confidence in yourself will inspire confidence in others.

      There is also the need to differentiate, if all distros have the same look and feel and come with the same selection of packages, then the incentive to choose one for the features is way smaller, one will go with the most popular brand.

      Your comparison with Android is wrong: Fedora and Android have completely different target audience, one is a PC operating system and the other is a mobile OS… I know the design for GNOME 3 is inspired from mobile devices (which in my opinion is totally wrong and the reason I am abandoning GNOME after many years of use) but still destined to work on PCs. The number of shipped Android devices is totally irrelevant to the Fedora project. Well… it may be relevant in the sense there are more mobile devices which will play nicer with your PC, but that is all.

      Further, my *personal* opinion is that Linux is neither in direct competition with Windows on the desktop… it happens only on a few small niches of desktop users, but Linux is not here for the large majority, so there is no competition (yes, myself I am in one of those small niches and using a Fedora desktop).

      • Joe Brockmeier 2:20 PM on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply

        “Have you considered Fedora has such a low market share compared to Ubuntu… because it does not push its branding enough?”

        No. ;-) Well, yes – but that’s ridiculous. Fedora has its positives, but it’s not a distro that’s as good for end users as Ubuntu. Full stop – not even worth arguing. Branding is not going to overcome Fedora’s shortcomings when it comes to being a suitable distro for new users.

        “There is also the need to differentiate” — Fedora differentiates in plenty of ways that have *nothing* to do with the look and feel. BTW? Just shipping GNOME Shell is plenty of differentiation here. There’s a lot of difference between Ubuntu and Fedora, and very little danger that users are going to confuse the two.

    • Christoph 6:38 PM on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Joe, what makes you think that Fedora’s market share is tiny compared to Ubuntu’s? You have any numbers on that?

    • WL 9:42 PM on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Sad to say, I should be read this article earlier .
      http://www.sharms.org/blog/2010/12/on-why-open-source-developers-run-mac-os-x/

    • Neville A. Cross 7:31 PM on April 22, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Thinking in terms of market share is a outdated way of looking at distros. I have been struggling to overlook user base because that has been the ongoing discourse of the last decade. Today’s aim is to get contributors.

      Fedora strives on obtain collaboration mostly voluntary. Why do people contribute? Among several options you may find that has to do with a sense of belonging. Brand is what provide cohesion. People is devoting their time for something they believe in. The most they contribute, the more proud of being part of something. Hence how passionate people are about what they do for Fedora, not any other project. Dismissing people’s work on a basis of irrelevant will only make people angrier.

      The whole thing has escalated because people is not recognizing that you are not talking about the brand of bread you buy in the supermarket, your are talking about a home made cookie that’s has take all afternoon to bake and that you want the whole world to know about it (unrealistic, perhaps… but that how you feel). In the end you may get something like: “This is my crappy cookie, but it’s mine!” … Yet Fedora artwork is awesome.

      I fedora lose its identity, will lose the interest of people contributing. I really don’t want to waste my time on just_another_distro. There is a need of reinforcement that makes people keep contributing, leadership. But branding complement that job in a small and yet very intrinsically way.

    • Lorenzo 2:25 PM on April 23, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      funny, just before reading your post I was watching video 22646845 on vimeo (not sure if I can post links in a comment), a very cool demo from a _very_ respected source in our industry.
      I wonder what operating system/distribution they run their software on… ;)

    • David Smith 8:16 AM on April 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Joe,

      Tell us about the rivalry between Novell and Red Hat…

      Thanks

    • GL Nagrom 3:05 PM on April 30, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Regarding Fedora vs. Gnome branding–I can tell you this. I am now running Fedora for the very first time precisely because of Gnome 3. I found it to be fundamentally more elegant, polished, and functional to the mess that is now Unity. And, it’s the first Linux system that I have run that did not feel somehow cobbled together.

      Having said that, installing Fedora was a PITA. The codec searches, repository key errors, poor font rendering, and the general slow performance of yum would leave me cold but for one thing–they’ve done such a beautiful job implementing Gnome. And, since I don’t generally make a lot of changes to my system once its dialed in–I felt as though I could endure the difficult install. Nevertheless, Fedora has a way to go to catch up to some of the more user friendly distros and I’m not even sure they care. Nevertheless, the beta version of Fedora 15 is beautiful, running rock solid, and I am enjoying Gnome 3.

    • terrymac 11:34 AM on May 2, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      I have a Macbook, but I hate OS X. My desktop runs a flavor of Linux – it could be Fedora, could be Ubuntu, could be any of several others, but it certainly is not OS X.

      So why did I buy the Macbook? Simple: it is built like a tank. I have had other laptops whenever somebody looks at them cross-eyed. Connectors break. Disks fail. Cases crack.

      OS X, on the other hand, breaks all sorts of open source software. I gave up, ripped out most everything but OS X, and use it as a handy gateway to my desktop. SSH rules.

  • Joe Brockmeier 11:46 AM on March 18, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Lawyer behind Android infringement claim has Microsoft ties 

    Edward J. Naughton, is out promoting the idea that Android violates the GPL over on Huffington Post. But Naughton seems to be hiding his ties to Microsoft.

    Compare Naughton’s bio on Brown Rudnick’s site and then compare to the Google cached version. Here’s the original, with my emphasis:

    Read the rest on NetworkWorld… »

     

  • Joe Brockmeier 9:56 AM on March 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    Red Hat and the Kernel Kerfluffle 

    Red Hat’s changes to the way it distributes its kernel have made headlines all over the tech press. The company has taken a lot of heat, but what about the competitors that are freeloading on Red Hat’s work?

    If you haven’t followed the issue, let me sum up. Prior to Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6, Red Hat would ship its kernel source with the patches it applies broken out separately. With RHEL 6, Red Hat ships the source with the patches pre-applied. What difference does that make for the vast majority of the people who use or interact with RHEL? None at all. But it does pose a barrier for other developers who want to study the RHEL kernel and see what patches it has applied to the stock kernel.

    Read the rest on Linux Magazine… »

     

  • Joe Brockmeier 8:11 AM on March 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Frozen Bubble, games, , , Quake   

    Five Great Games for Linux 

    Most of the time you hear about how great Linux is for business, how companies can save money deploying Linux on the desktop or server. What doesn’t get enough attention is that Linux can be really good for play, too. Linux users have plenty of games to pick from, though they don’t get as much attention as they deserve. Let’s fix that by highlighting five great games for Linux.

    Linux, admittedly, doesn’t have the same kind of game ecosystem that Windows has. There’s some big bucks in Windows gaming, and a wide selection to be had. But if you’re a casual gamer or hardcore Linux fan who is looking to have a bit of fun on your favorite distro, there’s plenty of games to choose from.

    Read more on Linux.com … »

     

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