OStatic blogs

Open Source Machines: New Ideas Are Arriving

Sam Dean — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:04:24 -0400

Bring up the term open source to many people, and they'll immediately think of community-driven software projects, but we've covered many open source hardware concepts here on OStatic over the years. And, last year, the official Open Source Hardware (OSHW) definition arrived in version 1.1. Recently, TED fellow Marcin Jakubowski delivered an address in which he discussed the open source blueprints for 50 farm machines, ranging from tractors to harvesters. You can get his thoughts in a video, but these farm-focused ideas are only a small part of the open source hardware scene.

As NPR notes:

"Using wikis and digital fabrication tools, Jakubowski's work enables anyone to build their own tractor or harvester from scratch. The effort is part of an overall project to write an instruction set for an entire self-sustaining village. Starting cost: $10,000. Call it a 'civilization starter kit."

Meanwhile, just consider the many other open source hardware projects that are up and running. We've covered Arduino, an open electronics prototyping platform; Ben NanoNote, an attempt at open source computers; open hardware designs created during the OLPC project; and the global efforts of open source roboticists.

The official Open Source Hardware (OSHW) definition provides these guidelines for open source hardware efforts:

"Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make and sell the design or hardware based on that design. The hardware's source, the design from which it is made, is available in the preferred format for making modifications to it. Ideally, open source hardware uses readily-available components and materials, standard processes, open infrastructure, unrestricted content, and open-source design tools to maximize the ability of individuals to make and use hardware. Open source hardware gives people the freedom to control their technology while sharing knowledge and encouraging commerce through the open exchange of designs."

We'll see what comes of Jakubowski's open source farm equipment ideas, but in the meantime there is no shortage of other hardware-focused community projects that you can get involved with.

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China Says Yes to Google/Motorola Deal: Now What?

Sam Dean — Mon, 21 May 2012 10:51:54 -0400

Quick, when did Google announce its plans to acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion--its biggest acquisition ever? The answer is that the announcement came all the way back in August 2011. Since then, U.S. antitrust regulators and regulators in Europe have approved the deal, but China was the big sticking point. Now, though, China has approved the acquisition and there are reports circulating that the deal should close this week. It's easy to forget after all this time that this acquisition marks a huge shift in Google's business and strategy.

Motorola officials have said that they expect that the Google acquisition will close before the end of this week now that all regulatory bodies have given their blessings. This will put Google firmly in the smartphone business and make its Android business a huge priority at the company.

Android smartphones are dominating the overall smartphone market. Researchers from Gartner report that Android phones represented 56 percent of the global smartphone market in the first quarter of this year, while Apple's iPhone was next in line with only 22.9 percent of the market. But Google hasn't always made money from its Android business. As we noted here, reports came out about losses for the Android business in 2010.

As Google becomes a big player in the smartphone market will it keep new versions of Android under wraps, giving itself a pronounced advantage over other hardware manufacturers? According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google's long-term strategy may be to favor a cadre of hardware makers with the latest versions, and to sell direct to consumers. However, company officials have been very firm about the fact that new versions of Android will go to multiple hardware players as they arrive.

The smartest thing for Google to do is play on a level playing field with other smartphone players, at least in the short run. Among other issues, Google is going to become more firmly entrenched in supporting hardware than it ever has been before. The company will need to focus on smoothly integrating the Motorola business, and Chinese regulators already imposed some rules on Google designed to ensure far business practices. Some early reports about the Chinese approval note that Chinese officials are demanding that Android remain free and available to other device makers for at least five years going forward.

In any case, it's remarkable how far Google has come with Andoid in such a smart time. In early 2009, many observers pronounced Android a complete bust. Now look where it's headed.

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Diminutive Android PCs Are Selling for Under $75

Sam Dean — Fri, 18 May 2012 11:52:42 -0400

If you thought the Raspberry Pi was the only tiny, ultra-inexpensive, pocketable computer running an open source operating system, think again. Not only is the OLPC effort showing signs of new life, but a number of Chinese web sites are now offering Android-based MK802 computers in thumbdrive-style form factors (shown here) for under $75. The prices even earn you free shipping if you happen to live in one of several Asian countries. Is there a market for these?

A post from CNX software notes that these Android-based, thumbdrive-style mini PCs are available on AliExpress for $74, which includes shipping. The devices have ARM processors and run the Android 4.0 operating system. They also have onboard GPUs that enable 1080p video through HDMI. And, you apparently get 512MB of RAM complemented by 4GB of storage available through a microSD slot. The mini PCs are also WiFi-ready, and have a standard USB slot.

These Android devices are already being compared to the Cotton Candy mini computers that run either Android or Ubuntu, but the Cotton Candy systems run for $199. If nothing else, all of these devices are illustrating that the price points for very powerful miniature computers can be driven very low--well under the $100 price point that the OLPC project originally targeted.

The Raspberry Pi, available in $25 and $35 versions, has really driven this point home, and the educational market and the opportunity to put computers in the hands of children who couldn't previously afford them is a point of focus at the Raspberry Pi project. Would you go for one of these pocketable Android devices at under $75?

Photo Credit: CNX Software

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An Open Source Arsenal for Photographers

Sam Dean — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:52:12 -0400

There has never been a better time to be interested in digital photography. Not only do inexpensive digital cameras offer great high-resolution photos, but they come with very advanced feature sets. Over the years on OStatic, we've also covered a huge number of open source applications that can make editing, organizing and adding effects to digital photos much easier. If you're under the impression that you must have Photoshop to be a top-notch photo editor, think again. The open source applications that are available are beyond robust. Here is our updated collection of great tools for the digital photographer--and all of them are free.

Editing and Organizing. Lisa did a good roundup on five applications focused on image editing and organizing photos here. Among the applications she took note of, Shotwell is a very popular photo organizer for the GNOME desktop environment. Meanwhile, DigiKam is a rich application with slick editing tools, and you can use it to organize photo libraries.

Cooliris. Among photo junkies, Cooliris is almost universally lauded. Kristin covered the Linux version here. It's a browser plug-in designed to enhance your photo and video browsing experience. You can use it to panoramically soar through photo collections, and it works great for navigating photo and video collections found online.

Go GIMP. If you've spent any time working with photos and graphics--whether you favor open source software or not--you're probably familiar with the power of GIMP, one of the very best open source graphics applications. In this post, we rounded up five free, educational resources for getting started with GIMP and becoming an expert user.

Blender Basics. Blender is most widely known as a 3D animation application, but it includes so much graphical muscle under the hood, that any serious digital photographer can enhance photos impressively with it. We've covered a number of free resources for beginner-to-advanced Blender instruction here, including Tuft University's remarkable free online course on the application.

Get Going with Gallery. Gallery is an open source, web-based photo management and album organizer application available for Linux and Windows. Licensed under the GPL, Gallery makes it easy to blend photo management into a web site or blog. There is a Gallery Remote client available for it that lets you upload new sets of photos on-the-fly, and Gallery is available in over 20 languages.

Shooting the Panorama. For working with very splashy and impressive panoramic digital photos, Hugin is hard to beat. It's a free, open source photo panorama stitcher that lets you assemble collections of overlapping pictures into one big image, including a full 360° panoramic view. Check out Lisa's post on it here. Just below, check out the cool panoramic photo of the Golden Gate Bridge from Hugin's site.

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Mandriva Returning to Community

Susan Linton — Thu, 17 May 2012 19:11:07 -0400

In a blog post today Mandriva COO Jean-Manuel Croset announced that the new strategy going forward will be to let "the distribution evolve in and under the caring responsibility of the community." Mandriva SA will, of course, be a part of this entity.

Croset continues by saying that "a workgroup of community representatives is being setup right now." The transition should be pretty much complete within a few months according to Croset's expectations. "This workgroup will be assigned the task to define the structures, processes and organization of the new entity and will start to work in the next few days."

In closing, Croset expressed his belief that this new approach will assure the continuation of Mandriva the distribution even if Mandriva the corporation finally implodes.

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NASA Reportedly Pulls OpenStack Development

Sam Dean — Thu, 17 May 2012 11:08:25 -0400

Since it first arrived on the open source scene two years ago and got its initial wind at its back from NASA and Rackspace, the OpenStack cloud computing platform has received support from many powerful organizations, Dell, IBM, Cisco, HP, Yahoo!, and Red Hat. It's easy to forget, though, that OpenStack has its roots at NASA. Now, NASA officials have reportedly confirmed that NASA will minimize its development of the open source platform going forward. Meanwhile, more OpenStack-based deployments are arriving.

As Datacenter Dynamics reports:

"Karen Petraska, service executive for computing services at NASA’s CIO office, said, now that OpenStack had started to see commercial adoption, the agency was going to minimize its involvement in development of the open-source platform. NASA does not want to compete with commercial cloud providers, wanting instead to be a 'smart consumer' of commercial cloud services, Petraska said during a presentation at the Uptime Institute’s symposium in Santa Clara, California, Tuesday."

It's no surprise to see NASA pulling away from OpenStack as it recieves so much commercial support, but NASA deserves a tip of the hat for giving the platform its initial momentum. Meanwhile, many OpenStack-based deployments are arriving.

AT&T has a private cloud based on OpenStack, and RackSpace and HP have announced extensive cloud-based platform services based on it. Dell, too, has a commercial platform based on OpenStack and Canonical is developing around it with Ubuntu.

Notably, Datacenter Dynamics also reports that NASA will halt work on Nebula, the cloud platform that was built in conjunction with OpenStack. Going forward, OpenStack is going to be both an open source platform available in the wild and a commercial platform driven by profit-minded companies. And, as we've noted, it's also going to be backed by a heavy-hitting and well-funded foundation. AT&T, IBM, Cisco, HP, Dell and many other tech companies have pledged support for the OpenStack Foundation.

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Android Rules the Smartphone Market, and Samsung Rides the Wave

Sam Dean — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:49:01 -0400

It's official: Android smartphones are dominating the overall smartphone market. Researchers from Gartner report that Android phones represented 56 percent of the global smartphone market in the first quarter of this year, while Apple's iPhone was next in line with only 22.9 percent of the market. And, if you've been underestimating Samsung's force in the mobile phone market consider some key data about its leadership in the market for Android phones.

According to Gartner:

"Samsung became the world’s top mobile handset vendor during the quarter, displacing Nokia which had held the No. 1 spot since 1998. Samsung’s mobile phone sales reached 86.6 million units, a 25.9 percent increase from last year. Samsung took back the world’s No. 1 smartphone position from Apple, selling 38 million smartphones worldwide. In addition, Samsung’s Android-based smartphone sales in the first quarter of 2012 represented more than 40 percent of Android-based smartphone sales worldwide; no other vendors achieved more than a 10 percent share of the market."

Wow, Android only began to gain momentum in 2009, and since then, HTC and Motorola built significant brand strategies around the open source mobile OS, but it's very clear that Samsung has the biggest lock on the Android phone market. However, there may be some reversion to the mean for Samsung ahead, especially since Gartner researchers warn that all phones, including Android-based models, are becoming commoditized and similar:

"This is particularly true for smartphones based on the Android OS, where a strong commoditization trend is at work and most players are finding it hard to break the mould,” Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner said. “At the high end, hardware features coupled with applications and services are helping differentiation, but this is restricted to major players with intellectual property assets. However, in the mid to low-end segment, price is increasingly becoming the sole differentiator. This will only worsen with the entry of new players and the dominance of Chinese manufacturers, leading to increased competition, low profitability and scattered market share."

Can Apple still pull ahead in the overall smartphone market? It has major opportunities in China, where the iPhone is gaining lots of traction, but for now, Android is dominating the mobile phone game even though it arrived on the scene long after the iPhone and the iOS platform.

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Chrome 19 Adds Tab Features, Moves Toward Business-Class Security

Sam Dean — Wed, 16 May 2012 11:11:24 -0400

On Tuesday, Google released a major new version of the Chrome browser to its stable channel, available for Windows, the Mac and Linux. A new tab synchronization feature in the new version 19 of the browser is drawing some buzz, and you can watch how this feature works here. However, it's also notable that version 19 fixes 20 significant bugs, improving the browser's security. Google remains focused on security with Chrome, because that's the key to winning over IT departments at businesses, many of which favor market-leading Internet Explorer from Microsoft.

According to the Google Chrome Blog:

"[Now] when you’re signed in to Chrome, your open tabs are synced across all your devices, so you can quickly access them from the 'Other devices' menu on the New Tab page. If you’ve got Chrome for Android Beta, you can open the same recipe tab right on your phone when you run out to the store for more ingredients. The back and forward buttons will even work, so you can pick up browsing right where you left off...Open tabs aren’t the only things that sync when you sign in to Chrome. Signing in to Chrome also syncs your bookmarks, apps, extensions, history, themes, and other settings. That way, when you sign in to Chrome, you can have your personal Chrome experience on all your devices."

Of course, this form of tab synchronization has been available in Firefox and through extensions for a long time, but having it native in Chrome will cause more Chrome users to pick up on the functionality.

As we've noted, Google has also been raising the stakes on its bug bounties for Chrome: cash rewards that are paid to researchers who ferret out bugs in the browser. That's helped Google quash 20 significant bugs in version 19 of Chrome, part of a key ongoing effort to convince businesses that the browser is secure.

Chrome still needs to crack the business market, which is dominated by Internet Explorer. Some IT departments won't even permit users to have open source browsers. In addition to hard and fast rules, there is also substantial gray area surrounding how users become tied to Internet Explorer. For example, even if an IT department hasn't mandated using Internet Explorer, company-specific tools, such as intranets, can often depend on it. In organizations that rely on Microsoft's platforms, such as SharePoint, users may have trouble performing common workday tasks unless they have Internet Explorer.

With version 19 of Chrome, Google is moving to make its browser more secure and the tab sync features will appeal to lots of users. We're likely to see Chrome pick up even more market share between now and the end of the year.

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Google's Android Plan: Are Surprises In Store?

Sam Dean — Wed, 16 May 2012 10:52:15 -0400

It was all the way back in August when Google announced plans for its biggest acquisition ever, agreeing to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Since then, shareholders and regulators around the world have signed off on the arrangement, but China has remained the sticking point for Google to move ahead with the final deal. One thing that every analyst agrees on once the deal goes through is that it will kick Google's true, long-term strategy surrounding the Android mobile OS into high gear. Now, there are reports coming in that imply that Google's long-term Android strategy may include some surprises.

For a long time, many observers have speculated that Google might play favorites with hardware manufacturers as it moves aggressively into the smartphone business and pushes its Android strategy forward. In the past, the company has drawn criticism for allowing this or that hardware maker early access to the latest version of Android. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Google's long-term strategy may be to favor a cadre of hardware makers with the latest versions, and to sell direct to consumers:

"Google plans to give multiple mobile-device makers early access to new releases of Android and to sell those devices directly to consumers, said people familiar with the matter. That is a shift from Google's previous practice, when it joined with with only one hardware maker at a time to produce 'lead devices,' before releasing the software to other device makers. Those lead devices were then sold to consumers through wireless carriers or retailers."

It's especially important to take note of the bit about direct sales. Through direct sales, Google can bypass wireless carriers as middlemen when pinning down the feature set on new phones with new version of Android.

PCMag.com notes that Google may be planning to begin the strategy by giving five hardware makers access to the next version of Android, also sending a message about its lack of intent to freeze the majority of hardware makers out:

"Google reportedly plans to give multiple mobile device makers early access to its next version of Android in an attempt to create a more robust ecosystem to take on Apple and also to reassure partners that its Motorola Mobility acquisition won't squeeze them out...Google could launch new devices running its next version of Android, dubbed Jellybean, with as many as five manufacturers, according to the WSJ."

The Wall Street Journal has cited unnamed sources for these reports, but, if true, this would mark a major change in Google's Android strategy, and would answer critics who speculated that through the Motorola acquisition, Google might throw its weight around in the Android ecosystems instead of playing fairly. If the reports are correct, Google would also be making the smartest move possible, because Android has appealed to hardware makers as an open and flexible mobile OS, and Google will be best served by keeping hardware makers behind it.

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ROSALabs Releases New Distribution

Susan Linton — Tue, 15 May 2012 23:27:10 -0400

ROSALabs, Mandriva's partner on their last desktop, has been working on their own Linux distribution and have recently announced their latest release. If you liked Mandriva 2011, then you'll probably like ROSA Marathon 2012. In fact, to the casual observer, it looks like ROSA 2012 is Mandriva 2011.

While trying to find differences in Mandriva 2011, ROSA 2011, and ROSA 2012, one finds very little. Firefox, kdelibs, and qt are among the few updated software versions. The release announcement states, "ROSA Marathon 2012 operating system is the first product of ROSA company created using our own software development and build environment - ROSA ABF - that gives us complete control of package base and development tools, guarantying technological independence and high quality of the distribution." So, it sounds as though ROSA's experience mirrors Magiea's. After a fork, one needs to concentrate on their infrastructure, so users should see more divergence in the future.

In fact, the release announcement continues in saying, "With the release of ROSA Marathon 2012, the main focus of ROSA company will switch to preparation of a new operating system - ROSA Desktop 2012, which is planned to be released in the end of the year. Compared to Marathon, the Desktop version will primarily target desktop users, looking for leading-edge features, wide range of system customization possibilities and large variety of applications. Developers will concentrate efforts on system acceleration, improvement and finalization of boot loader and installer, update of system components, and surely on adding the freshest versions of different applications, including large variety of games." So, it sounds to me like folks should just wait for that release.

Some of the features ROSA is touting includes their RocketBar, or panel to most people. It's been simplified because humans become so confused with too many buttons on the panel. SimpleWelcome is a "single launch point for applications" that saves users the trouble of hunting through a menu for certain application launchers. StackFolder "allows [users] to organize fast access to frequently used folders and files."

Technical specifications are pretty much the same as Mandriva's or any another modern full-sized, full-featured distribution. They specifically state:

- a PC with CPU equivalent to Intel Pentium III 1 GHz (Pentium 4 or higher is recommended);
- 640 MB RAM (768 MB and more is recommended);
- VGA video adapter and display supporting 1024x768 resolution, 24-bit color depth;
- DVD drive or SSD of at least 4 GB in size for installation;
- minimum 20 GB of hard drive free space;
- keyboard and mouse.

Unfortunately, the download link on the Website leads to the wrong directory, but the mirrors listed in the release announcement are correct. You'll find two images for the two main architectures, one is comparable to Mandriva Free in that it only contains Open Source software. The other contains codecs and other proprietary code.

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Which CMS System Is Right for You? Take a Test Drive

Sam Dean — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:12:11 -0400

In recent years, content management systems (CMS) have become very powerful tools for building, deploying and managing web sites, blogs and more. And, along with that trend, open course CMS platforms have absolutely flourished. You're probably familiar with some of the big names in this arena, including Drupal (which Ostatic is based on) and Joomla. As we noted in this post, selecting a CMS to build around can be a complicated process, since the publishing tools provided are hardly the only issue. What many people don't realize, though, is that you can try out the major CMS platforms at OpenSource CMS, a great site for gaining experience for free.

"OpenSourceCMS.com is a central resource for all things Open Source CMS and gives you the opportunity to 'try out' most of the best Open Source CMS tools in the world without marketing fluff and sales people," notes the site. You can find a huge array of open source CMS demos and portals to sample here.

There are many other demos, news feeds, and discussion forums related to free, open-source CMS platforms at OpenSourceCMS. Especially if you’re paying or considering paying for a proprietary solution, take some of the demos for a spin.

Over time, OpenSource CMS has branched out from simply offering demos of the well-known content management systems to offering demos of ecommerce-focused platforms. For example, you can demo Magento, one of the most popular open source ecommerce environments. You can also discuss these ecommerce platforms with people who have already built online stores around them.

Needles to say, there are also many proprietary CMS platforms, and some CMS platforms come in open source and paid versions. It may be worth evaluating the proprietary platforms, but lots of users want the customization flexibility that the open source CMS platforms provide. For example, here at OStatic, we like the modular aspects of Drupal, and have had success incorporating things like outside search features into our Drupal-based deployment.

In any case, OpenSource CMS lets you put on your site administrator gloves before you've committed to a full deployment around any given platform. Take it for a spin.

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux Hits 10-Year Anniversary

Sam Dean — Tue, 15 May 2012 10:47:23 -0400

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and many people who have followed the rise of the RHEL platform may be surprised that it is so young. Released while the burning embers of the dot-com boom were still smoldering, it--along with Red Hat's comprehensive support for an open source platform--appealed to many businesses who wanted a low-cost way to facilitate useful workplace applications without massive IT headaches. And, as Red Hat itself notes, RHEL has also found a home in government installations.

According to a tenth anniversary statement from Red Hat:

"In 2003, the U.S. Army commissioned a study on ‘The Business Case for Open Source Software’ and the then DOD CIO John Stenbit released the first DOD-wide guidance on open source software, which implicitly permitted its acquisition, development, and use. Nine months later, in July of 2004, the Office of Management and Budget issued a similar memo that covered the government as a whole."

"At the same time, Red Hat released the first version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1. The Army deployed Red Hat’s operating system in its Blue Force Tracker system, which lived in jeeps and tanks on the battlefield. Major General Nicholas Justice, the man responsible for Blue Force Tracker, said later: “When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.”

The Register also has an interesting summary of RHEL's earliest days attempting to gain traction with businesses:

"RHEL emerged from the craze for Linux company IPOs that went hand-in-hand with the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Red Hat went public in August 1999 and Linux was on fire with Red Hat, as the first big Linux distro offering commercial support, the hottest. Red Hat had lined up partnerships with Compaq, IBM, Oracle, Computer Associates, and others in the systems racket after Linux was enthusiastically embraced years earlier by academics and the supercomputing labs."

To this day, a big part of Red Hat's strategy remains renewing support subscriptions from its most loyal users, and banking on positive word of mouth generated by these loyal users. The company's model of providing top-notch support for open source software is being copied by many commercial open source companies.

At this point, Red Hat is the only public, U.S company focused exclusively on open source, now that Sun Microsystems and Novell are no longer independent entities. Both Novell and Sun had lots of capital expenditures and operating expenses over time, and lots of fat of other kinds built into their business models. Red Hat's lesson is that a company can run lean simply supporting open source software and still fare well over the long run.

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Mandriva Community Planning Next Release

Susan Linton — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:10:07 -0400

While waiting for the Mandriva management to decide the future direction of the distribution, the community is taking matters into their own hands and beginning the planning stages for the next release, assumed to be Mandriva Linux 2012.

In a posting on the Mandriva wiki, development community members stated that even though there is no official roadmap as of yet, "there is a Mandriva community effort around a new Mandriva release, in order to keep people stimulated to contribute." The community draft is not hosted or sponsored by Mandriva, so any plans are tentative on Mandriva's official position to come.

In the Development Community Draft, a few details are emerging. The first was the assumption that the next release will be dubbed Mandriva Linux 2012, "scheduled to be released in 2012."

Per Øyvind Karlsen will be acting as project leader with Bernhard Rosenkränzer & Matthew Dawkins serving as release managers. They figure the desktop edition will be released in "i586, x32, & x86_64 DVDs live and installable images." A technology preview is planned before the end of the month with an alpha to arrive in June. Beyond that is to come.

The draft points to a spec proposal and an idea list as possible features. Some of the spec proposals include things like Switch to eglibc, Switch to gcc 4.7.x, Adopt prelink by default, and Revive Aurora bootloader. The list of features will firm up in the weeks to come.

No mention was made on whether Mandriva will be staying with the ROSA desktop other than a reference to the "Mandriva Desktop," which almost sounds like Mandriva 2012 will be using ROSA or a ROSA-like desktop. Some were hoping to see a more default KDE return.

Of course, nothing is written in stone as of yet.

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Report: Government to Look Into Mozilla's Browser Claims Against Microsoft

Sam Dean — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:13:09 -0400

Over the weekend, The Hill reported that U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee members will look into claims from Mozilla that Microsoft is weilding monopoly power by making it difficult for non-Microsoft browsers to to run efficiently on Windows devices with ARM processors. Many mobile phones use ARM processors, so the dispute is similar to the browser-related disputes that Microsoft has gotten into in the past, except updated to apply to phone platforms. If The Hill's report is correct, Microsoft may need to change its practices immediately.

Browsers have been at the center of scrutiny from the government toward Microsoft for many years, ever since the U.S. Department of Justice pursued its antitrust case against the company. The latest claims from Mozilla surround Microsoft allegedly withholding APIs needed to make non-Microsoft browsers competitive on Windows RT. According to Mozilla's Asa Dotzler:

"For Windows on X86, Microsoft is giving other browsers basically the same privileges it gives IE. It's not great that you don't get those privileges (certain API access) unless you're the default browser and I think that's deeply unfair (a post for later,) but at least we're able to build a competitive browser and ship it to Windows users on x86 chips. But on ARM chips, Microsoft gives IE access special APIs absolutely necessary for building a modern browser that it won't give to other browsers so there's no way another browser can possibly compete with IE in terms of features or performance."

In all likelihood, if members of the Senate Judiciary Committe even begin sniffing around this issue, it will prompt action in the direction of compliance from Microsoft. The company doesn't want to immerse itself in a replay of the browser-centric government investigations that it has endured in the past. For much more on what to expect here, see Asa Dotzler's updated post on the matter, found here.

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Updated Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix Arrives

Sam Dean — Mon, 14 May 2012 10:51:42 -0400

Fresh on the heels of releasing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Canonical has delivered an updated version of its Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix. As found in previous versions, this new update features applications likely to be appreciated by business users, and doesn't include various games and other entertainment-focused options. The update is based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, and here's more on what you'll find in it.

Canonical, of course, has made much noise recently about how it wants more enterprises and businesses of all sizes to adopt Ubuntu. The 12.04 release expanded long-term support and added cloud computing options for just that reason. The new Business Desktop Remix is squarely focused on business users, as noted on the Canonical blog:

"Designed for corporate and government organisations evaluating Ubuntu for their desktop infrastructure, the Business Desktop Remix is a simple base image that can be deployed into your corporate environment or used as a starting point for further customisation."

The post also clarifies some of the choices regarding bundled applications:

"To save time in deployment, we’ve removed games, social networking programs, file sharing apps and technical tools. In their place, you’ll find software more appropriate for a corporate environment, including VMware View, the Adobe Flash Plugin and the OpenJDK 6 Java runtime environment. Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix provides full language support in both 32 and 64-bit builds, just like the standard Ubuntu. Users also benefit from the great new productivity features introduced in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, including built-in support for Microsoft Windows RDP 7.1 and the Microsoft Visio diagram importer in LibreOffice Draw."

Can a combination of long-term support, and a set of applications optimized for business users help Ubuntu become more entrenched in businesses? Many businesses are standardized on Microsoft's platforms, and in some cases extricating these businesses from those platforms is a tall order. However, just as Red Hat has found success aggressively supporting open source software, Canonical can definitely increase Ubuntu's footprint in businesses.

The Business Desktop Remix requires registration, and you can register and download here.

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