Practical Technology

for practical people.

July 26, 2012
by sjvn01
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Twitter apologies

In a blog posting, following Twitter’s Thursday meltdown, Twitter VP of engineering, Mazen Rawashdeh, apologized for the social network’s failure.

“We are sorry. Many of you came to Twitter earlier today expecting, well, Twitter. Instead, between around 8:20am and 9:00am PT, users around the world got zilch from us. By about 10:25am PT, people who came to Twitter finally got what they expected: Twitter.”

So what happened? “The cause of today’s outage came from within our data centers.

Twitter apologies. More >

July 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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Microsoft profits from Linux patent FUD

Microsoft has long made some nice cash from convincing Android vendors that they should pay them for Linux-related patents. Now, for the first time, a company that uses Linux on its servers. Amdocs has publicly paid off Microsoft for patents covering Linux. Mind you, there’s never been any proof that Linux violates any of Microsoft’s patents. Despite that, several C level executives have made similar contracts and tell me that Microsoft has been shaking them down for Linux patent licensing agreements for years.

One involved attorney explained, “Microsoft has been doing this for years, although I don’t know whether a patent cross license, as compared to a monetary payment, has usually been part of the deal.” An executive added, “ In our case we had no patents of our own. We had to sign an NDA [non-disclosure agreement] barring us from revealing any of the Microsoft’s Linux infringement claims.”

Why would a company do this? A C level executive told me, “We use a lot of Microsoft software as well, and it was cheaper than fighting with them over our contracts. We want to do business, not fight over legal claims that have nothing to do with us.”

Microsoft profits from Linux patent FUD. More >

July 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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Dell re-enters high-end Linux laptop market with Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Dell has blown hot and cold on the Linux desktop over the years. Dell was the first major original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to offer consumer Linux desktops in 2007, while  Ubuntu Linux-powered laptops  have often only been available from Dell by special order, Dell is recommitting itself to desktop Linux.  Besides the upcoming ‘Sputnik’ Ubuntu Linux developer laptop, Dell is now offering two new high-end mobile workstations with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6 for Desktops. 

Dell claims the two new systems — the Dell Precision M4700 and M6700 — are the “world’s most powerful 15-inch and 17-inch mobile workstations.” Citation needed, perhaps, but on the face of it do have a good aesthetic quality about them. 

Dell re-enters high-end Linux laptop market with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. More >

July 25, 2012
by sjvn01
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HTML5: To Fork or Not to Fork

Portland, OR: At OSCon, it was evident that the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and the WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) were no longer seeing eye to eye on how to organize HTML5, the next version of HTML. Ian Hickson, one of the HTML5 editors and a member of WHATWG, announced that WHATWG is going in a different direction with HTML5.

“The goals of the W3C and the WHATWG on the HTML front have diverged a bit as well,” Hickson wrote. “The WHATWG effort is focused on developing the canonical description of HTML and related technologies, meaning fixing bugs as we find them, adding new features as they become necessary and viable, and generally tracking implementations. The W3C effort, meanwhile, is now focused on creating a snapshot developed according to the venerable W3C process. This led to the chairs of the W3C HTML working group and myself deciding to split the work into two, with a different person responsible for editing the W3C HTML5, canvas, and microdata specifications than is editing the WHATWG specification (me).”

That sounds a lot like a fork to me.

HTML5: To Fork or Not to Fork. More >