April 21, 2011
by sjvn01
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First things first. If you work in a small office/home office (SOHO) or are just interested in IPv6 at home, you don’t need to start switching over yet. Big businesses and large organizations are the ones that really need to get on the stick with IPv6. That said, I know many of you don’t want to wait to get your feet wet in IPv6 so here’s what’s what with IPv6 support in common SOHO server and desktop operating systems and network devices.
April 21, 2011
by sjvn01
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Do you use Windows not because you like it or there’s some specific Windows-only application that you must use but because it’s what came on your PC? If that’s you, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, wants you to try their soon to be out Ubuntu 11.04 Linux desktop.
When I talked with Canonical marketing manager Gerry Carr, I hadn’t expected him to say that. Over the last few years, Linux desktop vendors haven’t really tried to take on Windows head-on. Oh, to be certain, I think the Linux desktop is great. I’m writing this story on Mint 10, an Ubuntu variant, and I use openSUSE 11.4, Fedora 14, and MEPIS 8.0 on other PCs and laptops. But, I know most people are content to use Windows because that’s what comes on their PCs. Carr thinks though that with Ubuntu 11.04’s new desktop interface and a few other tricks up Canonical’s sleeve, Ubuntu can win over “casual Windows users.”
April 20, 2011
by sjvn01
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Well, this is almost certainly not the Novell patent deal that Microsoft and its CPTN Holding Partners-Apple, EMC and Oracle-wanted . The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced today, April 20th, that in order to proceed with the first phase of their acquisition of certain patents and patent applications from Novell, CPTN Holdings has altered their original agreements to address the department’s antitrust concerns. In particular, “The department said that, as originally proposed, the deal would jeopardize the ability of open source software, such as Linux, to continue to innovate and compete in the development and distribution of server, desktop, and mobile operating systems, middleware, and virtualization products. Although the department will allow the transaction to proceed, it will continue investigating the distribution of the Novell patent to the CPTN owners.”
April 19, 2011
by sjvn01
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We often think of Microsoft as being the aggressor in patent lawsuits. Who can forget their efforts to patent smilies or, more recently and seriously, its anti-Android patent lawsuits. But, remember that Microsoft has often been found guilty of violating patents itself in such cases as against Uniloc. Now, Microsoft has made its last moves against i4i in the Supreme Court over its violation of I4I’s XML patents
This is serious stuff. At one time, a U.S. District Court had ruled that Microsoft couldn’t sell any version of Microsoft Word or Office that could create .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM files. Had that injunction been enforced immediately, there would have been a time during the fall of 2009 when you couldn’t have bought Office 2007 or 2010. That’s no longer in the cards because Microsoft removed the offending code in December 2009, but besides wanting its $200-million fine back, Microsoft wants, according to Thomas Hungar, of the Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who represented Microsoft before the Supremes. “Microsoft wants the patent system strengthened, and the patent playing field fair and balanced.”
What Microsoft and friends means by this is that the courts should use a lower burden-of-proof bar for patent violations. As it stands now, if you’ve been accused of violating a patent you must show “clear and convincing evidence” that the patent is invalid. Microsoft wants the burden of proof to be lowered to “a preponderance of the evidence.”
April 19, 2011
by sjvn01
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This won’t come as any surprise to anyone in the network business, but Arbor Networks has just published a study of “native IPv6 traffic volumes across multiple large carriers” and found “only a small fraction of the Internet has adopted IPv6. ” We are so hosed.
Oh, no one’s going to try to Google “Lady Gaga” tomorrow and find that her YouTube videos are gone. But, if you’re in charge of a business, you’re eventually going to need more Internet addresses and the IPv4 address cupboard is bare. Indeed, the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), which is in charge of all Asian Internet addresses, is now down to the last IPv6 crumbs.
The situation isn’t a lot better in North America. The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) tells me that, “ARIN has seen a steady, if not, slight decline in the number of IPv4 request since IANA reached depletion of their IPv4 pool in early February 2011. However, ARIN has seen a substantial increase in the number of IPv6 requests since that same time. Currently, ARIN has over 5 /8s of IPv4 address and expects this will last through most of this year and possibly into next year.”
When things get really tight with IPv4 addresses, which at this rate will be in the late fall of 2011, ARIN may start restricting IP [Internet Protocol] allocations. In the meantime, you can try to buy IPv4 addresses, but that’s a short term solution. The bottom line is we’re running out of IPv4 addresses and we must start switching over.
April 18, 2011
by sjvn01
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I don’t say this very often, but some days Google is stupid. Until recently, Google’s biggest blunder was Google Wave. But now Google has announced that it won’t release Android 3.0, the tablet version of its mobile operating system, until it has made it “better.”
In a statement, Andy Rubin, head of Google’s Android group, said, “Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites. … While we’re excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types, including phones.” In other words, Google will release the Honeycomb source code as soon as it’s ready. Just don’t ask when that will be.
This has ticked off pretty much every open-source professional out there. Android is under the open-source Apache Software License 2.0, which requires that the source code be released when the executable programs are released. That usually means they’re released together. But the license doesn’t insist on that.
Historically, Google has played games with the ASL’s terms by letting big hardware manufacturers, such as HTC, Motorola and Sony, have an early look at Android source code. Smaller vendors, developers and open-source purists have been unhappy with that “some animals are more equal than others” approach in the past, and now Google is stretching the gap between private release and an open-source release even further. Some would say it has stretched the gap to the breaking point.
I know Google doesn’t want vendors rushing half-baked Honeycomb tablets out to the public. But you know what? I’d rather see tiny companies trying to make a fast buck by selling not-ready-for-public-consumption tablets than a big company playing games with open-source licensing.
Google already has enough intellectual property troubles, with Oracle suing over Java, Microsoft creeping toward a suit, and an an assortment of open-source-related copyright claims. Does it really need to alienate the programmers? I think not.
What really troubles me, though, isn’t Google playing fast and loose with the ASL. No, what bugs me about this, and what makes it one of Google’s all-time dumb moves, is that the whole point of open source is that you might make your life easier by sharing the code. Right now, all of Honeycomb’s development rests on a relative handful of in-house Honeycomb developers. The big OEM developers will be spending their time adding gewgaws to the base code. They’re not going to help get Honeycomb out the door.
By turning its back on open source, Google is not only harming and annoying other Android developers. It’s also hurting its own operating system, and its own future.
I don’t know who came up with this idea at Google, but I do know he was an idiot. In 2011, even Microsoft, enemy of all things open, has realized the worth of open source as a development method. Google itself rests on Linux. To decide that turning the developer clock back 20 years is the right move strikes me as foolish beyond belief.
Even so, since Apple has shown no interest in the low-end or midrange tablet markets, and since no one else is really ready to enter them, I’m sure Honeycomb will be a success. I’m also sure it will be filled with more bugs than it would have been if Google had kept the code open. If Google continues on this path, Android may eventually face real challenges from webOS, Windows Phone 8 or even Windows 8. I can only hope Google realizes the error of its ways — for its own sake, if not for the sake of its smaller developer partners and customers — in time to keep Android a top mobile operating system.