Practical Technology

for practical people.

September 15, 2010
by sjvn01
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Novell may be sold soon, but to whom?

The New York Post is not exactly where I look for business or Linux news, but it seems they’re on to something. In a September 15th story, the Post reported that “Novell Inc. has reached a deal in principle to sell itself in two parts, and is three to four weeks away from signing a deal.” My sources are saying the same thing.

I wish I had more to report, but I don’t. The deal seems to be that a technology company will pick up SUSE Linux; its open-source community and its distribution, openSUSE; and their associated technologies like Mono, the open-source adaptation of Microsoft’s .NET. The rest will go to a private-equity company.

Officially, Novell has told me “No comment.” Off-the-record, all I’ve got is that there are deals in the works, but that’s not much. Novell has been working on finding a buyer since at least May.

Whatever the merger and acquisition agreements end up being, I’m sure it will be for more than the $2-billion bargain-basement price offered by Elliott Associates in March of this year for Novell. That said it’s still possible that Elliott Associates may be the private equity firm in on the deal.

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September 15, 2010
by sjvn01
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Dying online

Yesterday, I got a LinkedIn connection suggestion about a former co-worker. Happens all the time. The only thing that was different about this one was that he had died about five years ago. Ow. It was a strange moment.

It’s a sort of moment I may have to get used to. While we continue to shuffle off this mortal coil as often as ever — no gets out of life alive — our online footprints remain behind us. Sometimes, though, as with LinkedIn, these reminders of mortality catch me by surprise. It’s a surprise I could do without.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the social networks have any mechanisms in place to deal with the death of their members. There is no way for Facebook to set my status to Dead. And, given the recent eruption of fake death reports on Twitter, that’s a good thing.

So, what can you do about this? Well, I recommend acceptance. If you see death coming sooner rather than later, you can do what intellectual and writer Christopher Hitchens has done and tell the world. But you don’t need to be famous author to do this. A fellow technology writer friend of mine, Chris Gulker, has told the world of what he calls “the final upgrade” in his own blog. I admire their courage.

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September 14, 2010
by sjvn01
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Shuttleworth answers Ubuntu Linux’s critics

In recent weeks, Ubuntu has been criticized for not giving Linux enough support. Specifically, the complains have been that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, doesn’t do enough for producing Linux source code. At first, Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu and Canonical’s founder, was content to take the high-ground of broad issues, but now Shuttleworth has gotten more into the details of what he believes both he personally and Ubuntu has brought to Linux.

In Shuttleworth’s latest blog post, he wrote about how Ubuntu and Canonical has brought “the extraordinary generosity of the free software community to the world at large, as a gift, free of charge, unencumbered and uncrippled, and to do so sustainably.”

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September 14, 2010
by sjvn01
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Microsoft does the right thing for Russian protest groups

It’s no mystery that I generally don’t like Microsoft or its products. On the other hand, when Microsoft does something right, I’ll say that too. By issuing a free, blanket software license to nonprofit and journalist groups in Russia and other NGOs (non-government organizations) outside the U.S., Microsoft has done the right thing.

After the New York Times reported that Microsoft lawyers have helped Russian authorities to raid advocacy groups and newspapers in the name of copyright enforcement in recent years, Microsoft slammed on the brakes on its copyright enforcement policies. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith wrote in his blog, “We want to be clear that we [Microsoft] unequivocally abhor any attempt to leverage intellectual property rights to stifle political advocacy or pursue improper personal gain.”

Normally, when Microsoft just talks the talk and doesn’t walk the walk, I’d be snickering at comments like that. But Smith went on to write, “Our first step is clear-cut. We must accept responsibility and assume accountability for our anti-piracy work, including the good and the bad. At this point some of the specific facts are less clear than we would like. We will retain an international law firm that has not been involved in the anti-piracy work to conduct an independent investigation, report on its conclusions, and advise us of new measures we should take.”

That’s impressive. Microsoft is willing to take the blame for what may have been done in their name in Russia.

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September 13, 2010
by sjvn01
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British Telecomm and Cisco’s Network Neutrality Fix

British Telecomm and Cisco are quietly putting their own answer to Network Neutrality in place: Set up an entirely separate national wide network, Content Connect This will be used to deliver the BBC’s forthcoming Internet video and Video on Demand (VoD) service Project Canvas to users.

Project Canvas will be a set of video and radio services provided by partnership of Arqiva, the BBC, BT, C4, Channel Five, ITV, and TalkTalk to build an open Internet-connected TV platform. It will offer streaming TV and radio through a set-top box hooked up to UK users’ broadband connection. It will also offer DVR-style pause, rewind and record options. Think of it as a UK combination of Hulu, and the Roku Internet video player and you won’t be far off.

For the most part, United Kingdom video watchers will also get it the same way Americans get Hulu: via their ISP. British Telecomm and Cisco, though, plan to side-step the Internet though with Content Connect. This will use Cisco’s Content Delivery System to transmit video, other content directly to your computer, TV or mobile device, and bypass both the public Internet and ISPs.

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September 12, 2010
by sjvn01
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Microsoft’s newest partner: Russia’s Vladimir Putin

If you stand against Russia’s de facto dictatorship you have another enemy besides Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: Microsoft. According to a New York Times report, the Russian government is using a new tactic “for quelling dissent: confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.” Furthermore, the Russian state is doing this with the help of Microsoft’s Russian attorneys.

Microsoft, reports the New York Times, doesn’t start these inquiries and only does what they’re required to do by Russian law. The dissentients, ranging from environmentalists to journalists, tell a different story. “Without the participation of Microsoft, these criminal cases against human rights defenders and journalists would simply not be able to occur,” said Russian newspaper editor Sergey Kurt-Adzhiyev.

Microsoft doesn’t merely quietly allow the Russian government to seize computers in the name of software thief. Instead, Microsoft ignores requests from help from the targeted companies and instead provides “testimony to the police about the value of the software that Baikal Wave [an environmentalist group] was accused of illegally obtaining.”

Faced with these accusations, Microsoft public relations said that it would make sure its Russian lawyers would have “more clearly defined responsibilities and accountabilities.” Microsoft also stated that “We have to protect our products from piracy, but we also have a commitment to respect fundamental human rights.” Tell that to the groups in Russia that have their records ripped open and destroyed.

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