Practical Technology

for practical people.

August 13, 2010
by sjvn01
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Oracle vs. Google over Java in Android is only the start.

I don’t think Oracle suing Google over the use of Java in Android has much to do with Android at all. I think it has everything to do with Oracle monetizing Java anyway it can. That spells big trouble for any company or developer who uses Java but hasn’t obeyed the letter of Java’s intellectual property laws. I’m looking at you, Red Hat/JBoss; Apache/Jakarta; and members of the JCP (Java Community Process). Get ready. Legal trouble is coming your way.

I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think you need to be one to figure out why Oracle is doing this. Java and all its associated technologies are very valuable. Sun was never able to squeeze much money out of Java’s IP (intellectual property). Sun preferred to make its money by building programs around Java.

Let’s let James Gosling, Java’s creator, tell you his take on how he saw Oracle thinking about making money from Java: "Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer’s eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun’s genetic code."

Why pick on Google first? Well, to quote some of my more cynical lawyer friends, you always sue whoever has the deepest pockets first. As Willie Sutton put it when asked why he robs banks, "Because that’s where the money is."

Keep in mind that Oracle is headed by Larry Ellison, the dog-fighting pit-bull of technology CEOs. He’ll take on any company at any time if he feels there’s a chance that he can win. And Larry doesn’t lose very often, as those of us who follow Oracle know so well.

If Oracle goes after other companies that use their own house-brewed Java, these businesses will be in for a world of hurt. Most of them can’t afford lawsuits that may cost millions and last years. The whole secret of winning any lawsuit is being able to outspend and outlast your opposition. Few businesses have the resources fo fight a company the size of Oracle. Any resemblance between this strategy and that of many successful Survivor villains is not a coincidence.

I don’t how this is going to work out. I do know that it has every potential to be a defining moment not just for Android or Java, but for open source in general. When I broke the story in November 2006 that Sun was open-sourcing Java under the GPLv2, I didn’t notice that the Java specification patent grant that went along with it, and which came out in December 2006, is only valid if developers use fully compliant Java implementation. Oops.

If I were Google or any other company that has shipped Java spins-offs, I’d be worried. I have a sinking feeling that patent cases, such as this one, are going to be far more troublesome for Linux and open source than any of the bogus SCO copyright claims were.

As Eben Moglen, director of the Software Freedom Law Center, said at LinuxCon, the day before the Oracle lawsuit hit the fan, "Clarity in software patents isn’t coming any time soon," and "Large number of organizations with patents are still hostile to the GPL."

Who knew that Oracle, which has been an open-source supporter, would turn this nasty towards other open-source companies? Well, from what Gosling has said, Oracle did. This does not bode well for free and open-source software.

A version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

August 11, 2010
by sjvn01
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Novell takes SUSE Linux to the cloud with Amazon

BOSTON, Mass. — Novell was to have announced at LinuxCon that users will be able to run their own customized instances of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 and 11 on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. While the announcement was pulled at the last minute, I’m told that the marriage of SLES and AWS is going ahead.

Markus Rex, Novell’s SVP and General Manager of Open Platform Solutions, told me prior to the formal announcement that users will be able to create their own special SLES blend with SUSE Studio and then upload and use it on AWS. Once it’s there, you can pay Amazon to take care of all its updates, patches, and support. Or, if you’d rather, you can pay Amazon for a generic ready-to-run SLES server on the cloud. They’ll be happy to ‘sell’ you one.

This new offering will be available around the world, and you can pay for using it on an hourly basis. Essentially what Novell is doing here is making AWS a SLES reseller. In the background, Novell will be doing the heavy-lifting on support, but business users will have only one throat to choke if there are any problems: AWS.

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August 10, 2010
by sjvn01
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Linux Foundation launches major open-source license compliance program

BOSTON, Mass. — The Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Linux, announced on Aug. 10 at LinuxCon the launch of the Open Compliance Program, a comprehensive initiative to help companies and developers comply with open-source licenses.

You may not know it, but getting businesses and developers to obey open-source licenses has become a much bigger problem over the years. I’m not talking about the differences between GPLv2 and GPLv3. I’m talking about companies using open-source code and not realizing that they can’t just use it any way they want.

This has become a problem because almost every major company is now using Linux and open-source software. That’s both the good and bad news. With so many companies using and, more important, incorporating free and open-source software (FOSS) in their products, there’s lots of room for businesses to make big mistakes.

That’s especially true in the mobile and consumer electronics space. All you have to do is look at the legal record and you can see that. Company after company builds some neat device and uses FOSS but then doesn’t bother to follow the rules on how the software should be used. Then, when they’re caught at it, the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) or a private law firm comes down like a ton of bricks on the open-source license violators, and they have to pay for their sins.

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August 8, 2010
by sjvn01
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The Corporation has gone Open Source

While Microsoft and friends are doing their best to hide Linux and open-source software from the public, businesses have been adopting Linux and open-source faster than ever. That’s not the opinion of FOSS (free and open-source software) fans. That’s what Accenture, a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company with no particular love for FOSS found in its survey of 300 large private and public organizations.

Accenture “found that half of the respondents (50 percent) are fully committed to open source in their business while almost a third (28 percent) say they are experimenting with open source and keeping an open mind to using it. Furthermore, two-thirds of all respondents (65 percent) noted that they have a fully documented strategic approach for using open source in their business, while another third (32 percent) are developing a strategic plan. Of the organizations using open source, almost nine out of ten (88 percent) will increase their investment in the software in 2010 compared to 2009.”

In short, to quote, Accenture’s chief technology architect Paul Daugherty, “What we are seeing is the coming of age of open source. Through both our research and our work with clients, we are seeing an increase in demand for open source based on quality, reliability and speed, not just cost savings.”

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August 6, 2010
by sjvn01
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Digg, dug, buried: Linux

A liberal blogger has uncovered that a “group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com has just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, up-vote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives.” The blogger, Ole Ole Olson, infiltrated a group that called itself Digg Patriots. His proof is quite damning.

Those of us who follow Digg have long known that Digg has long been susceptible to external gaming. While Digg’s leader Kevin Rose has tried to keep this type of thing from happening, the company’s biggest efforts to clean up its social bookmarking system have ended up vexing some of its biggest fans. In the meantime, as Digg Patriots has shown, Digg’s popularity contest for stories remains easy to corrupt.

I strongly suspect, although I am not able to prove as Olson has, that other groups use similar techniques to ensure that stories about technologies they hate, like Linux, almost never become popular. In turn, this means far fewer people will ever see stories about Linux. Friends who also write regularly about Linux and open source tell me they see this happening.

In early 2009, new popular Linux stories would pop up every day or two on Digg. By mid-2010, Linux stories on Digg became popular only once every week or so. Why? Has everyone who once interested in Linux suddenly vanished? Have people stopped writing about Linux? I don’t think so.

The only explanation I can come up with is that Linux stories are getting down-voted on a regular basis on Digg these days. Who’s doing this? In whose best interest is it to make it appear that there’s little interest in Linux? Might it be a company named Microsoft?

Microsoft’s FUD war against Linux never ended. Microsoft’s long-discredited patent claims against Linux still appear from time to time. Most recently, they’ve shown up in attacks against Android.

I doubt that Microsoft is doing this directly. But Microsoft has fans who are happy to attack Linux every chance they get.

For example, until we started stronger moderation of the Computerworld’s blog comments, I could count on several anti-Linux trolls showing up within minutes. The story didn’t need to have anything to do with Linux, and — ta-da — there would be several notes saying “Linux is awful. Why do you keep writing about this crap?”

Coincidence? I don’t think so. I find it hard to believe that J. Random Person is immediately going to attack virtually every Linux story that appears. I find it easy to believe that Microsoft “fan boys,” and yes they exist, are happy to spread the impression that Linux is awful and that its supporters are dumb.

Would these same people do their best to make sure that Linux is buried on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon? Why, yes, I believe they would. And, more to the point, I believe they have.

A version of Digg, dug, buried: Linux first appeared in ComputerWorld.

August 5, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

Naked Pictures!

The government has assured us that the images made from “Digital Strip Search”” imaging technologies like millimeter wave and backscatter imaging wouldn’t be saved. They lied. It turns out the U.S. Marshals Service saved more than 35,000 “whole body” images of people who entered a U.S. courthouse in Orlando, Fla.

And, if the U.S. Marshals Service can do this, why should we trust the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to keep their word about deleting these images? I can’t think of any good reason, can you?

Oh, I’m sure the TSA policy will be to delete the images … except for, oh I don’t know, if they do think they spot a bomb on someone. Then, they’d want to keep the image in case in the resulting search there’s a rumpus and the passenger sues them for an unreasonable search. Or, say some near-minimum-wage TSA contractor thinks you’re really hot and wants to keep your naked image as a keepsake. Or, he or she thinks your x-ray unclad photo is hilarious and wants to share it with their buddies on Facebook. You get the idea.

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