August 24, 2010
by sjvn01
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When Oracle sued Google over its use, or as Oracle would have it, Google’s misuse of Java intellectual property in Android, the first questions were why and what did Oracle hope to gain?
My only pet theory is straightforward and simple: Oracle wants to skim big-bucks from Android. But, even if a miracle happens and Oracle wins every one of their claims, we’re still talking years before Oracle sees a single red-cent.
Still lots of people will profit in the short run from Oracle. Here’s my list:
August 23, 2010
by sjvn01
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As everyone who ever tried it knows, trying to count how many people use a particular Linux distribution is almost impossible. Now, Rick Lehrbaum, founder of LinuxDevices and a friend and former editor of mine, has tried a new and interesting way to count Linux users on his new site, LinuxTrends: look at Google search results for the various Linux distributions.
Some of the results aren’t surprising. Ubuntu has become far more popular than the other mainstream distributions of 2004/2005: SUSE Linux, Fedora, Debian and Mandrake/Mandriva.
Still, these distributions’ decline to the Ubuntu juggernaut is nothing like as bad as the fall in popularity seen by the second-tier distributions of 2004/2005. Of Slackware, Gentoo, Arch and CentOS, only CentOS, a RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) clone, has retained much of its popularity. Newer second-tiers Linux distributions that are well-regarded such as PCLinuxOS, Puppy and Sabayon also aren’t doing well. The one exception is Linux Mint, which is an Ubuntu-based distribution.
This reflects what Sean Michael Kerner, one of my fellow Linux journalists, and I also have seen. When we recently got together at LinuxCon, we agreed that there’s a lot less interest these day in the minor-league Linux distributions than there was in the mid-2000s.
Like any attempt to count Linux users, Lehrbaum’s study doesn’t tell the whole story. For example, do you count Google users? If you do, and that means almost everyone on the planet with a net connection, then Goobuntu, Google’s server brand of Ubuntu Linux, takes the prize as both the world’s most popular distributions and one of the most obscure.
As I hashed out with my fellow writers at the LinuxCon Media Panel, trying to determine how many Linux users are really out there is almost impossible. I’ve also wondered just how important it is that we have Linux numbers.
I know, I know. As a baseball fan, I get that we all love numbers. Let me put it this way: I think we can all agree that Linux has become more important than ever. If you don’t buy that, ask yourself when the last time was you used Google, Facebook or any of the major social networks. If you use any of them, congratulations: you’re a Linux user, albeit once removed. By that standard, I’d say Linux was batting somewhere about .998.
If you’re looking at servers, which is where most of the analyst firms get it wrong, you have to keep in mind that these groups are only counting new servers with their installed operating systems. These organizations don’t even make an effort to count on those older servers, or PCs converted into servers, that are running Debian, openSUSE, or CentOS.
On the desktop, Linux has never done as well as its fans would have liked. At the same time, more people are using it on the desktop than ever before. Keep in mind that even though the overall percentage of Linux desktop users doesn’t appear to be going up, there’s ever more people using desktops of all sorts … for now, anyway. I still think that the rise of Linux-powered smartphones, TVs and tablets may yet make the whole issue of the desktop moot for casual computer users.
In the meantime, I can agree with Lehrbaum’s finding that, in so much as the Linux desktop is concerned, Ubuntu is number one. On servers, I’m sure it’s RHEL. Will the leader board still look that way in another five-years? Good question, and I don’t have a good answer. It will be interesting to find out.
A version of this story was first published in ComputerWorld.
August 20, 2010
by sjvn01
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If you spend much time in a CIO or CTO’s office, you’ll have heard the phrase “software stack” a million times. It usually means a suite of operating system, utilities, and applications designed to deliver various services. For example, the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) stack is what lies behind many Web sites, and the combination of Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange, Windows 7 and Outlook is what powers many office e-mail systems.
I begin to wonder if Oracle is beginning to build its own stack. What brings this to mind is the announcement by Edward Screven, chief corporate architect, that Oracle wants to give companies access to a world where data centers have become “service centers.”
Oracle has long had many of the parts: an operating system, Unbreakable Linux, and now Solaris; a DBMS, of course; and with the acquisition of Sun, Java and all the middleware you could ever want.
That sure sounds like a cloud plan to me. Screven also said that customers would get a taste of this with the forthcoming beta release of OracleVM 3.0. This is Oracle’s enterprise VM (virtual machine), which is based on the open-source Xen VM hypervisor.
August 19, 2010
by sjvn01
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Google Android was always going to be the heart of many Linux-based iPad like devices. That’s no news. But, what is new and news is that Google and Verizon appear to be working together to create a Chrome operating system based tablet.
According to the first report, from The Download Squad, HTC is building the Chrome OS tablet. The device will be sold in partnership with Verizon starting on November 26th. That date is already engraved in every retailer’s heart as Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and usually the biggest shopping day of the year.
After those nuggets of news, everything else that’s been written about the Google Chrome tablet has been pure speculation. That said, I can believe this core of the story. Google already worked with HTC to deliver the one of first Android smartphones: the now for developers only Nexus One.
On the carrier side, everyone who pays any attention to telephone company business buddy relationships knows that Verizon and Google have been working closely together since the announcement of their Net Neutrality plan. So, sure, the business relationships to make a Chrome tablet a reality are in place.
August 18, 2010
by sjvn01
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can think of all kinds of reasons why Oracle is suing Google over its use of its Java IP (intellectual property) in Android. Making money from its Java patents strikes me and most experts as the most likely reason. But, I’ve also heard suggested, time after time, that the real reason is that Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO is buddies with Steve Jobs, aka Mr. Apple and he wanted to help Apple fight Android.
Could that be the case? Here’s the logic that supporters of this theory use. First, Google and Apple are competiting head-to-head in the smartphone space. The iPhone certainly has more users, but the Android phone family is quickly catching up.
Even before this product fight really started going though; Apple was feeling the heat from competiting with Google. That’s one reason why Steve Jobs kicked Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, off of Apple’s board.
Then, of course, this year, Google started talking smack about Apple. At the Google I/O keynote, Vic Gundotra of Google said that the world needed a second major mobile phone operating system because, “If we did not act, we faced a draconian future where one man, one phone, one carrier was the future. That’s a future we don’t want.” Oh, did I mention he did this in front of a 1984 poster?
What goes around comes around Apple.
August 18, 2010
by sjvn01
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The Apple iPad is going to face serious competition from Android Linux-powered tablets, but the first mass-market, low-priced tablet to arrive, the Augen GenTouch78 isn’t it.
The tablet does have some good things going for it. While it’s made from black plastic, it has a solid feel. Better still, it comes with a form-fitting, faux-leather case. I don’t know about you, but whether I pay $170 for a GenTouch78 or $500 for an Apple iPad, I appreciate getting a real cover to protect it without shelling out additional cash.
In addition, the GenTouch78 comes with a pair of micro-USB to USB cables to make it easy to hook the device up to PCs or USB devices. It also comes with a microSD card port that can handle up to 16GB cards. I also found the tablet to be a nice size. For me, the overall shape with case was as easy to handle as a trade paperback book.
OK, that’s the good news. Before even turning it on, I was dismayed to see that the headphone jack port looked a little small. I was right. Instead of a music-grade 3.5mm port, it comes with the perpetually troublesome 2.5mm port.