Practical Technology

for practical people.

September 29, 2010
by sjvn01
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LibreOffice isn’t an OpenOffice fork… yet

Many people are assuming the Document Foundation’s LibreOffice is an OpenOffice fork. It’s not. Not yet anyway.

I agree with almost everyone that it’s highly unlikely that Oracle will join up, although it is possible. Oracle has very little interest in anything that doesn’t contribute to the price of fuel for one of Larry Ellison’s jets. That means that Oracle’s main focus will be its server software stack.

Ellison does have some interest in OpenOffice. Back in June 2009, not long after Oracle purchased Sun, Ellison proposed that OpenOffice developers quit using C++ for OpenOffice and switch to using JavaFX. That idea went over like a lead balloon.

Even before Ellison proposed that developers dump their ten-plus years work for an unpopular language, OpenOffice programmers weren’t happy. Getting new features or just bug-fixes through the OpenOffice organization was a long and painful process, whether it was controlled by Sun or by Oracle.

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September 28, 2010
by sjvn01
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OpenOffice goes its own way

After Firefox, OpenOffice may be open-source software’s greatest desktop success story. For years though OpenOffice has stagnated. While under Sun’s management, OpenOffice got off to a great start, the program hasn’t been doing much of anything lately. That may be about to change under an independent non-profit group called The Document Foundation.

On the morning of September 28th, a community of developers and other volunteers announced that they were forming The Document Foundation to fulfil the promise of independence written in the original OpenOffice charter. According to the group, "The Foundation will be the cornerstone of a new ecosystem where individuals and organizations can contribute to and benefit from the availability of a truly free office suite. It will generate increased competition and choice for the benefit of customers and drive innovation in the office suite market. From now on, the OpenOffice.org community will be known as ‘The Document Foundation.’"

And, what does Oracle, which acquired OpenOffice.org assets when it bought Sun have to do with The Document Foundation? At this point: Nothing.

In an interview, Michael Meeks, a Novell developer who works on OpenOffice said that Oracle has been invited to become a member of the new Foundation, and donate the brand the community has grown during the past ten years." In the meantime, The Document Foundation is using the "LibreOffice" for its OpenOffice code.

This is not to say that LibreOffice is an OpenOffice fork. Italo Vignoli, who is working with The Document Foundation, said, "We would be delighted if Oracle was a member of the consortium provided they respected the idea of an open environment to develop OpenOffice. We’re not looking to fork the program. We’re looking for continuity."

The beta code, which will also be available on September 28th, will include some improvements, but the real change in the program won’t happen for months still. Meeks said that a plan for where The Document Foundation will take OpenOffice/LibreOffice will be unveiled in about a month.

The group is made up of leading independent members of the former OpenOffice.org community, including several project leads and key members of the Community Council. In a statement the group said that "Developers are invited to join the project and contribute to the code in the new friendly and open environment, to shape the future of office productivity suites alongside contributors who translate, test, document, support, and promote the software."

While Oracle didn’t have anything to say, many other open-source groups praised the decision to form a new group. Free Software Foundation President Richard Stallman welcomed LibreOffice release and it’s stated policy of only recommending free software. "I’m very pleased that the Document Foundation will not recommend non-free add-ons, since they are the main freedom problem of the current OpenOffice.org. I hope that the LibreOffice developers and the Oracle-employed developers of OpenOffice will be able to cooperate on development of the body of the code".

Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager at Google added "The creation of The Document Foundation is a great step forward in encouraging further development of open source office suites. Google is proud to be a supporter of The Document Foundation and participate in the project."

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, the makers of Ubuntu, said, "The Ubuntu Project will be pleased to ship LibreOffice from The Document Foundation in future releases of Ubuntu. The Document Foundation’s stewardship of LibreOffice provides Ubuntu developers an effective forum for collaboration around the code that makes Ubuntu an effective solution for the desktop in office environments."

In addition, the group has support from Novell, Red Hat, GNOME, and many other open-source companies and organizations.

Oracle isn’t the only group that’s not on board with LibreOffice at this point.

In an e-mail, Robert Sutor, IBM’s VP of Open Systems and Linux, said, "First and foremost, we want to see high quality and interoperable implementations of ODF, the Open Document Format, that will drive greater adoption of the standard. This will take continued innovation and collaboration in an active and broad-based open source community. It will also need products like Lotus Symphony 3, which is on track for an on-time release, that build on the great work done by both the OpenOffice and Eclipse communities. We’ve made no decisions about the new LibreOffice community and will assess how best to work with it as we learn more."

A version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

September 28, 2010
by sjvn01
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What you really need to watch Internet video on your television

Several friends have asked me recently what they should buy to watch Internet videos on their televisions. The newly revamped Apple TV? The cheaper and more services offered Roku XDS. My answer: None of the above.

Oh, there are good reasons to buy either one. If you’re already wedded to the Apple way of doing things, the new Apple TV, or the old Apple TV for that matter, will work just fine. I’m not inspired by the new Apple TV, but that’s just me.

Roku, on the other hand, offers by far the widest variety of video choices: Netflix, Amazon Video, MLB.TV, and many more besides. In addition, it offers many Internet radio choices as well such as Pandora and, in just the last few days, Sirius XM Radio.

So, why am I not recommending either? While I use both, on my main TV, a Sony KD-34XBR960 34-inch HDTV, one of the last of the high-end, picture-tube HDTVs, I use my Sony BDP-S570 Blu-ray Disc Player. Besides playing Blu-Ray DVDs and normal DVDs, it also comes with Internet streaming support for Amazon Video on Demand, Netflix, and, real soon now, Hulu Plus. As soon as Hulu Plus shows up, I’ll be bidding cable TV a final adieu.

My point isn’t though that you should buy the Sony BDP-S570, although it is a great combination of Blu-Ray player and Internet video extender. No, my point is that almost any high-end TV or DVR player that you’ll be buying soon is going to have Internet video capabilities built-in. By the holiday season of 2012, I expect only the cheapest new TVs and DVRs won’t have it built in.

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September 23, 2010
by sjvn01
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White Noise about White Space Spectrum

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great that the FCC has approved the use of “white spaces” for wireless networking. But, come on people, it’s neither “Wi-Fi on Steroids” nor is it “Super Wi-Fi.” Not yet anyway.

Maybe someday it will be, but right now the only thing that’s “Super” about it is its range of 30 to 100 kilometers. The speed though-and isn’t that what we always end up caring about when it comes to networking-is a rather pedestrian 1.5Mbps (Megabits per second) and 384 Kbps (Kilobits per second).

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September 23, 2010
by sjvn01
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VMware’s Novell SUSE Linux buy out runs into a snag

There’s no doubt about it. VMware wants to buy Novell’s SUSE Linux and open-source divisions. But, according to a Reuters report, Novell’s board really wants to sell NetWare and the identity management divisions at the same time, and no one wants to pay serious money for them.

In addition, I’ve heard that other companies are interested in buying Novell’s SUSE Linux business. VMware may yet find itself in a Linux bidding war.

I haven’t heard any names. Or, to be more exact, I haven’t heard any names that I think are likely to be serious bidders. Jay Lyman, the open-source analyst for The 451 Group, thinks VMware remains among the likely candidates, as does IBM or CA.” He doesn’t think Oracle will be in the mix. “Oracle’s still on the Red Hat path. But, “Another wild-card for SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) is Microsoft. We will see.”

I still see VMware as the front-runner. IBM likes to use and service Linux, the company has never had any interest in the Linux distribution business. I can’t imagine Microsoft, with Steve Ballmer at its head, buying a Linux company. Ask me again after Microsoft’s get some fresh blood at the top and it may be a different story.

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September 22, 2010
by sjvn01
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Red Hat: The 1st billion-dollar open-source company?

A few months back Glyn Moody, noted open-source journalist, asked the question, "Why No Billion-Dollar Open Source Companies?" Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat‘s CEO answered, "Red Hat could get to $5 billion in due course, but that this entailed ‘replacing $50 billion of revenue’ currently enjoyed by other computer companies. Guess what? Red Hat is on its way.

In its latest quarter, Red Hat’s total revenue was $219.8 million, an increase of 20% from the year ago quarter. Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Subscription revenue for the quarter was $186.2 million, up 19% year-over-year. I guess Oracle’s attempt to snatch Red Hat’s business away with a re-branded RHEL really hasn’t worked.

In a statement Whitehurst said, "We continued to benefit from new project spending, expansion and cross selling of our product solutions and strong renewals in our top accounts. Our sales execution in the quarter resulted in organic revenue growth of 20% and the best billings growth rate in two years. During the quarter, we introduced our Cloud Foundations portfolio in an effort to help our customers take advantage of the benefits from cloud computing in an open and cost effective way. Our flexible cloud stack will enable customers to run enterprise applications across physical servers, virtual platforms, private clouds and multiple public clouds. We are beginning to see solid interest in our cloud and virtualization initiatives as well as some early deal activity, including our first private cloud management deal over a million dollars."

And, where is Red Hat getting those customers from? In part, it’s from Oracle and other big-name proprietary software companies. As Moody wrote when he spoke to Whitehurst, he admitted "Something rather profound: that open-source solutions save money for customers by doing away with the fat margins for existing computer companies–and thus shrink the overall market."

Exactly. Open source and Linux is good news for customers and open-source companies, but it’s not good for companies that want iron-control over their customers’ software, such as Oracle.

Red Hat’s net income was, of course, no where near as high as its gross income. The net income for the quarter was $23.7 million, or $0.12 per diluted share. This was down from $28.9 million, or $0.15 per diluted share, in the year ago quarter. But, that drop is something of an illusion. That year ago quarter included a one time tax benefit of $7.3 million, or approximately $0.04 per diluted share.

In terms of being a billion dollar company, it looks to me like Red Hat is well on its way. As Charlie Peters, Red Hat’s Executive VP and CFO wrote in a statement, "Our revenue and operating income growth continued this quarter with strong double digit gains in both, despite the foreign currency head wind." Pretty darn good for this economy wouldn’t you say? Peters continued, "It is clear that our value proposition is resonating with customers." He’s got that right.

As it is, Red Hat’s total cash, cash equivalents and investments as of August 31, 2010 was $1.05 billion. Yes, you read that right; Red Hat already has a cool billion socked away. Even if Red Hat’s growth cools off, and I don’t think it will, by this time next year Red Hat, which is now in fiscal year 2011, will be well on its way to being the first billion-dollar pure-play open-source company for its fiscal year 2012.

Sigh. Its times like this that I’m sorry I can’t own any technology firm stocks, or I’d be betting hot and heavy on Red Hat.

This story first appeared in ComputerWorld.