Practical Technology

for practical people.

April 5, 2009
by sjvn01
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If IBM/Sun breaks down, what happens to Sun?

As I write this, on Sunday evening, April 5th, it appears that the IBM/Sun deal is dead in the water. I say ‘appears’ because this wouldn’t be the first, or last, time people threatened to walk out of a deal as a negotiating tactic. You see, I think IBM buying Sun is the best possible thing that could happen to Sun and its product lines.

I say that because Sun has been dying for years. I know it. You know it. The market, which has seen Sun’s stock drop 79% in 2008 alone, certainly knows it.

Sun has been a sick company since its dot com boom days. In the aftermath of the dot com crash, Sun first couldn’t decide if it were a hardware or a software company. Then, under CEO Jonathan Schwartz, Sun slowly, ever so slowly, decided it wanted to be an open-source software company instead of a closed-source business.

Sun took too long to change. The hardware business may have brought it billions in the 90s, but those days are long gone, torn down by the rise of the low-cost AMD/Intel Linux servers. Sun open-sourced Java, but it still keeps too heavy a hand over it despite the JCP (Java Community Process). Sun’s billion-dollar purchase of MySQL just last year appears to have been a billion bucks poured down a rat hole as MySQL programmers leave Sun behind to work on their own versions of the popular open-source DBMS (Database Management System).

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April 3, 2009
by sjvn01
1 Comment

If IBM owns Java …

n the last few years, Sun Microsystems has warmed up to open-sourcing its software. In 2006, Sun opened up Java, and in 2007 it open-sourced most of Solaris under the GPLv3. Smaller, side projects, like NetBeans, the Java-based IDE were open-sourced as early as 2001. Sun has also long allowed developers at least some say in the progress of Java, through the Java Community Process. Historically, though, Sun has had a well-documented love/hate relationship with open source.

IBM has had a closer relationship with open source, but it wasn’t always that way. In December of 1998, IBM realized that it needed to take a closer look at open source thanks to its customers beginning to pick up Linux. Before that, according to Peter G. Capek of IBM Research, IBM handled open source on a case-by-case basis.

At first, IBM software developers were “skeptical that the quality of the open-source software produced could be sufficient to be relevant to us and our customers.” But, the company quickly discovered the benefits of open source software:

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April 3, 2009
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Good-bye Solaris? The fate of Sun’s top 5 technologies

By this time next week, IBM will have bought Sun at a cut-rate price. I’d long thought Sun was going to down for the count, so the news that IBM was moving in didn’t surprise me. What happens next though? Specifically, what’s going to happen to Sun’s product lines? As a long-time watcher of both Sun and IBM, here are my best guesses.

1) Solaris/OpenSolaris: Could IBM just kill this pair of operating systems? No, I can’t see that. Solaris has too many customers even now. What I can’t see though is IBM spending any more money on developing Solaris.

IBM already has its own house-brand of Unix, AIX, and Big Blue had invested a billion dollars in Linux back when most people were still ignoring the penguin. Besides, the Unix server market share has been dwindling for years. Sure, IBM plus Sun equals the lion’s share of the Unix market, but it’s a dying market.

OpenSolaris will likely live on as a purely community-based operating system. After failing to gain any real traction against Linux, I expect it to become like the BSD operating systems: useful in niches and with a strong, core group of developers, but never to become a major operating system power.

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April 2, 2009
by sjvn01
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New Ubuntu Linux server is for business

On April 20th, Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, will be releasing Ubuntu Server Edition 9.04 along with the new Ubuntu Desktop Edition and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. That’s great news for Linux fans, but what I want to talk about today is why that’s also great news for business.

The new Ubuntu Server does all the usual Linux server edge jobs — Web and mail services — and common line of business jobs like file and print. But, it also includes improved virtualization with the new version of KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) and easier integration with Microsoft AD (Active Directory).

Yes, you read that right. The new Ubuntu, both on the server and the desktop side, will now work and play better with AD. According to Steve George, Canonical’s Director of Corporate Services, Ubuntu will be pulling this trick because it will be incorporating Likewise Open and Samba 3.3 support.

Likewise Open enables your Ubuntu servers and desktops to AD domains and forests with a single sign-on that works both for the AD and the Linux side of your network. Samba 3.3 adds over-all improvements in compatibility between Linux servers and clients and AD-based network services.

Ubuntu 9.04 also has some interesting virtualization improvements. Besides better KVM support, the server will be available to users on Amazon’s EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud).

That’s neat, but what I think is really much more interesting is that with Ubuntu 9.04 you’ll be able to build your own EC2-compatible cloud on your own servers. This way, you can get a feel for how cloud computing might work for you without worrying with the data and security issues of actually trusting your data and processing to Amazon or another external provider.

As Jane Silber, Canonical’s COO said, “With 9.04, larger businesses are now able to deploy Ubuntu in their production environments, and preview the Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud.” Exactly. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first operating system that comes cloud-ready out of the box. For that alone, I think anyone considering moving to cloud computing should give Ubuntu a try. It’s a perfect way to find out for yourself in the safety of your own network whether cloud computing is for you.

Further showing that Canonical is quite earnest about making Ubuntu a business operating system, the new Ubuntu also includes AMQP (Advanced Message Queuing Protocol) support. AMQP is an important set of middleware and SOA (service-oriented architecture) protocols. Red Hat is the only other Linux distributor that has made a particular point of supporting it until now.

Why is Canonical adding all this big-business functionality to a six-month release? George explained that, “While it’s a year away from the next LTS (Long Term Service) release, we want to make sure we get the integration right now to help with the LTS. Our customers already want serious business support so we’re being driven by our customers to get it to them now. So, we’re listening to both our community and our business customers.”

One last part of that listening to business is that Canonical has been working with HP to get Ubuntu server certified on its ProLiant server lines Ubuntu is already ready certified on some other HP, Dell, and IBM servers, and on VMware virtual platforms.

I couldn’t say that Canonical is ready to go head to head with Red Hat for the king of the Linux server hill … this year. I can say, though, that that’s exactly what Canonical is planning to do by next year. There are interesting times ahead friends.

A version of this story first appeared in ComputrWorld.

April 1, 2009
by sjvn01
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Microsoft-TomTom settlement is end of a battle, not the war

In a surprising turn of developments, GPS navigation device vendor TomTom International BV has agreed to pay Microsoft Corp. to settle patent-infringement cases the companies had recently filed against each other.

The lawsuits rose above the ordinary run of patent litigation because three of Microsoft’s patents touched on areas that are also covered by the open-source General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2) copyright restrictions on Linux. Thus, the lawsuit marked the first time that Microsoft had legally challenged Linux’s intellectual property .

The case further heated up when TomTom countersued Microsoft and joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), an open-source patent protection group. But the case came to an abrupt end on March 30.

In return for an undisclosed licensing fee, TomTom can use Microsoft’s patents. However, according to a statement from Peter Spours, TomTom’s director of IP Strategy and Transactions, the agreement “is drafted in a way that ensures TomTom’s full compliance with its obligations under the GPLv2, and thus reaffirms our commitment to the open-source community.”

Spours declined, however, to explain how TomTom can both use the patent’s intellectual property (IP) and conform with the GPLv2.

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March 31, 2009
by sjvn01
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One giant step closer to the Google Linux desktop

Google still isn’t saying publicly that they’re going to deploy Android as a desktop Linux, but HP, ASUS, and other major computer makers are apparently in talks with the company about deploying Android on netbooks

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Satjiv Chahil, a vice president in HP’s PC division, declined to comment on whether the world’s largest PC maker will sell either netbooks or smartphones running Android but confirmed that HP is “studying” the free operating system.

Woo-Hoo!

We already know that Android will work as a desktop operating system, because it’s already been done. And, it was done not by some hackers whose second language is C++, but by a pair of journalists. If we can do it, anyone can do it. 🙂

The usual response to the idea of a desktop Linux from Ubuntu, Novell or Red Hat or anyone else is a loud cry of ‘nonsense,’ from the Windows crowd. Android, however, is different.

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