Practical Technology

for practical people.

September 17, 2008
by sjvn01
11 Comments

Mozilla to remove Firefox EULA

Ubuntu users who couldn’t stand the idea of a EULA (End User License Agreement) for the popular Firefox Web browser are going to get their way. The Mozilla Foundation‘s chairperson, Mitchell Baker, has agreed to entirely remove the Firefox EULA.

In her blog, Baker wrote, “We’ve come to understand that anything EULA-like is disturbing, even if the content is FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) based. So we’re eliminating that. We still feel that something about the web services integrated into the browser is needed; these services can be turned off and not interrupt the flow of using the browser. We also want to tell people about the FLOSS license — as a notice, not as as EULA or use restriction. Again, this won’t block the flow or provide the unwelcoming feeling that one comment to my previous post described so eloquently.”

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September 17, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments

I want a real Linux and Mac version of Chrome

CodeWeavers, best known for making its CrossOver programs that use WINE to run many popular Windows applications on Linux and Mac OS, has just released a proof-of-concept version of Chrome that runs on Linux and Mac systems.

The free CrossOver version of Chrome, CrossOver Chrome, is based on Google’s open-source Chromium code. It’s not, however, an actual port of Chrome to Linux or Mac OS X. Instead, using their expertise in bringing Windows applications to other operating systems, the CrossOver developers have ported the Windows version of Chrome to Linux and Mac.

It’s a neat trick, and it does work. While others at ComputerWorld got it to work on Mac OS X, albeit with fits and starts, I’ve been running it for over a day now on one of my openSUSE 11 PCs without a hitch. That said, as the CrossOver Chrome FAQ says to the question: “Should I run CrossOver Chromium as my main browser? Absolutely not! This is just a proof of concept, for fun, and to showcase what Wine can do.”

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September 16, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments

Shuttleworth urges calm in Firefox/Ubuntu flap

Grumpy Ubuntu users are snarling about Mozilla including a largely open-source irrelevant EULA (End-user license agreement) with the latest version of the Firefox Web browser. Indeed, one user went so far as to file an Ubuntu bug report about the EULA.

The bug report read, in part, “STARTING UP A CERTAIN 3.0.2 VERSION OF FIREFOX BROWSER MAKES AVAILABLE TO YOU A VERY CAPITAL END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT. THIS AGREEMENT IS OBNOXIOUS and largely irrelevant to Ubuntu users.” This immediately sparked up a flame war in Ubuntu circles.

Some users are demanding that Mozilla drop the EULA. Others are saying that Ubuntu should switch to another standard browser like GNOME’s Epiphany. Others think Ubuntu should follow Debian Linux’s lead and, while continuing to use Firefox’s code, use IceWeasel, which is the Firefox program without Mozilla’s trademarks or logos.

IceWeasel came from a similar fight. In its case, the Debian developers decided that Mozilla’s restrictions on the use of the Firefox logo were too obnoxious to live with, so they come up with IceWeasel their own, logo-less, Web browser. I think the whole IceWeasel affair was dumb. It’s a trademarked logo! Of course, you can’t modify it. Who would want to!?

Now, some Ubuntu users seem to be on the same path. Yes, the Mozilla EULA is essentially pointless. Who cares? It’s not like it’s the original Chrome EULA, which included a section that gave Google “a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through” Chrome. Now, That was a bad EULA, and Google quickly dumped that obnoxious section.

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September 15, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments

The 21st century mobile application

A few years ago, we knew exactly what the future of mobile computing software development would be like. It would be powered by WAP (Wireless Application Protocol), a set of specifications designed to provide low-speed wireless devices with limited screen space, with a means to access information and to communicate and interact with Web services via WAP gateways that bridged the gap between telephony networks and the Internet.

We were so naïve.

Today, with 3G, 802.11g/n and Mobile WiMax (IEEE 802.16e) wireless networks, mobile devices have access to TCP/IP network speeds above 100Mb/sec. The devices of 2008 are as powerful as the PCs of only a few years ago.

Apple’s iPhone, for example, has a 620MHz ARM processor with 128MB RAM and up to 16GB of flash memory running Apple Mac OS X. As John Sullivan, manager of operations for the Free Software Foundation, said of Apple’s closed development system, “The iPhone is not a ‘phone’ any more than my laptop computer is a phone. The iPhone can make phone calls, but so can my laptop. I could call your phone using my voice-over-IP system, and you wouldn’t know the difference. I can even put a card in my laptop that enables communication over a cellular network.”

The same is true of other mobile devices. While they’re not quite the same things as PCs, many of them have all the power of a computer from a few years ago. Other devices—such as Nokia’s N810 Internet Tablet and Intel Atom-powered netbooks like the Asus EEE 901, MSI Wind NB U100 and Acer Aspire One—completely blur the difference between PCs and mobile devices.

This is not a small matter. According to Juniper Research, “The global market for Mobile Web 2.0 will be worth US$22.4 billion in 2013, up from $5.5 billion currently.”

What’s a developer to do?
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September 15, 2008
by sjvn01
0 comments

Is Microsoft buying Citrix? Novell!?

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the stories of Microsoft mergers. Once more, rumors are swirling that Microsoft might buy Citrix. By my count, this is the fifth time this particular rumor has emerged. In addition, though, this time around I’m hearing that some people think Microsoft might buy Novell.

Oh please.

Microsoft, in case you’ve forgotten, just flopped in its attempt to buy Yahoo. Steve Ballmer may be a great salesman, and he does a mean monkey dance, but he’s no businessman. Would someone fire Ballmer already and put Microsoft out of its misery?

Even with my low opinion, I can’t believe that Ballmer would be dumb enough to waste money buying Citrix. Citrix, since WinFrame back in the mid-90s and then MetaFrame in the 2000s, has acted as a de facto branch of Microsoft. To really use MetaFrame, you not only had to have a license for each MetaFrame remote Windows client, you also had to have Windows Terminal Server license and/or a Windows desktop license for each remote session. Thus, every Citrix customer became a Microsoft customer. What’s not to like?

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September 15, 2008
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Does cloud computing have a silver lining?

Depending on who you ask, cloud computing is either the most wonderful thing to hit IT since sliced bread or an utter waste of time. Indeed, in his latest book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google, technology pundit Nicholas Carr wrote, “IT departments will have little left to do once the bulk of business computing shifts out of private data centers and into the cloud.” Really? So, which is it? As is so often the case, the answer appears to be somewhere in-between.

To start with there’s still the problem of defining what the heck cloud-computing is in the first place. The answer varies, needless to say, varies from company to company. We can look to a neutral party for a better answer, but even then things can get a little puzzling.

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