May 16, 2006
by sjvn01
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Microsoft’s draft Open XML straitjacket arrives

The Intermediate Draft 1.3 of Microsoft’s Open XML office document standard has been released by Ecma International, a European standards organization. At 4,000 plus pages, a 6.7MB Microsoft Word document, the Open XML draft standard is less of a standard and more of a painfully detailed description of how Open XML could be used to display almost any possible Microsoft Office document. Note, I say, Microsoft Office document.

While Microsoft is proposing this as the better alternative to ODF (OpenDocument Format), as Andrew “Andy” Updegrove, a partner with Boston law firm Gesmer Updegrove LLP and the editor of ConsortiumInfo.org, points out, the level is so high, that if Open XML became a standard, “only clones can be built, which is good for interoperability, but death to innovation. It can also be death to competition, since if (as in this case) the standard is based on an existing product, then no would-be competitor would ever expect to be able to catch up with the incumbent, much less compete on price.”

How extreme is the level of detail? Brian Jones, a Microsoft Office program manager, cites “the documentation for the simple type “ST_Border” which starts on page 1617 (it’s in the WordprocessingML reference section under simple types). That shows a list of almost 200 legacy border patterns that you can apply to objects in a Word document.”

And, at this point, eWEEK’s ace reporter Peter Galli quotes a Microsoft spokesperson as saying, “And this is just the first draft.”

This isn’t a standard; it’s a straitjacket.

Still, in a way, the proposed elephant-sized Open XML is doing open standards a favor. By being so ungainly, by being so time-consuming in its writing, it will give ODF a greater chance to gain market share.

Now that ODF has become an ISO standard, Microsoft Office ODF support is forthcoming, and another major document management program, IBM Lotus Notes, has thrown its support behind the standard, Microsoft’s attempt to short-circuit a truly open office standard may be a case of too little, too late, no matter how big its standard grows.

If you’re interested, you can read the full Open XML draft standard here.

A version of this story first appeared in DesktopLinux.

May 12, 2006
by sjvn01
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How Seriously should You take Certifications when Hiring Network Personnel?

What’s the hardest job in running an enterprise LAN?

To me, it’s not balancing the network load, or fine-tuning application servers, it’s finding the right people to support the network. You can have the best equipment in the world, but if your staffers don’t know what they’re doing, your CEO is still going to want your head on a platter.

One popular way to avoid this is to hire network administrators and technicians with certifications like Cisco Certified Internetwork Engineer (CCIE), CompTIA’s i-Net+; Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE); or a Certified Novell Engineer (CNE).

Simply hiring someone because they have a certification isn’t good enough though. Bala Swaminathan, business development manager for certification giant CompTIA, explains “certifications present CIOs with confusing choices.” That’s both because there are more certifications than ever and they keep changing.

For example, CompTIA’s Net+ was a very basic network certification suitable for technicians or entry-level administrators. The i-Net+, though, according to CompTIA’s Jonathan Thatcher, a certification development manager, adds in gigabit network management and AppleTalk interoperability.

It’s still a beginner’s certification, but its holders can be expected to handle more than just the basics.You also need to know exactly what’s behind a given certification. For example, say you need someone to manage your firm’s move from a NT primary domain controller (PDC) network to one that uses Windows 2003’s Active Directory. Is that a job you that any MCSE can do? Hardily!There was a time when you could get an MCSE without ever taking a class in directory services infrastructure . For a job as big as a directory shift though you also need someone with vast experience.

You also need to consider the certification level and the workload.

Thatcher and I agree that there are three levels of network employees and certifications. At the bottom strata, you find the technician or entry-level administrator. They handle such jobs as manning the help-desk, clearing the printer queue, and adding new users to the network. For this level, you want someone with a i-Net+, a Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) or a Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA).

Next up, you find senior administrators and network engineers. These are the people who do work like designing the network, attacking security breeches, and managing the overall network. It’s at this level that you should be looking for people with a MCSE, Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), or CNE.Above that, you need a few people to do network architecture and make long-term strategic decisions. For this level, you need someone with a CCIE.All that said though, for my money, I’d take someone with years of hands-on work over someone with a newly printed certification any day of the week. Ideally, I’d hire someone with both.Don’t make the human resources mistake of thinking that the right alphabet soup certification, even a CCIE, is the be-all and end-all of network staffing. A certification is important, but so are experience, work ethic, and willingness to be a team player. It’s only when you find someone with all the right stuff that you’ve really found the right person for your job.

May 2, 2006
by sjvn01
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Freespire: Great idea? Awful idea?

t’s a simple idea. Take the Linspire Debian-based Linux distribution and bundle it with every proprietary driver and program that’s available for Linux. Ta-da, an instant Linux that’s compatible with far more hardware and applications.

The problem, of course, is that by combining proprietary software with Linux, you’re also legitimatizing the use of proprietary programs with open-source. To paraphrase Pamela Jones, editor of Groklaw, Linspire’s mangling of the language of Free Software can only pervert and confuse the open-source community and audience.

This could, according to some open-source developers, lead to a situation where the proprietary developers would call the shots. Eventually, this could cause Linux to recede into being just another minor, fragmented operating system.

In short, welcoming proprietary software into Linux is like being a little-bit pregnant. You either are, or you’re not.

Others don’t see it that way, though. Gordon Haff, senior analyst for research house Illuminata Inc., said, “Sometimes the folks over at Groklaw just need to take a deep breath and pop open a cold one. You’d have thought Linspire was making fur coats out of little kittens or something.”

“Frankly this isn’t even a particularly new idea. I suppose that we could argue about the details but, for example, SUSE has included CrossOver Office as part of its distro in the past.” CrossOver, “although WINE-based, is proprietary,” Haff noted.

It’s always been possible to use some proprietary software with GPLed code. The devil is in the details of how you do it.

Haff continued, “Whether some people like it or not, not all applications and components are open source and, if your objective is to create a useful tool rather than an ideologically-pure code base, it makes perfect sense to mix open and closed source.”

From a short-term pragmatic viewpoint, Freespire will enable users to more fully and easily use the capabilities of WiFi network devices, DVD players, ATI and nVidia graphics controllers, and the like.

As Haff said, in essence Linspire is doing nothing new here. Other Linux distributors have either included a few proprietary drivers with their distribution, or as in the case of Novell/SUSE, pointed its users to sites where they could obtain some proprietary drivers and programs.

What Linspire has done that’s new is to try to cut out the middleman for almost all the Linux-compatible proprietary programs. With its Freespire distribution, users will be able to choose to use proprietary drivers and software for MP3 and DVD players, Windows Media, QuickTime, Java, Flash, Real, ATI drivers, nVidia drivers, Adobe Acrobat Reader, third-party fonts, and on and on.

From where I sit, in the long run, using proprietary software isn’t good for open-source. I have the same objections to Win4Lin, virtual machine software like Xen and VMWare, and CrossOver Office. Anything that enables users and ISVs (independent software vendors) to keep using and making proprietary software discourages using and porting software to open formats.

If you were an ISV and you could sell one version of your software for both Windows and Linux users, would you spend the money to make a version just for Linux users? I’m an open-source fan and I couldn’t justify the expense.

Having said that, though, I also know that there are a handful of programs and drivers that will never be open-sourced. Topping this list are graphic drivers.

The graphics business is cut-throat and it’s all about making the fastest drivers by hook or by crook. A number of years ago, over at Ziff-Davis publishing, we found that some graphic vendors were deliberately rigging their drivers so that they’d do better on our graphics tests than they could really perform for users.

From everything I know about the graphic vendors, that sort of “deliver great numbers no matter what” attitude is still there. There’s simply no way that the big graphic developers are going to let anyone look at their code.

There’s no excuse though for, say, the WiFi device drivers people to hide their code. If they don’t want to spend the money to open-source their drivers, they can simply open the existing code up. I would venture to guess that there are more open-source network driver developers than all the other free software driver developers combined.

Without the pressure of open-source users demanding this driver information, however, because they can use Windows drivers wrapped up in NDIS (Network Device Interface Specification) envelopes, the WiFi vendors will be even less inclined to open-source their code.

Having said all that, I also know that new users will be a lot more inclined to use a Linux desktop if they can just sit down and use their existing WiFi cards without worrying about compatibility, or watch WMV (Windows Media Video) files without any fuss or muss.

To me, the whole question of Freespire giving proprietary software an open-source blessing isn’t really so much about open-source ideological purity as it is about which approach will pragmatically be the best for open-source and Linux’s long-term future.

My honest answer: I don’t know.

In the short-run, it will help the Linux desktop’s adoption. Will that, however, be enough to overcome its possible long-term negative effects? I just don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see how Freespire plays out.

April 19, 2006
by sjvn01
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I want my HD-DVD

Like a lot of you, I’m really looking forward to being able to get a next-generation, HD (High Definition) DVD player in my house. Also, like a lot of you, I don’t have one yet even though Toshiba’s first HD-DVD player hit the store shelves yesterday.Or, perhaps, I should say, they bounced off store shelves yesterday.As Bary Alyssa Johnson reported in PC Magazine reported, although “Actual sales figures were not available … an informal poll of sales representatives revealed that the Toshiba HD-A1 HD-DVD players sold out soon after they went on sale.”

That’s what my own informal poll–“Is it in yet? Do you have any for sale?”–revealed.

This isn’t too surprising since Toshiba shipped a big 10,000, count ’em, 10,000 units to all the U.S. stores combined.

I wasn’t too annoyed though. Neither of the two films currently available on HD-DVD–Warner Home Video’s Phantom of the Opera and The Last Samurai–knock my socks off. Actually, at a list price of $24.99, the stores can keep them as far as I’m concerned. Now, if Million Dollar Baby had been out, it would have been a different story.

Besides, the truth of the matter is that while part of me wants an HD player now. “Now! I tell you! Cue maniacal laughter.” I really can wait. No, really.

After all, I’m none too sure who’s going to win in the battle between Blu-ray and HD-DVD anyway. Yes, HD-DVD is here today, but with not even a handful of available discs, I don’t see that market lead amounting much.

The first Blu-Ray player in the U.S., which is like to be Samsung’s BD-P1000, is supposed to show up on June 25th. After that, Sony, Philips, Dell and Matsushita will all be rolling out players over the summer.

If you really think HD-DVD is going to be the one true format, which will not be as obsolete as your Betamax machine in the attic, you can always try to find a Toshiba HD-A1 on eBay.

As you might expect, there are already a few Toshiba HD-A1s on the auction site. And, yes, they’ve already been bid up above the player’s list price of $499.

I’m not going to do go down that road though. For now, I’m going to sit, watch my DirecTV HD channels, curse the local stations that won’t let me get their HD feeds over DirecTV, and wait.

I just hope I don’t have to wait for too long.

Hmmm… There’s a “Buy It Now” one on eBay for $699.00.

No! No! Get thee behind me Toshiba!

April 12, 2006
by sjvn01
0 comments

Red Hat keeps its grip on Fedora

Red Hat Inc. announced on April 4th that the Fedora Project is going to stay under Red Hat’s control, instead of going to the Fedora Foundation as it had previously announced.

Red Hat’s Community Development Manager Greg DeKoenigsberg explained that the Fedora Foundation was not going to take charge of the operating system, after all. Instead, Red Hat was retaining some “control over Fedora decisions, because Red Hat’s business model *depends* upon Fedora.”

This brings to mind the way Sun keeps control of Java through its Java Community Process partners.

This is also not what Red Hat said it was doing in June 2005, when it announced that it was forming the Foundation to take charge of Fedora development. At that time, Mark Webbink, Red Hat’s deputy general counsel, said, “We feel that we are now at a point where we need to give up absolute control. We built our company on the competence of the open-source community and it’s time for us to continue to manifest that.”

By August, Red Hat’s Foundation plans were a little clearer. The new organization was to provide funding for filing patents covering inventions of open source developers; to support copyright assignments to assure compliance with open source licenses; and to provide organizational structure for Fedora volunteers.

So, what happened?

Max Spevack, the Fedora Project Leader, explained in a public message that, “We’ve had a lot of smart people working hard to make this Foundation happen, but in the end; it just didn’t help to accomplish our goals for Fedora.”

“When we announced the Foundation, it was with a very specific purpose, and in a very specific context, said Spevack, “to act as a repository for patents that would protect the interests of the open source community.”

It was only later, Spevack continued, that “people inside and outside of Red Hat were interested in working beyond the stated purpose — an intellectual property repository — and instead saw this new Foundation as a potential tool to solve all sorts of Fedora-related issues. Every Fedora issue became a nail for the Foundation hammer, and the scope of the Foundation quickly became too large for efficient progress.”

According to Spevack, even after the Foundation was incorporated in September, no one had successfully articulated “the precise responsibilities of the Foundation. This conversation took months, but ultimately it came back around, again and again, to a single question: ‘What could a Fedora Foundation accomplish that the Fedora Project, with strong community leadership, could not accomplish?'”

Red Hat concluded that there wasn’t anything the Foundation would do better. Spevack goes over all the reasons why it wouldn’t work well for its original intellectual property purposes, and why it would have trouble legally making a go of it as a non-profit group.

At the end of the day though, Spevack wrote, “The simple and honest answer: Red Hat *must* maintain a certain amount of control over Fedora decisions, because Red Hat’s business model *depends* upon Fedora. Red Hat contributes millions of dollars in staff and resources to the success of Fedora, and Red Hat also accepts all of the legal risk for Fedora. Therefore, Red Hat will sometimes need to make tough decisions about Fedora. We won’t do it often, and when we do, we will discuss the rationale behind such decisions as openly as we can.”

Nevertheless, Spevack insists, “Just because Red Hat has veto power over decisions, it does not follow that Red Hat wants to use that power. Nor does it follow that Red Hat must make all of the important decisions about Fedora. In fact, effective community decision making is one of the most direct measures of Fedora’s success.”

As a nod to the community, Fedora will now be governed by the Fedora Project Board. In turn, this will be made up of nine board members: five Red Hat members, four Fedora community members, and a Red Hat appointed chairman, who has veto power over any decision.

Spevack will be the first chairman. The Fedora Project Board’s Red Hat members are Jeremy Katz, Bill Nottingham, Elliot Lee, Chris Blizzard, and Rahul Sundaram. From the community, the members will be Seth Vidal, Paul W. Frields, Rex Dieter, and a fourth board member to be named as soon as possible.

Most fundamental administration matters have not been set up yet. Spevack wrote, “A lot of the key governance details — term length, board composition, election or appointment process — have yet to be resolved. One of the first responsibilities of the new board will be to work with the Fedora community to answer these questions.”

The community, however, seems indifferent to who’s running the show. As one active Fedora user put it on the Fedora Forum Website, “As long as Fedora is still being developed and supported as well as them keeping the standards up I’m not too fussed about how the managing body is structured.”

The few Fedora users who bothered to comment on the matter, agreed. “If it doesn’t effect to Fedora development then it’s fine,” wrote another Fedora user.

On the technical side, the Fedora Project is sticking to its six-month release schedule. For those of you keeping score, that means we should see Fedora Core 6 in late September.

This new version “may” include a live CD, Intel Mac support, and better configuration tools, and might also include Fedora Directory Server in the Fedora core. It won’t, however, have a single installer CD or installer-based partition resizing.

April 10, 2006
by sjvn01
0 comments

Red Hat Nets JBoss

Red Hat, the leading Linux distributor, announced on April 10, 2006 that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire open-source Java middleware company JBoss.

JBoss has been rumored to be on the acquisition block for months. Earlier this year there was much speculation that Oracle was going to acquire the Atlanta-based JBoss, but JBoss CEO Marc Fleury said he had no immediate plans to sell the company.

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