Tag: Free software

Home Tag: Free software
The Future - next exit

The long view

Business, Technology
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Study the past, understand the future.
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No Changes in Mobile

Business, Technology
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Today’s announcement by Nokia that it would acquire all of Symbian represents an important move in the upcoming battle for next generation mobile devices (to call them phone seems unfair as they tend to do more than just make calls). In this entry, I’ll take a quick look at how the different players are currently approaching the market and what it might say about their potential moving forward. Strategy: Hardware? Software? Service? Partnership? Let’s take a look at the players in the “smart phones” market: Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, RIM (blackberry),  Linux Mobile, and Palm. Sun used to have a Java Mobile but it seems to have dropped off the market, in terms of device market share. And then, there’s the new pretender to the crown in the form of Google, with its Android OS offering. How do they stack up in terms of Hardware? Operating System? Service Offering? Well, here goes: Hardware Software Service(s) Apple Y Y Y Google N Y Y Linux N Y N Microsoft N Y N Nokia Y Y Y Palm Y Y N RIM Y Y N Sun N Y N A first glance at this table seems to reflect some of the player’s pre-existing…
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SCO vs. the world

Business
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One of the nice things about organizing events filled with geeks is the fact that I get to hang out with people that are smarter than me. The discussion on Tuesday covered a wide number of subjects but most of the fascination came from what to do with SCO. For those not familiar with the battle, SCO is currently suing IBM, Redhat, and other Linux vendors, claiming that some of its code is present in the Linux operating system. Their claim is based on the concept that they did not authorize their code to be redistributed in such a fashion. Going further, SCO is now trying to overturn the GPL, the licensing scheme used by most of the open source community to share and redistribute code. As a result, they have essentially gone to war against the whole open source community. One of the interesting suggestions that came up is the fact that, by saying that Open Source is theft, and that by saying Linux is theft, SCO is essentially defaming any person that uses or promotes Linux and/or open source product. Based on this insight, it is possible to look forward to a time when geeks might consider striking…
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