The Sikh Geek

This article on the BBC News Website grabbed my attention about Christian Aid’s view of Open Source software and why they prefer to use Microsoft offerings.

Here’s a little story of my own. I was helping a local Community Centre here in Leicester which had some old PCs donated by a local college. They had Windows XP/2000 on them but no office software and no record of the licenses with the machines or any install media. So, I installed SUSE Linux on one of the desktops as they wanted a computer suite for teaching and IT access (webserving, email, office productivity). I came back and one of the workers said that it had worked very well but it wasn’t Microsoft! I tried to explain that IT skills could be learnt on non-Microsoft products but they weren’t convinced and ended up having no IT provision at all.

Microsoft has such a psychological hold over people which in some aspects is unhealthy. Of course people can learn valuable IT skills without using Microsoft products. The courses such as ECDL and CLAIT are totally Microsoft orientated. Also, charities can get Microsoft software for minimal admin fees, which negates a lot of the “free” argument for Open Source. However, it is less clear cut if you’re a not for profit organisation as this doesn’t hold the same legal status as a charity.

By the way my 6 year old son and 4 year old daughter have no problem using a Linux desktop and if you haven’t tried a modern Linux distro then you really should. In fact my son keeps asking me to put Linux back on so he can play SuperTux!!

I’ve been amazed at how the traffic has been growing to the iqubed.biz domain and the site statistics show that from 1st January 2006 to current there has been 14,378 unique visits, 32,125 total page views, 7205 requests of the blog main page and that there were 6722 page views in October alone (the highest number so far!). These statistics have to be taken with a pinch of salt as a lot of traffic is generated by the search engines, etc.

One thing this does show is that if you need to drive internet traffic to your site because you do some form of online selling then writing a blog is a good way of getting a “web presence” without worrying about the black art search engine optimisation!

There’s some more detail about the Novell - MS Linux Deal and really it’s not getting any clearer. Again the best analysis of this is from Groklaw and this is going to be picked away at by PJ for a long time, ouch!

So what I can’t understand is all this Patent/Covenants, not to sue each other (…or is it customers?) for using each other’s products! …and by the way we’re not infringing each others patents but just in case we accidentally do we’ll indemnify each other. Why couldn’t they just agree to work together without all this baggage which makes no sense to anyone.

Please, please, please someone tell me how Linux or more specifically SUSE Linux infringes a single Patent? Why are some of the largest organisations such as IBM and Oracle backing Linux as part of their core strategy. I personally don’t think Microsoft has any intention of suing anyone, it’s just a badly worked deal which had some really good intentions.

IBM is still going through the legal case with SCO, but SCO has been pouring through the Linux Kernel line by line… yes that’s right, line by line with absolutely nothing found that infringes their copyright! If IBM wins the case (which it is expected to do), then this is going to set a huge legal precedent in the favour of Linux. Would you not expect someone like IBM to defend future action which impinged upon a core part of their business? IBM has never publicly commented on this legal case (unlike SCO), because they let their lawyers do the talking in a court of law!!

Come on Susanne say what you really feel! It’s not far from what most Small Business Partners seem to be saying but then I guess we are mostly a sceptical bunch of people. I’m certainly not going to argue to the contrary as Susanne and Readycrest have been heavily involved in the beta testing of Vista and Office 2007.

I’ve thought about this quite a bit and my conclusions are that this is a generic issue to do with new technology launches. The vendor always tries to convince us that we must upgrade or buy their latest offering and why not? They’ve spent many years investing in it and bringing it to market and they believe in it. However, the end user is always sceptical and only the limited “early adopters” are going to get onboard straightaway. The mass adoption is going to come somewhere down the line (Gartner have attempted to quantify this and I blogged about this in a previous post). The situation is even more bleak if you read Susanne’s other post, which has an article on how thinking about IT strategically is a fallacy and it’s just a cost of doing business.

So what do Microsoft want? I guess they want to try and speed up the adoption cycle by getting partners ready for something that is going to happen eventually. At some point support for Windows XP and Office 2003 will be discontinued, versions which only run on 64 bit hardware will be prevalent and people buying new PCs will buy with Vista preinstalled. Remember, Microsoft has a 90% share of the desktop market!!

From a partner perspective, I think Dave Overton summed it up for me in reply to a post of mine on SBSBPI. Wouldn’t we rather be working with the “early adopters” rather than the “technology laggards”? We have to go out and find these almost mythical businesses so we can get ahead of the curve, or do something innovative like Vlad but then you would expect nothing less of him!

Seeing as I can’t make the TechEd IT Europe Event in Barcelona on 14-17 November (my schedule is so busy!), there’s a site where you can experience it through online content.

The TechEd Developer’s Event is on 7 - 10 November and the Virtual Content is here and Dave McMahon and Richard Costall (the guys of NxtGenUG) are on one of the videos.

I’ve now read the Microsoft/Novell Press Conference transcript and the Patent issue is troubling me because Steve Ballmer brings it up quite a few times. Both Novell and Microsoft should be upfront about what Patents they think are being infringed. Really, Microsoft should either put up or shut up and PJ of Groklaw has an analysis which I agree with in part. Just because a company says something is so, doesn’t make it true and that’s what SCO vs IBM has taught us! I want the collaboration between these two companies so that customers have maximum choice but on fair and equitable terms. I’m no expert in these deals but I hope this is not some kind of warning shots being fired across the bows of Linux by Microsoft!

I wondered how long someone would say “Novell Sells Out”, well here it is from Groklaw. I have a huge amount of respect for Pamela Jones and Groklaw but this is exactly why people like Linus Torvalds has become increasingly frustrated by those leading the Free Software Movement. So now no company is ever allowed to cooperate with Microsoft under any terms? This is becoming an absolute problem whereby anything that isn’t within the GPL is deemed unethical and wrong! I can totally see Linus Torvalds’ views now and why he’s used such colourful language to describe the GPL v3 Process.

One thing is for sure, they’ll be much more of this type of commentary. If this agreement means better interoperability between Linux and Windows, then that’s a great thing for end users.

One thing I don’t like is the emphasis that Steve Ballmer is putting on Patent Infringement in this interview with eWeek. One thing that the SCO vs IBM case is showing is that Linux can mount a strong defense of its Intellectual Property and that vendors like IBM will put its full legal weight behind it. No other OS has probably been gone through with such a fine tooth comb (certainly not Windows) and absolutely nothing has been found! So, unless Microsoft know something that nobody else does then what Steve Ballmer is trying to assert is just so much hot air! This is what gets people’s backs up is that Microsoft will on the onehand say it’s playing nicely and then come out with veiled threats of legal action. If I was a Microsoft employee, I would just want Steve Ballmer to accentuate the positive, that’s not too much to ask is it??

This is exciting news, well at least to me it is! I saw it on Miguel de Icaza’s Blog and he’s linked to the actuall Press Releases. They must have been reading my Blog Post on getting SuSE Linux Enterprise Server to work within an Active Directory Environment!

Here’s a key quote from the Microsoft Press Release

“As a result, Microsoft will officially recommend SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers who want Windows and Linux solutions.”

Microsoft recognises that Linux is an established part of the IT Environment and that organisations do run a mix of technologies. Sometimes it makes absolute sense of having a Linux Server performing some function within your business. Too many IT Consultants either work with all Microsoft Technology or all Linux Technologies and never the twain shall meet.

I just hope Novell and Microsoft actually deliver on this agreement and that it doesn’t just fizzle out once the spotlight is off!

UPDATE

It’s made it on to the BBC News Website.

I finally got to the gym this morning with my wife after having dropped the kids off at school. Luckily the school is only a few minutes walk away. I didn’t even take my mobile with me which felt good! It was a good session but I was a bit disappointed that they’ve taken the electronic weight machines away. These machines used to measure how hard you pushed on the setup phase and then set the reps accordingly.

I’ve become quite inactive over the years mainly due to a lack of self motivation. I used be very sporty and used to play Rugby for Chelmsford and then for North Durham (Gateshead based team). I never played at a high level, typically 2nd team rugby until I broke my arm playing and had to have a metal plate in it. I never played again as it was never 100% and if you can’t go in for a tackle totally committed then you’ve lost the edge. I then took up running and used to run with a running club called Claremont in Newcastle upon Tyne and ran the Great North Run twice. I also used to play quite a lot of 5-a-side football but that has all long since gone. I’m not a great fan of distance running as I’m not very good at it, I was always more of a sprinter. To give you some idea, I ran the Great North Run in about 2 hours and a 10K in 47 mins, which is not particularly fast.

I miss the Rugby as it was the whole social aspect of it and the commitment to the team, which always had to be total. Just to get fit again would be an achievement now!

For many people RSS feeds are old hat, but I’ve just started using them systematically since I decided to use the RSS Reader in Outlook 2007. Most of the information I read on the web can now be consumed via RSS, it’s a quicker and more efficient way of getting to the good bits. Also, IE 7 has a good RSS Reader built in as well. For some strange reason, that I can’t actually work out at the moment, I’m spending most of my time using IE 7 rather than Firefox! Now that’s it’s finally got tabbed browsing, it makes a world of difference. But then I am running Vista RC1 as my default desktop with Office 2007 and it’s all working rather well. I’m happy and contented, so life is good!