Posted by: mfillpot
on April 22 2009
It was announced in an article on InternetNews.com that Microsoft is planning to work with hardware vendors to develop a complete security stack that includes software and hardware components. This stack is currently being testing in a Washington school district, so that means that the hardware and software components already exist.
This news causes some concern on my part. If some new hardware is encoded with programming that only lets a user execute applications that are verified through the Microsoft stack, then what about the Linux users that utilize the same hardware. Would the hardware fail to function since our systems don't have the appropriate MS libraries? or would the manufacturers build secondary programming that will allow the hardware to work with non-Microsoft operating systems and applications that do not have the verification.
Posted by: Omaha
on April 22 2009
Just read the report from ECIS (European Community for Interoperable Systems) which I found through Groklaw. The report adresses the Microsoft history of anticompetitive behaviour throughout IThistory and it's indeed intriguing.
I believe Groklaw does a better job than me in making the points - it just confirms my standing conserning Microsoft.
Posted by: Acid1
on April 22 2009
This often proves rather difficult, at least for myself. I'll start off with an example. When I first started to become interested in Linux, a friend decided to lend me a disc. It happened to be Ubuntu 5.10. To this day, I either use Debian, Ubuntu, or Mint. This is because it was my first impressions to Linux, and it's what I accustomed myself to. So this is where you need to decide what to show them.
For instance, decide how competant they are when it comes to computers. While this may be a harsh statement it's very true. If this person is only able to log in and surf the net, don't suggest something such as Arch or Gentoo, rather suggest something such as Mint. If they enjoy a little bit of monkeying around with things, give them Ubuntu, or perhaps even openSUSE. It depends on the type of person
Posted by: tuxmania
on April 22 2009
Tagged in: Untagged
I have been in charge of setting multiple Linux terminal servers up through the years. I have also been tasked with getting Linux desktops conforming to the same user defaults and centrally manage those. Some applications that behave the *nix way are really easy to manage but the ones like OpenOffice, Firefox, Gnome and others can be a real pain because they have settings in all the different places and with different ways of setting them.
Sometimes i wonder if many developers are very good at programming but perhaps not that up to speed on making them easily managable in a larger enviroment. Its really not that much of a hassle of making it really easy to manage settings for an application.
Posted by: mfillpot
on April 22 2009
I enjoyed some of the submissions for the "We're Linux" video contest. Specifically I enjoyed the first and second place submissions. In reading the announcements about I contest I noted that the winner won a tip to conference, but what I would like to know is if there are any plans to use their videos as a television commercials to help promote the use of Linux based operating systems.
Posted by: sudhi
on April 22 2009
Tagged in: Untagged
With the acquisition of Sun - Oracle has come a full circle with its offering.
Now the question in everyone's mind - What happens to MySQL. I am sure it will continue to be nurtured, promoted and all that. Will it be done with fair practices? Why not donate Mysql to Linux community or Apache foundation or better still promote/nurture Mysql as an independent organization?
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