Halloween has come early for Linux-loving gamers in the form of the scary Penumbra game trilogy, which has just recently been ported natively to GNU-Linux by the manufacturer, Frictional Games.  The Penumbra games, named Overture, Black Plague, and Requiem, respectively, are first person survival horror and physics puzzle games which challenge the player to survive in a mine in Greenland which has been taken over by a monstrous infection/demon/cthulhu-esque thing.  The graphics, sounds, and plot are all admirable in a scary sort of way, given that the protagonist is an ordinary human with no particular powers at all, who fumbles around in the dark mine fighting zombified dogs or fleeing from infected humans.

The Penumbra games are remarkable for its physics engine -- rather than just bump and acquire, the player must use the mouse to turn knobs and open doors; and the player can grab and throw pretty much anything in the environment.  The physics engine drives objects to fly and fall exactly as one would expect.  The porting of a game with such a deft physics engine natively to Linux might be one of the most noteworthy events for GNU-Linux gamers since the World of Goo Linux port

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This news is one of the biggest digital tipping points that has occurred since Munich announced that it was moving its 14,000 desktop machines to Linux.  Google announced on 8 July 2009 that it would produce an operating system for netbook computers based on the Linux kernel.  The name of the operating system is Google Chrome OS, similar in name to its Google Chrome browser.  This is the very first time that it has been announced that the titan of the Internet (Google) would take on the titan of the desktop (Microsoft).  This is certain to be a heated battle with tens of billions of dollars at stake.  The outcome of this battle will shape the Internet and personal computing for decades.

Google explained that it is taking this initiative because it wants to make computers start faster and reduce viruses, two chief complaints of PC users.  Google says that it will benefit if people enjoy their computer experiences more, so they will spend more time on the Internet, which is, of course, where Google earns its bread and butter through paid advertising.

This announcement is a huge digital tipping point, for several reasons.  First, it shows that Microsoft is not invulnerable in its home turf, the personal computing operating system.  Google's name is well known, and merely by lending its name to this operating system, Google scores major points by raising question marks in Microsoft's business distribution network, namely, its Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and third party software vendors who write software for Microsoft Windows.  Consumers know and trust the Google name.  For the very first time, consumers have a low-cost alternative to Microsoft Windows in an arena where Apple deliberately did not compete with Microsoft.

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In a symbolic show of support for Free Open Source Software and the OpenDocument Format, Brazilian President Lula da Silva recently attended the Linux-related FISL 10 conference in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where he gave an address underscoring the importance of Free Open Source Software to Brazilian national interests. He appears here wearing a hat with the ODF logo (the OpenDocument Format is a legally unencumbered document format upon which any company or community project can easily build.)

President da Silva toured the conference floor, gave a public speech in the general conference hall to the thousands assembled there, and later gave a smaller address to a private group which included Free Software movement founder Richard Stallman, Free Software community leader Jon Maddog Hall, Brazilian Free Software community leader Pablo "spectra" Lorenzzoni, former Brazilian IT head Sérgio Amadeu da Silveira, Hewlett Packard Open Source Director Bdale Garbee, and Red Hat Vice President Michael Tiemann. 

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Computer manufacturer Acer is now offering the Acer Aspire One A150-Aw in the UK for just £149.99, which is not much more than the cost of advanced smart phones such as the iPhone. In fact, Acer promotes the Aspire One A150-Aw as a communication device, more so than a general purpose computer, as shown below.  Linux netbooks are changing the rules of the game in the PC market.  Consumers are learning that they can get decent basic computing services inexpensively and they don't need Microsoft Windows or Microsoft Office for their most basic computing needs.  Click the Read more button below to get the rest of this story. Acer is smart in the way that they are changing the expectation of the consumer.  Acer is not trying to place its Aspire One A150-Aw against a general purpose computer such as a Microsoft Windows Vista machine or an Apple Macbook.  Instead, they are promoting the computer as a "communications device":

The Aspire one is more than just another ultra-mobile notebook: its an all-new communication device designed to deliver continuous access to the internet and a simplified wireless experience no matter where you are.  The Aspire one was designed to get you online in no time at all and thanks to the Linpus Linux Lite operating system, start up and shut down times are reduced to the minimum. With the Aspire one running on Linux environment, the simplicity continues with the intuitive and specifically optimized software interface.

By changing the consumer's expectations, Acer is avoiding consumer rejection of the Aspire One 150-Aw as being underpowered.  Acer doesn't want the consumer to expect to use the Aspire One 150-Aw as a substitute for a desktop computer or a more powerful notebook, because the consumer would always be unhappy with that comparison. 

Instead, Acer is signaling to the consumer to acquire a specialized netbook dedicated to just getting on-line and doing simple email, web-browsing, word-processing and spreadsheet functions with a much lighter, much cheaper netbook that is is meant to supplement the more powerful machines already available to the consumer.

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On 24 June 2009, it was announced that the city administration of Vienna will begin teaching its employees about open source so they will better understand an eventual move to this type of software on the desktop, according to reporter Gijs Hillenius writing for the European Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu).  According to Hillenius, the purpose of the training will be to prepare end users for a migration to FOSS on the desktop:

"In an emailed statement, Marie Ringler, local Green Party councillor involved in the proposal, said: 'If we want to switch to GNU/Linux and other open source applications, we should take the fears and concerns of our users seriously. Future open source users should be better informed.'

"The city council unanimously adopted a proposal from the SPÖ (Social Democrats) and the Greens to begin a comprehensive information campaign on open source, aimed at the desktop users working for the city of Vienna. The information campaign should help create understanding for a possible switch to open source.

"In an emailed statement, Marie Ringler, local Green Party councillor involved in the proposal, said: 'If we want to switch to GNU/Linux and other open source applications, we should take the fears and concerns of our users seriously. Future open source users should be better informed.'"

This development is signficant because it shows that the primary lesson of the Munich migration, called "LiMux", seems to be taking hold outside of Munich in another major European city, Vienna.  That lesson is the importance of involving all of the stakeholders in a migration to Free Open Source Software (FOSS) in a systematic fashion, rather than imposing the change from the top down, or just letting FOSS filter into an organization from the IT department without coordinated effort by business managers and users.  The following passage is taken from an extensive OSOR article by reporter Karsten Gerloff and explains in detail what has been learned from the Munich migration project:

"Florian Schießl [the manager responsible for implementing the LiMux project] says that the project team has learned two major lessons in the course of the LiMux project. First, that it is absolutely necessary to convince people to be ready and open for change; and second, to break complex technical problems (“none of them are unsolvable”, says Schießl) into small tasks, so they can be handled more easily.

"'LiMux is not a technical project', he says. Initially, the team approached the migration as a classical IT problem, but the real issues turned out to be different. 'It's all about managing change for and with people.'

"'Convince employees and managers (especially in the IT area of the administration) to be open to change, to take them by the hand and lead them down the new road. This has nothing to do with technology. It's about emotions.' Users need to feel that they are being taken seriously. It is just as important to secure political and managerial backing for the project and its strategy. This helps to minimise resistance and speed up progress."

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 Note: the following is a translation of an article written in German by reporter Michael Kieffer  published in Heise On-Line on 2009-06-24.  You can read the original article in German here:

 http://bit.ly/u4tRk

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