“The software industry produces bad products. Rather than accept that, we should do something about it. In other industries, making shoddy products is an incredible liability. Can you imagine the fallout if auto manufacturers produced cars that were as unreliable as the software that currently floods the market? It would be a catastrophe! Other industries have learned to incorporate better production methods into their manufacturing processes to ensure quality in their products. How come the software industry is not doing the same?”

“There’s a nice controversy brewing over a semantic change in Thomson Multimedia’s MP3 licensing policy which has got the open-source community’s knickers in a twist. According to an open letter to Thompson from Xiph.org CEO Emmett Plant, an exemption from regular licensing fees for GPL’d software has just been withdrawn.”

“The Mac maker said it plans by next month to release to the open-source community the technology it calls Rendezvous, a technique for allowing networked devices to automatically find each other.

“If you don’t have it proliferate, it’s the sound of one hand clapping,” said Brian Croll, senior director of worldwide product marketing for Apple’s software unit.”

“Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) continues its dominance of
the Web browser market, despite recent releases from
open-source challenger Mozilla and its commercial sibling,
Netscape. According to a twice-yearly study from market
researcher StatMarket, IE now controls 96 percent of the
market–up from 87 percent a year ago. Netscape, meanwhile, has
fallen off the charts, with just 3.4 percent of the market–down from
7 percent in March and 13 percent a year ago. And competent
newcomer Mozilla, whose critical 1.0 release came after years in
beta, has managed to attract less than 1 percent of the market.”

“Red Hat Inc plans to build out a growing portfolio of enterprise products
with a desktop Linux offering targeted at business users.

Raleigh, North Carolina-based Red Hat said it is responding to growing
demand from enterprise customers. The company believes users are
frustrated with the dominant supplier of desktop operating systems and
applications – Microsoft Corp.”

–By Ryan Leduc –

The first step in breaking the Microsoft Office monopoly is to replace the
Office file formats as the de facto file interchange standard.
Our best hope to do this is to popularize the Openoffice.org (OO) file
formats as a replacement. These formats are not only fully
specified, even the source code for reading and writing the formats is
provided to ensure that other applications can interoperate. This
and the fact the file formats are XML ensures that we, and our data,
can’t be locked in.

To popularize the OO file formats, we need to do two things: make it
easy for people to view and create OO files, and start sending files
in the OO format. To make it easy for people to view OO files, we need
a centralized Web page we can direct people to download standalone
viewers for OO, and easy instructions for download and
installations. The page should also let people know they can download
the full version for free, and have a link to a introductory page for
OO.

The OO introductory page should give a brief introduction to OO,
give simple instructions for download and installation, and have a
link to buy OO on CDROM. It should also have a link to a tutorial
page to quickly familiarize people with how to use OO, and how to get
more help if needed. A page explaining common differences between MS
Office usage and OO would also be useful.

A key step in making OO file formats easy to view would be to create
Netscape/Mozilla and Internet Explorer/Outlook plugins for OO. If
someone receives an OO file by email, they must be able to just click
on it and view the file even if they don’t have OO installed. I
believe creating these plugins and making them widely available will
be important to winning acceptance.

To make these plugins widely available, they should be shipped by
default with Netscape and Mozilla. For older versions and for
Internet Explorer/Outlook, we need a central download page with clear
instructions on how to download and install the plugins. Of course,
there should be a link from the plugin page to the standalone viewer,
and the OO introductory page.

Once this is in place, we need to start using the OO file formats
ourselves. If we email or put a file on our Web page, it should be in
the OO format. Right next to it, we need to include a link to the
plugins Web page to make it easy for people to view the file. We should
make a point of telling them they can use OO for free and direct them
to the introductory Web page so they can try it out. We should tell
people that we prefer to receive files in this format.

The key to making this work is momentum. We need to make it easy, and
then start building that momentum!

Another way the momentum can be built would be if a large corporation,
with a large reach and deep pockets, stepped up to the plate. Imagine
if AOL not only distributed the OO plugins for Netscape and Internet
Explorer on its ubiquitous CDROMs, but the company also actively promoted the use
of OO files as an exchange format for its members. Imagine if AOL
actually distributed an unsupported copy of OO on that CDROM with
links to the Web page tutorials.

It’s a very tantalizing “what if.”

“Commentary” articles are contributed by Linux.com and NewsForge.com readers. The opinions they contain are strictly those held by their authors, and may not be the same as those held by OSDN management. We welcome “Commentary” contributions from anyone who deals with Linux and Open Source at any level, whether as a corporate officer; as a programmer or sysadmin; or as a home/office desktop user. If you would like to write one, please email editors@newsforge.com with “Commentary” in the subject line.

Werner Heuser writes – “The MobiliX survey of laptop manufacturers and their Linux status was updated. It contains a list of more than 100 manufacturers and their Linux support.
Unfortunately even in this times of Linux success, support by laptop manufacturers is seldom, or if provided not much helpful. Though the marketing departments of some major manufacturers have announced Linux support for their laptops, it wasn’t developed or silently dropped. Because of the rapid development (every manufacturer creates new models almost every three months) and the specific hardware of mobile computer devices (see Linux Mobile Guide – LMG), it’s important to have current and reliable information about their Linux compatibility. The update contains corrections of URLs, addition of manufacturers and pointers to Linux on Laptops, where appropriate as well as a survey of OEM manufacturer relations between different brand names.”

LinuxWorld.com, a leading and trusted Linux publication for technology professionals from IDG, selected five winners from 250 worldwide competitors at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. Four out of five winners are based in United States, and ShaoLin Microsystems was the only company from the Asia Pacific region, Hong Kong.

The awards honor the most innovative Linux products or services able to drive the Linux evolution in the enterprise. IDG LinuxWorld.com weighed ShaoLin Aptus 2.0 and its technology precisely on the merits of its features and functionalities, as well as its impact on evolving Linux in the enterprise. ”Chinese developed Linux technology is truly able to pull ahead of estern developed Linux technology,” said ShaoLin’s Managing Director, David Chow.

ShaoLin Aptus is a simplified and fit client network architecture-based Linux workstation deployment and management solution. It is a middle-ware for Linux that turns a fat client PC network into a “Fit Client” network, a powerful hybrid combining the central management and reliability of thin clients with the performance and flexibility of fat client PC’s.

ShaoLin Aptus incorporates ShaoLin’s Intelligent Union Architecture (IUA) to manage configuration files and utilize shared system resources. As a cluster-like network, ShaoLin Aptus enables central management and data consistency across all workstations; it extends savings by lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of desktop computers. ShaoLin Aptus dissolves the Linux desktop administration headaches and simplifies management across every enterprise.

About ShaoLin Microsystems Ltd.

ShaoLin Microsystems Ltd. is focused on the creation and development of Linux-based systems and solutions. ShaoLin gives customers full command over their desktop computing networks with end-to-end software solutions based on our cutting-edge Linux kernel, file system, and network management technology. ShaoLin Microsystems was founded in 2000 with a mission to develop and market superior Linux-based solutions to multiply efficiency in organizations, increase productivity, and reduce costs. We believe our success relies on the capability to understand the needs and desires of customers and consistently deliver excellent products and services. We strive to provide customers the best solution based on our 3R strategy, the “Right thing at the Right time for the Right person”.

For further information, please visit our web site
www.shaolinmicro.com.

For press and analyst inquiries, please contact:

Ms. Sufan Kan, Marketing & Public Relations
ShaoLin Microsystems Ltd.
E-mail: sufankan@shaolinmicro.com
Tel: +852 2352 5568

“Those calling for the open-source-only approach say it would save taxpayers bundles of money. They also claim it would yield more secure and reliable software, thanks to the ongoing efforts of the large and growing community of open-source programmers whose combined talents exceed what any one proprietary vendor could possibly offer.”

“After drawing the ire of the online file-swapping community and Internet users at large, the Recording Industry Association of America [Latest News about Recording Industry Association of America] (RIAA) Web site was defaced and taken offline Wednesday…. The defacement, described as ‘the funniest hack ever’ on a forum site, resembled the normal RIAA site but featured such links as ‘Piracy can be beneficial to the music industry’ and ‘Where can I find information on giant monkeys?'”