With the U.S. economy and IT spending finally appearing to be making a
comeback and China and India adopting IT faster than you can say symmetric
multiprocessing, why am I predicting layoffs?
I'm not predicting layoffs so much as a shift from vendors and service
providers who don't support the integration of open source and commercial
systems. You see, I lead somewhat of a sheltered life - I usually speak with
people in the open source field, the IT professionals who drink the
proverbial Kool-Aid. They already have IT plans that encompass open source
operating systems, such as Linux and other systems, and software that adhere
to open standards. However, as I try to expand my horizons, I'm finding more
people who use vendors that are not interested in supporting open standards
or interacting with community-developed open source software. They claim this
puts them at ... (more)
Last Monday at the Desktop Linux Consortium Conference at Boston
University’s Tyngsboro, Massachusetts Campus there was a lot of talk about
a “UserLinux” distribution. The topic was sparked by remarks by Bruce
Perens who voiced a need for a distribution that was designed to meet
community needs for a desktop operating system based on the Linux community
favorite Debian distribution.
I contacted Bruce who has been kind enough to interject some comments to my
own text. They are marked [thus].
The thought of UserLinux sparked my thinking. The thing I like about Linux is
that it’s ... (more)
SYS-CON Radio Interviews Steven Pignataro of Mambo Open Source CMS
Listen to the interview
... (more)
Many people feel that if they get something for free there is no real value
in it, but that's not always the case. Free doesn't always equate to low
quality or "cheap." Especially when it comes to open source and free
software.
I am often fascinated by the caliber of the many open source and royalty-free
applications available and useful to a variety of organizations, from
business to government to education. In homage to those people who develop
and donate their applications to the community, I am focusing on a collection
of tools from the open source community that can be used... (more)
Linux evangelist Bruce Perens has made available his first draft, UserLinux:
Repairing the Economic Paradigm of Enterprise Linux. Which at first read
sounds like a good idea, even though it seems to bear many similarities to
United Linux. UnitedLinux to date seems to have had very little impact on the
Linux user community - due to SCO’s participation and the lack of
unilateral support by Linux distribution vendors, most notably Red Hat.
Analysis of UnitedLinux’s results to date may be helpful to those thinking
about jumping on the UserLinux bandwagon. This is not to say that UserLi... (more)