Freespire

A recent article mentioned Linspire Live edition 5.0 had been posted to the net with the company name and restrictions removed. My bet is that it was strategicaly placed there by the compnay itself for exposure sake. Linspire has taken hits in the past from groups that say they would use it if it was fully open and free. I think it is a market ploy to gain exposure much like the Xbox bounty. Exposure is everything for the small company. While they are gaining exposure in columns dedicated to Linux in magazines, they need to advance the exposure by finding their way into the more mainstream environment. Fortune, Business 2.0 and the like are where they really need to be. Linux adaptation has been slow to catch on except in the server market and Red Hat holds a significant lead in that area. Only through IPO's can money be raised to speed the development process. While the kernal is updated frequently private developers are still needed for the additional portions Linspire and like companies maintain. Perhaps Linsipre is looking for free code to incorporate into their project to speed development. Regardless of the nature of the move Freespire is on the net although it's origins are suspect.

Sun Micro and Open DRM?

Seems like somewhat of an oxymoron doesn't it? Ever since Sun adopted Opensource they have made every attempt to make it Opensource as long as it is done just how they say. This latest move will no doubt digress into the same method of thinking. While it seems logical on the surface it will be hard if not impossible to get people to embrace it. American companies have become so engrossed in capturing as much money now as they can, they do not see the overall picture. By limiting what can be played on what hardware it locks people in to possibly inferior products with longer improvement cycles and less chance of a satisfied customer that will take the first option available when it appears. Sun is on to something with Opensource DRM but can they make it the standard? They have failed to make many things more than a niche in the marketplace thus far. It will be interesting to see who will side with Sun. Apple and Microsoft's postions on the issue are already clearly eveident.

SCO comes to its end

First off do you slap the noses of an entire pride of lions? That is similar to SCO's blunder in trying to extort money from Linux users such as Autozone, Chrysler and IBM. If there was an award for idiocy McBride would win hands down. Well this is the end for SCO. In a legal maneuver that will put an end to the question of any claim SCO may have thought they held, Novell has filed suit and will most likely get the injunction they need to freeze SCO assets thereby pulling the plug on their impending litigation. I have to hand it to Novell, while I personally am unimpressed by their products they have found a way to finally remove the parasite from the forward movement of Linux. The onslaught against Microsoft has already begun and with MS playing dirty still by conspiring to force people to buy their license to get their programs to run along with Intel, AMD and others the time for desktop Linux migration has come. I have recently started using Fedora Core and it is a fairly easy environment to work in. I have never been a large fan of Red Hat because their are not as many distros built on it as Debian and its development is much slower but it is in its early stages just as good as Windows and is better in the respect of no viruses, spyware or adware. The biggest selling point is still the cost FREE. Hard to beat that and Microsoft never will.