Robert Pogson

I find it puzzling that some still cling to the idea/belief/lie that only non-free software can be good or that one must run non-free software to get things done. Some say it’s all about the applications and assume only non-free applications can work for people and determine their fate. It’s not so. We see many examples of people using FLOSS applications and operating systems with satisfaction.

For example, Chrome web browser has now displaced IE (which gets a free ride on Wintel) by some measures and Chrome plus FireFox makes a huge share of widely used applications, web browsers. Clearly FLOSS can offer people what they want because people usualy had to choose that option.

Some think Google’s Chrome browser is non-free software but it’s not: LICENCE. It has a BSD-style licence.

Even NetApplications, which is biased to use in business, shows a huge share for FLOSS browsers:

see Chrome passes IE in browser share – The H Open Source: News and Features.

I recommend people use Debian GNU/Linux, an operating system, a huge set of applications and a package manager that makes it easy to manage one machine or thousands.

I predicted this year would see serious intrusion of ARMed PCs into the traditional territory of Intel. There have been moves on the client and server front. For years ARM claimed to be about controllers/gadgets and mobile but now ARM sees a wider horizon. It makes sense. Moore’s Law has brought x86 to insane power-levels both in heating and performance. The same has come to ARM which dominates the mobile space except for notebooks. ARMed notebooks will have much greater batter-life or reduced weight or both. Expect to see a lot by Christmas.

Last year, ARM made a huge dent in Christmas sales thanks to mobile stuff so retailers will welcome some opportunity to give consumers what they want this year, small cheap computers. How much of this will be with “8″ or */Linux remains to be seen but even retailers know that ARM and Linux work well.

“Warren East, ARM’s CEO, told Dow Jones he expects companies making processors based on ARM cores will take between 10 and 20 percent of the notebook PC market by 2014 or 2015.”

See ARM steps up war of words with Intel – Claims it will steal PC share | TechEye.

A lot has been written lately about how GNU/Linux will/can never succeed on the desktop. It’s overblown. The lock-in is not universal. There are many uses of PCs not requiring that other OS and where GNU/Linux shines: schools and governments have no real problems using GNU/Linux. Those PCs are just computers folks and GNU/Linux controls them very well. Not everyone needs an M$-only application. I don’t. None of the schools where I have worked had a single application that could not be done with GNU/Linux. It’s all about creating, finding, storing and presenting information and GNU/Linux is as good as any for that and avoids a lot of baggage in the process: cost, malware, slowing down, etc.

Really Linux has a piece giving some reasons to take the current mood to give up on GNU/Linux with a grain of salt. GNU/Linux is too good not to use very widely.

see The Linux Desktop Space is no Place to Concede – www.reallylinux.com exclusive      .

Today is the day my new roto-tiller arrives, and the Stucco-man gets to work finishing the outside of our home. My new workshop and my new lawn are taking shape, too. If only the little woman would stop giving me ToDo lists of errands, I might actually accomplish something in the near future.

My last accomplishment was fabricating a custom-built steel channel to reinforce a loose Newell post. Being a welder really helps when you have to make something strong and compact. Having the drill-press finally installed helped, too. I have yet to repair an old watering hose for the yard and she wants me to do errands fixing the old homestead as well… Yesterday, I was spraying dandelions on both properties. I also repaired the old mower to mow the old property. Then there’s fertilizer for both properties. The list keeps growing.

I look forward to the day when things are actually as they should be and I can get on with my life instead of doing things elsewhere. Isn’t that what retirement is supposed to be about?

We have hardware manufacturers and OEMs willing to crank out supported systems. The last barrier to adoption are retail chains catering to the Wintel monopoly. Read all about it in a thoroughly researched report by The Association of Open Source Software Companies of Portugal.

see Laptop retail oligopoly:
the unnoticed digital divide

“We conclude that retail oligopolies are very prone to filtering new products independently of the likelihood of their acceptance by consumers when the new products compete with heavily established ones.
…
The Linux on laptops combination became viable relatively late, in terms of Microsoft presence. But having been technically possible and economically interesting for many years, it is still kept out of the market by the retail anomalies described in this article. That happens even in the presence of interested consumers and suppliers. 
We therefore question the effectiveness of the existing legal framework (section 5) with the following statement: from the standpoint of consumers and suppliers, the behavior of a small number of dominant retail chains is not significantly different from that of a single retailer. 
Regulators  should evaluate the direct  and indirect  losses  caused by  this  situation [7] and put corrective measures in place.”

We have read of many governments beginning to show preference to use of FLOSS in procurement and internal use but only a few actively support/promote FLOSS as a national priority. Now Aragon, Spain, has set up an organization to promote FLOSS by encouraging businesses to adopt FLOSS and to facilitate adopting FLOSS.

“Open source has shown to be of greater technological efficiency in both public and private sector”

Amen! I recommend Debian GNU/Linux. It’s the right way to do IT. GNU/Linux is a cooperative product of the world, not just an OS but applications and data for clients and servers freely shared with a licence to use, examine, modify and to distribute the code under the same terms.

See Spanish region of Aragon to support growth of open source companies | Joinup.