Robert Pogson

Money is tight and the government of Canada plans to cut jobs and services to reduce expenses. Some details:

• They now have 100 different e-mail services.
• They have 300 data-centres.
• They have 3000 networks.
• They spend $5billion per annum on IT.

The plan is to create Shared Services Canada which will provide a single e-mail system and about 20 consolidated data-centres. They plan to spend about $2billion on the new Shared Services with about 8000 IT staff working under one department. The hope is that they can save $200-$300 million that way. I can see where consolidating data-centres is a huge savings but there are capital costs so the return on investment takes some time to realize. Consolidating e-mail systems should be pretty quick. They can save $thousands per system likely if they have the networks already in place. I hope they give GNU/Linux on thin clients a good look. The ROI is very prompt that way. An outfit the size of GofC probably spends tens of $millions on PC replenishment annually. GNU/Linux thin clients could save them 50% or more and the target they have is 10% savings. Done right, I can see huge savings with this plan in a year or two. We shall see. We told them about the advantages of FLOSS last year. Let’s hope they listened.

see Federal agency to trim IT costs

see Shared Services Factsheet

Google has moved to dismiss Oracle’s claims that Google’s Android/Linux is a violation of copyright.

“The ability to copyright Java language application programming interface specifications presents a pure question of law, Google attorney Michael Kwun said…

aside from the Java language API specifications, Oracle’s copyright claim is based on minimal alleged copying, concerning only 12 files out of over 50 thousand in Android, and material of no quantitative significance. A reasonable jury could only conclude that any such similarities are de minimis and thus not actionable. Google is therefore entitled to summary judgment on the entirety of Oracle’s copyright claim.”

This was my opinion from Day One. You cannot claim copyright on a language. Google’s developers write in Java and cross-compile to Dalvik, using Google’s stuff, not Oracle’s. This will be an easy call for the judge. He could delay a bit waiting for Oracle’s response, but I can see him ruling from the bench on such a simple concept.

see CourthouseNews – Google Tries to Toss Android Copyright Suit