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Friday, March 25, 2005
Open Source Friday -- On the Desktop
Firefox is a desktop app, so we'll start there. There's a new release available, 1.0.2. It fixes 3 known security issues. The surge if Firefox's popularity has brought increased attention from the security industry. That leads to misleading ledes like this:You also should remember that IE is the most exploitable program in the history of computers:
Mozilla's code line, which goes back as far as Netscape, which preceded IE, has "under 100," said Huger.
Kevin Drum reported a problem with Firefox: "Speaking of freeware, I've noticed that Firefox has a peculiar tic. Like Internet Explorer, it remembers text you've previously typed into text boxes and then presents it to you automatically when you start typing the text again. Very handy. However, if you accidentally type in something incorrect, it seems to stay in Firefox's memory banks forever." The answer to Kevin's problem? Shift-delete. It's nice having smart people read your blog.
Linux On the Desktop
When I was young and silly, I believed that one day Linux would be a major player in the desktop market. I no longer think that will happen, but I do believe that Linux will become a niche player in the desktop arena. Adoption of the Linux desktop is hindered by the wealth of choices available. I use the GNOME desktop, because I've always used the GNOME desktop. SuperKaramba, for KDE (GNOME's main rival), sure looks pretty, though:
The big push, though, will come from government adoption, particularly in developing countries. Linux Journal has a series of articles on government migration to Linux, specifically the Novell flavor of Linux. Novell has internally been moving to Linux desktops and is set to release its new Desktop 10.
OpenOffice
There's a new version of OpenOffice ready to roll out, too. OpenOffice includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, and a database application. It's a huge suite: more than I need in most areas, less than I need in others. I'm sticking with AbiWord, Gnumeric, and MySQL for the time being.The mirror
Why do you care about any of this stuff? It's not like you're ever going to use Linux, right? Maybe not -- unless you already are:More than 50 companies are already using Qtopia in their devices, including 20 mobile phones. Other Linux firms such as MontaVista Software and Wind River Systems report similar gains.
Linux is no newcomer to consumer technology. TiVo's line of digital video recorders has used it from day one. So have set-top cable boxes from Motorola and Panasonic. Same for Sony's PlayStation 2.
Now Linux is showing up in lots of other devices: TVs, remote controls, home theater systems and cars.
"This is a starting point for Google in an effort to enlist open-source developers as allies in the competition against Microsoft and others moving further into search," said Goulde.
Bjorn Olstad, CTO of enterprise search technology provider Fast Search and Transfer, offered a similar take, noting that the Google code in question means little to the company's core business.
"These are generic elements with no business value," Olstad said. "Google is recruiting heavily in academia and in the open-source community, and is attempting to make it appear that they are friendly to developers, while Microsoft is the bad guy."
