Shane Fagan » Microsoft

The great standardization vs innovation battle

Shane — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:42:26 +0000

Do standards hold us back? Its a good question to ask ourselves as
people who work with technology, should we be always looking to
innovate?

First of all are all standards bad and the answer is a big no. Doing
things in a centralized fashion is great for things like the dbus and gstreamer but what about for things
like OOXML
that was made an iso standard even though there is no completely
standard compliment implementation not even from Microsoft themselves.
Standards can be great but it really depends on who makes them.

Application developers who make services for the desktop like Zeitgeist
and Tracker innovate. They dont need to worry about communication
because they use the dbus to pass info and have a well documented way of
formatting the info passed. So innovative projects use standards but the
programs shouldnt push things like how Microsoft pushed OOXML, they
change things release on release and try to keep things stable and well
documented but it doesnt stop the innovation.

So the problem with standardization in software projects is exactly what
happened to OOXML. A bunch of people sat around a table and wrote a
document that was rejected as a standard then they made some changes and
it was accepted (quite ridiculously). While they should have been
already developing it (maybe not releasing it but working on it) because
developing it works out the kinks. There is lots of pages to the
standard but some of it will never see the light of day and why because
it wasnt developed in the correct manner. They should have developed the
standard in house then presented it as a standard.

How can you expect anyone else to develop a standards compliant
application if the developers of the standard cant even do it? How do
you expect to develop a standard without testing it? Whats wrong with
innovation as a means to develop a future standard?

You develop standards through innovation not by committee.

Windows 7 pricing

Shane — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:41:08 +0000

Really I love ubuntu you get everything for nothing. I heard the pricing for windows 7 and I nearly collapsed Windows 7 Professional is $299, Ultimate is $319, Home Premium is $199. Those prices are very bad. Like my computer cost 400 and it came with Vista basic and if I got Windows 7 Ultimate that would be most of the cost of the laptop. How expensive will netbooks be if they charge $200 for home premium? Even if they give a deal to OEMs you still have to wonder why people are putting up with such outrageous pricing.
Who do they think they are? (…….apple?)

Go get ubuntu 9.10 instead when its released at the end of the month. With the money you save go and buy a new tv or have a good wild night on the town or anything other than giving it to Bill and Steve over at Microsoft.

Codeplex…

Shane — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 09:35:46 +0000

Microsoft again with its confusing strategy of open source attack and aid, (quietly) made a new thing called the codeplex foundation. According to the website they created it to help bridge the gap between commercial companies and the open source world. Great idea but the board is made up of microsoft employees and what I like to call “friends of microsoft”. By “friends of microsoft” I mean people like Miguel De Icaza and Shaun Bruce Walker.
Again only time will tell how effective this new foundation is going to be but im quite interested to see what interest is displayed by non microsoft companies and non “friends of microsoft”.
Check out its website http://codeplex.org
All that being said ill keep an open mind about this and hopefully it will be helpful to the community as a whole.

Oh Microsoft your tactics bore me so

Shane — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:25:06 +0000

I was reading http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10346669-62.html
Its really funny believe me. I think Microsoft believe that they invented the PC.
Like really who are Microsoft to
A. define what consumers define a PC as
B. judge linux

FUD angers me. Down right lies anger me more.
A month ago I thought that Microsoft’s strategy was beginning to change but they have gone back to their old tune of complete BS.

Ubuntu 9.10 are we ready?

Shane — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:39:06 +0000

I was wondering what effect a release of Ubuntu 9.10 being released at the same time as Windows 7 and Mac “Snow leopard”.
First thing we have to ask is are we ready?
I think no but Karmic+1 we will be in my opinion. Some things that other operating systems have by default we are missing.
Totem and Rhythmbox need to be replaced very soon. I think this is the most clear problem to most users switching. Maybe Banshee is the answer but its not ready yet maybe Karmic+1.
As we have seen with the most recent Mac releases and also Windows Vista looks matter. We dont have anything really nice looking and running without problems. Gnome-Shell should fix that but its being released in April (ish) too so it may not make it into Karmic+1.
I think we really need the app centre. Its in development but id love to have it in before Karmic+1, ill even help out if they need anything simple done. The problem with the current system is you get people using synaptic package manager and breaking their systems. Advanced tools aren’t needed by 90% of users so maybe we should remove synaptic and make users install it if they need something more advanced.
We should have media sharing in some form DAAP or UPNP or icecast (by default?).
Its great that the media are starting to see Ubuntu and linux in general as a good alternative. I just dont believe this October is going to be our time to make a real push against Apple or Microsoft but April or next August we should be ready for the battle ahead.

Theora and Vorbis, HTML and Google

Shane — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:38:39 +0000

What an interesting company Google is they announced that they are buying On2. On2 is the company that provided the basis for OGG Theora by open sourcing the VP3 codec. Google, Mozilla and Opera all supported the addition of Theora to be included in the HTML 5 standard because they are free (Libre and Price) but were shot down by Apple and Nokia. Have a look here for more info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg_controversy
Nokia’s opposition confuses me because they support Qt and the KDE project and they are open source. Apple support H.264 and dont want to use anything but H.264. Microsoft are even more interesting to me because they are completely missing from the HTML 5 discussion altogether. Maybe they dont need anything new because they will just use silverlight (and their users will use adobe flash)
For anyone who hasnt read the spec for HTML 5 look here.
Here is the quote that is causing all the trouble:

It would be helpful for interoperability if all browsers could support the same codecs. However, there are no known codecs that satisfy all the current players: we need a codec that is known to not require per-unit or per-distributor licensing, that is compatible with the open source development model, that is of sufficient quality as to be usable, and that is not an additional submarine patent risk for large companies. This is an ongoing issue and this section will be updated once more information is available.

If Google open sources the On2 codecs or simply offers an assurance that they wont sue for patents (This seems kinda similar to Microsoft’s community promise) there wont be anything stopping Theoras inclusion in HTML 5. The even more interesting thing is this http://www.youtube.com/html5. It is a HTML 5 prototype of youtube using the video tag with an mp4 file.
So Google is looking into replacing the Flash video with something different and maybe buying On2 will free Theora from the “submarine patent risk”. Its already been included in Firefox and its coming soon on Chrome and Opera so its gaining ground but still its a shame that Internet Exporer (Which is the default for Windows and is the most used in the market) and Safari (Which is the default for Mac) dont support it.
Google is a great supporter of Open Source so hopefully we will hear some good news from Google soon about Theora.
The only thing I want is to not use Adobe Flash anymore its way too heavy and should die with the introduction of not only the video tag but also using Java Script and SVG files.
On the Ubuntu front we should really make use of HTML 5 in http://video.ubuntu.com/ and http://screencasts.ubuntu.com/

Update: Found this post to the W3 mailing list from a Microsoft employee have a look http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/0389.html

Reply to Ballmers recent interview

Shane — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:28:32 +0000

I read and listened to an interview from Steve Ballmer:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10301028-16.html
Ok we all can agree that Mac is quite expensive but its great looking and works well. He says windows is high quality low price but we all know that vista is low quality and medium price. When you pay for an enterprise linux solution (From the likes of Novell or Red Hat ..etc) you get what Ballmer mentions as “High Quality, Low Price”.
He says that the development of linux distros is chaotic. Linux is developed at a speed that it may seem chaotic but really its speed of development and innovation and this is because of its community development model. The Kernel is the best example of this quick but innovative development cycle.
He also mentioned that when windows 7 comes out it will have all this cool new hardware but he failed to mention a lot of this new stuff will work on linux eventually too. I can agree with the point that PCs get the best hardware and Apple are always a little behind but thats because they only are one company and Microsoft doesnt make hardware so they cant judge Apple in that regard.
He also said that because of IP reasons that linux is not free and I have not paid a thing for Ubuntu so in that respect he is dead wrong. Id like to also mention that maybe you dont have to pay for linux with money but if you like it try to contribute in any way you can.
Its funny that Ballmer started off with “Linux its all about linux, we have been competing with linux for a number of years”. So he see us as a competitor and that is great. He says that windows has a fixed design and that is what makes windows great but its quite the opposite, it will follow its own design and push it to the end even if its bad. Linux is evolution, if we see a flaw in a design we change it or replace it with something better. Free as in beer and freedom is a lot better than a “fixed design” and “low” (but not really) in cost.
I think this interview like all Ballmer interviews reveals how out of touch Microsoft is. He sees Windows as low cost but its not compared to Linux distros and Mac is expensive but you pay for the stability and the good software built in (although Macs have their flaws http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32210255/ns/technology_and_science-security/)
I actually I enjoyed listening to the interview and I think any publicity is good publicity so even though he is dead wrong on many levels he revealed one thing that was of use and that is that he sees linux as a threat.

Microsoft Linux source addition

Shane — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:52:10 +0000

Interesting the past few days in the Microsoft camp. First the community promise and now they submit source to the linux kernel.
I think the question to ask is “Why are they taking this new stance?”.
I remember reading the Halloween documents and all about how they planned on tackling Free Software through FUD (Fear, uncertainty and doubt). Recent events have seen a major shift in policy.
Dont get me wrong I think its not a bad thing and the fact that the addition of the source code to the linux kernel is licensed under GPL. Im still left thinking “Why?”.
Of course it adds support for a Microsoft product (Hyper-V hypervisor technology) but really they havent been all that helpful before why now?
Its very confusing but it good that they are helping out and in a way supporting GPL.

Regards
Shane_Fagan

YAMP (Yet another Mono post) please end the debate

Shane — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:36:48 +0000

I just want to throw my size 10 and a half boot in on the whole Mono controversy.
First one link that some may have not seen
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx.
The community promise is legally binding. All that it contains is a promise that you can do whatever the hell you like with anything under it. If you sue Microsoft for anything you wont have a leg to stand on because they own the patent and they dont “sudo apt-get autoremove mono-common” claim anything for use of the patent. Its quite simple, use mono if you want if you don’t “sudo apt-get autoremove mono-common”.
F-Spot and Tomboy are already in Ubuntu and there isnt too many programs like them. F-Spot is just a simple picture editing, an import program and its good apart from a few bugs but nothings perfect. I dont really use Tomboy. I use Banshee as my default media player and I find it quite good too because I hate having to use two different programs simply. Its not a bad media player though missing some functionality but its new enough so that will come with time. Its a step towards having something along the same lines as ITunes or Windows Media player.
We should judge programs on how good they are and not what technology they are built using. So no more of this mono hating its been beaten to death. If there was a patent question I would be against it but its not so I say why not?
The main argument against it is that its Microsoft technology so its bad, well Mono is free software it just is a compatibility thing. Businesses find it hard if they have in house software written using C# or other Microsoft technologies and Mono allows them to switch. Argument 2 is that its helping promote Microsoft technology and it kinda does but silverlight isnt used too much outside of the Microsoft sites and there is no real reason to use it with all the other technologies available. So adding moonlight functionality is similar to supporting MP3s and WMA media formats in my opinion but we can enable it by default if we wish. It just allows us to access the sites and that is a good thing. I dont see the patent question as an issue any more so I dont accept it as an argument.
So its controversial but we have to accept it end the debate and if you have a problem make a better program to replace the Mono ones and ask for it to be included instead if you want.
We should be embracing good software because Free Software is about FREEDOM so we shouldnt have such a barrier to anything free and Mono is (Its under GPL).
Barriers are what the proprietary world uses.

Regards
Shane_Fagan