Open Source —
Back in 1999, we contributed some software, written in Java, to a Free Open Source Software (FOSS) project. At the time, it was a quite neat idea - a software framework designed to enable developers to take any kind of file, in any format, and make that file appear to be an XML data stream, [...]
In the last five to ten years, free and open source software (FOSS) has made a huge impact inside corporations (a.k.a. “the enterprise”). However, there are still many companies that haven’t yet realised the benefits that FOSS can bring. In what will be an occasional series of blog posts, I’m going illustrate some of these [...]
I thought it was clear. Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems said that all of Sun’s software was to be Free and Open Source. I don’t remember the precise date on which this decision was made - but I think it was early 2006. At the end of November 2006, Jonathan wrote the following on [...]
Microsoft is making some noise about Linux and other free open source software allegedly violating 235 of its patents. Microsoft has broken these down into categories: Linux kernel - 42 patent violations; Linux GUI - 65 violations; Open Office - 45 violations; e-mail software - 15 violations; various pieces of software - 68 violations.
So, who [...]
One of the things we do is help companies be really smart about their IT strategy and operations. In this business area, we like to partner with companies that see IT not as a cost centre, but as a competitive weapon. How do you use IT as a competitive weapon? There are [...]
Back in September, I wrote about Java on the Sony PSP. Or rather the lack of it. In September, the frustrating thing was that a Java ME port for PSP had actually been written, but there was no license to distribute it.
Now, with Sun having open sourced it, Java ME for the Sony [...]
As I said in my recent post - Java On The Next Billion Devices - Will History Repeat Itself? - all the signs were that we were a matter of days away from the Open Sourcing of the Java platform. Well, today’s the day - Sun Microsystems will announce the first big step to [...]
If you follow the world of software at all, you’d be hard-pressed to have missed the news that Microsoft is dropping Virutal PC on the Mac, and dropping support for VBA in the Mac version of Office. What’s particularly interesting, at least in the case of VBA, is that this isn’t a financial decision [...]
Sometimes, I wonder. I really do. I don’t mean to be rude, but the latest missive from Richard Stallman on the state of Java is just nonsense. Really, there’s no other word for it.
Richard says,
Our community has been abuzz with the rumor that Sun has made its implementation Java free software (or [...]