Archive for November, 2006
Microsoft is dividing the open source community
By Justin Silverton
In a recent announcement from the samba team:
“In a letter to customers, Samba pointed out that one fundamental difference between Microsoft proprietary software and open source software was that the former divides and conquers with “coercive licensing agreements”.
The open source world, on the other hand, “encourages users to unite and share the benefits of the software.”
Samba said that the patent deal Microsoft and Novell jointly forged is “divisive”.
It parlays users depending on whether they are commercial or non commercial, and deals the cards differently - depending on whether the version of Linux came from Novell or from elsewhere”
This is an interesting perspective on the recent Microsoft/open source movement. It didn’t really make any sense. Microsoft, a company which stated in the past that open source was a virus was now supporting it financially through Novell.
Microsoft is taking a page right out of The Art of War. They know they cannot defeat the open source community by using standard business practices (who are they going to buy out?) so they are doing the next best thing: let the community destroy itself.
Because there are so many zealous linux users (including Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation), there will soon be different camps of users. Users that support Microsoft’s version of linux and users that don’t. It already seems to have started: I have seen many users on various linux community message boards and mailinglists that will not use any version endorsed by Microsoft.
I guess we always have Hurd.
php easter eggs
By Justin Silverton
The following are some easter eggs found in various version of php. To see these easter eggs, find any webserver installed with the respective version of php installed on it & append this to any url that ends with a php script.
php 4.x
php image (depending on the version, either a dog or a rabbit):
?=PHPE9568F36-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
Note: The dog was a part of the php community. More information can be found here
The php logo:
?=PHPE9568F34-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
Powered by zend logo:
?=PHPE9568F35-D428-11d2-A769-00AA001ACF42
credits (shows all authors and contributors):
?=PHPB8B5F2A0-3C92-11d3-A3A9-4C7B08C10000
If you have a website running php and you would like to disable these, you can by changing the variable: “expose_php” to off in php.ini.
Zend Studio Client (ZDE)
Red Hat Rejecting Microsoft’s offer
By Justin Silverton
“Thursday, Microsoft’s Ballmer said that the Redmond, Wash. developer was ready to cut a deal with Red Hat similar to the one it struck with Linux seller Novell last week. “We are willing to do the same deal with Red Hat Linux and other Linux distributors,” Ballmer was quoted by the Seattle Post-Intellengencer during a Q&A at an sql database conference.”
The Microsoft/Novell Deal includes patent protections, support cooperation, and co-development agreements.
In a recent turn of events, Red Hat has reject Microsoft’s offer:
“We do not believe there is a need for or basis for the type of relationship defined in the Microsoft-Novell announcement,” said Mark Webbink, Red Hat’s deputy general counsel, in an e-mail. “[But] Red Hat has and will continue to work with Microsoft on true interoperability and open standards in the way we did in advising them in the development of their Open Specification Promise.”
What will this mean for RedHat? Are they going to be sued for patent violations or will the prevail as Microsoft’s competitor?
Top 5 Free Shopping carts
By Justin Silverton
5) AgoraCart Pro
- written in perl
- shipping modules: ups, fedex, and USmail
- supports many payment processors
- feature list found here
Download here (commercial and open source versions available)
4) Zen cart
- based on Oscommerce
- many template providers such as templatemonster.com support it
- feature list found here
Download here
3) Cubecart
- free version requires original copyright information
- has ability to sell digital and physical goods
- mutiple currency support
- feature list found here
Download here (commercial and open source versions available)
2) Cart97 Pro
- search engine friendly URLS
- template driven
- feature list found here
Download here (commercial and open source versions available)
1) Storesprite
- printable receipts
- order tracking
- discount/gift codes
- feature list found here
Download here (commercial and open source versions available)
why do open source projects have so many bugs?
By Justin Silverton
In a recent article:
“In his first “meet the press” session as ICT Minister, Professor Sitthichai Pokai-udom put forth his radical vision for 3G in Thailand, condemned open source for turning out buggy, useless software and promised to make the civil servants in the ICT Ministry proud of their organisation once again.
Speaking at the IT Press Club, Minister Sitthichai said that he was looking for an investment of around 20 billion baht for Thai Mobile and between 10 and 18 billion for CAT in order to complete the roll-out of next generation communication networks for the two former state enterprises.
Sitthichai said on detailed questioning that Thai Mobile would upgrade its network and operate a WCDMA 3G network while CAT Telecom would roll out a CDMA2000 EV-DO network.
He said that rather than using public money to compete with the private sector, he expected today’s private mobile operators to gladly become partners to CAT and TOT and effectively lease their networks and focus on the marketing aspect. He reasoned that none of the incumbents would want to invest in a 3G network as 4G would come along in five years and render today’s investments obsolete.”
While I don’t completely agree with the stance that all open source applications are bug-ridden and useless, he does make a good point. I have used many open source applications over the years and many were either bug-ridden, barely functional, or they lacked basic functionali.
Open source sounds like a great concept. The idea is that since the code is open, there is a possibility for more programmers to see the code and create new functionality or fix bugs. This does happen to some degree, but because of the overwhelming number of contributers, many of the projects are subjected to in-fighting, politics, and eventual destruction.
While this is a part of any project, there needs to be more organization for a project to be successful. This involves assigning leaders and only accepting code into the main codebase that meets a certain standard. Many of the larger and more popular projects are using this method and have less bugs as a result (and are around much longer).
If more open source projects followed better project management practices, We would see much better projects an it would benefit both the users and the programming comunity.