Microsoft UK says that since it launched its Keep IT Real campaign in February 2006, the Windows XP piracy rate has dropped from 16.7% to 12.9%, with 36m users validated.
I’m all in favour of stamping out piracy of Microsoft products — because it forces the world to realise how much proprietary software costs! And of course it helps Ndiyo.
From BBC Online News…
Computer maker Dell has chosen Ubuntu as the operating system for its range of Linux computers for consumers.
Fans of Linux hope that the move will persuade more mainstream PC users to abandon Microsoft Windows and opt for the open-source operating system.
London-based firm Canonical, the lead sponsor of the Ubuntu project, will ensure the software works on Dell PCs.
Ubuntu includes software like office programs, e-mail, a browser, instant messaging software and a media player.
Michael Dell, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Dell, is himself an Ubuntu user. He has the operating system installed on a high-end Dell Precision M90 laptop he uses at home…
Thanks to James Miller for spotting it.
At the ENTER_ conference in Cambridge yesterday, Bob Stein of the Institute for the Future of the Book gave a terrific demonstration of Sophie — an open source multimedia authoring tool — which he and his colleagues have been developing for some years. It looks like sensational software, but is currently only available as a fairly flaky an alpha version*. When I asked Bob about dates for likely availability, he shrugged gloomily. The project runs out of money next Monday — two days from now.
*Correction: I’ve downloaded the alpha version and although it’s got rough edges, it’s very impressive. Think of it as DTP software for creating multimedia objects. There must be lots of universities and other teaching institutions which could find many uses for this. Surely there’s a basis for finding the necessary funding support for the small team working on the code. One model could be the way my own institution (the Open University) decided to use Moodle as the basis for its Virtual Learning Environment and is now providing significant support to the Moodle developer community. I normally hate (and am suspicious of) the term “win-win”, but these kinds of arrangements seem to me to qualify for it.
Well, well… Looks like I was wrong to be sceptical about Dell’s attitude to Linux. At any rate, the BBC is reporting that the company has decided to ship desktop and laptop machines with Linux pre-installed.
Computer giant Dell will start to sell PCs preinstalled with open source Linux operating systems, the firm has said.
The second largest computer maker in the world said it had chosen to offer Linux in response to customer demand.
Earlier this year, 100,000 people took part in a Dell survey. More than 70% of respondents said they would use Linux.
Dell has not released details of which versions of Linux it will use or which computers it will run on, but promised an update in the coming weeks.
“Dell has heard you,” said a statement on the firm’s website. “Our first step in this effort is offering Linux preinstalled on select desktop and notebook systems.”
In mitigation, I plead that I was just going on what Dell said at the time — i.e. “There is no single customer preference for a distribution of Linux. We don’t want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another.”
The folks working on the One Laptop Per Child project have decided that they need to rethink the user interface to take into account the needs of the kids who are its target users. “The desktop metaphor is so entrenched in personal computer users’ collective consciousness”, they write,
that it is easy to forget what a bold and radical innovation the GUI was and how it helped free the computer from the “professionals” who were appalled at the idea of computing for everyone.
OLPC is about to shake up things once more.
Beginning with Papert’s simple observation that children are knowledge workers like any adult, only more so, we decided they needed a user-interface tailored to their specific type of knowledge work: learning. So, working together with teams from Pentagram and Red Hat, we created SUGAR, a “zoom” interface that graphically captures their world of fellow learners and teachers as collaborators, emphasizing the connections within the community, among people, and their activities.
Looking at the design principles underpinning the new interface it’s clear that the team are indeed embarking on a radical re-think. Michael got SUGAR running on Ndiyo terminals (see picture)…
… and although we can’t obviously replicate the mesh-networking facility that’s built into the OLPC laptop, we’ve been able to play with the software. It’s fascinating to be forced to unlearn the desktop metaphor that we’ve all absorbed since the Xerox days.
The Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, has posted a shortened version of a speech to the RSA on IT and government. Excerpt:
I think that our willingness to change needs to match the scale of the technological revolution taking place all around us. Just as companies all over the world are changing the way that they do business, so too must we evolve.
In short, I believe that we need to recast the political settlement for the digital age. We need open source politics…
The Guardian version of the speech attracted 45 comments, the majority of which seemed to miss the point in one way or another. Of the 45, only about four were genuinely thoughtful or illuminating, and perhaps another four were trying to be helpful by adding links or references. It’s a sobering illustration of the problems with online ‘debate’.
In the Blogosphere, though, there was a good deal of intelligent discussion — for example from David Wilcox. There’s something interesting going on here, with the New Tories sidling up to the Google/Web 2.0 gang while New Labour clings to Microsoft and Sir Billg.
From Good Morning Silicon Valley…
Open-source software proponents may end up owing Microsoft a big, ironic thank you for finally getting Vista out the door. Release of the new version of Windows has forced IT folks in the public and private sector to make some serious plans about their upgrade paths, and that could be working in favor of Linux. Among government agencies, an important market for Microsoft, the Transportation Department has already put a moratorium on upgrades to Vista — as well as Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer 7 — while it examines cost and compatibility issues and looks at alternatives, including Linux. Now, according to Information Week, the top technology official at the Federal Aviation Administration is considering grounding Microsoft software in favor of a combination of Google’s new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware. “We have discussions going on with Dell,” said Chief Information Officer David Bowen. “We’re trying to figure out what our roadmap will be after we’re no longer able to acquire Windows XP.” Microsoft still has a chance to retain the business, he said, if it could resolve the compatibility problems and make a case for its substantially higher costs.
The cost of Windows upgrades and proprietary software is also leading to some re-evaluation in Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Faced with replacing some 400,000 public school computers running Windows 98 or Windows Me (yipes!), the agency is taking a hard look at Linux and open-source software…
This morning’s Observer column…
Of late, however, Dell has hit a bad patch. Senior executives have been fired, opted to spend more time with their families or departed to take up promising new careers in the fast-food industry. Michael Dell, the company’s flamboyant founder, has returned to take command of the listing ship. And as part of his attempts to revitalise the company, Mr Dell and his team had a Big Idea: why not ask customers for their ideas about what should be done?
Thus was born IdeaStorm, Dell’s effort to harness the collective intelligence of its actual and potential customers. It was launched on 16 February and has turned out to be very popular. Hordes of people signed up to volunteer their ideas. And that, of course, is where the trouble started…
From Good Morning Silicon Valley…
The risk in asking customers what they want is that they will tell you. And then, spoiled brats that they are, they will expect you to follow through. It’s a risk Dell took two weeks ago when it launched IdeaStorm, a collaborative suggestion box intended to surface the deepest wants and needs of customers. Turns out the biggest, or at least most vocal, demand by far is for Dell to offer computers with the Linux OS preinstalled…
According to Nate Anderson of ArsTechnica, 85,000 users went to the trouble of creating an account on the Dell site and voting for the “pre-installed Linux” option, and another 55,000 asked for “pre-installed OpenOffice.”
IN a statement, Dell responded to the IdeaStorm firestorm by saying that it wouldn’t be able to meet the demands because customers want too many variants. “There is no single customer preference for a distribution of Linux,” said Dell. “We don’t want to pick one distribution and alienate users with a preference for another.”
Ryan Paul — also of ArsTechnica, is sympathetic to the company’s dilemma.
The big problem with Linux preinstallation, he writes,
is that one size rarely fits all. Although modern community-driven distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora are designed for a broad audience, serious Linux users are very particular about how their systems are configured. This is even more true for users who prefer highly granular distributions that provide more installation options. Smaller hardware vendors that specialize in Linux preinstallation are better equipped to accommodate user requests for certain configurations.
As an individual Linux user, I would much rather see Dell make Windows optional for every computer and focus on ensuring that the hardware components in Dell computers are compatible with Linux in general rather than specific Linux distributions.
