Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

At the Gran Canaria Open Desktop Summit in July 2009, the Open-PC project was announced. The statement said the project aimed to “cooperatively design a Free Software based computer by and for the community”. Further this PC would use only hardware for which there are free software drivers available. This would be a PC with the minimal compromise required for running a free desktop. In January 2010 the project announced the launch of its first product.

Oh dear. After the debacle with Microsoft Poland’s apparent racist photoshopping, Microsoft China went and got the company in hot water for allegedly “stealing” code. Yes you read that right: Microsoft and wholesale “theft” of code from another website. Of course it’s not “theft” it’s copyright infringement but tomayto/tomarto. Microsoft confessed blaming a vendor they had worked with. No surprise really but the damage to their name may have already been done. There’s more to discuss here than Microsoft’s already tarnished reputation though. The issue raises some important points in favour of free software and points to why more if not all code should benefit from free licencing.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

A couple of stories have hit the headlines this year concerning the huge cost that some UK Local Governments incurred when dealing with malware attack on their Windows machines. If you missed them, Manchester City Council had a single USB infected with the infamous Conficker worm and it cost them — brace yourself — £1.5m (US$2.4m) of which £1.2m (US$1.9m) was spent on IT, of which a staggering £600,000 (US$980k) went on consultancy fees including money to Microsoft. A while later, Ealing Borough Council were hit with a cost of £500000 (about US$800k) when they were also hit by a single USB stick containing conficker. Some in the industry tweeted and blogged this as being a “hidden cost of using Microsoft Windows”. In the ensuing discussion, many pointed out that the high cost was really due to the lack of a proper patching and disaster recovery policy at the council. So which is right? Is dealing with malware a hidden cost of using Windows or of a poor IT strategy?

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Like many free software users, I am greatly encouraged by the number of mobile phones that are starting to come out running some form of embedded Linux-based OS. Nokia’s Maemo and Palm’s webOS are shaping up and it seems every day we hear of yet another Android device. All of this is good news, but just how useful are these free software phones to the free software lover? Not as much as they could be it seems.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.

A friend of mine has an ADSL account with BT/Yahoo here in the UK. For some reason BT/Yahoo feel compelled to supply (nay insist upon) a customised version of I.E. as the browser for their customers. Okay so first things first: why choose I.E.? If you are thinking it’s for that old chestnut of greater compatibility with a higher number of websites, think again. That argument would work if your customised browser was simply IE rebadged and to all intents and purposes presented as IE. This monstrosity doesn’t — it presents as a BT/Yahoo browser based upon IE. Thus some of the IE compatibility works and some doesn’t. But there’s more — much more.

Latest from the Bizarre Cathedral.