* Posts by Martin Owens

428 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Aug 2006

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Microsoft picks over Google's Windows exit strategy

Martin Owens

In Linux...

petur: You didn't need to install them because

1) Built into the linux kernel (if the distro sets it up right)

2) Don't open ports, don't allow random code to act as services running as root

3) Have a nice secure SELinux config setup.

Assume you've got your security in line and you may even be able to reflect a targeted attack. Of course the confusion over targeted vs blanket continues to spread, everything is simply 'security', not running random crap on untrusted devices/websites is a good way to be blanket secure and is probably where Microsoft still falls down.

Ballmer, black turtlenecks, and Microsoft's next big idea

Martin Owens
Linux

That

The Candle that burns 4 times as bright burns 4 times shorter. Apple will burn out. Microsoft will slowly descend as all empires do and will need a radical overhaul to jettison it's quint old software production methods and move to FOSS.

The only thing I know for certain is that patience and science pays off.

Snails on crystal meth: The facts

Martin Owens

Yes

Incredible stress tends to release the chemical cortisol which has been implicated in disconnecting synapses and retarding the formation of new connections.

It's all there on wikipedia ;-)

FOSS vendors lick chops over ConLib IT plans

Martin Owens

Cargo Cult

I've often believed that government IT is like a Cargo Cult and open source doubly so. Civil servants and MPs sort of understand what they should be able to get out of it, but don't really understand anything.

Prepare your radios made of coconuts.

Biz Linux needs Office license to run MS web apps

Martin Owens

Er no

OpenOffice is FOSS, Google docs and Microsoft stuff is not.

Why do people always get that wrong? Alchemy isn't science.

50 million user Scribd scraps Flash for HTML5

Martin Owens

Er no

SWF is about as open as SMB (the windows networking protocol)

Just because some valiant hackers have reverse engineered each swf version, does not make it an open standard, at least not with newer swf versions.

Now HTML on the other hand, that's an actual open standard, in both publishing and formation senses of the word.

iPhone code ban facing antitrust inquiry?

Martin Owens

Invisible Hands

Freedom is a funny ol' thing, the problem with the invisible hand of the capital markets is that it's not a set of natural laws but a set of social understandings about the interaction of markets, the invisible hand is connected to the very visible arm of the government without which it wouldn't work.

Even Adam Smith saw monopoly prioritisation as a capitalist loop hole you could drive a planet through.

Jobsian Vendetta - Flash stabbed by Mac the Knife

Martin Owens

Thanks...

...for your vote of support, remind me to give you a swift kick up the backside next time I see your naivety in person.

Why the banks aren't scared of the Robin Hood Tax

Martin Owens
FAIL

RWL

>> even if it did emanate originally from the Obama adminstration

Can we have a Right Wing Loony warning for any more of these articles. I don't mind reading reasonable economic articles (and this one wasn't that bad) but I object to the stupid right wing crazy sprinkled on top.

Ten free apps to install on every new PC

Martin Owens
FAIL

PC?

I think you meant to say "Windows PC" because iTunes and Microsoft's pack is not available for Apple Mac PCs and IBM Compatibles running a FreeDesktop.

Apple in shock public attack on Adobe

Martin Owens
Pint

Except

Webkit is actually khtml and Apple innovated nothing, they took a good solid Free Software web rendering library for Konquorer and turned it into Safari. Their vested interest in khtml / webkit is what proves FOSS has a strong economic model based on self interest. It doesn't however prove anything about Apple's openness, because Apple have no choice but to abide by the original FOSS license.

Next you'll be telling us that cups (now Apple owned) was invented by them. *roll eyes*

Apple is a very clever company, it uses lots of existing software and then locks it away. At least Microsoft has the good grace to shoot themselves in the face by trying to reinvent everything ever invented in order to lock it down.

Martin Owens
Grenade

Free and Open

It's not free as in freedom and it's not compatible with most open source licenses (and no Free Software licenses). If they remove the per copy licensing then it might, perhaps, be an open standard.

Until then it's just a published closed standard.

McAfee false positive bricks enterprise PCs worldwide

Martin Owens
FAIL

Only a few million

people use various distros and only a few thousand large enterprises.

Try again.

A multitasking iPad? Let's bin the netbook

Martin Owens

Title

If only Air Jordens were open source hardware, then you could get your CNC machine to make you up a pair.

since their not and you can't, your analogy is dumb.

Martin Owens

Title Required.

The health system is a social service, not a company selling services in a market place.

Repeat after me: social and not profitable is not corporate no matter who owns it.

MS sees Windows 7 leap, but XP workhorse refuses to die

Martin Owens

Not Worth It

I was at a computer shop the other day and read the list of Windows 7 Ultimate features, all supported by Ubuntu out the box. Why bother buying the most expensive version of windows when I can have far more for free?

Video giant embraces Flash-phobic iPad with HTML 5

Martin Owens

Not a Standard

Except H264 isn't a standard so long as it has royalty payments per copy.

Microsoft to extend Silverlight for Mac?

Martin Owens

Migel's DRM

I actually put to Migel some time ago that many of my home desktop users had no use for moonlight other than to watch Netflix watch again, which required PlayForSure DRM... which is never going to be licensed to Moonlight. The problem is that there is no will in the moonlight camp to reverse engineer the drm and give Microsoft the finger for fear of souring their "special relationship"

If PlayForSure and Silverlight didn't work on Mac (which is does) Netflix would get such an earache from their customers that they'd be bound to move to some other tech.

FAIL.

The Pirate Party is the shape of things to come

Martin Owens

Authoritarian?

According to evidence the UK Green Party is one of the most Libertarian parties available. Even beating out the LibDems.

If you want to see Authoritarianism look no further than the BNP, UKIP, Labour and the Conservative Party who are seemingly in a race to the top.

Pandora plus Endor: Multi hab-moon motherworld discovered

Martin Owens

one out of 8

We've got some good data that so far life doesn't just turn up on any old planet with any old conditions.

[see sol system]

Intel Labs unveils PC power plans

Martin Owens

Control?

I think he means state subsidised micro generation and tax breaks for distributed power generator companies that are small _and_ green.

That should be all the _control_ the market needs, right?

Nerd alert: First Lucid Lynx Ubuntu beta fun

Martin Owens

MP3

The mp3 support isn't installed by default by the way, it will install when you buy music.

The parent problems still exist and only those legal barriers preventing mp3 support on install make ogg vorbis superior,

Of course since rythembox will transcode for your devices, I don't think it's too much of a problem to have ogg and never know it.

Martin Owens
Thumb Down

Carrying

Red Hat, Novell and Intel don't have to carry a huge user base. They're quite happy living in their windows desktop happy worlds where they don't have to dedicate resources to user focus.

Ubuntu however has users who don't contribute, there just isn't the time to look after both hardware support and users with the tiny budget and small technical community.

China tells Google to obey law even if it's leaving

Martin Owens

Proof

"It will not change the fact that most foreign companies, U.S. ones included, have a good business in China and generate large profits."

Proof if ever there was doubt, that China is not communist, socialist or any sort of left wing anything. Plutocratic Capitalism with state managed authoritarianism. Wonderful. Right wing _and_ right wing.

Microsoft boffin scoops Turing Award

Martin Owens

But

His work was done at Xerox Parc.

It's official: Adobe Reader is world's most-exploited app

Martin Owens

And...

...You just happened to be allergic to nuts and died on the way to the hospital from your lovely proprietary restaurant meal.

You gotta wonder where they get all these "closed source is good" guys. I wonder if they have a breeder reactor churning out clones.

Apple's draconian developer docs revealed

Martin Owens

Yeah

First they came for the developer, and I did nothing.

Some people are so bloody short sighted you have to wonder how they cross the road.

Android app brings in $13K a month

Martin Owens

Er FAIS!

It's Free as in Speech you munchkin.

Liberty not Anarchism

ODF's doomed mission to break into Microsoft Office

Martin Owens

ODF isn't OO.o Format

The ODF format isn't the openoffice format, the OO.o formats were all made legacy. so even though Sun has many, many paid developers working on OpenOffice, they are dedicated to using an ISO approved format and not their own prideful creations.

The ODF standards are also version, much like the HTML ones and it's not similar to the code, it gets massive peer review and then a final publication describes that version of the standard. We've had 2 published versions of ODF and one is currently going through peer review. 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2. Microsoft only have to support 1.1 to be compatible with every current editor.

Martin Owens

Standards

Well, Adobe, Autodesk and Oracle aren't convicted monopolists. Plus GIF was a proprietary standard until 2001 when the parent on it's compression ran out. I recommend saving things in png, svg etc. Better standards for static content.

Of course we could do with more standards for a couple of different areas, but those will come.

Martin Owens

Money

Those damn open source people! They're making us loose are extortion money!

Martin Owens
Thumb Down

It's not

Martin75: Odd, you might as well be saying: Microsoft should be able to compete with the entire world market, hurt it, destroy it, and that's all fine and dandy.

This isn't a case of one company vs another, it's one company vs the world.

We know they'll loose, but the question is how much damage they'll do as they go down.

Global warming worst case = Only slight misery increase

Martin Owens

Except

All the actual scientists who have actually carried out real research.

Believe the crack pot forum poster on the inter web... or the legions of scientists with PhDs.

Of course you could just look at the data, make your own data and do the analysis yourself, but somehow I think you'll find what you want and not what is there.

Open source - the once and future dream

Martin Owens

Title Required.

>> Some developers, and a few evangalists care - the rest of us just want the cheapest software that integrates the best.

Your problem is that you believe the ethics and moralists crowd are ignorant of those facts. In fact it is the so called practicalists that are not being very practical in the long term that is causing the issues. Closed source is short sighted, unscientific, uneconomical, insecure and unownable.

You want TCO, it's not possible to own software that isn't FOSS.

Martin Owens

Pay Me

Want your ideas listened to, then get your wallet out and shop for your devel.

Martin Owens

Forwards!

Your thinking in the old ways, you don't pay for what has been done (software creation) you pay for what your going to do. People will want support and that's great, but companies that want development improvements and progress. Well now it's time to invent some new markets for dealing with that demand.

Martin Owens

Ugh

So a few errors, A/L/GPLv2/3 are very popular because they guarantee participation from redistributors. Businesses gunning after Apache are working on the assumption that anarchy is better and the cost of self support is more painful than collaboration. Never underestimate the stubborn selfishness of some.

"donations to FOSS during the next 10 years" - Companies participating are rarely donating, they're not donating their time, their money or their code. None of that is true. Participation is not gifting, collaboration isn't charity.

joeuro - You _are_ aware that what your talking about is communism vs capitalism, not socialism. Especially since a) The military is a socialist endeavour in EVERY western country, b) RADAR was a war time advancement made by socialists. c) Capitalism requires a socialist basis to function, see Fed Reserve.

I support our new socialist overlords, they can't be nearly as thick as some of these lot.

Microsoft chucks bargain bin at world's youth

Martin Owens

Already Free

FOSS development tools are already free, Free and will continue to be. So when you go to get that all important job your likely to be pocketing more of the companies money programming with FOSS simply because there isn't a huge burden on the companies deployment costs.

Someone could do a study on that... oh wait they did.

With MS funding, No2ID gains entry to EU eID group

Martin Owens

It smells

I'd like to hear from No2ID about what they think they're doing.

Linux coders do it for money

Martin Owens
Linux

Free as in Freedom

It's called Free Software, not free software. Libre not Gratis. It's not a surprise that devels are paid for their work and so they/we should be.

"What has been written is usually given away gratis, paid for but also decided for. What has yet to be is expensive to develop but comes with control."

UK government rebuffs cries for free postcode database

Martin Owens
Alert

OpenStreetAddress

OpenStreetAddress.org perhaps? a sister site of openstreetmap? The UK gov just doesn't get freedom, much in the same way that they don't get computermatures.

Lenovo predicts three-year boost from Windows 7

Martin Owens

Why Brag

Every PC comes with Microsoft Windows, it's the law.

*roll eyes* The way they carry on, you'd think they thought there was fair competition or something, like they'd just won a Disney style race with all your heart out. Instead they had jet packs and the competition mysteriously died of head trauma before they could get to the race. A one horse race is nothing to brag about.

Sex in the Noughties: How was it for you?

Martin Owens
FAIL

Right/Left?

Does socialism have anything to do with Authoritarianism? Other that an easy way to erect co-operation by force rather than by agreement?

Who's going to vote Tory, you are! yes you are.

Inside Google, data drives 'everything'

Martin Owens
FAIL

Compare

>> Compare that to buying software licenses and maintenance from the old style software giants, and add the costs of server hardware, and IT managers to run them."

Or you could just run some Enterprise FOSS and hire or train internal staff to take care of it. Depends on the scale of the operation and depends on weather you trust this particular company. I'd be much more willing to believe them if any small company could start their own Apps cloud where data from one could be migrated to another, should unforeseen things happen.

Hackers in keyless Windows 7 entry

Martin Owens

Waste of Time

Shouldn't these hackers be working on something a little more productive, like hacking Ubuntu?

It's like the third level of sad, level 1 is where your just forced into using windows, level 2 is where your advocating windows to all your friends and level 3 is a special place were freedarded and yet highly ignorant crackers decide to spend a ton of time on completely pointless software cracks.

If ever there was a group of people so deserving of the title of freetard. these would have to clinch it.

Pirates get extra seat in Euro Parliament

Martin Owens
Alert

What Parents are For

>> Patents were developed to allow the inventer of something to obtain a reward for the effort required to invent it.

No there were NOT, firslty the idea pops it's way via the royal patronage system which was daft as a brush and secondly the only reason why revolution countries like the USA and France accepted patents was because:

"The necessitate the documentation of the useful arts into the public domain so that they be useful to mankind and progress the state of the useful sciences"

If you think it's because Franklin wanted to line to pockets of inventors you've been brainwashed by the boys from the 80s.

US DoD snuffs open-source 'misconceptions'

Martin Owens

At least

The DoD has a better handle on what FOSS is.

Steve Ballmer's Windows 7 dance party

Martin Owens
Linux

Review

the article was simply a review of the launch party, a critical look at the PR happy, cheesy stunts that companies put on. I didn't think it was YAIDLIW7

BBC Trust boots 'Open iPlayer' plans into touch

Martin Owens
Linux

Science

BBC, stop messing about and make the damn thing Free and Open Source under the GPL or other copyleft license. It's about time that organisations making software from the public purse actually engage in the scientific field of software development and stop trying to bleed the stone of online media distribution.

Stop trying to pretend your a business, your a public organisation with a higher calling than profit and bonuses.

Microsoft-tested browser prosecution snares tech giants

Martin Owens
Alert

So...

They've decided to patent the internet, how nice for them.

It's time software patents were utterly destroyed.

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