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Mark Shuttleworth, internet entrepreneur, astronaut, and Ubuntu SABDFL, has announced his new “audacious goal” is to get Free Software across the chasm and into the hands of normal users.
This is an important goal, and one toward which Shuttleworth has long been striving! Good luck to him, and to the rest of us working toward the same goal.
Louis Suarez-Potts delivered the State of the Project, Year 6 talk at OOoCon 2006.
OpenOffice is rising! This project is seeing significant success, and the rate of growth continues to climb. Louis estimates there are now 350,000 copies of OOo downloaded from the main website each week! Add to that the users acquiring OOo with their Linux installations, via peer-to-peer distribution, and CD copies or sales, and the growth is huge and impossible to measure.
Louis also mentioned my Metro Ad project in his talk, which is very exciting.
Brad Jackel of Newsforge writes Promoting OSS: Show, don’t tell.
“The lesson for OSS advocacy that can be drawn from this is that when you are dealing with people who view software as a tool, don’t enthuse about a better tool and expect to be listened to. Rather, show them the better tool in practice in a way that is specifically relevant to the problems that they need to solve by using it. That is, focus on their task, not your technology. Changing from one platform or software package to another then becomes a non-issue, as the focus is the task, not the tool.
People who are focused on IT are used to seeing the possibilities of new features quickly. People who are not focused on IT are not. Simply explaining what tabs do is not enough — users need to be shown specifically how to use them.
It is well worth the time to take the trouble to learn what a given audience does with its computers (and how) and then focus any presentation or advocacy on improving that work. Users will enthusiastically embrace a better tool when they are not just told what it can do, but shown how they will be able to use it.”
Democracy Player released version 0.9.1 today. It’s an internet TV platform, a video-RSS feed aggregator, and it is great. Download the latest version now.
Jan Stafford of SearchOpenSource.com writes “Two ways Microsoft sabotages Linux desktop adoption.”
“Microsoft has mastered desktop lock-in, undermining users’ confidence in any alternatives and creating a slew of minor difficulties that irritate those who do switch.
Two themes dominate the stories I hear about the tribulations of using and adopting non-Microsoft business desktops: the difficulty in finding compatible hardware and the stranglehold Microsoft Word has on users.”
Despite the difficulties imposed by Microsoft, the switch still pays off in the long run: “Despite the difficulties they’ve encountered, both Canfield and Holt will continue using and evangelizing Linux desktops. They firmly believe, as do I, that the business that plans, trains and implements Linux and OpenOffice desktops well can overcome the short-term hassles and get long-term cost and productivity benefits.”
CNet’s News.com writes French government report lauds ODF.
Not only is France very enthusiastic about using ODF for internal government needs (as evidenced by over 400,000 government PCs being migrated to OpenOffice), but it’s also interested in heartily promoting ODF to other EU member states.
“A member of the French Parliament has prepared a report for Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin which recommends that France mandate the use of the OpenDocument format, or ODF.
According to French news reports, the study was commissioned one year ago and recently presented to de Villepin by Tarn Bernard Carayon.
He recommends that the French government “propose to its European partners to systematically favor open standards and, as the first example, to mandate the international ISO format ODF for the creation and diffusion of all official document exchange at the European level.”
Meanwhile, Denmark has been eyeing and analyzing the cost savings of OpenOffice.org over the forthcoming Microsoft Office 2007. CIO Magazine reports Study: Danish Gov’t Can Save With OpenOffice:
“The Danish government could save about 125 million Danish kroner (US$21 million) over the next five years if it adopted the OpenOffice.org productivity software instead of upgrading to Microsoft’s Office 2007 suite.”
Enhanced interoperability and huge cost savings are the one-two punch that ODF and OpenOffice can provide governments and other large organizations. The market is going to shift soon.
NY Times reports on Libya committing to the One Laptop Per Child project:
“The government of Libya reached an agreement on Tuesday with One Laptop Per Child, a nonprofit United States group developing an inexpensive, educational laptop computer, with the goal of supplying machines to all 1.2 million Libyan schoolchildren by June 2008…
To date, Mr. Negroponte, the brother of the United States intelligence director, John D. Negroponte, has reached tentative purchase agreements with Brazil, Argentina, Nigeria and Thailand, and has struck a manufacturing deal with Quanta Computer Inc., a Taiwanese computer maker.”
The deal with Libya should bring the total quantity up to the threshold required to begin manufacture.
What a fine example of the power of Linux and open source! And with this project, we should see a pivotal change in the global marketshare of Linux as well.
An Alfresco company press release proclaims Alfresco Announces Support for OpenDocument Format:
“LONDON—July 26, 2006—Alfresco Software Inc., the first provider of an open source enterprise content management solution, today announced full OpenDocument Format (ODF) support through its ODF Virtual File System. ODF is an open, XML-based file standard suitable for office applications and designed for managing features in text, spreadsheet, charts and graphical documents.
Alfresco’s ODF Virtual File System offers a simple shared drive interface to any office application. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice users alike can save or drag content into intelligent drop-zones, where rules and actions transparently convert incoming content into the ODF vendor-neutral format. Documents can automatically be sent through a controlled review and approval process and also have records management rules applied to them.”
Tina Gasperson from Linux.com writes Library system migrates from Linux – to more Linux.
“The six branches of the Howard County Library system in Maryland provide 300 computers to their clients. This week, every computer has been upgraded from a “homegrown” Linux kernel, to Groovix, an Ubuntu Linux derivative.”
This is old news by now, but still a handy reference. Mark Pilgrim has listed his most-valued applications for Ubuntu Linux.
Pilgrim was a Mac developer and blogger until he decided to switch fulltime to Ubuntu. (Not sure if he stuck with it or not, though.)
I plan to remain dual-platform, focusing on both Mac OS X and Linux (Ubuntu, in particular). I use Windows when required, but never by choice. Aside from the occasional (and ever more rare) application only written for it, Windows has no advantages and some major disadvantages when compared to Linux and Mac. (Viruses, high price, awkward UI, etc.)
In any case, the list of applications Pilgrim prefers is informative and very interesting (and many of them are cross-platform).