May 19th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
This weekend I installed and tested an open source desktop virtualization software, VirtualBox. In fact, according to its own website, it is “the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.”
VirtualBox is now owned by Sun, which probably has the largest arsenal of open source software anywhere.
In my testing, I installed the latest Ubuntu, 8.04 Hardy Heron, which runs beautifully in VirtualBox on my MacBook.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Mac, Open Source | 2 Comments »
May 16th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Benjamin Mako Hill writes a post called “Laptop Liberation” on the importance of Free Software as the platform for the OLPC project.
Mako writes, “I gave a talk at Penguicon called Laptop Liberation where I talked about why I thought that OLPC’s use of a free software operating system and embrace of free software principles was essential for the initiative’s success and its own goals of education reform and empowerment. I’ve been saying similar things for some time.”
He points out the similarities between the OLPC’s educational philosophy of Constructionism and the way the Free Software world itself functions–they’re largely identical:
“Constructionism and free software, implemented and taught in a classroom, offer a profound potential for exploration, creation, and learning. If you don’t like something, change it. If something doesn’t work right, fix it. Free software and constructionism put learners in charge of their educational environment in the most explicit and important way possible. They create a culture of empowerment. Creation, collaboration, and critical engagement becomes the norm.”
Keeping control over one’s technology means keeping control over one’s destiny. This is the promise of open source/free software, and of the OLPC project.
“We can help foster a world where technology is under the control of its users, and where learning is under the terms of its students — a world where every laptop owner has freedom through control over the technology they use to communicate, collaborate, create, and learn.”
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, OLPC, Open Source | Comments Off on Mako on the OLPC and Free Software
May 15th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Kazunari Hirano blogs “Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. Adopts OOo Company-Wide.”
The company began pilot testing of OOo in April, and on May 12 announced (Japanese announcement) they would migrate completely. They plan to download OpenOffice to their existing computers, and pre-install it on all new PCs the company deploys.
I’m not sure how large this migration is in total, but Hirano reports that just “One of SEI group businesses, Sumitomo Electric Information Co., Ltd., maintains 15,000 PCs within SEI.”
While 2007 saw many large government migrations to OpenOffice, 2008 seems set for even more large migrations in the private sector.
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Sumitomo Corp Adopts OpenOffice
May 14th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The University of Southern Mindanao in the Philippines has chosen to adopt a completely open source platform, according to the International Open Source Network:
“In an official letter from Dr. Virgilio G. Oliva, University of Southern Mindanao (USM) president, to the International Open Source Network (IOSN) ASEAN+3, it was formally announced that USM-Kabacan will spearhead the migration of its computer systems from proprietary to free/open source software (F/OSS) at the first quarter of 2008 through its Information and Communications Technology Center (USM-ICTC) as part of its continuing F/OSS advocacy in line with the IOSN ASEAN+3 agenda.”
The migration will be supported with significant communication to the university’s users, so they’ll know what they are getting into (and why it benefits them all in the longterm).
“Foremost in its ICT roll-out planning for 2008, USM-Kabacan will conduct series of lectures, seminars, workshops and trainings for its personnel in anticipation of workflow changes and to ensure smooth transition to a forthcoming predominantly F/OSS-driven workplace.”
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Philippines’ University of Southern Mindanao Goes FOSS
May 13th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
While OLPC’s XO laptops have been appearing around the world, it wasn’t a part of the original plan for them to be used in developed countries. However, the XO’s child-centric design and constructivist learning paradigm are certainly well-suited to students here, as anywhere.
It’s exciting to see the OLPC XO being adopted in Birmingham, Alabama schools.
“The Birmingham City Council in March approved spending almost $3.5 million to buy 15,000 laptops for schoolchildren and to upgrade technology at city schools. The computer program is being piloted at Glen Iris [Elementary School], which has almost 800 students but received about 1,000 laptops, Principal Mike Wilson said.”
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, OLPC, Open Source | Comments Off on OLPC in the USA
May 12th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
As the library of extensions continues to grow, OpenOffice’s ability to be enhanced with extensions will become an ever-stronger “selling point” (it’s free, so they don’t actually “sell” it) for the application.
One of the most popular is Dmitri Popov’s “Writer’s Tools,” a suite of about 20 tools to simplify professional writing tasks in OOo. (Development is handled on the Google Code site.)
“Writer’s Tools is a set of utilities designed to help OpenOffice.org users perform a wide range of tasks. Using Writer’s Tools, you can back up documents, look up and translate words and phrases, manage text snippets, and keep tabs on document statistics.”
Get it; it’s really good!
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org Extensions: Writer’s Tools
May 9th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
More so all the time, open source is a great avenue for career advancement, writes Amanda McPherson of the Linux Foundation:
“Open source projects are not immune to politics, don’t get me wrong, but there is one key difference: transparency. Because your work is in the open, it’s the best way to market your skills.”
Open source lets you work on interesting projects, develop new skills, and showcase your work to the world.
Further, McPherson discusses how the skills contributors develop in open source are valuable to each individual’s career. This is in contrast to developing skills on proprietary platforms, where the owner of the platform gains as much or more value than the developers themselves:
“Because it’s open source you have a multitude of companies tied to the product and its success. In the Linux world, the platform is used by companies in the desktop, server and embedded markets. A member of the Linux community is not tied into one company since his or her skills or transferable to all of the companies who use Linux. This is in contrast to jobs in the proprietary worlds. If you’re a Zune developer, you certainly have transferable software development skills to another similar project. (Languages are languages after all.) Yet the value of your specialized knowledge and experience is of much more use to Microsoft than anyone else. That means you, as a worker, have less leverage and are more at the mercy of internal project politics specific to that company.”
Posted in Open Source | Comments Off on Open Source and Career Advancement
May 7th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Linux Journal’s annual user survey has arrived in the form of Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2008.
More than 5,900 readers completed the survey this January and February to voice their opinions on open source tools, programs and services.
Some of my favorite programs had very strong showings: Ubuntu was the favorite primary Linux distribution for 37.4% of respondents, Firefox the preferred browser for 86%, and OpenOffice the favorite office program of 85.1%.
Many of my other favorites appeared, such as GIMP, Eclipse, WordPress, Drupal, Frozen Bubble, the Nokia N800, OLPC XO, and more.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice Awards 2008
May 6th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Educatorslog.in points out in Kerala Blazing the Trail for FOSS in Schools that Kerala, India’s, support for open source has become extremely strong:
“Kerala is all set to become the first state in the country to completely banish Microsoft and allow only GNU/Linux free software to be used in the mandatory IT test at the state SSLC examinations that half a million students took in March. Till last year, they could take the exam using either free software or the Microsoft platform. Not anymore.”
Kerala is also rolling out broadband internet access to all of its high schools, after its successful introduction of open source over the past year:
“Since last September, some 15 lakh [1,500,000] students have been busy training on or migrating to free software on 40,000 computers put up in 2,832 high schools watched over by over 60,000 IT trained school teachers (some 86 private training institutions train the teachers) besides 161 master trainers and 5,600 school IT coordinators. “We checked. It’s the world’s biggest mobilisation of its kind,” says K Anwar Sadath, executive director of the state government’s IT@Schools mission.”
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Kerala, India Strongly Goes for FOSS
May 5th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
XiTi Monitor’s regular browser report has been released, and it shows Firefox at nearly 29% use share in Europe.
“After a slight dip monitored in October 2007, the free browser’s visit share recovered strongly at the end of the year, stabilized in January 2008 and began a new upward trend in February and March 2008. Thus, Mozilla Firefox’s use share, on average for a European country, is 28.8% in March 2008, 0.3 points higher than February and up 0.8 points from January 2008.”
The top countries are Finland at 45.9%, Poland at 44.0% and Slovenia at 43.7%. Two other countries, Slovakia and Hungary, also exceeded 40% use share for Firefox.
In most of the rest of the world, Firefox also keeps growing:
“Although the average visit share for Mozilla Firefox is higher in Oceania (31.2%) than in Europe (28.8%), growth has been flat over this past month, while the European figure has increased.
“The browser lost a small amount of share in North America (-1%), while its trends in South America and Asia are comparable to those in Europe. It was in Africa that Mozilla Firefox posted the strongest gain for March 2008: 17.9% in visit share compared to 17.4% the previous month (+3%).”
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Firefox Marketshare Grows