Thom Holwerda Archive

"Comparing AmigaOS and RISC OS is an interesting exercise, especially when it provides inspiration for things like scripting languages, friendly internationalisation configuration, and transparent file format handling. However it also shows areas where RISC OS is grossly under-selling features we take for granted every day, but are seen as almost revolutionary elsewhere: For instance, being efficient on a sub-1GHz RISC CPU, anti-aliased fonts, supporting virtual disc labels, using a RAM-based temporary disc, and providing an iconbar."

Open standards and open source software got political on Monday when Linda Hamel, the general counsel for the Massachusetts Information Technology Department, suggested that groups that oppose the OpenDocument file format standard might be influenced by Microsoft. Hamel was testifying before the Senate's committee on Post Audit and Oversight at a hearing regarding the state's switch to the OpenDocument file format.

"If Linux is 85% of the way to being a viable alternative to Windows/Office, it'll get the rest of the way soon. Very soon. The Mark Shuttleworths and Scott McNealys of the world will make sure of that. And unless Microsoft has a real rabbit in their hats - like, say, a mind-reading operating system - I cannot imagine how they're going to keep me and all the Windows users I know paying for something I can now - almost - get for free."

It appears that Sony has been putting nasty payloads onto its copy-protected CDs in the form of a rootkit. "Not only had Sony put software on my system that uses techniques commonly used by malware to mask its presence, the software is poorly written and provides no means for uninstall. Worse, most users that stumble across the cloaked files with a RKR scan will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files. This is a clear case of Sony taking DRM too far."

"I was thinking about all the cool stuff Google has done when I realized that none of it was original. The folks at Microsoft, long known for being copycats, must be furious, since nobody has ever accused Google of the same thing. Everything Google has done has been derivative. The search engine was taken from the AltaVista idea of huge computer farms. Gmail is a clone of Hotmail. The Google Chat is nothing special. Orkut is a copy of Friendster. Even the invention of ads targeted to search requests is derivative of the old GoTo.com search engine.

"We are pleased to announce the official release of OpenBSD 3.8. This is our 18th release on CD-ROM (and 19th via FTP). We remain proud of OpenBSD's record of eight years with only a single remote hole in the default install. As in our previous releases, 3.8 provides significant improvements, including new features, in nearly all areas of the system."

"The Debian Weekly News for October 25th, 2005 discusses the upcoming graphical frontend to the debian-installer as part of the most recent minutes of the monthly Debian Installer team meeting. It appears that after all of these years the text based Debian installation is finally getting the boot." Screenshots here.

"Over at the Novell public relations blog, they're wondering if Red Hat's Matthew Szulik's conversation with Geoffrey Moore at Vortex on avoiding lock-in has anything to do with BusinessWeek's recent article about Novell. The gist of the discussion is the eternal battle between those who see Red Hat as being on its way to the new Microsoft. I have to say that I get as sick and tired of these arguments as I did of eating macaroni and cheese when I was kid."

Apple has released Mac OS 10.4.3. This update weighs around 100MB and includes fixes for AFP/SMB/CIFS/FTP, AirPort/BlueTooth, Core Graphics/Audio/Image, Spotlight, Address Book, AppleScript, Automator, Safari (it now passes the Acid2 test), and much, much more. The update is available via Software Update, or as stand-alone packages (delta|combo).

"In Vista/Longhorn server, the file system (NTFS) will start supporting a new filesystem object (examples of existing filesystem objects are files, folders etc.). This new object is a symbolic link. Think of a symbolic link as a pointer to another file system object (it can be a file, folder, shortcut or another symbolic link)." More news out of Redmond: "Microsoft will add a 'Save As' function in its upcoming Microsoft Office 12 for publishing the developer's own electronic document format, XPS, another move in a competitive campaign against Adobe."

NetBSD 2.0.3 is the third security/critical update of the NetBSD 2.0 release branch. This represents a selected subset of fixes deemed critical in nature for stability or security reasons. All fixes in security/critical updates (ie., NetBSD 2.0.2, 2.0.3, etc.) are cumulative, so this latest update contains all such fixes since the NetBSD 2.0 release. These fixes will also appear in future releases (NetBSD 2.1, 2.2, etc.), together with other less-critical fixes and feature enhancements. Download locations are here.

Google plans to hire programmers to improve OpenOffice.org, a demonstration of its affinity for open source initiatives and one the company believes also shows sound practical sense. "We want to hire a couple of folks to help make OpenOffice better."

Linux vendor Red Hat is aggressively pushing to get Xen virtualization technology included in the Linux kernel as quickly as possible. Brian Stevens, the newly appointed chief technology officer of the company, said that previous efforts to merge Xen into the kernel ran out of steam when nobody stepped forward to drive them. Red Hat is now stepping forward, Stevens said.

"This paper describes the implementation and use of the Plan 9 distributed resource protocol 9P under the Linux 2.6 operating system. The use of the 9P protocol along with the recent addition of private name spaces to the 2.6 kernel creates a foundation for seamless distributed computing using Linux. We review the design principles and benefits of Plan 9 distributed systems, go over the basics of the 9P protocol, describe 9P extensions to better support UNIX file systems, and show some example Linux distributed applications using 9P to provide system and application services."