The content on this site is my own and does not necessarily represent my employer’s positions, strategies or opinions.
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Open Source
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OpenLogic: HP hogged FOSS limelight | InfoWorld | News | 2008-01-29 | By Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service
“Grandchamp also said he has received phone calls and e-mail regarding whether HP is now competing with OpenLogic, which makes a tool called OSS Discovery.”
(tags: hp openlogic opensource)
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OpenSource Connections » Blog Archive » 4 Ways To Help the Government Adopt Open Source Technologies
“Thus, in order for the FOSS community to convince the government of its value, it will need to take several steps to level the playing field.”
(tags: opensource government)
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French Government Moving from Windows to Linux – Switched: Gadgets, Tech, Digital Stuff for the Rest of Us
“The popular Linux distribution Ubuntu is making gains in some pretty important places, namely the French military police force National Gendarmerie. The government-run organization is planing to migrate all of its desktop PCs to Ubuntu by 2014, leaving the world of Microsoft behind it. The French National Assembly already switched all its PCs to Ubuntu in 2007, but its 1,200 desktops pales in comparison to the scope of the Gendarmerie’s conversion of 70,000 machines.”
(tags: linux ubuntu france)
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Google releases open source Google Toolbox for Mac
“Sample code is always nice to have, so the Google Toolbox should come in handy. Even better, it’s completely free, and has been licensed under the Apache License 2.0.”
(tags: google mac)
ODF and OpenOffice.org
Open Document Formats, Real and Imagined
Second Life
Passing On
InfoWorld is reporting that the area around Paris will become focused on stimulating economic and business development via open source:
A new economic and technological model, built on free software, is forming in the IT industry, Breton said. As this new opportunity opens up, it is “calling into question the dominant positions formed in the software industry over the last 15 years.” France must seize this opportunity, in a sector where the country is teeming with talent, he said.
Breton hopes that sales of software and other intangibles will help the French economy grow by between 3 percent and 4 percent annually. In contrast, the Chinese economy, based on more tangible goods such as the export of computers, is growing at around 10 percent annually, according to figures from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Nice news out of Paris today via CNet: “French parliament dumping Windows for Linux.”
“The study showed that open-source software will from now on offer functionality adapted to the needs of MPs (members of parliament) and will allow us to make substantial savings despite the associated migration and training costs,” the parliament said.
While this is not a statement about ODF, it certainly enables it via OpenOffice. But what about Microsoft’s immense Open XML epic spec, you might ask? Even if Novell works on it, I think Open XML support in OpenOffice will be partial, at best. So I think the French Parliament will either stick with the old binary Microsoft formats or start a migration to ODF. Since ODF is the future, I’m optimistic that this will further accelerate its adoption.
Also see InfoWorld and ComputerWeekly.
There’s a great story coming out of France as reported by InfoWorld (“French gov’t report recommends standardizing on ODF”) and CNET (“French government report lauds ODF”). According to InfoWorld:
All French government publications should be made available in OpenDocument Format (ODF), according to a report commissioned by the French prime minister.
In his report, “On Equal Terms,” National Assembly Deputy Bernard Carayon calls for a law making it compulsory for French government departments to use ODF when they create or distribute documents, and suggests that France ask its European partners to do likewise when exchanging documents at a European level.
Obviously, this is excellent news and should, I believe, lead to similar and more frequent actions by other governments around the world.
The original French article about this is “France: un rapport gouvernemental soutient les standards ouverts”.
Yesterday after I finished up with my meetings for the day, a colleague dropped me off near Notre Dame. My real goal was to go to the Shakespeare & Company bookstore which is very close to the cathedral. I had been there once or twice, the last time being when my daughter Katie and I visited Paris when she was 10.
As you might know from previous posts, I like to go to local bookstores and especially used bookstores. I’m not looking for antiquarian treasures but rather good yet inexpensive things to read during my travels.
I brought two books with me on this trip. The first is The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway. I bought this back in July because some of the first stories are about Nick growing up in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. I read those before Katie’s and my trip to Minnesota and then didn’t get too much farther.
The second is Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews, edited by Jonathan Cott. This has been a very fast but fascinating read as it makes clear Dylan’s views about music, interviewers, and his listeners through the years. Not only that, but the book has a soundtrack that now spans well over forty years (you’ll have to buy the music separately).
I nearly lost this book in the train station in Lyon. I had it out to read but left it on the seat next to me when I went up to my train. When I got up there, well before the train was to arrive, I realized that I no longer had it. I went back to the waiting room but there was no book. Resigned to having to purchase another copy for Katie, I hurried back to the train platform. I gave this book to Katie on May 24, Dylan’s 65th birthday, so while it was replaceable, it had some sentimental value. With ten minutes to go, I ran back downstairs, checked out a couple of other places I had stopped earlier and then walked one more time past where I had been sitting. Voila! Either someone had been sitting on it or it had been borrowed and then returned, but I had my (Katie’s) book back.
Back to Shakespeare & Company: I was a bit disappointed. I understand that English language books are not to be found everywhere in Paris, but they seem to have gotten the exchange rate exactly opposite, even for new books. I didn’t purchase anything, because, for example, I wasn’t going to buy a new paperback for 11 euros when it would cost $8 back in the states tomorrow. So I walked out empty handed but it was still a fun browsing experience.
After this I had dinner outdoors at a restaurant where I could see Notre Dame and watch people pass by. I walked over to the church after I had eaten and tried taking a few photos but they all came out fuzzy. The one shown is the best of the bunch. From there I walked back to my hotel near the Louvre. A cellist was playing in one of the museum alcoves and all seemed right with the world.
Since the hotel wifi (30 euros a day, gulp) does not work in my room, I settled into a comfortable seat in the looby to do email for a few hours. That’s where I am again now, though I’d better go pack.
Catch you back in the States.
Yesterday was the second day of the OpenOffice.org conference in Lyon and I took part in and participated in much of the ODF track. The day started with a panel on ODF moderated by Charles-H. Schulz, with Rob Weir (IBM), Eduardo Gutentag (Sun), and me participating. There were no fireworks but a good healthy discussion of how far we have come with ODF but also how far we are going. Good questions as well.
There was one guy there from a vendor taking feverish notes all day, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.
The ODF talks later in the day covered the standards status, accessibility, a comparison with MOO-XML by Rob Weir, and Doug Heintzman talking about how ODF will drive innovation. I missed Doug’s talk, but I’m sure he wowed them. I heard several really positive things about the other talks, including Rob Weir’s.
I’m up in Paris today for some meetings and I’m enjoying the sunshine on a nice September afternoon. Tomorrow it’s the long trek home.
As I mentioned on August 16, several of us from IBM will be attending the OpenOffice.org conference in Lyon, France, next week. In particular, the third day, Wednesday September 13, has an ODF track. Nathaniel Borenstein will not be on the keynote panel with me, but IBM’s Rob Weir will be. It looks to be a lot of fun.
Rob also has a talk later in the day called “A technical comparison: ISO/IEC 26300 vs. Microsoft Office Open XML.”
In a show of solidarity with the general OpenDocument Format community, several of us from IBM will be attending and speaking at the annual OpenOffice.org conference in Lyon, France, in September. I’ll be speaking on a panel on Wednesday the 13th with IBM’s Nathaniel Borenstein, Sun’s Eduardo Gutentag, and Charles-H Schulz. There is an ODF track on Wednesday, so expect a lot of updates about the status of the standard, migration, and compatibility.
This is from a few days ago, but Louis Suarez-Potts in his post “Speak Out: French Administrations and ODF” talks about helping ODF adoption in France. An excerpt:
We need people who are involved in promoting the ODF, which OpenOffice.org and many other applications use, to help publicize the importance of the French administrations using an already-approved open standard like ODF. Massachusetts’ decision to use ODF has galvanized the US and much of the world but in many ways this is just as important–and the consequences could be even greater.
Why is it important? It is important because an open standard for documents such as ODF not only guarantees interoperability and a stable document environment both now and in the future but also removes vendor lock in and thus gives the user real freedom of choice.
Needless to say, I fully support the French government moving to require ODF for its documentation needs. If you are French, live in France, want to live in France, or even have thought of France once, I urge you to add your support in the ways that Louis suggests.
Also see the article “France ponders Office Document Format requirements.”
The week after SF I’ll be back in Europe and one of the things I’ll be doing is giving a keynote at the IPTEC Conference in Cannes. Specifically, I’ll be talking at 9:15 AM on Thursday, February 23, on the topic “The proprietary or open source model?”. Si vous �tes � la conf�rence, dites svp bonjour.
I’m in Paris today, having arrived this morning via Chicago. Whenever I do these long trips I always resolve to write up a few blog entries so that I can have them in reserve and publish them when I am otherwise too busy to produce anything of substance (I’ll leave it to you to decide whether I ever produce anything of substance …). This pre-creation of entries rarely actually happens. I did manage to make some good headway on my inbox and take care of a few other tasks, but sleep is always beckoning on these cross-Atlantic flights.
I’ve now had several months of experience with having three blogs: this one, an internal IBM one, and a personal one. The last one has gotten the least amount of attention, which surprises me a bit, but part of the reason is my pledge to myself that I will only append to it during the evening and on weekends. I work a fair amount during those times, and if I’m feeling tired or temporarily burned out, that one suffers. I actually do have some backlogged material I could add there including the state of the state on my guitar playing (middling progress, a bit more understanding of music theory, and a used Epiphone Les Paul Classic that came my way via eBay), William’s and my trip to LA last week, and general stuff like how the blooming Spring flowers look in front of the fence I built last year. It will all get written up eventually. I want to keep that personal blog strictly separate from my work and have them only intersect when, for example, I write about something that happens when I am travelling. More on these connections later.
The second blog, my internal IBM one, is where I put all the work-related things that I don’t or can’t talk about here. Some of this is about what it means to blog inside IBM, how we can use blogs in better ways, internal requests for information, news articles that I want to direct people to, clarifications of policy or actions, and so forth. I’m reasonably active on that one, though I’m very willing to throw out quick pointers to things of interest. On this external blog I tend to digest links to articles rather than fill it up with a lot of one line entries, though I’m thinking about changing that. My last couple of entries illustrate this.
I’m not going to describe this blog you are reading and further differentiate it from the others because you can see for yourselves what it is. It’s somewhat liberating to have a choice of outlets since it lets me write pieces than vary in tone and content and then stick them where I want. I’m pretty convinced that almost no one reads the personal blog, so that is almost a journal. I also don’t allow comments on that one because I don’t have time to deal with blog spam and I’m pretty sure I’m going to change the software I use. I now use Blogger and have it ftp the blog to sutor.com. At some point I want to put something like MovableType on the server itself.
Even though I have these three blogs, there are some topics I don’t write about anywhere. The reason for this is that even though my two public blogs are separate in content and hosting, they are just two expressions of me. I don’t think that putting something controversial on my personal blog insulates it from this one completely. That is, I’m still “Bob Sutor from IBM” wherever I put my comments, even though I don’t identify my company affiliation on my personal blog. Now don’t misread what I am saying here: I’m not feeling squashed or otherwise restricted, and I’m not saying I won’t ever deal with, say, politics on the personal blog. My point is that whether you have one blog or ten, it is the sum of what you do that reflects on you and the people or company with whom you are associated. It is your choice to accept the risk level and responsibility when you blog on certain topics. Live within that at your own comfort level.
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