OStatic

Sometimes it takes a dispute to spur change and innovation. This is what comes to mind while watching the aftermath of the recent spat between Google and a developer named Steve Kondik, who also goes by Cyanogen. Kondik's Cyanogenmod software framework is a modified Android ROM that angered Google because it included a number of proprietary Google applications, such as GMail and YouTube. While Google offers its own proprietary applications through Android, the company sent a cease-and-desist letter to Kondik, causing the open source community to rail against Google.

I'm actually in agreement with ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn, who says that Google was correct to be concerned about use of its proprietary applications because protecting them lets it retain legal cause against malware aimed at its servers using its software. What's really interesting to see, though, is that both Kondik and the open source community are responding to the dispute with creative Android-based efforts.

Unix at 40: Hanging on despite strong Linux, Windows challenges. The middle-aged OS is not expected to die any time soon, just slowly fade away.

The Android-Cyanogen kerfuffle. The opening shot was a cease-and-desist letter issued by Google against a developer producing a modified Android ROM with proprietary Google applications.

10 years of Linux accomplishments. Here are the major milestones that it has reached.

50 open source apps for small biz/home office. Datamation surveys the landscape of free offerings, and turns up some gems.

Ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix is looking great. Check out these screenshots from the latest build, which show a markedly improved interface.

What will advanced Android-based smartphones look like a year from now, and what will be under the hood? Motorola would have you believe that they'll place very heavy emphasis on unified social networking features. Archos has its eyes on tablets that double as smartphones, with advanced video capabilities. China Mobile and others believe that Android will work best in forked, unique versions.

Now, according to a PC World report, next year may bring the first 4G Android smartphone--much faster than current phones--with? WiMax capabilities. This type of phone could represent a big leap forward.

Things are looking increasingly bad for Microsoft's Windows Mobile operating system, and they may be looking bad for Palm, too. As GigaOm notes: Like a desperate gambler down to his last few chips, Palm is ditching Windows Mobile and going all in with its own webOS. That will leave the Pre as Palm's big bet in the smartphone arena, and the company has said that the Pre now accounts for the vast majority of the smartphones that it sells (823,000 units in the most recent quarter, in line with analyst's expectations).

What's more notable to me, though, is that as the heavily fragmented world of operating systems for smartphones begins to whittle itself down to a few competitors, players that rely either entirely or partly on open source are making the best bets.

Users nervous about Oracle's acquisition of MySQL. Concerns also linger over the fate of other Sun technologies such as Solaris and Java.

Eucalyptus CTO discusses open source clouds. He discusses Eucalyptus' first commercial product--an open source private cloud platform that supports Amazon AWS APIs and leverages VMware.

Alpha 680 Android netbook review. One of the first Android netbooks has some rough edges, but shows promise.

Mozilla prepares for SeaMonkey 2.0 release. THe second beta of its Internet app suite arrives, final version coming next month.

Linux webserver botnet pushes malware. A security researcher has discovered a cluster of infected Linux servers that have been corralled into a special ops botnet.