OStatic

As the Ubuntu Developer Summit (UDS) kicks into high gear, the hopes, dreams and plans for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 release are taking shape. Over at Ars Technica, Ryan Paul reports on Canonical developer Michael Casadevall's presentation highlighting some of the technical nuances of making Android applications run on Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Ubuntu's popularity aside, it is still esoteric -- Google has the upperhand in non-open source enthusiast name recognition. This no doubt plays into netbook manufacturer's opting for Android on netbooks, even though (as Paul states) Android is still very much a smartphone platform. Android can be modified, of course, but Ubuntu (or any Linux distribution) are already lightweight desktops potentially requiring fewer modifications to work well on netbooks.

Will adding Android compatibility make Remix a more attractive platform option? Can it really hurt?

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the GNU Project by Richard M. Stallman. GNU is one of the oldest and best-known organizations in the free and open-source world, providing not only high-quality software, but also a well-known license (the GNU General Public License), and a philosophy that continues to influence many activists and programmers. The exact anniversary of Stallman's announcement is September 27th, 1983, when he called upon programmers to join him in creating free Unix.

The New York Times has a story on alleged troubles surrounding Jimmy Wales, co-founder of open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia.....Sun Microsystems and open source backup and recovery company Zmanda have announced a partnership to deliver a global backup and recovery system for MySQL Enterprise subscribers.....The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is claiming victory in yet another infringement lawsuit over the use of the open source GPL license.....

This piece by Bruce Byfield sparked my interest a bit, because the topic of world domination, is one that keeps me up at night. Specifically -- how can Linux edge closer to a majority market share, particularly on the desktop?

When you're trying to provide a system that is appealing to former Windows users, you generally find that a lot of people expect features that are often only available from proprietary drivers, codecs, or applications. So, the question is whether Linux vendors and projects should supply proprietary software in one form or another to address those needs, or to insist only on free software.