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In October, MSI's Director of US Sales delivered an interesting statistic that Linux netbooks were returned four times more often than Windows versions. It didn't seem, perhaps, an unreasonable number, but it was a bit ambiguous what data it was pulled from. I had speculated it was perhaps a market-wide number, pulled from other netbook manufacturers (and incorporating MSI's sales data on Linux netbooks internationally, as a Linux version of the Wind has not yet been released in the US).
Apparently that wasn't the case. I just came across a Laptop Magazine interview from late last month with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen. Shen says four million EeePC netbooks have been sold this year, with models offering pre-installed Windows versions rolling out in the later quarters. He says ASUS has found the return rates for the Linux and Windows models are similar. He also said that Linux has been quite popular in the European market.
Obama's inauguration must have brought out the optimist in tech journalists. In the last week, Ron Miller and Charles Babcock have written to implore Microsoft to open source Windows. While inspired and with some solid reasoning, I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. Here's why.
Check in with Chris DiBona, Google's open source chief, on how committed Google is to OSS, and more.....
Google announces OpenSocial 0.8.....
Bill Gates discussed Windows 7 at the D conference. It has a multi-touch interface--video and photos found here.....
Ruby on Rails upgrade may arrive this weekend.....
Eighteen universities say they are turning to Groundwork Open Source's network management software.....
Funambol, maker of open source messaging software, has a new version of its BlackBerry push e-mail and PIM sync app.....
In the wake of Microsoft's announcement of new openness and interoperability initiatives, market researchers at Gartner are warning open source developers to tread carefully. In particular, a report from Gartner warns that underlying patents could create litigation risks if open source developers decide to play fast and loose with the documentation and APIs that Microsoft is making available. Are the warnings to be taken seriously?
If part of your workflow involves a lot of cutting and pasting, then you know how limiting the native clipboard feature is on your desktop no matter which platform you're using. If you want to add a little extra awesome to your cutting and pasting routine, then have a look at this roundup of clipboard tools that make the job go just a little easier.
Glipper - This clipboard manager for the GNOME panel. It keeps a history of copied text so you can refer back to it later. Glipper has support for Actions, Snippets, No-Paste services, and more. It's available in English, German, and Italian.
In the world of open source, there's a narrative that has predominated since the time that the term open source was coined - that being the need for the underlying platform to be open source. We can tolerate proprietary software on an open platform, such as Linux, much more than we tolerate free software on a closed platform, like Windows.
For all of open source's self-professed pragmatism, there is a noticeable gap between how Linux users are supported and how Windows users are supported. If we are truly as pragmatic as we like to think, perhaps the time has come to close that gap.
