OStatic

Greg Bell's post on open source logos over on the OpenLogic site prompted me to think about open source branding in general.

Greg asks whether open source companies should approach logo design differently from proprietary software companies. Specifically, he wonders whether or not open source companies should be looking at open submission of logos and so forth.

This is a 1.0 that I wasn't sure would ever come. No, I'm not talking about the Duke Nukem game that's been vaporware for the last decade or so. I'm talking about Wine 1.0, which is slated for release on June 6th of this year. That's a mere 15 years after development was started.

Wine, if you're not already familiar with it, is an application that allows Windows apps to run unmodified on Linux and other *nix operating systems.

Anyone observing the open source community will tell you that open source is growing at an amazing pace. Specifically, the number of applications and the maturity of those applications are growing at an amazing pace. I could have told you that last week, but using anecdotal examples and data I have on hand from the openSUSE project. Now I can tell you that based on a study of 5,122 active and popular open source projects.

A lot has been said the past few days about the fact that Wal-Mart has dropped the $200 Linux-based PCs being offered in its retail stores. What's really interesting is what's not being said, and how much is being read into this.

Amanda McPherson, marketing director of the Linux Foundation, tackles the Wal-Mart topic (and manages to throw the word shadenfreude around a little bit...) with some interesting insight:

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.

Amazon turned quite a few heads when it announced that it would be entering the music download business by selling MP3s unencumbered by Digital Rights Management (DRM). Now Amazon is raising the stakes even further by offering its download client for Linux, in addition to the existing Mac OS X and Windows clients.

By dint of its openness and multiple platform support, users should really be looking to Amazon -- rather than Apple -- for their digital music needs.

The instant messaging world became just a little more open on Wednesday when AOL released Open AIM 2.0. Some of the requirements attached to the release might still turn off open source developers, though.

The first release of Open AIM was in 2006, but that release was missing some vital documentation -- specifically, for the core protocols that work with the AIM backend. Now, theoretically, developers can write libraries/clients that authenticate and communicate just like AOL's official client without having to decipher the protocol first.