In the book, The Man who lied to his laptop: What Machines teach us about Human relationships available from Amazon, Clifford Nass reveals his perspective as a Sociologist with a Computer Science Degree.

This is what happens when Computer Science and Psychology meet.

Erik De Keyser, CEO of Bricsys, comments: “We consider Bricscad V10 for Linux as a milestone for our company. Despite doubts of many about the viability of a native Linux based professional CAD product, we are convinced that there is a strong demand for it and a huge potential for applications. Bricsys is the right company to play a leading role in this evolution. For now we want to thank the thousands of Beta testers that helped us to finalize this version.”

Here is a link to learn more about this product.

I recently received this from a commenter on my site:

I bought a new Asus eeePC this weekend. Installed on it was Windows 7 Starter edition with Works, various trial software such as MS Office, antivirus, antimalware, and who knows what else. It took over half an hour after first boot before the machine was finally ready to used. I loved how I could not change the language after I made my language selection. When I finally was able to get to the desktop, I was greeted with numerous pop-ups and update notifications. After about 5 minutes of this garbage, I had enough of the Windows 7 experience. I reset the bios, stuck a USB drive in the side of the computer, rebooted, and after clicking through a few screens on the installation wizard, wiped out Windows 7 and installed Mint 9 KDE edition. 20 minutes later I had an OS with most everything I needed to get things done, an OS that was secure, an OS that made this little netbook a useful tool, not a broken toy.

Other than having to use Windows at work, I try to minimize my exposure to Redmond products. Obviously, my short experience with Redmond’s latest did not leave me impressed. Because the only choices available to me for netbooks all had Windows already installed, I guess officially I would be counted as a Windows user. I am sure there are many others like me who have purchased a computer with Windows installed only to replace it with Linux. The market share for Linux is far greater than 1%

End of Quote

Interesting analysis. It looks like in this case at least Linux and open source won.

How Linux is distributed

The great thing about open source technology such as Linux is that it is freely distributed. Unlike Microsoft Windows which comes pre-installed on most of the computers that are sold. And what happens to many of those systems when they are received with Windows pre-installed? In many cases those systems are wiped clean of any vestige of Windows and replaced with Linux. Linux is also as most of you already know, available for download for free all over the internet. Another means by which Linux is distributed is simply a matter of Geeks and non Geeks passing around Linux operating system disk and live cd’s.

What does this mean for the accuracy of Linux market share statistics?

What this means is that at this point in time, the statistics that have been made available regarding the market share that Linux currently holds cannot possibly be accurate. You cannot measure how many users have wiped their Windows systems off their computers to install Linux. You cannot know how many individuals have began using Linux as a result of a friend giving them a disk or coming to their home and installing Linux, which by the way is how I first got introduced to Linux, when a friend gave me a disk and helped me to install Linux.

What the statistics do tell us is that a 1% market share margin for Linux can be confirmed. The numbers cannot account for all the undocumented installs and uses of Linux. Also the numbers do not account for all the computers that came pre-installed with Windows and were later formated and replaced with Linux.

So why would we even consider the question?

In a recent job posting from valve one of the responsibilities that is listed for the position is to port Windows games to Linux. How interesting.

Perhaps the folks at Valve have changed their mind on this issue due to the overwhelming response of disappointment from the Linux community. Or maybe they had plans all along.

Whatever the case it is interesting to see that Valve is interested in getting their games running on Linux.

Here are the responsibilities that are listed on the Job posting in case anyone here is interested in the Job.

Responsibilities
Develop an understanding of Valve’s Internet business

Full Screen mode in Boxee

Another advantage that Boxee offers is that you can view most content in full screen mode. In Linux you can view a program in full screen mode by pressing the right arrow key. The program has a message pop up that states to press any key for full screen mode. That actually isn’t the case with the Linux version at least, you will need to use the right arrow key to get full screen mode.

Interuption free viewing

Another advantage is that Boxee seems to have a very efficient streaming method in place. Often when watching online video you will have occasional interruptions to buffer the video. After spending way to much time watching tv episodes and movies with boxee I found that interuptions were rare and very brief. That is my experience, obviously the speed of your internet has some bearing on this as well.

The program also has a very polished interface. And includes a cnn app, radio station app and applications/plugins to access a wide variety of online media applications.

Videos are also accessed through hulu and a few other services that are not particularly Linux friendly, giving Linux users a way to access services that they may not have been able to use in the past.

I did have some difficulty getting it installed, but thankfully I found this tutorial and soon had boxee running in Ubuntu 10.04.

What is the point?

Perhaps someone should put together a project that provides an alternative to virtualbox and or open office. Maybe we should not leave it in Oracle’s hands to provide further development for the open source community. Open Source technology was built on the idea of freedom from restrictive proprietary products. We do not want to turn around and become dependent on one company. Especially one that is setting such an unpredictable course.

This is where the Open Invention Network comes in to play. They have invited the public to review patents, especially patents that are being used to attempt to block open source development. The Open Invention Network is asking for its readers to submit examples of prior art. This is where a company has patented a product or concept that had already been developed by previous companies or individuals. Once evidence is in place of prior art in connection with a patent, that patent can be invalidated.

The Open Invention Network explains their objective

Post-Issue Peer to Patent, or simply Post-Issue, seeks to improve the quality of patents by providing a framework for ferreting out weak, non-meritorious patent claims in patents that have issued. Harnessing the power of a community of peer reviewers created through Peer to Patent (www.peertopatent.org), Post-Issue elicits previously unidentified prior art that may invalidate or narrow the claims of issued patents. In so doing Post-Issue provides greater freedom to innovate, removes uncertainty from the patent system, and provides greater certainty as to the value of issued patents. Whether for-profit or non-profit, whether for responding to demand letters or litigation or for improving a party’s own patents, all parties are invited to request posting of patents to Post-Issue for review.

End of Quote

And the results?

Information is already coming to light that may invalidate patents that threaten innovation.

For example I found this in the comments section regarding a patent used by Microsoft against TomTom.

1. This is no different really from flash ROM chips used to hold programs for the video games we used at KSE back in the early 90’s, that were themselves based on earlier designs. Flash has improved (in that you don’t have to put it under a UV light to erase it or use a eprom emulator), but the overall process is the same. There is nothing new here to justify a patent.
2. C. Lingo, May 14th, 2009 at 03:46 PM
   Commodore used an EEPROM for OS storage in the computers.

Paul Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft has a list of really vague patents such as displaying ads based on the information a reader is viewing. Or even just the concept of viewing information in a browser. These patents do not cover anything technical that he has invented. Just the concept of being able to do these things. It is kind of like if I decided to patent the color blue and then sue anyone who wanted to wear a blue t-shirt. I didn’t invent the color blue. I just came along and patented the concept.

The patent that covers viewing information in a browser should be of interest to the open source community as it could hinder the use of open source web browsers, if the lawsuit somehow succeeded.

Also anyone who has a website and is displaying content based advertising would be theoretically infringing on the patents that relate to content based advertising.

What is at stake?

Why is cooperation between Apple and the open source community crucial in dealing with this situation? Take a look at what is at stake:

Content based advertising which makes many products and services on the internet possible

Web Browsers (firefox, chrome and Opera just to name a few

Any service which alerts users to items of interest

What about Microsoft

Microsoft is in violation of these patents just the same as the companies that Paul Allen is suing. Interestingly he has not chosen to sue the company that he helped to build. Most of his targets are companies that use open source technology with Apple being one of the few exceptions.

The Patents

Here is a list of the patents that are being used in this lawsuit:

• United States Patent No. 6,263,507 issued for an invention entitled “Browser for Use in Navigating a Body of Information, With Particular Application to Browsing Information Represented By Audiovisual Data.”
• United States Patent No. 6,034,652 issued for an invention entitled “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”
• United States Patent No. 6,788,314 issued for an invention entitled “Attention Manager for Occupying the Peripheral Attention of a Person in the Vicinity of a Display Device.”
• United States Patent No. 6,757,682 issued for an invention entitled “Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest.”

The tablet novelty is wearing off quickly for me as you may have guessed by now. Somehow Linux news has become tablet computer news. I don’t care if it is running Linux. If it is underpowered and is not a feature rich product why would I pay the price of a laptop or pc for something that cannot hardly do anything.

I can see some value in a small pocket size computer instead of lugging a laptop around. But for me, no tablet computer is worth paying more than a hundred dollars for.