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Linux Pipeline Newsletter www.LinuxPipeline.com Tuesday, April 12, 2005 In This Issue: - Adobe Acrobat Rediscovers Linux Desktop - Firefox 1.1 Slated For Late May Beta Release - Intel's $10K Question For Pack-Rat Geeks: Where's Gordon? - More News... - Sino-Indian Tech Pact Likely To Have Long Reach - Applications: The Next Open-Source Opportunity - $40 - More Picks... Join InformationWeek for a FREE, on-demand TechWebCast on Email Policy Management and Compliance: Is Your Business Safe? Learn how email policy management can secure your enterprise against a range of email-borne threats, and ensure its ability to comply with legislation. Register and view now: http://www.techweb.com/today/email120604 ----------------------------------------- Editor's Note: Sizing Up The Competition For more than a year now, I watched with a great deal of interest as many East Asian nations steadily deepened their relationships with open-source software. Private businesses, academic and research organizations, and governments across the region have waded into the open-source waters, either on their own or with some encouragement from above. As so many others have discovered, open-source software is at its most effective when it finds its way to people and organizations who can't afford proprietary software and the latest hardware and who enjoy opportunities they wouldn't have otherwise. This has been an evolutionary shift for the most part, but that may have changed this week. For the first time, I saw what might, when I look back someday with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, be a major shift in the balance of technological potential in the world. To cite an easy example, it long seemed likely that Microsoft would have a hard time penetrating the two biggest markets with the greatest long-term potential: China and India. Now, after seeing these two nations moving towards common, or at least cooperative, IT policies, a Western software company with a proprietary product seems even more out of place. After all, no matter how much Microsoft discounts WindowsXP or works to improve its public image, it is still a foreign corporation with foreign shareholders to satisfy. It simply can't turn over its intellectual property in order to spawn a generation of future competitors, even if for some reason the notion ever crossed its mind. Happily enough, that job falls by default to Mozilla, and Apache, and any one of a dozen localized Linux distros fueling what will be an explosion of technology innovation within the next five to ten years. The people who use these products--and hack these products--used to think of software as something that came shrink-wrapped from the United States, either absurdly priced or blatantly pirated. Today, they have a chance to see software, and technology in general, as something for them to make, to own, and to control for their own benefit. I think it's hard for us to wrap our minds around the difference between those two positions, but it's important to try. At the same time, the Chinese government is now making crystal clear what I saw coming a year ago: Microsoft will never have access to the Chinese market on anything like workable terms, if they have access to it at all. I think it's clear that Microsoft also won't profit much from the future growth of India's IT sector, its government and academic computing initiatives, or (someday, and then on a vast scale) its consumer mass-markets. These are the two most populous nations on earth, both with largely poor but relatively well-educated populations, and it now seems likely that they will enrich not Microsoft or any other foreign company, but rather a generation of home-grown software entrepreneurs. Considering that these people have a lot more at stake than whether the shareholders get a dividend this quarter, it's hard not to find yourself pulling for them--even if someday we're likely to find ourselves scrapping with the best of them for every dollar of overseas business that we once took so blithely for granted.
Matthew McKenzie
Don't let future editions of Linux Pipeline Newsletter go missing. Take a moment to add the newsletter's address to your anti-spam whitelist: linuxed@techwire.com If you're not sure how to do that, ask your administrator or ISP. Or check your anti-spam utility's documentation. Thanks. Top Linux News Adobe Acrobat Rediscovers Linux Desktop Two years after dropping its desktop Linux support, Adobe returns with an updated Linux release of its industry-standard, and often essential, Acrobat Reader software--and promises that it's here to stay for good.
Firefox 1.1 Slated For Late May Beta Release
Intel's $10K Question For Pack-Rat Geeks: Where's Gordon?
Apple Will Spring 'Tiger' OS X Release In Late April
China's Prime Minister Proposes Sino-Indian IT Alliance
Mozilla Readies Firefox Security Update
Open-Source CRM A Sweet Deal For Budget-Minded Firms
VMware Delivers Virtual Desktop Update
Open-Source Startup's Grid Vision: Keep It Simple
IT Employment: Prosperity Without Promises
Yahoo Releases Anti-Spyware App For Its Firefox Toolbar
Report: Linux A Loser In Midsize Business Market
Analyst Report: Thunderbird Is No Firefox
Google Searches For Success With Small-Biz Customers
Sun Mistake Reveals New Entry-Level, High-End Linux And Solaris
Servers For 2005
Mac Mini Makes BestBuy Debut Editor's Picks Sino-Indian Tech Pact Likely To Have Long Reach Asia could become a hotbed for technological innovation, and a major obstacle to U.S. hegemony, if China and India cooperate in developing their computer industries, say international technology and business experts.
Applications: The Next Open-Source Opportunity
The $40 Million Question For SCO
JBoss Turns Open-Source Risks Into Business Opportunities
Stanford Professor Slams Software Patents
Review: Pervasive Postgres 8
Sun's Schwartz Equates GPL With 'Colonialism'
Wagner Opines: No, Thunderbird Just Stinks
Microsoft's Mantra: Variety Is The Spice Of Licensing Cast Your Vote Now! A few weeks ago, I wrote about some of the concerns I had about the direction OpenOffice.org is taking with some of its key marketing and development efforts. This week, it's your turn: Is OpenOffice.org a real alternative to Microsoft Office, or is it a poor imitation of the real thing? We'll tally up the votes for next week's newsletter. Now quit wasting your time doing real work, get over to Linux Pipeline, and vote!
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