Monthly Archive:: October 2009

What laptop is the most loved, and maybe the most famous laptop in the world? Which laptop went into space? Which laptop won over 300 design awards? I'm sure many of you will be thinking of something made by Apple, but the truth of the matter is that we're talking about something else: IBM's ThinkPad. You might wonder, where does that name come from?

The Ubuntu team has pushed out the beta release for Ubuntu 9.10. "Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Edition improves on the work of 9.04 to get you going faster, with improved startup times and a streamlined boot experience. Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition integrates Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud setup in the installer and provides improvements to system security with AppArmor, including an AppArmor profile for libvirtd to further isolate virtual machines from the host system. The Ubuntu 9.10 family of variants, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, and Mythbuntu, also reach beta status today."

We reported earlier on a blog post entitled "Ubuntu Report Card (2009)" where the author detailed how they felt the Ubuntu experience had improved over the years. In a follow-up series of articles looking at the future, Tanner Helland has written 10 different broadly-scoped feature requests that 'and many others would like to see by the time Ubuntu 10.10 rolls around'.

Yesterday morning, we ran an item on the Autodesk case, but we (as in: me) got all confused about what exactly was going on. As it turns out, I was right from the start; despite my update to the item, the case was not resolved. The link in the update referred to an earlier stage of the legal ramblings. However, we now have a real conclusion in this case - and once again, Autodesk lost: software is sold, not licensed. Note: Thanks to Brian W. Carver from Cyberlaw Cases for clearing everything up via email. Much appreciated!

AdMob has released their latest set of figures regarding the usage shares of various mobile platforms when it comes to web browsing. The figures are pretty clear: the big winners are the new kids on the block, iPhoneOS, Android, and webOS.

As much as we like to stay away from letting real-world politics bleed over into our ongoing discussion of tech politics, I found an interesting essay over at The Economist's "Democracy in America" blog that draws a parallel between Apple's Mac/iPhone user-friendly ecosystem and the Microsoft Windows freer-but-more-chaotic ecosystem and how that lines up along the authoritarian/libertarian spectrum of real-world political division. They don't mention Open Source in this essay, but I'm sure it could make an interesting addition to the discussion. The essay's main point is that, in governance, attempts to make life more user-friendly for citizens usually ends up giving them less freedom of choice, and a certain segment of the political establishment will reliably oppose such moves. The idea that the tradeoff between choice and usability persists into the world of governance really set me to thinking. What kind of country would you rather live in? An Apple one, a Microsoft one, or an Open Source one?