Sun Microsystems, makers of the Linux-related Solaris, have formed a pact with the Linux-oriented Google. The exchange between the two is that of search technologies (i.e. search bar) and Java Desktop, most notably OpenOffice, which is treading strongly and becomes among the main dangers to Microsoft alongside Web-based Office.

Sun Microsystems Inc. and Google Inc. on Tuesday said they agreed to a multiyear pact for Google to promote Sun’s software technologies in what amounts to a direct challenge of Microsoft Corp.’s dominance of business users’ desktops.

HIS morning I received a flash reminder of how disasterous Windows can be. I tend to forget this as my professional life is Microsoft-free. My mother’s computer refuses to boot as the hard-drive cannot be mounted by Windows XP. Not even safe mode can do the trick.

This comes at a time when I strongly urge my mother to switch to Linux (probably Ubuntu), which perhaps would be a blessing as the computer reached a halt (over 5 minutes to boot) due to Registry bloat. Perhaps this O/S crash will wind up serving us well, but the amount of distress and required restoration work is enormous. This all comes at a time when we are reminded how mature Linux has truly become.

“Why choose Ubuntu for the parents?”, one might ask. I have 3 Linux machines at Manchester and 2 of them (the more recently set up) run Ubuntu while the main one (repository or so-called ‘mother ship’) runs SuSE, which is my favourite.

While I’m here at home I occasionally the Ubuntu Live CD because, let us face it, it can be a pain working under Windows as you cannot (trivially) SSH with X forwarding. Only the bandwidth is somewhat of a barrier at the moment (ADSL as opposed to proper LAN).

EVIATING from the a development branch, thus staying away from the regular updates cycle, is a step which is bound to have its problems, e.g. security and missed out extensions. I am fully aware of these issues and I made mistakes in the past nonetheless, particularly with Web applications. I am rather confident and comfortable with my choices to extend applications, but one must remember the pitfalls, as well as the very few advantages.

Rather than simply downloading pre-installed and/or pre-configured packages like Gallery, WordPress, a VPN client or PHP-Nuke, one can add a wee bit of ‘individuality’ to them. For example, with actual words and vocabularies that do not suit your way of speaking, you can instill some personality within the software — a beauty to be found most commonly in Open Source software. It gives a feeling of ownership, a sense of personal contribution.

Linux users are often inclined to hack software and customise it, maybe because they can. With some Linux distributions like Gentoo, people struggle to compile individual components and some have the odd habit of re-compiling the Linux kernel. Again, it gives an utterly unnecessary sense of achievement. That free platform, however, unlike other platforms, can be claimed to be one where very little intervention should be involved. With 5-CD installations, for instance, all the necessary software is in place, is well-integrated and simply works without any apparent conflicts. Somebody else took care of all the nasty installations and then burned some ISO to be distributed and put as-is on other people’s computers. So, we perceive a situation where there is a great deal of freedom, but at the same time that freedom is unneeded or even discouraged.

Change to existing packages is risky. It can bring an application to a fragile state. Attempts to exploit vulnerable (usually non-existent if the owner is fortunate) components are being re-directed to an unpleasant page at server level on this domain. I hope these can successfully deter a determined hacker. The only ones to come across such a page would be those attempting to sabotage (hence the rel="nofollow" in the link above).

When forking and choosing to no longer follow a development cycle, there is always some possibility of ‘flushing’ self-made components and starting fresh with similar, even identical data and an application belonging to the current generation, hence incorporating state-of-the-art technologies. Upgrades usually mean some loss of personal changes which are better off never lost. This may lead to feelings of regret due to waste. It also means hours of conversions, not to mention the laborious process that is involved in updates and getting accustomed to new interfaces. As it stands, I continue to fork, but do so cautiously.

OZILLA Firefox was voted best product of 2005 in a long and rather interesting list from PCWorld. Firefox snatched that honourable position despite recent criticism due to security vulnerabilities and growth that seemed to have stopped.

As a matter of fact, many Open Source projects have been ranked very well, which reflects on the changing trends, whereby inter-operability benefits the most.