was involved a rather mind-boggling discussion last night. In a very particular newsgroup, we had a powwow about the issue of fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) tactics and how they are used to vandalise GNU/Linux adoption. In essence, it was realised that FUD creates zealots and leads to broad apathy. People are deterred by the very thought of using Linux. Yes, indeed they still believe that “it’s all command-line” or “it’s only for servers”. Moreover, some people are led to hate Linux due to stereotypes that are being spread constantly.

“FUD makes bigots”, one guy said. How correct was he, by all means. Such zeal and disgust makes difficult not only to persuade others to migrate. It also deters manufacturers of software from making it available for Linux. The general perception of Linux is dysphoric among those who do not understand it and behave merely like cattle, propagating the same myths onto others.

So when will Linux become a platform of the majority? Clearly, once more people experiment with it and, over time, judge it for themselves (rather than rely on hearsay), this shall start a domino effect.

High-bandwidth slows kills
CD-based distribution of software

HEN I was in an Art museum at Washington I suddenly realised that Open Source will affect commercial applications in the same was photography affected realistic drawings. Photography put a lot of power in the hands of common people and thereby drove down the worth of graphical reproduction. Open Source likewise. Some would say it fixes the price at 0. I, however, would argue that this move is inevitable and support will become the means to sustain businesses. Software can be duplicated; support cannot.

Will Open Source mark the end of a convicted monopolist and withstand its utter aggressiveness? Will it obliterate Microsoft or at least elbow them off course? I, for one, would love to see that happening. Nowadays, I seem to revel in their miseries and taking pleasure in their inability to catch up with Google.

The magnitude of mind games has reached detrimental level. Microsoft have become overly obsessed with Google and they come up with deceiving public statements. Here’s one:

Ballmer said Thursday he doesn’t think the company is lagging its competitors, noting that Microsoft has strong technical expertise and a loyal online user base with products like its MSN Messenger.

Here’s another one (from Gates):

Bill Gates has promised to keep Google “honest” by pushing the internet rival to “to better” despite coming late to the internet services market with an unfinished offering.

And yet, most recent figures show:

MSN’s search market share dropped from 14 percent to 11 percent

Google and Yahoo increased their market share in the online search arena as Microsoft’s MSN slipped, according to Web research firm Nielsen//NetRatings.

Moreover, on a separate and important Web services front:

But Microsoft is shying away from the 10-year-old name and hoping to freshen up its image as services such as Google’s Gmail creep up on its market share.

In short, Google mail’s annual growth stands at 114%; Hotmail, despite expansion of the Net, only grew by 16% in the same period.

Patents, copyrights and trademarks serve an important role. They prevent theft of one’s methods and reputations, which often require heavy investment (not necessarily financial). But what about intellectual property which is fuzzy and not concrete? I will use a case study to exemplify this.

Think about the case where Xerox patented the one-stroke Graffiti input, which Palm devices later used for stylus-based input. It is the method by which drawing on a screen is translated into discrete, atomic signals such as letters and numbers. Jotting a line from top to bottom to render a “1″ should not warrant anyone property of such an idea, right? Yet, that’s what Xerox achieved. They ‘invented’ the chalkboard interpretation language and took ownership. Ultimately, as to abstain from paying royalties perhaps, Palm invented “Graffiti 2″, which is a cumbersome method of achieving the very same thing. People’s habits were broken and input made slower just because Xerox ‘owned’ a more efficient input method that involved a single, unambiguous stroke. A common language was actually possessed by one master.

Let that teach us why patents in software are evil and are not accepted in Europe. The case would of course be different in fields like medicine and especially drug discovery.

couple of months back, Vista engineers ere bragging about Intel systems architecture which would enable quick startups from memory. This sounded like “hibernation mode” rather than standby, but it was still used as Windows Vista selling point, alongside updates without reboot. So here we shall address two issues.

Why should one bother rebooting? Linux rarely ever requires it. Frequency of updates is low and the severity of bugs is relatively low. And again, what is there to be gained from quick reboots or even the avoidance of bootstrapping? Saving a minute a couple of times a year? It would probably take longer to just set up such quick startup facilities. The whole scheme is unnecessary with energy saving modes, so again, why ever reboot in the first place? And why bother reducing booting duration?

Yet another day in La-La Land®

ILLED with frustration over some recent rotten conducts, I once assembled a few streams of consciousness to compose a bitter essay. It was saturated with citations on the way Microsoft continues to exploit its desktop monopoly-like state-of-affairs. I titled the essay On Operating Systems Monoculture and it spanned 4 pages. Today I would like to elaborate on that matter, whilst venting some anger (rant alert) and pointing out facts that Microsoft prefer to hide from their users, owing to Vista’s prematurity.

In a world where a desktop monopoly prevails, there is also mental manipulation of minds. Innocent people are (mis-)led to believe they are IT-proficient when they manage to change font size in Word. Skills are not sufficiently generalised and MSCE qualifications are a glaringly-obvious example of this. Advice must be taken from people who live in a broader reality and are neither delusional nor biased.

To take an overview, as well as a look into the future, Microsoft continue to use dirty tactics to push away any type of rivalry. They also propagate some hackney myths. Microsoft cried “Wolf” whenever someone criticised Windows Vista. Yet, based on some recent screenshots, Vista Starter Edition will allow only 3 processes to run at any one time. It is one among the numerous ‘penalties’ that will force a paid-for upgrade.

Then comes the issue of desktop environment visualisation. Graphics in Vista are unimpressive, assuming Aero cannot be run. Aero is the glass-like component in Vista’s window rendering, which enables translucency (as in Linux and Mac OSX). Aero is estimated to be properly-supported by 50% of today’s hardware. So, is Microsoft taking a step backwards, both in terms of hardware support and functionality? Even when Aero is enabled, it offers nothing out of the ordinary. LiteStep can already enrich the looks of Windows, so Vista offers nothing innovative. Aero only suffocates the CPU. The 3-D effects make the system choke. Vista is the same product which is known as XP Service Pack II (or Windows Server 2003), but it was put in a new dress. It is no surprise given the recent major fallback in terms of the codebase.

Microsoft employ a famous composer to work on sounds in Vista. Judging by what the O/S has to offer and rave about, Microsoft could take the easier route and just go with Mozart’s Requiem. It may soon be “Hasta la Vista“.

Backed by an ambitious contention, one Web site calls for the halt of Web privatisation.

You think the Internet will always be the great freewheeling information superhighway you’ve grown to love? Well, think again. Media giants want to privatize our Internet.

As one among several threats, consider Google Groups. Under the magnifying glass is accumulation of over 20 years worth of forums conversations (full names included). To make matters worse, consider the practice of appending “Copyright Google Groups” to each of these pages. Then comes the contribution (or lack therefore) from those who post from Google Groups without quoting, which merely leads to clutter in UseNet. It sometimes seems as though UseNet has evolved into ‘Google Chat’, which is worrisome.

Another matter to consider is charging for E-mail traffic, as means of crippling spam. It comes to show that corporations can instate and manipulate ‘Net politics’.

Beyond these facts, rumours are formed and echoed as regards a Google Web or even the newly-proposed ‘Chinese Web’. Then, of course, there is the issue of censorship, aimed to better suit the interest of governments– either through blocking of sites or filtering of search results.

The future of the Web looks not bright. Given present trends, the outlook is rather grim.