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“.. the ability of the developers within a given enterprise to use and rely on open source at scale is dependent on its acceptance by that enterprise’s legal department .. The end result is the policies which countless developers operate under today which specify which licenses are approved and which are not.” RedMonk

http://redmonk.com/sogrady/201...

The very first link if you google it, is to the most comprehensive study that exists - and the most up to date data. And it clearly shows that the GPL2 is still by far the most popular license with GPL3 in second place - combined they cover a full 37% of all projects by themselves -the remaining 63% divided among ALL OTHER licenses - including the other GNU copyleft licences like the AGPL.

TIOBE results doesn't makes much sense. They are using general web searching to rank their list. It seems Redmonk, http://redmonk.com/sogrady/201..., is more accurate which is basd on github and stackoverflow. I hope they also publish their new analysis soon.

Newflash - they said exactly the same damn thing about Java and how it was going to change the world when it came out.

And it did. Java is the most widely used language in the world.

By "so many" you mean... 1?

The problem with language rankings is that there are many ranking tables to choose from. C ranks second in the TIOBE and IEEE Spectrum indexes, but it ranks lower than second on the RedMonk, PYPL, and Trendy Skills indexes.

So who's right? Probably none of them.

Red is a complete rewrite and upgrade of REBOL. REBOL? REBOL was rated as THE most expressive general purpose language (by a long shot) according to the famous http://redmonk.com/dberkholz/2.... But, curiously, it got no recognition. Rebol is sort of a the swiss army knife of languages (with networking, graphics, and pretty much you-name-it) All in less than ONE megabyte! No "libraries" -- the libraries are pretty nearly all built in. That seems near impossible in today's bloated world, but it happens to be true. And Red is a major reimplementation and upgrade likely to be released in 1.0 form within months. Actually red is aiming to be the world's first "full stack language" -- for everything from system's programming to DSLs and above. Download version 0.6 and read more here: red-lang.org. If you are intrigued, you can learn more, and assess for yourself the importance of rebol/ red by talking direct to the community and developers here: https://gitter.im/red/red.

Look at that, you found a chart. Good for you.

Statistically, what you say is just nonsense.

You don't seem to understand that chart, the methodology, or statistics in general.

Fun fact: Our little discussion here actually improves Ruby's TIOBE rank. Interesting, isn't it?

Other similar sites show similar results.

No, they don't.

http://www.ohloh.net/languages/compare?measure=commits&percent=true&l0=java&l1=javascript&l2=-1&l3=python&l4=ruby&l5=-1&commit=Update

https://sites.google.com/site/pydatalog/pypl/PyPL-PopularitY-of-Programming-Language

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=ruby%20on%20rails

http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/

http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-top-10-programming-languages

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/12/javascript-tops-latest-programming-language-popularity-ranking-from-redmonk/
( http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/09/12/language-rankings-9-12/ )

No one cared about Ruby before RoR -- and now that RoR has fallen out of favor (the fad is over) so will Ruby. Trends appear to show Ruby as flat or in decline.

I know that you really like Ruby. That's fine. But let's not pretend that it's growing in popularity. It doesn't matter if the rumors about Ruby and RoR are true or not -- or that such-and-such criticism is just a myth or whatever else you want to bring up in defense of the language. The fact is that it's in decline and unlikely to ever again enjoy the hype it did years ago. Sometimes, being just the best thing ever in the whole of all history just isn't enough to make something popular.

You seem to have a lot emotionally invested in the language (or other people's perception of the language). Just let it go, kid. In the grand scheme of things, it's not at all important.

So after you go through the bullshit in the link, what they're trying to come up with is a MacBook Air-equivalent with 'custom developer profiles'?
They already have a number of laptops that are essentially perfect for 'web development'. Some of the others here commented on the Latitude series, etc. I'd like to offer my own personal example.
I have a Dell Precision M6400. I bought it 2 years ago off the Dell outlet site for about $2k. Shortly afterwards, I bumped up the specs a little, so here are the current specs:

- 17" screen with 1920x1200 resolution
- Core 2 Due T9800 @2.93GHz
- 16GB DDR3 RAM
- Nvidia Quadro FX 2700M
- 2x Samsung 256GB SSD drives in RAID-1

I run Windows 7 Professional 64-bit on it as my main OS. It's the perfect foundation for VMware Workstation 7.1, which I use to run my virtual machines. I have one the following VMs running daily:

- Ubuntu 10.04LTS server - for testing
- Ubuntu 10.04LST desktop - my main work environment
- CentOS 5.8 - for testing
- "Unnamed storage" vendor virtual cluster with 3 virtual nodes - also for testing

I run *everything* on this one box. VMware gives me the flexibility to try new releases, test against newer packages, etc. Need to test something else? Fire up another VM.
What better self-contained development environment could you ask for? No MacBook Pro or Air could beat that, except for weight (~8lbs on the Dell vs ~6.5lbs on the Macbook, and almost nothing on the Air).

This Project Sputnik is a waste of time for Dell, and they should fire the gullible idiots that fell for the bullshit fed to them by Stephen O'Grady.
Dell would be better off by just focusing on either standardizing the hardware they use across their laptop lines, or providing updated drives for the hardware they use.

I've never really followed the arguments behind why everyone hates software patents. I'm not trolling here, please help me understand. As I understand it, the idea behind a patent is to encourage an inventor to invest resources in R&D and then to share their new techniology with society, in return for a time-limited monopoly on exploiting that new technology. This is arguably a bit broken at the moment -- largely because patents seem to be overly broad and to last too long -- but the basic idea seems sound.

See http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/03/19/software-patents/

The software patent system may be in need of repair, but is it really worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

It's too broken, too fundamentally broken, to fix.

Well large managed networks is two miles away in the distance on the scale of things Linux is awesome at. Active Directory, Exchange, Terminal Services... Windows really does have a very impressive offering in this area, while Linux stays behind the scenes and rarely faces the user.

For one, OSX != Linux. But that's irrelevant to my post. I use puppet as does Google. Works a treat.

You set up configs for the machine groups you want, it will change files, install applications, run upgrades etc. in an idempotent fashion.

Other customers of Redmonk include:

Tier 1:
IBM, Sun, Adobe, Canonical

Tier 2:
Dell, Eclipse, HP, Red Hat, Intuit, Microsoft, Nortel.

From:

http://redmonk.com/clients/

But I guess fact finding might have ruined a perfect rage moment.

If anyone needed any proof that Slashdot's moderation system is a failure, here it is. One of the few "+5 Informative" posts, and it's a baseless attack using the words "shill" and "FUD".

Dunno if the shill accusation is true or not, but by their own admission (bottom of the page), Microsoft is a client of Redmonk.

...which is #52 here talked about JavaFX and its prospects for a bit. One of the guys had just gotten back from JavaOne and was talking about the vibe he was getting about JavaFX. Larry Ellison apparently commented favorably about it, so, whatever that means.

RIA Weekly is a good podcast - Michael Cote is a savvy guy and he always has good discussions with his cohosts/interviewees. AAAA+ would buy again.

"The Apache license allows manufacturers and mobile operators to innovate . . . without the requirement to contribute these innovations back to the open source community. . . . [they] are protected from the 'viral infection' problem often associated with other licenses."

This leads to a sort of "suspicions confirmed" moment about Google's view of its relationship to the FOSS community: it is a one-way street, in which Google gets benefits, but does not make serious contributions in return. During the run-up to the roll-out of v3 of the GPL, there was argument over the activities of ASPs such as Google, which use open source code as a mainspring of their activities but avoid making public their significant improvements because they do not distribute code. Under GPLv2, only distribution triggers a disclosure obligation.

Many FOSS members regard this as a serious loophole, and wanted it closed in GPLv3, but Google and other ASPs resisted, and v3 was unchanged on this point. See IT Business Edge.

At the Open Source Business Conference last May, Free Software Foundation guru Even Moglen acknowledged the problem, and said he would be working with Google to improve its contributions to the FOSS community.

Judging by Android, his efforts do not seem to be working. Android is based on Linux. The code Google adds to create Android will be open as per the Apache license, but that code can then be taken and turned back into locked programs by phone makers or wireless providers.

This is explained in an ArsTechnica post (characterized by Google as "one of the best explanations for the reasoning behind releasing code under Apache2"):

[A] copyleft license could potentially limit the evolution of the mobile software ecosystem by discouraging commercial development on top of the platform. Proprietary mobile software development companies that integrate Android into their technologies would have to dramatically change their business models if they aren't given the ability to keep their enhancements proprietary.

So the business plan seems to be that Google will persuade FOSS developers to write for Android, but under a system in which their code can be lifted by phone makers and service providers for the profit of others in the system without any reciprocity. (Of course, developers may also be hired by the commercial players to write proprietary programs, but this is not exactly the spirit of FOSS.)

As one Internet comment said: "[The licensing] does not inspire much confidence that this is really some sort of open phone for the users, rather than a potentially interesting, PR-savvy way of saving money for a bunch of manufacturers." Good call.

But Google will sell the advertising, riding on top of everyone else's work.

For those of us who have nothing against commercial software, all of this is just fine, especially the Ars Technica explanations of the advantages of going the commercial route, but if one is a dedicated member of the FOSS community, one might be feeling a little used.

HAHA! Do you really think Microsoft would let you change the default 'save as' to anything except a microsoft format?

I googled, and found: http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2006/07/06/microsoft-of fice-to-support-odf-the-qa/

Which says that MS themselves said that you cannot change the default 'save as'.

Actually, IBM has been working in this field already. Check this: http://redmonk.com/cote/2006/10/06/redmonk-radio-e pisode-27-games-and-mainframes-hoplon/ and IBM's press release: http://www-03.ibm.com/industries/media/doc/content /news/pressrelease/1551338111.html Essentially, Z Series Mainframes + Linux + MMORPG. Personally, I've always wondered why more MMORPGs are not run on mainframes, considering all the points you illustrated: Scalable, parallel, huge uptime, etc.

I'd disagree. As someone who's working on Kaffe and GNU Classpath, and after looking deeply into it decided not to join the JCP I'd say the JCP is hampered by many things:

We've discussed these things many times before, Dalibor, and as you know we largely agree. I'm not saying the JCP is ideal, just that I believe the path through the JCP is much more promising than the path through ECMA, which does not even permit membership by individuals and which, as Redmonk point out, exists to offer "a path which will minimise risk of changes to input specs ".

While there is (as usual) much to agree with in the points you're making, they do reflect a single view of the world, one in which there are no large carnivores, and some of the fixes you suggest would possibly remove freedom from the market at the same time as they appear to give it to the individual FOSS developer. Where we do agree for sure is there's a need for further evolution of the JCP governance, and personally I am more hopeful than you that it will happen.

Google will pay Sun for the privalige of having the Google bar as an optional download with Sun's JVMs. And Google will buy more Sun servers, though details of that are apparantly coming later. Google will also help spread the word on JVMs and OpenOffice.org. Sun will be buying AdWords. There certainly seems to be more coming, but how much and how significant is impossible to say currently.

Here's a good write-up of the event in Stephen O'Grady's RedMonk blog.
Jonathan Schwartz also has some comments in his latest blog entry

According to this link http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000743.htm l MS's XML looks very much like OpenDoc's XML. The main difference I suspect is that Microsoft owns their format and by the licensing restrictions are the only party who can make changes to it ie the only ones who can innovate.

Like opendocument 3rd parties will be free to implement MS XML. Currently no software implements this. The first software will be office 12

If Microsoft are willing to hand control of the format over to a standards orginisation AND create a mechanism whereby parties other than microsoft can partisipate in future revisions of the format they might have a valid point here.

an interesting and required read for everybody interested in open formats :
http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000743.htm l

gary edwards, member of oasis opendocuemnt tc, comments on ms xml, od and related stuff. you really should read the whole comment, but i'll cite a couple of excerpts that imho are relevant to your comment :)

"Since MS XML looks to be a clone of OpenDoc XML, i think it's disingenuous to imply that Microsoft put so much time and effort into creating a duplicate XML file format to meet their "legacy" needs. This is a knockoff clear and simple. The work was done by OpenOffice.org, Sun Microsystems, and the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee."

"The first 18 months of work at the OASIS OpenDoc TC (...), was focused near entirely on legacy systems. Especially legacy systems
wedded to Microsoft binary file formats.

The OpenDoc TC was very fortunate to have a wealth of expertise in reverse engineering the legacy maze of incompatible MS binary file formats. Experts from Corel Office, StarOffice, Boeing, Stellent, ArborText, and SpeedLegal among others had long made their living reverse engineering MS file formats. Phil Boutros, the legendary binary cracking wizard representing Stellent, near single handedly represented what would have otherwise been thought to be the full cooperation of Microsoft in solving these legacy issues."

"At any time Microsoft was and is able to jump into the TC discussion's about their legacy file formats and the transformation issues that were eventually resolved in the OpenDoc XML specification. They did after all have an official membership on the OpenDoc TC."

it might be interesting to read what gary edwards (a member of oasis opendocument commitee) thinks about microsoft xml and opendocument.
http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/archives/000743.htm l

Oh, and nobody cares about SOAP, anyway.