Slashdot Mirror
Linuxworld Fun
The Linuxworld Expo is now in full swing, and there's a variety of news. The BBC has an overview. Microsoft has a booth at the Expo in the section intended for "new, up-and-coming companies". Sun is rolling out servers running Linux. And VA Software - Slashdot's owner - is moving Sourceforge.net to IBM's database software.
For those of you that use sourceforge for their free software projects, it looks like it's time to move to savannah.gnu.org.
In case you're wondering, the gnu.org in there does not imply that your project needs to be under the GPL/LGPL --- any Free Software projects are welcome.
Why would you want to move? Well, from what I hear, extracting some of your meta-data is already hard/imposible from Sourceforge --- this seems like a trend that is likely to continue, so perhaps you should get out while you still can.
At least you can be sure that the Free Software Foundation won't pull any similar tricks.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Despite the immediate speed increase which could come from migrating to a real database which supports grown-up DB features like subselects, etc, I don't see it happening on Slashdot anytime soon.
Not to flamebait here, but if you've gone through Slashcode source, you know that it's a pile of spaghetti. It doesn't lend itself to a redesign of the database access methods to take advantage of an industry-quality DB's featureset, at least not without redesigning much of Slashcode itself.
The resulting weblog software could be really badass, but seeing as this site's gone since 1998 without a significant redesign (Slash 2 is Slash 1 with lipstick on), I don't see it suddenly happening now.
According to Netcraft they are running Solaris and Apache.. Not IIS See here
*narf!*
Microsoft's Services for UNIX allows you to recompile your Linux programs for Windows. Of course, you get to pay extra for this privilege, and your UNIX services will feel "bolted on." Besides, Linux and Windows already play pretty well (no thanks to Microsoft).
What Microsoft is trying to do with UNIX services for Windows is give UNIX users a way to migrate to Windows, pure and simple.
I agree with you that this is a perfectly fair way to play, and I also agree that it isn't likely to work. After all, who is going to take a working Linux application and move it to a Windows box? That makes no sense at all.
> "What you will see from Sun is a lot more attention paid to
> Linux on the desktop, because there is a lot more growth there
> than anyone is willing to suggest," said Jonathan Schwartz,
> executive vice president for Sun's software group.
This is in direct contrast to IBM's approach, and IMO it makes
sense for Sun, because it hurts a certain competitor with a very
large market share more than it hurts Sun. Think about it: Sun
doesn't want to commoditise the server market if they have any
brains, because that's where they make their money. But they
*do* want to commoditise the desktop market, because that will
prevent anyone from leveraging control of the desktop market
(since no one entity can control a commoditised market) to push
Sun (along with other competitors) out of the server market.
This is Sun being smart. *And* it's something the Linux
community really needs badly: a major desktop OEM.
Now, granted, this is highly speculative, since the product
they're unveiling right now is a low-end server. But I would
very much like to see Sun (or any major OEM -- sorry, WallMart
doesn't count as a major OEM) unveil an affordable Linux-based
desktop system.
It's different for IBM, because they make a lot of money on
the consulting and support end of the business, so that if
the server becomes a commodity, it doesn't hurt them really.
Sun has a bottom line in the server market to worry about,
but they can better afford to commoditise the desktop, since
that's a natural complement of the server.
Am I making any sense?
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.