OStatic

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz surrounding the Moblin Project, designed to bring open source applications to mobile devices. Though the news generally focuses on big name distributions getting involved, Moblin still features the community feel and involvement that draws many to open source projects.

One tool that Moblin offers the community to (hopefully) encourage participation is the Moblin Image Creator. The MIC allows developers to easily define projects, build them for mobile platforms, add applications and function sets to the target system images, and easily create images for live distributions (with the option of enabling rewrites/persistence), installation, or testing in virtual terminals.

The 451 Group is reporting that venture capital funding for open source vendors was down 12.2% last quarter, compared to Q3 2007.

They say that while this is a larger drop than seen in the overall market, it's not quite as dire as it may seem at first glance.

It seems, lately, more people are embracing open source software. From the Android phone to OpenOffice.org's latest, free software is getting (well deserved) good press.

In a perfect world, all projects would make their code freely available, and everyone could benefit from the resulting innovation, security and interoperability. Since it's likely the planet will be waiting a long while for perfection on a few fronts, would approaching open source adoption differently -- same goal, different strategies -- help foster interest and acceptance? How can advocates show the greatest benefits of open source to the most people in the least amount of time?

Bruce Byfield at Datamation wrote about some of the attitudes found in open source circles he feels are selling the community short. He lists some of the usual suspects, such as community infighting focused more on personality conflicts than differing development philosophies.

He mentions some attitudes that seem, at face value, not terribly off-putting -- to the open source enthusiast. However, open source advocates (or at least, effective ones) don't talk about open software solely to fellow enthusiasts.

The Capital Times ran a piece on home-brew, open source DVRs (digital video recorders, in the tradition of TiVO). Though TiVO's software is open source, any unsigned modified code is blocked from running on these devices. Home-brew DVRs act like TiVOs, with a few side benefits. The article mentions, incidentally, that this is not a project for the faint of heart.

My MythTV box has been humming in my living room just shy of a year. It's not a project for a new user, but it's a better application, and less complicated to install and maintain than you've been led to believe.

ReadWriteWeb points readers to a report released by the 451 Group stating that open source is not a true business model, but more of a business tactic.

Traditionally, the open source business model is perceived as free/open software, with paid support and configuration services. The report found, however, that many of the responding open source businesses incorporate some commercially licensed software in their product line. It also found that the paid support/free software idea -- while theoretically, at least, valid -- is multi-layered, complex, and highly variable between software product, software company, and industry.

The Audacity audio editor is a great program. Take that as you will: It's truly functional software. It's a great illustration of the power and versatility of open source. Audacity has been an active project for some time. But because it provides an esoteric service, it was only recently I had reason to sit down and use it.

Due to microphone-support issues in Linux, and a Windows machine that has trouble with its own weight, never mind throwing sizable files in the mix, I've used Audacity 1.3.5 on two of the three supported platforms. There are differences in feature set-up, not function. After a learning curve of two hours came weeks of declaring my undying love for the project to anyone who'd listen.

On Internetnews.com, Christopher Saunders asks if Linux is really necessary for the desktop. He relates a discussion he had with a creative/marketing executive recently, and the doubts that this executive has about the ability of open source alternatives to meet his company's needs.

This conversation goes astray with the word necessary. Is Linux necessary? Is Windows necessary? Perhaps a Mac would do better here? A key point that many open source detractors -- and supporters -- miss is that there doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach to using free software.

Over at TechRepublic, Jack Wallen details ten points to consider prior to moving your organization to Linux.

Some points are far more critical for operation than others (it is easier to switch to a more suitable desktop environment than make some highly specialized proprietary applications work with Linux, for instance), but all require attention. Depending on the workplace and industry, it might be worth an administrator's time to consider a few other points as well.

Mozilla Labs recently offered a sneak peak and download of Geode. Geode is one of the first applications to use the new W3C geolocation specification API. It is currently available as a plug-in for Firefox 3 (and seems to only support Windows and Mac systems at this time). Mozilla Labs indicates it will likely be a new feature integrated in an upcoming browser release.

Geode uses web-based tracking, which tends to be faster than the traditional GPS geolocation methods. This would enable Firefox to sense the user's location and give information, for example, on local businesses, or quick access to local news.