Fortunately, most of us will still be here tomorrow. Some of us will still be here for a long time. In the meanwhile, Managing Firm-Sponsored Open Source Communities - A Case Study on Novell and The openSUSE Project has been published. Jan Fredrik, the author, has hopefully earned high marks for his Masters thesis. It is worth reading as suggested.
Genesi has been involved since inception
Genesi has been involved in the openSUSE Project from the beginning. Prior to Novell's involvement, the first open source operating system running on the PegasosPPC was SuSE Linux 7.1 (2.4.2 kernel). Novell was an early supporter of the ODW. The main center of the openSUSE development is still in Nürnberg, Germany.
The future is unknowable, but it seems a remarkable transition is approaching. Not only is there a choice of useful and flexible open source operating systems and applications, but there is a broad commercial push toward low cost hardware. Yesterday, Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) announced it has joined the growing band of hardware makers producing low power, portable laptops. OLPC, Asus, Intel, Dell and HP have all made related and recent announcements or are shipping product already. Just how open the hardware is will become a major issue.
In our eyes, the future of open source software does not rely on the community or even a specific company/project, as much as the individual, many of them, each with their own dreams and ambitions (Go Zig!). It is our feeling that economic development is dependent on legal protection of a system of property itself firmly bound to individual ownership. It is important to distinguish between the use and the idea of property. There is a difference between a 'house' and the 'legal concept' of a house. As a concept, a house can be sold, rented, or mortgaged, while a house where you live, but you cannot establish as your own is nothing more than shelter (read up on Hernando De Soto if that last thought interests you). Companies that can provide opportunity and a framework of ownership/participation in the context of success will enable entrepreneurs to transcend governments that fail to provide safety in ownership. It could very well be a brave new world (reference to Shakespeare, not Huxley).
One more thing: in the last post we wondered what would be announced by Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) in its quarterly report. Of greatest interest to us was that for the first time in Dell's history more than half of the revenue came from outside the USA. Other than a weak dollar it will be interesting to watch how companies like Dell and Novell grow market share in emerging markets and what role open source software and local entrepreneurs will play in their strategies.
The Community is the Computer - a Super Computer. Go Zig!
3 comments:
And a slightly modified openSUSE 11.0 is working on an MPC8610 board. Only the kernel is replaced, as v2.6.25 used in openSUSE 11.0 does not have yet support for it.
Some first impressions, compared to Pegasos:
- less than 2/3 of power consumption for a complete system
- 1.5x - 4x speed, depending on application
Amazing job Peter! Does this mean that there are drivers for all those integrated devices the 8610 has?
Yes and no. Drivers exist, but mostly in the FreeScale BSP, not yet in the Linus kernel. The missing pieces are just being integrated.
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