E-Dribble

It’s been proven before, but Google keeps confirming that the only way that a free open source system or product  will dominate a closed source, proprietary commercial system is if the free open source system is being driven by a commercial, closed source and proprietary entity. Google’s Android system has overtaken the iPhone in sales.

It really isn’t much of a big deal when you take into account that getting into an iPhone is still much more expensive than a phone running Android.  Many people are choosing Android because they either can’t afford or don’t want to spend the money required to own an Apple product.  It hardly determines a superior product.

Who cares why it’s happening, right?  We should just be cheering that open source is finally trampling a proprietary product on it’s own turf!

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There was a time that I viewed open source the same way as many others.  It was better software because it hid nothing and if you provided something to the community, you would be visited by fairies in your sleep that would repay your kindness in kisses and rubies.

I now understand that the fairies kick you in the teeth while you’re down, take your offering and leave.

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A recent posting on a forum that I used to frequent got me thinking.  In it, a user that had been “done wrong” decided to dedicate his life to making sure that everyone on the intarweb knew that the mods and admins of the forum that had perpetrated these wrongs had been taken to task and exposed for the weenies that they are. So he created his own competing forum that was going to shine where the other forum failed.

The last time I had checked it, the thread had fallen short of it’s comedic potential but the seed had nevertheless been planted.  I got to contemplating the urge in people to split from an existing group or community only to create another group or community.  So there.  Neener, Neener.  The only difference is that you have no user base and you’re going to spend your time on your forum talking to yourself.

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Hey, remember when I told you about the Openmoko phone?  The FOSS phone that was going to change the way carriers, providers and vendors treated the end user?

Well, you can now officially consider it another open source attempt that is being buried and forgotten.  I know, shocker.

Who would have thought that an open source endeavor such as this would have failed, what with the incredible success rate that these types of efforts enjoy?

I would be blogging this from my linux OLPC laptop, but, well, you know.

Regardless of whether it’s driven by loyalty, devotion, ignorance or stupidity, Microsoft has surpassed being synonymous with the desktop and has become the only desktop, much like Kleenex became the only tissue and coke took soda’s place.  Although we never get to choose our most vocal supporters and defenders, sometimes the worst possible choice floats to the surface and gets more exposure than you might like.

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I’ve been watching this since I first heard about it last year on a linux forum.  It’s an open source phone/pim/pda/catchyphraseofthedayforphone.  There was a lot of speculation whether anything would come of it, but I thought they had a spectacular chance at making it, since they were avoiding the common pitfalls that other startups were falling into with little hesitation.

Well, Openmoko released the second gen phone to five distributors in France, Germany and India.  If you’re wondering why the US hasn’t seen it, it’s because they’re embracing the markets that show an open mind.  I-Sheep need not apply.

What does this mean?  Well, unless you’re a nerd, chances are great that you won’t notice the subtle changes.  Further, if you do notice them, you won’t care.  But for those of us paying attention, this provides an alternative to the developers that lock you into proprietary hardware, software and contracts.  Where Apple releases updates simply to squash hacks that their users have created to make the hardware work the way they want it to(i.e. for them), the open model hands all the necessary information over and asks that you share your work if you come up with something cool or useful.  It’s a community that not only allows you to make your hardware work for you, it helps.

Maybe Mr. Wozniak should pick one up.

Microsoft would like to share their source code with the FOSS crowd. Well, not really. What they would like is for some of the FOSS crowd to use some of their code. Then they would like to point out that their code was never actually open source. It was more of a look-but-don’t-touch license. It’s like a lawsuit machine covered in open source gift wrap.

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