Microsoft IS Targeting Open Source Users

Much of the reaction from FOSS folks to news that Microsoft is joining the Open Source Census centers on concern that Microsoft is out to find open source users and what open source software they’re using. I think that may be exactly right.

However, I don’t think Microsoft has embarked on a SCO-style hunt for open source users it can cajole, threaten or sue for unnamed patent infringements. No, I think Microsoft has genuine interest in finding out how many open source software users are candidates for open source on Windows. I believe the company, which has changed, is aware of the scrutiny on it and its strategy with open source. Does Microsoft want to know exactly which open source software packages are most popular in datacenters? Wouldn’t you if you were provider of the most popular server/desktop OS in the world? Certainly Microsoft would rather see growth of its own products rather than growth of open source, but I believe it has accepted that it also has opportunity in open source that will be taken by others if it does not step up.

Microsoft is indeed targeting open source software users. However, being in the cross hairs means being a customer and I highly doubt any of those customers will ever find themselves defendants against Microsoft. Will Microsoft use Open Source Census data to sharpen its focus on its own products that compete with open source? Sure, but whether Redmond is aware or not, the bigger opportunity lies in Microsoft’s own support of open source. Should Microsoft be precluded from obtaining information about how much and which open source is being used? That doesn’t sound like open source to me. Once again, we see that open source is increasingly being viewed not as a hobbyist fad, cheap alternative, or enterprise-limited. No, instead open source is being viewed and handled by Microsoft and most other vendors as a source of real rivalry and real opportunity.

Joomla’s Money Hungry “Open Source” Community

As some of you may know I have recently been designing a website for a client using Joomla’s Content Management Software. The reason I went with this software is because the old webmaster had designed the previous site using Joomla.

Had I known what I know now about Joomla, I would have stuck to WordPress and rebuilt the site from the ground up.

I was forced to rebuild the site anyway because of limitations of the existing site and requirements for the new one. I didn’t mind learning a new CMS. I actually enjoyed it. My only complaint was how Joomla seemed to “over think” simple things like inserting an image or link.

After 20 hours I had completed the site and now all I had to do was implement a new theme and some modules to finalize the project. Unfortunately I had waited until last to do this. This is where I ran into a very disappointing surprise regarding Joomla.

As I searched for themes, (templates) all the ones I came across that looked halfway decent were “Paid” themes that you had to buy ranging from $25 to $300 dollars depending on the site and the subscription. A lot of the modules I was looking at also carried a hefty price tag to use with this “Open Source” software.

I found some themes that seemed decent, but they were for old versions of Joomla and required you to enable a legacy plugin, which tends to break various functional parts of the site in the new versions of Joomla.

After looking around for awhile I decided my best option was to go the Legacy route and cross my fingers that I could find something that would work with the majority of the site I had created.

I decided I would change the images in the theme to give my client’s site a unique look. My eye twitched a little when I saw what a Joomla theme consisted of… 2 PHP files, a CSS file and an images folder.

So this is what people are charging for?

I have seen many AMAZING WordPress themes that blow this theme out of the water, and they are all FREE to use. Look at a theme like the “Options Theme” by Justin Tadlock, which he gives away for FREE and offers personal support and online documentation through his forum. That is what I love about the WordPress community, and unfortunately that is what I expected to find with Joomla. I was sorely mistaken.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure Joomla does has a great community overall, but the developers and designers out there that dominate the SERPs and monopolize on this open source software really make me sick.

For any future projects I do for clients, I will be going with WordPress installations hands down. I now understand why people say it’s such a versatile and easy to use CMS.

You can read about another users similar experience in this blog post at Smashing Templates

Greenie Linux 3.0.2H Released

Greenie Linux 3.0.2H, an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution designed for Czech and Slovak-speaking users, was announced by Stanislav Hoferek and its main goal is to provide a simple to use operating system for everyday tasks, targeted at beginners and advanced users at the same time. Greenie looks much better now, as it received some aesthetic improvements.

This release is based on the latest stable edition of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and comes with Mozilla Firefox 3.0 RC1 and Opera 9.50. The default movie player is now VLC, a cross-platform multimedia player and streaming server that allows you to play different audio and video formats, DVDs, VCDs and different streaming protocols. The default photo viewer is now gThumb, an image browser and viewer for the GNOME desktop environment. Moreover, Greenie's size was reduced so it can fit on only one CD, the Bash aliases were improved for easier command execution and The GIMP comes packed up with a few additional plug-ins.

Fans of the popular Battle for Wesnoth, the free turn based strategy game created by David White, Frets on Fire and MPlayer will be disappointed, because the developer decided to remove them from this release. Frets on Fire is a game written in Python where you have to play along with the scrolling on-screen musical notes to complete a song.

Besides the two already available desktop environments, GNOME and OpenBox, another one was added. LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment), is now included in Greenie Linux 3.02H and was designed to be slim enough to keep the resource consumption at a low level. The components of the LXDE are independent and every one of them can be used separately with a small number of dependencies.

Download Greenie Linux 3.0.2H right now from Softpedia.