[SpikeFri] Open Dependency Hell, Transparent Screens, SAP don't care much for open source, Christmas Fact#44

Dave Rosenberg over at InfoWorld writes an interesting blog entry regarding his view on the open source world and how he has taken to looking at it from an end-users point of view; and its not all rosy.  He cites the complexity of installation on Linux systems that quickly lead to dependency hell.  This is the one of the reasons SpikeSource is in business, to make these problems go away and for the end-user (or developer) to concentrate on what they do best.  We don't do desktop applications (yet), so I feel Dave's pain as I recently went through a similar hell trying to coax mplayer onto my Linux box.  It's not all rosy in the Open Garden.

• http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2005/11/the_open_source_1.html

Engadget have an entry on the new fashion of transparent screens.  I first witnessed this when I went round to Andy's office and spotted he'd done the deed and made his laptop into a translucent miracle.  Granted it doesn't take a whole lot to impress me, but it was kinda cool for the first 20seconds at least, then the novelty soon wears off.  If you don't know what I am talking about, head over here. But be sure to read some of the comments; there are some people we shouldn't be giving a keyboard to, more for their own safety than anything else.

• http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000247067476/

Speaking of people that shouldn't be let out, that may include Shai Agassi, President of Product & Technology at SAP, who in a recent interview with CIO Today, lashed out at the open source world.  He really went for it, citing that open source has failed to deliver innovation (yawn, not that old chestnut again), and stating that open source is great for debugging, just don't touch the code.  Although he just doesn't stop at open source, CIO Today must have really caught him on a bad day, because he takes a pop at Oracle, likening them to a big pirate ship.

• http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=02200000IIXC

Countdown to Christmas Facts#44:
The idea of celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25 was first suggested early in the fourth century. This was a clever move on the part of Church fathers, who wished to eclipse the December 25 festivities of a rival pagan religion. The celebration of Christmas took permanent hold in the Western world in 337 with the Roman emperor Constantine. Christianity had become the official state religion in 313 AD. By 354, Bishop Liberius of Rome reiterated the importance of celebrating not only Christ's death but also his birth.
Courtesy of http://www.cvc.org/christmas/myths.htm

tags: sap  linux  christmas  oracle  transparent screens  installation  

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