The promise of cloud computing is very compelling. Just listen to the pitch for hybrid clouds: “If your organization needs more computing resources, why purchase extra hardware? Just set up a connection to a public cloud, use the extra machines to your heart’s content, and stop using them when your needs are satisfied.”

Sounds [...]]]> By Brian Proffitt

The promise of cloud computing is very compelling. Just listen to the pitch for hybrid clouds: “If your organization needs more computing resources, why purchase extra hardware? Just set up a connection to a public cloud, use the extra machines to your heart’s content, and stop using them when your needs are satisfied.”

Sounds nice, doesn’t it? To be sure, the advantages of any type of cloud computing, be it completely private and internal, public and external, or something in-between, are very real. But there’s potentially a big difference between the promise of instantly expanding your company’s infrastructure and the reality of getting your systems and the cloud’s completely and securely talking to each other.

Thinking about this on the network level alone brings up some daunting questions: if your organization is a public company, you can’t just trustingly connect to a public cloud infrastructure. Your company may have procedural and even regulatory security requirements to meet that would prevent such connections.

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I’m setting up a new computer. I get through the registration screens, install my software, change my wallpaper, and everything’s working fine. I’m left, though, with a lingering, uneasy feeling: I don’t know if this machine is secure. I’m a computer guy, so I know how to set up strong passwords and firewalls, [...]]]> by Gunnar Hellekson

I’m setting up a new computer. I get through the registration screens, install my software, change my wallpaper, and everything’s working fine. I’m left, though, with a lingering, uneasy feeling: I don’t know if this machine is secure. I’m a computer guy, so I know how to set up strong passwords and firewalls, but I’m still not sure if I’ve done everything right. I turn to my vendor, who has hopefully published a hardening guide. If I’m very enthusiastic, I might even follow the NSA’s Security and Network Analysis Center Guides. If I do any of these things, I’m already being more diligent that 95% of users out there. And that’s a problem.

Personal responsibility and its sworn enemy, “I have something better to do.”

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Before heading out to film this story on the Open High School of Utah, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a lot of the same questions most people would have about an online high school: What kind of students go to high school online? How are teachers building their [...]]]> by Mike Esser

Before heading out to film this story on the Open High School of Utah, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had a lot of the same questions most people would have about an online high school: What kind of students go to high school online? How are teachers building their curriculum from open educational resources and what does it look like? How are the students interacting with their teachers and other students in an online venue?

After spending a day with the founding members, administration, faculty, and a room full of students and their parents, we got answers to all those questions, and left feeling like we were witnessing the beginnings of something phenomenal.

Technology rules at Open High where their approach to learning embraces the idea that teaching shouldn’t be as static as the textbooks on which it’s based. Shattering traditional methods, the Open High School of Utah curriculum is built from open educational resources. These resources are the foundation for their content and are aligned with Utah state standards to ensure the highest quality educational experience. The teachers enhance with screencasts, interactive components, and engaging activities to create high quality curricula for their students.

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A new web site has been created for the group, Open Source for America, or OSA.

The mission of OSA is to [...]]]> Andy Updegrove announced in a post on ConsortiumInfo.orgthe formation of a new group to advocate for the use of Open Source software in government. He also announced his appointment to the board of advisors.

A new web site has been created for the group, Open Source for America, or OSA.

The mission of OSA is to educate decision makers in the U.S. Federal government about the advantages of using free and open source software; to encourage the Federal agencies to give equal priority to procuring free and open source software in all of their procurement decisions; and generally provide an effective voice to the U.S. Federal government on behalf of the open source software community, private industry, academia, and other non-profits. The mission incorporates three goals: (1) to effectuate changes in U.S. Federal government policies and practices so that all the government may more fully benefit from and utilize free and open source software; (2) to help coordinate these communities to collaborate with the Federal government on technology requirements; and (3) to raise awareness and create understanding among federal government leaders in the executive and legislative branches about the values and implications of open source software. OSA may also participate in standards development and other activities that may support its open source mission.

We hope that OSA will provide an effective counterbalance to the hired lobbyists that are paid advocates for proprietary software companies. In this time of financial challenges, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) can be an important tool in stretching limited budgets, both in the private sector and government.

To quote from the press release:

With the U.S. Federal Government increasingly focused on utilizing and adopting technologies to better serve citizens, there is growing recognition of the freedoms that open source software and open technology solutions can provide – an open, transparent and cost-effective option – for government agencies. Gartner recently estimated by 2011 more than 25 percent of government vertical, domain-specific applications will either be open source, contain open source application components or be developed as community source.

Best wishes to all who are working on this project. As an Open Source advocate I believe that the taxpayers will be the ultimate beneficiaries.

Microsoft announced this week that they are releasing source code for Linux drivers that allow it to interact better with Windows, where Windows is the host OS and Linux is running as a guest OS. This [...]]]> The recent announcements by Adobe and Microsoft of source code releases under FOSS licenses are attempts to co-opt free software.

Microsoft announced this week that they are releasing source code for Linux drivers that allow it to interact better with Windows, where Windows is the host OS and Linux is running as a guest OS. This is great PR for Microsoft but really does nothing to improve Linux. Now if Microsoft added hooks to their OS that allowed it to better operate as a guest OS in a Linux host, that might be something to report. However, there are rumors that Microsoft has taken exactly the opposite tact. It has been reported that Windows Vista and Windows 7 refuse to run as virtual machines.

On the other hand, Microsoft has not backed down from patent threats against Linux, claiming it contains source code that violates intellectual property rights. Steve Balmer claims that “People who use Red Hat, at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense have an obligation to compensate us,” However, Microsoft has never disclosed which source code or applications violate it’s “intellectual property” rights. Many in the Linux community, including me, consider this to be a simple case FUD and attempted extortion. Novell agreed to license Microsoft’s intellectual property in exchange for a patent pledge to users of Novell’s SuSE Linux. In other words, they succumbed to the extortion. Red Hat refused. Many long time Linux users are now boycotting SuSE as a result.

Adobe announced at OSCON two new “Open Source Initiatives”. The products are Text Layer Format and Open Source Media Framework. To quote Dana Blankenhorn “Adobe is delivering an open source project so that open source, as a concept, can live in its world of corporate media.” Text Layer Format is an Action Script layer that adds typographical features to the Adobe Flash Player. Open Source Media Framework is an attempt to inhibit the use of the tag in HMTL-5 and the inclusion of Ogg-Theora open source video player as a part of that specification. By announcing the release of these “Open Source” initiatives, Adobe is attempting to preempt any criticisms against it’s proprietary product Flash, by being able to claim that it too is “open source”.

Microsoft and Adobe are pursuing the same divide and conquer Public Relations strategy. Big splashy announcements about “Open Source” while pursuing a strategy of market dominance with proprietary closed source products. HTML5 and the inclusion of the <video > tag threatens both Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Flash. Expect to hear more FUD from both in order to prevent the inclusion of truly open standards in HTML5.