Free SAP competitor?

Anyone know of a free software SAP competitor? It's a big marketplace.

Popularity vs Freedom

Someone on fsf-uk posted a link to this Popularity Versus Freedom article which was published four years ago. I only just read it, a good read. My personal view is that you can use certain components like nVidia's linux kernel driver in the short term, but the long-term goal is to use all free software packages, nVidia's driver only being a temporary solution as part of an overall migration strategy! People install Apple iTunes when they could be supporting a free replacement with the cover-flick feature that is actually all that they like! ... so uninstall iTunes if you've got it ;)

nVidia and other companies are sure to soon realise they can "dump" their code in the public domain and get it maintained for free eventually, the cost for them to keep maintaining it themselves must be extraordinary. The argument for not publishing the source code is typically patents these days, as source code may make accidental infringement visible!

Mozilla "reply all" bug not fixed 5 years later

When I filed this Mozilla MailNews bug back in 2002 I never expected it would have been outstanding for so long. net users like me are often keen to contribute where we can to Free Software and Open Source projects, and the developers encourage us to help out where we can, so I was happy to file the bug info... It's a great feeling when you file a bug report, get an email back from a developer an hour later, and within a few days a discussion, and patch fixing the issue has been committed to the software for the next release.

Unfortunately it doesn't always work like this, and my Mozilla bug reports (I've still got loads outstanding at present) have largely never been touched by the hand of a developer -- which kind of makes we wonder if my time was well spent back in 2002? .. and raises the wider question of if developers should solicit bug reports and community involvement when there aren't the QA and developer resources to deal with that influx of requested bug reports? I think a little more upfront info would let people decide if they want to spend time contributing to something which may be never looked at, when they could be contributing their time to a project which will really make the most of the bug reports (KDE, GCC and Binutils projects spring to mind).

It's odd to think that even MS fixed IE6 and released IE7 before my bug reports got tackled. Can Mozilla Foundation really lead and beat Microsoft in the browser market when their ability to tackle bugs is so stunted? I expected more, bit of a disappointment when they fall short of what other projects achieve. Maybe it's time for a different development approach, passing on to the next generation the control of the Mozilla code-base.

This is probably one of the problems with the Free Software/Open Source bazaar development model. What gets attention is what is worthy of attention in the eyes of the developer, not a project manager who can maintain broad focus on the whole software package. Which means QA and bug triaging often get left by the way side, as they're not interesting or important enough to developers who don't have enough time as it is.

The real solution is for business backers to pay to fill in the gaps I believe, providing developers to work on documentation, and QA staff to test and triage bug reports. Distributions do this a little, but not to the extent we really need, they're largely just packagers and testing their own distros. I wonder how many companies relying on Firefox and Thunderbird have contributed coders or subsistence funds to either of those projects? At least this bug I reported to Mozilla got fixed. See this OpenOffice bug I reported on Launchpad too, got closed and never passed up to OpenOffice, which kind of defeats the purpose of Launchpad!

Free Software Tories

Only yesterday I was highlighting the way Free Software and Open source products have solved the problems that matter (at a fraction of the cost!). Strikingly, today the Tories followed the Green Party's anti-software patent direction last year, leading the way to an Open Source Government ;) Their news piece and speech by George Osborne sounds very promising, mainstream politics have caught up with industry trends at last! Does this mean the Tories how have thousands of new Free Software/Open Source supporters? Quite possibly, I'll definitely give them a thought when the time comes.

George is even using Firefox (albeit on windows, see yesterday's post George!). So they're starting to walk the walk, as much as they are talking the talk. Next step is the Desktop Linux switch in Conservative central office George!

Meanwhile Labour and the BBC have stuck to the traditional model and struck deals with Microsoft, you can see who is on the ball ! (Sign the iPlayer petition if you have a moment)

Let's see how these policies get taken forward; elections could well be interesting once more :)

Risc OS still not so open

Interestingly Castle and Risc OS Open Ltd have announced they will release the source code of Risc OS. Risc OS is the Operating System which used to power Acorn computers in the 90s. I first suggested to riscos.org's Paul Vigay back in May 2002 that they could take the monumental step of opening-up, this announcement is a big step but they need to go one step further. They decided against releasing the source code under a Free Software license and went with a Shared Source licence; this doesn't give all the freedoms developers and users might like compared to GNU-Linux though. In a couple of years down the line they might release source code under a different licence.. but will it be too late by then? Drobe has the reaction to this announcement from the industry. Fond memories of Acorn aside, I personally hope Risc OS succeeds ;)