A lot of open source advocates like to rage against the machine at Microsoft, but when a former Microsoft Research employee says that Windows 7 won't stop Linux from market domination, that's an opinion to note. Keith Curtis, author of the book After the Software Wars, says just that. But he goes further. He thinks Microsoft and its customers would be better off if the company ditched Windows and instead built its own version of the Linux operating system.

"I think we could all be running Microsoft Linux. I sent an e-mail to Steve Ballmer about this and he said he wasn't interested," he quips, but is only partially joking. "Microsoft could very easily dominate the Linux market if they wanted to. I don't think they should release all their source code ... nobody would use it."


Given the likelihood of Microsoft Linux (zippo), I asked him if he thought the IT industry, with its giant Microsoft ecosystem, would somehow be better off if Microsoft vanished rather than having the folks in Redmond figure out how to become more open.

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Internet users throughout Europe accused of illegal file-sharing are to receive more protection from being cut off by their service provider.
The European Parliament and Council is due to make a decision on its Telecoms Reform Package in late November.
The package will entitle users in all 27 EU states to be put through a "fair and impartial procedure" before being disconnected.
The outcome is a compromise agreed during all night negotiations.
Some members of the European Parliament felt nobody should lose their connection until after they had been prosecuted in a court for illegally downloading content.
The new rules take the form of an amendment to a much wider revision of all Europe's telecoms regulations.
But they also represent a compromise between those who want greater protection for consumers and those who argue that copyright law is still being flagrantly disregarded by millions of computer users.
So far it is also less than clear exactly what will constitute a "fair and impartial" procedure.

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One area of Web standards where both Mozilla Firefox (version 3.5.3 CRPI: 7.34) and Opera (version 10 CRPI: 6.38) have an edge over Google Chrome (build 3.0.195.25 CRPI: 15.85) is in the field of page-designated font rendering. It's where the code for the Web page specifies which fonts to use, and even triggers the downloading of those fonts where necessary. Actually, Opera 10 has led the way in scalable Web fonts support although Firefox 3.5 has followed close behind.
The problem here has been with the extremely proprietary nature of the fonts used for the Web. They actually are TrueType and OpenType fonts, the majority of whose licensing prohibits their use for anything other than installation in commercial operating systems on a per-desktop basis. Even though some typographers have created free renderings of their commercial font products (here's a favorite of mine: Museo Sans by Exljbris), there's some question as to whether type designers are technically allowed to use the proprietary underpinnings of font technology (mostly contributed by Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple) for use on the Web.

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Facebook plans to let users buy music and other virtual products on its Web site, the company said Wednesday, expanding its sources of revenue as the company seeks to turn its huge popularity into fiscal profit. Separately, Google will let users sample and buy songs directly from its search results page with a service it plans to announce next week, according to reports. The move comes as Google looks to hold its dominance against Bing, which has stolen around 9 percent of the U.S. online search market since its launch earlier this year, according to Internet monitoring companies.
Songs and official sports icons are among the new virtual gifts Facebook will add to its store, the company said on its blog. Users in the U.S. will be able to pay US$0.10 to send friends a song that can only be listened to online, or $0.90 to send a copy that can be downloaded and transferred, the company said.
The service, powered by music streaming site Lala.com, will be available by the end of this week, a Lala representative said in an e-mail.
Google will let users stream songs from Lala and iLike.com, which is owned by MySpace, according to a report in the The Wall Street Journal. A Lala link will let users stream a full song once for free and pay about $1 to download a copy, the report said.

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Oracle has failed to persuade the European Commission that it will provide a safe home for MySQL.
The Commission is currently looking at Oracle's takeover of Sun, and has previously said it is especially worried about the fate of free database MySQL.

A spokesman for Competition Commissioner 'Steelie' Neelie Kroes said the Commissioner had: "expressed disappointment that Oracle had failed to produce, despite repeated requests, either hard evidence that there were no competition problems or, alternatively, proposals for a remedy to the competition problems identified by the Commission", according to the Beeb.

The comments were made to Oracle president Safra Catz during a meeting in Brussels. The EC said it was happy to move quickly to approve the deal, provided its concerns over MySQL were met.
Without further reassurance the Commission could block the takeover or at least order Oracle to sell off the free database business first. This would put Europe at odds with US regulators which have already given the deal the go-ahead. The US initially said it was concerned about how Java would be licensed.

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