Microsoft Linux Labs and according to them BSD is a Linux Distro!!

Well unthinkables are happening all over, at Microsoft. The site is port25, the port most of the spam pass through. May be it was the intension, pass as much as spam on Foss as meat is digested by Microsoft engineers and the others.
There is a discussion going on with the title;
Who would have guessed?
I liked this one best!;
I fail to understand how Microsoft can help the Open Source community more than it (OSS) can help itself. Most Open Source Projects have forums, wikis, irc channels and mailing lists to help their users out. Who else is better to ask for help than ones who created the software?

Elsewhere on the site a comment that made me laugh!

re: A Look Inside Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab (Part 1)
Thursday, April 06, 2006 9:46 AM by Ricardo Banffy
Hi guys. I think it is important for you to know that BSD is not a Linux distro.
Please, fix it before the *BSD guys become aggressive, as they usually du when you call their OS "a kind of Linux".
Anyway I think it is an interesting development. If Microsoft is studying 50 Linux distros, I am sure they must feel they are important.
Or a gimmick to show EU that it is working with OSS.
So keep the PORT25 open and have pretty good spamgaurd ready!
My own single sentence comment;
I don't think EU will count this step as Microsoft being OPEN!! It is here.

Chinese Linux Growing and Microsoft might be adding water!

According to an article I read today, at VUNET, China's Linux market will be generating more than $51m annually by 2010, up from just $11.8m last year. Well it is no wonder that Linux is replacing the top spots from SCO, a unix solutions provider that was prominent in Chinese Banking arena.
According to the report major business are replacing SCO's Open server and other platforms with Linux. Linux has been growing wild ;) in China for a while now, but it is good to see that market researchers beginning to see that too. I had my first Chinese Linux distribution, about two years ago from REDFLAG Linux.
The other interesting development is that Microsoft fought hard to implement a new law requiring, manufactured PC to be shipped with a licensed version of operating system. Yes the law passed and it does not say that PC's has to ship with Windows! And Linux is licensed, under GNU!!
I guess there will be many a PC's shipping with likes of RedFlag and Asianux operating systems. So the predicted Linux market even might surpass the estimates. As Chinese government has also spending a quite a lot on broadband and fiber, there might be Grids and Grid solutions that will be used in the near future. The Chinese Universities are in the forefront of Grid technology usage.
All in all free market model seems to be working even though M$ is still commanding billions and Linux in millions. But those little millions will eventually add up.

Google gets San Francisco and I may have a city wide Grid

According to an article here on IP Telephony Blog, Google and Earthlink team will provide the wireless services (free from google, may be 128Kb/s and paid from earthlink) soon.
First thought came to my mind was to create a grid service that would run on the free wireless network. What the City wants? May when a garage has parking available, transmit the information to your laptop or cell phone! (It is so hard to find parking here in SF, and when you do find, you might pay $2.75 per 15 min!!).
Or a party Sign site, live party music and info, city radio! Ohh, this is too much for now. Read more at IP Telephony.......VOIP IP Telephony: San Francisco picks Google for its Wireless!

Unthinkable has happened, in three steps! Step one M$ supports Linux...

On their virtual Server.!
According to this Registrar article, Microsoft is trying to corner the Virtualization market in three steps;
"Microsoft today lobbed three massive bombs into the server virtualization market. First off, it will now support - wait for it - Linux, when the OS is running on top of its Virtual Server product. Secondly, Microsoft has made Virtual Server free. And, in a move few thought possible, Microsoft has teamed with the developers of the open source Xen product to gang up on server slicing leader VMware."
Well may be they might try to run grid off Linux?
But if you are a trus Linux fan, you can do with the XEN on linux. Xen has gone enterprise and look forward to support hardware level Virtualization. I still go to the old Xen site get my Xen. You can also goto Virtual Iron to get it but then you will have wait till June!.

New Gridway Meta Schedular is ready for download.

A new release of the GridWay meta-scheduler is now available for download from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. GridWay works with GRAM, MDS and RFT.If you are unfmiliar with the Gridway, I would suggest visiting the site.
GridWay 4.0,introduced an architecture for the execution manager module based on a MAD (Middleware Access Driver) to interface Grid execution services. The new release takes advantage of this architecture to implement an information manager module with a MAD that interfaces Grid information services, and a transfer manager module with a MAD that interfaces Grid data services. This will also decouple the scheduling process from the dispatch manager through the use of a external and selectable scheduler module. One could expect some application performance gains with this new architecture.


Benefits to the user;
1. No configuration needed to interface Grid Information Systems, GridWay 5.0 will be shipped with drivers to interface: MDS2, MDS2 (Glue-schema), MDS4, and static host list file (Round-robin).

2. Resource Selection based on common resource attributes. The user no longer need to specify an LDAP or XPath filter, but a set of boolean expressions, function of the resource properties.

3. Resources will be ranked using a mathematical expression, function of the resource properties. GW will no longer support ad hoc programs to rank resources.

4. A new command will be added, gwhosts, that will show the resources available in the testbed, this command will mainly make used of the underlying information system driver for debugging purposes.

5. Some performance improvements since the overhead induced by the information retrieval overhead will be drastically reduced. This new brokering system will also allow to overlap the preparation (prolog stage) and termination (epilog stage) of two jobs submitted to the same host.

6. With the new Middleware Drivers, Prolog and Epilog stages no longer need to be executed through the GRAM service, Therefor one could expect an important improvement in the preparation and termination times.

Apple is 30 years old and I remember my Apple II

I did not have the chance to own the original apple but I managed (nagged) my parents enough to buy me an Apple II. I even had a 5MB hard Drive attached to it!. Well that is the computer I started doing business. (although I was pretty young). I wrote visicalc procedures for several business'. Added modifications to the flight simulator. Well if you could call it a one. It was black and green graphics, I did enjoy it though. I even had it connected to my grand pa's computer (mainframe at the University) through 300 boud modem!. I was The Kid on the Block!! Thanks Apple.
Eventually I made enough money to buy me an IBM PC at $2500.00 or so at that time, for 8088 based PC with two floppy drives and 640KB memory. I had 128KB on my Apple II.

Since then I have gone through a few Apples, Mac's but I have gone in to the world of IBM PC world. My newest Mac, which I use frequently, is PowerMAC G3, Pretty old by MAC standards. Alas it runs Linux and I use it for my grid research as a node.
But I do have fond memories of my apples and Steve Jobs was one of my hero's to date. But at that time I remember liking Steve WoZniac better at that time. May be because he developed the Hardware.
So on WIRED I saw an article and images by Steven Weyhrich. I have included some of them here, and I will preserve them.
Best of all to you Apple, I always liked Apples and Macs, even modified your BIOS, sold and made money during Mac Classic era!! I am even glad to say I hated Apple when the Pepsi Cola buffoon was running it.
One thing I can say is there will always be an Apple near me, Even a Grid of Apples(MAC Servers) when I am at the Campus.
Again, Best of Luck APPLE!!!
As I mentioned WIRED carries a few articles and Graphics, go there, you will certainly have an eye and a mindful.