One of the developers at litl, Tristan, brought in a CR-48 to work. I have applied for a device, but I haven’t received one.
A few initial thoughts based on my 5 minutes with the machine:
The matte black with the matte screen is really beautiful. Visually it is the “opposite” of the shiny, too-shiny MacBook on my desk.
They try to keep it fun. Intel wasn’t allowed to put a sticker on it, so the accompanying card is humorous. The minimalist paperwork accompanying the notebook has some quirky bits. The product managers and the product marketing managers did a great job with the physical product and the packaging.
After a user screen, it goes directly to the Chrome Browser. The notebook seems very responsive and the startup, hibernate and sleep functions are wicked fast.
The notebook had some issues maintaining connectivity with our corporate wireless network. It seems unusual to me because I feel that wireless is one thing that Linux has excelled at in recent years.
It seems unusual to have a VGA out on the machine, since it is non-functional. Perhaps it will be for projectors?
There are a ton of reviews out there on the device, so I won’t post an in-depth review. Here are two pictures of the device though!
Oracle recently sued Google for patent and copyright infringement. The full text of the complaint is available here. I agree with Miguel De Icaza in that this will most likely result in a settlement out of court.
Sun’s weaker position, and its alliance with the Open Source community, did not allow it to sue Google for patent infringement. This is all covered in depth in this CNET article. Given Sun’s massive patent portfolio, and Oracle’s need to monetize their acquisition, the lawsuit is not surprising.
Oracle’s behavior seems troll-like. It is also seems unabashedly capitalist. Big companies that act like trolls have a tendency to be countersued. Chances are, others can find a patent or two that the bigger company has run afoul of. The question is, why is a large company like Oracle going after a large company like Google, besides the money? Oracle has much to lose in this case. In addition, it is not clear that they have all that much to gain either.
As Eben Moglen pointed out at his recent Linuxcon keynote “The patent system is built for secrecy and for trouble-making — it’s not a pro-innovation system.” Patent trolls and those that sue for patent infringement usually are not creating any value. This is a reason that the Open Source community, people who create value for the common good, finds this behavior so reprehensible.
A lot of enterprise software companies are sitting on a lot of cash. Investment opportunities are not good as a few years ago. Consequently, for companies that have not donated their patents to cross-licensing organizations (such as OIN), it makes sense to extract as much value as possible out of their patent portfolio. Also, it has the benefit of helping companies to build out their cash stockpiles, suppress competition and stifle innovation.
I found this video through Zeb Dropkin’s blog. (Side-note: I went to high-school with Zeb.) Very simple explanation of what Google Wave is, and some of the benefits. No, I do not have any invites to give.
