Jazzing Up Collaboration
IBM officials offered an early preview of its Jazz collaborative ALM framework
and community, scheduled to be formally unveiled in June. The Jazz framework
is intended for the automation and governance of collaborative application processes.
Big Blue intends to tie a range of different Websphere, Lotus and Rational products
with Jazz, which is a technology developed jointly by IBM Research and IBM Rational.
One of the long-term goals of the technology is to help far-flung development
teams spread around the world to both integrate and automate a lot of the server-based
aspects of development as a way of providing real-time information for managing
projects such as those involving services-oriented architectures (SOA).
In a conversation with Dana Gardner, principal analyst with Interarbor Solutions
Inc. and Redmond Developer News columnist,
Scott Hebner, IBM's vice president in charge of marketing and strategy for IBM
Rational Software, said Jazz is being worked on by the same team that developed
Eclipse.
"What they are trying to do now is automate the lessons of this proven,
open-collaborative model that Eclipse represents," Hebner said. "And
so I think we have learned a lot about how to facilitate collaboration. Eclipse
did a lot on the client side to integrate the desktop. You can think of Jazz
as being a similar approach, but on the back end -- or the server side -- where
the teams need to have the same ability to collaborate more effectively and
to gain integration."
A full transcript of the conversation is available here.
Taking It One Child at a Time
It didn't arrive with the promised price point, but that seemed to do little
to quell the enthusiasm of some Latin American elementary school kids. The much-anticipated
"$100
Laptop" made its debut in South America over the weekend as part of
the "One Laptop Per Child" project launched by former MIT Media Lab
Director Nicholas Negroponte in 2005.
The systems -- which currently cost $175, although they are expected to drop
to $100 once they are produced in much greater numbers -- also arrived in Nigeria
and Thailand.
Primarily designed for grade-school children, the Linux-based units contain
processors made by AMD, 1GB of flash memory, built-in support for wireless connections
to the Internet, a pulley for generating power by hand, a display that can be
read even in direct sunlight and file-sharing capabilities. The new machines
came bundled with some of the children's books in their local languages, along
with encyclopedias and other software.
The Penguin Pushes Back
Normally laid-back Linux inventor Linus Torvalds was quick
to return Microsoft's push with a shove recently, saying that Microsoft
violating a number of open source patents is more likely than Linux and other
open source technologies violating some 235 of Microsoft's.
In a public statement, Torvalds contended that Microsoft's claims of patent
infringement are unsubstantiated and come with no concrete evidence.
Earlier
this month, Microsoft claimed that the Linux kernel alone violates 42 of
its patents, the Gnome and KDE technologies run afoul of 65, and Open Office
violates 45.
Torvalds said he believes Microsoft's true intent in issuing these claims
is to merely create fear, uncertainty and doubt about Linux, and that the claims
have little to do with actual incursions involving intellectual property.
About the Author
Ed Scannell is the editor of Redmond magazine.