Improved usability and integration with other integrated development environments are the first features being called for inresponse to a request for feedback on the future Eclipse.â?¦

Your moolah mired in Microsoft Money? Are you ready to quit Quicken? We’ve stumbled across GnuCash, personal and small-business financial-accounting software that’s not only free but available on multiple platforms because of its GNU/Open Source pedigree. GnuCash has enough financial bells and whistles to compete with the best commercial packages.

“Broadband & Mobility Solutions”

Linux represents 15 percent of the smartphone market, but that figure should grow considerably, says a market research report. via LinuxDevices.com

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that Adobe Systems Incorporated is joining the Foundation. Adobe is joining the LF to collaborate on the advancement of Linux as a leading platform for rich Internet applications (RIA) and Web 2.0 technologies.

Hi, Steve Ballmer here. We’re pleased as punch to announce the acquisition of the Open Source community into the Microsoft fold. As I’ve said before, it’s all about the developers. Developers, developers, developers! And now that we’re partnering with the Open Source community, and adding Linux compatibility to Windows, we’ve opened many doors and gates to our customers.

In the OSI board election held at the end of March, we’ve gotten a controlling majority of board seats. No, Mr. Perens, you didn’t get a seat.

As you can see, there have been some changes here at the Open Source Initiative. We’ve decided to stop fighting Microsoft and join them. After all, Microsoft has been using, maintaining, and distributing Open Source software for years now. As this Information Week article says, Microsoft will be putting Open Source components into Office. As Linux Torvalds said … when they Open Source Office, we win.

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The GNU/Linux Matters non-profit, which is dedicated to Internet Freedomware advocacy, has completed a full re-design of its translation system. Now, with new translations of GetGNULinux.org and increased linking, it wants to find 1,000,000 Windows visitors over the course of one year. There are many ways to participate.

When Jason Perlow reported on last week’s Microsoft Technology Summit, he sought to compliment the company by giving CEO Steve Ballmer a Gorbachev-like birthmark (right).

But Gorbachev was a Communist. He wasn’t elected. He was the product of a dictatorial society which was rotting from the inside, and his final achievement was to preside over its dissolution.

But if the birthmark fits…

As we approach Wednesday’s announcement on the ISO decision concerning Office Open XML, the format for Microsoft Word, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the process has been, well, Gorbachevian.

Peter Judge writes that at the recent meeting in Geneva, 17 of the 120 delegates met to judge Microsoft’s standards application were Microsoft employees, while others were employed by Microsoft affiliates.

Rather than actually dealing with 81 final questions about the standard, they were given a “batch approval,” which Brazilian delegate Jomar Silva called “the least ridiculous” way to proceed.

This would be funny if the implications were not so serious. Once this proprietary format is approved as an international standard, the bell can’t be unwrung. And once this Sovietized process succeeds in creating such a standard, a precedent is set.

It has to be said. This may not be the end of an era, but the beginning of one.

When Lenin’s faction was consolidating its power within the early Communist party, he gave it the name Bolshevik, from the Russian meaning greater.

His was, at the time, a minority view, but eventually his opponents accepted the name Menshevik, meaning less, and they were eventually crushed by the revolution.

What Microsoft seems to have achieved before the ISO is nothing less than a Bolshevik revolution, overthrowing what was supposed to be a judicial process, replacing it with a dictatorship of the Ballmertariat.

In the end, the picture with Perlow’s piece was wrong. The baldness is right. But instead of a birthmark, perhaps a beard and a mustache would have been more appropriate.

This was not the end of something, it was the beginning of something. Something far more dangerous to international trade and industry than a software standard.

The standards system has itself been overthrown, replaced by international governanace of the strong man. Fine if he’s our strong man, but what happens when he isn’t?

How I wish this were an April Fool’s joke.

It?s no small secret. I hate Microsoft. I think they are the most vile and corrupt corporation in the tech industry. Their monopoly hampers innovation and they favor litigation, corruption and marketing tricks to maintain their position over simply creating great products. I have read and heard many people claim Microsoft is changing, improving, and the evil Microsoft of the pass is fading; I strongly disagree with this view, and it takes no more then a cursory look through Microsoft?s actions in 2007 to see why.

Much has been said about the evils of vendor lock-in. The reality is that there are definite advantages to being a “Windows shop,” particularly in terms of manageability and unified IT support. via LinuxWorld