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While kudos are in order for Novell UK and Sirius, the greater importance is the precedent it sets for open source, generally. If this helps to open up the UK to open source, what with its massive amounts of IT waste on proprietary technology and its traditional affection for Microsoft, then this is just a first step toward an open, successful future.

As The Inquirer reports, two open-source companies, Novell UK and Sirius, have been granted access to the UK’s ?80 million ($149 million) Software for Educational Institutions Framework, which enables them to supply software to the UK public sector. There may be additional open-source vendors chosen but the official list won’t be released until Wednesday, September 24.

The UK’s procurement frameworks, a fast-track process for public sector purchasers, handled ?4.4bn of business in the year to April 2008. They are not meant to prevent companies not on the lists from selling to the public sector but, said (Mark) Taylor (CEO of Sirius), this had not been the experience of the Open Source community.

“Schools would say, ‘we want this stuff, it doesn’t cost us anything and its really good’,” said Taylor. “The LA would say, ‘well the software’s not on the list, there isn’t a supplier who can supply it on the list, so you’re on your own with that.”

Open source has long been the ugly stepchild of UK government information technology, but in a recent turn of events, it may finally be gaining ground with the British.

In other words, it’s a bit like getting on a General Services Administration schedule in order to sell to the U.S. federal government. There are ways around it, but working with the GSA makes it so much easier.

How important is this selection? Very.

Easy file sharing. iDisk now makes it even easier to share files that are too big to email. Simply select a file in the iDisk web app and click the Share File button to generate an email with a download link. You can also optionally add password protection and set an expiration date for the link. For more details, view this tutorial.

Faster syncing with Mac and PC. Changes you make to contacts and calendars on your Mac (Address Book and iCal) or PC (Microsoft Outlook) are now automatically pushed up to the cloud every time you make an update. Likewise, changes you make on me.com, iPhone, or iPod touch are automatically pushed to your Mac or PC. As a result, your contacts and calendars update faster across all your devices. To take advantage of faster syncing, be sure you’re running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 (Mac) or MobileMe Control Panel 1.3 (Windows).

In order for all of this to work properly, you must be using Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 or the MobileMe PC Control Panel 1.3. The iPhone or iPod Touch must have firmware 2.2 or later.

“Dear MobileMe member:

Now that push is in business again, syncing with Macs or PCs is faster. Any updates that you make to contacts or calendars on your
Mac in iCal or Addressbook, or on your PC using Microsoft Outlook are automatically and rather quickly pushed to the cloud. Conversely, any updates made to MobileMe data at me.com, or on an iPhone or iPod Touch is pushed back your Mac or PC. Finally, all your contacts and calendars will update across your devices much faster than previously.

Read Apple’s letter to MobileMe subscribers below and note the additional information about file-sharing using iDisk, which was previously announced a few weeks ago.

Over the past few months, we have been working hard to make MobileMe the best service it can be. Here is a summary of the improvements and performance enhancements that have recently been completed.

Better web app performance. We have also improved the overall performance of the web apps at me.com including faster start time in Calendar and searching in Contacts. For more details, see this support article.”

Push was part of the initially tragic launch of MobileMe in 2008–a launch so poorly implemented that the word “push” was removed from descriptions of MobileMe until synchronization between computers and mobile devices (i.e.
iPhone and
iPod Touch) would perform at an acceptable level.

Apple distributed an e-mail recently to MobileMe subscribers that detailed some improved features, but the biggest news from that e-mail was the fact that push is back.

Improved notifications and sync on iPhone. Reliability of new email notifications and syncing of contacts and calendar with MobileMe have both been improved. To get the best MobileMe experience on your iPhone or iPod touch, you should be running iPhone Software 2.2 or later.

Hoshino, the drive’s creator, is being really literal about it, as you can see, actually making the drive look like an ear of corn. Cute.

(Credit:
Gearlog)

That’s what happens when you go to any press conference or industry conference these days. Vendors and public relations agencies, trying to be environmentally conscious, are putting press releases and product images on USB keys instead of paper.

It’s a great idea until those USB sticks start to pile up. As of now I’ve got 23 on my desk, and that’s even considering I give them away as often as I can. Still, eventually these will end up in the garbage.

I don’t really care what it looks like, something like this is very welcome. As evidence I offer a picture of my desk, below.

(Credit:
Josh Lowensohn/CNET Networks)

Luckily there are other companies thinking along these same lines. Some PC makers have already started incorporating biodegradable plastics. Fujitsu makes a notebook that’s half corn-based materials, and half regular plastics.

A Hong Kong company says it’s come up with a biodegradable USB drive. It’s made out of fermented corn material, something called polylactide, which will actually break down in a way that doesn’t harm whatever landfill it ends up in.

(Via Gearlog)

OK, seriously, why hasn’t someone thought of this before?

It’s always tough to correctly interpret translations, but check out the report from La Repubblica and read it for yourself. In short, the report claims that Apple is getting ready to launch a 3G iPhone in Italy with Telecom Italy, and that the carrier will not have to pay Apple a share of the data revenue earned from iPhone users, nor will it have an ongoing exclusive. As a result, the iPhone will be more expensive there than in other countries.

A report out of Italy Monday suggests that Apple is planning to revamp its business model with the launch of the
iPhone in that country.

The Italian iPhone might be more expensive if Telecom Italy doesn't have to share data revenue with Apple.

Telecom Italy’s supposed agreement with Apple is not exclusive per se, but the carrier will have an “advantage” of several months over its competitors, according to the report. I wonder if several such agreements are being readied ahead of the expected launch of the 3G iPhone in June.

It’s long been thought, however, that at some point Apple would have to open up the iPhone to other carriers to increase the size of the official market for the device. After all, tons of iPhones are already being used unofficially across the world, with more than 400,000 in China alone. In February, Apple COO Tim Cook suggested the company was open to cutting iPhone deals with more than one carrier per country.

So far, Apple has cut exclusive deals with four carriers to sell the iPhone: AT&T in the U.S., O2 in the U.K, T-Mobile in Germany, and Orange in France. In exchange for their exclusive right to distribute the iPhone, those carriers give Apple a share of their data revenues earned over the life of the contract, believed to be around $18 a month per user in AT&T’s case.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

Speed matters, and getting top speeds on Windows may require using native Windows libraries, graciously offered by Microsoft back in 2004 as open source.

Hanselman calls out the reason for WTL’s inclusion:

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However, not everything came free of charge (and effort) from Microsoft, as Hanselman points out, and it appears from a recent PCWorld article by Neil McAllister that the effort to bring Chrome to the
Mac and Linux will be even harder. Hanselman writes:

Chrome uses abstraction libraries to draw the GUI on other non-Windows platforms, but for now, what sits underneath part of ChromeViews is good ol’ WTL. Makes sense, too. Why not use a native library to get native speeds? They are using WTL 8.0 build 7161 from what I can see.

Looks like The Chromium authors may have disassembled part of the Windows Kernel in order to achieve this security feature [Data Execution Protection] under Windows XP SP2. Probably not cool to do that, but they’re clearly doing it for good and not evil, as their intent (from reading their code) is to make their browser safer under XP SP2 and prevent unwanted code execution.

All of which means that while Microsoft’s open-source efforts may ensure it will take first place in the Chrome bake-off, Google is forcing the early adopters to stick with
Firefox, rather than experiment with Chrome. The trendsetting crowd is with the Mac and, to a lesser but still significant extent, Linux, not Windows. (Of course, some data doesn’t support this contention.)

In a fascinating post, Scott Hanselman pulls apart the Google Chrome browser to discover Windows inside or, rather, Windows Template Library (WTL). WTL was open sourced by Microsoft back in 2004 and went somewhat silent until now, when it popped up in Google’s open-source browser.

So the Chrome authors have had to cut some corners to make the browser secure on Windows. Microsoft may not like the approach, but as Hanselman notes, at least Google is doing it for benevolent purposes.

Fine. But what I really want to see is Chrome for the Mac (and Linux). For this, however, PCWorld’s McAllister suggests that we “shouldn’t hold our breath,” as the “Mac build is a work in progress that is much closer to the start than the finish.” In part, this is because Google needs to code around Windows platform-specific elements like WTL.

It might make sense to aim for the mainstream (i.e., corporate IT, which would get the most benefit from an JavaScript-optimized Web browser), but the mainstream isn’t in the habit of trying out the latest and greatest.

Personally, I think Google needs the entrepreneurial CIO and CTO if it hopes to make Chrome stick. That crowd, however, is likely not a Windows crowd. Time will tell if this was a strategic error on Google’s part.

Find more deals, coupon codes, and bargains on CNET’s Shopper.com.

Update at 8:35 a.m. PDT: Alas, the player is no longer available at that price, and the sideline deal on the Samsung BDP-1500 Blu-ray player (posted earlier) appears to have disappeared from RadioShack’s site.

Because it’s a refurb, it comes with only a 30-day warranty (but at least it’s from the manufacturer). Plus, CNET had a fairly lengthy list of complaints about the player, though I don’t consider any of them deal-breakers. (You can read my own review of the BD-HP20U over at Wired’s Gadget Lab.) This is by far the lowest price I’ve seen on a Blu-ray player, so if you’re in the market, act fast.

Online clearinghouse Second Act has refurbished Sharp BD-HP20U Blu-ray players for $169.99. Ground shipping will run you about $15. According to the product page, this deal ended Sunday, so I don’t know how much longer it’ll be available.

We spend a few minutes debating the impact of Carl Icahn joining the Yahoo board and what it means for Jerry Yang’s future. Larry thinks that Yang bought himself more time to turn things around. If so, he will need to speed up delivery on the Yahoo Open Strategy and build a social layer into Yahoo’s collection of services.

Finally, we discuss the impact of Facebook Connect, which will let users access and feed their Facebook profiles and friends on any Web site. It’s Facebook’s way of extending its platform to embrace other services and get more data and pages flowing through its social portal.

On this week’s EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet Editor in Chief Larry Dignan and I discuss the news of the week. It was a big week for Microsoft, with several announcements and teases from its meeting in Seattle with financial analysts. Steve Ballmer is still bullish on the online space, but not on Yahoo. We also talk about Kevin Johnson’s departure from Microsoft. (See coverage on the Microsoft financial analyst meeting from Ina Fried and Mary Jo Foley.)

During a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, an Intel executive brandished a Netbook that looked Air-thin. Will inexpensive Linux Netbooks be a poor man’s MacBook Air?

“This Netbook is running Linux…As you see, this doesn’t mean an ugly design. It’s a really nice-looking, stylish design,” said Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of Intel’s Mobility Group, when waving a very-thin-looking Netbook (photo) at the audience during his keynote at IDF.

Consider the typical specifications for a Netbook (best exemplified by the tiny Eee PC) and it’s not a stretch to design an ultraportable, ultrathin Netbook:

Solid-state drive: Netbooks (Eee PC, Intel Classmate) will typically use SSDs, not hard-disk drives–another power- and space-saving feature. (There will be exceptions such as the 2go, which packs a hard drive.)

Click here for more stories on IDF Shanghai.

(Credit:
Intel)

Most of the photos to date of upcoming Netbooks are ho-hum designs, engineered to be inexpensive yet practical for users such as young schoolchildren. But some upcoming designs look intriguing–and extremely thin. (See close-up photo here–PC Watch.)

Power-sipping Atom processor: This chip will draw as little as 0.65 watt, much less than the Air’s Core 2 Duo chip which has a TDP (Thermal Design Power, or thermal envelope) of 20 watts. This means less heat dissipation.

Smaller display: Netbooks will have small, less-power-hungry displays, ranging from seven to nine inches.

Intel sees two distinct market opportunities for the Netbook. In the developing world, Netbooks will attract first-time buyers. In more mature markets, they will become supplemental PCs.

Ultrathin Intel Atom-based Netbook shown at IDF.

No optical drive:: Typically, Netbooks won’t come with optical drives–meaning power and cost savings.

Though not as well-endowed as full-fledged notebooks like the MacBook Air, Netbooks won’t set you back $3,000 either. It’s likely that the price will be much closer to $300–but that’s a big unknown at this point.

Ruehle and Dull each personally benefited from the backdating scheme by receiving and exercising backdated grants that were in-the-money by more than $100,000 for Ruehle and $1.8 million for Dull, the SEC said in a statement.

Samueli, who co-founded the company, also resigned as chairman of the board. The board appointed director John Major to serve as nonexecutive chairman.

The SEC charges that, from 1998 to 2003, the four schemed to fraudulently backdate stock-option grants, failing to record billions of dollars of compensation expenses, and falsifying documents to further the fraud. As a result of the scheme, Broadcom restated its financial results in January 2007 and reported more than $2 billion in additional compensation expenses, the SEC said.

The move follows Broadcom’s agreement last month to pay a civil penalty of $12 million to settle SEC charges that it fraudulently backdated stock options.

The SEC announced Wednesday it had filed a federal complaint against Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Henry Samueli and general counsel David Dull, as well as former Chief Executive Officer Henry Nicholas and former Chief Financial Officer William Ruehle. The chipmaker later announced that Samueli and Dull had taken leaves of absence from their positions until the matter is resolved.

Major said Broadcom would not comment on allegations, but pointed out that the charges were “half a decade to nearly a decade” old.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged two current and two former key executives of chipmaker Broadcom with backdating stock options.

In other words, VMware may not be violating the GPL but could be bent on violating community and common sense.

Larry Augustin, a venture capitalist and early open-source entrepreneur, made a really good point via e-mail in reference to my post about VMware violating the GPL. A range of people in the open-source community has been pointing the finger at VMware for allegedly creating derivative works of Linux in its ESX virtualization technology without contributing those changes back.

My understanding is that if VMWare is violating the GPL, then it’s likely that so are all the other vendors that use binary modules in the Linux kernel.

But it’s not as simple as that. The way in which the loadable module interfaces to the kernel is potentially relevant to the question as well.

As Augustin suggests, it’s not quite that simple–Linus Torvalds has clarified the “loadable module exception”–and it’s not clear to me on which side of the line VMware would fall.

This is a longstanding general problem. It is not a VMare-specific problem. Are binary Linux kernel modules allowed? The answer is unclear. This question has a long history going back to the first binary kernel module, Transarc AFS. In an e-mail to the developer Linus explicitly allowed that module. That e-mail is the basis for the “loadable module exception” often quoted by many people.

This appears to be a risk VMware is willing to take. But given the increasing competition it’s feeling from open-source virtualization, perhaps it should reconsider.

Regardless, as leading kernel developer James Bottomley and the Linux kernel developers have argued, binary kernel modules are a bad idea, even if permitted.

Such modules negate the openness, stability, flexibility, and maintainability of the Linux development model and shut their users off from the expertise of the Linux community. Vendors that provide closed-source kernel modules force their customers to give up key Linux advantages or choose new vendors.

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Larry’s suggestion? If VMware is violating the GPL, so are a lot of others…with Linus Torvalds’ (apparent) express permission. With Augustin’s permission, here is part of his e-mail to me: