As an open-source supporter, I am glad to have the possibility, at my workplace, to work with software such as GNU/Linux, Firefox and many others…

The usage of Linux is fostered within the company : each employee has access to LinuxCOE (which is a HP product and licensed under the General Public License) and can install his favorite distribution pretty easily on his personal computer. Ubuntu, openSUSE, Gentoo and others are at disposal and HP even provides licenses for SUSE and Red Hat.
Since MS Office is the most widespread office suite and most of my colleagues have Windows XP, it is unfortunately hard to work without it. However, HP provides a license for Crossover, which is a product based on Wine and which allows you to use the MS Office suite as well as Internet Explorer 6 (*sigh*…).
The officially supported instant messaging protocol is Jabber, which is ideal to use in a GNU/Linux environment (for instance with Pidgin).
Due to the massive demand of employees, Firefox is officially supported by the internal IT service, in addition to IE.
On the customer side, HP is committed to Linux : the ProLiant servers are the most sold servers running GNU/Linux on the world and the Integrity servers shipped with the Itanium processors also run RHEL 5 and SLES 10 SP1. Moreover, there are lots of people at the company working as developers for open-source projects or kernel developers.

Nevertheless, the situation is not perfect for GNU/Linux or alternative software desktop users.
Linux is not officially supported by HP’s IT and there is an evident lack of communication around LinuxCOE. I even personally made senior technical consultants aware of it.
Not all internal web-based applications run correctly with Firefox and some multimedia streamed videos are encoded with codecs Linux cannot play.
I cannot share my calendar with my colleagues because Evolution does not work perfectly with Exchange 2007 (even if my e-mails and meetings invitations work fine) and there is no native application to take part to Netmeeting conferences (did someone try this solution ?). The move to Vista and MS Office 2007 is also planned but, so far, Crossover does not support this version so I hope there will be a workaround until here.

So far, using GNU/Linux as a primarily desktop operating system as an HP employee was not hard and I have been pleasantly surprised by the LinuxCOE offering, among other things. Even though I experience a little loss of productivity, I prefer to stay a little longer at work than use an other OS than GNU/Linux. If things need to do something which is really urgent and only doable under Windows, I have a VMware virtual machine ready to boot, however, this happens really rarely. So if you are hesitating to apply for a job or an internship at HP, thinking that you will not have the right/possibility/authorization tu run GNU/Linux, I hope this article will help to change your mind.

Of course, HP is a huge company and from an IT perspective, support multiple operating systems is a big effort. One the other hand, this is the best example of the advantages of respecting standards (real ones…) in order every user to have access to the information, independently of his OS.

Everybody knows the famous American 911. But do you know we have such an emergency phone number in the European Union ?

This number is the  112. You can use it to call the police, in case of fire or in medical emergency and is available in every country member of the Union (even in the newcomer Romania) except Bulgaria, which has started taking steps to introduce it. You can call this number either with a fixed phone or with a mobile phone and you should be located by emergency services in both cases.

Unlike in the US, Europeans do not share the same language and that is the first challenge (especially in the Eastern and Central European countries but France should improve that too) : the operator will have to speak with its first language (at least) a really good English without any accent in order to understand you and take the appropriate measures to save you. In a case of emergency, when you cannot find even your words in your first language, this becomes a more difficult situation in English.

Moreover, the marketing around this great idea is not sufficient. Given the increasing mobility of European citizens within the EU, we need this common tool to save lives, wherever we are. This number should be taught to kids at school and be advertised everywhere to eventually replace the old national numbers.

Unity, step by step…

As you know, Microsoft made an offer last week to buy the number two on the Internet market, Yahoo.
This merger makes economically sense for both companies :
Although Yahoo is a giant, its annual revenues and profits both deceived investors. Its products are technically good and innovative but Yahoo cannot compete alone against Google, especially on the very profitable market of the online advertising.
Microsoft is still a major player in the software industry, but the increasing market shares of open-source products and its relative weakness on the Internet market obliged them to a reaction… and what a reaction !

Both companies could save a lot of money if they would put their IT infrastructures in common, and their different target audiences make them natural partners. Talks between both companies in order to merger already took place two times in the past but they could not be achieved. Now, Microsoft is investing a lot of money to counter Google on its own ground : the web.

As we have seen, this merger really seems to be a great deal for both companies.
Now I will explain the bad consequences this could have.

First, the fact that Microsoft is one of the most evil companies regarding the privacy of the users is really not a good sign. Just to know that Redmond’s guys can take over such products as Flick’r, Yahoo Mail or Yahoo 360° and their huge user basis sends shivers down the spines of anybody willing to keep an acceptable privacy on the Internet.

Then, and this also a real concern for Free Software supporters, Yahoo is one of the biggest fund provider for the development of projects such as PHP or FreeBSD and a great sponsor of OSS (Open Source Software) in general. Given the MS policy against Free Software, this is not good news for them and for those who use them, that is to say, everybody (at least indirectly).

Last but not least : one of the most promising open-source project, let’s say the jewels of Yahoo’s open-source crown, Zimbra, is directly threaten. This project is an alternative to Microsoft Exchange and is a really promising tool. If MS takes Yahoo over, there will be no surprise if Zimbra dies.

Instead of having the 3 components
- MS Active Directory
- MS Outlook
- and MS Exchange

the companies could have chosen these 3 programms for their collaboration suite :
- openLDAP
- Evolution (on Ubuntu)
- and Zimbra

I think Microsoft cannot tolerate such a direct threat to one of its core products, so maybe it is time for the guys of Zimbra to remove the last barrier that could ensure the future of their baby : put it under the General Public License and save it from a licensing change !

Even though this merger could benefit both companies, this will not do any good to Free Software and I really hope, that Zimbra, at least, will be preserved for the future.

After my internship at the Outsourcing division of HP, I applied in October for a graduate program in order to become Pre-sales consultant at HP for the Enterprise Storage and Server unit (ESS) of HP. After one cover letter and two interviews, they hired me

The program is going to last one year and we are 6 participants. The zone I will be working in is EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) and I will use my Linux expertise to sell HP solution to the customers.

So far, the program is really interesting and I learn a lot of new things. I really think this will be a great experience and that I will progress in my personal development.

Why did I post an article about Xen a few months ago ?
First because this is a great technology. Then, that is the subject and of my degree dissertation (German : Diplomarbeit) I have been writing between June and September 2007.

I have been doing an internship at Hewlett Packard Germany between April and September in the Technology Solution Group division (the business division of HP for servers, storage and so on…), in the Outsourcing part of TSG.
This degree dissertation is a report of a disaster-recovery program implemented for the German bank MLP located in Wiesloch. This program has been designed by both MLP an HP people and implemented by HP colleagues and myself.

Basically, the concept is to shift a complete productive environment from one data center to another. This is achieved by a virtualized environment based on two servers SuSE Linux Enterprise 10 SP1 with Xen, two EVA 8000 (SAN solution of HP) and a HP product named “Continuous access” that mirrors constantly the content of one SAN to another.

If you want to learn more about my work, here is a link to my degree dissertation (only in German available).
I am still waiting for my grade yet and, after that, I will be done with my studies !

Xen is a tool that allows a computer to run multiple instances of an operating system.

This means Windows and Linux can not only run on the same PC (they can since almost the beginning). This means that they can run at the same time. This technology is truly amazing!

This allows you, for example, to write an article with Microsoft Word in Windows, to release the cursor, to switch the window just as if MS Windows was a simple application of your operating system and to go on your work with Ubuntu or any Linux flavour (that supports Xen, however).

Basically, Xen is based on a guest OS (the dom0). It is in general a GNU/Linux distribution, but some other operating systems (such as NetBSD or OpenSolaris ) supports it. This dom0 is modified, so that it can welcome the guests (the domU’s).

If your hardware is good enough, the domU’s will not have to be changed. You can boot your MS Windows as you ever did (this is the so called full-virtualization – the guests are absolutely not aware that they are running virtually). If not, you’ll have to find a suitable modified distribution (most Linuxes for example) that will allow you to run multiple instances. This is called the para-virtualization.

Even though the performance is a little reduced, it remains excellent (especially for the para-virtualization, because the guests are designed for this technology). Moreover, you can determine what hardware you will assign to which virtual machine VM. Your Windows need a new network card? Just add one! You need to add a hard drive to one of your VM’s? No problem!

This sounds great. Ok, the reality is not as simple as I described above (especially if you have a PC with multiples network interfaces), you will have to find some tricky solutions, work with the command line and edit files, but it the end, it works ! As soon as the Xen developers will build an intuitive graphical interface, this technology will become one of the killer-features of GNU/Linux for the desktop.

The desktop market is the ultimate goal for Linux. But behind the lights, where Linux is not an exception anymore (and little people are aware of that fact), Xen is going to be one of the reasons why system administrators should leave, for example, Netware.

The most striking argument in favour of Xen on the server market is the cost: why should companies continue to pay for 6 average servers when they can build 6 virtual machines on top hardware. This can cut costs in energy, administration, and networking.

Last but not least, Xen is Free software. It means that the basic version is free (whereas Xen Enterprise and Xen Server are not) and you can get the source code, modify it, and adapt it to your needs.

To me, Xen is the ultimate example of how innovative and attractive free software can be. VMware, the proprietary solution is also a good product, but as Xen respects the GNU General Public License, it will be included in a lot of Linux distributions (it is already part of openSUSE) and thus, its community will grow very quickly. It will so benefit from the feedback of millions of the users and developers.

Free software (I will try to give my point of view on it later) does not necessarily mean software communism: XenSource (the company behind it) sells its enterprises versions. I hope they will make money with it and will continue to improve their product -with the support of the open-source community- so that end-users and companies can improve their productivity or have simply have fun with it!

Bulgaria is one of those Eastern European ex-communist countries that lately joined the European Union. The reasons why they did it are quite simple :
- they are aiming at political stability.
- they want to be part of a huge and powerful economic zone that could bring them welfare and growth.
- they want to be protected from the Russian ex-”big brother” who did not them only good.

Even though Bulgaria and Romania were not completely ready to join the Union, they now are in and it is good to have them : the European family is now about to be complete.
Some of the newcomers reproached (rightly somehow) the European Union its politic weakness and its incapacity to form a solid bulwark against Russia, the former oppressor.

This story of Bulgarian medics who were imprisoned for some doubtful reasons in Libya was THE opportunity for the EU to show the world and itself its political power. The negotiations with the Libyan authorities went to their end when France decided to send the wife of the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to accelerate the process.

What the hell was she doing here ? Have you ever seen Mrs. Bush intervene in any political crisis in the world ? What kind of legitimacy does she have to negotiate with one dictator ?

The EU could have improved its credibility and its unity at the same time. We could have shown the world that we can stand together when our citizens are in danger and thus ensure Eastern European countries our will to protect them. It did it partially (one of the nurse told “if Bulgaria would not have been in the EU, we would not be free now”) but this European victory is, in my opinion, blurred by the French attitude.

When will we have a real common foreign policy ? When will France stop sending French troops in Africa (or the president’s wife) and will pass the relay to the European Union ? When will German, French and British soldiers fight, for instance, together in Afghanistan for the blue and yellow flag and in the name of the EU ?

I am not naive, this not going to happen tomorrow, but it is what we must strive for.

Since April 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy is the new president of the French republic. In my opinion, his election and the following deputies’ election are a sign of the not-that-all-democratic character of the French institutions.

- The leader of the centrist party (MoDem - democratic movement), Francois Bayrou, collected 18 percent of the votes at the first round of the presidential election. His party, that has now 3 seats on a total of 577 in the French lower house of the parliament, is now struggling in order not to disappear.
- According to the medias, Nicolas Sarkozy won a “crushing victory”. This is not true, unless you consider 46,93 percent of the electors who voted for his opponent, Ségolène Royal, are peanuts. This is a victory, but it could be wise for Sarkozy to take millions of people in consideration.
- The majority of people who voted for the deputies of the lower house of the parliament voted for left-wing parties. However, due to the geographical repartition of the seats, Sarkozy’s right-wing party, the UMP won 345 of the 577 seats. How representative and legitimate can be this parliament ?

The UMP won these elections. Fine. The problem is : how did the UMP win ? Nobody seem to care in France, that one party is trusting the whole power, even if it became less votes !

France needs to change its constitution : its institutions must become more decentralized, more democratic and more representative of its population.

After his election, the new French president claimed he wanted to “handle” and create a “tax shock”, in order to boost the economic growth.

In fact, France will try to pay its tax cuts by making more and more debts. Even in a period when the growth is booming and the employment rate is growing, the French are about to continue to dig the huge hole of debts they are already standing in.
Sarkozy claimed about France’s difficult financial situation : “you will judge me only at the end of my presidency”. This sounds extremely vague and it would be an error not to benefit from the current positive economic situation to refund some money.

France suffers from its huge number of civil servants, though the government promised to divide their number by two in the future. This is fine because the mass of civil-servants in France is a structural problem, but I really hope these cuts will not affect, for instance, hospitals or universities.
On the contrary it is not the role of the state to deliver electricity or to run the trains in the country. Sell companies like the SNCF or EDF could be a good way to raise funds to get rid of some civil servants, not to employ more of them though !

For the French who read these few lines, you will be pleased to know that even though German civil servant are employed for a lifetime, they do not have the right to strike !

On an international level, Sarkozy’s efforts to save the Constitution (or what is left of it) were good. Nonetheless, France’s budget is a hot topic in Europe. French people may think their financial condition is their own problem, but it is not anymore. According to Sarkozy’s prime minister Fillon, France must get one percent more growth this year, so its government will take the right to get rid of its commitment to the reduction of the debt. We now all have the same money and the credibility of the Euro must be guaranteed by all countries of the Euro-zone, including France, which is one of the most important.

I hope Sarkozy will pursue its effort to save the European constitution, but the financial difficulties of the French state are worrying and the president should use the current economic situation to clean up this mess.

Since I do not live in France anymore, I do not have the right to own a .fr name extension.
I really do not care about it, so I simply bought hmarcy.com

hmarcy.fr will be used as a redirection to hmarcy.com and will be definitely left on 7th August 2007

The change will operate at the end of this week.

Edit : and as I never use the awful browser Internet Explorer 6, I have never noticed that the previous CSS was bugged. So here is the new design !
Just a reminder : please use a reasonable browser, use Firefox !

I am very happy to announce that I successfully passed the second exam of the first certification level of the Linux Professional Institute !

I obtained the LPIC-1 certification after I had written the LPI101 exam in Cologne last year and the LPI102 this year in Berlin.

My goal is now to go on on this way, take the following levels of the LPI certification (i.e. LPIC-2 and LPIC-3) and become more and more qualified and effective !