PunupTech

While not as sexy as the BMW Z4M or some of the other automobiles on display during CES, we had learned an interesting fact about the driver-less Carnegie Mellon vehicle: it runs Ubuntu. This Carnegie Mellon vehicle with sponsors such as Google, NetApp, and Intel, had won this year’s DARPA challenge. This automated vehicle uses a dozen Intel core 2 processors, but at the bottom of the software stack is Ubuntu 6.06 “Dapper Drake” Linux. Ubuntu 6.06 was chosen for being an LTS (Long Term Support) release. Perhaps next year’s vehicle will be running Ubuntu 8.04?

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Think back to the earlier computing days when Windows 95 was the Operating system of choice. When one wanted software for your computer you went to the web and downloaded ’shareware’ software. This software allowed you to use the application for a limited number of days, then it would cease to work or become crippled in its functionality and have multiple pop up windows advising you to pay $20 to the developer to allow keep using the ‘full’ application.

The idea behind this sort of software distribution was to get you hooked into using the software, and then when you’re dependent on it, charge you a small fee to keep using it.

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