Amahi Blog

The Amahi App team has been at it again!  No, not another marathon (yet!), just a few updates.  Updated to the latest version is Monitorix, the system monitoring tool, which is available live in the Store that houses Amahi Apps.     Also updated are two Beta apps: Feng Office, the web based collaboration suite and phpList, the email campaign manager. We love app updates!

Cheers!

Monitorix
Monitorix is a free, open source, lightweight system monitoring tool designed to monitor as many services as possible. At this time it monitors from the CPU load and temperatures to the users using the system. Network devices activity, network services demand and even the devices’ interrupt activity are also monitored, and more. The current status of any corporate server with Monitorix installed can be accessed via a web browser.

BETA APP UPDATES: Feng Office and phpList have been updated to the latest version. Enjoy Amahi Pro subscribers!

Feng Office
Feng Office (formerly OpenGoo) allows businesses to manage project tasks, billing, documents, communication with co-workers, customers and vendors, schedule meetings and events, and share every kind of electronic information.

phplist
phplist is the world’s most popular open source email campaign manager. phplist is easy to integrate with any website.

Cheers!

The Amahi Team

The Bug Genie
An open source, web-based issue tracking system – built on free and open source technology. Enhancing your development process by offering an advanced tool to manage bug reports, feature requests and user feedback for your products.

Hello! Rumors of our demise to Apple were greatly exaggerated

We’re extremely happy to announce the third Alpha release of Amahi for Ubuntu.

This release supports Ubuntu 11.10, and paves the way for supporting the next LTS (Long Term Support) release, 12.04.

Support for 32 and 64 bits is included, as well as ARM support, having been run on the PandaBoard!

We’re also confident it probably works well on systems like the BeagleBoard and similar boards. We’re looking to also port Amahi on the upcoming launch of the Raspberry Pi $25 boards in the coming weeks.

These probably make the most compact and power efficient Amahi systems yet!

Note that this is still alpha and takes some MAD SKILLZ to install.

Many thanks go to Frans (better known as eFfeM, our team lead for Ubuntu, who is back with a vengeance) and the rest of you that helped test Amahi on Ubuntu with this great new release!

Go get it!

The Amahi Team

Can you believe this?

Amahi got a cease and desist notice from Apple. It’s about the confusion that the “unauthorized use” of the English term app store causes in Amahi’s web site (click the image for the 2-page letter).

After the first shock, the questions start to emerge, like … What!? … or … why Amahi?

Long story short, Apple has to show they are defending a trademark claim they have on that term. Microsoft filed a motion to oppose that trademark claim in January, among other things stating that the two words separately are generic[1], that the 2-word term is also generic in English, that it’s widely used by consumers, by the press and in the software industry to refer to the many app stores available today, and that even Steve Jobs used it in a generic way to refer to other app stores. All possible reasons to not grant the claim. Later, Amazon launched their Appstore for Android in March, and Apple filed a lawsuit against Amazon. Here is an article with a brief history of the claimed trademark. Update: apparently, Nokia is also contesting the mark in Europe.

Then … Why Amahi? Why pick on such a small target when there are so many people using the app store term? Amahi is a Open Source startup, and is not even in the mobile space. We may never know …

We’re still trying to determine what is the best course of action (Update: we have started complying by rotating the term with the top contributions), however, this looks like a rather heavy handed move. Amahi being literally nothing next to Apple (sigh) we do not have the resources to fight this battle. Instead, we’re holding a

» Name the Store Contest «

We’d like it if you submit your suggestion for a term to use for Amahi’s store area, in every language on the surface of the earth, except of course using the term “app store.” Keep them short! We will use one of the top suggestions to name that area of our site. Even if yours does not get picked, you can still win one Plug Computer or one year of Amahi Pro membership. The team will randomly pick two winners among those submitting names, posting Facebook/Twitter posts/comments in that page. Keep it clean and fun!

To commemorate the occasion, we have released a new app called Amahi Invaders that you can install in your HDA (and you can play online too). Hope you enjoy!

Lend your hand to this effort!

• Share this post with your friends in Facebook, Twitter, Hacker News, Mashable, Slashdot, Reddit, and all your favorite social media or tech news site
• Translate this post to your language and distribute it in tech web sites and media in your area. Update: we have overviews/translations to a few other languages (thanks guys!)
• Contact us if you know of current or prior use of the term “app store,” particularly before June 2008
• Contact us if you have a great testimonial or brand to support Amahi, we’d like to feature it!

Finally, on a personal note, Amahi has been a labor of love that started as a hobby and it has evolved into a healthy community of enthusiasts and a budding startup around the project. As much as I respect Apple, I believe the term “app store” as we have been using it is generic of a store to buy apps, or descriptive, a very weak category of mark, if at all. I hope that Apple will not be entitled to monopolize the term after the litigation goes through. It’s nice to see that Amazon (and Microsoft) are bringing a strong challenge to the Apple claim.

Now back to work on much-needed improvements to our store!

Thanks to you for all the support you have been giving Amahi!

Carlos, for the Amahi Team

——

[1] What is a “generic name”?

A generic term is one used by much of the public to refer to a class or category of product or service. A generic name can not be protected or registered as a trademark or service mark. For example, no one seller can have trademark rights in “telephone” or “oven.” If a seller did have exclusive rights to call something by its recognized name, it would amount to a practical monopoly on selling that type of product. Even established trademarks can lose their protection if they are used generically: thermos and escalator are famous examples.

Legalese. All trademarks mentioned in this post are the property of their respective owners. There, we said it.

Meet the Express CD v1.0 for Amahi 6.1

This Express CD Train has taken a little longer on it’s route but we’re happy to announce that after lengthy development and testing the Amahi 6.1 Express CD is ready for widespread release!

Download!

Like all things, great products take time. The bittorrent and dowload mirror’s have been seeded and it’s ready to roll. So hit it hard, hit it often, and let your good times roll! Many kudos for Rod Waldren and Solomon for this smallest release ever and one of the most problem-free ever!

If you are new to Amahi, the Express CD is the shortest, fastest, easiest way to install Amahi. It erases your entire PC and makes it a headless Amahi 6.1 HDA (Home Digital Assistant) in a flash.

If you can spare the resources, please seed the torrents for an easier download in our server. Last time we brought the servers to their knees, however, this time we hope they will survive!

Live Apps Updates!

We’ve verified more apps and they made it to live status! Namely the world renowned and rock solid torrent downloader Transmission is ready to rock and roll just in time for you to use to download the Express CD! Then you can check out your system’s logs with one of Peter’s (pjcrux) personal favorites LogAnalyzer.

Lets not forget the importance of scheduling with iCalendar. While you’re waiting .. play some PHPYahtzee. If you’re train is going to be awhile still hit up the CMS app of Family-Connections. Got questions with pressing answer? No worries! Try the PHPMyFAQ app to solve your woes!

We are working on a program to verify apps faster and more reliably. This is critical in keeping the load of bug reports on the community manageable. Stay tuned …

Cheers!

The Amahi Team