Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | December 2005

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December 2005

December 31, 2005 | Comments: (0)

WSJ's Walt Mossberg wrote this week on his feeling that "Computer makers cater to big business, (and) slight the rest of us" laying the blame on PC manufacturers instead of where it belongs...on Windows and Microsoft. PC hardware is all essentially the same, the problems he's talking about are all related to the operating system.

Uncle Walt says:

This focus on the corporate world can have real, and sometimes negative, consequences for consumers and small businesses. For example, some of the big security problems in Microsoft's software in recent years came because the company included features used only by corporate IT staffs in the products it sold to everyone. One was a communications feature, meant for network administrators, which sleazy operators misused to bombard people with ads. Why was that on my PC in the first place?

With the question of "why was that on my PC in the first place" you hit the base issue of Windows major flaw. There are applications like IE that are inherently flawed and consistently exploited and yet Windows requires IE and other components to be installed (and kept) on every PC.

The versions of Windows available are only different in the applications they come with and minimally in relation to specific protocols and features. Windows is a problem regardless of user type.

This is yet another reason why I believe in Linux on the desktop. Distros will be created for a much broader swath of users and will be able to run on the same commodity boxes regardless of user-type. Choice is good for all users, IT department or otherwise.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 31, 2005 02:46 PM

December 30, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Giving Linux and open source the benefit of the doubt

Despite the holiday time of year, IT organizations very rarely have the luxury of stopping for vacation. At my shop we're launching a new application, upgrading several of our business-critical servers, and rolling out a host of new desktop computers. Within the internal corporate network we've been repeatedly confounded by a multitude of Windows server issues, everything from log files overflowing to an excel macro going haywire. We've struggled with things like Terminal Services only allowing two connections (unless you buy yet another MS license) and of course the cursed MS licensing.

But IT isn't all bad, we noticed that we have had zero issues with any of our Linux boxes or open source apps. All the in-house and externally hosted LAMP-J machines continue to be stable and defy logic with their uptime. My biggest complaint is that installing and deploying new apps still requires serious sys admin skills. While certain specific proprietary applications may not have open source substitutes or run on Linux, you can replace Windows in it's entirety with Linux/open source apps...it's just not easy...yet.

Linux continues to be missing that simple UI based deployment and management functionality. This issue alone scares people off from using Linux in corporate networks and also on the desktop. On the desktop people keep saying that users who abandon Windows will go to Macs, which is true only for consumers and a select group of business professionals. For the general enterprise user Macs are unnecessarily expensive. The enterprise needs cheap, near throw-away desktops for 95% of its user base and Linux makes perfect sense, it just doesn't have the proper level of UI refinement and applications...yet.

The funny thing is we expect more out of Linux and open source apps than we do from Microsoft products. These are products from a 20 year old software company with billions in revenue and yet it often feels like the software stalls at the old 80/20. 80% functionality with 20% nagging problems. I expect Windows server to need reboots, I expect licensing to be too costly, and expect having to attend to some serious virus/worm threat every week. And yet, Windows still has a huge presence in the enterprise. I never expect Linux machines to go down, Apache to crash, or desktops to be under virus threat, and I sure don't worry about excessive licensing fees.

That's why in spite of all its hassles I stand behind Linux and open source applications as the way of the future. I am willing to accept a little bit of pain now to move beyond the barely acceptable Windows status-quo. I've been talking a great deal about ISVs embracing Linux for their applications, how about someone (RedHat, Novell, HP, IBM, startup?) making it easier to get away from Microsoft without uprooting your entire infrastructure?

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 30, 2005 02:35 PM

December 29, 2005 | Comments: (0)

SDForum's Own SETI @ Home: An Attempt to Prove There Is Intelligent Life in the Open Source Universe

Sometimes I don't know whether to consider Laura Merling, Executive Director of SDForum, a friend or a foe. She and the SDForum team (in alliance with Andrew Aitken and the Olliance team) are putting on what looks to be an excellent open source event in January. Confound her for staging a quality event right before OSBC! :-)

SDForum's Open Source Think Tank

Seriously, I like the idea, and it's something to which my recent blog entry speaks: we need more intelligent discourse between members of the open source business community. SDForum's event is designed to be just that: a think tank for leading open source executives.

I've been fortunate to be friends with the executive teams at MySQL, SugarCRM, JasperSoft, and others. Talking with them keeps me informed...and humble. Just when I think I know a lot about open source, I talk to one of these and find out that I know very little.

Laura and Andrew are bringing this insight (and humility :-) to the growing body of open source executives, and I can't help but think we'll all be the better for it.

Here are some details on the event.

Who?
By invitation only. Will include ~75 industry influencers including CEOs from the top open source companies (meaning Alfresco, of course ;-), executives from large technology vendors, and leading venture capitalists.

When?
January 19.

What?
An open discussion moderated by John Markoff, Senior Writer, New York Times with Tim OReilly, President, O'Reilly Media; Jonathan Schwartz, President & COO, Sun Microsystems; Rod Smith, Corporate Vice President, IBM; and many others. SDForum has arranged a professional facilitator to then manage a range of break-out sessions to generate intelligent discussion (and debate) of where open source is going, and how to get there.

It should be an exceptional opportunity for those invited to attend, and I'm hopeful that its effects, like OSBC's, will reverberate well beyond the small group assembled. Open source, contrary to popular mythology, hasn't magically taken off in the enterprise. It took some extremely intelligent people at Red Hat to figure out its innovative license model (helping them get funding, then an IPO, and then customer POs); it took similar neural activity at MySQL, SugarCRM, and other successful open source companies to get them where they are today.

The good news for the rest of us is that we have this SDForum event, OSBC, and a few other select events to help us figure out and craft the future of open source.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 29, 2005 02:11 PM

December 29, 2005 | Comments: (0)

What I Learned in 2005...Lesson #6: What CIOs really care about

Seems like every publication with CIO in its name is quick to point out what CIOs care about and draw all sorts of conclusions. I have seen a number of things like "business process improvement" and "IT alignment" as top CIO priorities. Those are terms that are made up by media and consultants. It's not that I don't care about those things (in theory) but they are hardly the most important things on my list. In fact, if you aren't doing them already you are probably not doing a great job (sorry.)

Hiring and maintaining staff
This is my number one issue. There are simply not enough good developers, DBAs or system administrators. Tech people also are notoriously hard to manage and IT management really needs to understand this.

Costs
Anyone running a business has to stay on top of costs. Besides headcount, IT tends to take up a lot of dollars. The arguments for Linux and Windows are very real and there are trade-offs on both sides. Same for things like VoIP and phone services.

Growing the business with only incremental additional cost increases
As above, you need to plan an enterprise architecture that will support the business horizontally so that costs are incremental rather than multiples.

Security breaches
If you are not terrified of losing customer information or having a network breach you are not doing your job. Again, planning and mitigating is part of the job. Don't build SQL server apps that all run as SA for example.

Open Source
Right now I consider two categories: open source replacing expensive proprietary apps, and open source apps for new projects. When I can, I will always choose open source for new projects. Recently, I have been experimenting with Nagios (along with Groundwork) for system notification. I have also been toying with What's Up Gold. Nagios is free but a pain to configure, WUG is $2500 and very easy. We haven't made a decision yet, but in this case the proprietary is much easier to do and the cost isn't that high.

Things I don't care about:
As an analyst I am interested in all of these things, as a CIO I don't really care.

Patents-not even on my radar
Blogs-no one in our company needs to blog
Wikis-we have internally developed apps
Collaboration-same as above
Convergence-we have voicemail to email services that have never been used and no one cares about
Open source code in my apps-not afraid at all and won't pay for bogus open source insurance
Podcasts-my only concern is users sucking down bandwidth

Things that you should be doing anyway
IT business alignment-if your IT group is not serving and enabling the business then you are failing as CIO
Process improvement-if processes are not iterative than your organization will stagnate
Mobile workforce-it's not that hard. Email is the only thing that matters

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 29, 2005 10:50 AM

December 28, 2005 | Comments: (0)

What I Learned in 2005...Lesson #5: Most blogs are vapid

In the much-vaunted blogosphere, I find that people are either dull or too cowed to tell the truth undiluted. 2005 saw everyone and their dog starting a blog, but most are vapid and useless to a large audience. (That's not to say they're not important and useful to one's immediate peers.)

In open source, there are very few blogs I've found worth following. To be worth my time (and yours, I should think), the blogs need to impart real information - either objective news or, more likely, solid data gleaned from real-world experience. Most do neither. And of the two, I think the latter (i.e., experience) is more important than the news. No one has figured out open source completely yet as a business, leaving all sorts of room for idea-sharing. That's why we started the Open Source Business Conference, and it's what any good open source blog should do.

A few people have asked me which blogs I follow. Here's a list. If you know of something worthwhile, please share, either directly (masay @ osbc . com) or in the comments. My primary objective in posting these is to elicit feedback on others I should be reading.

The List

InfoWorld's Open Resource by Dave Rosenberg...and me. I suppose this is a bit self-serving, but I was reading Dave's blog long before I joined it. Dave's blog is the best place to get unvarnished opinions on open source (plus web services and other random stuff). Dave doesn't bother to try to put a veneer on rubbish.
AC/OS. Again, self-serving, because it's my own blog. I post most of my entries to Open Resource, but I embellish some and add others to AC/OS. It's where I don't have to worry about upsetting InfoWorld (though, if you've read Dave long enough, it's hard to imagine them getting upset by anything I could possibly say :-). I use my experience with Alfresco and OSBC to try to glean principles of doing business in the open source world.
Nick Carr's Rough Type. I've been getting to know Nick through OSBC. In terms of general technology commentary, no one is better than Nick. Period. Again, I appreciate Nick's perspective because he tells it straight. He's not trying to polish his opinions to be sexy with this or that crowd. You may not agree with him, but at least you always know where he stands.
Jonathan Schwartz's blog. Jonathan's blog is often self- (or, rather, Sun-) serving. But it's also one of the few corners of the 'Net where intelligence meets technology. Also, like the others above, Jonathan generally tells it straight. (Notice the theme? I like the news or commentary to be candid and forthright.) No varnish, so long as you discount the pro-Sun cheerleading.
Infectious Greed by Paul Kedrosky. I resisted this one for some time (though I can't for the life of me remember why), but eventually capitulated. Paul writes about everything (though usually technology or VC-related), and has a fascinating, quantitative way of looking at things.
Zack Urlocker's Open Force. Zack is the VP of Marketing for MySQL, which fact occasionally trickles into his blog (not that I can complain - I promote Alfresco here at times, as well). But when Zack is on, he is really on, and ends up giving away some excellent insight into how one of the world's most successful open source companies operates, and where the market is going.
O'Reilly Radar. I subscribed to get access to Tim, but I've found that Marc Hedlund's writings tend to hit hardest (and most often). I don't really get into the geeky "Gee whiz! Look at this new scripting language trick!" that infects many of the other posts, but this is a fault of mine, not of Rael's or Nat's. There are lots of people (maybe you?) that love that stuff. It's just not my thing.
Stephen Walli's blog ("Once more into the breach.") I check in with Stephe to get his take on standards, since few to none have played that game as long as he has.

There are a few more that I've either just started to track (like Mark de Visser's blog focusing on open source marketing and Stephen O'Grady's Tecosystems), or only sporadically track (like ZDNet's Between the Lines, which is filled with a lot of stuff that I don't care about), but that's pretty much the core list.

As far as news feeds, I subscribe to Linux Today, The Register (Hilarious and cynical), BusinessWeek, eWeek Linux, and a few others. But I can get the news anywhere - I like the commentary-style RSS feeds the most.

Used to read

Jason Matusow's blog. The 2-3 times he actually posted something. It's a shame that one of the smartest people in open source has moved on, and never shared much anyway. Typical Microsoft !%!%!%. :-)
r0ml Lefkowitz's blog But then he went silent....

Oh, and I also follow a large number of Arsenal-related blogs and news sites. For Arsenal, however, I prefer the news sites, and don't care much for the commentary.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 28, 2005 02:42 PM

December 27, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Peter Quinn resigns as CIO of Massachusetts

It's a bit early to tell what the story is but Peter Quinn, CIO of the state of Mass. a big advocate of OpenDocument-and open source in general has resigned his position as of Jan 9. It's a big loss for the community and everyone working in the gov't IT sector.

When I had Peter speak at LinuxWorld he had said that he thought his tenure in gov't IT was an anomaly. While it doesn't appear he was forced out there was enough mudslinging and BS going on that it seems he took the high road to get out of government.

Good luck to Peter in whatever he decides to do next.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 27, 2005 06:45 PM

December 26, 2005 | Comments: (0)

What I Learned in 2005...Lesson #4: Support is not a viable business model

There has been a pervasive myth in open source since its inception. The myth? That IT buyers will pay for support. A small percentage will, of course, but not enough to sustain a venture-backable company.

Think you know of some counterexamples? There are none. There are companies that appear to make a viable business off support (like Red Hat), but they're not really selling support. They're selling bits and bytes, disguised under the banner of "support." This isn't a matter of such companies being sneaky - it's a matter of them recognizing what customers will actually pay for.

Also of note, the closer vendors come to overtly selling software (instead of the support thereof), the easier the time they have. I think Red Hat is an incredible company and think its business/licensing model is absolutely brilliant: make source code available (though with difficulty) but lock down the compiled product, and lock it down further with a contract that keeps customers away from the certified version without payment. But word on the street is that Red Hat is having difficulty getting its customers to renew their "support" subscriptions, and is being forced to seriously discount in order to keep customers renewing. 40% or more.

In an ideal world, it wouldn't be this way. Customers would pay for value and wouldn't try to get something for nothing. But we don't live in that world, and if there's a way to use something for free, enterprises will.

I've written on this before. It's unfortunate, but it's true (and there's not a single significant open source company out there right now that hasn't had to grapple with this). Many enterprises either use open source software without support, or discontinue support after a year or two. They're rational beings (or collections of them), and won't pay if it's not a requirement to do so. I'm not talking theory here - I'm talking the day-to-day reality of advising open source startups and working for them (Alfresco now, Novell and Lineo before).

So what's the Right model? I don't know. I don't think anyone does. But it's not support alone. That much I know for absolute certain.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 26, 2005 09:50 PM

December 24, 2005 | Comments: (0)

What I learned in 2005...Lesson #3: Everyone needs leadership skills

Management expert Peter Drucker's lessons on leadership are applicable to not just executives but developers and IT pros across the board. Peter Drucker On Leadership features just a few of his tenets.

When you are the chief executive, you're the prisoner of your organization. The moment you're in the office, everybody comes to you and wants something, and it is useless to lock the door. They'll break in. So, you have to get outside the office. But still, that isn't traveling. That's being at home or having a secret office elsewhere. When you're alone, in your secret office, ask the question, "What needs to be done?" Develop your priorities and don't have more than two. I don't know anybody who can do three things at the same time and do them well. Do one task at a time or two tasks at a time. That's it. OK, two works better for most. Most people need the change of pace. But, when you are finished with two jobs or reach the point where it's futile, make the list again. Don't go back to priority three. At that point, it's obsolete.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 24, 2005 03:51 PM

December 24, 2005 | Comments: (0)

What I learned in 2005...Lesson #2: Everything IT is too expensive

I wrote back in September about IT's hidden truth: everything is too expensive having only cursory knowledge of what it really cost to run a business.

I continue to be flummoxed not just by the Windows Idiot Tax (the additional costs for using MS products) but also by the general costs of running a technology department. Marketing and pricing tactics from big vendors (MS, Dell, Oracle to name a few) continue to be confusing and occasionally arbitrary.

The best advice I have is to do your research. It's not that hard to figure out baseline and incremental costs. I also encourage people to try out other vendor gear. We primarily have Dell computers at my office but I have started mixing in HP servers and have been looking at IBM and Acer for PCs. It's very easy to be lulled into a single vendor coma, don't choose IT products based on the fact that you already have them or that your vendor tells you it's easier just to use all of their offerings.

Choice is good. Take advantage of the breadth and depth of technology in the marketplace.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 24, 2005 03:34 PM

December 23, 2005 | Comments: (0)

What I learned in 2005...Lesson #1: Open source can't hide a poor product

Dave had a good idea the other day. Rather than come up with our predictions for 2006, we decided to share some things that we learned in 2005 (which will impact technology in 2006).

So, since my wife kicked me off FIFA on the Nintendo, I'll start.

Lesson #1: Open source is a poor substitute for a weak product.

There's a feeling out there that the panacea for weak marketing/engineering/management/fluoridated water is open source. Have a dying business? Open source it! No one wants to buy your product? Open source it! And so on. I would have thought that this idea was thoroughly discredited years ago, but based on the things I see VCs funding, I have to believe that people still believe in the open source fairy.

I've said this before. But apparently the message isn't sinking in. Good open source projects are founded on good technology. Of course, successful open source projects require more than this, but great code provides the foundation for a great community.

So, a lesson for closed-source companies hoping to be relevant again by opening up some or all of your code: don't bother. It won't help. Instead, work to develop exceptional code and then follow that up with a strong licensing and revenue model to ensure you can monetize that code. Because support alone doth not a successful business make. But that's a lesson for another day....

Posted by Matt Asay on December 23, 2005 08:47 PM

December 22, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Nessus: Paradise lost? (Let the hand-wringing begin)

Linux Insider has a great story on Nessus' move to closed source with its 3.0 product. The article has some wringing their hands about the decision, acting as if open source were going to shrivel and die because the code's primary developer decided he couldn't make a living off free-loaders.

And so Nessus is facing complaints from users like Alan Shimel, Chief Strategy Officer for StillSecure:

"Here's the danger we are running into," he said. "People contribute resources to these communities, whether it be time, money, or code. When they see everything they give converted for the commercial success of an individual rather than as a community as a whole, how long do you think they are going to want to keep giving?"

Don't you believe it. I'm willing to bet that the vast majority (80-90%+) of Nessus development is done by the Tenable team. Most of those complaining about Nessus being closed off are complaining not about any loss of community (though they couch in that language), but rather at the loss of a free (as in cost) piece of infrastructure they enjoyed using.

Just as they complained when Red Hat split its Linux product line into Fedora and RHEL. And when MySQL had its dual-license scheme, and then moved to its Network product. And Sugar when it gave away most of its product, but kept some proprietary.

That's the nub of the issue, isn't it? Open source allows, even encourages, a certain amount of free-loading/free riding in the quest for the few who will return to contribute cash and/or resources to fuel further development. Free riders talk about support models and the like, but few to none of them actually pay for it. That's the dirty little secret of open source. Pure support models don't work except for smallish companies. Because most buyers really don't value support as highly as they do the software itself.

And so Red Hat, MySQL, SugarCRM, Groundwork, Alfresco, etc. come up with innovative licensing schemes to get people to pay for software...while calling it support. It really shouldn't be this hard. The problem, however, is that a generation has grown up believing, whatever RMS may say, that "free software" is free as in beer, not as in freedom.

Hence, you get silly angst like this one:

...Shimel said users are now forced to make a decision, with three options available: use Nessus v3.0 for free but with a seven-day delay in updates; pay Tenable fees required to obtain a direct feed for updates; or transition to a commercial vulnerability management system.

Regardless of the long-term implications for the open-source community, the move to Nessus 3.0.0 has short-term implications for security software vendors and users. What do individuals and corporations do?

I've got a wild and crazy answer to that question:

They should pay.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 22, 2005 04:53 PM

December 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Google bans Kozoru from searching

Here's an interesting story for everyone who seems to think you can build a sustainable business on top of someone else's work. It seems that Kozoru built some algorithms to search Google and then parse the results for a better outcome.

Good idea, right? Sure, until Google decides you are a threat or pest and block you from using their APIs. Think this will be the only example of this? I would say this is merely the first example of Google shutting down prospective competition and the tip of the evil iceberg.

Of course, I personally wouldn't bet my business on using another companies online service, but all signs pointed to the fact that Google would keep these things open. I have no doubt that the comments that we are google-bashing will start asap, but do us a favor and actually think about it for a second. I like google search, but the blind faith really needs to stop.

Let us suppose, for a moment, you are a small company (like kozoru) and you've figured out a way to take results from another search engine (like, say, Google) and run them through your own statistical approach and do the following: Let us suppose, for a moment, you are a small company (like kozoru) and you've figured out a way to take results from another search engine (like, say, Google) and run them through your own statistical approach and do the following:
Keyword search their system
Grab 100-200 results
Parse the pages (all of them) from the results in #2
Provide 1-3 "answers" to your results
Now, let us suppose these results are more authoritative, more relevant and better (according to 120 random people who test the system) than the results from the search engine.

Now, let us suppose that you have shown those results to the search engine and they were mostly excited about what you were doing, but couldn't decide how or if your results were able to be monetized -- after all, less results means less space for ads and so forth.

Then, out of nowhere, you were suddenly banned from using their system to show them how you make search better.

Well, that exact scenario was my Christmas present from Google. It makes very little sense to me because other "meta search" systems (Brainboost, Dogpile, etc.) all do the same thing and for far more users.

Before you get too upset, remember that the only people who ever saw this system were Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other partners we were speaking with after the Web 2.0 conference. This wasn't a generally open (or available) system and there were less than 6 companies with access to the results, including kozoru. And remember, no one - other than Google - has ever banned us or even hinted at banning us for this limited-use, demo-only system.

This seems no different than 37 Signals "Making Google Better" web mash-up.

And, all I wanted was a a phone call...

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 20, 2005 09:02 PM

December 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Linux uptime, a real life example (268 days at 100%)

We're doing a system migration tonite and just checked some of existing machines. Our RedHat Linux boxes have been up 258 days, 100% uptime. It's a basic LAMP stack with a little Java here and there. Our last machines (also RedHat) were up for longer but we moved data centers. We think it was 300+ days with 100% uptime in production.

Wondering if anyone has similar 100% uptime for Windows? I am going to guess not. We've been having horrific crashes (that .NET stuff is not entirely stable) every few hours on a dev Windows server in the office. I am installing Nagios right now to monitor the dev machines. Wacky.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 20, 2005 03:16 PM

December 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Oracle's new pricing-logical in it's stupidity

Oracle's latest pricing scheme is one that even Rube Goldberg couldn't have designed. Why do I always feel like major application vendors punish buyers for moving to new technologies?

I am a big believer in multi-core chips, and I appreciate that Oracle is discounting for Sun's new chips, but this doesn't make me want to move to multi-core. It appears that it would be cheaper to simply scale hardware. I guess we have to wait to see how much performance boost the multi-core gives you in relation to the cost upgrade.

While Oracle will continue to recognize each core as a separate processor, the processor definition has been amended as it relates to counting multi-core chips to determine the total number of processor licenses required. Now, the required processor licensing is dependent upon the specific multi-core chip on which the Oracle software is deployed.
Oracle Processor Licensing: Processor Factor

UltraSparc T1: 0.25
AMD/Intel: 0.50
All other Multi-core Servers: 0.75
Single Core Servers: 1.00

For example, if an AMD, IBM, Intel or Sun UltraSparc T1 multi-core server was installed and/or running Oracle software on 8 cores, the licenses would be calculated in the following manner:

-- IBM multi-core server -- Requires 6 processor licenses (8 multiplied by a factor of .75 equals 6)
-- Intel or AMD server -- Requires 4 processor licenses (8 multiplied by a factor of .50 equals 4)
-- Sun UltraSparc T1 server -- Requires 2 processor licenses (8 multiplied by a factor of .25 equals 2)

See, I told you it was wacky. My bet is that MySQL and EnterpriseDB won't make you go through this kind of tomfoolery.

Side note: Notice that Matt and I both had links to Wikipedia today. Reminds me of back in 1999 when I interviewed with the firm that was launching Britannica.com. I couldn't grasp the idea that someone was going to pay them monthly for the information the provide. Britannica's results are arguably better, but in this day of instant gratification Wikipedia is close enough.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 20, 2005 10:02 AM

December 20, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Google gets glitzy (and the AOL deal gets curiouser and curiouser)

First, Google did no evil. Then they decided to do a little because the money was just too good. (For the Google fetishists out there, I'm defining "evil" on Google's terms, not mine. I don't personally think it's evil to do deals with big companies and give them preferred treatment. Last I checked, pride was the most egregious of the Seven Deadly Sins. Google has that one in spades. :-)

Now they're deciding to look a bit more like Vegas. Again, because the money is good. It's something they've never done, chiding others for doing it and insisting that they'd never be so shallow. But when $300 million (and counting) is at stake....

According to the New York Times:

Users of Google's search engine will soon see something they are not used to on the notoriously spare site: advertising with logos and graphics. And the advertisers will not be limited to America Online, whose talks with Google prompted the change in policy, according to two executives close to the companies' negotiations.

As part of their deal, which is expected to be announced this afternoon, Google is providing AOL with $300 million in advertising on Google's Web sites, intended to use to draw Google search users to related content on AOL's sites, the executives said. That sum is on top of the $1 billion in cash that Google is to invest to buy a 5 percent stake in AOL.

Funny thing, principles. They become so malleable for some when money is on the table.

Am I saying that Google has sold out on its principles? No. Not yet, anyway. What I am saying is that the company appears to be making small concessions (which, of course, invariably lead to large ones - the road to banner-ad-splattered websites and bought-and-sold search is paved with good intentions). Google is the best search company out there. Period.

But Google needs to be careful that it doesn't become just like everyone else. This AOL deal puts them on that track.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 20, 2005 09:36 AM

December 17, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Google sells its soul for a mess of pottage

So, Google got the Time Warner deal. For what? $1B and its soul, according to the New York Times:

Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before.

The lesson? Never, ever trust a capitalist who pretends to be otherwise. "Do no evil" was a catchy slogan for Google, but one that it was willing to sell for a few bucks.

For all those who thought Google was somehow different, I'm sorry. I can hear your idealism dying from here. For those who knew better, there's not much to cheer about in this, is there? Google has just opened the floodgates to a very profitable, "happy to do evil" business.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 17, 2005 01:46 PM

December 16, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Monetizing source code freedom

As Matt and I were chatting about his experience thus far at Alfresco he hit upon the fact that they are running into many organizations that still think open source = free as in cost. In some cases, they are standardizing on certain open source applications but not paying any support or license fees (but remain within the confines of the licensing). It's not that these customers are cheap - it's just that if they don't have to pay for support (because they don't need it), why should they?

Anyway, this led me to wonder if software that is available as truly free can realistically expect to recognize significant revenue on a recurring basis. MySQL is doing well signing users up for the MySQL Network, and Sleepycat and db4objects have done very well getting users to pay for software licenses. But these are all databases. In the application space it's not clear if total freedom can be successful long term. JBoss is the dominant open source app server and it's hard to find a comparison point.

On the other side, companies like SugarCRM and Alfresco have slightly different models where you pay for the enterprise features which might be the factor that ensures revenue as the free versions are not as feature rich and therefore people are willing to pay for them. [Matt tells me that this has nothing to do with a lack of open source commitment at Alfresco and Sugar, on whose advisory board he sits. It's simply a way to give companies a clear reason why they should pay. Just as Samuel Johnson's road to hell is paved with good intentions, it may well be that the road to open source bankruptcy is paved with the best of intentions to pay for support.]

At my office we use LAMP all over the place and we pay no support fees. This is for two reasons: we don't need it, and we don't have to. On the other hand, our managed service provider does pay for RedHat and MySQL support which passes the costs on, but internally we buy no support.

Many people get worked up when we mention "open source business models," really what we are talking about are businesses built on top of open source products. The jury is still out on whether you can monetize freedom long term-and if you can build a sustainable application business when the code is completely free.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 16, 2005 10:19 AM

December 15, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Advice for Open Source Startups: Remember LinuxCare

I have a piece called "Advice for Open Source Startups: Remember LinuxCare" running over on Slashdot about the demise of LinuxCare and what we can all learn from it.

Despite all the open source software and services companies funded in 2005, the associated business models are still considered experimental and unproven. The new crop need only to look to the past avoid missteps. At the Open Source Business Conference in November, VCs and open source software company executives wondered aloud if what we're seeing today is a "bubble" of open source start-ups being funded. One journalist's recap of the event cited $144 million in open source start-ups receiving VC funding in 2005, double the venture capital flow for open source start-ups in 2004.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 15, 2005 01:45 PM

December 15, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Open t-shirt designs: vote for your favorite

The sharing of information and garnering of feedback about products is something that I think we in technology take for granted. Even with the new empowerment of bloggers, there aren't many places people can go to get educated feedback about the work they are doing or things they are interested in. You are (mostly) forced to rely on your personal network for information, but at some point you need feedback from a broader range of individuals. It's what developers have been doing for ages on mailing lists and such.

Case in point: my wife is a clothing designer and can't decide on one of the final designs for her next season. So, she launched a poll to let website visitors decide.

I think this type of exercise is much more akin to the open source process than what we discussed about Wikipedia: put something into the universe, get feedback, proceed; all the while with someone in charge of making the final decision. There is a point where open-ness becomes a liability and someone has to take control. The successful projects-and commercial entities are the ones that can balance the community and the roadmap.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 15, 2005 01:17 PM

December 15, 2005 | Comments: (0)

The differences between Red Hat and Novell

I've been meaning to write about this for some time, but couldn't. Firstly, because I couldn't touch on the subject while I was still employed by Novell. Secondly, because i didn't want to create problems for Novell while it was going through its road bumps a few weeks back.

But I thought now was a good time to talk about the differences I perceive in the two companies, having worked at the one and talked extensively with the other. In no particular order....

Customers

Red Hat has long dominated the Linux market. In part this has resulted from serendipity - the company raised gobs of cash in a boom-time IPO and so was the first big player to market - but it also results from the company's rabid focus on customers. Importantly, Red Hat has never wavered from a core understanding that the low-hanging fruit is Unix. A friend there recently speculated that only 5-10% of Wall Street is Linux right now, and Wall Street is an early adopter. This means there's still truckloads of money to be made in converting Unix to Linux, with fewer barriers to doing so (skillsets transfer, dramatically lower cost of hardware, etc.).

Novell, for its part, has had to play catch-up, just as SUSE before it did. The integration of SUSE into Novell's corporate and technology infrastructure took time, and Red Hat extended its lead during that time. However, Novell brings some serious value to the market, including superior support. Customers, like the Swiss government and the UK's National Health Service are leading indicators of Novell's customer resurgence.

It's not the size of Novell's support staff that matters most, I don't think. That matters, but the larger issue is Novell's history and accumulated expertise in supporting operating systems and software, generally. Novell has been doing this for two decades, and they really are leaders in support, certification, etc.

I think Novell still does itself a disservice by focusing more on Microsoft and Windows than the Unix market, but this is changing. It's just hard for the company to give up on its eons-old battle with Redmond.

In short, both companies are improving their customer focus - Red Hat is adding employees (though still at an intelligent pace) to be able to better service customers who spend with them, and Novell is tightening its focus on Linux (and, frankly, shed some jobs to accomplish this) to better meet customers' requirements. Both are well-positioned. I think we're finally going to see some competition in the commercial Linux market.

Culture

Red Hat has a hard-charging, take-no-prisoners approach to the market. If you're not making them money, you're not going to get their ear. At times, because of how tightly Szulik runs the ship, they simply didn't have enough employees to be able to service all the demand, causing people outside the company to view Red Hat as aloof and arrogant.

This has led the growing open source ecosystem to Novell, which is partner-centric and easy-going almost to a fault. Ron Hovsepian is changing this, and Novell is starting to become much more choosy about opportunities (customer and partnering) that come its way. The company's culture is changing for the better along with this shift in opportunity mindset. Novell is becoming less concerned with popularity and more concerned with dollars.

Here, again, I see a convergence between the two. Red Hat is loosening up and Novell is tightening up.

Partners

I already addressed this a little above, but I think the companies are converging here. Red Hat has been historically difficult to work with, in large part because they simply lacked bandwidth to service all incoming requests. So, you were either SAP and Oracle (and a few select others), or you were no one. This was good for Red Hat in that it tightened the company's focus on revenue-generating partnerships, but it was bad in that it now has to play catch-up in being a central part of the growing open source ecosystem.

In that world, Novell is the first choice because it's easier to work with and more generous with terms. Novell is becoming choosier as its clout grows, but I don't sense it's doing so out of arrogance. I think Ron is just instilling discipline. From my perspective as a prospective Novell partner, this is a good thing. I'd much rather work harder to partner with a company that has its act together than to slap together an easy, meaningless partnership that is good for a press release and little else.

Red Hat is also improving its partner programs to accommodate more. Again, this is more a matter of adding employees to cover things than it is a real shift in the company's mindset - Red Hat has always cared about partners. Now it has the people to put meat on the bones of those good intentions.

Conclusion

Novell is growing into its role as a major Linux vendor, and Red Hat is growing into its role as a major company, period. I really like the changes I see in both companies. They're still very different companies with different mindsets, but the differences are narrowing.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 15, 2005 12:23 PM

December 14, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Linus on source code, developer craziness, and the makings of successful projects

What follows is a fascinating interchange between Linus Torvalds and Chris Blizzard on the Desktop Linux (public) mailing list. Linus' comments on the value of source code, the importance of letting developers run amok, and other sundry things is great fodder for those looking to better understand how to make open source projects thrive.

(Chris' comments are indented below. All bolding for emphasis is mine.)

From: Linus Torvalds
Date: December 13, 2005 1:44:23 PM PST
To: Christopher Blizzard
Cc: xxx@lists.osdl.org
Subject: Re: [Desktop_architects] Printing dialog and GNOME

On Tue, 13 Dec 2005, Christopher Blizzard wrote:

I suspect that what you see as a raging hatred for user configuration is instead just a symptom of what we consider important in GNOME. We are willing to prioritize "working well out of the box" and "consistent and easy to use" over user configuration. So that particular set of features just never bubbles up to the top. As near as I can tell it just is a question of priorities.

[Linus]I don't understand why you and Havoc seem to be of the opinion that working well out of the box and having good defaults is in any way something I argue against.

I absolutely don't. I think it's very important that defaults should be sane, and the "out of the box" experience should be what a user can be expected to, well, expect. I was kidding about "focus-follows-mouse" being the only true window focus method: click-to-focus does actually make sense as a default, because it's what a lot of users are brought up to expect.

Similarly, I do actually agree with people who say that KDE is cluttered. The KDE menu system is overwhelming. But that's a totally separate issue from the notion of _capabilities_. You can decide to have a uncluttered desktop that is still _capable_. I believe we've seen that with some of the distros that do use KDE, eg Linspire.

So you can have your cake and eat it too. It's not an either-or thing.

That doesn't mean that we don't need to fix printing, and the printing dialog - we still do. But it means that fixing printing is probably going to take a higher priority than adding new features to the window manager. :)

I really don't care about the mouse thing. It's the reason _I_ hate using gnome, but hey, I've got alternatives.

The reason I exploded is that (a) I've been watching this desktop thing because I got added to the mailing list by mistake and (b) the gnome disregard for flexibility has been grating me for a _long_ time.

To me, open source _is_ about flexibility. And no, I'm not talking about people re-compiling their applications and making changes to them. The fact that the source code is open is in some ways both the least important and the most important part: it's the least important in the sense that in practice, very few people actually change source code, and even those that do tend to be very _focused_ on one particular project (or even just a small _part_ of a project).

So the source being open is - on average - not important to people directly. Even major developers only work on a small part of the whole stack at a time, they don't go around changing all the programs they use to suit them.

But _indirectly_, the thing that open source really excels at, is the flexibility it offers thanks to having lots of users, and lots of users whose needs get _heard_. THAT is the core of open source. You've got different kinds of people that get attached to a project. It's _not_ a corporate mono-culture, because people from different backgrounds can get together and work on it _without_ going through the corporate mind-wash.

And to me, gnome is killing itself as an open source project, because it ends up dismissing exactly that thing. Having strict UI rules ("The HID says so-and-so") that are really a religion that you're not allowed to question. The whole notion that things are supposed to be done just one way is antithetical to what makes open source successful in the first place.

I think the KDE development process has been a lot more "lively", and I think a _lot_ of the reason for that has been that they haven't allowed the "interface nazi" kind of stifling of what people feel they need to do. Read the recent KDE-3.5 release announcement with the "visual guide to new features", and you can _feel_ the energy. Sure, they have three different kinds of desktop choosers. So what? You don't have to use them. But the capabilities are there if you want to.

And I think that's important. It's important, because that developer energy, in the end, is what get things done. And as a side effect, you will automatically end up with a system that understands that defaults may be good, but that different people have different needs and views. Because you had a very diverse group of people that worked on it.

So developers are more energized, and I think users are also automatically happier. They may not even realize why, but I believe it's to a large part because their needs are taken care of - not necessarily because they ask for it, but because the developers themselves are more varied and thus tends to have more different needs, and often took care of the different
needs of the user base to some degree automatically.

This, btw, is also why a "enterprise desktop" should never be allowed to drive development. It is, by definition, boring and same-old, same-old.

And if you don't see the parallels with "enterprise UNIX" and "Linux" here, I think you're blind. The thing is, Linux (the kernel) got better than just about any enterprise Unix kernel _not_ by trying to develop itself for the enterprise, but by allowing and encouraging different kinds of people to all scratch their own itch.

Yeah, the whole development process is a bit more chaotic, and maybe a bit more "cluttered" and even scary, but the end result is BETTER. And yes, Linux (the kernel) has a million drivers that the "serious guys" don't care for. But that wild and crazy thing is exactly what made Linux a success in the first place.

In any case, this is a different question that hasn't been asked here, and one that I think people are stumbling over and that is "what are the effects of design decisions on the size of an open source-based community where choice is more important than design focus?" I suspect that given that question I would expect that the KDE community would be larger, but less focused on a single vision.

I agree - I think this is part of it. But see above. I think it's a small part of a much bigger issue.

But the fact that users and developers don't know does NOT mean that customization is bad. Quite the reverse. It means that defaults make sense, but since you don't know what they'll be doing, you should always strive to have ways to let _them_ make the choice when they have some reason the default doesn't agree with them.

I kind of agree with this statement, but I think it's overused to justify all kinds of nonsense and avoid good system integration.

The thing is, developers shouldn't see themselves as system integrators. If they do, they just limit the end result.

This is a hierarchy. You don't put the developers at the top of the heap, the same way you never put developers face-to-face with your customers. That would just scare the customers away.

You let developers be developers. Encourage a bit of crazyness, because the best developers _are_ a bit crazy. It's ok. Let them do things that you don't think necessarily always make sense for the user, because that not only makes them happy, it's also how sometimes you get the really great things that _do_ make sense after all.

And encourage them to make things configurable, so that the system integrators and distributors can then make it all come together as a more unified whole. Maybe it won't be _totally_ unified, but what you win from allowing people to be people _more_ than makes up for it.

Thinking that developers should also have to be aware or care about the crazy UI HID notion of the day is just stupid. It just alienates developers. And don't tell me that Gnome as a project hasn't alienated a lot of developers, because some of them have been emailing me privately as a result of this flamewar.

Linus
_______________________________________________

https://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop_architects

Posted by Matt Asay on December 14, 2005 10:07 AM

December 14, 2005 | Comments: (0)

BusinessWeek's ActiveGrid Infomercial

Updated

How does Peter do it? Peter Yared, CEO of ActiveGrid (great company), already has his own infomercial, courtesy of Steve Hamm, in BusinessWeek. The gist? That Java is dead and LAMP is manna from heaven.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a LAMP fan and flogged that horse for years at Novell, and continue to do so at Alfresco. We're Java-based, but have an interface that makes it easy to extend Alfresco with scripting languages like the uber-trendy Ruby and P-languages (Perl, Python, PHP). So, I'm fine with wherever the market wants to go. And I think the world of Peter and ActiveGrid.

The problem with Steve's analysis, however, is that the market hasn't gone to the scripting languages. At least, not to Java's detriment. They're the sexiest right now but sex appeal isn't a market. I've yet to talk with a BigCo (and I talk to lots of them now, both with my OSBC hat on and my Alfresco hat on) that is junking Java (if they're a J2EE shop) for the sexy upstarts. I'm sure they exist, but not in the way Steve paints the landscape in his article. Here are a few excerpts:

Peter Yared, CEO of software maker ActiveGrid, spent a critical chapter of his career steeped in Java, the programming language developed by Sun Microsystems (SUNW). In the late 1990s, Yared was chief technology officer of NetDynamics, which pioneered an application server designed to boost the performance of Web sites. It was based squarely on then wildly popular Java. He went on to spend five years as an executive at Sun. So it's especially surprising that Yared holds this view: "Java is a dinosaur."
But Yared has good reason for thinking that way. His two-year-old company sells what he calls a "next generation" application server, used to build Web sites and corporate applications, that doesn't rely on Java. Instead, it's tied to open-source software packages, including the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database, and a collection of so-called scripting languages that all start with the letter P -- Perl, Python, and PHP. Hence the acronym LAMP....

Yared says developers far and wide are creating a new generation of Internet-based applications with LAMP and related technologies rather than with Java. Can it possibly be that Java -- once the hippest of hip software -- has become a legacy technology, as old and out of style as IBM's (IBM) mainframe computers and SAP's corporate applications? Mounting evidence points to yes.

Reports by Evans Data Corp., which does annual surveys of the activities of software developers, show Java use is slipping as LAMP and Microsoft's (MSFT) .NET technology gain traction. In North America, the percentage of developers who use Java as one of their principal programming languages declined to 47.9 in Evans' fall survey, vs. 51.4% in the fall of 2002. The same surveys show that while Java use is climbing in Asia, it's on the decline in Europe.

Meanwhile, .NET usage increased to 54.1% from 40.3% in the same period in North America, and exceeded Java use in Europe and Asia. In a different survey series, the use of PHP in North America grew to 36.1% this fall, from 26% in the fall of 2003. It grew almost as quickly in Europe and Asia. "There's more competition out there," says Evans President John Andrews. "These other technologies are catching hold. They're biting away at [Java's] share."...

Steve gives a little room to the other side:

Sun is adamant that Java isn't losing momentum. "I vehemently disagree," says John Loiacono, executive vice-president of Sun's software division. "Is Java at the end of life? We think Java is just kicking in." He points to the continued strength of Java as a mainstay of large, complex corporate applications, as well as the popularity of Java in cell phones, where 600 individual models run Java, and seven of the top 10 mobile games are based on the technology.

But his analysis points to the death of Java.

Again, in my experience, this is a gross mischaracterization of what is happening in the market. I like ActiveGrid and think it has a very bright future, but it's not a future that comes at the expense of Java. It's a future that complements Java, if anything. At least, that's what the BigCos are saying with their IT budgets.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 14, 2005 09:00 AM

December 14, 2005 | Comments: (0)

One more reason why Wikipedia is not like open source software

If you've been following Wikipedia's recent fiasco, here is one more that open source software is different. No open source project leader would ever tell someone not to use their software.

Wikipedia's Chief: Don't Quote Us
Do you think students and researchers should cite Wikipedia?
No, I don't think people should cite it, and I don't think people should cite Britannica, either -- the error rate there isn't very good. People shouldn't be citing encyclopedias in the first place. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias should be solid enough to give good, solid background information to inform your studies for a deeper level. And really, it's more reliable to read Wikipedia for background than to read random Web pages on the Internet.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 14, 2005 08:52 AM

December 13, 2005 | Comments: (0)

BusinessWeek: Next Generation Computing

BusinessWeek is running a special report on next generation computing designs and manufacturers. There is also a nice piece on Java's wane that talks alot about ActiveGrid, a company that I have been covering for almost a year. Not that I am suggesting that anyone reads this blog, but I mentioned several of the highlighted companies already, many of them months ago, including Azul Systems and Platform Computing. I had never heard of Isilon, but they seem interesting, as does Fabric7.

On a slightly different note, Java? It's So Nineties (the one that talks with AG) is largely on track in that Java programming (10x lines of code?) really is a dinosaur in relation to PHP, but PHP isn't capable of doing certain things that require certain types of heavy lifting. Personally, I think .NET blows, but there is still a place for Java when used in conjunction with PHP. What's interesting is to consider the idea that thanks to open source you can write directly into Linux. Definitely cool, but not realistic for most businesses. It's much easier to manage application code than it is to manage a hacked Linux distro that only your team understands.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 13, 2005 08:31 PM

December 13, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft pre-paid PC-to-phone service

When people ask me why I think that Linux can can beat Microsoft on servers, desktops and mobile devices, I point to the fact that the company is simply way too big and has its paws in too many pots.

Today they announced VoIP calls via MSN Messenger. Not a bad idea in terms of tapping the revenue from that market but reinforces the idea that MS is so focused on Google et al, that the opportunity for Linux to gain market share in infrastructure is very real.

Financial Times reports:

Microsoft joined the rush to offer Internet-based telephony services announcing a cut price pre-paid PC-to-phone service in conjunction with MCI. The service, which combines MCI's existing VoIP network service with Microsoft's software, is expected to launch in the first half of 2006 and will be called MCI Web Calling for Windows Live Call.

And don't forget the launch of Urge, an MTV/MS project.

MTV and Microsoft are teaming up for a new online music service, dubbed Urge, that will offer both songs and videos, directly competing with Apple's iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 13, 2005 05:38 PM

December 11, 2005 | Comments: (0)

My kingdom for a DBA

I'm in a desperate search to find a full-time SQL server DBA and I'm finding the pickings to extremely slim. Before you recoil in the horror of MS SQL, I don't hate the product, I just think it's dramatically too expensive. (See my Windows Idiot Tax post.) Had it been my choice, I would have gone LAMP plus Java, but that's the fun of being a techie-inheriting someone else's stuff regardless of what you like.

The search for a DBA made me realize that there are certain things in the IT world that simply can't be replaced by machines (yet) and can't be outsourced. For instance I outsource my servers to a managed hosting provider, but I still need a staff DBA to handle the database itself. We received many offers to offshore our needs, but it's not a task that can be handled a world away. You need to have someone within a 3 hour time zone difference to handle your production problems. And if you have customer data-especially in financial services you have to comply with many rules, including SAS 70 which require you to manage data and the people who see it in very specific ways.

Unlike database management, system management products out now or on the horizon give me hope that I can at least minimize dedicated operations staff through the use of technology. Not so with databases, which regardless of the quality of the products remain difficult to manage in production environments. (For clarification, I'm talking RDBMS, not embedded.)

So, what's a CIO to do? Unfortunately, I don't have an answer.

If an InfoWorld reader finds me a DBA we'll figure out some sort of cash prize or publicity for you or your company. If you don't want that Matt and I will treat you to breakfast at OSBC in February and regale you with tales of open source tomfoolery.

Full job posting on Craigslist. Alternatively you can email me openresource@infoworld.com

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 11, 2005 07:32 PM

December 09, 2005 | Comments: (0)

The changing face of community: Learning from Sugar

I just got off the phone with Clint Oram, one of the founders of SugarCRM and currently their VP of Products and Services. That's a somewhat non-descript way of saying what Clint really does: build and leverage SugarCRM's development community. In other words, Chief Community Officer (which, as I've argued elsewhere, is something that every technology company needs.)

Clint said something that set me back on my heels. Of the top 50 contributors to SugarCRM's development community, 95% of them are SugarCRM partners. Think about that.

Some will say, "Of course. That's because SugarCRM doesn't get open source, and can only attract commercial developers."

The less ignorant (yes, the statement above reflects deep-seated ignorance of where open source has been and where it's going - it has always been a commercial phenomenon in the sense of developers solving business problems through technology) will note that it means that the open source development community around SugarCRM is very well aligned with the company. The community wants to make money around SugarCRM and so is going to contribute plug-ins, add-ons, extensions, etc. that make it a robust, superior product.

This is precisely what Microsoft has built over the years: a "keystone" strategy that fosters a benevolent network around itself (Note: I'm not sure I buy Microsoft as a benevolent dictator. Dictator, maybe... :-). The difference in Sugar's case, however, is that the software is open and, hence, the value network is more open, as well.

Where does Clint look for community inspiration? The top 5 open source (web) CMS communities (e.g., PHP-Nukes, Mambo, etc.). These, like SugarCRM, have always been about helping solve business problems (in their case, web content management), and have a strong core of commercial developers surrounding them.

This will be fascinating to watch. Commercial open source projects creating a highly virtuous community constellation of development and revenues.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 9, 2005 03:55 PM

December 09, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Wikipedia and the meaning of Open Source

CNET.com's Wikipedia's open-source label conundrum has quotes from both Matt and myself discussing the differences between open source software and community collaboration in information development. We both said basically the same thing: open source software has someone in charge, wikipedia is more of a collborative battle royale.

Matt:

"It takes two years to get 'street cred' in Linux software development," said Matt Asay, the founder of the Open Source Business Conference, a series of business conferences on open-source technology. "The time frame might be different with different projects, but the system is basically the same: There are only small groups of submitters. And it all has to be filtered through captains or those who have final access to the code."

Dave:

"With open-source software, there tends to be an organization or person who's a leader of it and who's responsible for things going into the main line," said Dave Rosenberg, a principal analyst at the Open Source Development Lab, which promotes the adoption of Linux in the enterprise. "For instance, if you write a patch, Linus (Torvalds) approves it before it goes into Linux. It's the same with Apache."

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 9, 2005 10:35 AM

December 08, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Software piracy and the global economy

A software piracy curb would boost the global economy says a recent study. I wonder what the effect would be if piracy ended because all software went open source. Would services revenue make up for the loss of license fees? And would developing countries grow even faster?

Notable is the study's conclusion: Countries with high rates of piracy would capture the largest share of economic gains. China, for example, could create 2.6 million new jobs in information technology and Russia could triple its IT-sector jobs by achieving the 10-point piracy reduction, the report said.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 8, 2005 01:19 PM

December 07, 2005 | Comments: (0)

The free software code aristocracy

The will to code over at Free Software Magazine is an interesting article on what drives people to develop code and draws all sorts of Nietzsche theory into the discussion. There is a lot of psychology behind open source development and community building-as well as developer marketing. Go take a look and get back to me with your thoughts.

These hackers are often extremely productive and active in their coding activities, sometimes even having the title "benevolent dictator" bestowed upon them (Linus Torvalds being a notable example). They also feel free to proclaim the morals and ethics of the communities they nominally claim to represent and sometimes take extremely controversial positions and actions (e.g. the Torvalds bitkeeper debacle). Much research is underway in a number of disciplines to understand the free software and open-source movements but the empirical studies undertaken so far seem to point towards a large number of developers in these projects but with a much smaller core cadre of programmers who undertake the majority of the work. When it comes to discussing difficult issues, decisions and future directions, those that have a "reputational" weight that can help to carry a particular position (of course, notwithstanding the dangers of "forking" and the need therefore to keep some semblance of consensus-or perhaps, more pessimistically, hegemony).

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 7, 2005 09:39 PM

December 07, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Where are they now? Open source executive moves, Part III

[UPDATED: rPath gave me the skinny, and Bryce Roberts is no longer considered a reliable source of information. :-) ]

More movement recently in the open source business ranks...

Stormy Peters, former chair of HP's Open Source Review Board, has moved on (but not far geographically) to OpenLogic, as announced today. She's their new Director of Product Management. Stormy's a fantastic addition to the team there. But will she make the commute down from Fort Collins...? TBD.
Mark de Visser, former VP of Marketing for Red Hat, has joined Zend as its Chief Marketing Officer. Another great catch.
rPathrPath is getting a new VP of Marketing, Keith Boswell of TogetherSoft past. As one of our OSBC sessions addresses, finding good open source marketers is incredibly difficult. Looks like Zend and rPath are a few that have navigated that difficult chasm with excellent hires.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 7, 2005 02:04 PM

December 07, 2005 | Comments: (0)

It's official: Open source is righteous

Matt Harrison of Spike sent me this job posting from the LDS (Mormon) Church's website. I'm an active Mormon, and am glad to see that we are officially blessing the open source development process. :-)

I can see it now...

1 In the beginning God created the software.

2 And the software was without form, and void, and was proprietary, causing anguish through lock-in; and closed-source darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be open source light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the open source light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the closed-source darkness....

:-)

Here's the position from the LDS Church's job site. A good form to follow for anyone looking for an open source development lead?

Lead Software Developer (Open Source)-- 0500203 Description The Church is embarking on an effort to leverage the community of LDS developers willing to contribute their time and programming skills to further the mission of the Church. The Church intends to employ someone whose primary responsibility will be to lead this effort and organize the community. This person will develop and document the processes that will govern the interaction with the community and the integration of their contributions into systems maintained and managed by the Church. In addition, this person will be responsible for gathering and understanding user requirements, guiding the creation of an environment in which the community can contribute, communicating needs, organizing teams of programmers, providing design oversight and guidance for each project and coordinating the deployment and life-cycle management of these systems. This person will effectively manage multiple geographically dispersed teams of developers and will be responsible to ensure progress is being made and high-quality systems are being developed and managed.
Qualifications

Must be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Sorry about that]

The candidate will have 5 or more years of professional software development experience. He or she will have an in-depth knowledge of software development methodologies and processes as well as a solid understanding of good programming and design practices. Further, the ideal candidate will be able to apply these to open source projects.
The candidate will be able to demonstrate significant participation in multiple open source projects. Ideally, the candidate will not only have contributed code, but also taken a leadership role and managed the contributions of others.

The candidate should have strong analytical problem solving skills, with the ability to logically decompose problems and tasks into their elemental parts. He or she should have strong debugging and troubleshooting skills and be capable of identifying project risks and dependencies.

The candidate should have experience with Unix/Linux or Windows environments, distributed systems, database programming, network programming, and/or developing large software systems. He or she should have operational experience and be able to demonstrate an awareness of the operational impact of design decisions.

The candidate should have 5 or more years experience in a commercial software product development environment with demonstrated proficiency in Java (J2EE), Oracle, and web programming. He or she should have a sound understanding of database systems and data modeling. He or she should have experience with version control and change management.
The candidate should have experience in cross-platform development. He or she should have a strong knowledge of issues related to the internationalization of software systems.

The candidate must be a strong communicator with the ability to interact in a positive way with the community of volunteer developers. He or she should have well-developed oral and written skills. He or she must be able to keep management apprised on progress and potential problems that jeopardize deadlines and milestones.

The candidate must be self-managing and highly motivated. He or she must have the ability to work independently as well as in collaborative team environments. He or she must have the ability to remain positive in the face of challenges and problems and be able to think clearly and logically under pressure. He or she must be able to facilitate issue resolution across geographically distributed teams of developers.

The candidate must have enthusiasm for solving problems and should be passionate about leveraging the power of the LDS developer community to better fulfill the mission of the Church.

I know I'm biased, but that description sounds like a pretty good description for any open source lead developer, church-employed or not.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 7, 2005 07:38 AM

December 07, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Google: Too developer-ish for its own good?

Kudos to Business 2.0 for resolving (for me, anyway) the answer to one of the great questions of the universe:

Why is Google weak in nearly everything new it tries to do?

Yes, its search is manna from heaven. And yes, that's a big deal: I love Google's search, use it hourly, and shudder at the thought of pre-Google life on the Internet. (Of course, I can also remember buying the Internet Yellow Pages, when there just wasn't much out there to search, but....)

But Google stumbles on everything else it tries. Some swear by Gmail but, come on, it's a toy compared to Outlook, and it's not even very good vis-a-vis Zimbra/Oddpost (Yahoo!)/etc. (nor is it a consumer success - its user base is very small compared to its competition - it had a big initial uptake, and then has died out.) But think beyond Gmail and what do you have? Not much. (Btw, I put Maps and Print under the search rubric - they're cut from the same cloth and serve the same basic ends.)

Anyway, Business 2.0 captures (for me) the reason behind Google's stumblings (as well as open source's, for that matter):

Does Google have some kind of grand strategic plan for the new products it creates?

Virtually everything new seems to come from the 20 percent of their time engineers here are expected to spend on side projects. They certainly don't come out of the management team....[We ask ourselves:] Are the things that we're doing consistent with the mission of the company?...[W]e're in the business of making all the world’s information accessible and useful....

The test that I apply -- and we do this every day, 70/20/10 -- is to ask how a feature will extend the core, the adjacent, or the innovative stuff to fulfill our mission. That's the sort of drug that we all take, and it works really quite well.

In other words, Google succeeds where developer-driven engineering succeeds, and fails everywhere else. A bit like the open source development community...?

This isn't to diss developers. But just as it would be dumb to build a company with only marketing people so, too, would it be dumb to build a company with only (empowered) engineering types. You really do need both, whatever Google might think. I think the proof is in the product: every Google project besides search (and those things tightly coupled with it, like Maps, though arguably this isn't a commercial success) has failed to the extent and precisely because they put engineering over UI/consumer experience/etc. Turns out, consumers don't like that. So they don't use (Picasa, Gmail, Froogle, Talk, etc.

Given all the cheerleading Google gets for its trivial forays into everything beyond search/advertising, I'm glad to see that the company really does care about money. Spends 70% of its time making it. Imagine what would happen if it devoted all 100% to that end....Slightly evil, maybe, but comforting if you're a shareholder.

Posted by Matt Asay on December 7, 2005 06:02 AM

December 06, 2005 | Comments: (0)

RedHat offers certified open source stacks

I have been saying for over a year that SpikeSource and SourceLabs were going to have a hard time building a sustainable business on offering certified LAMP+ stacks. Now that RedHat is offering the same service, those two will either need to change their business models or sell out asap.

Red Hat initially plans to offer three stacks of open-source components -- a Web Application Stack, a Java Web Application Stack and an Enterprise Java Stack, according to a company release. All three will run on the company's Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system.

I can tell you without question that every RedHat shop I know would go with RedHat's stack. It's not even an issue. Even if the stack is less than what the other two offer RedHat's will most likely win this game. Let's hope the other guys have something up their sleeve.

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 6, 2005 11:33 AM

December 06, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Open source conference sponsorships

Matt Harrison (aka "The Real Matt," as my eldest daughter dubbed him - we were neighbors at Stanford) of SpikeSource is in India attending the FOSS.in conference. I'm not there, but Matt is reporting on the sessions on his blog.

On the third day, Andrew Cowle gave a keynote that asked some interesting questions:

Today started off with a bang with a keynote by Andrew Cowie. He did an excellent job speaking and wasn't afraid to ruffle feathers. One of the best parts was his proposal to change Linux to "Open Office/Mozilla/Apache/Perl/Gnu/Linux" (talking RMS's GNU/Linux fixation one step further). He also questioned the lack of sponsorship by Open Source companies such as RedHat and Novell. "Why do they not sponsor community conferences?" I wondered the same thing at OSCON.

I don't work at Novell anymore, and have never worked at Red Hat, but I think I can answer this latter question.

The answer is time/resources/attention. No one has the time to investigate the myriad of small, developer community-led open source conferences to see which are worthy of sponsorship (some are good, some are lame). No one has the resources to sponsor them all. And no one has the attention necessary to find them all.

This time/resources/attention problem applies to the broader open source world (and life in general), as well. Why do we focus in on very few Linux distributions? Because it's too cumbersome to support the myriad options out there. Why do so many IT administrators go with Microsoft/Windows? Because they appreciate the simplification Microsoft does for them. We trust brands to shortcut our decision-making, and (usually) rightly so.

Conferences are no different. Which is why I can happily say that there are very few open source events that sponsors and attendees should not miss. The rest? Well, they serve the "long tail" of the open source community very well, and will continue to do so, with or without Novell's and Red Hat's sponsorship. (Frankly, knowing as I do the sometimes poisonous effect sponsorship can have on an event, I think these community-led events are best left to the community without BigCo sponsorship.)

Posted by Matt Asay on December 6, 2005 08:07 AM

December 06, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Open source superiority: Handbrake

Dave is right. Not all open source is better than proprietary software. In fact, some is complete rubbish.

Handbrake, however, is not. I think it's one of the best programs I've ever used, and it's completely open source.

What does it do? Rip movies to your hard drive (highly compressed but with great picture quality). From the developer's website:

HandBrake is a GPL'd multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. HandBrake was originally available on the BeOS, but now has been ported over to MacOS X and to GNU/Linux. There is no Windows version of HandBrake.
Supported sources:
Any DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or real DVD (even encrypted)

PAL or NTSC

AC-3, LPCM or MPEG audio tracks
Outputs:
File format: MP4, AVI or OGM

Video: MPEG-4 or H.264 (1 or 2 passes or constant quantizer encoding)

Audio: AAC, MP3, Vorbis or AC-3 pass-through (supports encoding of several audio tracks)

Why do I use it? Because I like to have movies on my hard drive when I travel, as it removes the risk that I'll either lose or damage my DVDs on the road. It also means I can take more movies with me, and that I'll use less battery power while watching them. My kids love the fact that I have their entire DVD library on my hard drive.

If you have never used Handbrake, you should. It's mind-numbingly easy to use (which is why even I know how to use it), and works great. My most recent project? Ripping the BBC's excellent adaptation (Nearly 26 hours of it!) of Anthony Trollope's Palliser series. Merry Christmas.

Btw, Handbrake is free (as in beer and as in freedom). However, you can contribute to the developer - Eric Petit - through iTunes/DVDs. Click here for more information. I just sent him an iTunes gift certificate.