There is no Open Source Community

What is 'Open Cloud'?

2010-04-14T16:13:00.000-07:00

I've read a bit of angst about cloud lock-in, a lot of weed pulling in the form of interoperability standards for the cloud, and a manifesto or two about 'Open Cloud'. And in between, I've seen lots of interesting new tools for cloud computing, and lots of narratives about how the tools, combined with the formalization of use cases, pave the way for open clouds.

But what, exactly, does "Open Cloud" mean? And what role does open source play? Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, likes to say that open source and the cloud go together like peanut butter and chocolate. But does open source necessarily mean open cloud, and vice-versa?

Read the complete article on OStatic.

Schneier Makes Uncorroborated Claims About Google Hack

2010-01-25T15:02:00.001-08:00

Bruce Schneier has built a successful career as a computer security guru – one who gets it right most of the time and has a wonderful ability to translate security concerns to the layman. But sometimes an author's great reputation makes him less likely to criticize his own work, and the editorial staff of whatever media organization he happens to be writing for, in this case CNN, lazy.

So when Bruce Schneier asserts that Chinese hackers exploited a government-mandated backdoor to abscond with information on human rights activists, you kind of take it for granted that there is, in fact, a back door that they exploited. Except when there's not. Or there might be, but Schneier unfortunately offers few facts and cites no sources, and I haven't found any other report to corroborate his assertion.

Read the article:

in reference to:

"Schneier Makes Uncorroborated Claims About Google Hack"
- Schneier Makes Uncorroborated Claims About Google Hack (view on Google Sidewiki)

So VMware bought Zimbra: now what?

2010-01-18T15:29:00.001-08:00

Many of you no doubt already know about VMware's snagging of Zimbra away from the clutches of Yahoo! If I'm a Zimbra employee or executive, I might be breathing a sigh or relief, or I might be disappointed. But one thing's for sure – I'm definitely wondering what's next. Stand back, for I, John Mark Walker, have dared to gaze in the crystal ball. Zowie!

The one great unknown has to do with developer communities and the open source projects that VMware currently stewards. How will VMware build an open source ecosystem and create a community environment necessary for future success?

Click the link below to read the article:

http://ostatic.com/blog/so-vmware-bought-zimbra-now-what (view on Google Sidewiki)

Law Firm's IT Director Discovers Open Source

2010-01-11T15:57:00.001-08:00

If you've ever wondered how IT departments come across and adopt open source software, consider Lance Rae. Lance is an IT Director for a mid-sized law firm in New York City. We were chatting about his firm's use of open source, and we decided it was worth recording our Q & A for posterity - and posting on OStatic.

In this conversation, we discussed Nagios, the process of evaluating software, MonitoringForge, and how utilizing one open source tool can lead to a cascade effect, with others surely to follow.

Click below for the full article:

in reference to: Law Firm IT Director Discovers Open Source (view on Google Sidewiki)

Linux and Your iPhone / iPod Touch

2010-01-08T16:16:00.001-08:00

Not content with the roadblocks Apple had erected for users who wanted to connect to their digital devices (that they had paid for, natch), Apple decided to up the ante with its iPod Touch and iPhone series. This meant that a whole new round of reverse engineering was necessary just so that, and this bears repeating a thousand times, users could connect to a device that they paid for and actually access content they legally possess. Does that make sense to you? Me neither. Welcome to the 21st century.

First the good news - with recent developments in the libgpod library, as well as ifuse and iphone libraries, it's relatively simple to enable your Linux box for iPhone content syncing with gtkpod. The bad news is that things are still a bit rough around the edges, but I'll demonstrate the workarounds.

Click below to read the rest:

in reference to: Linux and Your iPhone / iPod Touch (view on Google Sidewiki)

Monty Responds

2009-12-21T11:29:00.000-08:00

Michael "Monty" Widenius wrote a nicely-worded response to my previous post "Oracle, Mysql and the GPL: don't take Monty's word for it", and I thought it deserves more visibility, so I'm quoting it below. For the record, I'm not an Oracle "fan" and am in agreement with Steven O'Grady, who wrote that Monty mostly just wants to get the band back together and is pursuing the shortest path to that destination. I can't fault him for that. What I objected to was what I felt was a conflict of interest that hadn't been seirously reported. That, and I really dislike how this brouhaha has resulted in unfair attacks on the GPL and dual-licensing in general.

Read his response in full.

Oracle, MySQL and the GPL: don't take Monty's word for it

2009-12-17T21:48:00.001-08:00

In the continuing soap opera of Oracle's battle against the European Commission for the right to acquire Sun, and with it, MySQL, we have had to rely on the bloggers and analysts to get it right, because the media surely has not. Before you read any further, stop right now and read Matthew Aslett's excellent summary of Oracle-MySQL through last week, Pamela Jones' excellent piece on the matter (and her later update), and Matt Asay's highlighting of Monty Widenius' conflict of interest in opposing the Sun acquisition.

One of the more damaging consequences of this case is the opportunistic piling on against the GPL license. Every BSD Tom, Dick and Harry with an axe to grind about Richard Stallman, the GPL, and GNU has stepped up to the plate, on cue, to deliver unsubstantiated rants against the GPL. I suggest that readers follow the money and look into the reasons why each party takes the stance it does. Oracle's bias and intent in all of this is pretty clear, but the opposition has not been so forthright.

Read more below:

in reference to: Oracle, MySQL and the GPL: don't take Monty's word for it (view on Google Sidewiki)

Have an iPod? Use Windows? Get Songbird

2009-12-15T15:16:00.000-08:00

Following up on my last article about using your iPod with Ubuntu, I decided to take a crack at what open source tools are available for those iPod owners who use Windows. As it turns out, there isn't much. While a download of Amarok for Windows is available, good luck getting it to recognize or sync with your iPod.

But what I did find was the latest version of Songbird, and that might just be all you need. Songbird is built on the Mozilla platform and has an extensive list of community-contributed addons. The last time I checked out Songbird, it was probably still 2007, and while interesting, it didn't strike me as particularly useful. That is, until I started using Windows. What seems rather mundane and just one of many options on Linux becomes a rock star on Windows.

Read the full article on ostatic.com

On CNET: The VA Linux Systems IPO Retrospective

2009-12-10T21:23:00.001-08:00

I wrote a guest post on Matt Asay's The Open Road blog, over at CNET. December 9, 2009 marked the 10 year anniversary of the VA Linux IPO, and I wrote a piece marking the anniversary and noting the significance, such that there is any, of the IPO and its aftermath.

Read the piece here.

Using Your iPod with (K)ubuntu 9.10

2009-12-07T08:42:00.001-08:00

After a rocky beginning, I've been able to do many neat things with my Black iPod Classic with 120 GB, but it hasn't been without its trials and tribulations. In this post, I'll write about the tools I use to sync music, add photos, and transcode videos to the correct format. Being a Kubuntu user, note that my bias is towards KDE tools. If you use others, please list them in the comments. As with many things on Linux, there's more than one way to do it. (Apologies to Larry Wall)

Those who know me well are familiar with my unhealthy dislike for all things Apple. Perhaps it's the way they attach DRM to everything they touch. Or maybe it's the cult of Steve. Or maybe it's because they make shiny, overpriced goods that they push to the gullible. Naturally, when my wife looked for something to give me on my birthday, she purchased an iPod. To her credit, she told me what she was thinking before the purchase, and I made a mad dash to Google to see about alternative, friendlier devices. In all honesty, I couldn't find a better device for the money, and so an iPod it was.

Read the whole post:

in reference to: Using Your iPod with (K)ubuntu 9.10 (view on Google Sidewiki)

SugarCRM Gets a True Open Source Visionary in Larry Augustin

2009-12-03T10:12:00.001-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised to read that Larry Augustin had been named SugarCRM's full-time CEO. After spending much of the last decade as an investor and board member extraordinaire for many (most?) companies grouped in the commercial open source category, it is good to see Larry back in the CEO saddle. This is a vindication of sorts for Larry and his vision of an open source future. After years of attempting to explain just how ubiquitous open source was going to be, he can now take the reigns of a company at a time when most customers and vendors take as a given that a substantial portion of any solution will consist of open source code. This was not always the case, especially when Larry was still CEO of VA Linux Systems, at the time the premier vendor for servers running Linux.

To give you an idea of what SugarCRM is getting, Larry is a guy who saw the value in building a center of gravity for open source developerment before most; a guy who counseled LinuxWorld Expo to look to the developer audience and eschew the bad advice they were receiving from their vendors. That they ignored him and subsequently failed is a testament to his vision.

Perhaps the best example of this vision was a move he made almost 10 years ago that many, including yours truly, openly questioned at the time: the acquisition of Andover.net by VA Linux Systems. Some of you may remember that Andover.net was the media company that had purchased Slashdot.org and Freshmeat.net. VA was then still gleaming with post-IPO sparkles, which had taken place just two months prior to the Andover acquisition.

(follow the link below to see full post.)

in reference to: SugarCRM Gets a True Open Source Visionary in Larry Augustin (view on Google Sidewiki)

Crazy Google Kids at it Again with Chrome OS

2009-11-19T12:43:00.001-08:00

Google kicked off the launch of its Chromium OS project today with a presentation on Chrome OS. The first thing you'll notice is that the name of Google's consumer product will be Chrome OS, while the open source project is named Chromium OS. My guess: Google will bless the usage of the Chrome OS name by granting trademark rights to those who comply with Google's standards. Google didn't say that, but that's what I would do.

The next thing I noticed is that Chrome OS will be completely "cloud-based". As in, no local data. As in, all web apps all the time. As in, it's only useful to the extent that there's an internet connection. This will likely prove to be a Google Rohrschach test. Those already predisposed to disliking anything Google does will find this horrifying. Those who think Google is the bee's knees will conclude that it's not completely evil and, indeed, is the next logical evolution of desktops-in-the-cloud technology.

in reference to: Crazy Google Kids at it Again with Chrome OS (view on Google Sidewiki)

10 Years of SourceForge.net

2009-11-18T20:28:00.001-08:00

It's often difficult to notice when you're in the midst of making history. In the summer and fall of 1999, I spent some time working next door to four noisy, Mountain Dew-swilling misfits working on a renegade project within VA Linux Systems. Little did I know that their efforts would become known as the world's largest open source development site.

I refer, of course, to SourceForge.net, which launched on November 17, 1999. Most people think of SourceForge.net these days as another huge web site with lots of ads, but very few understand its humble beginnings or how challenging it was to even launch the darn thing without the powers-that-be at VA killing it off in a fit of well-intentioned hari kiri. The history and beginnings of SourceForge.net can teach executives and managers today the value of trying crazy things that might (and probably will) fail; of letting your young guns run wild with imagination; and not squashing innovation within your company. Today is about SourceForge.net, the site that was before its time and how it came to be.

In reference to: 10 Years of SourceForge.net (view on Google Sidewiki)

OStatic: Is the Symbian Foundation DOA?

2009-11-13T12:26:00.001-08:00

When Nokia announced that it was launching the Symbian Foundation to great fanfare, it had within its grasp that rarest of opportunities to move swiftly and become the dominant open source mobile platform. Alas, just one and a half years later, they have seemingly ceded that position to Android. Instead of recognizing the threat from Android and making strategic changes to counter, they instead criticized Google's closed-door development of Android before releasing a line of code themselves. When criticizing competitors, it helps to have your own house in order first.

in reference to: Is the Symbian Foundation DOA? (view on Google Sidewiki)

OStatic: Thoughts on the Koala

2009-11-09T09:52:00.001-08:00

It's been a few days since Ubuntu 9.10, aka the Karmic Koala, was unleashed on the world. I wanted to post a general review after having used the special K since it went RC in late September and early October. In general, I've been very impressed, especially in comparison to another, recently released, operating system. This mini review will focus on using Ubuntu as a desktop system. When I drop it onto my Linode server, I'll provide commentary on server usage as well.

Read the full article on OStatic.com

in reference to: Thoughts on the Koala (view on Google Sidewiki)

OStatic: Cable Modem Hacker Indicted on Federal Charges

2009-11-05T14:58:00.000-08:00

In a case reminiscent of the DVD hacking cases from the early 2000's, Oregon cable modem hacker and author of "Hacking the Cable Modem" has been charged with conspiracy and aiding and abetting wire fraud. This is another sad commentary on a criminal justice system that prosecutes the toolmaker without noting the legitimate uses of hardware hacking and modding.

The art of taking an existing product and modifying it in ways never intended by the original manufacturer has been a core tenet of the open source and free culture movements from the beginning. It is long past time for more sanity when considering these issues and crafting public policy.

Read the rest at OStatic.com

OStatic: Open Source is More Than a License

2009-11-05T14:39:00.001-08:00

Has the terminology finally evolved in the debate over "who's open source?" It would seem so. After years of haggling over the essence of open source, free software or other monikers, Simon Phipps gets right to the point in "A Remarkable Reversal" - his critique of Richard Stallman's joint letter to the EC regarding Oracle and MySQL.

For the first time, there seems to be a growing concensus that an OSI-compliant license alone is not enough to define one's position on the openness spectrum.

in reference to: Open Source: More than a License (view on Google Sidewiki)

On OStatic: Subversion Joins the ASF

2009-11-05T09:33:00.001-08:00

The Subversion corporation and project is joining the Apache Software Foundation. To mark the announcement, representatives from the Apache Software Foundation, the Subversion Project and CollabNet held a joint press conference at the downtown Oakland Marriott in a cozy, if poorly ventilated, hotel conference room. Read on for more details, as well as news about Git repositories and comparing the ASF to the new Codeplex Foundation.

Read the full article at OStatic.com

OStatic: Windows (L)users Are People, Too

2009-10-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

In the world of open source, there's a narrative that has predominated since the time that the term open source was coined - that being the need for the underlying platform to be open source. We can tolerate proprietary software on an open platform, such as Linux, much more than we tolerate free software on a closed platform, like Windows.

For all of open source's self-professed pragmatism, there is a noticeable gap between how Linux users are supported and how Windows users are supported. If we are truly as pragmatic as we like to think, perhaps the time has come to close that gap.

Link to full post on OStatic.com

From OStatic: The Great Software Freedom Debate...

2009-10-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

It seems that we can never quite get away from our industry's version of "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin." Namely, how open source are you? Or, as it is usually expressed: I'm more open source than you. I'm 'the real' open source, whereas you're just badgeware/runtware/freeware/fauxpen source. Sun's Simon Phipps has re-opened this debate by proposing a software freedom scorecard that the OSI can use to gauge the openness of open source participants.

For the most part, I agree with Simon's proposal, with some reservations, and I'll explain why.

Read the full post at OStatic.com

From OStatic: Linux Marketing - or lack thereof

2009-10-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

Reading Sam Dean's piece on the absence of linux marketing brought back memories, many of them painful, of my involvement in Linux International, back in the day. For you kids today who only know your Linux Foundation, Linux International (LI) was founded by Jon 'maddog' Hall as a vendor-driven organization to, among other things, protect the Linux trademark. One of LI's initiatives that began in early 2000 was a marketing plan to be jointly funded by the vendors. You can read my call to action from that time begging and pleading for the members of LI to band together to do *something*.

Then, as now, the problem was the cacaphony of noise from various vendors, each with their own spin on Linux. Was it a desktop thing as Eazel and Ximian proclaimed at the time? Was it an enterprise dark horse as backed by IBM? Was it a really great web server, as VA Linux and Red Hat were promoting? All of the above? While multiple Linux markets have continued to grow since then, there does not appear to be a solution to the general problem.

Read the rest at OStatic.com

From OStatic: More on Open Core

2009-10-06T16:20:00.000-07:00

Many of the responses to my previous blog post "Open Core or Open Snore?" were in agreement, and some were not. As is often the case, the more interesting ones expressed disagreement. Some took issue with my post by pointing out open core companies that might be termed success stories: SugarCRM, Alfresco, Mindtouch. But then, I never wrote that open core cannot be successful, but rather that any success will be limited by nature of the model. Open core effectively places a cap on community development turning open source efforts into a viral marketing play, when it can be so much more.

One critique that did resonate was how much open source dev models actually impacted the bottom line. A company's success is impacted by a myriad of factors, including open source strategy and tactics.Seeing as how some companies will succeed with practically no open source development at all, it's only natural to concede that an open core approach will succed in some markets. However, if I were creating an open source community strategy in a crowded, competitive market, I sure wouldn't want to place an artificial handicap on my community development practices. I'll use 2 case studies to illustrate my point: Red Hat / Fedora and CollabNet / Subversion

Read the full article

From OStatic: Open Core or Open Snore?

2009-10-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

If you had asked me in 1999 if we would still be having discussions on the viability of Open Source business models in 2009, I would have looked at you incredulously. It seems like we're taking an awfully long time to learn the lessons of what works and what doesn't. Take, for example, the recent discussions around Open Core (see Andrew Lampitt's original post). I have to concur with Tarus Balog at OpenNMS when he says it's fauxpen source.

What we should be asking ourselves is not what the VC's want nor what makes us ideologically pure, but rather 'what's best for our respective communities?' If communities are indeed the lifeblood of Open Source projects, doesn't it make sound business sense to maximize community success?

See full post on OStatic.com

From OStatic: Can You Boycott a Boycott?

2009-09-30T10:39:00.000-07:00

From the things-that-should-never-happen-but-you-knew-they-would-eventually department, comes more flamage in the Mono advocates vs. anti-Mono advocates vs. the now anti-anti-Mono advocates. I never like it when columnists or reporters treat all bad ideas equally, so I'll just come out and say it - the anti-Mono crowd is comprised of a bunch of corn-fed idiots with more than a passing resemblance to the recent tea bagger protesters. However, I'm not sure that the correct response to that is to ratchet up the flame wars.

- Read the rest at OStatic.com

Blogging at OStatic

2009-09-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

I'm pleased to have started blogging on OStatic.com - I'll link those stories here, so you can see them either way. Here's my initial blog post, "Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself..."

The Zen of Community

2009-06-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

As a follow up to my "inspiration vs. perspiration" post, I've written an article at linux.com entitled "The Zen of Community."

The point of the article is that the key to building a vibrant community is not focusing on the end product, but rather a few qualitative, squishy things, such as emotional attachment and mutually beneficial relationships. An inspired community is a by-product of that.

Read the full article.

Inspiration vs. Perspiration

2009-03-31T08:52:00.000-07:00

(this was initially posted on the blog On CollabNet)

I recently had the pleasure of attending the Evans Data Developer Relations Conference in San Jose, and it gave me the opportunity to listen to 2 very contrasting approaches to what amounted to the same thing: university outreach. On one side was Jean Elliott, discussing how Sun was going to approach (reach? eclipse? fall just short of?) 900,000 university program members by this summer. In that session, she discussed the various ways Sun had put themselves in that position - it was a tour de force of grassroots outreach featuring open source communities that target life-long academics and students. On the other side was Bruce Carney from Nokia, who delved into a myriad of metrics and measurables in an attempt to define success and track how far along they were towards reaching it. During this session, an inch-thick booklet of tiny font statistics was passed around the room.

It was grassroots outreach vs. statistical analysis. Really, it was inspiration vs. perspiration. Of course, this is not to say that Sun doesn't expend significant energy planning these programs and measuring their success, or that Nokia doesn't engage at a grassroots level, but it was clear which parts each company emphasized, and I started to think about the role of inspiration in online communities.

It comes down to the age-old question, "Why does anyone participate in your community?" There's nothing to force someone to come to any community or make them stick around. Ultimately, someone sticks around because it's in their own self-interest to do so, but there's something "squishy" about how community members self-select, and I can't honestly say that it's 100% about the product or technology that forms the basis of the community. In fact, I'm pretty sure that in addition to a community's core offering, there's an element of culture or "soft" product, if you will. If you run a community and want to engage with your community, how much have you invested in your soft product?

This post introduces the series, which I'll continue for a few days. Tomorrow, I'll continue with a post about "zen and the art of community development" - it's about the engagement, not the direct ROI. It's about the conversation, not simply providing an answer.

Telecom Overhaul, Part 2 - Now with Sarah Lacy

2008-12-18T10:58:00.000-08:00

Listening to this morning's Forum program on KQED (highly recommended, by the way) the subject was about what constitutes "infrastructure" in the 21st century and how an Obama presidency would align his infrastructure priorities. There was discussion of the traditional pieces of infrastructure, ie. roads and bridges, and then there was plenty of discussion on 21st century infrastructure, ie. telecom. The main question is, how much in the way of financial resources to we devote to this newfangled telecom stuff? As I've argued previously, a lot.

At this time, I will attempt to channel Nick Carr:

the "big switch" to universal electricity brought about new business models that weren't possible previously
a similar phenomenon would accompany a shift to ubiquitous, "always-on" broadband that penetrated every sector of the country.

And switching back to my usual themes:

the original "big switch" required a metric crap load of government investment and resources
so would the 21st century equivalent
lots of companies would form around these new initiatives and grow, generating wealth for a new middle class

Look, it's not complicated - if we want a 21st century economy that allows us to maintain our global technology edge, we need this. Cheap, plentiful broadband in the form of end-to-end fiber optic cable as well as new wimax technologies would allow companies to form as cloud services, as well as companies in traditional markets looking to gain an edge by making use of the new cloud services and service providers. It's a win-win for everyone.

As a footnote, I'll point out that Sarah Lacy was most disappointing when interviewed on Forum. She apparently reduced these initiatives down to working in coffee shops and giving poor kids access to broadband. Not that I mind either of these, of course, but she misses the larger point - this sort of large-scale investment by the federal government would inject a great deal of energy into our present and future economic growth. Our economy right now absolutely relies on a strong IT component, and it only makes sense that future economic growth hinges on our IT investment.

Boo, Sarah - it's the economy, stupid.

Building Vibrant Open Source Communities

2008-12-15T12:06:00.001-08:00

This is a presentation I gave in March with Fabrizio from Funambol... with a few changes to reflect new observations since then :)

Building Vibrant Open Source Communities

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: opensource community)

It's the Infrastructure, Stupid

2008-11-17T00:52:00.000-08:00

(or how I learned to stop worrying and love socialism)

As we prepare for the beginning of a new presidency and an ascendant Democratic party, my thoughts have turned recently to governance and what lessons we can draw from the Open Source phenomenon (I refuse to call it a movement).

Infrastructure wants to be free

In the world of open source software, it became quite clear that matters of computing infrastructure, particularly operating systems, were easy pickings for open source processes. The reason for this is that no one wants to pay a premium for items that are taken for granted as the cost of doing business. And with the success of multiple open source projects, you no longer have to pay a premium for software that does the basics. The result is that there were plenty of reasons for a critical mass of people to get involved in the creation of these infrastructure items, ie. Linux, Apache, MySQL, et al. Because of this, you no longer find software companies looking to create proprietary versions of the above and charge a premium.

The success of the open source projects makes that business model obsolete. Instead, what the smarter companies have done is use these infrastructure components as the basis for the pieces that they build – which they can then charge a premium for. As a result, innovation happens because these companies are no longer saddled with the cost of creating infrastructure and can, instead, focus on the innovative pieces they wish to create. By bringing down the cost of innovation, it means that are free to do more of it and advance their field more than they would have otherwise. Whether the company in question is conducting scientific research, running a health care institution, writing software, or providing computing services for clients, all of these benefit from the mass availability of cheap, reliable open source infrastructure. Open source software is the great enabler of innovation in many fields, including, but not limited to, software. This is a direct result of the socialization of software costs.

While open source software is largely free of charge, there is a cost of paying engineers to write it. The big dirty secret about open source software is that many engineers who spend time writing and managing open source projects are paid to do so, whether they work for an independent software vendor, an IT department within a large company, a government agency, a scientific organization, or a non-profit. These institutions do this because of the economic benefits of participating – by distributing the costs around a large block of seemingly unrelated organizations, they all benefit by being able to use freely available open source software, relying on its low cost in order to run their operations more effeciently and economically. The myth of open source is that it's all written by kids in a basement or college students with nothing better to do with their time. Nothing could be further from the truth. There is a real economic benefit to participating in open source projects, and the smarter organizations view it as necessary overhead, because it sure beats the alternative of paying premium prices.

Example 1: Healthcare

When applying the lessons from open source infrastructure to the inner workings of government, one thing becomes clear – our infrastructure costs are way too high. One obvious example is health care. Our businesses are saddled with the rising cost of healthcare, which puts a damper on their ability to compete in a global marketplace. The reason businesses have to face this challenge is that, at least historically, Americans have resisted the idea of socialized medicine, refusing to pay the taxes required for such a system. The open source approach would be for the costs of medical care to be socialized and available to everyone at a nominal cost. The societal and economic benefits of such a system are readily apparent, for not only would more people be able to afford health care, but our businesses would be free to spend their dollars formerly reserved for employee health care on innovation. It would seem, then, that the traditional argument against socialism, that of preventing innovation, is turned on its head. Instead of socialized health care being an obstacle to innovation, it is a catalyst for more innovation.

Example 2: Telecommunications

Now let's consider the issue of our telecommunications providers and why fundamental reform is necessary to repair the economy. I will use as an example our subsidies for roads and highways. We don't expect to pay tolls for most of our roads. We expect our roads to be available, relatively free of problems, and a cheap way to get from point A to point B. The benefits of this are obvious – by subsidizing our highway system, the cost of transporting goods is significantly reduced, thereby freeing up capital that would otherwise be spent building roads and bridges. A similar tactic would yield similar results with telecommunications.

The state of our national telecom infrastructure is hardly becoming of an industrialized country, particularly the world's largest economy. By not pushing our telecom capabilities to at least match the levels of Korea, Japan, and several other industrialized nations, we are missing many opportunities to bolster our struggling economy and reestablish ourselves as a global technology leader. I call this, the “infrastructure gap.” Imagine a federal program to lead a nationwide effort to construct fiber optic cable plus all the necessary infrastructure pieces to reach every municipality, in the same way that electricity grids were constructed. What would that do to the price of bandwidth? Now consider how much our modern economy relies on the fast, efficient transfer of bits around the globe – let's face it, as a culture we're completely dependent on bits and bytes delivered via telecommunications infrastructure.

Socializing the cost of telecom infrastructure will have 2 clear benefits: there will be greater bandwidth available in places where it currently doesn't exist or is prohibitively expensive. Furthermore, with the drastically reduced cost of telecommunications services, businesses will have more capital available to invest. Given the recent developments around cloud computing, imagine the possibilities with cheaper, ubiquitous bandwidth. This would fuel a boom of more services delivered via the cloud in ways that aren't possible now, with 2 clear beneficiaries: entrepreneurs rushing to provide services via the cloud as well as entrepreneurs who build new business that take advantage of those cloud services. The latter would be able to make money off of services that cannot currently be efficiently automated.

With the Obama administration and the continued global economic crisis, there has been talk of a *new* new deal. Drawing from what we know about the proliferation of open source software, the new new deal should focus on programs to eliminate the infrastructure gap. Let's start with telecommunications - establish a nationwide effort to push our telecom infrastructure into the 21^st century. Doing so will lead to a boom in new startups taking advantage of this technology and showing the way forward to future economic success.

Reiser Case Proves Geeks No Different from Others

2008-07-08T10:53:00.000-07:00

I, and many others, have long considered geeks to be quite different from the general populace. One of the ways this manifests itself, or so I thought, was in our ability to look at a situation objectively and divorce ourselves from pesky human emotions. I call this "geek exceptionalism" - that some things which apply to others simply don't apply to us. We laughed at many a convicted felon's family and friends who defended said convict's innocence because, in our view, they simply weren't able to look at the situation from a distance. We, or at least *I*, knew that I wouldn't make that same mistake.

Unfortunately, the Reiser case has brought to the fore the fact that, at least in some ways, we're really just like all the other numbskull humans on the planet, subject to the same emotions and biased points-of-view as everyone else. It's painful to conclude that we're really not all that exceptional, but as I recall those of us who defended Reiser and accused the jury of convicting someone without the necessary evidence, my main takeaway is that we really cannot place a higher value on our judgment over anyone else's. Speaking only for myself, I didn't think it was possible for someone as nerdy as Hans to harm anyone. The few times I met Hans, "prone to physical violence" was not a characteristic that came to mind.

With the apparent location and retrieval of Nina Reiser's remains, mine and many others fears have been confirmed: Nina was in fact murdered, and it was at the hands of Hans. So whenever we need to make a judgment about something to which we have a personal attachment, we would do well to take into account the opinions of those who can truly provide an independent, unbiased point-of-view... even if they're not a geek :)

Today, my thoughts go out to Nina's children and other family members. May they find health and happiness in the future.

Lug Radio Live; New BytesFree.org Position Paper

2008-04-07T01:06:00.000-07:00

I’m happy to announce that BytesFree.org will be represented at its first event, Lug Radio Live, which will be held at the Metreon in San Francisco on April 12th and 13th. Several of us have been working on the challenge of gettings things going organizationally, and appearing at an honest-to-goodness event looks to be a tangibly rewarding experience.

We will have a table at the expo. Also, Ilan and I will be speaking on Sunday at 3pm.

If you’d like to come by and say hello, or if you’re interested in helping out, please do let us know.

In getting ready for Lug Radio Live, we've had to refresh the site material to reflect some of the changes we've made organizationally, including a new mission statement:

Note: BytesFree.org is a group of concerned citizens currently in the process of incorporating as a non-profit in the state of California.

Nick Carr: Bebo and Digital Sharecroppers

2008-03-22T12:50:00.001-07:00

This was an interesting article by Nick Carr that popped up in Google Reader today - it's about the Bebo acquisition by AOL and how the founders have been rewarded handsomely, to the tune of $800 million, with diddly squat going to the artists who contributed site content. From the article:

As for the millions of members who have happily served as sharecroppers on the Birches' plantation, they'll get the satisfaction of knowing that all the labor they donated to their "community" did indeed create something of tangible value. No doubt they're thrilled that the little Bebo plantation, which they've tended so lovingly, is now part of the giant AOL plantation, itself part of the Time-Warner conglomerate.

The article goes on to reference a great NY Times op-ed by Billy Bragg. It's all must-read stuff.

In the Open Source world, we deal with this all the time. People often ask how we can make money off the backs of free labor, to which I always answer: we don't. But the question lingers, and for good reason. Being a community-centric company is a double-edged sword. After all, if you've successful in convincing a fair number of community members to buy into your vision, what, if anything, is your responsibility to them? Ultimately, my opinion rests on the assumption that Bebo.com is a rather different example from most Open Source community sites, because in those cases, the company gives the community items of great value, whether it's the software, better documentation, or simply the investment into care and feeding of the community.

This is in stark contrast to a community like Bebo's, where the vast majority of content comes from the users. Sure, web sites like my employer's are geared towards providing conduits for community contributions and feedback, but it's always clear in that case that the owner of the web site is the primary source of an overwhelming amount of the content. In Bebo's case, without user-generated content, there wouldn't be anything of value at all.

Well, at least I see a difference. What about you? What do open source companies owe their communities? What are their responsibilities? Put it in the comments below.

Blogging Hyperic: Whither Initiative?

2008-03-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

I just posted this on the Hyperic.com blog:

There has been significant conversation around the OSI of late, spurred by Bruce Perens campaign to become a board member. Having had a long history myself in Free and Open Source Software, the recent activity bears reflection and begs the question “What is the purpose of the Open Source Initiative?” Let’s take a look at the definition of Initiative (noun):

an introductory act or step; leading action: to take the initiative in making friends.
readiness and ability in initiating action; enterprise: to lack initiative.

When I think of the OSI, I think of an organization that started 10 years ago to help define a market around Open Source. That market is now booming, so what is their current “Initiative”? The protection of the term “Open Source”? This is contradictory in that to protect it, they chose echo-chamber myopia as their methodology.

Read the entire post here.

Scientology and Apple?

2008-03-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

I take back every bad thing I ever said about Dan Lyons. As reported in Michael Cote's tweet from Lyons' EclipseCon keynote:

"If the church of scientology chose to go into the electronics industry, you know, they'd be Apple."

Frankly, I didn't know he had it in him. And then Lyons followed that up with this sidebar on a slide:

"Apple PR is like a Russian prison guard with a rifle on the ramparts."

Wow, I'm sad to have missed it! I never thought I'd be a kindred spirit with the Fake Steve.

Edit: Ok, that's a tad hyperbolic. Lyons has said some monumentally stupid things in the past. But I'm with him this time.

Getting Ready for OSBC - March 25 - 26

2008-03-18T08:14:00.001-07:00

I was quite startled to learn yesterday that next week is OSBC. Apparently, I'm the only person crazy enough to go up against Mark Shuttleworth, John Roberts and Marten Mickos. I am moderating a panel titled The Community Imperative: Building and Leveraging Community into IT at 10:30am on Tuesday, March 25. For the remainder of this week, I'll report on who's on the panel, what they've been doing in the world of Open Source, and why you should care.

I'm really looking forward to this, as I've always been a fan of OSBC. It will be fun. If you're going to OSBC and have already seen Mickos, Roberts and Shuttleworth speak multiple times, then this is the panel for you!

Good Moves by the OSI

2008-03-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

I was heartened to read this writeup on CAOS and the canonical blog post by Simon Phipps. I have thought for some time that the way the OSI (and by extension, the OSD) is set up does not meet the needs of the current software landscape. If you look at Creative Commons, they explicitly recognize different use cases and different licensing terms based on use case. I never understood why the OSI insisted on a one-size-fits-all strategy that didn't recognize the different goals of some "open" technologies that did not meet the criteria of the OSD. While they always claimed to be business-friendly and not about ideology, their inflexibility seemed to indicate otherwise and resulted in some not-so-friendly encounters with companies who published software under

Now it seems that Simon Phipps may be attempting to move the organization into a more nuanced, flexible direction. I can only applaud this line of thinking as it's long overdue. He suggests renaming the OSD to "Open Source Copyright Definition" and creating the entirely new "Open Source Patent Definition" and "Open Source Trademark Definition." This is a welcome change. It's not exactly the Creative Commons model, but I look at it as the first step to recognizing that not all open definitions are the same - and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Dear Dan Lyons: Open Source was Never 'Counter Culture'

2008-03-17T15:57:00.001-07:00

Day 10,274 of misunderstood musings on Open Source. Dan Lyons talks about Open Source being in "an identity crisis" likening it to some punk band from the 70's that's now playing stadiums and losing touch with its original ethos. This is wrong on many, many levels.

First off, Open Source was never counter culture. This has been a difficult lesson for many to learn, due to the casual conflation of Open Source with Free Software and the FSF. One could argue that there is a significant set of Open Source developers and users who believe very strongly in things like information rights, code reciprocity, and the like (I count myself in this group). But the real impetus behind the Open Source ecosystem has been decades-old economic trends which I outlined in this article.

However, I do have to give Dan Lyons credit for this bit when discussing Sun's acquisition of MySQL:

"It's a great publicity stunt, but how will giving away products Sun already owns, and spending $1 billion to acquire another free product, save Sun? Pixie dust would have to be at work here. It reminds me of a sketch from South Park where gnomes steal underpants as part of a three-phase business plan..."

For whatever reason, Sun has spent a great deal of time commoditizing both hardware and software. One wonders if they're actually trying to back themselves into the services corner, because they seem to be headed in that direction.

So score one for the Fake Steve.

The GPL as IP Protection Tool

2008-03-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

Via 451 CAOS Theory, just learned that the Software Freedom Law Center settled its GPL infringement suit with Verizon. I’ll leave the details of the case as an exercise for the reader, but it basically involves a company not adhering to the terms of the GPL.

As Jay Lyman of The 451 Group notes, this result is hardly a surprise:

…the GPL is not some exotic, first-of-its kind license, document or legal doctrine. Actually, it is based largely on U.S. copyright law, particularly in the case of GPLv2, which is the BusyBox license. It amazes me that some people think the GPL will be refuted, defeated or ‘thrown out of court.’ That would mean ‘throwing out’ U.S. copyright law, and I don’t see that happening, ever.

It amazes me how much misunderstanding of the GPL still exists. No, the GPL does not cede your intellectual property to the public domain - as a matter of fact, it does a pretty good job of protecting it. In fact, the GPL is a pretty good compromise between granting rights to all parties and protecting IP. This case is another demonstration of that. Verizon knew they couldn’t win, so they settled. Makes sense to me.

There’s a reason we chose the GPL v2 when releasing Hyperic HQ under an Open Source license. As Eben Moglen himself has been known to say, It’s Good Not To Be Your Competitor’s Free Lunch.

Dirk Riehle: Total Growth of Open Source

2008-03-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

Via Dana Blankenhorn's blog, I came across an excellent article, "The Total Growth of Open Source" from Amit Deshpande and Dirk Riehle from SAP Research. In it, they look at over 5,000 active and popular Open Source projects and concluded

"...that the total amount of source code as well as the total number of open source projects is growing at an exponential rate. Previous research showed linear and quadratic growth in lines of source code of individual open source projects. Our work shows that open source is expanding into new domains and applications at an exponential rate."

It's one thing to read that. It's quite another to actually see it in action (see graph above tracking lines of source code over time).

This is pretty heady stuff. One of my assumptions has been that Open Source, being a child of the internet, directly benefited from the sheer numbers of people who understood more about software development. My hypothesis was that, as more knowledge was distributed online, the growth in Open Source development would continue. The evidence would seem to corroborate that assumption.

Also interesting was the methodology of the study. As online tools grow ever deeper, the data at Riehle's disposal is richer than ever. In fact, they pulled their data from Ohloh.net, using their data pulls from source code repositories to measure the additions and subtractions for Open Source projects. They used a measure of the number of incoming links to project home pages to determine the top projects to measure, and then tracked their growth over time.

One thing I would have liked to see and didn't - at least, not that I can tell - is how much of the growth was "organic" and how much was due to more projects springing up. It's great to know the total number of lines of code and the total number of projects. What we don't know is which of these projects are chiefly responsible for the growth, or what the average "health" rating is for each project. Even better still would be to divy up the projects into general categories based on growth in lines of code: would that give an accurate representation of a project's overall "health"?

Back in 2001, when it seemed that our world was imploding, I recall some folks wondering aloud whether Open Source contributions would stop. Judging from this study, at least, it seems pretty clear that the .com implosion had little impact on Open Source growth, if any at all.

Yahoo's Zawodny: We're Open, Too!

2008-03-16T23:43:00.001-07:00

I've met Jeremy Zawodny, although I don't know him. From what I have gathered, he and a bunch of people at Yahoo are doing some great work on the Open Source side of the house. In a blog post, Jeremy talks about how Yahoo! has "been on the openness road for a long, long time." The focus of his post was in response to an absurd Mary Jo Foley post about Yahoo's openness being a poison pill for MSFT. Matt Asay also picked up on this and gives Yahoo well-deserved kudos for their efforts. But I couldn't help but notice this little nugget from Jeremy:

Some times it hasn't been as visible as others, but believe me, the trend is quite clear when you look at all the data.

Er, not as visible as what others? Well, we know the answer to that one. You would think that with this admission that Yahoo's efforts lack the same visibility as Google, that the higher-ups might, you know, take notice and learn from the success of others. I know Jeremy has promised more openness, and I look forward to it, but something tells me that they lack Google's knack for maximizing the exposure of their Open Source contributions. It's one thing to make real Open Source contributions and give your community value. It's quite another to make those contributions *and* get real value in return. When it comes to reaping benefits from Open Source efforts, no one comes close to Google.

But Yahoo's not the only one who fails to understand this. I continue to be amazed at those companies who insist on repeating mistakes from the past and refuse to learn from successes and failures. Google has already shown how a major technology company can use Open Source to its advantage. "Tier 1" tech companies should be lambasted by shareholders for not following a winning example.

Toward a $0 Cost Future?

2008-03-10T23:49:00.000-07:00

By now, you've no doubt heard of Chris Anderson, Wired's Editor, and his recent article, Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business. If you haven't, you should read it - it's an interesting compendium of how technology is changing the value of things. However, as was the case with 'The Long Tail', it's a bit light on analysis and a bit heavy on broad proclamations that don't stand up to further critique. However, all told, reading the article in a commercial open source context can be rather revealing.

I'll summarize some of the article's tasty bits: what Chris calls "cross-product subsidies" are becoming more and more prevalent as technology allows companies greater flexibility than ever to create free complements to what they actually sell. This creation of more and more free complements means there are more and more free things to consume, and this will continue. Thus, everything will be free! Or not... This is a nice, elegant idea, but the article tends to deviate from this elegant description into a hodgepodge of pseudo-economics and other seemingly random bits of information that may or may not prove the author's point.

But before I get into that, a word about how the media is treating this article. You would think, based on the fawning reports in the mainstream press, that Anderson had somehow written some groundbreaking thesis on economics. He hasn't. And in fact, he's far from the first to describe this in the popular media. As I was reminded by a friend earlier today, Joel Spolsky of Joel on Software fame wrote a brilliant, concise article on the same subject way back in 2002, a whole 6 years ago. Considering that the half-life of news in the Internet era is measured in days, if not hours, I suppose our hardworking media members can be forgiven for not realizing they were scooped by about a century in Internet years. Once upon a time, it was the job of the media to suss out fact from fiction and empirical facts from parlor tricks. To, you know, critically analyze something.

As someone who also likes to dabble in economics and technology, Anderson's vision of the free(r) future is tantalizing. However, the primary failing of his article is the lack of any explanation of *why* this is happening. He starts with the premise that technology gets cheaper, particularly Internet-driven technology, and then tells us that this cheaper technology gives companies greater flexibility to give away products and services. But there's something missing here - a big something, fundamental to the whole article. Why does "anything that touches digital networks" quickly feel "the effect of falling costs?" He never bothers to explain. Perhaps he doesn't think it's interesting.

As I mentioned, the basic points are stated well, and I find them interesting. The bit about disruption of markets due to the increasing number of free things is right on the money. But again, this point has been made several times when describing the function of the internet. It's also a point used to often describe how companies can make money off of Open Source software - give away something to drive other lines of revenue. But mostly, my issue with the article is that it pretends to be something its not - it could have stated the point in less than two pages, but it trudges on through a narcoleptic seven pages in a misguided attempt to appear to have found cutting-edge answers to a perplexing problem. Oh well, at least with all the media coverage, maybe we won't have to deal so much with annoying questions about how people are going to get paid for producing free things. I won't hold my breath.

I probably would have never written this without all the media coverage given to the article, but I found all the hubbub incomprehensible. It appears Anderson has an upcoming book about free stuff. I'm sure it will be an interesting read. I, too, am working on a book on this subject. Except, in my case, I'm going to publish it as a work-in-progress wiki book and collect money via adwords (thank you, Google!). *That's* how you do it.

The Google Open Source Program Office - A Model to Emulate?

2008-03-10T00:39:00.000-07:00

At a recent SDForum event, I was doing my usual schtick about communities, when I happened to mention one of my recent thoughts: that Google's Open Source Program Office kicks major ass. I can think of no other company that has merged marketing, PR, real code, real community events, and real *stuff* that geeks find enthralling as cohesively as Google. It seems to me, as an outsider, to be an almost perfect blend of how you develop community and derive real value from it. And as I always like to point out - in order to do that, you must first give your community real value. Google seems particularly good at both giving and getting value. Better, in fact, than anyone else.

And yet, you would have thought that the audience were a collection of cows staring at a newly-installed gate. Crickets chirped. And then I heard some push-back:

They do it for recruiting!

Well, yes, this is true. But then, I didn't say they were altruistic, but rather that they knew what they were doing with respect to community development. They invest in communities, many of them related to Open Source, and this devotion to community helps them tremendously. It helps them when they launch a new set of services, because the communities they target will no doubt be the early adopters. It helps when Google launches a new platform, such as Android, because their communities will be the source of a great number of hackers who will enjoy bending Android to their will.

As is often the case, whenever I say something that meets with any sort of vehement disagreement, I obsess over why my view differs so greatly from those whose opinions I normally agree with. So, expect to see more posts as I dive more deeply into this issue. It also helps that this happens to coincide with the latest installment of the Google Summer of Code.

Thoughts on Open Source Users and Freedom

2008-03-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

I posted this over at BytesFree.org. The subject matter is about Linux, specifically, but really it could apply to any Open Source software user. Re-posting below:

Over at the TuxToday blog, there’s a post about Linux users not caring about freedom - because they’d rather just use Adobe’s Flash plugin in lieu of Free Software like Gnash. Or they think Richard Stallman and the FSF are morons who are hurting the Open Source movement.

I’m torn by this argument, because I can see both sides of this. On one hand, it is true that fewer Linux and FLOSS users today care about the “free” in Free Software, and I lament this occurrence. On the other hand, however, I would be remiss not to point out that, at times, the FSF and Richard Stallman can be their own worst enemies. Note, however, that I am in full agreement with the stated goals of the FSF.

Also, we must understand why this phenomenon is taking place. I think a big part of it is that simply Free Software has expanded beyond the traditional techno-libertarian space it once occupied. And furthermore - and this is why groups like BytesFree.org even exist at the moment - we have done a very poor job of explaining to people why they should care. If you look beyond the techno elite, very few people understand the underlying problems of the lack of protected freedoms in the digital space.

This is why BytesFree.org is dedicated to the idea that everyone deserves the protected right to access what we own, on our terms. Because identifying the problem in that language makes it apparent to the layman what is wrong, ie. we *don’t* currently have the protected right to access what we own. And in fact, with laws like the DMCA, not only do we not have that right, but we can run afoul of the law simply by acting on the supposition that we have that right.

We believe that the secret to these issues lies in addressing them in a language that everyone can understand. This is about the right to education, our mandate as human beings to wipe out the digital divide and ensure tech access for everyone, and the simple fact that the prominence of technology in 2008 raises information rights to the level of human rights. Note the term I chose there: information rights. Not “digital rights”. “Digital rights” seems to be a term reserved for the technorati, something that everyday people need not care about. “Information rights” - ok, that’s a term more people can identify with.

So, if we want things to change, we’re going to have to get organized and make an effort to speak “right down to earth, in a language that everybody can understand.” At BytesFree.org, we’re working on political efforts to make sure that both politicians and the non-techie audience can understand why we care.

Won’t you consider joining bytesfree.org?

Open Source Politics BoF at SCALE

2008-02-02T19:28:00.000-08:00

For those of you with a dislike of all things political, I strongly suggest you avert your eyes from this post.

If you've already booked your ticket to SCALE, I hope you'll drop by the Open Source Politics birds-of-a-feather on Friday at 8pm in the appropriately named "Kennedy" room. There, I and Ilan Rabinovitch, one of SCALE's co-founders, will discuss a Voter Information Project as well as some of our other thoughts around bytesfree.org. Of most importance is how to approach the upcoming June primaries in California (Feb. 5 is "just" the presidential primary).

If you want to know more, sign up for the mailing list.

Of False Dichotomies and 'Proprietary Open Source'

2008-02-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

On the Open Sources blog, Savio Rodrigues goes to great lengths to basically say "It's proprietary Open Source! Not that there's anything wrong with that..." Savio's point is to define as "proprietary open source" when you cannot post your modifications upstream into the canonical project. He uses the following example to illustrate his point:

I buy a license for RHEL
I find a bug or want a new feature
Lucky for me, I have the source code to RHEL
I also have the technical skills to pay the billz
I fix the bug and add that new feature to my copy of RHEL
I no longer have RHEL, I have RHEL*
Can I get support for RHEL* from Red Hat? A candy bar to readers who answer, “nope, you’re out of luck, Red Hat won’t support you on anything other than RHEL (i.e. RHEL* != RHEL)”.

Well, yes, Savio. It's called gating your community to prevent any riff-raff from contributing their riffy-raff into your codebase. Put another way - let's say that the people producing RHEL* above were to, say, learn from their experience and become more involved with the software projects that form parts of RHEL or Fedora. In that case, their changes are not for nought and are then propagated throughout the RHEL ecosystem. Yes, it's true that before you build up that trust you are basically SOL when it comes to pushing your changes to the upstream project(s), but I can't see this trust mechanism going away, and for good reason.

Savio's larger point, and the reason he calls it proprietary, is to state that this is the moral equivalent of good ole regular proprietary software... not that there's anything wrong with that! However, the fact remains that Savio's commentary would have been just as valid if he used any of the .org-iest of the .org's in his example. I defy anyone to name an open source project, no matter how academic or non-profit in structure, that will immediately take on a new contributor's code. They won't, and they shouldn't. The RHEL / RHEL* example above would have been just as valid if it were about Linux kernel / Linux kernel* or bash / bash* or any number of other projects in the world.

So yes, being the creator of the code does place you in a position of power with respect to what goes into it in the future. This is true whether you're a traditional proprietary ISV or a college professor itching to form a non-profit foundation around your pet project. This is not news, and I'm pretty sure it's not proprietary.

Parallel Feedback Loops: Integrating Your Community

2007-12-18T22:15:00.000-08:00

I finally wrote something for the Hyperic blog:

The term innovation opportunity has been discussed by Matthew Aslett, who described it as "the potential to lower development costs for business users, while at the same time raising their potential to focus on innovative development." This falls in line with the view that an open model is more efficient, but how exactly is it more efficient, and how does one maximize that efficiency? Does Open Source development lead to the creation of a perfect market? I will attempt to describe how innovation opportunities come about, and how to take advantage of those opportunities. The key would seem to be enhancing the ability to deal with parallel feedback loops that arise as a matter of course from interactions with your user and developer community. Put another way, maximize the surface area of your community and be able to capitalize on these "touches".

Read the rest of Parallel Feedback Loops.

Stacey Schneider and Open Source as a 'Perfect Market'

2007-10-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

As I await the impending cure for writers block (today? tomorrow? next week???) I thought I would shout out to my manager, Stacey, who wrote a great post entitled "Nobel Prize Implies Open Source is A Perfect Market" - an analysis of this paper by Eric Maskin, one of the recent recipients of the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on Mechanism Design Theory. As someone who sincerely regrets never taking an econ class, this stuff is gold.

You should read her full post, but I'll note a couple of things. The quote she latches onto from the above-linked paper is this:

"...when discoveries are 'sequential' (so that each successive invention builds in an essential way on its predecessors) patent protection is not as useful for encouraging innovation as in a static setting. Indeed, society and even inventors themselves may be better off without such protection. Furthermore, an inventor’s prospective profit may actually be enhanced by competition and imitation."

The above applies specifically to patents, but the question is whether there's any application to open source software. Stacey's conclusion is that open source is software’s solution to creating the perfect efficient market, which is something to keep in mind the next time you hear anyone describe open source as "cancerous" or "communist" - not that anyone's ever done that or anything...

Read Stacey's post here

The Best Kept Secret in Open Source?

2007-09-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a little test for you - quick, name the hardware vendor about which the following was said:

[their] commitment to providing high-quality drivers that meet the needs of the mobile Linux community is second to none.
- Matthew Garrett, Ubuntu Mobile Linux Engineer

I tend to suggest that... you buy [a machine] with [company's] graphics and wireless. That takes care of the 2 biggest annoyances right there.
- Linus Torvalds

(see source at the end of this post)

If you said "AMD" then you've been reading too many press releases. While it's nice that AMD appears to be making moves in the right direction with their ATI drivers, the fact remains that the only major vendor to release and fully support open source graphics and wireless drivers on Linux is... Intel. After speaking with Dirk Hohndel, Intel's Chief Linux and Open Source Technologist, it begins to dawn on me that we enjoy the fruits of Intel's labors, often without realizing it. While other vendors release binary blobs for their drivers, Intel has taken the total Open Source approach, with real working drivers available right now.

Perhaps lots of other people are well aware of Intel's contributions and I'm the only one without a clue, but somehow I doubt it. For a quick rundown of Intel's open source contributions, see this list, which I found at Matt Asay's The Open Road blog:

EFI

moblin.org

Harmony

Linux kernel

Xen, KVM, UML

LinuxPowerTop.org

acpi.sourceforge.net

openWSMan.org

OpenAMT.org

LinuxUWB.org

LinuxFirmwareKit.org

IntelLinuxWireless.org

IntelLinuxGraphics.org

Mesa

X.org

LSB

We are also participating in many other communities like MySQL, Apache, Firefox, and gcc, to name just a few. There are many more. Our goal is to ensure that people using open-source software have a good experience when running it on Intel hardware, so we are touching many different projects.

That's quite a list. I asked Dirk about making more noise about Intel's Open Source efforts. He mentioned the fantastic relationships that they have with so many Open Source projects, and that it's not in Intel's interest to screw them up - and the last thing they want to do is make the developers feel that they're doing Intel's bidding.

While I can understand this, I can't help but think that Intel is missing out a bit. Look at the goodwill that AMD has engendered with their recent announcements. While you could look at that as marketing fluff, I tend to think that the follow-up will be real. As I mentioned to Dirk, as long as you add real value to Open Source projects, no one can accuse you of marketing fluff. Thus, making a big deal out of Intel's contributions is simply making sure that the facts are reported to a wider audience.

While I am forced to admit that there's something refreshing about Intel's understated approach, I tend to think that the correct balance could lean a bit more to the loudspeaker side - without going over the top or hyping vaporware. But what really struck me about this difference in opinion is how much our PR sensibilities are a manifestation of the size of company we work for - Dirk is at Intel, a major multi-zillion dollar corporation that spans the globe. In that context, making hay over something as piddling as moblin.org or some modules in the Linux kernel source repository would appear odd and out of place. In my case, I work at Hyperic, a systems management startup fighting for PR space in a growing market with a lot of action. In my world, you let no PR stone go unturned. So when I hear about the gobs of code churned out by Intel and the fact that Dirk's group lets me run FlightGear at a good clip on my laptop, I'm naturally impressed and cannot understand why there isn't more noise about it.

So, I'll do my little part and hopefully more people will know about Intel's Open Source graphics and wireless drivers. In the meantime, applaud AMD for moving in the right direction and hope they one day reach the point of matching Intel's contributions.

* Source for quotes: Intel Developer Forum, 9/19/2007

Would Dostoevsky Use the GPL?

2007-09-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

To GPL or not to GPL: What Would Dostoevsky Do?

"Thou wouldst go into the world, and art going with empty hands, with some promise of freedom which men in their simplicity and their natural unruliness cannot even understand, which they fear and dread- for nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom."
- The Grand Inquisitioner, Book 5, Chapter 5, The Brothers Karamazov

In "The Brothers Karamazov", Dostoevsky wrestles with many grand themes, including the above passage about freedom. The context of the above quote was a tale told through the eyes of Ivan Karamazov about the dangers of freedom and how it can ultimately result in enslavement. Without getting bogged down in details, I think it's pretty fair to say that Dostoevsky had some misgivings about modern perceptions of freedom.

You may be wondering what in God's green earth this has to do with the GPL. Lately, a few folks have written about the wonders of permissive licenses and the death of the GPL and how developers will migrate towards BSD-like licenses because of fewer limitations associated with it. Just as Dostoevsky warned us about the ultimate outcome of total freedom - oppression and totalitarian hegemony - I too worry about the ultimate outcome of permissive licenses like the BSD license. If you are not familiar with the basic differences between the BSD and GPL licenses, I encourage you to read them:

read the GNU GPL license
read the BSD license

To over-simplify the differences: the GPL has more downstream restrictions on how derivative works may be distributed, the primary one being that derivative works must also be licensed under the GPL.

I get nervous whenever large software shops talk up the virtues of a license with fewer protections of developer and user rights. In the linked articles above, there is talk of permissive licenses being the path of least resistance, with the premise that it's "easier" to gravitate towards them. My question is - easier for whom? Easier for the developers or easier for the companies who wish to make use of it without those annoying obligations to the greater free software ecosystem? As is often mentioned by others smarter than me, a scenario where developers gravitate towards permissive licenses makes it easier for companies to avoid community reciprocity.

A free software ecosystem works best when there are some limitations on what can happen downstream from the developer. In the case of the GPL, there are downstream limits on distribution of derivative works, among other things. No, it's not a perfect license, as the arguments over distribution and software as a service bear out. Really, the GPL serves to keep an honest person (or company) honest and is the best means available today for maintaining a vibrant, free software ecosystem over the long-term - and I include commercial as well as non-commercial projects in the mix. You see, as Dostoevsky attempted to show, the best kind of freedom is one with long-term viability, and that requires some restrictions to maintain order. It is with this in mind that I must respectfully disagree with those who proclaim the libertarian roots of free software. Certainly, I can see some libertarian elements of the free software ecosystem espousing the BSD license, but the GPL cannot be considered libertarian. Quite the contrary, it's designed to carry forward a moral framework by which users, developers, and companies can abide. That it seems to work out for commercial and non-commercial entities alike is testament to the genius of one RMS.

Personally, I think this is the right way to do business - and make money, to boot. If you didn't see it, you should definitely read about Marten Mickos' keynote from OSBC on why MySQL uses the GPL. Protecting developer rights isn't just some nebulous hippie ideology - those same rights extend to commercial free software projects, too.

So would Dostoevsky use the GPL? I have not a doubt :) I have written in the past about the long-term trends towards lower software prices and freely distributed software, but there is no such trend towards the protection of rights. That only occurs through the vigilance of the greater free software community.

The Most Irritating Question in the World

2007-09-17T11:50:00.000-07:00

While I'm waiting on my brain to cough up the rest of the "Open Source Macro vs. Micro" series, I thought I'd post about the Most. Irritating. Question. Ever:

"OMG! Like, how are Open Source developers gonna get paid???"

...usually asked in some worrisome tone, as if Open Source developers around the world were, like, starving or something and panhandling on the street. So here's a quick test on the absurdity of this question:

1. Do you see lots more open source development than ever before?
(yes)

Ok, proceed to the follow-up:

2. Do you see open source developers filling homeless shelters and food stamp lines?
(no)

Well, gosh, I guess that solves that dilemma. And yet, I hear that question ALL THE TIME. In 1999 - 2001, sure, it was a fair question. After all, there was legitimate hypothesizing that open source was fueld mostly by the .com bubble. I never believed that, but the concept was new enough at the time that I can see that as a plausible explanation. But now, going on 7 years after the dot bomb? No way.

Frankly, I just don't understand why the question still pops up. Nor do I understand the usual companion question/statement: "OMG! Red Hat, Canonical, and <insert company here> make money off the backs of free labor from individual developers!" 1.) I don't see why anyone is concerned if an open source developer is monetizing their project and 2.) I don't believe it's true - I think Open Source developers do, in fact, make money. Let's look at Red Hat, a well-known example of an Open Source company - they make money off of many open source projects because they can. Because they've built a reputation around their ability to deliver such projects in a form that is readily digested by their users. Customers find value in this, which is why they pay for it. So what of the individual projects that comprise Red Hat's distributions? What if they don't get paid? Assuming they don't get paid, you can really only point to one reason: because no one thought it was of high enough value to pay for it. Whether or not Red Hat is in the picture to make money off of their distribution and support is immaterial - either way, this hypothetical open source project is not making money. However, *with* the existence of Red Hat, suddenly these open source developers have a conduit to a rather large audience and now have business opportunities that would not otherwise be possible. In fact, if you take a look at Fedora or Ubuntu these days, you'll find lots of software that is directly supported from various companies for various reasons - and some that isn't.

If developers don't get paid, it's not Red Hat's (or anyone else's) fault. I don't actually believe that open source developers work for free - in fact, I think the vast majority of developers get paid in some form or another. Those who cut their teeth on personal projects will surely be able to parlay that into some form of employment in the very near future. Or they're paid by their company to work on a side project that's not a core piece of software. OR, as is increasingly true, they work for a company that sees the light and pays them to work on their core product, which happens to be Open Source.

This is not rocket science. The early open source nay-sayers often contended that open source wouldn't last because no one would get paid for it. They were wrong then, and they're wrong now.

Snoopy-dancing on SCO's Grave

2007-09-14T16:29:00.000-07:00

I just got the news of SCO's passing - well, ok filing chapter 11 bankruptcy under the guise of "protect its assets during this time." One can't help but think that they see the writing on the wall and are doing this in anticipation of a slew of lawsuits. A lot of people have lost money on SCO and might consider their statements over the last 4 years to have been, shall we say, less than fact-based. That and the fact that they've bled cash for years and can no longer sustain their current loss rate.

This is an important day, and it's a time to reflect on the actual fallout from the case. One thing we must keep in mind is that the actual case SCO brought forward in court was far different from the case they fought in the press. Their press statements for over a year were all bravado about how Linux infringed on their IP and they might have to sue all Linux customers... or some such. Recall how some Linux users actually bought a SCO license, including Sun. If Sun were ever to meet this issue head on and describe why they helped fund SCO's war chest, now might be the time to do it. And, of course, you can't discuss this issue without also bringing in David Boyes, Microsoft, IBM, Novell, the BayStar Capital fiasco, Sun, Groklaw, Pamela Jones, Maureen O'Gara, Darl McBride. Shoot, I could write a 5-act play with all that stuff :)

The number of personalities involved is truly epic - but was the end result so epic? Well, I tend to think so, for precisely the same reasons that others think it wasn't epic. It was epic because nothing happened. It was epic because it showed 2 things: 1. Linux customer adoption would continue with or without SCO's support and 2. Linux != open source. For the former, we may never know in real $$$ whether or how many companies refrained from using Linux as a result of this series of lawsuits. For the latter, we saw many many more open source technologies rise in prominence even when the SCO litigation may have been in doubt in the minds of some.

So I will think about what has transpired, read Pamela's (deserved) gloating on groklaw, and wonder if others will follow in SCO's footsteps. I can't imagine that this is the last litigation we'll see of a successful open source project. In fact, I can see the success of various open source projects making them large targets. One thing is clear - whoever sues next will glean much from this episode.

Open Source Macro vs. Micro - Part II

2007-09-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic, Open Source and open technology trends continue to swing in one direction (up and to the right). Along this ever-growing open technology spectrum lie various projects and companies who hope to gain a competitive advantage through some type of open collaboration initiative. Within this spectrum lies a subset of this group that I call the Open Source ecosystem. I've mentioned elsewhere why more companies are gravitating towards an open technology and Open Source model. In this document, I'll follow-up on my last post and explain in more detail what it means for a project to win over the hearts and minds of an intended audience. The basic question may be phrased as thus: why does "joe user" or "joe developer" gravitate to one project or technology over another.

Note that a given online community comes with its own biases, ambitions and desires, and these wildly differ from one online community to another. The community type with which I'm most familiar and the one that defines the context of this post and others, is the Open Source type of community, with its demands that projects and companies live by a codified set of rules as defined by the Open Source Definition. The Free Software community also lives in close proximity to, if not within, the Open Source ecosystem, given its similar requirements and moral framework, although these could be described as more stringent than Open Source. This is the context with which I'm most familiar.

It seems that there are two basic attractors that define why someone may gravitate to a specific place on the internet and call it 127.0.0.1. One is the technology basis of a given software project, and the other is harder to define. For lack of a better description, it's the sense that this particular project or group of people is not simply trying to make better technology but also trying to make this a better world (I can hear the groans now... bear with me). I'll simply label it as the cultural attractor. So we have two attractors: 1. technology - ie. is your stuff up to snuff? and 2. cultural - ie. technology is nice, but where does it fit in the larger context of the world?

The Technology Part

You might think that the technology attractor is the easiest to define: it's not. There is a ton of good techology that makes a poor basis for an open source project. OpenOffice.org comes to mind - it has many thousands of users, but the fact that there's any collaborative community at all around that project is mostly due to the sheer willpower of Sun and the OpenOffice.org community leaders. This is not meant as a slam on OpenOffice.org - I just want to point out that it was never very hacker-friendly. It wasn't the type of project that a developer or scripting guru could do much with. A project like KOffice or even Gnumeric would probably be much more fun for your average "joe developer".

To me, what defines a project ripe for Open Source collaboration is one that's not quite feature-complete or fully formed, has many interfaces to allow for collaboration from any developer's preferred language, and is broken into small, modularized bits. The Linux kernel is a good but not perfect example - it's a great starting point for the various Linux-based distributions to add their own kernel improvements, and it's modularized enough to allow developers to focus on one particular aspect. Firefox is another good, but not great example - the developer interfaces have allowed for some amazing extensions, and the project has been the basis for a variety of commercial software efforts. These three aspects can be summed up in one word: hackability. If a project is hackable and gives developers room to play, while also giving users a real platform do to stuff, then that's a good start.

As I noted in my previous post, however, the technology part is not the sole definer of success or failure for Open Source projects - there's also a cultural aspect that is often poorly understood and yet almost but not quite as important as the technology itself.

The Cultural Part

The basic question here is: will I feel good about myself if I devote time to this project? This is the part where many projects and companies fail to capitalize on their community. This type of cultural attractor could be as simple as the personalities of the project leads and their abilities to inspire current (and future) collaborators. Or your project collaborates with groups only indirectly related to your core technology. Or perhaps you wish to contribute to some organization involved in information rights. All of these can contribute to the essence of your community feel.

Some companies have more tolerance for risk than others, so for them, engaging in activities which may or may not generate direct revenue is worth doing if they can see real benefits. My point is that this type of activity isn't all that risky, and it's not actually very expensive. Sponsoring user groups and user group-driven events is pennies on the dollar compared to traditional sponsorships for formal trade shows. Putting your name on the list of sponsors of a well-reasoned political initiative, such as getting governments to use open formats, only seems risky at first glance. Contributing to groups that aim to protect the rights of developers and users also gives off a nice warm glow - and would it be too cynical of me to note that any SEO professional *loves* incoming links from those types of organizations? There's a lot to be said for this type of activity and, frankly, I often wonder why more companies don't do it. The poster child of cultural attractors? Well, stay tuned for that one ;) This post is getting a bit long, but in the follow-up, I'll list some specific things that companies have done to engage with grassroots Open Source-related groups, and what happened as a result.

What is Software Commoditization?

2007-09-10T13:09:00.000-07:00

I was reading Stephen Walli's blog, as I often do, and came across one referencing a presentation by Brent Williams on the topic of "Open Source Business Models: A Wall Street Look at a Wild 2006 and the Prospects for Even More Fun in 2007", with the slides (PDF) posted here.

What particularly caught my eye was Stephe's comment about Williams' "tear down of the commoditization myth." After reviewing the slides, I see that Williams truly possesses a great intellect and analytical ability. I can only hope to see him make a presentation in the near future! However, I get the sense that when I use the term "commoditized" to describe cheap software bits, it doesn't exactly fit the term that he's tearing down in his slides. I would seem then that when he debunks the idea of commoditized software, we're actually talking past each other and arguing purely on semantic grounds.

My view on commoditized software has been that, with the proliferation of coders and more code distributed throughout the massive expanse of the internet, we see an emergence of low or no-cost programs, libraries, and other bits of code that other developers and IT professionals can latch onto, either as is or stuffed into a complex composite application. This model treats bits of code as reusable parts that a decent code jockey can then make use of, so that developers can bypass the grunt work often associated with coding and jumping almost directly into the more interesting work. The end result is a cheaper development process and, IMHO, downward price pressure.

This model assumes a bunch of stuff: 1. that the code is pluggable enough to be inserted into other software and 2. that it's of decent enough quality. Often, either or both of those statements are not true, which takes the developer back to square one of building everything from scratch - or does it? Williams' slides really made me re-think the whole term commoditization: is it the code or the knowledge of the problem's solution that has been commoditized? We can all imagine software as a pluggable commodity, but what if it's not the software itself, but rather the knowledge gained by seeing another solution and using the logic as a starting point?

While it's important to note that "commodity software" doesn't fit the traditional definition of commodities, I'm not sure how useful such word-splicing is. I suppose it's better instead to come up with a word that can describe "software depressed in price by an abundance of implementations AND implementors." I would actually argue that it's the latter that's of primary importance here - after all, doesn't the potential of others to implement a feature set depress prices just as much as an actual implementation? Do all ISV's build in this "fear of the near future"? And with the internet, that fear mushrooms when you think about the prospect of hundreds of knowledgeable people around the world *potentially* working on similar solutions as you.

Compare software and science - would you argue that the theory of relativity is a commodity? Probably not, but it's a known quantity. The practical aspects of relativity have been known for some time now, although the theoretical realms may still be under discussion - I actually don't know, not being a theoretical physicist. But this captures the essence of my definition of commoditized software - something that's been done and from which others have derived a basic understanding of how it was put together. The knowledge of relativity could be categorized as a type of intellectual currency with real value, just as the knowledge of software building blocks also has real value. Yet, no one assumes that someone who understands relativity is another Einstein, and no one assumes that those who understand software building blocks are Kernighan and Ritchie. Basically, I'm talking about the trickle-down effect as applied to knowledge industries, and software development is no exception.

So yes, commodity is probably a bad word, but there needs to be some sort of terminology for "been there, done that" or perhaps "several others are about to be there and do that."

Edit at 4pm PDT, by JM: added paragraphs 3 and 4 to explain in more detail the concept of commoditization

Open Source Macro vs. Micro

2007-09-07T07:06:00.001-07:00

When I've written about the inevitable march of Open Source, there are a couple of things I've failed to note, or that I just got wrong. One of those is that I conflated the issues of open technology trends with Open Source. While both are trending upwards, they are certainly not the same. The central premise that I've advanced before still holds - that is, the internet has led to unprecedented downward price pressure on software, thanks to a market flooded with software and software developers, with the added bonus that they can all collaborate with each other in "real time." This serves to accelerate the development of software, creating a vast, fast-moving pipeline of new features over a broad swath of software markets. As opposed to traditional software feature pipelines, this one is almost self-correcting in that the users, developers and user-developers are in constant contact with one another, adjusting the pipeline as it moves along. This part is boring. At the risk of patting myself on the back too much, my assertion has been proven correct many times over.

No, where I got it wrong was in equating open technology and the trends in that direction with Open Source, as defined by the OSI. Sure, this downward price pressure makes the current open source ecosystem viable, but that's not nearly the same as saying that trends towards openness will necessarily result in an Open Source end. The truth is, there is a wide range of points on the open spectrum. As it stands, I've written a great deal about "macro" open trends, but not much about what happens on the "micro" level. With this post, I'll kick off an attempt to do that.

One point on the open spectrum represents the ideal of Free Software, governed by an overt moral ethos, whereby all players are expected to share alike as a means of building a better technology world. At another point lies Open Source, as defined by the OSI, which is kinda-sorta governed by the same moral ethos as Free Software, but they don't really like to talk about it much, for fear of chasing away the very companies they're trying to attract. And at many other points on the open spectrum lie all sorts of technologies that are neither Free Software or Open Source - even if they have adopted a licensing scheme endorsed by both.

These other non-Open Source and non-Free Software technologies develop a degree of openness for all sorts of competitive reasons. Witness, for example, how Microsoft is attacking the RIT market or web services. In both cases, they have had to be open in order to stay competitive. While Microsoft may end up using an Open Source license in some cases, they often do not, but they still want some of the benefits of openness without giving up too much control. In these cases, Microsoft clearly wants to grease the skids of adoption and lower barriers to entry. There are also startups that wish to tap into open trends, with some coming under fire for using the term "Open Source" without using an OSI-compliant license. While they shouldn't use the term Open Source without conforming to the Open Source Definition, they should at least define their work in such a way that differentiates them from traditional enterprise software plays.

Trends vs. Personal Experience

It's one thing to say that the overall trends favor more open technology and Open Source, but what about on an individual level? What do these trends say about individual projects and their chances of success? The answer, it turns out, is not much. All the open trends in the world won't save a bad project. At this level, it's really all about emotional attachment, warm fuzzies, dynamics of the project leadership, and any number of other factors that lead to more people gravitating to community X over community Y. It is within this "micro" sphere that factors such as project personality, license choice, degree of openness, and yes, project ethics come into play.

It is at this level that community leaders will have to consider the audience they want to attract. Does your desired audience often seem paranoid and overly cynical? You'll have to work extra hard to woo them, and you'll probably need to start with the GPL or even a BSD license. That's not the final step, however. To truly give them warm fuzzies, you'll have to consider their cultural priorities. Will they naturally gravitate towards organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation or the Free Software Foundation? If so, you should probably at least consider some form of relationship with them. Making statements about their pet issues wouldn't hurt either - the OOXML debacle presents a great opportunity, as does the recent controversy over what Open Source means. Opining on the tactics of the RIAA and MPAA might help, as well. Of course, these are only suggestions for a certain audience - the ones with laptop stickers that say "corporate websites suck".

I wish I could calculate how much it's worth for a company or project to engage in this sort of cultural activity, but I really can't. It most likely won't help with the enterprise IT buyer, although it's good to remember that they are people, too. Regardless, it's a good rule of thumb that when you're trying to attract an audience, it's good to know what things they care about the most. As has often been noted, it's not enough to open your code and throw it over the wall. I would add that it's also not good enough to woo the audience with just technology - there has to be some force of personality and a willingness to participate in some cultural issues.

Matt Asay Asks: Should You Ever Fire a Community Member?

2007-09-04T21:50:00.001-07:00

Matt asks the question that comes to every online community manager's mind at one time or another, even if they never voice it outloud: "Gosh, life would be so much easier if I would just tell userxyz to get bent. After all, he/she never adds anything of value to the conversation, and they just drain everyone's time."

It's such a tempting proposition - and one that each community has treated differently. Back when Marc Fleury ruled the roost, JBoss forums were notorious for their low tolerance of newbies who didn't RTFM - or so I've been told. At an Open Source community managers' meetup at OSCON, perhaps the most cogent statement on the subject came from someone whose name I've unfortunately forgotten: the first time someone asks a question, be very responsive; the next time, take slightly longer; the third time, even longer, and so on. The thinking is that this approach encourages users to think for themselves.

In fact, it's a lot like parenting. Reward good behavior; punish bad. Sure, you *can* go negative (yelling, physically punishing child) and reap the short-term benefits of immediate obeisance, but you may end up laying the groundwork for more work in the future. It's better to make sure good behavior is properly rewarded, thus giving all members a clear indication of what behaviors the community encourages and those they will not tolerate. Sure, as community manager, you can ex-communicate whomever you please, but that doesn't exactly set the tone of trust that you want the rest of the community members to feel. As Matt notes, it might lead others to conclude...

what would those other 95 percent think if they saw a community member--even an obnoxious one--dumped from the forums? That doesn't sound like the sort of community I'd want to join, where your voice is only valid if you happen to be singing in tune with everyone else.

The community manager's role is to make sure that no one becomes a nuisance, so that does require some active participation, but not outright antagonism. The challenge is to nurture a culture of respect, where users will naturally shun those who are potentially abusive. The community manager must actively set the tone and demonstrate the rules of engagement for others. Eventually, those who earn the "annoying" mark will either shape up or ship out.

The Unspoken Morality of Open Source

2007-05-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

It has long been my opinion that open source is fueled by an unstoppable economic phenomenon - downward price pressure as a direct result of the growth of the internet (and thus growth of collaborating developers) and the ensuing commoditization of software features. One of my central beliefs is that, all else being equal, being more open can be used as a competitive advantage. This is why I've always thought open source is very much entrenched in modern computing and will only grow from here. In a competitive market, one of the ways to differentiate yourself from the competition is to be more outwardly-focused, collaborative, and willing to open up your development processes. It's not that opening your code is a nice thing to do - it's a means of survival in today's IT market. Can you name a single IT startup in the last 3 years that didn't have some sort of "open" strategy? Exactly. Even the closed-source ones borrow heavily from Open Source-style community building and developer relations.

However, in describing the trends toward "open," the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, when originally thinking about these issues, I didn't include in my calculations all of the various gradations of "open." Furthermore, I tend to have a fairly binary view of the world - software is either Open Source or it is proprietary. As recent software licensing arguments have demonstrated, the current environment begs a more nuanced view. One can't simply look at the field of "open" companies and conclude that they are willing to fall in line with the OSI and their definition of Open Source. In a world where companies are described as either Open Source or proprietary, a company that falls close to the "open" end of the spectrum will naturally use Open Source to describe itself, even if it's not completely accurate.

This brings up a legitimate question: what then, should they call themselves? They're not traditional proprietary companies, so lumping them in with the likes of traditional ISV's doesn't seem right. It would seem that the obvious solution is to come up with a set of terms that describe companies more open than others... but not exactly "Open Source." For the record, I think it makes sense to have a strict definition of Open Source so as not to confuse the market. But there is a larger issue - why hasn't the OSI taken a leading role in providing an umbrella taxonomy for these companies?

To answer that question, you have to consider the origins of the OSI and both its stated as well as unstated goals. From the beginning, "Open Source" was pro-business spin for "Free Software" - without the baggage of the Free Software Foundation, its fanatical devotees, and that crazy hippie, RMS. To say that Free Software has a moral component would be an understatement. Open Source got its start supposedly as a better, pragmatic way to develop software in comparison to the traditional proprietary approach - more reliable, better security, and a high rate of innovation. But there was a moral component present in the definition of Open Source that went largely unspoken. Reading the OSD, it becomes clear that its authors wanted a fair business ecosystem whereby everyone plays by a set of rules, and certain types of behavior were definitely frowned upon. Preventing the forking of code is one example. Requiring the original author's logo be displayed in derivative works is another. These were discouraged by the OSI founders not because they felt it was in a company's business interest, but because they felt it was not a virtuous way to conduct business.

However, that aspect of the OSI and Open Source went largely unstated, and it generated much confusion in the market. Here was the organization that controlled the definition of the term Open Source, stating that their primary reason for being was to create a business-friendly ecosystem around Open Source software, and you had certain businesses and developers that didn't necessarily want to play by those exact rules wondering why the OSI wasn't being flexible. The reason, even though it wasn't really stated, was because those companies and developers that wanted to skirt certain parts of the OSD did not meet the OSI's moral standard.

Over the years, I've begun to feel that emphasizing the pragmatic aspect of Open Source at the expense of the moral was a mistake, especially when the moral aspects fuel so many of the current debates. There are many software vendors that wish to be more open and want to identify themselves as something that's not the same as traditional proprietary softare, and you can hardly blame them. They have been led to believe that Open Source is something that describes anything that's more open than everything else. The OSI has to find a way to accomodate these folks without diluting the term Open Source, but they can't do that until they publicly acknowledge the moral component of the OSD. It is better to acknowledge that it exists and eliminate any confusion as to why certain practices are not allowed. Then the OSI can perhaps accept the challenge of creating a fair taxonomy that doesn't simply describe mostly-open software as "not Open Source."

Dana Blankenhorn: Open Source and the Mass Market

2006-10-04T22:15:00.000-07:00

Over at ZDNet, Dana Blankenhorn has posted a bit about the dearth of open source market share for mass market software. He runs through the usual suspects: lack of scale in open source enterprises and no structure to deliver comprehensive support. He then suggests an idea for a company: "Corporate Office"

We take OpenOffice, we hire top committers to it, and we sell support packs to businesses at 10% of what they're paying for the other guys. We donate the templates and other code we create to the community. We make a ton of money.

Does this strike you as a tad naive? My theory about open source and the mass market is that there needs to be a compelling reason to switch to open source software *and* it has to be cheaper. It's simply not good enough to be either/or. Especially when we're talking about desktop software used by businesses - they'll pay top dollar for more features if they're over and above everything else that's available. What might actually work is if Dana employed his plan with a couple of changes:

1. include every feature that customers/users expect from the other stuff, *and*
2. charge less than they do.

Human beings can get very comfortable with an existing environment, and getting them to switch can be a pain, especially when you force them to make tradeoffs that don't necessarily work in their favor.

The primary problem with mass market open source software is that the perceived benefits of participating in a software development community doesn't really apply to the vast majority of people that use a computer. I think it's fun to participate in these communities, mind you, but I doubt a majority of people whose day job entails pecking around on a PC feel the same way. In fact, I would say this is the realm of a very small majority. If they get no joy from being a community participant, and they don't feel that all of the features are there, then they're not going to feel compelled to switch just because it's cheap. Look at OpenOffice - it's dog slow, it doesn't include all of the features of Microsoft Office, and oh sure, it's much cheaper, but in the grand scheme of things, paying around $200 less per person in an organization is basically peanuts. The OpenOffice experience is fundamentally broken and simply does not offer organizations a compelling reason to switch. Now if someone came along and made it at least faster and more responsive than Office... and fixed all of the buggy behavior... and kept it free. Well then, that might be a compelling reason for some people to switch, but there's still the matter of fewer features (as a sometime book editor, I can testify to the severe limitations of OpenOffice for this task).

Now let's contrast this with something like Mozilla - better user experience, no lack of features, and even then, it struggles to overcome the 10% user base barrier. This means that 10% of people have found a compelling reason to switch, and the rest have not.

Basically, what it boils down to is that in order to get mass market acceptance, you have to offer *more* than what already exists. At this point, "more" just doesn't apply to open source desktop software. Data center and enterprise software vendors can overcome this limitation because their customers enjoy the participatory process. Their users are geeks, and they thrive on the back-and-forth with ISV's that value community. Not to mention, the enterprise software market isn't necessarily about features - there's plenty of room for vendors that provide a solid platform on which to integrate other stuff in the data center. Not to mention, many IT managers and sysadmins follow a "less is more" principle, further diminishing any feature gap that may exist.

<cue rant>
...and many people wonder why I detest Red Hat. Red Hat makes its living from the soft belly of old Unix users. Red Hat seems to think it doesn't have to worry about converting old Windows users and giving them a compelling reason to switch. Red Hat also seems to think that they can simply make do from the enterprise data center sale... but I would like to point out that this strategy has definite limits and does no good in terms of priming the pump of converted Windows users. In fact, Red Hat is not giving young Windows desktop users a compelling reason to switch. One could argue that Red Hat's potential market has hard limits and that, as long as they see no reason to push desktop usability, their potential market will not grow. Oh yeah, and guess what - OpenSolars ain't going away, and Microsoft's not stupid, either. It's going to be very interesting to watch Red Hat get eaten from both ends.
</end rant>

Open Source vs. Closed - Another Look

2006-09-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

A recent post by Matt Asay got me thinking about the real vs. perceived benefits of open source. In the past, it has been taken for granted by open source supporters (myself included) that the more open the process, the more easily one could build a community, fix bugs, add features, and trample the competition. However, I'm beginning to wonder if software need not necessarily be open source to actually derive the same benefits usually associated with the open source process. I've never been sold on open source as a means to get developers to write code for free. Rather, I always chalked up open source's continued success to a couple of factors: the more open process usually wins because the bar to access is lower and the internet has driven down the price of commodity software, thus creating an environment conducive to open source proliferation (read "There is no Open Source Community"). Now I'm wondering if software vendors can actually create a community, engage with it in an open process, and derive benefits from an active (and activist) community without actually making any of the software open source.

Let's engage in a little thought experiment. Let's say a software company makes a widget that greatly enhances the IT experience (and we'll focus on the data center IT market, because that's the devil I know). Let's also assume that it doesn't have any funky proprietary protocols that won't play nice within an existing environment - all interfaces are standards-based (RSS, HTTP, DAV, SMTP, SNMP, etc. etc.) We should also assume that the API's are thoroughly documented and easily accessible, perhaps with an open source dev kit thrown on top to ease the developer curve, although even that need not be open source. And of course, given this market, they have to have a free, usable download that potential users and customers can take and deploy - and when I write "usable" I mean capable of doing real work without having to buy a product. Given all this, what possible benefit would this company derive by taking an additional step and making it open source?

Given the above, a software company can release stuff, build a user base, encourage participation, engage with their community via forums, bug trackers, blogs, the whole bit. Users can download, extend the software via a dev kit, test for bugs, and most of all, use it for everyday work. Theoretically, they will become so enamored with it that they will someday buy the supported product or recommend someone else to purchase. Potentially, this software vendor would lose the benefits of a security audit or contributed patches and extended features. However, this type of contribution is so rare, that one might take the view it can be discounted, since one can never depend on that type of collaboration.

To take this thought experiment one step further, let's say there are two competing software platforms/products/suites/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Let's say that the differentiation between the two is a toss-up in terms of features, reliability and support. The difference is that one is open source, and the other is merely "an open process", but you can't see the code. I suppose you could argue that it's more difficult to support multiple platforms with closed software. However, my experience with commercial open source is that the impetus for supporting more platforms comes from the software authors, not outside contributors. In my experience, outside contributors overwhelmingly use commodity Windows, Linux or FreeBSD on x86 hardware, and the decision to support other platforms comes at the behest of customers that need HPUX, Solaris SPARC, or AIX. You could argue that customers can take open source and make it run on their platform of choice without support from the vendor, but that's not usually the way procurement works. Usually, the customer looks at what platforms are supported and make their choice from there.

In the past, I argued that a small edge in openness would make a difference in the long run, simply because the more open the software, the lower the bar to entry. However, I would say that the bars to entry rest more on usability and ease of deployment than anything. You would, of course, lose free software advocates, but I would argue that this comprises a small minority of IT staff or management. From this thought experiment, it would seem that you can derive the benefits once thought to be the domain of open source without actually going open source. When most open source supporters think of closed software, they immdiately jump to the image of oppressive EULA's that severely restrict the freedoms of the end user. However, a software vendor need not construct an oppressive EULA just because they are closed source. Proprietary software can be freely redistributed with few restrictions on software usage. I suspect that the arguments on open source and proprietary have been a bit too skewed to the extremes. There seems to be an unexplored middle ground that vendors can use to their advantage - make it free enough to use and distribute, but not open up the code.

Now for the flip side of the argument: if company X is going to be that liberal with their licensing, what advantage do they maintain by not going full monty open source? The old bugaboo FUD about open source - that competitors can copy your features, steal your IP, and subvert your development process, have not reallly turned up in the real world. In the software market, these tactics can be spotted, and there are IP laws that can enforce compliance (assuming a GPL-like license, of course). Furthermore, the framework and platform for separate software products, even if they're direct competitors, are most likely vastly different, and the amount of work needed to shoehorn one algorithm or feature into another platform will most likely be just as costly, if not more, than developing a feature in-house. And let's face it, even with the most closed software, features are open to everyone's eyes. You don't need access to the source code to see new features.

In conclusion, I don't see any clear advantage of releasing software under an open source, GPL-like license. However, I don't see much disadvantage either, so in a crowded market, it's probably best to err on the side of being more open than your competitor.

I have a suspicion that Microsoft is looking at this very argument - they probably feel that they only need to be "open enough" to stave off much of the open source competition. Given their market position, they're probably right.

My company, Hyperic, has taken the view that it's best to err on the side of openness, especially given the crowded market for IT software. Another company with a similar target audience but different type of product, Splunk, has taken another view: that they only need to be "open enough". It will be interesting to see which tactic is more successful over the long term.

There is no Open Source Community - the Original Article

2006-09-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

So a while back, I had an epiphany that allowed me to answer the question, "Why do open source companies exist?" and "How do they stay in business with a freely available core product?" The answer I came up with is that companies released software because they had to - that the internet had some interesting effects on the software market as a whole, resulting in depressed software prices, thus creating an environment conducive to an open source ecosystem. The folks at onlamp.com were kind enough to post it, and it stimulated some interesting arguments on Slashdot and various blogs on the net. I think I was mostly right in that article, but there are a couple of conclusions I reached about which I have some doubts. You'll see some of that expressed in the post after this.

In any case, I have enough thoughts on the subject, that I've decided to make this a blog on its own right, and leave my personal stuff on my main blog.

There is no Open Source Community

What is 'Open Cloud'?

Schneier Makes Uncorroborated Claims About Google Hack

So VMware bought Zimbra: now what?

Law Firm's IT Director Discovers Open Source

Linux and Your iPhone / iPod Touch

Monty Responds

Oracle, MySQL and the GPL: don't take Monty's word for it

Have an iPod? Use Windows? Get Songbird

On CNET: The VA Linux Systems IPO Retrospective

Using Your iPod with (K)ubuntu 9.10

SugarCRM Gets a True Open Source Visionary in Larry Augustin

Crazy Google Kids at it Again with Chrome OS

10 Years of SourceForge.net

OStatic: Is the Symbian Foundation DOA?

OStatic: Thoughts on the Koala

OStatic: Cable Modem Hacker Indicted on Federal Charges

OStatic: Open Source is More Than a License

On OStatic: Subversion Joins the ASF

OStatic: Windows (L)users Are People, Too

From OStatic: The Great Software Freedom Debate...

From OStatic: Linux Marketing - or lack thereof

From OStatic: More on Open Core

From OStatic: Open Core or Open Snore?

From OStatic: Can You Boycott a Boycott?

Blogging at OStatic

The Zen of Community

Inspiration vs. Perspiration

Telecom Overhaul, Part 2 - Now with Sarah Lacy

Building Vibrant Open Source Communities

It's the Infrastructure, Stupid

Infrastructure wants to be free

Example 1: Healthcare

Example 2: Telecommunications

Reiser Case Proves Geeks No Different from Others

Lug Radio Live; New BytesFree.org Position Paper

Nick Carr: Bebo and Digital Sharecroppers

More Questions on the Open Source Initiative

Blogging Hyperic: Whither Initiative?

Scientology and Apple?

Getting Ready for OSBC - March 25 - 26

Good Moves by the OSI

Dear Dan Lyons: Open Source was Never 'Counter Culture'

The GPL as IP Protection Tool

Dirk Riehle: Total Growth of Open Source

Yahoo's Zawodny: We're Open, Too!

Toward a $0 Cost Future?

The Google Open Source Program Office - A Model to Emulate?

Thoughts on Open Source Users and Freedom

Open Source Politics BoF at SCALE

Of False Dichotomies and 'Proprietary Open Source'

Parallel Feedback Loops: Integrating Your Community

Stacey Schneider and Open Source as a 'Perfect Market'

The Best Kept Secret in Open Source?

Would Dostoevsky Use the GPL?

The Most Irritating Question in the World

Snoopy-dancing on SCO's Grave

Open Source Macro vs. Micro - Part II

What is Software Commoditization?

Open Source Macro vs. Micro

Matt Asay Asks: Should You Ever Fire a Community Member?

The Unspoken Morality of Open Source

Dana Blankenhorn: Open Source and the Mass Market

Open Source vs. Closed - Another Look

There is no Open Source Community - the Original Article