Author Archive for jeremy

More from OSCON

Published by
jeremy
at July 26, 2007 in OSCON. 0 Comments

My laptop has really gone from bad to worse, so blogging will be extremely light until I get home. The N800 has been filling in nicely. It’s a shame I have been unable to live blog the sessions, as they have been really interesting. I was able to take a few notes and will include them here:

More Than Licenses: The Legal Policy of the Free World in the Age of Web 2.0 Eben Moglen
* Choosing certain licenses will result in a more cohesive community.
* The GPL didn’t originally take into account the economic importance of community.
* We have built a good republic, not just good software.
* Freedom of speech includes the right to not talk..translated to code this is were the GPLv3 walks the line in regards to the “ASP loophole”.
* Regarding ODF: no commercial entity should have the ability to intermediate between a government and its people.

Who Gets to Decide What Open Source Means? Michael Tiemann, Brian Behlendorf, Danese Cooper, Chris DiBona, Ross Mayfield, John Roberts
* SugarCRM 5 will be GPLv3 and will be available in a couple weeks.
* Most people take the OSD as the final word on what defines Open Source, but some do not.
* Attribution is still a hotly debated topic. It gets especially hairy when you take into account logos and trademarks. It also gets interesting when you are talking about aggregating small bits of code from many projects that require attribution.
* The OSI has approved the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL) from SocialText.
* Someone asked how far the OSI was willing to go to “defend” Open Source. Luckily it usually doesn’t go beyond a simple polite email.
* The question was asked whether as new licenses get approved whether some old ones will be retired. Hopefully.

Some random notes:

* Microsoft will be working to get multiple licenses approved by the OSI.
* You can carpet an entire floor in a parking garage and throw a party (Thanks Sun).
* Dtrace really is phenomenal

To be honest there has been so much interesting discussion that it’s hard to be able to blog it all. You really should consider attending OSCON. More later.

–jeremy

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OSCON Opening Keynote

Published by
jeremy
at July 25, 2007 in OSCON. 0 Comments

As usual, the opening OSCON keynote was extremely interesting. Tim talked about which Open Source is on the Radar. There was a lot of talk about parallelism (Intel) and concurrent programming (Microsoft). Tim also interviewed Mark Shuttleworth. I had planned on live blogging the event, which contained a bunch of great quotes and facts. Why didn’t I? My laptop has broken. Badly. Every once and a while (and especially if not firmly planted on a flat surface) the display just goes blank. Once it happens, the only fix is to shut the machine off, fiddle with the lid for a while and then restart. It’s going to be a real pain and I’m going to have to get a new laptop ASAP. This one is a bit old anyway. One tidbit from the keynote that is laptop related. After Intel released powertop, they got a ton of info from the community and as a result were able to increase battery life by almost an hour. Linux now has the most efficient power consumption of any OS on the Intel platform. Awesome.

–jeremy

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OSCON Executive Briefing II

Published by
jeremy
at July 24, 2007 in Linux, Linux Foundation, MySQL, OSCON, Open Source, Ubuntu and maemo. 0 Comments

(live blogging, so forgive the grammar and lack of proof reading)

Always Better

Matt Asay (Alfresco) and Mike Olson (Oracle via SleepyCat) discuss the value of source code. Mike argues that zero cost frictionless distribution is more disruptive than source access. A response from the crowd asked why he doesn’t close BerkleyDB. He didn’t get a chance to answer the question, but did give Matt a book.

The Path to IPO

Marten Mickos discusses how he hopes to grow MySQL AB to a billion in revenues. He covered how much the company has matured in the last few years (including items like: “we now invoice customers and have prices”). MySQL really aligns with PHP, but is “promiscuous when it comes to programming languages”. “Moore’s law will continues, but doesn’t apply to people” - MM. “The company you keep matters in Open Source” - TO. MySQL data seems to once again confirm that many people test OSS on Windows and deploy on Linux. Open Source will accelerate what is already happening to a product - bad ones will die quicker and good ones will get better faster.

Managing Linus Torvalds and other small challenges

Jim is covering the reasons that FSG and OSDL merged. He is also reflecting on what he sees as the future responsibility of the Linux Foundation, including what directions they should take and what pitfalls they should avoid.

Why Free Software values work for business

Mark discusses the relationship between the commercial Canonical and the non-commercial Ubuntu community. Mark sees collaboration as one of the key Open Source strengths. Launchpad is meant to take advantage of this and leverage collaboration as much as possible. Freedom of data is becoming increasingly important and Ubuntu/Canonical is committed to free data not only in launchpad (which will be Open Sourced soon), but throughout the project/company. “Driver support in Linux is probably one of the biggest reservations in Linux adoption” - MS. The following question was asked: “Can Ubuntu become bigger than Mark”. In essence, if Mark went away for whatever reason, would Ubuntu survive? This is clearly a question Mark has really thought about, up to and including Will provisions meant to ensure financial viability for the project.

–jeremy

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OSCON Executive Briefing

Published by
jeremy
at July 24, 2007 in Linux, OSCON and Open Source. 0 Comments

OSCON, always a great conference, is officially underway. A few moments ago I got a sneak peak at ohlho, new open source guide of sorts. It allows you to tell it what stack(s) you use and gain valuable information from there. The amount of data displayed is already interesting and some compelling features are on the way. If you use Open Source it’s definitely worth checking out.

The radar Executive Briefing is resuming now, so expect more updates soon.

–jeremy

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Microsoft development still broken, but they seem to be learning

Published by
jeremy
at July 24, 2007 in Microsoft and Open Source. 0 Comments

Some recent information released by Microsoft seems to indicate that the Windows development model is still badly broke, and will be for some time, but will likely become less broken in the future. From the article:

Microsoft is planning to ship its next major version of Windows–known internally as version “7″–within roughly three years, CNET News.com has learned.

The company discussed Windows 7 on Thursday at a conference for its field sales force in Orlando, Fla., according to sources close to the company.

While the company provided few details, Windows 7, the next client version of the operating system, will be among the steps taken by Microsoft to establish a more predictable release schedule, according to sources. The company plans a more “iterative” process of information disclosure to business customers and partners, sources said.

“Microsoft is scoping Windows 7 development to a three-year time frame, and then the specific release date will ultimately be determined by meeting the quality bar,” according to the representative.

I’d have thought that Vista would have been proof that spending huge amounts of time to develop a huge product release is no longer the way to go. The fact that they will begin “a more iterative process” after the next release seems like an indication that they see the error of their ways, but that Vista just isn’t a good enough base to start from. After over five years of development, that seems a little odd. It’s also interesting to see that they are considering a subscription model, which is one of the most popular Open Source business models. Looks like Linux has quite a bit of time to iteratively improve until the next major Windows release. That’s a great thing for us, although I have to admit I’m a bit surprised.

–jeremy

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The unforking of KDE’s KHTML and Webkit

Published by
jeremy
at July 24, 2007 in Apple and Open Source. 0 Comments

One of the core tenants of Open Source is the ability to fork. That being said, it should really be seen as a last resort type of option. It’s good to see that a couple of “unforks” have happened recently. A short time ago, Beryl and Compiz were able to come to an amicable resolution and rejoin as Compiz Fusion. More recently KHTML and WebKit look to be coming back together. From the article:

There is one major web rendering engine that grew entirely out of the open source world: KHTML is KDE’s web renderer which was built from the ground up by the open source community with very little original corporate backing. The code was good and branches were born as a result, the best known being Webkit. Now, after years of split, KHTML and Webkit are coming together once again.

Now, KHTML won’t be deleted right away since there are features in it that need to be ported into Webkit. For example, KHTML (in KDE 4) implements portions of the definition of the CSS3 standard, which will need to be adopted into Webkit and so forth. But the big deal is that the coders that invented the underlying layers that power Konqueror, some Nokia browsers, Abrowse, Safari, Adobe’s Air, and now Epiphany and a few other projects that are in the works, are now back in the fold. Additionally, Trolltech has announced that they are including Webkit in their upcoming Qt 4.4 release which means that a major, cross-platform toolkit now permits anyone to use the Webkit rendering engine where ever they need to render some HTML.

In open source terms, this may be as big of a deal as the gcc and egcs merger of yonder days. KHTML and Webkit are definitely coming of age. The KDE developers, responsible for the original creation of KHTML, are dedicated to seeing this unforking happen and are taking a leading role in that effort.

The uptake of WebKit has been fairly significant. The integration into QT will only serve to accelerate its adoption. It should be interesting to see how KDE deals with the component being outside their direct control, as WebKit is an Apple project (although obviously a fully Open Source one). It looks like some of the KHTML devs will be moving to become WebKit devs, which is great.

–jeremy

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Day 1 - Ubuntu Live

Published by
jeremy
at July 22, 2007 in Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu and UbuntuLive. 1 Comment

The first day of Ubuntu Live is coming to an end. One thing that has permeated the first day is the amount of energy in the Ubuntu community. People are excited and eager to get things done. While originally mostly a desktop distro, Ubuntu is scaling in multiple directions from there - from LTS on the server to the mobile and embedded edition. A certification ecosystem is also in the works. If the growth and energy can be maintained, the future for Ubuntu is certainly bright. Off to Fun, Food & Drink (sponsored by Canonical) now, but I’ll continue coverage tomorrow.

–jeremy

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Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit Update

Published by
jeremy
at June 13, 2007 in Google, Linux, Linux Foundation and Open Source. 0 Comments

It’s lunchtime at the summit and I have enough time for a quick update. First, a big thanks should go to Google. They are treating us extremely well and it’s fantastic that they do things like this. The last time I was at the GOOG campus was just pre-IPO, and a lot has changed to say the least. The SGI sign is even gone now :)

The conversation so far has been both interesting and very real. To me, those are key components of collaboration, which is what this summit is supposed to be about. Mark had it right when he said that the people in this room agree on far more than they disagree on. In the middle of a flame war, that’s sometime easy to forget.

A couple highlights from the discussion (kudos to the Linux Foundation for explicitly stating that the first day here is 100% bloggable):

* The crowd here is extremely varied with almost all major groups including vendors, coders, hackers, community, users, ISV’s and more represented.
* A data point I wasn’t aware of: somewhere around 1/4-1/3 of the actual Linux kernel code is in fact licensed as “GPLv2 or later”. This has some interesting implications.
* Some day, a dual GPLv2/GPLv3 Linux kernel may be theoretically possible. A GPLv3-only version will not happen.
* Both the GPLv3 discussion and the ATI/nVidia discussion is wearing a bit thin on many people…
* One reason companies like Motorola are so interested in mobile Linux (which is going to be absolutely huge from the looks of things) is that they have some measure of control over the platform. When you get a tome from the carriers stating what you must conform to if you want to run hardware on their network, having access to the code on your phone isn’t a luxury… it’s a business differentiator.
* For mobile Linux to really gain traction, it needs to be a consistent platform. If it’s not, content partners won’t be able to make the business case to support it. (ie. They want to support “mobile Linux” for their apps and content, not have to support each and every phone/carrier combo which run slightly different Linux variants individually)
* It would be a boon if bug reporting was easier, especially with regard to better communication and process flow between distros and upstream (confederation was mentioned).

A lot more was discussed, but alas…lunch it over. Should have another update at some point.

–jeremy

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Second Day OSBC Wrap up

Published by
jeremy
at May 23, 2007 in Linux, Microsoft, Novell, OSBC and Open Source. 0 Comments

The OSBC is now officially over and here’s my second day wrap up. The opening keynote consisted of Rob Curley, Marten Mickos and Lee Thompson. I had never seen Rob speak before, but he is extremely entertaining and had some very good information. He maintained that what him and his team were able to accomplish in Kansas would not have been possible without Open Source. Marten gave an update on where MySQL is and the variety of models he thinks can be successful in OSS. Lee gave a very good overview of how Open Source is being utilized at E*Trade. During the recent February market dip, they were one of the only brokers to not suffer performance problems. He attributed that to the use of Open Source directly.

How Big is the Exit? What is an Open Source Business Worth in 2007 and Beyond?
* There was a consensus that the public markets for Open Source companies are highly dependent on Red Hat. This is from a perspective that if Red Hat were to falter, the Open Source image would be sufficiently tarnished that other OSS companies would not receive new funding and valuations in general would suffer. I wrote about this a couple years ago. I think as time passes, this becomes less and less the case.
* Investors and VCs really seem to like to “subscription” model in OSS companies. I think it’s a very good model, but am less convinced it’s the one true path (one insinuated that OSS companies that tried something different were pretty much idiots for instance).
* With OSS you need to think about your customers with razor sharp focus. Find their pain points, solve their problems and you will be handsomely rewarded.

Is the Novell-Microsoft deal good for open source?
As you can imagine, this session was standing room only. Not hard to guess what the participants opinions were. LWN editor Jon - Bad. Novell rep Justin and Microsoft rep Sam - Good. The one surprise may have been Allison (if you don’t read her blog), who said it would probably be irrelevant. Some notes:
* Ballmer’s comments were definitely detrimental to the acceptance of the deal.
* If the deal would have been with someone else besides Microsoft, say IBM, it would barely have been news.
* Microsoft was the number one channel for SLES in Q1 2007.
* Microsoft has only gone on the offensive in patent litigation 2 times in its history. They are the defendant in about 30 cases or so in any one given point in time.
* Is Microsoft now a Linux distributor?
* AIG and BoA reps both seemed uninterested in the deal, saying it did not impact their buying decision.
* Would Microsoft consider joining the OIN?
* Customers are almost universally telling Microsoft that they want heterogeneous environments. 100%-anything seems to be a thing of the past

Community Development: Business Development for the 21st Century
* Open Source in a large way was started by disenfranchised developers
* For OSS companies, community management is about facilitation.
* Google lawyers actually have an SLA requirement for responding internally in some cases. Developers are that important.
* Many OSS communities are going from developers only to developers and users.
* The time and cost in fostering a community is easy to underestimate.

Overall a very good show, one in which I learned a good deal.

Note: For all these OSBC updates, items with * are not necessarily my opinions, just a summary of things that were said by various panelists.

–jeremy

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“Is the Novell-Microsoft deal good for open source?” panel question

Published by
jeremy
at May 23, 2007 in Linux, Microsoft, Novell and Open Source. 0 Comments

I’ll post a full overview of OSBC day two later, but the “Is the Novell-Microsoft deal good for open source?” panel went over time and I didn’t have a chance to ask the question I had. From the panel, Justin from Novell indicated that Microsoft was the number one channel for SLES in 2007 Q1. My question is: do you think having one of your major competitors (one who is much bigger than you no less, and has a track record with these things) be your number one channel is (1) sustainable (2) sane (3) almost an admission of failure in being able to effectively compete in the marketplace on your own.

–jeremy

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