Open Source > Linux > LQ
February 11, 2007 Leave a comment
I arrived a bit late, but safely, in LA and am about to go downstairs to pick up my conference badge. A reminder that if you'll be anywhere near LA this weekend, SCALE is definitely worth checking out.
–jeremy
February 10, 2007 Leave a comment
[Ongoing coverage of this story] Andy continues his excellent coverage of the OOXML ISO process. From his post:
In that first blog entry, I concluded that Microsoft had won the first point in the contest over whether its document format would become a global standard or not. With the deadline past, who would be found to have won the next?
Well the results are in, and an unprecedented nineteen* countries have responded during the contradictions phase – most or all lodging formal contradictions with Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC), the ISO/IEC body that is managing the Fast Track process under which OOXML (now Ecma 376) has been submitted. This may not only be the largest number of countries that have ever submitted contradictions in the ISO/IEC process, but nineteen responses is greater than the total number of national bodies that often bother to vote on a proposed standard at all.
[*Update: make that twenty]
When it is recalled that any national body responding would first have had to wade through the entire 6,039 pages of the specification itself, and then compose, debate and approve its response in only 30 days, this result is nothing less than astonishing. Truly, I think that this demonstrates the degree to which the world has come to appreciate the importance of ensuring the long-term accessibility of its historical record, as well as the inadvisability of entrusting that heritage to a single vendor or software program.
There is further coverage of what actually constitutes a “contradiction” here. I'd say this level of response, especially in such a short time frame, is quite telling. It remains to be seen how Microsoft will respond, but the writing is on the wall. World Governments have learned that being beholden to a single vendor is just bad practice. Additional information on the numbers and what they mean.
In related news:
But while this global drama has been playing out, I've learned that a third US state is considering requiring use of open document formats by government agencies (Massachusetts and Minnesota are the other two to date). That state is Texas, where a bill has been introduced to require that only “open document formats” should be permitted. The bill is designated SB 446, and was filed on February 5 (the full text is reproduced at the end of this blog entry).
How does the Texas bill define an open document format? As stated in the bill, such a format would need to be based upon Extensible Markup Language, would need to have been previously approved, and would be required to meet the following criteria:
(1) interoperable among diverse internal and external platforms and applications;
(2) published without restrictions or royalties;
(3) fully and independently implemented by multiple software providers on multiple platforms without any intellectual property reservations for necessary technology; and
(4) controlled by an open industry organization with a well-defined inclusive process for evolution of the standard.
While a couple of those requirements are a bit nebulous, number 3 is not and would currently be a death knell for OOXML. We'll have to follow this bill and see how it does as it makes its way through the process. It should also be interesting to see if any additional states follow the lead of these three.
–jeremy
OOXML, ODF, ISO
February 9, 2007 Leave a comment
chromatic has a very good post on his blog about hardware vendors providing open drivers and specs. This is a topic I've covered before. In the post he goes through a variety of reasons you'll often see from vendors and gives a counterpoint. His conclusion sums it up very well though:
Unfortunately, the best choice is not to buy such hardware, when possible. (It’s often a question of pragmatism versus expedience, where short-term benefits mask long-term problems.)
That’s often not possible, especially when buying specialized hardware or devices with difficult-to-replace components, such as laptops.
However, it's clear that the normal approach – that is, complaining in small groups and rewarding vendors with your business anyway – is not working. Nor does reverse engineering drivers address the root of the problem. It's valuable in that it mitigates the damage, but it does little to prevent further problems.
Acknowledging vendors with the courage to deal with their customers respectfully and honestly may help. Free and open source software advocates can do a much better job of praising honest efforts to work with communities – and to encourage other companies to do so in a mutually beneficial way.
The ultimate long-term answer is continued work to produce actual and lasting reform of legal systems that reward information hoarding to dangerous extremes. This change will only occur with focused and directed action from the people affected. This means you. Have you shared your concerns about software patents with your legal representative lately? (However, if you like software patents and DRM that prevents fair use, then now is a time for very quiet reflection.)
It’s unfortunate that the acts of a few dedicated individuals and companies have so punished both vendors and their customers. Instead of casting aspersions on each other, perhaps working together for common interests will both increase the market for high-quality hardware from trustworthy vendors and provide free and open source communities with open and redistributable drivers and specifications.
He's right: we should do a better job of dealing with vendors with the courage to deal with their customers respectfully and honestly. Fixing a very broken legal system is also certainly the long term answer. The question becomes, what is the best way to make this happen in an expeditious manner. There's probably no one specific answer, but focused and directed action also seems like the best course to me. If you have a few free moments today, why not take action yourself. What you do is up to you, but do something. In the end, it's up to all of us.
–jeremy
February 6, 2007 Leave a comment
That's the questions asked in this InformationWeek article. The article covers a variety of topics and is worth reading, but I'll cover a couple highlights.
There are 139,834 open source projects under way on SourceForge, the popular open source hosting site. Five years from now, only a handful of those projects will be remembered for making lasting contributions–most will remain in niches, unnoticed by the rest of the world. For every Linux, Apache, or MySQL, dozens of other open source efforts fizzle out.
That's a dilemma for the many companies that are expanding their use of open source. Corporate developers and other IT professionals must get better at divining the winners and ignoring the losers. The wrong picks can lead companies down a rat hole of support problems and obsolete software.
I find that last sentence to be an interesting one. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen companies in trouble because a proprietary vendor either went out of business or stopped releasing a product. With Open Source, at least you always have options. Also, a couple notes on SourceForge. The majority of really huge (ie. the actual components of the LAMP stack), don't use SF these days. Some vary popular projects still do, but after those I've always broken the rest of the tail into a couple categories. There are the new apps that are legitimately getting off the ground and the apps that legitimately are abandoned or junk. There is another interesting group though. The apps that are genuinely useful and work quite well, but are very specific in nature. The ones that address a really small niche or control an obscure piece of hardware. While the downloads on these may not be huge, in their own context I'd consider them huge successes. That's a category of apps you just don't see in the proprietary world.
No Community, No Project
Many think of an open source “community” as a passel of unpaid developers who code because they love it, but that's not the driving force behind most of the work. In general, only a small group is allowed to modify or submit changes to source code. Other developers submit code to these core developers. But most important for companies assessing the health of a project is the size–and motivation–of the group of users hammering away on the code and identifying what's wrong with it, and how the project responds to that input.
An active community is part of what set Apache apart in the mid-1990s from other freeware, of which IT managers were rightfully wary, says Apache founder Brian Behlendorf. Instead of a site packed with free code, at Apache.org potential business users found the code as it was being developed, with comments being exchanged on recent work. “It was easy to ask questions, to sign up for the mailing list, to see the long conversational threads on support questions,” he says.
Behlendorf is describing the transparency that still marks any vibrant open source project. A community needs to be measured by its activity and transparency as much as its size. The reasons for decisions must be clear, with threads of discussion in forums leading up to them, and negative and positive comments getting their airing. That's one of open source's most powerful ingredients.
Community is absolutely vital to a sucessful Open Source apps. I don't think enough can be said about that. A lot of how the community runs though, comes down to one of the other points they make:
MySQL, Linux, and other successful open source projects all have this in common: a Linus Torvalds sort of figure, a benevolent dictator with the humility to see the value in other people's work. At JBoss, it was Marc Fleury. At MySQL, it's a pair of developers, Monty Widenius and David Axmark, who produced the early versions of MySQL and selected the smooth Marten Mickos as CEO. Ross Mason is the undisputed development leader of Mule, an enterprise service bus gaining traction at financial institutions. Mason's also the founder of MuleSource, the company behind it. At Samba, founded in 1992 to provide file and print capabilities across Windows, Unix, and Linux, it's the diplomatic yet decisive Jeremy Allison.
While it's possible to make it without one of these benevolent dictators it's much much more difficult. In the end it's really almost a component of the community. One that not only keeps things running smoothly, but also provides guidance and long term vision. A well respected leader is also able to diffuse the tenuous situations that well inevitably rise up.
Innovation, Luck and Timing are also huge pieces to the puzzle, as the article points out. While I don't agree with everything in the article, in the end I do think their 9 point checklist for “How To Spot A Successful Open Source Project” are fairly accurate, at least in the Commercial Open Source space:
A thriving community, Disruptive goals, A benevolent dictator, Transparency, Civility, Documentation, Employed developers, A clear license, Commercial support
While your company should look further than that list and should always download the actual code and throughly evaluate the product, the above is a good anecdotal starting point. How does the Open Source software you're evaluating stack up?
–jeremy
February 5, 2007 Leave a comment
A quick update on the LQ Radio ogg RSS feed. From day one we have supported ogg at LQ Radio. In fact, every audio release we've ever done has been released in both mp3 and ogg format. That being said, the RSS feed for podcatchers only offered the enclosure in mp3 format. About two weeks ago we started offering an ogg feed in addition to the mp3 feed. In that two weeks, a full 5% of subscribers have moved over. If you're subscribed to the mp3 feed and are able to use ogg, I'd encourage you to move over to the unencumbered format at your leisure. To clarify, we are committed to supporting both formats long term.
–jeremy
ogg, vorbis, mp3, Linux, podcast, Open Source
February 1, 2007 Leave a comment
A fantastic in-depth interview with Jens Axboe has been posted over at KernelTrap. If you're interested in block layer stuff, schedulers or the kernel development process in general, this is a must read. If you don't learn something from each and every KernelTrap interview that Jeremy posts, you are either a serious kernel ninja or Linus.
–jeremy
February 1, 2007 Leave a comment
Speaking of Open Source companies that understand their market and core strengths, MySQL AB has also been on a tear. Earlier this week, the company announced its MySQL Enterprise Unlimited program. From the press release:
MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, today unveiled a simpler way for large and growing organizations to acquire and adopt enterprise software. Designed with a customer’s perspective in mind, a one-year MySQL Enterprise Unlimited subscription offers a company-wide enterprise site agreement at the unprecedented low price of $40,000 (EUR 32,000, GBP 24,000).
“MySQL Enterprise has made it significantly easier to purchase database software and technical support for our entire organization,” said Glenn Bergeron, systems manager for Instaclick Inc., one of the first companies to take advantage of MySQL Enterprise Unlimited. “This new offering is ideal for corporate IT organizations with a growing number of projects but a tightly-fixed budget.”
MySQL Enterprise Unlimited is designed for companies with existing site licenses for Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase and IBM DB2. Last year, a survey of the Independent Oracle User Group showed that a full third of its membership also used MySQL1. With a MySQL Enterprise Unlimited subscription, an organization can develop, manage and fully support any number of MySQL database applications — significantly reducing IT time, cost and risk.
“Due in large part to advantages in distribution and volume, open source has the ability to disrupt traditional enterprise software pricing,” said Stephen O'Grady, principal analyst for RedMonk. “MySQL is attempting to prove as much with its latest site wide agreements, which offer customers the ability to support every database across their enterprise at a fraction of the traditional cost.”
Make no mistake about it, MySQL AB could have actually raised the price of their main product and still sold more. Instead they have chosen a plan which I think has a higher upside potential long term. Matt covers some of the reason the company is able to do this:
Zack told me over email (in response to my question, “How can you possibly make money at that price?):
The reason we can make money is because:
-The software really works
-And we don't have expensive Armani-wearing Ferrari-driving sales reps closing 40K deals.
Expanding on that is a post on Zack's blog. This isn't just about Oracle, it's about disrupting the industry. That's why this is a long term play. It's game changing. A lot of proprietary companies may have raised their rates as mentioned earlier, to boost the bottom line in the short term. It all looks very nice on the balance sheet. MySQL represents what I consider the future. Vibrant sustainable companies that treat their customers like partners and not like prey.
I see that the company is now looking at an IPO. As you may have guessed by my previous comments, I'll certainly try to get in on that. As you may have also guessed, I also regularly recommend and implement MySQL and run it on a site that gets a considerable amount of traffic.
–jeremy
February 1, 2007 Leave a comment
A recent article on InternetNews.com points to some moves by Red Hat that could have a large impact on Open Source in the Enterprise. From the article:
The leading Linux distributor told internetnews.com that it is rolling out online monitoring tool this year Red Hat customers.
Rich Friedman, director of product management for the Red Hat Network, told internetnews.com the management tool is already in use with a select group of customers with expanded rollouts planned throughout the year.
“We provide a set of services that can monitor systems and we handle the background work of collecting metrics, analyzing them, sending out availability and performance alerts,” Friedman said. “We provide reporting charting and history and even more capabilities in terms of managing how you set up alerts and it's all from an online perspective.”
“What we'll be doing with RHN 5 is providing support and capabilities around virtualization management,” Friedman said. [This includes] “focusing on what we do from a Red Hat RHEL perspective and the capabilities we have and the ability to control the system from a central place.”
Red Hat is taking a different angle than a one-console approach to managing all the enterprise components. “One console to serve all purposes is not as important as managing RHEL with the best capabilities,” Friedman said. “That's where we focus.”
And it's not just Oracle with which Red Hat wants to contrast its approach. Freidman said Red Hat's goal is to integrate with the big systems management vendors and work with them in a complementary manner.
Though Red Hat's goal is not be like the big systems management vendors, it is pursuing an effort to open up RHN so that it can manage more applications.
By opening up the infrastructure like this they will be allowing other companies to use it as a framework to build all kinds of compelling applications that can be brought to market much faster and for much lower costs. All the while they'll be cementing themselves as a core piece of the puzzle. This sums it up nicely:
Friedman explained that Red Hat is currently working on a platform for systems management that open source projects will be able to leverage to provide systems management out of the box. “Not to be an OpenView (HP's enterprise management product) or any one else in that arena but really as a way that you can integrate a base platform, and then provide a plug-in that will mange your product set,” Friedman said.
It's that kind of focus along with an understanding of their market and core strengths that allows Red Hat to do so well. I for one hope they are able to continue to execute as they have been. With moves like this, you have to think they well. Well done.
–jeremy
January 29, 2007 Leave a comment
I wonder if any hardware manufacturer will take Greg up on his offer of Free Linux Driver Development. From the post:
Yes, that's right, the Linux kernel community is offering all companies free Linux driver development. No longer do you have to suffer through all of the different examples in the Linux Device Driver Kit, or pick through the thousands of example drivers in the Linux kernel source tree trying to determine which one is the closest to what you need to do.
All that is needed is some kind of specification that describes how your device works, or the email address of an engineer that is willing to answer questions every once in a while. A few sample devices might be good to have so that debugging doesn't have to be done by email, but if necessary, that can be done.
In return, you will receive a complete and working Linux driver that is added to the main Linux kernel source tree. The driver will be written by some of the members of the Linux kernel developer community (over 1500 strong and growing). This driver will then be automatically included in all Linux distributions, including the “enterprise” ones. It will be automatically kept up to date and working through all Linux kernel API changes. This driver will work with all of the different CPU types supported by Linux, the largest number of CPU types supported by any operating system ever before in the history of computing.
As for support, the driver will be supported through email by the original developers, when they can help out, and by the “enterprise” Linux distributors as part of their service agreements with their customers.
When worded like that, it's hard to understand why more vendors don't want their drivers in the kernel. We really are talking about non-cost driver development here. What's more, you have people the caliber of Greg doing the work for you. He even addresses using an NDA in his post. So why the resistance from some? I'm not sure, but I'd guess it comes down to fear, perceived lack of control and misinformation. Especially in the case of commodity hardware such as NICs and on-board anything you should be begging to have Greg write your driver. Not only that, you should be paying him. But here he is, making the offer for free. Now if you make a specialized piece of $200,000 niche equipment, I can see why you would want a dedicated team of developers. Your device is likely not mainstream enough and is sufficiently complicated that you may not find someone willing or even able to maintain your driver. For the rest of you, I'm genuinely interested – what is holding you back? What would change your mind?
–jeremy
January 29, 2007 Leave a comment
OpenID is getting a lot of attention this week. At LQ, we're obviously supporters of Open Standards and Open Source, but this is something slightly different. We're also believer that you own your identity and attention data. We've supported FOAF for a long time and do what we can to make sure your data is yours. While it's not without problems that need to be addressed, I'm happy to announce that soon, we'll also be supporting OpenID. It will be interesting to see how OpenID progresses. Your “login” is something that is very important to the big vendors (think Google and Yahoo! here). Once you've signed up for a login, it makes their barrier to entry to get you to try an additional one of their products or projects that much easier. After all, all you have to do is login to your existing account. Once you use 3-4+ services, it's quite hard to leave. You're what they call sticky at that point, and that's what every vendor wants. Of course, it's also easier for companies to maintain. We learned that the hard way at LQ. For example, for a while each site we launched had a different authentication system. It was really hard to get people to use LQ Bookmarks when you had to sign up for a distinct account. After we rolled it into the main infrastructure and allowed you to use your existing LQ login procedure, usage increased by leaps and bounds. At this point, the only LQ site that still has a distinct login is the LQ Wiki. That's by design though as we want the barrier to entry there to be a low as possible – it's a wiki after all. In that vein, the LQ Wiki will be the first site to support OpenID. After we're able to get a better feel for the technology and implementation, we'll make further decisions from there. No solid ETA for support at this point, but it should definitely happen this quarter. Stay tuned.
–jeremy
OpenID
Jeremy's Blog 
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