More from OSCON

July 26, 2007 Leave a comment

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

Filed under OSCON

OSCON Opening Keynote

July 25, 2007 Leave a comment

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

Filed under OSCON

OSCON Executive Briefing II

July 24, 2007 Leave a comment

(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

Filed under Linux, Linux Foundation, maemo, MySQL, Open Source, OSCON, Ubuntu

OSCON Executive Briefing

July 24, 2007 Leave a comment

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

Filed under Linux, Open Source, OSCON

Microsoft development still broken, but they seem to be learning

July 24, 2007 Leave a comment

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

Filed under Microsoft, Open Source

The unforking of KDE's KHTML and Webkit

July 24, 2007 1 Comment

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

Filed under Apple, Open Source

Day 1 – Ubuntu Live

July 22, 2007 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

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu, UbuntuLive

Ubuntu Live & OSCON

July 21, 2007 Leave a comment

I’ll be leaving for Portland in a few hours to attend both Ubuntu Live and OSCON. OSCON is always a great conference and I’m looking forward to the first ever Ubuntu conference. If you’ll be in Portland for the event(s) and would like to meet up, drop me a line. See you in Oregon.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu

Intel Launches Mobile Linux Project

July 18, 2007 Leave a comment

The mobile Linux space continues to heat up (recent coverage). Now, Intel has jumped into the fray with the Mobile & Internet Linux Project. From the about page:

Moblin.org hosts the Mobile & Internet Linux* Project which is an umbrella, open source project focused on the development of Linux for Intel-based devices. To this purpose, moblin.org will host various projects that will provide key elements of community-based projects such as Ubuntu’s Mobile and Embedded Edition*, and Red Flag’s MIDINUX*, targeted for such devices. We also intend to be an incubator for prototyping new ideas and projects targeting these types of devices, such as the Intel-based Mobile Internet Device (MID) and various consumer electronic devices.

Looking at the projects page I was happy to see that the UI Framework is actually Hildon, which runs on the N800 and was released as Open Source by Nokia as part of maemo. Other projects will be contributing directly to upstream Open Source projects. Awesome.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Ubuntu

Microsoft to its hosting partners: Get ready. Here we come

July 16, 2007 Leave a comment

From a recent Mary Jo Foley blog post:

At its Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver this week, Microsoft officials are trying to walk the tightrope when it comes to explaining Microsoft’s plan to get into the managed services business in a major way.

Microsoft officials have made no bones about the fact that Microsoft is planning to offer a Microsoft-hosted version of services around all of its major products. Already, it’s out there selling desktop-management, Exchange, SharePoint, CRM Live and other managed services.

At its gathering of 12,000 partners, company officials are attempting to assuage fears that Microsoft will simply steamroll partners who already are selling hosted Microsoft services.

Microsoft’s message: Partners need to change. (The unwritten part: Or get the heck out of the way.)

Some hosting partners are counting on Microsoft targeting only the largest customers and leaving them the mid- and smaller-sized businesses. If history is any indicator, however, Microsoft won’t limit itself.

Will hosting partners buy into Microsoft’s messaging? Or will Microsoft’s managed-services rollout be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?

This is interesting for a couple reasons. The first is that it should serve as a reminder that Microsoft has historically been a good partner only as long as the relationship is beneficial to them. Sure, when things are going well it seems like a fantastic setup. After all, you have an industry behemoth behind you. That’s the funny thing about being taken under the wing of a dragon: it’s warmer than you think. The problem is, when that dragon gets hungry, it’s often the cozy partners that end up burnt. I keep hoping the Microsoft will change. I want them to – I think we all do. I think they will, in fact… it will just take time. This should still serve as a warning to other partners and potential partners.

Now, while this move is not good for current hosting partners, who may join the crispy remains of some previous partners, I think this may be the beginning of a new push for Microsoft. One that potentially leads to Open Source. You see, once Microsoft groks that when you are continually providing value via services (as opposed to providing lock-in as they currently do) that customers actually want to pay you, it could lead to the fundamental paradigm shift that will be needed to change the company culture. I still maintain that can’t happen with the current leadership, but this move could be the real beginning of the shift. A stretch? possibly. A chance? Most definitely.

–jeremy

Filed under Microsoft, MSFT, Open Source

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