Wednesday October 24, 2007

Grooving at GOSCON

I was up in Portland, Oregon, last week attending the Government Open Source Conference put on by Oregon State University. This was my first Open Source convention, and it was a hoot. Sun and OpenOffice.org were ably represented by featured speakers Erwin Tenhumberg, Doug Johnson and Louis Suarez-Potts, so all I had to do was hang around and absorb the atmosphere.

There were some rather heated debates, including one I witnessed between Jason Matusow, Microsoft interop guru, and Arnaud Le Hors, IBM Open Source maven, on the merits of Open XML versus Open Document Format. Fun stuff! I was also impressed by the keynote by Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, who bears a striking resemblance in mannerisms, accent and intelligence to my hero Sen. John Edwards. Who knew Open Source could be so slick?

More than one speaker made a critical point that I think deserves some intensive thought. There are plenty of government agencies that would like to use Open Source software, but that are prevented from doing so by the procurement processes they have to follow. Typically, they have to issue a Request For Proposal that must be filled out by all interested vendors. These things often run to 100 pages of detailed questions. Microsoft and Oracle have whole teams dedicated to filling out RFPs. The Open Source world has no one. Result: the Open Source product doesn't get selected. There's got to be an answer to this. Maybe some civic-minded foundation would like to dedicate some resources to promoting the use of Open Source in government by responding to RFPs? Seems like a great way to save the taxpayers some big bucks.

Tuesday October 09, 2007

In the midst of life

It's always a shock to lose one of our number. One of my product management colleagues from my days on Java CAPS, John Hardin, died suddenly over the weekend of natural causes. He was about 40 and left behind his wife Meggan, and two children from a previous marriage. John was a good man and a talented product manager. He brought a lot to Sun, and he will be missed. A fund has been set up to assist Meggan with making arrangements. Contributions may be sent to Judy Myers in Mon01.

Update: If you are outside Sun, contributions should be sent to

Judy Myers

Sun Microsystems

800 Royal Oaks Drive

Monrovia, CA 91016

Checks should be made payable to Meggan Hardin

Wednesday October 03, 2007

AT&T digging up the neighborhood

A contracted telco crew put fliers on everyone's house in our neighborhood today. They said, "There will be buried utility placing operations in this community from 10-4-07 to 10-31-07 appx. This project is to provide enhanced offerings and services to customers of AT&T."  Egad! Could this be the advent of fiber optic cable in our neighborhood? One can only hope. I called the contractor for confirmation, but they haven't called back yet. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Update: I went outside just now and talked to the young guy running the jackhammer. He pulled his earplugs out, and confirmed that they're laying fiber optic cable. He said he has it in his house, and it's like lightning. Awesome. I can hardly wait. It also shows that fiber isn't just for geeks.