Friday June 30, 2006 links for 2006-07-01
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This is a great project from the OpenOffice.org community to raise the funds to post a professionally-produced advert in a widely-distributed New York newspaper. Well worth contributing to.
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I could see Solaris making a great host for other operating systems using Xen.
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Yes! The first publication to get it right! Thanks, IT Business Edge!
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Dana graciously publishes more on what I actually think in relation to open source, correcting the tide of misunderstanding that ZDNet UK has caused.
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Tom Marble rolls up a nice summary of our team's attendance at OSCON in Portland at the end of July.
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I just joined the other F/OSS Advocates on the Planet Advocacy aggregator.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 30 2006, 06:17:27 PM PDT )
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Thursday June 29, 2006 links for 2006-06-30
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As soon as we can make it happen, folks. But not in the next few months.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 29 2006, 06:18:07 PM PDT )
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Wednesday June 28, 2006 links for 2006-06-29
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A reasonable article on my core point at OSBC - search SunMink for "Software Market 3.0" to hear what I really say :-)
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Not a very good report of my keynote - Matt Asay has it much better. This guy just wants to be a sensationalist.
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Matt Asay is right on target with his summary of my keynote. Read this and then ask yourself whether the ZDNet guy was even at the same event...
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"Microsoft is to be applauded for opening up via projects like CodePlex, but if Simon Phipps's theory is right, it is an indication of how far Microsoft still has to go to catch up on understanding the open source model."
Posted by webmink
( Jun 28 2006, 06:17:30 PM PDT )
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Whisper Chain Gets It Wrong
It's interesting looking at the way the whisper chain twists comments. At OSBC in London yesterday I answered a question about whether the open sourcing of Sun's Java implementation is years away. I replied as I usually do, indicating it's "months rather than years", making it clear that the way to interpret that comment is that it's double-digit months and not September! So the usual press sensationalism then took that comment out of its context to create the story that's in InfoWorld today.
Right at the top is something I did not say - that Sun is "months" away from releasing its trademark Java programming language under an open-source license with the normal usage implication that goes with that phrase. The Inquirer then joins the whisper chain and gets it even more wrong, saying Sun has indicated that it is only a few months from releasing Java under an open source licence - my word, it will be down to weeks soon at the rate the whisper chain is working.
The article does correctly point out the nature of the challenge, namely maintaining true compatibility. To be clear, The Sun Java team is working hard on the the decisions involved in open sourcing the Java platform, but the sheer size of the challenge means it's not going to happen in the next few weeks - come on, folks, get real. In best open source tradition, it will be ready when it's ready. All I am saying is it's really happening and that point is likely to be way sooner than the distant future Sun's detractors would like to imply!
Posted by webmink
( Jun 28 2006, 04:14:26 AM PDT )
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Comments [8]
Tuesday June 27, 2006 links for 2006-06-28
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I have had a Fon base-station for a while but have only been able to roam onto one in the last week (over in Barcelona). I hope this new move helps them flourish and spread.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 27 2006, 06:17:49 PM PDT )
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Freedom To Leave
A journalist asked me an interesting question last Friday, and it's led to this huge essay summarising what I'd like to say at OSBC in London today (I'll never fit it all in though, here are my slides). "Why is it," he asked, "that we are seeing so many new desktop tools like word-processors and calendars at the moment?" He's right, of course. There's loads of energy around, with projects like Google Calendar, KOffice, OpenOffice.org, Chandler and plenty more, plus new innovations like Backpack, Writely, BlogBridge and others. I've tried many of these and some of them have stuck. What's the connection between them?
The New Lock-Out
The thing is, all of these tools have worked out that lock-in is the new lock-out. The fastest way to send early adopters packing is to make your cool new toy a roach motel. To start with, early adopters like me are not willing to put live data into applications that don't offer import and export. My calendar is in RFC2445 iCalendar format, so if you want me to try your new calendar thing you'd better accept that as the import format. If I can't add iCalendar and vCalendar appointments I'll not be using it for long, and there had better be an iCalendar sharing facility for scheduling.
What's more, I have to have iCalendar export so I can migrate away from your new toy to things like Apple iCal, Sun Java System Calendar Server or any of the umpteen programs that support those standards. The same goes for everything else - I just moved my blog subscriptions from Bloglines to BlogBridge to give it a try (it's a pretty cool Java Webstart application) using the OPML export in Bloglines, and I work with a group of people routinely exchanging documents between a selection of applications that support ODF.
Confidence To Stay
The availability of open, freely-usable standards creates a bigger market and promotes innovation because we are all free to give things a try, as was clear at BloggerCon. If "interoperability" meant "import only", I'd never feel safe trying new things so market growth and innovation would be inhibited. People who implement open standards like this are smart, because although they allow customers to leave for greener pastures they also allow them to return - I am still using Bloglines despite the appeal of BlogBridge - and the confidence I feel over "owning" my data makes me a much more interesting customer.
That feeling is caused by more than interoperability - it takes full substitutability for me to have the confidence to stay as well as the freedom to leave. That's why Stewart is spot-on with Flickr's policy and paradoxically will keep my business by allowing me to leave at any time.
Innovation Enabled
More than that, though, full support for truly open standards means that new ways to use the data can occur. For example, the feeds in Bloglines mean I can use BlogBridge to read the for:webmink tag feed using BlogBridge and have Cote send me interesting links to read without the overhead of e-mail. That's part innovation-by-design and part innivation-enabled, leaving the customer to work out new ways to mash-up the data and create innovative uses for their own data. When using the data demands only a particular vendor's software, or a licenisng relationship, or some other boundary traversal, the innovation finds it harder to escape.
So what does it take to have a standard that leads to substitutability and the freedom to leave? At a minimum, it takes the following to innovation-enable a standard.
- First of all, it takes confidence over intellectual property rights. I dream of a world where "standard" implies that all parties to the creation of the specification have been compelled to issue non-assert covenants so every developer can be sure there's no strings attached.
- Second, it takes multiple implementations, proving the format is actually usable in multiple places. This was the genius of IETF and it's one of the lessons of CORBA.
- Third, the approach must not favour any particular implementation or platform. That's the problem Microsoft's Office 12 XML format (or whatever it's called today) turns out to have, and no amount of rubber-stamping by the vendor-only Ecma International will fix it.
- Fourth, and in the coming world of development the most important, is that there's an open source reference implementation, so that the standard can be incorporated into as many systems as possible. This, by the way, is why I am such a fan of open source for the Java platform.
The Richness of the Plains
This is about far more than interoperability. Interoperablity was a fine goal in the 90s, but in today's world it takes much more than just the minimum level of allowing others to use your secret sauce. Pragmatic interoperability is better than nothing and sure beats the cold-war mindset of the 80s and 90s where incompatibility and isolationism were the rule. But I want more than import-only. I want more than lowest-common-denominator exchange, where I have to rework my data to make it survive the teleport. Those are the hallmarks of the monopolist's definition of interoperability - letting you play in my market at little risk to me.
The network changes everything. I argue in my current keynote (after Benkler) that injecting the network into society removes the commercial benefits previously achieved by closed behaviour, and the plethora of new software the journalist observed seems to support that. The canyons were the first world of software and interoperability was their high-altitude pass. The plains are the new world, where the spread of open formats and software grows the market and gives us all the opportunity for success - in whatever compatible way we choose to measure it.
The new world is being made by iCalendar, Atom/RSS, OpenDocument, OPML and their like, overturning one of Cringeley's five lock-ins (cited by Charles Miller recently) in a world that's also rejecting the other four. Truly open formats are creating the new market, and those who attempt to subvert the trend with pseudo-openness will fail.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 27 2006, 12:04:56 AM PDT )
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Comments [3]
Monday June 26, 2006 links for 2006-06-27
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"A quarter of Scots are likely to visit pubs more often now public places are smoke-free, according to a survey." They can go out, taste their food & drink, not need to launder their clothes afterwards, live longer. What's not to love?
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Fascinating brand-control manual for those living in the previous century.
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The airline is moving from Windows to Solaris now that online revenue is becoming a serious part of their business.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 26 2006, 06:17:36 PM PDT )
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A Tale of Two Filesystems
I can't help reflecting on the difference between WinFS and ZFS as I read the news that WinFS has been canned (as Robert McLaws puts it - "it's not dead... it lives on in productized form in Katmai!" Yeah, and Bob lived on to become Clippy). It contrasts two approaches to the marketplace - the one from the passing age of The Firm and the one from the coming age of Social Production (assuming you are a student of Benkler).
The first approach uses market power (Monopoly power, even) at best to generate unduly optimistic comment and at worst to FUD competitors into touch. Charles Miller reminds us that WinFS (and the things it's been called before) has been a vehicle for FUD to try to stifle the innovations of competitors like Apple for maybe a decade. The dread work is carried out in the voice of the PR department - Charles also points out what many commentators have noticed, that the official death announcement sounds horribly contrived and tries to hide the truth (even Scoble agrees, as he tries some different spins and is called on it!).
Meanwhile, the radical new file system that's in OpenSolaris (and now in Solaris 10 if you dig a bit in the rather contrived release that ironically hides the good news) has been relatively unsung by comparison. Yet ZFS is revolutionising the way enterprise servers are used, energising the base of new storage products and all available today, complete with source, for porting to other operating systems.
Time will tell which approach will succeed in the emerging market, but you can guess where my money would be if I were a betting man.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 26 2006, 12:01:23 AM PDT )
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Sunday June 25, 2006 links for 2006-06-26
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Note especially the observation that Microsoft's team is trying to spin this defeat as a victory and in the process un-Scobling the company as fast as they can. The Cringely list is good too.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 25 2006, 06:17:44 PM PDT )
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Wave After Wave
I can't let the last week pass without mentioning the incredible wave of support that ISO26300, the OpenDocument family of file formats, have been receiving around the world. Last week we saw Belgium and India joining Denmark and many others in recognising the importance of using a truly open file format for their dealings with their citizens. I was especially struck by the wisdom of this part of the Belgian decision:
From September 2008 onwards, Belgium's federal services must use ODF when exchanging documents, though other formats will still be allowed for internal use, Strickx confirmed. However, Belgium is leaving the door open for Open XML [that's Microsoft's Newspeak-renamed Office 12 format that they are pushing through Ecma with the help of some corporate friends - S.]
"Open XML today does not exist, as there is no product on the market that supports it. Once it is available as a product and proposed to the ISO, it is possible that the format will also be accepted," Strickx said. However, there will be an additional hurdle: Open XML must also be proven to be easily convertible to and from ODF.
The old standards system is in urgent need of a fix - Ecma still has the ability to "bless" standards that it gained back in the 80s, even though today it is among the most closed and anachronistic of standards bodies. But the Belgians are allowing for that, requiring that even if Microsoft is able to manipulate this anachronism to get Office 12 XML a standards stamp, the pragmatic rule of round-trip conversion will also apply. Smart. The tide is turning.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 25 2006, 03:26:10 PM PDT )
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Saturday June 24, 2006 links for 2006-06-25
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Sometimes they really are out to get you (this happened just down the road from my home).
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I thought that throwing something into my garden voluntarily made it mine, too.
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"No standard should be approved without a reference implementation ... No standard should be approved without having been used to implement a few projects of realistic complexity." More reasons ODF gets it right.
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A useful insight in this article is that successful businesses of the future will target workloads that are growing faster than Moore's Law as that's where there's value over and above commodity to be monetised.
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I think this is a big deal too. I hope for a world where having a "standard" will imply all the parties to its creation have been compelled to issue non-assert covenants like this as a condition of participation.
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Andy digs through the MA RFI responses. Most interesting phrase: "even though the MS XMLRS may be fully unencumbered ... a number of the features ... are not available for implementation by other developers".
Posted by webmink
( Jun 24 2006, 06:17:39 PM PDT )
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Gone but not forgotten
It's hard to see colleagues move on for any reason, but one of the good things about Sun is that we often find people returning later - indeed, some of our key leadership right now are re-hires. Sun has always had a policy of not re-allocating employee serial numbers so that people can come back.
There's a radical new step emerging though. Sun alumni can now apply to have their blogs aggregated at the new community.sun.com aggregator page by filling out a form, staying part of Sun's extended family. I hope we'll see a broad spread of blogs syndicated there - there are so many people I want to stay in touch with, Geoff Arnold included. No reason why turning in your badge means I have to stop respecting your considered opinion (assuming I did before!).
Posted by webmink
( Jun 24 2006, 07:36:38 AM PDT )
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Friday June 23, 2006 links for 2006-06-24
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I always loved learning by counter-example.
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"From September 2008 onwards, Belgium's federal services must use ODF when exchanging documents, though other formats will still be allowed for internal use"
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Chandershekhar, secretary, Ministry of Information & Technology, Government of India said, "We are glad to note that with formation of a National ODF alliance, India too would be playing a pivotal role in spearheading the ODF revolution."
Posted by webmink
( Jun 23 2006, 06:17:21 PM PDT )
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Global Zen
Yesterday was something of a peak-activity day for me, with my "Zen of Free" keynote at The Server Side Symposium in Barcelona in the morning and then a talk at the British Computer Society Hampshire Branch AGM in the evening. The slides for the Hampshire event are online so that attendees can get them (the slides for TSS are essentially the same). For the first time I put together a reading list for that event, which is as follows:
- Coase's Penguin - Yochai Benkler
- The Wealth of Networks - Yochai Benkler [UK | US]
- Innovation Happens Elsewhere - Richard Gabriel & Ron Goldman [UK | US]
- Licensing White Paper - Sun's Open Source Group
- Software Freedom Essays
Next week is busy too - I'll be speaking at OSBC in London and at GUADEC in Barcelona (again). If you are either, be sure to say hello.
Posted by webmink
( Jun 23 2006, 05:11:01 AM PDT )
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