Saturday July 15, 2006 On to OSCON
After I'm done with LUGRadio Live, I'll be heading to Heathrow to proceed to Portland where I am on at OSCON. I'd tell you anyway, even if I wasn't forced to by the "speaker contract" O'Reilly make me agree to. I like OSCON, after all, and have attended several of them.
That requirement in the agreement (and the fact I was forced to e-sign it) remind me that OSCON is a curious mix of community and commercial, with paid tickets zooming past the $1000 mark (that's 100x LUGRadio Live), throwing the free and almost-free conferences by Debian and GNOME into a whole new light. It's especially interesting that both DebConf and GUADEC will actually pay for community members to attend - that's a big destination for the sponsorships they raise - whereas OSCON doesn't even offer speakers a living allowance.
On the other hand, comparing it with things like LWE and OSBC casts it in a great light - real people do real stuff at OSCON by comparison with those events, and historic things have happened there - for example, OpenOffice.org was launched at OSCON in Monterey in 2000. All the people you'd ever want to meet in open source will be there, and I'm sure the happenings this year will be excellent - don't miss Damien Conway, for example.
The new Sun Open Source Group team will be there in force - Tom Marble has an excellent summary of our activities. If you'll be there, do come over and say hello - I'll be around all week, but especially visible Thursday for an amazingly short keynote (I can hardly draw breath in 15 minutes), a sponsored session and a BOF with the Sun Open Source Group extended team. We'd love to see you there.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 15 2006, 07:03:15 PM PDT )
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links for 2006-07-16
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I'm with Volker on this one. I'm increasingly treating "has mini-USB as charging method" as a key will-buy condition on gadgets.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 15 2006, 06:17:18 PM PDT )
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Friday July 14, 2006 links for 2006-07-15
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Where we discover that how you see things depends on where you're standing at the time.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 14 2006, 06:17:28 PM PDT )
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Thursday July 13, 2006 Absolutely LUGly
I've just been catching up with some podcast listening while I've been working, and among them were one or two from LUGRadio, including one from GUADEC where they called me over to their extravagant studio (a table under the air conditioning vent in the Big Top) while I was preparing for my keynote. I really enjoy this podcast - they are relaxed, friendly and geeky and they put their guests at ease. I recommend listening to a few (and not just becuase I'm in them!) I also recommend presenter Jono Bacon's PlanetAdvocacy aggregator as a place to meet their "regulars".
On the subject of LUGRadio, I'll plug LUGRadio Live, which is coming up in just over a week here in the UK. It's going to be pretty organic some come prepared for a total geek-out. Both the ever-readable Patrick Finch and I will be there and we'd love to see as many of our blog regulars as possible. I'll bring a bag of stuff to give away to anyone who comes up to me at LUGRadio Live and mentions the title of this blog posting (first come, first served!)
I'll be delivering "that" keynote again, so come along and see whether the folks at ZDNet UK were indeed smoking something when they reported on OSBC (the antithesis of LUGRadio Live, by the way).
Posted by webmink
( Jul 13 2006, 05:55:28 PM PDT )
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Wednesday July 12, 2006 links for 2006-07-13
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Yes, you read that right. GNU/OpenSolaris distribution as the 15th most popular open source operating system this month.
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Marcich called Google's decision to join "a natural fit, given Writely's support for ODF and further indication of momentum behind ODF."
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"... it is our opinion that ODF, as standardized and licensed by ... (OASIS), is free of legal encumbrances that would prevent its use in free and open source software." -- Eben Moglen
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Everything you need for the server end of your AJAX apps, including Groovy support.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 12 2006, 06:18:13 PM PDT )
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Tuesday July 11, 2006 links for 2006-07-12
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NeoOffice offers OpenOffice.org an olive branch.
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The OpenOffice.org team now has 75% of the funds they need to place a nice-looking advert for OpenOffice.org in New York's daily Metro newspaper. Tim to go toss a few more coins in the jar.
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Part Two of a Conversation With Sun Microsystems Laboratories' Ron Goldman.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 11 2006, 06:17:47 PM PDT )
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Love at tera-byte
I was going to write about the new X4500 (I still prefer "Thumper" as a name but I guess people could easily get confused between 24TB of storage and a cartoon rabbit), but my friend Tim beat me to it and wrote pretty much everything I was going to say. So go read his stuff instead. Then the things I really like:
- This monster is going to be available on try & buy! Yes, you can get one free for 60 days, no strings attached (soon, anyway).
- The idea behind the huge number of inexpensive disks is that you can allow a load of them to fail and just have an annual service call when the disk guy drops round and replaces the ones with a light next to them. Lower service costs, less fuss.
- This is just a perfect use for ZFS - cheap drives made usable by clever storage software.
- The attention to detail is great. People on Slashdot have been bleating about how anyone could make one of these with just a 4U case and a stack of disks, and the price would come out less, but they're wrong - this thing is an engineering feat that will take quite some cloning, what with the 4U size, the drawer-format so you can open the thing out on rails to replace disks, the air flows to keep it all cool, the sleeves for the drives, and so on.
Summary: I want one. Not sure why, as my MP3 collection would rattle in it like a pea in a supertanker, but the geek in me just wants one on the LAN. And if I was buying storage for a data-centre - well, these things would be just magic. No wonder Ben is in love.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 11 2006, 06:11:15 PM PDT )
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Monday July 10, 2006 links for 2006-07-11
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Amazing where I get quoted - this uses a quote from an article I wrote in 2002 to show the RPG software industry as wanting with regard to open source. Probably correct, too, especially that last conclusion.
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It has OpenDocument import and export so there's the freedom to leave as well as the power to play in ODF workflows. Very cool and interesting, worth watching.
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"finding a few terrorists by mass surveillance of the phone calls and email messages of 300 million Americans is mathematically impossible, and NSA certainly knows that." -- Floyd Rudmin
Posted by webmink
( Jul 10 2006, 06:17:42 PM PDT )
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Loosely-Coupled Workflows
Back in 1997, I was working to evangelise XML as the data format of the future. One of the common questions I was asked was "where should I use XML". I explained back then that XML was ideal as a language for describing data in transit between two groups of people of systems that were not under the same management. What you used in your workgroup or department was up to you, but pervasive networks meant you would increasingly be working with people well outside your authority umbrella. In those cases, a format would be required that minimised the technical coupling encountered during attempts to collaborate.
Use of binary formats led to a need for tight coupling of the parties consuming and creating them as well as of both parties to the entity controlling the format. I asserted back in 1997 that XML promoted the same loose coupling for data as the use of the Java platform allowed for programs. This was a recurrent theme of my keynotes in the late 90s.
Fast forward nine years and it seems we're entering the stage I forecast back in 1997, but for documents. I've been using the term "workflow" recently in discussing the way ISO 26300 OpenDocument (ODF) fits the way people are increasingly working. We've already seen that the concept of a "Service Oriented Architecture" is intellectually appealing (even if it's been hijacked by complexity fiends), and I see no reason why the desire to have organisationally loosely coupled entities co-operate should force them to become technically interdependent.
Best Tool For The Job
Hence my overloading of the term "workflow" (and search for a synonym I can use instead). The truly great thing about Microsoft's flawed announcement last week is that it takes the product and vendor dynamics off the table as obstructions and allows us to focus on what really matters - working together efficiently in a connected, participation age. Everything is going to be able to open and save ISO26300 OpenDocument files in time. Everything. Now we can distinguish between the policy decision about what's flowing between and the pragmatic decision of what's being used within. Loosely-coupled workflows are the answer.
For example, I may choose to use the very promising browser-only Zoho Writer [thanks, Robert] which promises to be able to both open and save OpenDocument files and thus, by giving me the freedom to leave gives me the confidence to stay. Or I may be a writer with special interface needs because of a disability, locked into some version of Microsoft Word because the accessibility device I paid a fortune for only works there due to a lack of accessibility standardisation (which, by the way, is getting fixed fastest on GNOME). Or I may use OpenOffice.org or NeoOffice or something. Who cares. That's my choice, and whatever you have chosen you have no right to dictate what I use.
Networks-Of-Purpose
Meanwhile, the networks-of-purpose within which I participate can still mandate the format I have to use to exchange documents with other network members. Those networks will choose OpenDocument simply because it opens up the widest range of choices, from the crustiest version of Word to the newest, most exciting ideas like Zoho Writer. They will choose OpenDocument because it offers a baseline that will still be readable for decades yet will also provide a baseline on which innovation can be built. And they will choose OpenDocument because it is transparently in the stewardship of a truly open standards process and licensed in a truly no-strings-attached way.
So when you hear me talking about "loosely-coupled workflows" in this context, this is what I mean. I can choose the best tool for the job to do the work, but when the work flows between loosely-coupled partners in my network it won't make us technology-dependent on any given platform, tool or vendor. If loosely-coupled is good enough for SOA it's good enough for documents too.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 10 2006, 05:41:59 PM PDT )
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Sunday July 09, 2006 links for 2006-07-10
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Ubuntu gets a place to store commercial software.
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A simpler, more modern license with better developer protection but all the same, MPL-based values as the license before.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 09 2006, 06:17:17 PM PDT )
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Saturday July 08, 2006 links for 2006-07-09
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Not a bad story, although the headline is dead wrong. They have no skin in the game and are not offering any support for ODF in their products - they have just gamed the sloppy use of the word "support".
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Pretty good summary in the UK's PC Pro.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 08 2006, 06:17:26 PM PDT )
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Friday July 07, 2006 links for 2006-07-08
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Peter Galli balances his other article (which sounded like it was a Microsoft press release) with an article with comment from others.
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Coverage of the reaction from Bob Sutor and I.
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Ben's listened to the actual presentation now, and responds with a much more on-target discussion. I wonder if any of the people who picked up his first blog will pick this one up too?
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C|Net discusses my job with my boss :-)
Posted by webmink
( Jul 07 2006, 06:17:43 PM PDT )
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Thursday July 06, 2006 links for 2006-07-07
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"[PPTUnit] FAIL. Expected interoperable(P,P) where P=[ibm,sun,jboss,bea]; found interoperable(P,ms)." Or how "interoperability" is being fraudulently used to describe a low-benefits partner programme.
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The ODF market grows.
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"But I scratch my head and wonder: Why doesn't Microsoft just more directly work with the OASIS group with respect to reducing the technical issues?" --- Joe Wilcox (and a great question)
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Suitably positive-but-sceptical summary from VNU.
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This reporter manages to spin my response in exactly the opposite way to VNU.
Posted by webmink
( Jul 06 2006, 06:17:34 PM PDT )
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Kicking and Screaming
If you have an eye for announcements about OpenDocument, you will have spotted the fact that Microsoft has further retreated from their condemnation of OpenDocument by announcing that they "endorse" an open source project being conducted by three other firms to convert between their proprietary Office 12 XML format and ISO 26300 OpenDocument. The last objection to use of OpenDocument as your base-line workflow and archival format is gone.
I'm delighted they have recognised the importance of ODF and no longer oppose it. In fact, I invite them to finally engage with the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee, which they have long been free and able to do but for their public posture towards OpenDocument (which is only mending, not healthy, as Erwin points out). They would also be most welcome to join the other 220+ organisations in the ODF Alliance. However, the move they announced today really is the absolute minimum they could do.
What they have announced is a project on Sourceforge that adds a clearly separate ODF facility to Word 2007:
If installation is successful, you should see a new “ODF” entry in the “File” menu in Word 2007. It allows you to either import an ODF text file or export your current working document as an ODF text file (note that during development process, those functionalities might be temporary unavailable).
Important note: The ODF file opened by the add-in is converted into Office OpenXML (Office 2007 new file format) and imported into Word as a read-only file. If you want to save it as ODF, you have to use the "Export as ODF" button and provide a new file name (that can be the same as the current file name).
This is clearly inferior to the OpenDocument Foundation plug-in for Word, which elegantly adds ODF as another, peer file format so you can open, save and work with files in a natural way. Microsoft has architected this to make ODF as hard to work with as possible - imported files are read-only, there's no export function until late this year at the earliest, and you can't set ODF as the default file format. Nonetheless, it does mean that those who have to stick with Microsoft's product for whatever reason (such as having an accessibility device that's dependent on proprietary internals of Office and thus won't work with anything else) are able to join in with ISO26300-based workflows.
This does not change my view on best practice for government one bit. The right approach for governments is to use a file format that's an open, completely no-strings-attached standard, designed with multiple implementations in mind and actually implemented in multiple products. Today that's ISO26300 OpenDocument, and Microsoft's product is now able to use it too. Anyone who cares about the longevity of their documents or their Freedom to Leave should exchange and store them as OpenDocument, whatever working format they choose locally in their application.
The main lesson I draw from all this, though, is that if we want to see Microsoft behaving in a way that respects customers and standards, they will need to be dragged kicking and screaming and FUDing all the way to that conclusion. As Andy Updegrove writes:
the fact that Microsoft would support the creation of a plugin is not itself new information. In fact, last September, ZDNet's Dan Farber reported on [a] conversation with Microsoft's Ray Ozzie in a brief blog entry dated October 25 ... Clearly, Microsoft has been hedging its bets for quite a while, by supporting the development of conversion tools, but holding off on letting it be known that switching to ODF compliant software would be less of an issue than otherwise would have appeared to be the case. ... So why now? I suspect that the recent wave of news from Europe in general in support of ODF, and the announcement made in June by Belgium in particular, led to this latest fall back in defensive position by Microsoft.
Indeed, huge credit is due to the Belgian government for their brave announcement of use of OpenDocument. We all need to keep on demanding and using ISO 26300 OpenDocument for our workflows, because we now know that Microsoft's supposed "principles" here are actually marketing positions that they will retract once their bluff is called. Onward, freedom!
Posted by webmink
( Jul 06 2006, 08:28:57 AM PDT )
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