Monday August 28, 2006 Loosely Coupled
As I have been preparing for speaking events recently, I have started to realise that there's a common thread joining all the projects I have been involved in over the last decade. In 1995, I was one of the five instigators of the use of the Java platform at IBM; in 1997 I was IBM's spokesman for the newly emerging XML standard; in 2001 I was involved at Sun in what would become known as Service Oriented Architectures (SOA); today, I have a deep interest in OpenDocument format (ODF).
It may seem surprising that all these are connected, but they are. As I have been explaining now for a decade, the source of many costs in IT infrastructures result from different organisational units with no (or distant) shared management being forced to create technical interdependencies in order to co-operate. The less technology we are forced to share in order to co-operate, the less we will have to pay to get started and the less we will need to pay in the future to maintain - or remove - the ability. We need to stay loosely-coupled - connected by the least possible thread of technology.
What forces us to share technology in order to collaborate? Closedness. When solutions are single-vendor, when they use formats and APIs that aren't open (either by being non-standard or predicating use of a closed technology), using them for co-operative activities couples us to each other at a technology level. The opposite of this, promoting free choice and loose technology coupling, is open standards implemented as open source in open communities.
When we are loosely-coupled in this way, we can make our own decisions about what technologies to use within our own span of control, and you can make your own decisions on all these things, yet we are still able to co-operate over the things that matter to us. So each of the things I listed above express this principle. Java technology decouples applications from platforms; XML decouples data from applications; SOA decouple processing end-points; ODF decouples desktop data from the tool that maintains it. Each of these things potentially enables the freedom to leave.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 28 2006, 02:56:55 PM PDT )
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Thursday August 24, 2006 Ego Graph
Is this the ultimate tool for the blogging egomaniac?
Posts that contain "Simon Phipps" per day for the last 30 days.
Get your own chart!
Posted by webmink
( Aug 24 2006, 09:55:11 PM PDT )
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Wednesday August 23, 2006 In China
Apologies for my quietness - I am in China to speak at the China Open Source Conference on Thursday and my hosts are keeping me very busy! Normal service should be resumed soon. Posted by webmink
( Aug 23 2006, 07:10:55 AM PDT )
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Monday August 21, 2006 links for 2006-08-22
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Perhaps the greatest strength of open source software is that it is globally localisable, empowering every nation to have software in their language without having to climb currency conversion or tariff barriers.
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Sarah Lacy once again manages to explain a complex and inflammatory subject to a general audience - this time the conflicts surrounding the GPL v3 revision.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 21 2006, 06:18:10 PM PDT )
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Sunday August 20, 2006 links for 2006-08-21
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Not sure how long it will survive the wrath of London Transport, but it's a work of beauty.
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A clear three-way split is visible so far. Looks like it won't be easy to be popular.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 20 2006, 06:17:49 PM PDT )
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Saturday August 19, 2006 links for 2006-08-20
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McSweeneys, with an illicit e-mail and then a glimpse of the future that you need to read.
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"The idea of hand cream and matches -- hand cream and matches -- becoming the focus of a TSA press conference, is clear evidence enough that our security hysteria has become unmanageable." -- Patrick Smith (Pilot)
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British Airways goes out of its way to apply every rule it can possibly find to inconvenience its passengers in my experience, but this is a new extreme that I've not personally encountered.
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"Consumers won't be aware that meat and poultry products have been treated with the spray, Zajac added. The Department of Agriculture will regulate the actual use of the product." So you'll not get the choice to avoid them either.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 19 2006, 06:17:47 PM PDT )
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OpenSSO is Live
If you're looking for an open source access management system, look no further! I'm delighted to say that Sun has just opened the doors on the OpenSSO Community, which includes the source code for the Sun Java System Access Manager product, which offers single sign-on services to other applications based on the idea of federating diverse identity directories. It's been released as open source under the CDDL and the full source is available today. The project says of itself:
The Open Web SSO project (OpenSSO) provides core identity services to simplify the implementation of transparent single sign-on (SSO) as a security component in a network infrastructure. OpenSSO provides the foundation for integrating diverse web applications that might typically operate against a disparate set of identity repositories and are hosted on a variety of platforms such as web and application servers.
Many congratulations to the Sun team for completing the substantial work necessary to make this transition from closed to open source - I hope you rapidly gather an energetic and skilled community around the code, to the benefit of all.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 19 2006, 01:58:11 AM PDT )
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Friday August 18, 2006 Why Bother Open Sourcing Java?
I was making a serious point on Tuesday when I commented that the number of developers interested in the source code to Sun's Java SE implementation would be quite small (I guessed in the low hundreds). OSDir may make fun of it and C|Net rather miss the mark too, but Neil Ward-Dutton, who asked the question I was answering, has a better understanding of the matter but still misses the heart of the matter. That's not to say that monetisation at the point of value isn't crucial for Sun, but the Java platform is more a market-maker than a direct revenue generator.
All that the 4 million plus developers of applications on the Java platform really care about is that there's a full Java implementation everywhere they see the Java logo, which works the same as all others and includes all the class files their application needs. I call this "works-the-same compatibility", and it has always been the core value of the Java platform. It allows you to upgrade the operating system without breaking the applications. With a little care, it allows you to have one application and target multiple platforms.
Almost none of those 4 million plus developers will ever want to join in with any activity that's maintaining the internals of the Java platform. As Alan notes, the only regard most Java developers will have for open source Java implementations is a fear of incompatible forks (and I remember your concerns from TSS in Spain, Kirk).
But there will be some who are interested. There has already been enough interest for 30 or so developers to collaborate on GNU/Classpath, and there's another group (dominated by IBM and Intel) working on Apache Harmony. I'd guess that as many as 400 people could eventually form a core developer community around an open source code base sparked by Sun's implementation.
So why do something that, if it works, goes unnoticed by the 4 million? It's not just for the 400. I'm keen to ensure that the Java platform finally finds its place at the heart of the Free software movement, but to do that it needs to be released under Free license. While there are people who assert that requirement for ideological reasons, there are a much greater number who do so for purely pragmatic reasons. Developers aren't lawyers, and they mostly don't want to hire lawyers either, so the only license terms they'll accept are ones that have been vetted by an authority they trust. Without an OSI-approved license, the cost of including software in an operating system is just too much. So they won't.
Now, the Java platform makes perfect sense in a world of free operating systems (and I disagree profoundly with Scott Handy's assertion that the world only needs one - I am running four different Free operating systems here as I type). It allows the developer to work independently of the platform, insulated from different distributions, different versions and even different CPU architectures. It means you can choose the perfect operating system for the job, yet still use the same application.
While the actual code-base will only be touched by the 400, the 4 million will benefit from the extended deployment range, the greater pool of expertise and the greater diversity of interests that will result (and I firmly believe, again unlike Scott Handy, that opening the source is essential). Open sourcing Sun's Java implementations is hard, has risks and affects only the 400 now, but it will quickly grow benefits that the 4 million will reap. That's the motivation - preparing for the world where, as I've said elsewhere, the network is the computer, and open source is its soul.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 18 2006, 06:43:06 PM PDT )
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Thursday August 17, 2006 links for 2006-08-18
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Martin Banks considers business models as well as licenses.
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Matthew got more into his stride in this second one and managed a classic journalistic smear by misframing my comments about wanting to work with communities as a plea for help. This one is award-quality UK journalism.
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"It is interesting to see that Sun is now the low-price PC provider out there, usually beating out HP and Dell on similar configs. Oh, how times have changed."
Posted by webmink
( Aug 17 2006, 06:17:38 PM PDT )
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Wednesday August 16, 2006 links for 2006-08-17
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Not a bad report, although I didn't say I preferred CDDL for any future open source Java project.
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This one focuses on the portal. I actually think we're going pretty fast, rather than inching, but I can understand that people used to rule-by-decree will find the process slow.
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Coverage in a Websphere publication - must be big news.
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First of two stories by this writer trying his best to cast a darker spin on the whole proceedings. While only programmers with the calling to work on the JDK will be excited, once it's all open source it will have a big impact by just being.
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This one's closer to the point, which is that the impact of an open JDK will be who can distribute it and how it can be used rather than how many people choose to participate in the source code that it comprises.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 16 2006, 06:17:40 PM PDT )
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Constructive Spirit
The news I mentioned yesterday, that Sun will open source all of its Java implementations, is all over the media today, as you'd expect. However, the comments that are especially important to me are not from journalists or competitors but from the existing Java open source communities. In every single case, I have seen constructive and helpful comments. Here are some examples:
- Geir Magnusson (Apache Harmony)
- Dalibor Topic (Kaffe - thanks for the JDK patch, Dalibor!)
- Tom Tromey (GNU/Classpath)
- Mark Wielaard (GNU/Classpath)
This, for me, is the spirit of Free and Open Source software communities. It's unlikely we'll all agree on everything (you only have to read the postings I've linked to see that) but the attitude is overwhelmingly constructive. Maybe that's how you identify real open source?
Posted by webmink
( Aug 16 2006, 10:30:35 AM PDT )
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Tuesday August 15, 2006 An Ongoing Process
I'm on my way to London right now, where I'll be the host of an informal breakfast gathering to provide an update on the process of taking Sun's Java implementations open source. It's worth noting that this is part of an ongoing process.
Back in 1995, I was working at IBM and had the privilege of being one of the cabal of five responsible for engaging IBM with the Java platform. The radical thing about it all in 1995 was that it came with full source code, something quite uncommon in the year of Windows' triumph. Because of that, we were able to port that early Java implementation to AIX, OS/2 and OS/390 without the need to inform Sun until we were ready to go public in the autumn.
Sun had an unprecedented success on it hands back then, and built both community and licensing structures to cope with the intense interest. Sun had a very small staff on it, so they needed to ensure that the Java platform was neither loved to death by its friends nor embraced, extended and extinguished by certain other "friends" in a way already very familiar.
The Open Source Revolution followed. While there were plenty of enthusiasts using Free software before then, it was hardly a blip on the commercial radar in 1995-7 when the ways of the Java world were being formed. For whatever reason, when the parents of Open Source created it in 1998-9 by repurposing the work of the Debian community, there was no regard for accommodating the realities of the Java phenomenon into its definitions. Ever since, despite a close cultural affinity born from the same Unix-inspired roots, the worlds of the Java platform and of Open Source have had a complex and turbulent relationship.
Fixing that relationship has been a labour of love for many of us for many years. Some of the heroes of the healing are people like Jason Hunter and James Duncan Davidson, whose work at the Apache Software Foundation led them to work among others towards the recasting of the rules of the JCP so that Open Source could be a peer player there; Dalibor Topic, whose tenacity and eloquence have combined with his stewardship of Kaffe to keep the dialogue going; Geir Magnusson, who has carried on the flame at Apache; and so many, many more people that it's almost wrong to single out those I have.
Some people have not seen it as a process. They've chosen to characterise it as an intransigent Sun fighting bitterly against an obviously right social movement. But looking down the years, that's clearly not the case. The change to the JCP rules that produced JCPA 2.5 was a landmark; the release of Sun's Java EE implementation as Glassfish was a landmark, giving us the first open source Java implementation from Sun. There's been a process going on for almost as long as there's been an issue to fix.
So today's gathering is just one more step in an ongoing process. Sun's Java EE implementation is now a thriving open source project and Sun announced at JavaOne that its Java SE implementation would be open source. As Mark points out,
in order to succeed we want to learn from successful open-source projects how best to go about this. To that end we’ve already started conversations with a number of well-known folks in the open-source world (up at OSCON a couple of weeks ago, for example), and you’ll see more transparency as time goes on. Just today, in fact, we launched a new Open-Source JDK portal where you can learn more about our progress and also participate in an open forum.
Today's update includes an outline roadmap (code releases start at the end of this year and continue into next), a licensing indication (it will be an OSI-approved license) and the news that Sun's Java ME code (CDC and CLDC) will also be open source around the end of the year. I know many of you want to know more and want us to go faster, but the truth is that it's not ambiguity, it's due care and attention and respect for the existing community working on Sun's code. Expect a steady stream of news from now on, as well as an honest desire for dialogue with everyone.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 15 2006, 01:02:57 AM PDT )
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Monday August 14, 2006 Branding Scar
While it's currently fashionable to knock Google, I can't help agreeing with both The Register and GMSV in supporting them over the defence of their brand. Anyone with even the most passing understanding to trademark law will be familiar with both the problem of a brand becoming generic and how you prevent it.
It happens when, through the neglect of the brand owner, a term gets used colloquially as a part of speech rather than in specific relation to the product or company it refers to. Famous losers in the US are kleenex (as in "I blew my nose in a Safeway's kleenex") and xerox ("go make a xerox on that computer will you"), and famous winners are Coke (which is why asking for a coke in a restaurant that sells only Pepsi gets you corrected every time in the US).
Every marketing professional with half a brain knows that a brand owner has no choice but to send a letter asking anyone they notice mis-using their brand to stop doing it. They may not want to, and it may not be a 'cool' thing to do, but there's no choice - defend it or see your failure to do so in any particular case being used to prove you don't care about your brand. In this case, Google has been as cute about it as possible, using humour so subtle some people aren't spotting it. They are also being consistent, having sent polite and not especially threatening letters to pretty much everyone since at least 2003.
So if this is obvious, common practice, required by law, and consistently carried out in a reasonable way since 2003, why are obviously experienced marketeers like Steve Rubel and the Boing Boing gang attacking Google over it? Seems to me it's more to do with their agenda than Google's behaviour.
Posted by webmink
( Aug 14 2006, 11:44:00 PM PDT )
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links for 2006-08-15
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This is very cool indeed - I've never been able to pick colour combinations for site and page themes, and this gadget generates them instantly.
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Just out in the UK. Co-incidence or conspiracy?
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Guy Kawasaki has a great posting here, must-read.
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"So the first open source code wasn't a digital file. It was a reel of magnetic tape that Joy dropped in the mail late at night after finishing other work, according to Eric Allman, a grad student with Joy at Berkeley and the author of Sendmail."
Posted by webmink
( Aug 14 2006, 06:17:58 PM PDT )
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