Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on open-source http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic open-source Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb open standards, not open source Tue, 20 Aug 2002 13:14:13 +0100 <A href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26752.html">O'Reilly questions free-SW regs</A>. Politics, yuck [<A href="http://www.theregister.co.uk">The Register</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Legislate to mandate open standards for e-government, not open source.  Sounds reasonable to me.  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000366.html More on licensing, closer to a decision Tue, 20 Aug 2002 14:41:26 +0100 Okay I've just read the first document that is really convincing.  It's by the guys behind Zope and discusses in detail their reasons for going open source.  This is the first concrete business-plan backed reasoning I've come across and it makes for compelling reading.  Just need to go check that Zope are still in business! Here are the important points: <UL> <LI> Going open source will increase our user base by a factor of 100 within three months. Wider brand and stronger identity leads to more consulting and increased valuation on our company. <LI> Open source gives rock solid, battle-tested, bulletproof software on more platforms and with more capabilities than closed source, thus increasing the value of our consulting. <LI> Fostering a community creates an army of messengers, which is pretty effective marketing. <LI> This is not the last innovation we'll make. <LI> In the status quo, the value of packaging the software as a product would approach zero, as we had zero market penetration. What is the value of a killer product with few users? The cost to enter the established web application server market was going to be prohibitive. <LI> The investment grows us into a larger, more profitable company, one that can make a credible push to create a platform via open source. Since our consulting is only on the platform, a strong platform is imperative. <LI> Open source makes the value of our ideas more apparent, thus the perceived value of the company is apparent. <LI> Our architecture is "safer" for consulting customers. With thousands of people using it, the software is far less marginal. The customer is able to fix things themselves or reasonably find someone to do it for them. Finally, the software will "exist forever". <LI> Dramatically increasing the base of users and sites using it gives us a tremendous boost in "legitimacy". <LI> The exit plan isn't about the golden eggs (the intellectual property) laid last year. It is about the golden goose and tomorrow's golden eggs. The shelf life of eggs these days is shrinking dramatically, and the value of an egg that no one knows about is tiny. Give the eggs away as a testament to the value of the goose and a prediction of eggs to come. <LI> The community can work with us to dramatically increase the pace of innovation and responsiveness to new technical trends, such as XML and WebDAV. <LI> Ride the coattails of the nascent Open Source community and its established channels such as RedHat. OSS has a certain buzz that is greater than its real customer-closing value, but this buzz is getting hot. Moving aggressively towards Open Source can make us a category killer for the web application server market segment. <LI> We believe like hell in what we're doing. Others believe in us as well. We should follow our instincts.</LI></UL> Some of these issues are obviously more important to a company having taken investment with it's eye on a future IPO but I think they are all good, important points.  Those that seem most applicable (and inherently good) to me I've marked in red.   They seem very persuasive. One implication is that the direction of my company will be entirely towards VAR services & consulting.  I shall be abandoning the idea of making money from software licenses (for my own software). Something to think about... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000374.html The real argument is e-gov should be open Tue, 20 Aug 2002 22:53:14 +0100 In the former case its patents and proprietary file formats, in the latter case its misuse of the law. Where is the integrity in either case? So, lets use software written by developers who show each other respect and integrity, by developers who wouldnt lock down our choice and our data by legialation or non-openness. It isnt commercial vs. open source, but rather, closed against open. The Intellectual Property (and Thought) police against the common man. Lets not lose perspective! [<A href="http://tig.nareau.com/">TIG's Corner</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » Hmmm... I'm not sure that a law that specifies that governments have to use open source software is "misuse of the law".  You may find it not to your liking, you may not agree with it, but I don't see how it's a misuse.  Also I think it's very hard to legislate respect. I do agree that the real argument should be about open vs. closed (read proprietary).  </BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000396.html Licensing: The final word (from me) Thu, 22 Aug 2002 20:24:42 +0100 Okay the GPL license is now embedded in liveTopics 1.0 So far most of the comments I have received suggest that making liveTopics free software has more advantages than keeping it proprietary and trying to commercialize it.  Although the idea of money seems really great (and really remote) to me right now it's how I was leaning anyway. I'm going to sleep on it and, barring an overnight conversion or conclusive message to the contrary, I shall be releasing liveTopics 1.0 tomorrow under the GPL. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000436.html Not quite the last word on licensing Fri, 23 Aug 2002 22:54:09 +0100 Not quite the last word on licensing. I've been speaking to Mark Paschal about his choice of the BSD license for Stapler.  Mark's reasons for open sourcing Stapler may, fundamentally, be more altruistic than mine but having decided to do it (open source liveTopics) I want to do it properly. They key difference as Mark explains it is that under the GPL liveTopics could not be integrated into Radio, because Radio is not itself GPL compatible.  Indeed Mark couldn't incorporate any functionality from liveTopics into Stapler (for example) without breaking the license.  Is that what I intended?  I'm actually wondering now whether whether it would be breaking my own license to distribute Radio & liveTopics to a customer?  Would I have to require a separate download & install step to comply? Since I don't think I can go back and do this again I need to get it right.  Some stuff I need to understand:  Am I bound by my own license?  Can I re-issue liveTopics later with a different license?  Can I grant exceptions to the GPL?  If so, what happens when an exception is contradictory to the GPL? Does anyone else want to weigh in on the best license to use?   [please!] http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000455.html Anthracite Software Fri, 25 Oct 2002 12:27:35 +0100 <A href="http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/2002/10/25.html#a109">My Response to Larry Lessig</A>. Documents about Chandler talks about various "killer features".  Killer features are intended to kill something.  If Chandler kills Outlook, we'll have Chandler where we used to have Outlook.  Nothing really changed except now no one is making a dime instead of the Bully making all the money.  The consumers will love it of course and learn to take free software as the norm.  How dare you charge money for what should be free?  The service sector will eventually get nothing in return because consumer software will be so easy to use and customize that they won't need any help.  The book industry will live a little longer.  No wonder Tim O'Reilly is so strongly pushing open source and free software.  How about free books too Tim? [<A href="http://www.docuverse.com/blog/donpark/">Don Park's Blog</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » This argument seems to boil down to: <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> Does the software industry have a right to survive?</BLOCKQUOTE> I would argue that it does not, and that it should survive only so long as it serves a purpose. Now, obviously, as someone with a background (albeit not such a long one as Don) in software development this is a sore point for me.  I too would like to make money from the things I create.  Would I relish the idea of a group of open source developers blowing my business model by undercutting me?  No, of course not.  Will it happen?  Yes, eventually I believe it will.  I just have to be ready for that. I think that what we are seeing is the beginning of the end of software as a production business.  Any attempts we make to shore up the traditional software industry will be no more than protectionism and about as effective as government attempts to shore up coal and steel when it was undercut by cheap foreign imports. In the future those who develop software will do so because of a love of the craft (and true craftsmen may still be able to sell what they product in niche markets) or because they can sell services on top of that software. That's what I think right now.</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000776.html XML database reporting tool Wed, 08 Jan 2003 11:28:52 +0000 <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> Just released: the 1.0 version of xReporter, open source, XML-based Apache Avalon/Cocoon-based database reporting framework, available from <A href="http://xreporter.cocoondev.org/">http://xreporter.cocoondev.org/</A> Most compelling features: <UL> <LI>multiple datasources & report definitions</LI> <LI>user/role-based report authorization, container-based authentication</LI> <LI>column filtering & sorting, query by example</LI> <LI>no programming required to define complex, multistep database reports</LI> <LI>optionally using temporary tables</LI> <LI>expression language & field validation</LI> <LI>possibility to access non-SQL, 'Web Services' datasources</LI> <LI>fully customizable look & feel using CSS and XSLT</LI> <LI>flow control using XML and a ReST HTTP interface</LI></UL> xReporter is released under an Apache-style license, and we welcome contributions and patches as we try to grow this into a community-owned project. Currently, there is anonymous read-only cvs access and a downloadable tarball. There's a limited, live demo available on the project website, too. From: <A href="http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/">xml-dev</A> list</BLOCKQUOTE> I don't have a need for this right now, but... http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001045.html You've been shunned Thu, 05 Feb 2004 14:27:06 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://www.webmink.net/2004_02_01_oldblog.htm#107597045183637502">Projection</a>. I'm preparing my talk for EclipseCon and I notice yesterday's talk was by Michael Tiemann from Red Hat. I personally love the book he was citing (see my <a href="http://www.webmink.net/?books">books page</a>). While I recognise the need to make allowances for the audience he was speaking to, the <a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1515498,00.asp">report in eWeek</a> (which I've verified with some delegates) suggests he went beyond the bounds of decency as he expounded his hatred of the Java environment and encouraged the Eclipse faithful to bring down Java from the inside.</blockquote> Reading Tiemann's comments I wonder what: <blockquote>"In my travels I have found the Java community to be marginalized by the Java apartheid meaning if you are programming in Java you have to shun all other communities."</blockquote>is all about. I used Java and don't feel like I have shunned other communities. What's it all about? http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001850.html Step forward Java Thu, 26 Feb 2004 14:24:22 +0000 <blockquote><a href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/1722.html">Open Source Java</a>. <a href="http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=43801&DE=1">Rod Smith</a>: Here is the offer: IBM would like to work with Sun on an independent project to open source Java. [<a href="http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/">Sam Ruby</a>]</blockquote> This seems like, if it was taken, it would be a significant step. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00001934.html All formats lead to Rome (and back again) Thu, 17 Jun 2004 22:04:17 +0100 I'm doing some work with <a href="https://rome.dev.java.net/">Rome</a> which is an ambitious open source Java RSS toolkit by <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/tucu/">Alejandro Abdelnur</a>, <a href="http://www.chanezon.com/pat/weblog/">Patrick Chanezon</a>, and Elaine Chien of Sun. Rome does not attempt to be all things to all men, choosing (correctly imo) to concentrate on providing low-level feed parsing & generation services.  It can read & write RSS in all it's flavours 0.9x, 1.0, 2.0 as well as Atom 0.3.  It can also convert feeds between formats and provide an abstract syndication feed layer over them.  Crucially they have good support for modular extension & I am bashing out an <a href="http://www.purl.org/NET/ENT/1.0/">ENT 1.0</a> module which I'll contribute back to the project. It's still alpha but already looks impressively useable.  Good stuff. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002340.html Well at least he didn't insult me this time Fri, 28 Oct 2005 14:46:46 +0100 I really enjoyed Lisp guru <a href="http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail657.html">Paul Grahams OSCON'05 speech</a> about what business has to learn from Open Source. As always he's a bit snooty but I guess if you're clever enough to make a bundle from Yahoo you've earned the right. It would spoil one of the best jokes if I explained what he means by learning. You'll just have to listen along yourself. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00003064.html