November 5th, 2009

New Epic 3D game engine toolset: Fabulous, fun, and free!

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 12:05 pm

Categories: Commercial, Community, Games, General, Licenses, Programming, Scripting

Tags: 3D, EPIC, Epic Games, Unreal Engine, Games, Personal Technology, Ed Burnette

This is big: Epic Games just announced the release of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free edition of the Unreal Engine 3. It’s available to anyone interested in using 3D game engine technology, including game developers, students, hobbyists, researchers, creators of 3D visualizations.

The Unreal Engine is the technology behind popular PC and console games such as Gears of War, Unreal Tournament, Bioshock, Medal of Honor, Army of Two, and Batman: Archam Asylum. It’s one of the best game engines available today. See the UDK features page for more details on all of its capabilities.

Previously, if you wanted to use the Unreal Engine in your programs you had to enter into a very expensive agreement with Epic for access to the technology. A few years ago, Epic reportedly asked for up-front payments of as much as $8 million before your game was even developed! Now anyone can download the PC version of the UDK and immediately try it out without paying a cent or signing anything. As a former professional game developer, this is just amazing to me.

The Unreal community was going nuts this morning after the announcement. Some were shocked that Epic chose to release the entire engine and not just a crippled subset. As one poster put it,

“Man, one thing I hope you guys realize is that this is almost EXACTLY the engine build that we’re using here at Epic! You get every single feature that we’ve been using here that aren’t even in any games yet! We only got some of these features last week!”

Use of the new UDK is free for noncommercial purposes, but it can be licensed cheaply for commercial uses. For example you can use it to write a commercial PC video game and pay nothing up front and no royalties until your sales go over $5,000. See the licensing page for all the details. Currently, the free kit is only offered to PC users but Epic says console support is “under consideration”.

“Unreal Engine 3 has been used to create games in a wide range of genres, as well as military simulations, 3D architectural walkthroughs, animated movies and more,” said Epic VP Mark Rein. “Users are only limited by their imaginations. Go ahead, make something Unreal!”

Related articles:

• Epic Offers Free Unreal Engine 3 Dev Kit, New Licensing Deals
• North Carolina’s Research Triangle–“the hub of East Coast video games?”
• Never mind the recession, the Triangle computer gaming industry is booming

November 3rd, 2009

Skype open source? Ain't gonna happen

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 10:37 am

Categories: Commercial, Community, General, Licenses, Linux

Tags: Skype Technologies S.A., Linux, Open Source, Internet, Operating Systems, Software, Ed Burnette

The blogosphere was all a-twitter yesterday when rumors surfaced that Skype, the popular internet telephony application, would be released as open source “in the nearest future“. It turns out that Skype’s plans are not so grandiose, and even if they were, questions about who owns the code would prevent it from happening.

In a clarification posted today on Skype’s Linux blog, developer Stanislav Karchebny (aka berkus) wrote:

Yes, there’s an open source version of Linux client being developed. This will be a part of larger offering, but we can’t tell you much more about that right now. Having an open source UI will help us get adopted in the “multicultural” land of Linux distributions, as well as on other platforms and will speed up further development. We will update you once more details are available.

The key words here are “open source UI”. Oliver Faurax, who initially broke the story Monday, posted a Q&A on his site which explains:

Q. Will the protocol be open?

No. Berkus commented on my blog and on the Skype Linux blog that they will open the GUI code, and not the library. The most likely outcome is that they will provide a libskype closed binary library that will allow someone to communicate with a GUI.

One reason the library will not be open source is that Skype doesn’t, um, have the source. According to a lawsuit filed in September over Skype intellectual property,

An executable-only object code form of the GI Software was licensed by Joltid to Skype, a well-known Internet-based company that provides users throughout the world with free or low-cost telephone services over the Internet. Skype did not obtain a license to the GI Software source code, however, and the license it did obtain was terminated based on Skype’s breaches of the license agreement.

In other words, Skype doesn’t own their own core technology. If you believe Joltid, Skype is not even supposed to have the source code. Unless copyright holders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom (founders of Joltid) agree, Skype cannot change the license on that code and release it as open source. And given that Skype recently sold for $2 billion it’s not likely they’re going to hand it over for free.

Related articles:

• Skype plays footsie with open source

October 22nd, 2009

Stallman admits GPL flawed, proprietary licensing needed to pay for MySQL development

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 12:14 am

Categories: Commercial, Community, General, Licenses, Linux

Tags: GPL, MySQL, Richard Stallman, Stallman, Tools & Techniques, Open Source, Databases, Management, Enterprise Software, Software

Software freedom activist Richard Stallman and others are trying to block Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL. Why? Because MySQL is covered by the GNU Public License (GPL), and the purchase has exposed a flaw in the GPL that Stallman says will cause a “major setback” to the development of the free database if the acquisition is allowed to go through.

Under the GPL, the copyright holder (usually the author) has special privileges that no one else has: they can use the code in a proprietary product. In an open letter to the European Commission, Stallman admits that revenue from this proprietary licensing is necessary to fund development for the free version (emphasis added):

MySQL uses the parallel licensing approach to generate revenue to continue the FLOSS development of the software. If Oracle acquired MySQL, it would then be the only entity able to release the code other than under the GPL…. As only the original rights holder can sell commercial licenses, no new forked version of the code will have the ability to practice the parallel licensing approach, and will not easily generate the resources to support continued development of the MySQL platform.

The letter was signed by Richard Stallman and representatives from Knowledge Ecology International and the Open Rights Group.

Stallman’s position is exceptional when viewed against his long history of evangelizing Free (as in speech) software as the “morally correct choice” that trumps all other considerations. Compare the letter above with this sermon on his gnu.org web site:

Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software developers need to make advantages for each other. Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it…. Proprietary software developers, seeking to deny the free competition an important advantage, will try to convince authors not to contribute libraries to the GPL-covered collection…. But we should not listen to these temptations, because we can achieve much more if we stand together.

We free software developers should support one another. By releasing libraries that are limited to free software only, we can help each other’s free software packages outdo the proprietary alternatives. The whole free software movement will have more popularity, because free software as a whole will stack up better against the competition.

Even if MySQL were owned by Oracle because of its purchase of Sun, the database would still be Free Software. Anyone could use the source code, build their own version, and distribute it to others. But finally Stallman has recognized that may not be good enough because somebody has to pay for this stuff. Score one for pragmatism over purity. Hallelujah.

(Photo illustration by Zack Whittaker)

October 16th, 2009

First pics of Motorola Droid with Android 2.0 build (maybe)

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 1:00 pm

Categories: Android, Commercial, Community, Eclipse, General, Google, Programming

Tags: Multi-touch, Motorola Inc., BGR, Ed Burnette

The Boy Genius report has just posted a series of screenshots showing Android 2.0 running on what appears to be the upcoming Motorola Droid phone (also known as Sholes). The source is credible and the pictures look real, though it’s unclear how close it all is to being finished. Pricing and availability was not announced.

Small visual changes can be seen in several of the shots when compared to the stock Android 1.6 image. For example, some of the home screen icons are different, and the browser has a redesigned address line with space for the site’s “favicon”. The key lock screen looks quite different too. But it’s hard to tell whether these are due to Verizon customizations or changes in Android 2.0. The phone dialer looks different, but it also looks different on the Acer Liquid A1 phone which appears to be running 1.6. The only thing that screams “2.0″ is the Firmware version shown on one of the screen shots. You can see another view of it here. If it had said “1.6″ there I would believe it, chalking up the minor changes in the screen shots to vendor mods.

Read the rest of this entry »

August 11th, 2009

SpringSource, VMware, and the death of the independent software vendor

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 7:23 am

Categories: Commercial, Community, General, Java

Tags: Developer, On2 Technologies, ISV, VMware Inc., Virtualization, Hardware, Ed Burnette

Larry Dignan writes that VMware’s purchase of SpringSource (formerly Interface21) has “sparked a fair amount of head scratching among analysts”. It’s mystifying developers as well. Purchases like this call into question the whole nature of the “independent software vendor”, or ISV.

Compare this with Google’s recent purchase of On2. On2 was struggling, having lost over $50 million last year. The company created valuable proprietary technology but didn’t seem to have the resources or the marketing savy to really take that technology to the next level. They made a big impact in their day, but were in danger of fading into obscurity. You could consider Google’s act a rescue, with a prospect for opening up their technology for others to use.

SpringSource, on the other hand, was an accidental and ongoing success. The Spring Framework developed around a book that Rod Johnson wrote in 2002 called “Expert One-on-One J2EE Design and Development”. With Juergen Holler and others, Spring Version 1.0 came out in 2004 and quickly became the de-facto standard in the Java server framework space. Rod recognized a success when he had one, and he formed the company Interface21 in 2004 to monetize the open source project. The name was changed in 2007 to SpringSource, as Spring exploded out into a number of other areas such as rich clients.

Thanks to its open source license, Spring will live on. The creators have cashed in to the tune of $420 million. So what’s the problem? In a word: independence.

The beauty of Spring is its simplicity and vendor neutrality. Developers turned away from J2EE because it too complicated and fraught with vendor lock-in. If you developed a J2EE application under WebLogic, chances are it wouldn’t work under WebSphere, and vice-versa. With Spring, you just programed with plain vanilla objects, totally devoid of any vendor-specific keywords and logic.

Spring was close to perfect the way it was. The base framework is mature, and didn’t need an infusion of cash for new development. Will that change with the VMware acquisition? What if somebody acquires VMware - will it change then? What if Rod or other key visionaries retire with their new-found wealth? Who represents the interests of Spring users in all this?

If you ask me, the industry needs a way for developers to cash in without selling out.

May 22nd, 2009

Google I/O 2009 opens next week

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 7:52 am

Categories: AJAX, Android, Commercial, Community, General, Google, IO2009, Java, Programming

Tags: Developer, Google Inc., Conference, Google I/O 2009, Ed Burnette

For two days next week, developers and press will converge on the Moscone Center in San Francisco for the second annual Google I/O Developer’s Conference. I will be covering the conference as a member of both groups. This year the conference is broken out into 8 tracks:

• Ajax + Data APIs
• Client
• Google Web Toolkit
• App Engine
• Enterprise
• Mobile
• Social
• Tech Talk

I’ll probably be spending most of my time in the Mobile track, but some of the other talks and press events look interesting so I’ll be skipping around a bit.

In addition, there will be a hall for what Google calls the “Developer Sandbox“:

The Developer Sandbox is a new addition to Google I/O. Comprised of “pods” - demo station areas grouped by product theme - the Sandbox will feature a wide range of developers who have built applications based on technologies and products featured at Google I/O. Representing large and small companies, individual developers, and a diverse group of apps, these developers will be on hand at the Sandbox to demo their apps, answer questions, exchange ideas, and meet you in person. Members of the Google product and engineering teams will also be on hand.

Want to keep up to date on the conference usingTwitter? Google has an account (@googleio), and so does Planet Android (@droidfeed). And don’t forget to follow mine (@eburnette)!

April 16th, 2009

IBM passes open source license baton to Eclipse

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 12:47 pm

Categories: Commercial, Community, Eclipse, General, Java, Licenses, Patents, Programming

Tags: License, Eclipse, IBM Corp., Section 7, Eclipse Public License 1.0, Open Source, Java Development Tools, Development Tools, Software Development, Software/Web Development

IBM and the Eclipse Foundation have taken a stand against license proliferation by announcing today that the Common Public License (CPL) has been officially superseded by the Eclipse Public License (EPL). The CPL will no longer be considered an active open source license, but there’s an easy migration path for CPL code to transition to EPL.

Mike Milinkovich, executive director for life of the Eclipse Foundation (just kidding Mike) broke the news today in his blog. He writes:

License proliferation in open source is a real issue. It costs businesses to review multiple licenses, and the plethora of licenses can be confusing to someone starting a new open source project.

Over the past five years we have seen the Eclipse Foundation go from a good idea that might work to one of the most successful open source communities out there. We have seen the Symbian Foundation adopt the EPL as its license, thereby bringing a huge community and code base in its own right to the EPL, plus demonstrating the utility of the license well outside of the Java domain that it is best known in. More recently, Google also added the EPL as one of the licenses it supports on Google Code. It is clear that if we wanted to consolidate on one license, that the EPL made the most sense.

So what does this mean for projects such as Mondrian which are distributed under the CPL? Well, nothing has to happen — you can continue to use a dead license if you want. But because EPL has been denoted as the formal “successor version of the CPL” you can use a provision already in the CPL to switch. Section 7 says:

In addition, after a new version of the Agreement is published, Contributor may elect to distribute the Program (including its Contributions) under the new version.

EPL 1.0 is considered the “new version” of CPL 1.0 under OSI rules.

The two licenses were very close anyway. Other than their names and (previously) their Agreement Stewards, the only real difference was the way the patent license termination clause was written. That clause, which has never been invoked as far as I know, covers what happens in the event of a patent lawsuit. For more information on the relationship between the CPL and the EPL see the EPL FAQ.

Related articles:

• HOWTO: Pick an open source license (part 1)
• Google says no to license proliferation
• As Stallman looks on, Sun frees Java under the GPL
• Android will be 100% open source, says Google

April 14th, 2009

New Coverity products verify use of open source software

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 6:51 am

Categories: Commercial, General, Programming

Tags: Software, Open-source Software, Coverity, Analysis, Coverity Build Analysis, Tools & Techniques, Security, Management, Ed Burnette

Coverity, Inc. announced two new tools for software development today: Coverity Build Analysis and the Coverity Integrity Center. These products are helpful for any type of development, but include features specially designed for companies using open source software in their commercial offerings.

Coverity Build Analysis
Coverity Build Analysis helps reduce wasted time and money consumed by inefficient and inaccurate build systems during software development. It scans software builds to help companies eliminate quality and security problems that can threaten to delay products and ensure all open source components in a shipping product are documented and secure.

According to Coverity, the new offer automatically analyzes and pinpoints the root-cause of build defects, helps identify compliance violations, and flags software quality and security vulnerabilities introduced during the build process. By providing visibility into build processes, organizations can eliminate the financial burden broken builds inflict through lost developer time, product delays and costly field defects.

Coverity Build Analysis provides developers, build engineers and security teams with the capabilities to:

• Reduce wasted time hunting for build bottlenecks such as broken make files, redundant processes, and code defects
• Prevent security risks by halting the introduction of malicious or unintentional vulnerabilities (for example by making sure you’re using the most recent open source security patches)
• Meet business and product requirements by auto-generating a comprehensive ‘bill of materials’ to confirm version and origin of all build components, whether from open source, outsource, or internal development teams

Coverity Integrity Center
The Coverity Integrity Center is an integrated bundle of tools designed for companies who want to reduce software problems and to make software changes faster and with less risk. It provides precision software analysis for architects, developers, build engineers, and quality and delivery teams. In addition to the Build Analysis product mentioned above, it includes three other core capabilities:

• Architecture Analysis: Analyze software design to ensure it can be easily modified and reused for maximum business agility. Use architectural visualization to identify hidden security backdoors that can cause costly breaches and data losses.
• Static Analysis: Analyze source code for defects with Coverity Prevent to find and eliminate potential causes of product delays or costly recalls. Expose security flaws early in the lifecycle so security audit teams don’t slow developers with rework, and helps speed testing and delivery time.
• Dynamic Analysis: Scan applications as they execute in test environments to amplify existing testing efforts. Eliminate complex multi-threaded concurrency defects and other crash causing software problems.

“We live in a world where the integrity of your business and competitive advantage is directly dependent on the integrity of your software,” said Seth Hallem, Coverity CEO. “Our recent record quarter is evidence that companies worldwide are shifting their investments to driving integrity into the software the runs their products, systems and business. The launch of Coverity Integrity Center marks the next stage of our software integrity strategy and enables customers to leverage the full power of all our software analysis offers.”

See the Coverity web site for more information including white papers and free trials.

March 24th, 2009

EclipseCon 2009 opens

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 6:12 am

Categories: Commercial, Community, Eclipse

Tags: Eclipse, EclipseCon 2009, Eclipse Community Awards, Java Development Tools, Open Source, Development Tools, Software Development, Software/Web Development, Ed Burnette

EclipseCon 2009 opened Monday in sunny Santa Clara, California. As usual, the first day was taken up by tutorials and awards, with the main conference running from Tuesday through Thursday. The Eclipse Community Awards recognizes the top individuals and products in the Eclipse community. Congratulations to all the winners listed below.

The Individual Awards acknowledge people that have given time and resources to make Eclipse a better community. Winners were selected by their peers in an online vote. The selection of the Top Newcomer Evangelist award was based on the individual that answered the most questions raised on the eclipse.newcomer newsgroup.

• Top Ambassador: Nick Boldt
• Top Committer: Paul Webster
• Top Contributor: Benjamin Cabé
• Top Newcomer Evangelist: Ed Merks

The Technology Awards recognize both Eclipse-based open source projects and commercial products. Winners were selected by a panel of judges from the Eclipse community. Nominated developer tools, Equinox applications and RCP applications were evaluated on their user interfaces, innovation and comprehensiveness.

• Best Commercial Eclipse-Based Developer Tool: Instantiations WindowBuilder Pro (www.instantiations.com/windowbuilder)
• Best Open Source Eclipse-Based Developer Tool: Acceleo (www.acceleo.org)
• Best Commercial Equinox Application: ProSyst mBedded Server Smart Home Extension (www.prosyst.com/products/osgi_ext_smart.html)
• Best Open Source Equinox Application: ModuleFusion (www.modulefusion.org)
• Best Commercial RCP Application: Chord Scale Generator (www.pluck-n-play.com)
• Best Open Source RCP Application: Apache Directory Studio (directory.apache.org/studio)

For a full list of the runners-up see the press release. Further coverage of EclipseCon 2009 can be found on Planet Eclipse.

March 16th, 2009

Market Moves: Making it up on volume?

Posted by Ed Burnette @ 6:24 pm

Categories: Commercial, Community, General, Market Moves, Programming

Tags: Program, Snag, Price, Games, Personal Technology, Ed Burnette

Since my last article I’ve continue experimenting with the price of the ReTranslate program on the Android Market. First, on March 4th, I dropped the price to $0. Downloads went from 27 to 547 in 7 days (74/day):

Yay! With all these profits I can finally retire to my own tropical island. Let’s see, 520 times $0 is… hmm, maybe I need a new strategy.

On March 11th, I bumped the price back up to $2.99. Since then (5 days) downloads slowed but still went up, to 571, which works out to just under 5 per day:

Over the same time period I did add a couple of new features requested by users, but I think most of the paid sales happened because I passed the “magic 500 milestone”, which raised the position in the Market’s most popular list and increased the app’s visibility. The next break is at 1000 downloads.

There was a snag, however. Actually three snags–quirks in the Market that I consider to be bugs.

Read the rest of this entry »