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Making a foundation a real solution to the mySQL mess
Instead of holding the software as semi-proprietary or writing a check to make foes go away why not create a new foundation, on the model of Eclipse or Apache?... Continued »
November 6th, 2009
Why Google released Closure Tools
Javascript.
The release of Closure Tools by Google under an open source license is all about putting more muscle behind Javascript, whose underlying Java language is under a cloud due to the Oracle-Sun merger.
Web developers face a choice between using Javascript and the Microsoft AJAX Library, part of .Net, in developing Web applications. Google would rather you use tools it depends on, its AJAX Library, and its Web Toolkit.
As C}Net’s own Stephen Shankland notes today, Google has pushed Javascript to its limits in GMail and Google Docs, and developed its Chrome browser in part so Javascript could run faster. Google likes Javascript like Cookie Monster (above, from yesterday’s Google home page) likes cookies.
Anything Google can do to make Javascript more valuable to you is in its best interests, and the tools described on its blog today are pretty marvelous.
- Closure Compiler is a Javascript optimizer that packs code tighter than your best friend’s jeans.
- Closure Library is a Javascript library with low-level utilities and high-level widgets that work on a wide variety of browsers and can be called on as-needed.
- Closure Templates are implemented for both Javascript and Java, so they can be called from clients or servers.
It is indeed, as one wag put it, a Javascript candy store. It wants to be your favorite candy store. It wants to be your only candy store. No Pepsi, Coke.
November 5th, 2009
What would make you trust Microsoft?
In some ways these are the best of times for Microsoft, and open source gets some credit for that.
(I found this charming mashup of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as Dr. Evil at The Big Deal, a blog by Stefano Buliani.)
Without the competition of open source, I doubt Microsoft’s trend toward bureaucracy could have ever been slowed. Every company goes through its own aging process, and renewal only occurs under pressure.
Open source has strained every muscle Microsoft has — legal, marketing, development, management — but the recession of the last year has brought a turn. Resistance within the open source industry to Microsoft’s entry has gone down. This is easy to see in the writings of our own Matt Asay.
The success of the CodePlex Foundation has given Microsoft another entree into the Fortunate 500. It has allowed Microsoft to be the rabbi of these companies as they approach open source, making strategic code releases and building their own internal communities.
Then there have been Microsoft’s own code releases, which have accelerated since OSI approval of its branded licenses. Plus that sweet, sweet Windows 7 cash.
All in all, a good year. A year of peace and progress. And I can hear you grinding your teeth from here.
Despite all of Microsoft’s actions these last few years, the company remains intensely controversial among open source advocates. For me to write the word Microsoft (Microsoft, Microsoft) here at the open source blog leads to a Pavlovian response.
Actually it leads to two Pavlovian responses. There’s the “Microsoft is evil” response, and a corresponding “Microsoft is not evil” response. And this distrust, this air of controversy, continues to cost Microsoft money.
Microsoft executives still have to walk into open source meetings with shields up, while continuing to protect their bureaucratic flanks within the company. This is easy to see when you hear the smiles on former Microsoft open source executives as they speak from their new gigs. It’s wearing.
Since I began writing this blog, nearly 5 years ago, I have watched Microsoft seek to transform itself from a company that sold code to one that sells the services code provides, and I have watched open source projects see the value in having commercial arms that protect more of their right to make money from copyright.
What I have not seen is any reduction in intensity when I write the word Microsoft, from readers, e-mail correspondents, or the open source people I meet.
Why is that, I wonder. Are all those who hate Microsoft extremists, and will Microsoft ever find happiness in an open source world?
November 4th, 2009
Sam Ramji has his head in the clouds
Sam Ramji, formerly the face of open source at Microsoft (cue the Star Wars music) is settling into a new life as vice president for strategy at Sonoa Systems, a cloud start-up.
He told me it suits him.
“Instead of pushing boulders up the hill I’m going down the hill. Sonoa has 65 employees. I talk to customers directly, daily, instead of monthly. There’s less operational overhead. So I’m getting out more, talking at events more, talking to journalists and analysts more.
“At Microsoft there is no such thing as a staff job. You have to always be driving strategy, be a subject matter expert, and get into detail as much as necessary. I had a 120 person team in a 90,000 person organization.
“As Vice President for Strategy at Sonoa Systems I’m a one man show.” He also gets more family time — he describes himself on his personal blog as an “avid husband and father of two.”
That blog (now part of the blogroll here) is also now a great place to get Ramji’s honest views on cloud computing, CodePlex, and open source in general, as in this piece “free is not the opposite of commercial.”
Ramji describes 
Sonoa as being among the many start-ups working to define what will become the LAMP stack of cloud computing. (That’s a close-up of its home page, describing its offerings, to the left.)
This means competitors are often collaborators. “We’re all trying to figure out how our technologies connect” with the primary competition coming from clients’ in-house development.
He described one Sonoa solution, for MTV, involving RightScale, Amazon, Sonoa and Xen, all working together. “It seems like we do the same thing, but when we get deployed you realize that managing the virtual infrastructure is different from managing cloud service traffic. Stacks are just starting to emerge and each component is important.”
So Ramji has gone from a world where everything is defined and the fight is continuous to one where nothing is defined and contention is nebulous. It’s more wide-open and, he says, more fun.
So there is life after Microsoft, in the clouds.
November 4th, 2009
LiMo has a second phone
The LiMo Foundation has delivered its second mobile phone to the market under the second release of its software.
The Vodafone 360 Samsung M1 looks uncomfortably like an iPhone, only with three buttons below the screen. The name is a hybrid — Vodafone 360 refers to the carrier’s service platform, Samsung M1 the phone manufacturer.
And it’s the Vodafone 360 that is at the heart of it all. The company calls this its “web services strategy.” Vodafone owns 45% of Verizon Wireless of the U.S.
Version 2.0 of the LiMo platform was announced in September alongside another Samsung phone, the H1. While Android stories revolve around developers and phone makers, LiMo seems proudest of its agreements with carriers.
The M1 itself seems to be a dumbed-down version of the H1, with less memory, a smaller screen, and presumably a lower price. It seems the idea is to hit the low-end of the market with something that looks like an iPhone, but isn’t, and a network that seems like the Internet, but isn’t.
LiMo press announcements also tend to carry a breathless quality that hasn’t been seen in America since the 1980s, except among recent college graduates. Here’s a taste:
This latest handset developed by Samsung offers mobile consumers a unique mobile experience presented through Vodafone’s stunning feature-rich, highly customizable Vodafone 360 user interface (UI) – providing a new set of Internet services for the mobile and PC that gathers all of a customer’s friends, communities, entertainment and personal favorites in one place.
You would think these people invented the handset.
Snark aside we are starting to see the dimensions of contrasting strategies among the various Linux handset groups. Android is about the makers, LiMo the carriers, and Moblin the developers.
Which will win the customers?
November 4th, 2009
Ramji delivers a CodePlex process
Successfully pulling code out of a big company can be like pulling the teeth off a lion, without anesthesia.
Sam Ramji (right), the former Microsoft executive who remains President of CodePlex, president of the CodePlex Foundation, which surrounds the Microsoft open source repository, said the key to success is a process.
CodePlex has published a draft of its process, a Project Acceptance Guideline, and is seeking comments from the community on it. The draft describes the advantages of contribution and provides a step-by-step guide for delivering new projects to CodePlex.
Ramji told ZDNet he’s anxious to get community input into the Guideline and will take that input seriously. He wants CodePlex to become a bridge between the open source community and corporate interests.
“How do we solve the problem of corporate contribution to community projects?” he asked. “The barrier is comfort. That comes from a clearly understood process and a well understood mechanism so people see contributing as low risk.”
Ramji said the Codeplex process says “here is how you should contribute in a way that’s sustainable for you and safe for the developer. There should be derivative works with no concerns about patents.”
CodePlex contributions come from software companies and non-industry sources, Ramji said. Software companies learn, through the CodePlex process, which elements of their IP are valuable and which are more valuable in the commons.
Then there are the non-industry contributions.
“Wall Street banks have talked to me over the last few months about contributions they couldn’t get legal clearance on. CodePlex offers a template for how it can get done. We have an organization that can own the copyright, that can accept cash as well as code, and can do the community management.”
In both these cases CodePlex is delivering code to the commons that might not be contributed otherwise, valuable code that can be used to build new applications.
“CodePlex is a lot of my future now,” he said, even though he has left Microsoft to become vice president of strategy at Sonoa Systems, a cloud start-up.
And the work is gratifying. “The Foundation is growing pretty quickly in terms of input from community members and corporate interests.”
November 4th, 2009
With Zapatec Funambol has one stack to rule mobile open source
Funambol, now billing itself as the leader in mobile sync, has bought Zapatec, which creates Web 2.0 solutions using AJAX.
The result, the company believes, will be a one-stop shop for building mobile applications that run as well as native apps across multiple platforms.
Funambol has its developers in Italy, Zapatec in the Ukraine, but both have operations in Silicon Valley that will be consolidated in Redwood City. Zapatec CEO Dror Matalon will become vice president of emerging technologies for the combined company, said Funambol vice president of worldwide marketing Hal Steger.
The combined company is focused on a tough problem for mobile developers, namely how do you create apps that integrate with native apps, yet don’t have to be completely rewritten for each platform.
Steger said Funambol’s sync technology solves part of the first problem, Zapatec most of the second, and the combination will enable a total solution.
“A lot of people think the future of mobile apps will be like Web apps, like AJAX apps on desktop browsers,” said Steger. “If you can build a Web app that works on a lot of phones you can just build one version.”
Not exactly. “Mobile is different from desktops because two of the most important things you need to do are integrate with the core apps on the phone, like the address book and calendar, because other apps do.” This makes it harder to build a single app for multiple platforms and carriers.
Funambol solves part of the problem since its mobile sync is designed to be cross-platform and cross-carrier. Zapatec solves the coding problem.
You can call this innovation, but then it’s all based on an open source core. Developers will want to do business with Funambol, not just download its stuff, to get the full effect, Steger said, but the effect should be cool.
November 3rd, 2009
Skype plays footsie with open source
As I wrote earlier today, when something goes open source we should ask how.
So in contrast with Yahoo’s open sourcing of Traffic Server, let’s talk about Skype’s “open source” move.
Yahoo was trying to build value from community. Skype is trying an embrace and extend strategy like that of Blackboard.
To its credit Skype is being frank on that.
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.
It’s a half-cheer for open source.
All Skype really plans to open source is a Linux version of its client. The protocol remains proprietary. So if you have a Linux phone (Moblin, Android, etc.) and want to support Skype’s proprietary protocol on your new hardware, you can.
This is the first technology move by Skype since eBay sold it to private investors for $2 billion , followed by assorted legal shenanigans. Everyone involved in that deal wants to protect that value.
But telephony is a low-bandwidth application. Its value going forward shouldn’t be voice as-such, but the integration of voice with other computer applications. In that world being wholly proprietary is a disadvantage. But opening up completely may be seen as giving away the goose that lays golden eggs.
Skype is caught east of the rock and west of the hard place. It knows it needs an open source strategy, but it fears giving itself away.
My view is this is not going to end well.
November 3rd, 2009
Yahoo does right by Traffic Server
It’s easy to become obsessive over whether a piece of code is open source.
How code becomes open source can be just as important. Is it being given the resources and sponsorship necessary to grow? Or is it being tossed over the side of a sinking ship?
By those standards, Yahoo has done its Traffic Server, acquired early this decade along with Inktomi, a solid service, placing the code with Apache.
The code is available right now from Apache’s incubator. This brings the number of incubator projects to 36.
Traffic Server is designed to optimize Web sites by caching popular content at the network edge, closer to users. It’s not something Google needs — they have their own solution — but it could be very useful for relatively new, fast-growing sites. It can keep them from going down when everyone “rushes to the rail” for access.
The software is being released in time for ApacheCon, which plans a Meetup on the software at 8 PST tonight. If you’re at the Con go to Room 4. There you can get the lowdown on features, performance and history from people who have actually written code.
Shelton Shugar of Yahoo told CNET’s Stephen Shankland that Yahoo hopes Traffic Server grows like Hadoop, the cloud computing technology that has since spawned the start-up Cloudera.
What do you think it can be?
November 2nd, 2009
Mozilla goes back to the beta with Firefox 3.6
Barely four months after launching Firefox 3.5, Firefox has shipped its first beta version of Firefox 3.6.
Mozilla takes release numbers seriously. As our own Stephen Shankland notes, this is not Firefox 4, nor is it Firefox 3.5.x. It’s being pushed as a minor tweak, one with no visible user interface changes.
There are two ways to look at this.
- Oh goody. Mozilla is increasing the pace at which it delivers updates and upgrades.
- Oh bother. Does this mean Firefox 3.5 is buggy and insecure?
Among the features in the new release:
- Personas, a set of “skins” for the browser surround of menus.
- Alerts on delivery of new plug-ins.
- Support for full-screen native video.
- Support for WOFF fonts.
- New support for CSS, DOM and HTML5.
If you have ever thought to yourself, “gee, I’m not a programmer, and I can barely afford my daily bread, how can I help an open source project,” here is your answer. Download this buggy code and report on what’s wrong so it can be made right.
No excuses if you’re Basque or Czech or Georgian. This beta has you covered. Yes, even if you’re Telugan, the new Firefox beta understands you. Download it now.
Oh, and feel free to complain below.
November 2nd, 2009
Blackboard embraces and extends into open source movement
Anyone seeking a case study of how a proprietary software company can “embrace and extend” itself into the open source world should stop thinking Microsoft and start thinking Blackboard.
(Picture from the University of Alaska. Bonus points if you find a link to Russia from the site.)
Blackboard has a long-running feud with open source, ably chronicled by our own Christopher Dawson. Open source Learning Management Systems (LMSs) like Moodle, Sakai and OLAT have been seeking its market share for five years now.
Part of the solution was to open source tools for use with its proprietary suite. Blackboard may have been overly-aggressive in pushing this as a true open source solution but it wasn’t finished yet.
Phase Two involves signing alliances with educators and lining up scaled resources from within the open source ecosystem.
Today’s news brings an example.
It’s a deal with Northwestern University (Go Wildcats) to integrate its Blackboard Learn platform within Google Apps as a single sign-on. The Building Block itself is open source, Google Apps is based on open source, but here’s the imprimatur of a major University (and big customer) linking a proprietary LMS into it.
Earlier this year Blackboard signed a deal with Flat World Knowledge, the open source textbook publisher we’ve written of here, to integrate Flat World textbooks with Blackboard Learn.
Given Blackboard’s position as a market leader, and its open source Building Blocks for handling the integration, the move by Flat World is logical and justifiable.
The result, however, is that despite open source a proprietary LMS is more entrenched than ever within its marketplace.
November 2nd, 2009
Wordpress picks up college newspapers with CoPress
Drupal may be grabbing headlines by becoming the CMS of the White House, but WordPress is bound to be the CMS of a future President thanks to a deal it signed with CoPress.
CoPress, the brainchild of former University of Oregon editor Daniel Bachhuber, aims to build a vertical of college papers within the CMS market, with managed hosting and training.
(The original Oregon Duck mascot image was trademarked by The Walt Disney Co. Can you kids guess who it is?)
Bachhuber told Poynter Online that 21 colleges have already signed up, including the papers of Central Michigan, Michigan State, and Cal State Fullerton.
Papers now have a choice between rolling their own solution, joining CoPress, or working with the College Media Network, whose College Publisher is given away free in exchange for banner ad space.
This means free is battling open source directly within the college paper market. In addition to comparing features, CoPress is also arguing against CMN’s latest upgrade, and pointing out that it is building a community around contemporaries rather than delivering a top-down solution.
My own career in college journalism seems a world away from all this. During my freshman year at Rice the paper was actually set with hot type from a Linotype. They later switched to a photo-typesetting solution in which formatted type was printed and then glued to a piece of cardboard with pink plastic cut-outs showing where photos would go.
Before that, I broke away from my high school newspaper to create an opinion-based start-up, which leads to the real challenge facing college journalists in today’s online world, namely competing in their markets with every entrepreneur on campus.
If your start-up costs are nearly nothing what is the benefit of being the “official” college paper Web site?
October 30th, 2009
Making a foundation a real solution to the mySQL mess
The mySQL mess won’t go away.
It doesn’t want to go away because mySQL is very useful. The latest demonstration? Amazon’s support of the community version of the software at its EC2 cloud.
Two forces are trying to keep the code from forking beyond all recognition.
One force is Oracle itself. You buy a unit worth $1 billion as part of a larger deal and you don’t want it dribbling through your fingers.
The other is mySQL co-founder Monty Widenius, who helped launch a group called the Open Database Alliance in May to support a new “community version” of the software.
So far only three companies have joined the ODA. A general meeting is being organized for Zurich, but it might just be a few guys sitting around a table at a bar. The group’s Twitter feed is dormant.
The problem for the ODA is as simple as do-re-me. They don’t have enough of what makes the world go around. When the check comes for the drinks in Zurich, I have to wonder who’s going to pay it, or whether they’ll make the waitron wait while those around the table hunt the cushions for enough quarter-Euros to split it.
Amazon’s move offers the chance for a reboot.
Oracle has a greater financial stake in the future of mySQL than Monty Widenius does. So does Amazon. So, very likely, do some other large players.
Instead of holding the software as semi-proprietary, which the Europeans won’t accept, or just writing a check to make it go away, which Oracle does not want to do, why not create a new foundation, on the model of Eclipse or Apache?
Those who put in the most would have the biggest say in this new group. The community would be represented, in other words, but they wouldn’t be in control. The major sponsors would be.
The mission of the new mySQL Foundation would simply be to hold the code base together, to provide a central point for updates, QA and bug fixes, to run the “official” version of the code base and plot its future direction. To run the forge, in other words.
Everyone would benefit. Oracle would get Sun, and community support. The community would get a vital development hub, well-funded. Amazon would be assured its support of mySQL, and the investment it has made in it, is not being wasted. Everyone could take the software in their preferred direction and share the results.
I guess this is all too reasonable to go anywhere. But it’s worth a shot.
October 30th, 2009
What should open source do in a car?
C|NET’s own Antuan Goodwin revealed yesterday Ford is looking to build an open source platform for its Sync services, its in-vehicle informatics interface. (Picture from C|NET.)
According to Ford’s Syncmyride.com Web site, Sync already does things like enable hands-free cell calls, voice-activated playing of your favorite MP3s, and turn-by-turn navigation. On the site Sync is co-branded with Microsoft.
The software can be updated, so when new features emerge, like the ability to create a Vehicle Health Report or call 911 automatically, all Sync users can get an update. Sync has been available since the 2008 model year on a growing number of cars, which now include mid-priced models like the Taurus and Focus as well as pricier models like the Mustang and the Explorer.
Reading between the lines of Antuan’s story, however, it seemed Ford is a little nervous about this open source idea. The near-death experience of the last few years makes the unthinkable thinkable, but maybe when it comes to open source Ford executives this morning are saying something like, “What were we thinking?”
To me, this looks like a job for the open source community. You, in other words.
What should open source be doing in a car? What would you do that Sync isn’t doing now? How should an open source community focused on automotive features be managed? And what features should be off-limits to the open source community?
Have a good weekend. Take a drive.
October 29th, 2009
Ubuntu 9.10 advances Canonical's cloud, enterprise goals
Ubuntu 9.10 advances Canonical’s ambitious push into cloud computing — and the enterprise.
Ubuntu is best known for its Linux desktop and there are several desktop improvements in this upgrade — including a faster boot and login and enhanced audio and and 3G broadband connectivity.
But the spotlight is on the server side.
Canonical claims the new edition is the only server operating system that features a built-in open source cloud and allows customers to set up an Amazon EC2-based private cloud in less than one hour.
The Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud was released standalone in April and related enterprise support services were made available in July. The difference? In the 9.10 release, UEC is a “fully supported technology” in the Linux server, Canonical said.
Here’s how Canonical says customers can benefit from the cloud system, which is based on the same API as the public Amazon EC2. “This … will allow businesses to start taking advantage of the possibilities of private clouds. Private clouds allow businesses to reap the benefits of flexible compute environments while avoiding the security, regulatory or policy restrictions inherent in pushing data onto a public cloud.”
The server is also available on the Amazon EC2 environment as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI). This allows customers to deploy Linux in either public or private clouds.
October 29th, 2009
Qualcomm joins open source movement at head of parade
Qualcomm, which has long had a major position in mobile chip sets and standards, has joined the open source movement with an eye to leading it. (Picture from Whenpigsfly.info.)
The company formed a new unit called Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), under a senior vice president, and it joined the board of directors of the Symbian Foundation.
The idea behind the QuIC is to push open source, including systems like Chrome, Webkit and Android as well as Symbian, the company said.
Qualcomm is doing this to support its Snapdragon chip set, a CPU and graphics chip package designed for low power and handheld devices, most based on Linux. These include what Qualcomm calls “smartbooks,” netbook-phone hybrids on which Chinese manufacturers like Acer, Asus and HTC are already working.
The move should also be seen in light of recent moves by Intel to support mobile open source. Matt Asay writes that “pigs are beginning to fly” and he’s right.
But where are they heading?
The efforts of Qualcomm surrounding Snapdragon seem to prove that the “waiting for Godot” story of “desktop Linux” may finally get an appearance by its title character appearing on the stage in the form of a telephone-laptop hybrid.
But open source advocates should also take a jaundiced view of this, not just because it has been delayed for years. As Matt notes, combining open source and proprietary technology in the way Qualcomm wants to do, while legitimate, does threaten to maintain the vendor lock-in that open source is meant to fight.
Just because you draw a picture does not mean the pig is really flying.
October 29th, 2009
Ubuntu Karmic Koala launches
Ubuntu 9:10, known as Karmic Koala, has officially been launched at Ubuntu.
Correction The original story incorrectly identified reviews for the release candidate of Ubuntu 9.10 as being for the final version of Ubuntu 9.10.
It comes in desktop and server editions, which have been getting wildly different reviews.
Reviews on the release candidate of the desktop version are negative, due to the fact you can’t run multiple drives with the current code base. This means a netbook user may be happy but a desktop user (my desktop has three hard drives) will not be satisfied at all.
The server version is getting stronger reviews thanks to its support for clouds. By using Eucalyptus the company has a decent cloud implementation that should make it more competitive with Red Hat, at least in Europe. (Canonical offices are close to the European mainland.)
Drop your own experiences with the new Ubuntu into the talkback thread below. We’ll be waiting.
October 28th, 2009
Microsoft partners to allow Eclipse interop on Win7, WinServer 2008 R2, Azure
Microsoft has made another play at interoperability with a key open source software offering.
At Eclipse Summit Europe on Wednesday, the Redmond, Wash. software giant announced that it is working on four open source projects with two open source companies — Tasktop Technologies and Soyatec — to enable Eclipse users to develop on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Azure and Microsoft Silverlight.
TaskTop, of Canada, will provide enhancements to the Eclipse IDE in the first quarter of 2010, according to Microsoft’s interoperability blog.
“Microsoft and Tasktop will collaborate to extend the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP), and in particular the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT), to include the mapping of new features offered by Windows 7,” the blog reports. “This will allow Eclipse developers to take advantage of the new user interface features offered by Windows 7, directly from the Eclipse IDE and from any desktop applications built on top of the Eclipse platform.”
Microsoft also announced that partner Soyatec of France will develop Java and PHP interoperability tools for Eclipse that will enable development on Microsoft’s Windows Azure cloud computing platform and with Microsoft’s Silverlight IDE.
From the press release issued today, Soyatec will provide:
- Windows Azure Tools for Eclipse, a new open source plug-in that will enable PHP developers using Eclipse to create web applications targeting Windows Azure.
- Windows Azure Software Developer Kit (SDK) for Java, an open source project that consists of tools and resources to help bridge Java developers to Windows Azure.
- Eclipse Tools for Silverlight, the release of version 1.0 of the Eclipse Silverlight plug-in, an open source, cross-platform plug-in for the Eclipse development environment that enables Eclipse developers to build Silverlight Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), and includes support for the Macintosh platform. The plug-in provides guidance for greater interoperability between Silverlight-based applications and Java-based web sites and web services, including REST, SOAP, JSON and other standards.
October 28th, 2009
What the DoD now says about open source
Open source can be compared directly with commercial software and it offers unique advantages for rapid prototyping and sharing across the military.
Those are the key takeaways in a new memorandum now circulating the Pentagon from deputy CIO David Wennergren (right).
While it’s not a complete endorsement of open source, it does give people a green light to go get some.
The Wennergren Memo says that open source should be included in any market research on department needs, and also debunks some common myths that have been spread by commercial vendors:
- Open source places no restrictions on who can use it.
- Instructions against use of public domain code should not be interpreted to apply to open source, as government employees can fix bugs.
- It is not true that any improvements to open source must be distributed to “the community” (including potential enemies). They can be legally shared throughout the DoD under any open source license and kept there.
- Release of open source code can be controlled, and should be done when in the government’s interest, when the government receives “unlimited rights” on upgrades, and where there is no law, like an export control, that might stand in the way.
The memo says additional information will be posted at the Defense Department Web site and encourages use of the official military software forge at http://software.forge.mil.
Cut through the bureaucratese and you do have a remarkable turnaround in attitudes. Under the previous Administration contracting was the only way to go. Now officers are being allowed to try do it yourself solutions.
That’s a very big deal.
October 27th, 2009
Will OpenSolaris survive Oracle?
With Apple having followed through on its promise to dump the ZFS file system, and Oracle still preparing to take over Sun any time now, we should consider the future of the technology, and perhaps the OpenSolaris operating system it rides on.
OpenSolaris was Sun’s attempt to secure a future for what had been its proprietary Unix. It has some advantages over Linux, on which its advocates will gladly bend your ear over a couple of beers.
But there’s a curious thing about technical advantages in the age of open source. They don’t matter as much as they once did. After all, if open source can compete with proprietary products that have decades’ head start and armies of programmers behind them, how big is an open source program’s technical details?
Open source has taught some hard lessons.
It’s pretty clear that the programming of a few little features don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy software world. Oracle has its Unbreakable Linux program in which it has invested heavily. Does it really make sense for Oracle to keep carrying OpenSolaris, or is it time for Larry Ellison to tell it, “Here’s looking at you, kid” and just walk away?
Best movie ever? You decide at Amazon.com.
October 27th, 2009
Black Duck finds its business makes sense
I am of two minds concerning the Black Duck release on encryption in open source.
On the one hand it’s interesting to know that 4,000 out of 220,000 tested (less than 2% if you’re scoring at home) contain strong encryption, the kind the U.S. still thinks of as “munitions grade.”
On the other hand there is no reason to panic, as Dr. Dobbs did. And a close look reveals this release is basically a product launch for Black Duck Export, a new feature in its “watch out, look out, over there” suite of offerings that includes warnings on copyrights and other important issues.
The image that often comes to mind when I think of Black Duck is of Daffy and his friends flying across the sky when Elmer Fudd & Co. start blasting from down below. On the other hand lawyers and spies can also use Black Duck software, so security through obscurity may be a bad move.
For the government this is an opportunity to choose its attitude regarding encryption, which has been an issue for software developers going on 20 years now. Pretending that the U.S. is the only home of this stuff is just plain silly and rules should be uniform. The encryption wars should have ended a decade ago.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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Recent Entries
- Why Google released Closure Tools
- What would make you trust Microsoft?
- Sam Ramji has his head in the clouds
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