I have researched and written extensively about the history of the open source software (OSS) movement and its long-time relation to the IT Top 12: Apple, CA, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Google, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and Sun. (Note: writing and researching about the investment potential of the IT Top 12 is my day job--see the link in the panel to the right of this article). OSS history goes back to the beginnings of the information technology (IT) market, predating by decades all the buzz these days about Red Hat, Linux, Mozilla and so forth.

That is, OSS litterally predates Linus if not Richard Stallman. I am 60--it does not quite predate me. But I was more interested in Ted Williams than Vannevar Bush when OSS started. (For those of you too young to understand the people references, Williams played ball on one side of the Charles River at a place called Fenway Park while Bush played ball on the other side in Kendall Square, Cambridge, at a place called Tech.)

For anyone interested in the historical background of OSS I recommend this 1999 paper by Nathan Newman as well as my own free articles on the subject, here and here. (Note that my first referenced article is actually about all IT market legal history and touches on OSS tangentially because of all the legal wrangling about OSS, which continues up to the present day.)

I found Newman's article quite a while after my original research but I find it both interesting and complementary to my own research. He takes a California 101 view to my Route 128 biases. He points more to Project MAC's relationship to UNIX, whereas I concentrate on MACs major offspring, Multics. (Of course, Unix begot Linux; less well known--Multics begot DEC VMS, which begot Windows NT). Newman traces the educational roots whereas I trace the commercial roots. He has a lot of good stuff on browsers, which I have always dismissively considered about as interesting as the Screen Division of a COBOL program. Newman's document predates mine by 6 years so some of his conclusions are now dated. (In my defense, I wasn't studying OSS back in 1999; I like to think we would have reached similar conclusions had we been working contemporaneously.)

Newman's document is on what now appears to be totally an archive site of a group called NetAction, a laid-back California cross between the Boston based badvista.org and groklaw.net. I can't find any entries after 2003. Nathan is a progressive blogger that gives a whole new meaning to the word prolific.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

As I guessed would be the likely scenario in my anticipatory article last week about the Free Software Foundation (FSF) GPL V.3, the group will provide another review round. This step is being taken primarily because of the changes FSF wants to make vis a vis the Microsoft-Novell Alliance.

There are likely to be other controversial changes between drafts 2 and 3 as well because of the problems that leading open source software (OSS) movement individuals and companies such as Linus Torvalds and mySQL expressed about draft 2. I have copied below the FSF's explanatory letter below in total so as to avoid the kind of editorializing that Reuters spun out on this issue.

If my arithmetic is right, we should now expect the final version in the summer of 2007. This lengthening of the process keeps the group true to its openness philosophy and they should be congratulated for it. If past process is held, the new draft and an explanatory list of changes will be available at fsf.org. Here is the letter:

"The second discussion draft of GPLv3 was released eight months ago, in July
2006. We had never planned to let so much time pass between public
releases of the license. We felt it was important to fully discuss a few
specific issues, including the recent patent deal between Novell and
Microsoft, before proceeding with the process. A new discussion draft will
be released on March 28 at 10:00 AM US Eastern time; it represents the
outcome of those discussions, and the rationale document that will
accompany it explains how we arrived at these decisions. However, we
remain absolutely committed to hearing input from as much of the free
software community as possible before publishing a final version of the
license. We are adjusting the drafting process to make sure that everyone
interested has an opportunity to make their voice heard.

"The third discussion draft will be open for comment for sixty days. Based
on the feedback we receive during this window, we may publish new language
from time to time for additional review. For example, if someone points
out a side effect of some term that we hadn't considered before, we may
publish updated text for that section aimed at addressing the issue. These
changes will be announced on the GPLv3 web site and mailing list.

"We will continue to take feedback from public comments and discussion
committees as before. In addition, if there are common questions about the
license, we will address those in blog posts on the GPLv3 web site. Our
goal is not to preempt discussion or criticism of the draft, but rather to
enhance that discussion by helping the community fully understand the text.
We are also considering other ways to solicit input, which we will announce
as they are planned.

"After this discussion period is over, we will publish a last call draft.
That draft will be open for comment for thirty days, and the final license
will be published shortly afterwards. We would like to thank everyone for
their continued support during this process, and their assistance as we
work to make the our licenses the best they can be."

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is not new news if you have been following my posts on the Free Software Foundation (FSF) GPL V.3 the last two months but a Reuters story that crossed the wires Monday in anticipation of this week's announcement of the next draft is full of misleading statements. Below, I have duplicated excerpts of a version of the story (I don't know if this is exactly the same as the Reuters feed or if it has been amended by the Boston Globe, where I saw it) along with six comments concerning inaccuracies:

"The non-profit group that owns rights to much of the Linux operating system says it will seek to undermine a controversial deal between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc..
1. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) does not “own the rights to” much of the Linux operating system. Many of the components of open source software (OSS), much of which when put together could be considered an operating system, are licensed under the terms and conditions of the FSF’s GNU General Public License (GPL) V.2. That the GPL V2 license was used by many diverse OSS communities to protect their rights is very different from “ownership.” A lot of other such software is licensed under the Apache, Berkeley, Mozilla and dozens of other OSS licenses.
2. The FSF’s leader, Richard Stallman, has said there is nothing inconsistent with the GPL V.2 and the Microsoft-Novell alliance. Nothing being done with GPL V.3 changes the wording of GPL V.2.

"The two companies announced a partnership in November that included a cross-patent protection agreement that some critics say implies Microsoft has legal rights to Linux, the cooperatively developed software that is gaining ground with corporate users.
3. Steve Ballmer has been saying this explicitly and loudly for years; this point has nothing to do with the FSF or the Novell Alliance.
.......

Free software, which is also known as open-source software, refers to computer programs that are available to the general public to be used, revised and shared. Products from companies like Microsoft are considered proprietary and their code generally cannot be revised and shared.
4. The FSF will talk to you for hours about why free software and OSS are not the same. See my recent post on the subject.

....

"Microsoft and Novell say their deal lets powerful server computers running Windows and Linux systems communicate better. The pact is part of a broad sales, marketing and development partnership that brought Novell $348 million in upfront payments.
5. They communicate fine today. The primary purpose of the deal is to give large corporations using both Linux and Windows a comfort level that such interoperability will continue. Almost all other meaningful open source software (the so-called LAMP stack, runs on Windows.

"Novell will be able to continue to distribute its current Linux products without violating the terms of the new license. But financial analysts have said that it will need to upgrade that software to remain competitive with rivals such as Red Hat Inc. (RHT.N)
6. You have to ask Red Hat if they will adopt the new GPL license before the previous statement has any effect

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As promised, I followed up last Tuesday's blog post (March 13) about ex-Oracle supply chain automation guru Don Klaiss joining open-source software (OSS) ERP company Compiere. I “met” with Don recently to hear about his plans. Compiere is also one of the charter members of the Red Hat Exchange so the meeting did double duty. One of the keys to the growth of the OSS community is some real-life business applications and the Red Hat Exchange and Compiere in particular are possible leading indicators of whether or not such OSS applications will take off in business settings. OSS applications--as opposed to tools-- are primarily popular only in government and education today.

As I said last week, Compiere founder and technology developer Jorg Janke started at Oracle Germany (working indirectly for Don). I said that the name Compiere had a French Connection that escaped me but that I’d ask when I talked with the company. I had the right idea but the wrong language. It apparently relates to the Italian word, to complete. [Similarly, the OSS community that forked from Compiere in October 2006, ADempiere, is based on the Italian word meaning 'to fulfill' but with additional context of "to free (discharge); it also means to honor and respect."]

Perhaps with that forking of the code set in mind, Don Klaiss said he believes that Compiere prior to his arrival took advantage of the marketing benefits of the OSS business model, and the quality-control and testing benefits of the OSS culture, but that his new company has not taken as much advantage of the development benefits of the OSS culture as it could have. He wants to keep up the pace on the first two OSS characteristics and do OSS development with an interesting twist. He hopes to do that by
-- having his development staff (while following the OSS rules of the road) concentrate on the core ERP functionality
-- having channel partners (and anyone else that wants to) join in extending the core with industry specific extensions or modules.

Don feels the core is unique for a midmarket product because the founders were originally from outside the U.S. and have provided solid multinational accounting, along with distribution, point of sale (POS) support, an integrated web storefront, and Project-like functionality. He wants his developers to move as fast as possible to add production planning and core service industry support.

The key to 'Compiere the product' is a Java/J2EE development/deployment platform on which is based a dictionary-driven model-based “programming” environment. It sounded to me a little like J.D. Edwards World (with which Don was familiar having been at Oracle when Oracle acquired PeopleSoft). In a sense, the dictionary-driven approach almost means programmers are not needed. And it means end users can make modifications and extensions without being stuck in the modified extended version of the core product when a new release comes out (which is quite often given the OSS culture). I even think a new type of open source community could be spawned of the dictionary-driven appoach, made up of the budget planners, plant managers, warehouse supervisors, and so forth, but Don was not ready to go that far.

So, while he won’t see SAP or his old company much in terms of ERP competitors, he will run into all the various flavors of Infor, Lawson, Sage, and that little ERP company out of Redmond WA by way of Scandinavia and Western Scandinavia (Fargo).

In addition to running the development community, Compiere will sell various degrees of services and support to the eventual user while the Compiere partner community does implementation and acts as an agent for the Compiere services contract. Compiere will also help partners in their marketing and even in their business planning. He foresees development partners providing extensions that are available by subscription and may even go the Software as a Service (SaaS) route himself for some types of extensions. He wouldn’t want to do SaaS for the core product without really thinking through potential channel conflict. As with Progress, whom I posted about here, Compiere uses mostly open source components and contributes back to the OSS movement when it finds quality problems. The Compiere ERP product currently uses Oracle as database and is porting to DB2 (not all versions of course) and postgreSQL

Looking to a natural fit with the Open Source Alliance (OSA), Don feels there is a lot of merit in the interoperability planned among the various OSA applications. Compiere will be monitoring the development and adoption of the APIs but was not committing to it the first week on the job. At some point, Compiere will re-evaluate whether or not it has enough resources in order to make meaningful contributions to OSA’s progress.

As for the Red Hat Exchange (RHX), it will serve as another distribution channel for Compiere and could be fairly significant because Red Hat has such a large installed base. RHX could complement Compiere’s current partner channel because they can provide implementation services to customers that RHX signs up. Red Hat doesn’t want to get into that business.

I’d be interested in hearing what any Compiere partners out there think. Let me know through the comments box.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Development | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Oracle recently extended its participation in the Eclipse Foundation by becoming a Board Member/Strategic Developer. Before this year, Oracle was what Eclipse calls euphemistically an “Add-in Provider.” Eclipse is an open source software (OSS) community that says it provides a “vendor-neutral development platform with application frameworks.” The foundation is a not-for-profit corporation spun out of IBM’s tools group 5 years ago as an open source Java Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Many of the obvious other IT Top 12 (CA, HP and SAP) have been involved almost since the beginning. EMC and Dell don’t belong, probably because no one has asked them. Sun does not belong, even though Eclipse is Java based, because the Java Community Process (JCP) OSS movement is sort of a competitor. But in the OSS spirit of coopetition, Eclipse joined the JCP.

Eclipse projects are focused on building an open (to the extent you think Java means open) development platform. The platform includes frameworks, tools, and runtimes for building, deploying and managing software, primarily concentrating on the “building” part of that objective. Eclipse’s many tools efforts—where most of the action is—are self explanatory. It is the Eclipse framework activity—which will hopefully extend out seamlessly from building OSS to deploying and managing it—that is interesting. [Note, although the toolset is OSS, as explained in “Awaiting "G" Day,” software built with the tools or frameworks is not necessarily OSS.]

In frameworks, the Eclipse group is working on both vertical and horizontal planes. For their industry-specific framework approach take a look at Eclipse’s Open Healthcare Framework. And for a functional look at a framework, see the Eclipse Communication Framework (ECF) or Eclipse Modeling Framework. Frameworks are important in terms of integration because the OSS stack is basically piece parts today (Linux from the Linux Foundation, middleware from Apache, M and P and all the other OSS pieces and parts from somewhere else). The leading IT suppliers like IBM and Oracle know they have to make OSS more like the seamless Microsoft tools and runtime offering to increase OSS acceptance. (Or more like the heritage IBM offerings for that matter.)

And that’s where Oracle’s upgraded involvement comes in. As an “add-in” Eclipse member, Oracle has participated in both the Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) and the Technology project. Oracle currently leads the JavaServer Faces tooling, Dali JPA tools, and BPEL tools projects. But Oracle wants to advance the framework concept with a new proposal to “open source” its Oracle TopLink object/relational persistence manager, a key underlying layer of any true development/runtime framework.

For the last five years TopLink has been a key part of the Oracle Application Server growth spurt after having been combined with the Ironflare J2EE container (more recently called Oracle Container for J2EE-OC4J) to form the original Oracle AS. In a sense, TopLink is the last major turn-of-the-century piece of proprietary software tooling that has not gone open source or gone out of business. TopLink was acquired by Oracle in 2002 in the breakup of Webgain. Completing a circle, Webgain had been put together in 1999 by a VC and BEA Systems to market a Java IDE consisting of TopLink, Symantec’s VisualCAFE, and the Together Control Center. To counter that move, IBM made its Java IDE open source and called it Eclipse, the basis of what is now the Eclipse Foundation. That move evaporated the idea of making money licensing Java software development tools. The rest of Webgain (VisualCAFE and Together) ended up in Borland’s JBuilder and Borland has been actively trying to exit that business for over a year, spinning it out into a subsidiary called CodeGear in November 2006.

Although a key part of the Oracle AS, TopLink—because it preceded both J2EE and the IDE bust—works with many databases, application servers, and development toolsets and processes. Since its first commercial release in 1994, thousands of customers have chosen TopLink. By OSSing the source code and test cases of Oracle TopLink, Oracle is protecting many integration users' decade-long investments. In addition, Oracle proposes to lead a new Eclipse project to provide a set of persistence runtimes that can be utilized in Java frameworks. The founders of the Spring OSS framework indicate they will join the project.

The Eclipse Persistence Platform project will be available free of charge under the Eclipse Public License.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Business Issue | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some day soon the Free Software Foundation (FSF) should officially bless its GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3 (GPL V3) or put out another draft for further comment. FSF associates are meeting this Saturday at MIT in Cambridge MA and that might mark some kind of official or unoffical release (if in the Boston area, you can join and attend if interested but I believe you have to let them know ahead of time via the fsf.org web site). GPL is one of the key documents in the open source software (OSS) movement because it is the means Linus Torvalds chose to license Linux while a student in Finland in the mid 1990s. To be clear the GPL was prepared by and is coprighted by FSF, not the Linux Foundation, but the FSF makes it available to anyone as long as FSF's copyright is respected (see this post for a discussion about the subtle difference between the FSF and the broader OSS movement).

A draft of the new proposed license is available at the GNU/FSF site along with comments that have been made since the July 2006 release of this draft. In addition to Linux, all of the GNU software--naturally--is licensed under the GPL as is a wide array of other OSS according to the FSF. On the other hand, other pieces of OSS are licensed via the Apache, Berkeley, and at least a half dozen other legal structures (see this site for many of the possibilities).

The GPL V3 review process worked like this: Committees A, B and C--made up of a who's who of OSS luminaries--reviewed approximately 1000 public comments last year and some committee of the whole arrangement (called Committee D) released public minutes during 2006. The current (second) draft of GPL Version 3 was released in July 2006. There does not seem to have been any meetings of the four committees in almost a year. FSF movers and shakers said they would make further changes to the license after (and because of the terms of) the Novell-Microsoft technology-sharing/cross-patent agreement, which was announced in November 2006. If that process is taking place, it does not appear to be "a public process" similar to the commentary/discussion process used in 2006.

Below I've summarized my opinion of the types of changes I see between the first and current second draft (I believe the first draft was fairly similar to the existing GPL Version 2, which was released in 1991):

-- The moral vs. legal dimensions of free software vs. OSS in general (and closed source software of course) has been taken up a notch although some of the more colorful section titles (such as "Liberty or Death for the Program") have been replaced with legalese. As mentioned elsewhere in my blogs and commentary, this has been a major trend in the FSF movement all during this decade (possibly at the expense of actually producing code).
-- The FSF has taken great care to "internationalize" the wording of GPL V3. That is, it is more generic to copyright and patent laws and conventions worldwide and not just in the United States. Deletion of the word "distribute" is the biggest victim of these changes.
-- In general, the GPL V3 license does not cover the output of the free software, which is where I once thought FSF was going with its DRM diversion
-- Sublicensing is not permitted under GPL V3
-- The changes to how systems libraries are handled may be the most significant; it looks like this version of the license is widening the circle of what is covered how when it comes to "free"
-- The Lesser GPL is basically replaced by a set of permissive exceptions to the new GPL. There are some implications if you are using software licensed in this manner. But in general most of these GPL V3 changes apply to anyone redistributing OSS so if you are litterally just using it, this is simply interesting (or not?). And, specific to integration software, the most popular OSS middleware is not licensed under either GPL license so just monitor the situation and don't worry about Novell and Microsoft vs. the world and all the other drama in the OSS culture.
-- Of course, most meaningful from a cultural point of view, the license has been extended to cover content

As has always been the case, two important FSF characteristics remain the same:
-- no warranty attaches
-- you are free to charge money for free software.
In general, many of these changes seem to me to make it less likely that the license will be used for popular pieces of OSS.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is not really a big surprise given earlier posts here about Fedora but I need to mention it, given Red Hat's prominence in the open source software (OSS) community. The March 14 press conference was more of a chance to compare itself with and "constructively criticize" other suppliers' business models and less about what the product does.

Red Hat said there were three key points they wanted to make:
-- RHEL 5 delivers on the "Open source architecture." There is really nothing new in the architecture in my opinion, just good execution on the OSS development model. But RHEL 5 is the next generation of Red Hat's platform, supporting the whole array of systems architectures at a price point of the current RHEL Advanced Server (and a huge disruption to anyone still paying traditional prices for UNIX and VMware or like operating system add-ons). Built-in virtualization at no extra cost. No separate charges for volume management and other features such as security, smartcard support and a list of other features. People can mix and match stack components if they want (VMware instead of Xen, e.g.) but the point is: why would you want to? The JBoss middleware is still priced separately and not part of the RHEL 5 packaging.
-- Participation of the partner community. AMD and Intel talked via video at the press conference to talk about how their latest greatest silicon and systems software will take advantage of RHEL 5. In addition, Red Hat announced an expanded partner program to expand the open source ecosystem, particularly applciation ISVs. They call it Red Hat Exchange and is modeled after salesforce.com's program called AppExchange. Compiere and Jaspersoft are signed up already along with others.
-- Improved customer experience in terms of transparency,, problem resoution, and collaboration was new news. This is good news for Red Hat customer and prospects because it provides the sort of coverage larger enterprise expect (and it certainly competes with what Oracle is trying to do in supporting Red Hat Linux, as announced in November 2006).

Red hat also talked about pre-configured solutions for Data Center, Database Availability, and High Performance Computing all of which are packaged to solve specific configuration issues that Red Hat has heard about from its customers. For example, virtualizing database instances could save users thousands of dollars in database license fees each month. Red Hat will probably extend this concept by packaging some JBoss and SOA components to make other packages.

There is an interesting pricing story under the covers of the packaging announcement relative to pricing virtualized operating systems. If anyone cares, send me a comment and I'll dig into it.

In terms of the constructive criticism, it was veiled for Oracle and more direct for Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't get it according to Red Hat. For example,
-- Red Hat says it sees no buzz around Vista. The problem is that Red Hat doesn't know where to look. As of March 1, a month after consumer Vista became available, nearly 100,000 emails and faxes were still backed up at Moduslink, the supply chain company that will provide free upgrades to people who bought a PC before the holidays. Microsoft has reserved $1.6 billion to pay for that program alone. And that is not counting those that bought PCs earlier and are upgrading at their own cost or those that have bought PCs since who get Vista automatically (and therefore aren't likely to buzz about it). In my opinion, the OSS community has got to get over its fixation with the desktop; that ship has sailed.
-- Red Hat says Microsoft Windows runs on the RHEL 5 virtualization platform in testing and they will support Windows in some way as a virtualized guest. It's up to Microsoft to make it work the other way (How about a phone call guys? The market wants open choice. It would have been better to have these answers out of the gate.)

Red Hat is right that Microsoft still doesn't get the subscription model idea, as I have posted on extensively at my own site (see My Other Work link at right).

Posted by dennisb in OSS Business Issue | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Open source software (OSS) ERP provider Compiere announced this morning that ex-Ask manager and ex-Oracle supply chain automation guru Don Klaiss has joined the company as president. This is an important "endorsement" in a sense for the company that recently secured some big-league financing from NEA and moved from Oregon to Silicon Valley. Ram Gupta, another ERP industry veteran via PeopleSoft is on the board along with Andre Boisvert (ex-IBM and ex-SAS and founder of Pentaho, the OSS BI folks), who is chairman of the board.

OSS has been basically an infrastructure software story to date but it looks like the Compiere investors and directors are going to take a serious run at the ERP midmarket using this technology. Compiere started in ERP in 1999 in the more traditional fashion and switched over to OSS circa 2002-2003. Its business model is to go totally indirect, having built up a channel of 100 partners worldwide. Founder and technology developer Jorg Janke started at Oracle Germany and the name Compiere has a French Connection that escapes me (but I'll ask them when I talk to them).

Compiere is mired in a bit of OSS culture intrigue: a group of the original Compiere open sourcers left the Compiere community last year and started ADempiere as a competitor. Adempiere says" "The community believed Compiere Inc. placed too much emphasis on the open source nature of the project, rather than the community nature of the project, and after an impassioned discussion decided to split from Compiere™ giving birth to the ADempiere project." It sounds like a bit of the open source vs. free software blog I posted on March 12.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Business Issue | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It is common to use the terms free software and open source software (OSS) interchangeably, a mistake I often make even though I have written about the subtle difference extensively in my own research (see My Work Elsewhere link to the right). I was corresponding with johns at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) recently about another subject and he asked me to reinforce the distinction between free software and OSS. So here goes.

First the well known FSF mantra: FSF is talking about free software as in "free speech, not free beer." Free software by FSF's rules does not include the Quicken software I got for free from former First National Bank of Boston because I was a customer (and which Intuit nicely upgraded for me at no charge right through multiple bank mergers and the OFX transition) or the free Office Live software as a service I get from Microsoft. And it does not include a lot of open source software either.

"Free" to the FSF means the software meets four criteria (numbered 0-3 for some reason I used to know): the freedom to run the software for any purpose, the freedom to study and adapt the software (means source code access is mandatory), the freedom to redistribute the software, and the freedom to modify the software and distribute the modifications (also means source code access is mandatory).

More philosophically, the FSF is an ethics-based movement based on a socialistic/communistic credo (I do not mean that as a criticism or a political analogy. I simply want to characterize the group accurately. For example, my cousin Susan also belongs to a communistic group; she is a nun.). The FSF is not any kind of industry consortium such as the Linux Foundation. I had written on my web site some time back that I felt the FSF's founder Richard Stallman was probably less into the ethical/socialistic/communistic dimensions than some of his followers. I based that conclusion on reading some of his earliest works (he is a prolific author and speaker). But johns points out that Stallman has updated his seminal writings on the free vs open-source subject recently and either I misread the originals or Stallman is making sure the movement he started doesn't leave him behind.

As someone that writes a lot, I admire Stallman for believing that words mean something. That is what his essay "Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software" is really all about. Specifically,
-- The frequent use of the words and phrases "social solidarity," "social problem," "social movement," and so forth in this newly updated essay makes my point about the socialistic nature of the FSF movement (I sense a new stridency on these points but do not pretend that I have analyzed old and new word for word, phrase by phrase.)
-- Stallman considers anyone who is not FSF (most of the OSS movement) as having splintered off from FSF, which he feels discovered the idea of unfettered code sharing. In his opinion, they "left" for philosophical reasons or disagreement with one of the four "free" criteria (I contend OSS has been around since long before the FSF, since COMMON and DECUS, in other words, since the beginning, and that OSS folks that followed a different path probably simply had never heard of FSF.)
-- Still, he says it is "proprietary software" that is the enemy, not OSS. (That is, Microsoft is the enemy but he is not strident about that the way some followers are.) He says the broader OSS community wants the same thing as the FSF inner circle, but for the wrong reasons. In the end, if proprietary software does something useful and non-true-believers may choose to use it. (Open choice, not open source, is my mantra. it appears to me that FSF's big fear is competition. Somehow, my choosing software freely is unethical in FSF thinking.)
-- In the latest iterations of the FSF philosophical underpinnings, Digital Rights Management gets treatment similar to that accorded proprietary software. The FSF insists on calling it Digital Restrictions Management, a reprise of the free software vs OSS wording battle.

What does this mean for the OSS user base, particularly open-source integration software users? In terms of integration software, the distinction is less of an issue because the leading open-source integration software projects do not follow the FSF philosophy. Apache and its siblings (Tomcat, Geronimo, ActiveMQ, ServiceMix, and so forth) as well as JBoss are not part of the FSF orbit. Gluecode (Websphere's open source application server base) is following Geronimo. Celtix is hooked up with Apache's ActiveMQ even though it is competing with Apache's ServiceMix (according to the Apache guys; I am trying to talk to Iona/Celtix to discuss what appears to be friendly coopetition among the projects as explained in Brenda Michelson's comment on my blog here).

As for the rest of the LAMP stack,
-- Linux is part of the FSF orbit primarily because it uses the GNU General Public License Version 2. A new GPL version is due out momentarily and there is some question whether Linux adherents will follow its lead. Of course that connection has implications for Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and most importantly Novell vis a vis SUSE Linux. The FSF has said it is relooking at the upcoming draft of the GPL V3 license in light of the November 2006 Microsoft-Novell arrangement (but Richard Stallman has also clearly said according to press reports that the Microsoft-Novell agreement did not violate GPL V2)
-- MySQL also uses GPL V2 and but has already modified its licensing terms so that it will not automatically "roll over" into GPL V3 when it comes out
-- There is always a question what the "P" in LAMP stands for but
--------- PHP is considered free software by the FSF although it does not use the GPL V2 (PHP is backed by Zend Technologies in the way that JBoss is backed by Red Hat)
--------- Perl does use the GPL V2 (as well as the "Artistic License")
--------- Python has its own license (and its own Foundation modeled after the Apache Foundation)
--------- (My source for the P information is wikipedia; I'm a deployment software guy, not a development software guy)

So are you an FSFer or a more conservative open sourcer? Reply using the comments box.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my day job, I came across some information instructive as to how the IT Top 12 (my index of the leading information technology suppliers) uses open source software (OSS). CA (formerly Computer Associates) added some interesting OSS-related verbiage to last year's 10K. (10Ks are the annual reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which tend to be much more detailed than the annual reports sent to shareholders. As of Sarbanes/Oxly and similar rules outside the U.S., they also tend to much more forthright than a brochure-like annual report because guys are starting to face prison time if they sign off on the things without crossing every 'T' and dotting every 'i.')

Here's what CA said:

“Some of our products contain software from open source code sources. The use of such open source code may subject us to certain conditions, including the obligation to offer our products that use open source code for no cost. We monitor our use of such open source code to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend.

"However, the use of such open source code may ultimately subject some of our products to unintended conditions so that we are required to take remedial action that may divert resources away from our development efforts. We believe that the use of such open source code will not have a significant impact on our operations and that our products will be viable after any remediation efforts. However, there can be no assurance that future conditions involving such open source code will not have an adverse impact on our business, financial condition, operating results and cash flow. "

Wow, that says it all. I treated this In fact, in a subset of my IT Investment Research reports that appeared on ebizQ in January (and that's how I ended up writing this blog). But it took me three or four pages to say what CA said in two paragraphs:
-- We'll take but basically we want "to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend."
-- If it turns out we did something we didn't intend we'll "divert (development) resources" so as to make sure we don't lose any money on OSS

I have no problem with this approach but if you're thinking of donating your time to OSS, remember who you are working for.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Business Issue | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A back to the future feeling (‘deja vu all over again’ if you are a NY Yankees’ fan) begins at the start of every ODF vs. OpenXML article or email exchange. There is a good thesis/commentary series in progress right now at freesoftwaremagazine.com (by Ed Macnaghten) if you can work your way through the Microhate (from commenters, not the initial author).

Right away, the premise that ODF came down from Sinai is introduced (insert your own favorite direct-divinty-involvement religious analogy; I don’t mean to be insensitive to others but Moses’ story just happens to be the one with which I am familiar). There is no mention of ODF’s source, Sun Microsystems. OpenXML, on the other hand, came from those fallen archangels in Redmond (typically called “morons,” “shills,” “scumbags,” and worse in the FSF world and throughout the otherwise good article and email exchange to which I am referring you). In reality of course, ODF came from Sun by way of a German company it acquired in 2000. No stone tablets. A committee of IBM, Novell, Adobe and other Microsoft competitors worked with Sun so that you don’t have to call it a Sun standard. But get real. Why should Sun contributions to the standards movement be more standard than Microsoft’s contribution?

Each article has an obligatory genuflection to the State of Massachusetts IT Department for fighting the good fight in the Moses vs. Fallen Archangel's battle. Unless you are from Massachusetts (I am), you probably do not know that we are not only the home of the Perfect Storm as in the movie about deadly tuna fishing but also as in the Perfect Storm where political intrigue and well-greased political palms come together with corporate lobbying in a way that would make Machiavelli blush. Consider:
-- The whole open source controversy in Massachusetts (predating but related to the ODF decision referenced in freesoftwaremagazine) was orchestrated by IBM Global Services (IGS) presenting to a committee made up of, among others, Sun personnel.
-- IGS ran a review of the state’s IT practices and needs in late 2002 into early 2003. Why IBM might be the subject of another post.
-- Among the February 2003 IBM report's over 50 recommendations for future State of Massachusetts IT procurement and usage, the IBM-led, Sun-involved commission approved, without debate or public comment, the following: "Leverage existing application assets by establishing an “open source” program within the Commonwealth."
-- Ironically, given the subsequent controversy, having made this recommendation, the state commission found an “open source” program to be of low feasibility.
-- The CIO politician in charge of hiring IBM and seeding the OSS movement has moved on to work in the “dreaded private sector” (an inside Massachusetts politico joke line) and also has hit the speaking circuit (I have no problem with him doing this but doing it during 2005 while on the state payroll and while getting comped and expensed by the usual array of unbiased ODF vendors--not Microsoft of course--is what cost him his job) .
-- The state legislature failed to fund the much ballyhooed ODL conversion in 2006 and a second CIO resigned.

Everybody in the FSF community keeps pointing to Massachusetts as an OSS "success." But it didn't happen and it was all orchestrated not by high-minded volunteers for the cause like those at freesoftwaremagazine.com but by IBM in the first place. It is possible that saner unbiased IT staff in Massachusetts (termed “Microsoft bigots” by the local OSS crowd) said not being able to use Word and purchase technology from Microsoft would just plain be crazy. But given what I said about the state’s political process above, it is also likely that Microsoft finally figured out how the game is played here. The Microhaters here have even tied Redmond to the highly publicized Abramoff political consulting scandal. But to be fair, the first ex CIO himself says it’s because Microsoft programmers are better dressed (perhaps that is why he hired IBM to study his department and come up with some unbiased views).

Having apparently learned how to manipulate the Massachusetts political world, manipulation any where else in the universe is a piece of cake. Deftly Microsoft is moving OpenXML along to ISO approval by first getting it approved by the former European Computer Manufacturers' Association, now called ECMA International (apparently because there are very few European computer manufacturers left). ODF already received ISO approval and—I am guessing here—ISO approval is pretty much required to do business with EU governments.

Of course, all this begs the questions, “Why do we need standards anyways?” and “Why do we need a standard office document format?” I will write about that in the future but if you have an opinion to share, let me know through the comments box.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As described in my first post on February 1, my day job involves conducting research into leading IT suppliers' SEC and similar documentation to assist investors. As part of that I have written extensively about the process Microsoft is going through with the European Union (EU) vis a vis restraint of trade and other issues similar to its battles in the U.S. with the Department of Justice.

In particular, since mid 2006 Microsoft is liable for (and is paying) millions of dollars per day in fines for failing to adequately make public and competitively price its client operating software protocols. That kind of money means this is primarily an investment issue, of course, which is why I talk about it my investment-related blogging. But the latest twist, announced March 1, has an OSS subtext so you might want to look over at my opinion at seekingalpha

The EU is not just trying to fund its bloated socialistic bureacracy with these fines. The real hidden agenda, driven by an old DEC Netherlands employee and an ex-Bull security specialist, is to force Microsoft to make its protocols open source. They do this by declaring the protocols of no value in the market, and thereby saying 'therefore the protocols should be free.' Only EU logicians would work so hard to make something they say is of no value available in the market. This is the most extreme example of government intervention against enterprise/consumer open choice and meddling with free markets and intellectual property that I could imagine. And I worked for Bull in France during Plan Calcul so I know government meddling.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Business Issue | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As I have written elsewhere there are varying degrees of community in the open source software (OSS) movement. One of the oldest and purest OSS projects upgraded its sixth version to "stable" status today, meaning it now encourages new users to start at that revision level. Apache Tomcat is the servlet container used in the official Reference Implementation for the Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages technologies. The more venerable Apache web server is not required and Tomcat will work with any web server that follows the related Java specs.

I say "one of the purest" because the specs are developed by Sun under the Java Community Process (JCP) so it is not totally devoid of a corporate connection, the importance of which is outlined in my taxonomy. The Tomcat code base was donated by Sun to the Apache Software Foundation in 1999. Sun then turns around and adapts and integrates the Tomcat code base back into the J2EE SDK. In 2005, Tomcat became its own top-level Apache project (TLP). Between 1999 and 2005, it had been part of Jakarta (the overall Apache Java OSS activity). Don't confuse Jakarta with the JCP.

This process, at least in the J2EE world, reinforces the ultimate commoditization that will take place at this level of the stack. I opine: why reinvent the wheel? Well people are doing it. In addition to the servlet functionality built into the big-league application servers such as Ironflare/Oracle, JRun, Weblogic, Websphere, and so forth (often also Tomcat) there are also various other OSS efforts within OSS efforts. Enhydra, Glassfish, and others have projects underway that compete with Sun and Winstone offers a servlet "without the bloat" of J2EE. Something for everyone.

Jakarta/JCP. Commercial and non-commercial OSS. That's why I often call the OSS movement Byzantine: I also often say that with the OSS, it is as if it is 1980 and you can "see into" and follow the inner workings of the IBM, HP, DEC and DG engineering departments simultaneously. The intrigue is just as riveting (and human) as described in The Soul of a New Machine.

Apache Tomcat is released under the Apache Software License.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Development | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)