November 03, 2006
Kung Fu Monkey
So I'm a little slow, but Kung Fu Monkey is freaking brilliant. In particular, I greatly enjoyed this gem.
November 02, 2006
Republicans are Pansies... Pass it on
Republicans are living in fear, and they're making policy inspired by this fear. They're dreadfully afraid of terrorists and extremists - so much so that they're willing to drop their freedoms in the hopes of saving their own skin. The Iraq war is a manifestation of this fear. The PATRIOT ACT is an expression of this fear. The willingness to subvert habeas corpus, detain *possible* terrorist group members indefinitely without criminal charges, enact broader search and seizure guidelines, and engage in torture all reflect a basic, inate fear of the enemy. The fear stems from the belief that keeping our freedom intact results in a higher risk of a terrorist strike.
Does this not strike anyone as hypocritical? Aren't republicans in this country fond of saying "freedom isn't free," "our troops are dying for our freedoms," and other similar phrases? If it is true that "freedom isn't free" and that it's worth dying for, then what gives with the cheap sellout of freedom in exchange for our collective safety? In short, shouldn't Republicans be willing to grow a pair and accept the risk that comes with freedom?
I'm tired of what is obvious (republicans' white-knuckle fear of terrorism) being passed over in favor of what is simply untrue - that they hold the roadmap for the most effective anti-terrorism policy. Maybe all Americans need to grow a pair and realize that taking the high road of morality and human rights means facing up to the inherent risk.
Given the choice between dying for our founding principles and living on in a pale imitation of said principles, I know what I'll choose.
If there are evil people in this world who will exploit our laws and governance to strike us, then may God have mercy on their souls. I'm not going to use that as an excuse to drop the very things that made us what we are today, and neither should you. When you vote on Tuesday, bear in mind that exactly one party has overwhelmingly ruled from a position of fear. You know which party that is, and now is the time to send them the message that you won't tolerate this shortchange of principles.
Republicans are pansies. Pass it on.
Does this not strike anyone as hypocritical? Aren't republicans in this country fond of saying "freedom isn't free," "our troops are dying for our freedoms," and other similar phrases? If it is true that "freedom isn't free" and that it's worth dying for, then what gives with the cheap sellout of freedom in exchange for our collective safety? In short, shouldn't Republicans be willing to grow a pair and accept the risk that comes with freedom?
I'm tired of what is obvious (republicans' white-knuckle fear of terrorism) being passed over in favor of what is simply untrue - that they hold the roadmap for the most effective anti-terrorism policy. Maybe all Americans need to grow a pair and realize that taking the high road of morality and human rights means facing up to the inherent risk.
Given the choice between dying for our founding principles and living on in a pale imitation of said principles, I know what I'll choose.
If there are evil people in this world who will exploit our laws and governance to strike us, then may God have mercy on their souls. I'm not going to use that as an excuse to drop the very things that made us what we are today, and neither should you. When you vote on Tuesday, bear in mind that exactly one party has overwhelmingly ruled from a position of fear. You know which party that is, and now is the time to send them the message that you won't tolerate this shortchange of principles.
Republicans are pansies. Pass it on.
October 16, 2006
Google Spam Recipes! Woohoo!
I've discovered an amazing new "feature" of GMail - whenever you go to your spam folder, look near the top of the page where Google normally inserts topic-related links, and you'll mostly likely see one of several recipes that make creative use of spam ©. Note here that I'm talking about the canned spicy ham - not the junk mail that gmail sorts into your "spam" folder. And now, so that you don't have to, I've collected a few of my personal favorites below:
Spam Primavera
Spam Breakfast Burritos
French Fry Spam Casserole
Spam Quiche
Add your favorite spam recipes below!
Spam Primavera
Spam Breakfast Burritos
French Fry Spam Casserole
Spam Quiche
Add your favorite spam recipes below!
September 19, 2006
John Mark's "There is no Open Source Community"
Hi there, dear readers (all 2 of you). I am putting all new posts on open source-releated topics in my new blog, John Mark's "There is no Open Source Community". Enjoy!
September 18, 2006
Talk Like a Pirate! Arrrr!
In commemoration of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I give you my 2-year-old talking like a pirate.
Pssst - I just found another TLAPD web site!
Pssst - I just found another TLAPD web site!
September 06, 2006
On Red Hat and Commercial Open Source
I recently had lunch with a friend from RedHat. Suffice it to say, it was rather revelatory. At some point, the conversation drifted to rPath and how they split off because Red Hat "couldn't afford to please the diehards" - they had to make money, and the only way to do this was by ignoring the "diehards". This Red Hatter then went on to talk about how they couldn't just continue to give stuff away, they had to charge for it, yadda yadda - pretty standard stuff we've heard from Red Hat for a while now. It then occurred to me how Red Hat continues to get it wrong in the marketplace - they still think it's about engaging in solid business practices in spite of the resistance of the GNU diehards.
This very premise is simply wrong. They seem to have neatly categorized criticism of its abandonment of the desktop as just noise from the "diehards" wanting Red Hat to serve the free software community and give stuff away for free. This line of thought ceased to be relevant about 6 years ago.
What Red Hat doesn't seem to understand is the effort that will be required to bring parity to the desktop landscape. The reason this is important is that Microsoft is continuing to use the leverage from its large desktop install base to build server-based technologies. While Red Hat is laser-focused on web servers and other back-office sales, Microsoft continues to bundle more services into its offerings, and for the most part, it just works - assuming, of course, that you use Microsoft on both ends of your transactions.
Red Hat does not now, nor has it ever, grasped how much leverage it would have with a ubiquitous, user-friendly desktop. They want so badly for everyone to equate Red Hat with Linux, and they have been very successful at this. However, Red Hat just isn't large enough to outflank, on its own, a company as large as Microsoft, and yet they continue with their market myopia. Witness their absence from LinuxWorld San Francisco. Witness the bad relationship between them and some of the larger commercial entities (there are several). They want to single-handedly drive Linux forward, and they do not have a great track record in terms of working with other companies. It's no secret that they have not been strong advocates of the LSB. One note of hope is their acquisition of JBoss, but there is a distinct lack of solid partnerships between Red Hat and other strong commercial open source players. They continue to strive for a Red Hat-only market, without engaging users on a large-enough scale to create new markets.
Given this view, a lack of engagement with the commercial open source ecosystem, and a bias towards its own technologies, it would seem that Red Hat is doomed - in terms of matching its ambitions to eventual success. Unfortunately, a doomed Red Hat spells a temporarily doomed commercial Linux space, and thus a temporarily doomed commercial open source space. Red Hat does not seem to recognize that a lot is riding on their success or failure - like, say, the entire commercial Linux ecosystem. And since Red Hat/Fedora Linux is the default development platform for open source ISV's, a lot of other software infrastructure would fail with it. Realistically, Red Hat can push out most of its competitors on the server landscape - Sun, Novell, et al. - and lose to Microsoft in the back office and the continuously growing web infrastructure. It would be a classic case of winning battles but losing the war.
The other strike against Red Hat is they seem to discount Microsoft's efforts in the commoditized web infrastructure area. They do this at their peril. Microsoft appears to be learning how to make its software cheap enough to make it compelling. Given their established user base and the fact that many admins feel at home with it, IT buyers are willing to pay more for it. Again, a ubiquitous desktop is largely responsible for this. It certainly doesn't hurt that a large amount of open source software runs really well under Windows. Conceivably, assuming Microsoft doesn't screw up and that open source .NET continues to flourish, one could imagine a day where Windows becomes the de facto open source development platform.
Enter Ubuntu/Canonical. If one takes the view that the desktop is vitally important *and* a market in need of a brash, ambitious upstart, then Ubuntu seems to be a Linux distribution that understands what is needed to clear the major hurdles. That is, many many more users (and eventually developers) are needed to bring the software market to parity and give leverage to the smaller software players. New markets need to be pushed wide open, and they need a compelling reason to use Linux. Yes, this means stuff needs to be given to them. Yes, Ubuntu is bleeding money at the moment. My point is that this is a necessary evil - for now. I don't think it's a coincidence that Red Hat is public and Canonical is not. Of these two companies, despite Red Hat's current market position, it would seem that Canonical/Ubuntu is best positioned to drive commercial open source in the future - only they seem to understand the scale of the task before them. "Community building" is not some touchie-feelie exercise in charity - it is shrewd business development.
Oh but wait, Ubuntu is just a free toy given away by a crazy South African spaceman to please the GNU/Linux diehards, right?
This very premise is simply wrong. They seem to have neatly categorized criticism of its abandonment of the desktop as just noise from the "diehards" wanting Red Hat to serve the free software community and give stuff away for free. This line of thought ceased to be relevant about 6 years ago.
What Red Hat doesn't seem to understand is the effort that will be required to bring parity to the desktop landscape. The reason this is important is that Microsoft is continuing to use the leverage from its large desktop install base to build server-based technologies. While Red Hat is laser-focused on web servers and other back-office sales, Microsoft continues to bundle more services into its offerings, and for the most part, it just works - assuming, of course, that you use Microsoft on both ends of your transactions.
Red Hat does not now, nor has it ever, grasped how much leverage it would have with a ubiquitous, user-friendly desktop. They want so badly for everyone to equate Red Hat with Linux, and they have been very successful at this. However, Red Hat just isn't large enough to outflank, on its own, a company as large as Microsoft, and yet they continue with their market myopia. Witness their absence from LinuxWorld San Francisco. Witness the bad relationship between them and some of the larger commercial entities (there are several). They want to single-handedly drive Linux forward, and they do not have a great track record in terms of working with other companies. It's no secret that they have not been strong advocates of the LSB. One note of hope is their acquisition of JBoss, but there is a distinct lack of solid partnerships between Red Hat and other strong commercial open source players. They continue to strive for a Red Hat-only market, without engaging users on a large-enough scale to create new markets.
Given this view, a lack of engagement with the commercial open source ecosystem, and a bias towards its own technologies, it would seem that Red Hat is doomed - in terms of matching its ambitions to eventual success. Unfortunately, a doomed Red Hat spells a temporarily doomed commercial Linux space, and thus a temporarily doomed commercial open source space. Red Hat does not seem to recognize that a lot is riding on their success or failure - like, say, the entire commercial Linux ecosystem. And since Red Hat/Fedora Linux is the default development platform for open source ISV's, a lot of other software infrastructure would fail with it. Realistically, Red Hat can push out most of its competitors on the server landscape - Sun, Novell, et al. - and lose to Microsoft in the back office and the continuously growing web infrastructure. It would be a classic case of winning battles but losing the war.
The other strike against Red Hat is they seem to discount Microsoft's efforts in the commoditized web infrastructure area. They do this at their peril. Microsoft appears to be learning how to make its software cheap enough to make it compelling. Given their established user base and the fact that many admins feel at home with it, IT buyers are willing to pay more for it. Again, a ubiquitous desktop is largely responsible for this. It certainly doesn't hurt that a large amount of open source software runs really well under Windows. Conceivably, assuming Microsoft doesn't screw up and that open source .NET continues to flourish, one could imagine a day where Windows becomes the de facto open source development platform.
Enter Ubuntu/Canonical. If one takes the view that the desktop is vitally important *and* a market in need of a brash, ambitious upstart, then Ubuntu seems to be a Linux distribution that understands what is needed to clear the major hurdles. That is, many many more users (and eventually developers) are needed to bring the software market to parity and give leverage to the smaller software players. New markets need to be pushed wide open, and they need a compelling reason to use Linux. Yes, this means stuff needs to be given to them. Yes, Ubuntu is bleeding money at the moment. My point is that this is a necessary evil - for now. I don't think it's a coincidence that Red Hat is public and Canonical is not. Of these two companies, despite Red Hat's current market position, it would seem that Canonical/Ubuntu is best positioned to drive commercial open source in the future - only they seem to understand the scale of the task before them. "Community building" is not some touchie-feelie exercise in charity - it is shrewd business development.
Oh but wait, Ubuntu is just a free toy given away by a crazy South African spaceman to please the GNU/Linux diehards, right?
August 22, 2006
July 31, 2006
The UbuCon: Full Steam Ahead
The UbuCon will indeed happen. The UbuCon will take place on August 18 and 19 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.
July 29, 2006
June 30, 2006
US National Anthem - USA vs. Italy (World Cup)
| Listen to the fans belt out the anthem and then erupt in spontaneous chants. There's just no substitute for world cup atmosphere. The US may have disappointed overall, but that night in Kaiserslautern was magic. | |
May 22, 2006
Lovely Susana Baca
Above is a very grainy and perhaps indecipherable picture of Susana Baca in concert. Man, what a graceful performer with commanding vocals.
May 21, 2006
Announcing: The Ubucon
I'm putting together a conference - The Ubucon (rhymes with Rubicon) - for Ubuntu users, developers and admins. Many many thanks to Google for letting me use their space. A huge debt of gratitude goes to Chris and Leslie over there for helping with this.
The Ubucon will be held August 18 and 19, the days immediately following LinuxWorld San Francisco.
Here's the conference wiki. As you can see, there's not much there yet. With your help, however, that will change RSN.
There is a mailing list - theubucon AT linuxpip, and you can subscribe at theubucon-request or go to the mailing list info page.
I'd love to get your feedback and ideas about what the conference should be.
Thanks!
The Ubucon will be held August 18 and 19, the days immediately following LinuxWorld San Francisco.
Here's the conference wiki. As you can see, there's not much there yet. With your help, however, that will change RSN.
There is a mailing list - theubucon AT linuxpip, and you can subscribe at theubucon-request or go to the mailing list info page.
I'd love to get your feedback and ideas about what the conference should be.
Thanks!
May 01, 2006
LinuxWorld Podcast: Jeremy Allison
Jeremy Allison is a household name among the open source-aware, having co-founded the SAMBA project, continuing his role as a lead developer there, and currently serving as one of several rock-star developers now employed by Novell.
In this podcast, Jeremy Allison explains why *all* software is going free and why it's all due to the GPL. You also get to listen in as a special guest drops by to visit.
Listen to the edited version (23 mins.):
linuxpip.org/jallison.mp3
OR get the raw, uncut, full version (50 mins.) with lots more on Microsoft, patents, and other goodies:
linuxpip.org/jallison full monty.mp3
As always, you can get the latest LinuxWorld podcasts at linuxpip.org/lwpodcast.rss
In this podcast, Jeremy Allison explains why *all* software is going free and why it's all due to the GPL. You also get to listen in as a special guest drops by to visit.
Listen to the edited version (23 mins.):
linuxpip.org/jallison.mp3
OR get the raw, uncut, full version (50 mins.) with lots more on Microsoft, patents, and other goodies:
linuxpip.org/jallison full monty.mp3
As always, you can get the latest LinuxWorld podcasts at linuxpip.org/lwpodcast.rss
April 25, 2006
Note to Pamela Jones: Should Have Stopped Long Ago
In an utterly gratuitous and knee-jerk slam of Linspire yesterday, Pamela Jones took it upon herself to criticize Linspire for *gasp* including non-free software in their community distro. I'm sorry, but what was that? Would you mind explaining *how* this is a problem? Pamela, I used to admire you a great deal; your work on the SCO case was exceptional and provided a guiding light to those of us trying to make sense of what was happening.
But this is just absurd. Your assertion that communities don't form around non-free software is so wrong as to be greeted by uproarious laughter. Tell that to Mac fans. So tell me, why would folks care that Freespire will come with optional proprietary software? It's funny, I just thought folks wanted stuff to work. Silly ole' me.
Repeat after me: open source is not a social or religious movement. I made that point pretty clearly here.
But this is just absurd. Your assertion that communities don't form around non-free software is so wrong as to be greeted by uproarious laughter. Tell that to Mac fans. So tell me, why would folks care that Freespire will come with optional proprietary software? It's funny, I just thought folks wanted stuff to work. Silly ole' me.
Repeat after me: open source is not a social or religious movement. I made that point pretty clearly here.
April 24, 2006
LinuxWorld Podcast: Jim Zemlin and Larry Augustin
In the first podcast, Jim Zemlin sounds off on the Linux desktop, free standards, and being the Switzerland of Linux-land. Jim has much to add to the standards debate, and he's done a lot to make freestandards.org worth mentioning again. Listen to Jim clarify the difference between open standards and open source:
Jim Zemlin podcast
In the next podcast, you get to hear it straight from the open source Godfather, Larry Augustin. The "other" Larry of Silicon Valley talks about his historical involvement with open source, and where things are heading in the commercial open source world. It's all about commoditization, innovation, and bad hygiene... ok perhaps not so much the latter. Somewhere in between, Larry forces me to agree with Eric Raymond.
Larry Augustin podcast
Jim Zemlin podcast
In the next podcast, you get to hear it straight from the open source Godfather, Larry Augustin. The "other" Larry of Silicon Valley talks about his historical involvement with open source, and where things are heading in the commercial open source world. It's all about commoditization, innovation, and bad hygiene... ok perhaps not so much the latter. Somewhere in between, Larry forces me to agree with Eric Raymond.
Larry Augustin podcast
April 19, 2006
LinuxWorld Podcast: Clint Oram, SugarCRM
***You can always catch the latest LinuxWorld podcast at linuxpip.org/lwpodcast.rss ***
I sat down with Clint Oram, General Manager of Sugar Online at SugarCRM, and we had a nice chat about open source communities, the CRM market, where SugarCRM fits in, and how one goes about converting downloaders into paying customers. He makes several interesting points, including talking about "passion-ware" - the deciding factor between open source and proprietary software:
LinuxWorld Podcast with Clint Oram - Part 1
Unfortunately, we were sitting outside behind a local cafe, when the garbage truck paid a visit. So, I stopped the recorder and resumed after it left:
LinuxWorld Podcast with Clint Oram - Part 2
I sat down with Clint Oram, General Manager of Sugar Online at SugarCRM, and we had a nice chat about open source communities, the CRM market, where SugarCRM fits in, and how one goes about converting downloaders into paying customers. He makes several interesting points, including talking about "passion-ware" - the deciding factor between open source and proprietary software:
LinuxWorld Podcast with Clint Oram - Part 1
Unfortunately, we were sitting outside behind a local cafe, when the garbage truck paid a visit. So, I stopped the recorder and resumed after it left:
LinuxWorld Podcast with Clint Oram - Part 2
Open Source Developers: The New Customer/Partner
To many of us in the world of Linux and open source, it seemed pretty clear that open source development and the democratization of software - not to mention commoditization - was turning software as product development into a 2-way street. The trend was away from nice snazzy development kits that software vendors would release every 6 months and transforming into open development processes. This required giving something of value to prospective developers in the hopes that they would find a vendor's software compelling enough to contribute to its development, whether in the form of QA, documentation, bug reports, or in a small number of cases, writing actual code. This new 2-way street forced vendors to rethink their 3rd party development strategy, because simply viewing developers as consumers wasn't going to cut it. To remain competitive, vendors had to develop communities and ecosystems, partner with individuals outside the company, and generally convert their entire development process into an SOA.
This is not an easy process, and it has taken some time. Some companies got it much sooner than others, Red Hat being the prime example of the company that got it before many and is actually able to turn a profit. Without naming names, others are still lagging and one wonders if they're going to make it. It seems as though this process has turned a corner in the last year, and you can tell simply by the language used by woftware vendors. In the past, many commercial vendors have remarked that their #1 target audience was enterprise IT, both management and systems engineers, because they were the ones buying product, and it was easy to justify investing in marketing campaigns designed to reach that audience. What about developers? Oh, they were ok, vendors shrugged, but they're not going to buy much.
But things have suddenly changed and developers are no longer simply "tolerated". In the case of LinuxWorld, we're hearing from an unprecedented number of exhibitors that they want to work with us to find more developers. Almost overnight, software vendors have come to realize that in order to maintain a competitive advantage, they've got to have 3rd party developers, and they have to support an ecosystem around their platforms. If they don't succeed, developers will go elsewhere, and then the vendors have to spend enough on R&D to counter the armies of software guerillas working with and for the competition - for free. Hence the need to view independent developers as partners. And the companies that will succeed will be the ones that develop the most vibrant ecosystems, attracting open source developers, companies, and anyone else that benefits from access to the software. I went through much of the underpinnings of this process in my "There is no Open Source Community" article, and while it's still too early to say I told you so, it's certainly heading in that direction.
This is not an easy process, and it has taken some time. Some companies got it much sooner than others, Red Hat being the prime example of the company that got it before many and is actually able to turn a profit. Without naming names, others are still lagging and one wonders if they're going to make it. It seems as though this process has turned a corner in the last year, and you can tell simply by the language used by woftware vendors. In the past, many commercial vendors have remarked that their #1 target audience was enterprise IT, both management and systems engineers, because they were the ones buying product, and it was easy to justify investing in marketing campaigns designed to reach that audience. What about developers? Oh, they were ok, vendors shrugged, but they're not going to buy much.
But things have suddenly changed and developers are no longer simply "tolerated". In the case of LinuxWorld, we're hearing from an unprecedented number of exhibitors that they want to work with us to find more developers. Almost overnight, software vendors have come to realize that in order to maintain a competitive advantage, they've got to have 3rd party developers, and they have to support an ecosystem around their platforms. If they don't succeed, developers will go elsewhere, and then the vendors have to spend enough on R&D to counter the armies of software guerillas working with and for the competition - for free. Hence the need to view independent developers as partners. And the companies that will succeed will be the ones that develop the most vibrant ecosystems, attracting open source developers, companies, and anyone else that benefits from access to the software. I went through much of the underpinnings of this process in my "There is no Open Source Community" article, and while it's still too early to say I told you so, it's certainly heading in that direction.
April 13, 2006
First LinuxWorld Podcast! Bill Weinberg of OSDL
This is the first in a series of podcasts I'm releasing on this blog. In this first installment, you'll hear Bill Weinberg, of OSDL Mobile Linux Initiative fame, wax rhapsodic on everything you ever wanted to know about mobile, embedded, and real-time Linux - and then some! He gives a great rundown of the challenges for Linux in these markets, including power consumption, security, and creating common API's to spur 3rd-party development. Enjoy!
Listen to Bill Weinberg
Listen to Bill Weinberg
Notable LinuxWorld Keynotes
I finally posted two keynotes from LinuxWorld Boston: Nicholas Negroponte of One Laptop Per Child and Bill Hilf from Microsoft. Look for the rest tomorrow!
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