Updates from July, 2007 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Roberto Galoppini 11:04 pm on July 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Initiative: badgeware is OSI approved now! 

    Michael Tiemann, President of the Open Source Initiative, recently talking about SugarCRM, SplendidCRM and Centric licenses said clearly that are abusing of the term Open Source:

    THESE LICENSES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE LICENSES.

    Juggling with feet Always in control by Taomeister

    Today he personally published the Common Public Attribution License: OSI eventually approved badgeware licensing as OSI compliant. Congrats to Bruce and OSI to close this old debate, well done!

    Nowadays one of the open issues has been solved, but the democratic approval process still needs some tuning, since apparently OSI made some last minute changes to the CPAL license.

    Never mind, I agree with Bruce saying that OSI’s approval was a success, but it was slow, and worse he happened to stand up against them just before approving their licenses, something that I can hardly define as opportune. Even if it likely brought SugarCRM to take the decision to adopt the GPLv3, though.

    I am a fan of Open Source Initiative, four years ago I asked my editor to create a logo for my rubric representing also the Open Source mark, but I really wish them being transparent and to react on time.

    Open Source now is ready for prime time, and we need OSI taking is role really seriously, and I suggest them also to consider changing the home page, reporting:

    Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

    The Open Source Initiative (OSI) to me is about maintaining the Open Source Definition, it is a very important task, and it needs to be carried on time and with the highest transparency.

    Technorati Tags: Open Source Definition, tiemann, GPLv3, badgeware, sugarCRM, socialtext

     

  • Carlo Daffara 7:45 am on July 25, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Business Models: Joint Research Announcement 

    I am extremely happy to announce the start of a new joint research activity between the FLOSSMETRICS project and Roberto Galoppini, one of the most important European researchers working on FLOSS-based business models. The joint research work will be carried with Carlo Daffara and will be centered on business models taxonomies, and how the participant actors (like the FOSS communities, commercial companies, individual developers) and the licensing choices interact in a commercial exploitation context. The research will leverage the tools and research work carried in the European project for analyzing OSS project participation and contributions, and as for all of FLOSSMETRICS will be publicly avaliable.

    Technorati Tags: Commercial Open Source, Open Source Strategies, FLOSSMETRICS, robertogaloppini, carlodaffara, taxonomies

     

    • Savio Rodrigues 2:03 pm on July 25, 2007 Permalink

      Congrats Roberto! Look forward to seeing results from the research. Will you be studying the use of OSS by Traditional software vendors (like IBM, Oracle, Sun) to drive their Traditional software revenues?

      Savio

    • Carlo Daffara 7:37 am on July 26, 2007 Permalink

      Dear Savio,
      yes, the study on how OSS models are used in traditional commercial software companies is one of the aspect of our research. We expect to produce in the end a set of papers helping companies assess existing OSS projects and how to compare the potentially applicable business models to decide the most appropriate one. We hope to turn the results of what is basically software engineering research (as FLOSSMETRICS is) into a more concrete and helpful tool for companies interested in OSS.

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:04 am on July 24, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Ecosystems: some considerations 

    Channel ecosystems and the way vendors and Commercial Open Source vendors treat them were recently commented by Vinnie Mirchandani, Dana Blankenhotrn and eventually Alex Fletcher. I wish to add some considerations, bringing also Open Source Franchising in the picture.

    Let’s start talking about VARs’ importance, I agree with Dana reporting:

    Whether the SugarCRM license conforms to the OSI standard is not important, Whitehead said. Affordability is all. License gotchas don’t matter as much as the small business’ relationship with their reseller. 

    Whitehead concludes that to succeed in the mass business market, open source companies need to keep Value Added Resellers (VARs) happy. Make a long reach toward VARs and your project can crack this market.

    As results also from the interview to Juergen Geck, firms like Open-Xchange are addressing market needs with two different solutions: a customizable platform for who needs integration through VARs, and a turn key solution to sell through Resellers and Distribution channels.

    Alex Fletcher talking about Open Source Firms added:

    Operating a successful commercial open source software operation requires maintaining the delicate balance between enabling the free user and flat out making money.[..]
    The point being, traditional forms of partner engagement tend to not scale well with the current realities of open source software.

    As I already have observed I see space for growing in computer services franchise arena, but before talking about that, I think it is important to stress once more that there are just two ways to make money from OSS: “best code here” and “best knowledge here”, tertium non datur. Vendors willing to empower their channel need to think about it, and arrange training programs and marketing plans able to massively deliver fixed-time, fixed-price and standard quality through their partners.

    Open Source Franchising strengths, in terms of vendors’, customers’ and partners’ goals and perspectives, are worth to be analyzed and might be applied to other vendors besides Sun.
    If you didn’t like the barber’s shop analogy, have a look at this enlightening post talking about Packaged (Productized) Services in a Hospital by Michael Krigsman, and wonder:

    In reassessing how they perform bypass surgery, Geisinger doctors identified 40 essential steps. Then they devised procedures to ensure the steps would always be followed, regardless of which surgeon or which one of its three hospitals was involved.

    Next time a services vendor says your project is too complex to define a fixed price, ask whether it’s more complex than heart bypass surgery. If packaged services can successfully be applied to surgery, they can be applied to enterprise software implementations.

    I totally agree with Michael, it can be done, it must be done.

    Technorati Tags: Open Source Franchising, Open Source Strategies, AlexFletcher, DanaBlankenhorn, MichaelKrigsman, ecosystems

     

    • Michael Krigsman 10:11 pm on July 25, 2007 Permalink

    • Roberto Galoppini 7:26 am on July 27, 2007 Permalink

      Hi Michael,

      thank you to join the conversation!

      Of course I agree with you when you say that we should consider software costs beyond the license fee, more important to me is the following statement:

      Implementation costs are a major variable in the ROI equation, since service expenses are often unpredictable.

      That is just what I believe Open Source Franchising should address, in short:

      Open Source franchising is aimed at delivering to the market IT basic services using OSS, with a fixed-time fixed-price methodology meeting clearly defined performance criteria (SLA).

      Your opinion is welcome!

    • Michael Krigsman 12:26 am on July 28, 2007 Permalink

      Roberto,

      I see no difference whatsoever between open source services and traditional consulting services. Once the license is obtained, whether through payment or free, the software must be deployed.

      At that point, integrating the new software into an existing technical and business infrastructure becomes the big issue.

      I agree that fixed-price services are the right model, as I have written here.

      However, I don’t think it’s specifically an open source issue.

      Michael Krigsman
      http://projectfailures.com

    • Roberto Galoppini 4:51 pm on July 29, 2007 Permalink

      Michael,

      as a matter of fact customers want software working properly, either is proprietary or open source.

      More than one year ago I wrote a paper about Open Source Franchising, showing Sun a possible way to turn all their OSS in a source of income. As I explained they are the perfect Franchisor, and I believe that they should seriously considering productized (consulting) services, as apparently they are starting to do. As you know this unfortunately doesn’t come for free (as in beer), and they eventually should spend time and effort to build an appropriate training program for the franchisees, besides some money for marketing, of course.

      What is new? “Just” the approach, bringing to the market a different billing arrangement, with a different perceived value (results, quality, etc), from artisanship to industrial. Customers are supposed to appreciate it, as you also pointed out in one of your interesting posts:

      Hourly billing arrangements are typical on IT projects. However, open-ended billing can create an incentive for consultants to work lots of hours, potentially increasing project duration and cost beyond what may strictly be required. In fact, unbounded billing arrangements are often a real contributor to the failures described in this blog. As a result, customers are demanding lower consulting and implementation costs, forcing service vendors to rethink how they price and deliver their offerings.

    • Michael Krigsman 3:35 am on August 1, 2007 Permalink

      Roberto,

      I have added an additional comment here (my new blog location):

      http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=309

    • Roberto Galoppini 9:33 am on August 1, 2007 Permalink

      Thank you Michael,

      I commented on your new blog, hopefully adding some salt to the conversation, keep it going!

    • Simon G 1:58 pm on August 2, 2007 Permalink

      I think fixing a heart may in fact be less complex than fixing a business. Hearts operate within rules of physics and chemistry, businesses operate with far more obscure rules and processes.
      You won’t hear a lawyer providing fixed priced legal advice, neither should an implementer be forced to do the same.

    • Roberto Galoppini 7:27 pm on August 3, 2007 Permalink

      Simon, I eventually joined the conversation on your blog, I understand your perspective and I believe that ‘productizing’ is not for all.

  • Roberto Galoppini 7:20 pm on July 22, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Links: 22-07-2007 

    IEEE group changes voting rules – Bob Sutor mentioned IEEE changing rules to prevent steamrolling, I am afraid is a very hot topic, whatever are your guts about the File Format War, the OOXML and the ISO/IEC JTC1 Fast Track process is a sad story..

    Alfresco: Competing in the Enterprise – John Powell, Alfresco’s CTO, said that he would guess that about 10 percent of Alfresco’s code was contributed by other people. Is that for real?

    Free Software acquisition by governments – Stefano Maffulli is looking forward to see Pietro Folena‘s laptop equipped with Free Software, while I am waiting to interview him about the lower chamber of the Parliament moving to Linux. Is that for real?

    Patents don’t pay – I am glad too to be based in Europe where software patents are not allowed, so far.

    Our commitment to open broadband platforms – Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, saying that, should the FCC adopting openness principles for the benefit of consumers, Google intends to commit at least $4.6 billion to bidding for spectrum in the upcoming 700 Mhz auction.

    Poor Man’s BI: Getting Started with Open Source Tools for Analytic Intelligence – The “poor man’s BI” with a combination of Python, PostgreSQL, OpenOffice.org and R can deliver value along significant points of the BI lifecycle, said Steve Miller.

    The CIO Conundrum – CIOs of a large company see decreasing by about 4% their budget, says Anthony Gold, and Open Source can greatly help in his opinion. I would like to see his presentation.

    Thoughts on Software Advisory Boards – James McGovern on Advisory Boards, I totally agree, and I am eager to participate to my first meeting.

    My UbuntuLive Talk – Stephen O’Grady slides on Ubuntu, have a look.

     

    • Savio Rodrigues 1:51 pm on July 23, 2007 Permalink

      Hey Roberto, re. the “10%” quote from Alfresco…I’d encourage you to take a look at the Alfresco jira site to see how many users are registered from outside the company. You can also see what each person has contributed. Unless something has changed, I think that John’s figure is off by an order of magnitude…i.e. it should be 1%.

      But maybe something has changed in the past 3-5 months.

    • Roberto Galoppini 4:38 pm on July 23, 2007 Permalink

      Hi Savio,

      I had a look, and I had just the same impression. Since John Powell guessed a different percentage, I am eager to know more, may be Matt might provide us with more information..

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:56 pm on July 20, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Links: 20-07-2007 

    Open Standards Rise in Japan – Jeff Kaplan reported that last week, the Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry issued its official Interoperability Framework. At the moment Japan’s new Interoperability Framework recognizes only one acceptable document format, namely the OpenDocument Format. The File Format War goes on…

    Why rPath? – Billy Marshall this time talks about his rPath, I would like to see others commenting his post.

    Syndicating your feelings – at We Feel Fine are running an interesting experiment, I am wondering how it could possibly turn into a corporate blogging metric, eventually.

    Snort, GPL, open source, Cobia and copyright – Alan Shimey “explains” Cobia’s licensing choices through StillSecure’s ones. In his opinion GPL is not good for commercial use, as far as I understand.. weird, isn’t it?

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:04 pm on July 19, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source GIS: Autodesk’s first year in review 

    Autodesk‘s first year as a member of the open source community has been a successful one, as far as Kevin Flanders, Peoplegis President, reported.

    About three months ago MapGuide, a web-based platform aimed at deploying web mapping applications and geospatial web services, became a fully endorsed project within the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. Originally developed by Autodesk, MapGuide besides being considered a leading project within the GIS arena – see “The State of the Open Source GIS” (PDF) – now has some interesting facts that is worth to mention, among them the number of downloads: 30.000 in the first year.

    Bob Bray Autodesk Platform Software Development Manager and Architect, talking to Kevin said:

    the open source development community has become a true development partner for Autodesk, generating tremendous enhancements and upgrades to the code base in significantly less time than it would have taken Autodesk to do it alone.

    Also Daniel Morrissette, now mapgears President, was very impressed with Autodesk move.

    He feels that Bray and his colleagues have converted their minds to working “open” instead of their old way. [..] To Morrisette, Autodesk is not just “acting the part,” it really believes in this new process.

    I totally agree with Kevin saying, that Autodesk got its goal for faster code development realized, and this is likely due both to the feedbacks by users and to the way Bray got into Open Source.

    People matters a lot, when it comes to the hybrid production model.

    Read the full article.

    Technorati Tags: Open Source GIS, BobBray, Autodesk, MapGuide

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 10:16 pm on July 18, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Links: 18-07-2007 

    Disappointed: Nick Gall of Gartner – James McGovern wonders why at Gartner don’t spend time answering his questions. My guess is that they are not (yet) deeply into the ‘blog thing’, because if they had a look at their popularity James’s blog pops up as one of the most authoritative pointing to them.

    Office 2.0 Conference Website Now Live – The upcoming Office 2.0 Conference is now live, attendee registration are open by now.
    blogging is dead, long live communicating – Luis Villa says that most discussions about blogging would be much better off if we analyzed ‘communication that is public, searchable and persistent’ instead of ‘blogging’. I totally agree.

    We need an Open Service Definition – People at GNOME (Havoc Pennington’s blog) is thinking to to protect our private data, , but the same definition could reward also services which use and promote open knowledge. Interesting issue.

    Will Oracle Buy Red Hat or BEA? – Savio plays Nostradamus and predicts that Oracle will not buy Red Hat. Oracle may buy BEA. Read his post to know why.

    Managing backup of MySQL via iPhone – Whether it makes sense or not, Zamanda presented to a couple of their customers a solution to manage MySQL backups via iPhone, read the use case.

    Can’t buy me (OOXML) love in Italy – Bob Sutor enjoyed Carlo Piana’s post “OOXML does not buy its way in Italy“, and he posed also a question: is whether a large company with a lot of money and business partners will essentially be able to stack committees so that they are out of balance and therefore buy an ISO standard? I am afraid that the whole ISO standardization process lost some sense, the ultimate result of the File Format War might be just invalidate the process owner itself..

    Talend raises $3.5m in Series B funding round – Raven Zachary tells us about the Talend 2nd round.

    Funambol is a 2007 AO 100 Top Company – Fabrizio got listed in the AO 100 Top Companies, congratulations!

    Gartner, Open Source, and Microsoft – Seth keeps posting on the subject, he simply can’t resist! 😉

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:19 am on July 16, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Business Models: OpenXchange Small Business offering 

    Today Open-Xchange – a company specialized in open source e-mail and collaboration solutions, based in USA with its R&D in Germany – is announcing the availability of Open-Xchange Express Edition, designed to address Small Businesses needs.

    Open-Xchange last February invited the small business community to participate in a public beta for the Open-Xchange Express Edition, and entered the hosting market in march, launching the 1u1 Mailxchange service together with 1&1 Internet.

    Juergen Geck, Open-Xchange CTO and formerly SUSE CTO at Novell, talking about the the today’s launch told me:

    It is a turnkey solution, that turns a baremetal server into a collaboration server based on Ubuntu Linux, running Postfix and Cyrus Imapd. The install image is freely downloadable, fully functional, no restrictions, no timebomb or suchlike, no requirements for Linux background to set it all up.

    One CD contains all. We are trying to do for collaboration in SMBs what Ubuntu is trying for Linux.

    So I asked Jurgen why should I buy it..

    Because of the maintenance and support, plus the “low touch” installation [through an extended Ubuntu Installer] and the outlook installer [a proprietary plug-in].

    ..and also what about Mobile extensions:

    Funambol coming up.

    From a Marketing perspective OpenXchange is addressing market needs with two different offer: Open-Xchange 5, a customizable on end, complex, for who needs integration through VARs, and Open-Xchange Express Edition: lock down, turn key, low touch, through Resellers and Distribution channels. Jurgen stated:

    Especially in US we had feedback that resellers wanted something easier. OX Express Edition [eval version] is for people who like our service offering, the hosted edition, but shy away from putting their data somewhere offsite.

    I eventually asked Jurgen how do they think to protect their business, considering that the competition could put in action predatory practices.

    We feel that with 10 years track record of architecting collaboration servers we have the capabilities to stay on top of our technology stack. Besides that consider that more than 50% of the performance are from the user interface [CC attribution, no commercial, share-alike], and we are going to evolve this code base quite a bit over time. We expect to drive evolution and stay in the lead, having a strong commitment to osgi, specifically eclipse equinox, and you will see our server coming up as a collection of osgi services, making it very flexible to customise. Last but not least the hoster infrastructure is normally very diverse, so integration becomes essential. At 1&1 they maintain their own smtpd and imapd, plus all the plumbing for billing and accounting, and the capability to efficiently integrate in such environments is a plus in our offering.

    Three interesting points, really. Thank you Jurgen, happy hacking!

    About Open-Xchange
    Open-Xchange is licensed under the GPL for the software program, and the Creative Commons, Attribution, Noncommercial, ShareAlike for the digital content or Web Access Add-on.

    About Open-Xchange Server
    Open-Xchange Server delivers Smart Collaboration™ that simplifies everyday life, work and social interactions. It is based on AJAX, open source software and open standards and offers reliable and scalable messaging and advanced groupware solutions. Open-Xchange Server offers email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and knowledge management. Unique features of Open-Xchange Server include: Infostore, a common repository of documents, bookmarks and knowledge entries; Documail, the integration of email and document sharing/version control; Smart Links between all collaboration objects; Smart Privacy, that let’s users define read and write access to all collaboration objects; and Universal Access, the ability to access the server from the widest variety of browsers and clients. Organizations use the Open-Xchange Server’s GUI-based administration module featuring Tiered Entitlement to implement role-based user management.

    About Open-Xchange Inc.
    Open-Xchange Inc. is based in NY the innovator of scalable and integrated open source email and collaboration solutions for enterprises, academic institutions, and government authorities. Open-Xchange Hosting Edition enables web-hosting companies to provide an easy-to-use and feature-rich application delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS). Internet service providers (ISPs) and hosting providers, led by 1&1 Internet, deliver advanced email and groupware features through Open-Xchange Hosting Edition to millions of users. Open-Xchange Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in Tarrytown, NY, with research, development, and operations in Olpe and Nuremberg, Germany. For more information, please visit http://www.open-xchange.com.

    Technorati Tags: Open-Xchange, JurgenGeck, Funambol, Commercial Open Source

     

    • James 9:09 pm on July 18, 2007 Permalink

      I was reading an article (Can Ubuntu Linux Really Run My Small Business?) about the huge savings that companies are realizing by running Ubuntu over M$ or OS X. Why do you think that more companies have not made the switch? Our company has never been afraid of making us change our behavior to save a buck before. My IT guy is scared to death of letting me install it on my box at work.

  • Roberto Galoppini 6:24 pm on July 15, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Links: 15-07-2007 

    By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09 – Guy Kawasaki explains how easy has been to set up Truemors thanks (also) to Open Source.

    Government agencies embracing open source: AGIMO – Australian Federal government agencies are adopting open source software, according to a study undertaken by the Australian Government Information Management Office.

    Two in three (68 percent) of respondents to an AGIMO survey of federal government agencies said they are actively using FOSS.Geek Road Rules: Joining the Adobe Bus – Dion Almaer joined the “Adobe Bus“. I am sorry I missed the opportunity to listen to his talk about Google Gears(PDF).

    Open Source And IT Outsourcers – Prashanth Rai sees a battle between (open source) outsourcers and Open Source firms, and imagines a win-win finale, with an alliance between the two sets (and a lose/lose for proprietary software firms).

    OpenCoffee club for entrepreneurs, developers and investors – Thanks Nick, I didn’t know about the OpenCoffee initiative, I suggest Amanda to start a local meet-up for Italian start-ups!

    Autoreferentiality: me in the press! – The Italian Business Free Press “7th floor” interviewed me. Also the Italian newspaper “Il Manifesto“, interviewed me, by Raffaele Mastrolonardo. Last but not least the SUN Microsystems Italy magazine Java Open Business (JOB) interviewed me for the second time, podcasts (in Italian as well) are also available.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:34 pm on July 13, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source License: welcome SaaS, good-bye Free Software! 

    The Free Software Foundation few days ago released the GNU General Public License version 3, as earlier draft versions it doesn’t “fix” the SaaS Loophole, leaving unhappy some entrepreneurs.

    Freedom A Substantial hole, by Rich.w

    While I have already expressed my concerns commenting others’ posts, I believe it is time to tell it straight and loud. In my opinion GPLv3 got on stage too late, now there are simply too many stakeholders to take a decision like closing the GPL Loophole and SaaS could seriously prevent Free Software take over, more than anything else.

    I am not alone, Bryan Richard at linux-mag wrote:

    More than the patent protection, more than the digital restrictions, this one change to the GPL could have the biggest impact on the license’s importance in the future.

    Also Tim O’Reilly took a clear position, stating:

    There are both popular and unpopular ways of circumventing the Free Software Foundation’s General Public License. A very unpopular method, we’ve come to find out, is via promises of patent protection for users of specific software. However, if you’re looking to leverage Free Software without completely fulfilling the requirements of the license, a better method would be to exploit the software as a service (SaaS) loophole, which the latest draft of the GPL3 just legalized.

    The Joomla! community has been discussing a lot business model based on the GPL recently. The FSF is cracking “open” door to the SaaS, leaving them – and not only them- a chance to de facto ignore the license.

    A number of people is are happy with the GPLv3, but I am not. This has not been a strategical decision, neither a tactic one, but the only available now. And I blame Richard to postpone it until too late.

    I am really sorry about that.

    Technorati Tags: GPLv3, SaaS, Free Software

     

    • Savio Rodrigues 11:31 pm on July 14, 2007 Permalink

      Hey Roberto, I can totally understand your point of view.

      I’d suggest that any license that attempts to close the SaaS Loophole is going to have an uphill battle. There’s too much code under GPLv2 (and maybe GPLv3 in the future) in use at large SaaS vendors and they’re not going to stand by while the loophole closes. *Or*, if they don’t get in the way of such a license, then these vendors will want the option of paying for the privilege of keeping their modifications private. Sun allows customers to do so with their openJDK project which is under GPLv2. This seems to be the only alternative that large SaaS vendors will accept…at least in my view.

      I ask again, why do OSS proponents love SaaS? 😉

    • Roberto Galoppini 4:55 pm on July 15, 2007 Permalink

      Ciao Savio,

      my point of view comes from my past experience with the FSF community. I have been spending years as FSFE’s friend, and I firmly believe that GPLv3 in 2002 had much more chances to get closer to the Affero. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Richard is a GREAT man, but he did a big mistake, indeed.

      Enterprises, or many of them, do love GPLv2 and now GPLv3. Even some OSS proponents as you pointed it out: OS business models based on SaaS make a lot of sense, as far as we can see. Right?! 😉

    • Chris 10:13 pm on February 2, 2012 Permalink

      “A number of people is happy with the GPLv3, but I am not.”

      Should read

      “A number of people ARE happy with the GPLv3, but I am not.”

      Grammar mistakes anywhere in an article destroy confidence in the rest of it.

    • Roberto Galoppini 7:07 pm on February 5, 2012 Permalink

      Thanks for the note, I updated the article.

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