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  • Roberto Galoppini 1:28 am on February 1, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Second Life: going toward an open source virtual world? 

    Things are moving really fast three weeks after Linden went (partially) open source.
    Reverse-engineering client code users in the libsecondlife community have created the first (basic) open source Second Life server.

    The libsecondlife project is an effort directed at understanding how Second Life works from a technical perspective, and extending and integrating the metaverse with the rest of the web. This includes understanding how the official Second Life client operates and how it communicates with the Second Life simulator servers, as well as development of independent third party clients and tools. With all the media buzz on Second Life I am sure the project will attract more and more talented software engineers who will quickly (perhaps in only a few months) produce a fully operational open source version of the Second Life server code.

    The availability of the Second Life server code might allow service providers to deliver  independent Second Life services,  while current virtual land owners have expressed fears. It’s interesting how opening Second Life is fastly raising up questions about business models, not differently from what happen with open source business.

    Read the full article.

     

    • Savio Rodrigues 5:58 pm on February 1, 2007 Permalink

      It looks like opening up the client and the server software in the future as LL has expressed interest in doing, is a reaction to the challenge of scaling their business.

      The post from “SecondThoughts” indicates that LL will move away from making >70% of its revenue from selling land (which is really equivalent to selling server space).

      Just like vendors look towards open source to grow their customer base, LL is doing the same. As long as LL can capture revenue elsewhere (i.e. ads space in LL), they’re willing to trade off the revenue from selling land.

  • Roberto Galoppini 11:51 pm on January 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Linux Desktop:OSDL says it’s ready for prime time 

    The Linux promotion group’s desktop initiative reported that technical achievements in drivers, printing, graphics, wireless, sound and media, and BIOS compatibility, among other things, leave Linux poised for desktop growth this year.

    The report says:

    While some analysts reported a slowing of Linux penetration on the desktop in 2006, a number of significant milestones were reached that promise to continue to move the Linux desktop ahead in 2007.

    Read the full story.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 10:19 pm on January 29, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Format: PDF submitted to AIIM 

    Today Adobe announced its intent to release PDF specification to the International Authority on Enterprise Content Management (AIIM), for the purpose of publication by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

    Kevin Lynch, chief software architect and senior vice president of the platform business unit at Adobe, said:

    Today’s announcement is the next logical step in the evolution of PDF from de facto standard to a formal, de jure standard. By releasing the full PDF specification for ISO standardization, we are reinforcing our commitment to openness. As governments and organizations increasingly request open formats, maintenance of the PDF specification by an external and participatory organization will help continue to drive innovation and expand the rich PDF ecosystem that has evolved over the past 15 years.

    I also read that Duan Nickull wanted to acknowledge Bob Sutor from IBM, James Governor (in my blogroll) and Gary Edwards to help Adobe embracing open standards.

    Tonight Adobe is guesting chat live at 5 pm Pacific Time.

    To know more read Leonard Rosenthol’s PDF history and the official Adobe FAQ.

    Welcome Adobe!

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 9:38 pm on January 29, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Ubunt Live 2007: call for partecipation 

    Today Mark Shuttleworth announced the first Ubuntu convention, co-located with the O’Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, during the week of July 22, 2007.

    If you want to join the first annual business conference – Ubuntu Live 2007 -  where individual and corporate, technical and social, are invited, consider to make a presentation, read the call for participation.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 2:43 pm on January 29, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Commons and business: Capitalism 3.0 

    Peter Barnes in Capitalism 3.0 talks about the costs and benefits of the free market.

    In his metaphore capitalism is run by an “operating system”, giving too much resources to big corporations, who distribute profits to tiny portion of the population.

    In order to fix capitalism 2.0 “bugs” he suggests to protect the commons by giving it property rights and strong institutional managers named commons trust.

    The book is freely downloadable, but you can also buy it.

     

    • Savio Rodrigues 12:29 am on February 1, 2007 Permalink

      Thanks for the pointer – sounds like a good read.

    • Roberto Galoppini 12:48 am on February 1, 2007 Permalink

      You’re welcome, let me know what do you think about it.

  • Roberto Galoppini 4:21 pm on January 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Business development: the Zend approach 

    Zend the PHP company, on the 16th of january announced that Harold Goldberg has joined the company as CEO. Goldberg, coming from BMC where he was senior vice president of worldwide marketing, after one week into the job left an interview talking about his new position.

    Goldberg in the interview with Computer Business Review said:

    Although I’ve been in software for 20 years, I need to listen because there might be a different business model.

    Very wise, indeed.

    The company has still to set the next stage on how it will position itself and build an ecosystem, but Zend is already collaborating with Microsoft to enhance the experience of running the PHP scripting language on Windows Server.

    Will Goldberg further develop the relationship with Microsoft?

    Zend, promoting itself as “the” PHP company because two founders, Zeev Suraski and Gutmans, are key contributors to PHP, has the backing of the known venture capitalists.

     

    • Savio Rodrigues 12:23 am on February 1, 2007 Permalink

      Hey Roberto, one of the reasons he said that is because he has no experience with open source. I found it surprising that he said that he didn’t see any open source competition during his time at BMC.

      It’s also interesting that big open source companies like Zend are going out and getting traditional software talent (vs. folks with OSS experience).

    • Roberto Galoppini 12:57 am on February 1, 2007 Permalink

      I agree Savio, it’s quiet weird indeed. My guess: customers move away and don’t speak loud about it.
      Does it make any sense to you?

      Yes, I agree, it’s interesting that commercial open source firms hire traditional managers, it’s definitely a sign of progress.

  • Roberto Galoppini 6:56 pm on January 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Yet another Open Source Company: false positive are dangerous 

    Andrew Aitken from the Olliance Group, a consulting firm helping customers to get advantage of the strategic,technological and financial benefits of open source software. wrote an interesting comment replying to an insightful post stating “Selling open source just keeps getting easier“.

    Aitken while agreeing with Matt Asay’s assessment of the revenue ramp of open source companies, shows that it’s becoming easier to make money faster open sourcing. He also expressed some concerns about the future:

    [..] having completed over 100 strategy engagements in the open source space to date we can attest to the fact that it is definitely becoming easier to achieve a rapid revenue growth rate. Our concern comes from the fact that with all the numerous proprietary companies open sourcing something, no matter how small or insignificant, in order to call themselves an open source company, (almost one per day for the two months we tracked this in mid-2006) the market is going to become confused and could potentially feel misled. Resulting in skepticism of a different kind, not about open source technologies per se, but about the business entities themselves, potentially slowing commercial open source sales. Additionally, there will be the failure of a number of open source companies over the next couple of years, the inevitable result of over funding of particular industry segment or technology. Will this be trumpeted by the anti-open source folks as proof of unsupportable business and technology models or simply the natural result of too much money supporting to few good ideas and poor management teams.

    Uncertainty never helps the market, and if Aitken’s perception is right we should find a more effective mechanism than the community, I guess.

    Technorati Tags: Aitken, Olliance Group, commercial open source

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 12:38 pm on January 27, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    GPL violation: BT under pressure 

    On the 5th of january someone wrote to the GP-violations project about a possible GPL Violation with the BT Home Hub. Few days later Shane Coughlan, from the Freedom Task Force, a project in Free Software Foundation Europe to help people with licensing matters, explained that:

    There’s no concrete investigation yet.
    BT appears to have released bits and pieces of code, but to fully comply with the GPL we need to be able put those bits and pieces into a piece of firmware.

    After that BT uploaded pieces of software to its website, insisting that it has fully complied. On the topic Shane Coughlan said:

    Some things are still missing. For example, a top-level Makefile and the scripts that would be used to properly generate a firmware image. I did speak with BT on the phone and I emailed them. However, the reaction was not entirely co-operative. That’s a pity.

    Despite the GPL FAQ are clearly explaining how GPL works, very few people know that, as Coughlan reported:

    [..] one of the terms of the licence is that you either distribute the source code with the product using the binary code, or you include with the product a written offer to provide the source code on a physical media used for data exchange.

    Reading comments to a post appeared on the Home Hub blog about the GPL thing it sounds clear that many don’t have a clue yet, but the law doesn’t admit ignorance, if BT would have released a partial copy of the source code it’s definitely not adhering to the terms of the license.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 9:31 am on January 26, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Software Patent: Software Freedom Law Center obtains re-examination 

    Yesterday in response to a request filed by the Software Freedom Law Center, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the private agency that provides patents and trademarks protection, ordered re-examination of the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc.

    Read press release.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 10:27 pm on January 25, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Novell launches new Open Source Services 

    Yesterday Novell announced the availability of the openSUSE Build Service, a framework that provides an infrastructure for developers to create and compile packages for multiple Linux distros.

    The build service is free of charge, source code and documentation for the build service tools are hosted within the openSUSE project.

    Novell also announced the availability of KIWI, a system imaging tool to create live media, including Xen virtual images.

    Read the full press release.

     

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