February 2008

My first computer was a Commodore 64. I loved programming it, with my favorite program filling up the screen with “Amanda Amanda Amanda Amanda” when you hit the enter key. (A slight hint at future narcissism or just healthy self esteem? Hmm. You decide.) Anyway, this trip down memory lane was spurred by an announcement of an upcoming Linux Installfest at Bay Area schools. Sounds like kids today have quite a few more options.

On March 1, there will be a a great community effort to donate recycled hardware to underprivileged schools and students in the Bay Area. Part of the announcement is below:

“Untangle (http://www.untangle.com) and the ACCRC (http://www.accrc.org)are organizing a Linux installfest to donate hundreds of open source computers to Bay Area schools on recycled hardware. The goal is to donate 500 computers to underprivileged schools. They’re calling on the free and open source software community to help by installing Linux at one of the 4 locations: Berkeley (http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/Berkeley), San Francisco (http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/San_Francisco), San Mateo (http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/San_Mateo) or Marin County (http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/Marin_County).

Donating 500 computers to schools will divert approximately 25,000 pounds of toxic e-waste from our landfills.”

How You Can Help:

1. Signup and join the installfest (http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/Installfest)

2. Help get the word out by blogging about the installfest, posting to Slashdot or Digging it

3. Donate an old computer at one of the 4 locations: Berkeley, San Francisco, San Mateo, or Marin County

This is just one of the many Linux in Education stories I’ve seen over the last few months. Installing Linux and open source apps and giving them away doesn’t mean that the kids are getting the dregs. It means they’re getting the best computing environment for them to learn in. Bar none. No vendor lock-in, a wide international community of contributors, free and open flow of information.

How is Linux doing in education these days? Around the world, Datamation predicts that primary and secondary schools and universities will spend $489.9 million on open-source software by 2012. (http://www.cio.com/article/175350/Report_Schools_Will_Increase_Spending_on_Open_Source) That figure represents a small portion of the $9 billion overall educational IT spending by the countries covered in the report, but shows growing interest. They didn’t expect such a high number, and neither did I, quite frankly. (This of course doesn’t begin to count all the unpaid usage going on at schools which is uncountable.)

A few more stories:

How open source saved a school district’s IT department (Sept 2007)

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/092107-california-school-it.html

Russian OS to be installed in every school (Oct 2007)

http://eng.cnews.ru/news/top/indexEn.shtml?2007/09/14/266177

UK schools at risk of Microsoft lock-in, says government report

http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=BDD20D68-FDBF-4E1C-BA77-BBA4B7CA6061

Linux Makes the Grade (November 2007)

http://techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604800

Popularity: 23% [?]

Yesterday Steve Ballmer announced “a significant change in how we share information about our products and technologies.” Apparently, Microsoft doesn’t appear to see Linux as the “cancer” it once did; or at least they seem confident it’s not contagious through their APIs. The publication (hopefully without any restriction) of protocol documentation and APIs should help open source developers. Just last year, for instance, the Samba team had to pay a significant fee to view those same documents; most open source developers would not have had the resources (financial, legal or otherwise) to navigate those waters. If those restrictions are gone, that is a good thing.

Throughout its history, Microsoft has operated as an island, cloistering
itself away from the competition and using its market position to
isolate competing technologies. As we’ve said before, many corporations making $12b a year in net profit would operate in a similar way. But the landscape is changing. An interconnected pangea – not geographic isolation – has already arrived.

With the rising demand from customers and their governments (and courts) for greater transparency and interoperability, Microsoft has to listen. The scales have been tipped toward “open.” I hope the execution of this announcement will match its message and that the result will be truly greater access and interoperability for open source developers and their products. The only concrete thing to say is: the devil’s in the details.

There are some good things discussed in the announcement, but Microsoft could certainly go farther:

1. The RAND patent provision terms discussed in the announcement are incompatible with most widely used open source licenses; we hope Microsoft can find terms that are compatible with a broad set of open source technology.

2. Offering a patent covenant not to sue to “non-commercial” open
source developers is not a significant change or offer, in my (admittedly non-legal) opinion. It sounds good at first glance but in practice I don’t think will change anything.

3. If Microsoft really wants to take a stand for open standards and open
source, take OOXML off the table at the upcoming ISO meeting in Geneva
and support the existing, ISO ratified document standard ODF. Then I would agree the announcement was significant.

Popularity: 27% [?]

but once you’re hooked, you’re hooked. Microsoft is offering certain qualifying students free software (as in beer, not open) to convince them to try their stuff instead of free and open source software.

No stranger to the perils of online piracy, Microsoft has taken steps to ensure that only students have access to the software freebies. Verification of student status will take place through the DreamSpark Web site with the help of academic institutions and student organizations, a process that students will need to repeat every 12 months.

Here’s my suggestion. If you’re a student, stick to free and open source software from the beginning. There is no verification, and unlike with Microsoft, once you’re no longer a student, you still don’t have to pay.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Charlie Babcock just published a report on Sun’s new strategy aimed at Web 2.0 developers. Charlie’s one of the best trade reporters in the business, but I would have loved for the LF to have been asked to comment on CEO Jonathan’s statements.

First off, the report says Sun’s new strategy is to target Web 2.0 developers. Much like their decision to open source Solaris, this strikes me as of course the obvious and smart thing to do, but a little too late. In similar news, I am planning a huge Y2K party to usher in the millennium. We’re going to party like it’s 1999!

I’d also like to ask which and how many Web 2.0 developers? You mean the ones who are not on Linux? Unfortunately that doesn’t leave very many. Facebook, Amazon’s cloud computing initiatives, Google, YouTube, Flickr, Technorati, Wikipedia, Digg, del.icio.us all run on Linux. New developers are targeting Linux. Why? Cost, choice and talent pool. When you’re a small company, you need the most leverage against vendors to keep your costs down. Linux provides this with its thriving support from multiple companies and hardware platforms. You’re not locked into a company, a platform or distribution. (Developers can even buy Linux from Sun. I hear through the grapevine that 70% of their x86 sales are Linux — not Solaris, 10, Open or otherwise. Quite a damning figure but not surprisingly omitted from Jonathan’s slides.)

Platforms are all about momentum. You want to be able to hire from the deepest and broadest talent pool as possible for both developers and operational professionals. You want to know the platform has a community to continue to expand functionality. This means Linux; just compare market share numbers and you’ll see what I mean. I’m sure Sun can point to a few examples of Web 2.0 companies they have convinced, via generous hardware gifts, to go with them and publicly talk about it. (I once did PR for Sun and remember.) But I would love to see reporters and analysts compare the numbers and push a little further. Instead of anecdotes, lets look at numbers and momentum.

Next Jonathan talks about their recent acquisition of MySQL. “MySQL brings another key set of developers, the users of the integrated open source LAMP stack, he said. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP or Perl. The “L” doesn’t have to be taken literally, he added. Sun can and will substitute Solaris for Linux in the stack.”

Really, Jonathan? Sun can certainly substitute Solaris for Linux in the stack, but I’m not sure many customers will. (Customers tend to be pretty literal in their technology decisions.) Why would a “young Internet company” tie their business to a platform with shrinking market share and a tiny non-Sun developer base? We are confident MySQL will continue supporting Linux as its primary platform partner since that is where they make their sales. MySQL CEO Marten Mickos in fact will be speaking on this topic at our upcoming Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.

I certainly agree with Jonathan here: “Everything,” he said, “begins with the development of a community,” such as the Sun Developer Network or the OpenSolaris community of developers.”

This is why the L in Lamp is Linux and Literal. Linux has the broadest and most active development community of any open source project. Linux has over 3,000 developers contributing to just the kernel in the last year, while Sun has announced 70 non-Sun engineers. (This doesn’t even account for the vibrant development communities around Linux community distributions, desktop toolkits and other upstream projects outside of the kernel.)

The Linux development community keeps getting stronger while Sun’s is seeing public defections of some of its most important members due to Sun’s control. Mike Dolan does a nice analysis here.

We may not have the targeted marketing campaigns that Sun has given the distributed and community nature of Linux. We may not do all the spin Jonathan does in misleading blog posts like this. (You may want to examine the count leading to Solaris’ “third place finish” cited in this post. It’s wrong and hardly something to crow about given Solaris’ traditional incumbent advantage in this very specific market.) We may not have fancy Linux analyst days and mountains of spin, but it is all about the development community. Literally.

Popularity: 100% [?]

I am pleased to announce the speaker line up for the upcoming Linux
Foundation Collaboration Summit at the Austin Supercomputing Center.
The speakers, like the attendees of the summit, represent leaders from
the developer, industry and end user communities surrounding Linux.
Don’t miss the opportunity to collaborate with these individuals on
April 8-10, 2008 at the UT Austin Supercomputing Center.

Apply for registration here:
https://www.linux-foundation.org/events/collaboration

Speakers for the Panel and Keynote Showcase on April 8 already include:

– Kernel maintainers and developers James Bottomley, Jon Corbet, Dave
Jones, Christoph Lameter, Ted Ts’o, Chris Wright and others will
discuss the state of the Linux kernel community

– Dan Frye, head of IBM’s Linux Technology Center, Christine Martino,
vice president of the Open Source & Linux Organization at HP and Wim
Coekaerts, vice president of Linux Engineering for Oracle will share
their perspective on what Linux means to their companies and where
it’s headed

– Senior representatives from LiMO, Open Handset Alliance, Moblin,
OpenMoko, LiPS and others will discuss Linux and mobile: why it’s so
strong and where it’s going

– Linux is now shipping on multiple hardware offerings. Hear from
John Hull of Dell, Bdale Garbee of HP and representatives of ASUS,
Acer, Everex and Lenovo on why they chose Linux and what they need
from the Linux community to make it succeed

– IDC Analyst Al Gillen will share important new data on Linux
deployment worldwide

– MySQL CEO Marten Mikos will discuss his company’s recent billion
dollar acquisition by Sun Microsystems and MySQL’s continued
commitment to the Linux platform.

This is truly an unbelievable assortment of people. The Collaboration
Summit will have representatives from all the big names in Linux from
Intel, AMD, HP, Texas Instruments, Google, NTT, Fujitsu, Hitachi,
Dell, Red Hat, Novell, NEC, Sony, Motorola, Mozilla, GNOME Foundation,
Nokia, Bull and dozens more.  Additionally, the first day is an
opportunity to meet press and analysts from eWeek, InformationWeek,
BusinessWeek, Gartner Group, IDC and more.

Last year’s event filled up quickly. Please apply to attend this event
if you feel you should be there:
https://www.linux-foundation.org/events/collaboration

This unique, invitation-only event bring together the brightest minds
in the Linux ecosystem from the kernel, end user, desktop, legal and
vendor communities to collaborate on the advancement of the Linux
platform. Attendees can expect purposive discussion, examination and
debate through engaging plenary session content and workgroup
meetings. Breakout sessions contain all the domain expertise and key
players necessary to make immediate contributions to the platform.

You can see more detailed agenda information here:
https://www.linux-foundation.org/events/collaboration/program/agenda

This is a *free* event for LF members or key individuals needed to
advance the Linux platform.

Additional benefits include:
• Special networking evening reception “Shark vs. Penguin” on Tuesday
night in downtown Austin. Food, drinks and transportation provided.
• IBM Reception and Solutions Experience Lab Tour on Wednesday
evening, including food and drinks.

Popularity: 18% [?]

This year I was lucky enough to attend Linux.conf.au in beautiful Melbourne, Australia. We were a sponsor of the conference, meaning that we did what we often times do: ensure talented speakers could attend. Many people don’t realize (or perhaps they do) that while a majority of open source developers get paid to work on open source by their companies at least part of the time, those companies don’t necessarily want to pay for them to speak or attend open source conferences. We believe it’s vital to the continued health and advancement of FOSS that the leaders from open source projects get the funding they need to collaborate with their peers. Thus the Linux Foundation Travel Fund was born.

Some highlights and thoughts:

• Donna Benjamin and her crew did a fabulous job of organization. We organize our own conferences and it’s incredibly useful for me to see how they do it. For instance, they combine a standard conference program with quite informal mini-confs and BOFs. Our Collaboration Summits are much smaller and focused exclusively on working sessions; we have one day of presentations/panels that is a more traditional conference day. They did a nice job of combining centrally planned content with more self directed mini-confs. I also enjoyed the Lightening Talks concept very much. 3 minutes is really all anyone needs. I wish every conference would limit speakers to this. If you want to learn more, you can follow them the next day to a separate room. Let’s start a movement!
• There seems to be a great deal of interest in who writes open source and why. (thanks Jon Corbet and Story Peters for pointing this out in their presentations and the reaction they’ve received.) Not sure why this is such a surprise to me given the novel psychological and economic underpinnings of open source. I think the LF could do some interesting work here.
• LCA has an outstanding structure. Linux Australia provides the legal backing and fronts the money, with volunteers from various cities “bidding” to host and organize the conference. LA helps provide consistency but the volunteers really control the event. This seems to work extremely well. This is of interest to me since we provide similar backing for a new community event, The Linux Plumbers Conference. We have provided funds upfront and helped them get sponsors, but the conference is controlled and staffed by volunteers, most of whom are from the vibrant Linux developer community of Portland. I believe Plumbers will be held in Portland in 09 as well to help establish the conference with attendees, sponsors and volunteers.  Are US cities/communities similarly ready to bid and host community events, like Plumbers or LCA, backed by the Linux Foundation? Would individual LUGs have the motivation and volunteers to pull this off? I think Australian developers have slightly more motivation to entice speakers to Australia, given their geographic isolation. Are American Linux communities (both users and developers, as LCA appears to be) ready to take on this challenge? Or is the current line-up of non-volunteer events in the US good enough?
• Yet another highlight (besides all the fine parties and the surprising streets of Melbourne) was the Penguin Parade I attended on Phillip Island, about an hour and a half away. (Insert Linux joke [ here ].) Every day at sunset, hundreds of penguins emerge from the sea  to make the waddle to their nests. You are allowed extremely close access to these Little Penguins. (They don’t like to be called Fairy Penguins any longer; they’re extremely sensitive to political correctness.) Absolutely no cameras are permitted so as not to distress the birds. It’s a bit touristy but I suggest any nature lover should experience this.

Next year LCA will be held in Tasmania and I hope to attend and make sure key speakers are able to attend as well.

Popularity: 17% [?]