Maybe the Linux Foundation doesn't need any community

What with all the talk about the need for community in open source, it's a bit cheeky that the Linux Foundation managed to elect a board of directors without a single lay member of the Linux community on it, perhaps Mark Shuttleworth excepted. (Mark does a good job of walking the line between corporate and community.)

Is this a problem? Probably not, because I doubt the Linux Foundation will be more productive than the FSG or OSDL were (both did almost nothing useful). And no, I'm not naive - I know that corporations do the bulk of Linux development.

But if that's true, where is Red Hat on the list? It is, after all, the the Number One contributor to the Linux kernel by a long ways. Nowhere. Why? Because Red Hat never did give much money to OSDL, and it's money that buys you a seat at this Linux table, not contributions to the kernel.

Is this what open source is all about?

Does first winner take all in open source?

I was talking with a venture capitalist the other day, and he was asking me about the possibility of both Pentaho and JasperSoft winning in the open source Business Intelligence market. "Is there room for two winners?" was his question.

My personal belief is that there's room for more than one winner in open source. Real markets aren't characterized by one seller. Real markets have competition. As open source matures, I expect to see various vendors duking it out for market share, much as Novell and Red Hat do today.

Dave Rosenberg believes otherwise.

In talking with Dave, and with this VC, it strikes me that maybe there's only room for one open source commodifier, but plenty of room for open source innovators. So, maybe only JasperSoft or Pentaho can succeed in commodifying the market out from beneath the feet of Cognos and Business Objects.

But there should be lots of room for both companies to bring Business Intelligence to the masses (as is, in fact, JasperSoft's tagline). Why? Because in lowering the bar to adoption of BI by SMBs and groups within enterprises that have never used it, there is, by definition, huge market elasticity. The market, in other words, is unformed and as big as these companies can make it. The company that Pentaho sells into will likely not have heard of JasperSoft, and vice versa. They will be competing to create the most greenfield opportunities.

Importantly, they'll likely be competing alone, because the incumbent vendors won't be able to hit their price point and ease of distribution.

This is the real opportunity for open source. Not in commodifying others' efforts, but in expanding markets to new customers. It's something that Microsoft has always done well, and which open source is well-positioned to do well, too.

So, yes, there is plenty of room for both Pentaho and JasperSoft. But only if they view themselves as innovators, rather than mere commodifiers.

John Roberts learns from adversity...to make adversity for others...

Lonn Johnston had mentioned this article to me sometime ago, but I only came across it today. What a great human interest story! John Roberts battles dyslexia, turning his life's great lemon into lemonade for him, and sour grapes for his competitors. :-)

His battle with dyslexia, he said, forced him "to question established axioms or ways of doing things."

"The process of learning how to program may have taken longer for me," he added. "But you're at a point where it is not a science -- it's creative art."

Roberts' passion for software led him to California in 1995. After working for several software companies, he said, he grew disillusioned with the way the industry had evolved.

He is critical of the business-applications industry where, he says, marketing hype often trumps the push to create better software.

"The industry has become dominated not by great software but by extreme sales and marketing," he said.
He cited Salesforce.com and its perceived penchant for glitzy marketing campaigns -- including a controversial one that featured the Dalai Lama.

I never knew this about John. Now I feel bad that I can't seem to write a blog post under 1 million words....

SugarCRM has done most things right. I was talking about SugarCRM with Larry Augustin a month or so back, and we were both surprised that three aggressive, sales-driven guys (John, Clint, Jacob) managed to do so much right with open source and with business. They really haven't screwed up yet, not in any big ways. That's impressive, especially in the landmind-strewn world of open source.

Fedora community lead needs medical help

Jack Aboutboul just pinged me to let me know he's very sick. He's looking for help:

We are part of a very smart and very well connected community of people, especially when it comes to scientific matters. I know that a few years back Patrick Volkerding, creator of Slackware, had some crazy rare health issues and by posting online was able to find someone who led him to a proper remedy. I hope we have enough smart people around that will be able to do the same for me. Please pass this on to anyone you know, its a desperate plea for help. Obviously pass it on to scientists, doctors, pharmacists, etc. but please also pass this amongst non-geeks because I'm sure someone out there knows someone who can help.

If you have any ideas, please pass them along to Jack. His contact information is on the blog entry above.

Off-topic: Defining insanity

It's Saturday night. I'm 18 hours and 11 minutes into my eight days without my wife, and with my four kids (ah, there's the kicker!). I'm working on my 17-year old neighbor's English paper (while, I believe, he works on his XBox skills). It seemed like a good idea to have my wife take advantage of cheap fares to England. It seemed like a good idea to offer to help my neighbor with his homework.

As I sit here typing at 8:28 PM on a Saturday night, my kids just recently gone to bed, I wonder if either was a good idea.

Perhaps this is what insanity is. It's a foolish willingness to offer up assistance that you're not really qualified to give.

I am beginning to whimper under the burden. I watched the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid match today, only to discover that Lily (my youngest) face first in the brownies I made for some neighbors. While watching the Manchester United vs. Middlesborough match, my second-youngest daughter, Greta, pulled all the stuffing out of a pillow and threw it all over her room.

Open source is easy compared to this. (I wonder if anyone would be willing to participate in open source parenting with me. I will give you my children and you can give me back the derivative works. Whatever they might be. :-)

TexMex...open source style

BusinessWeek gives a close look at how Chipotle, a highly successful US restaurant chain, has gotten ahead in a struggling market. The answer? It gives its food away.

Well, that may not be the sole reason, but it's an important one:

Most fast-food chains drum up traffic by barraging consumers with mass-media ads, trumpeting their newest product or latest deal. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. (CMG ) plays by different rules. The Denver-based company eschews TV commercials and most other traditional advertising. In fact, it spends less in a year on advertising than McDonald's Corp., its former parent, (MCD ) spends in 48 hours. "Advertising," declares M. Steven Ells, Chipotle's founder and chief executive, "is not believable." Instead, Chipotle banks on customers to spread the word....

Fittingly, Chipotle is also generating buzz for word-of-mouth marketing. These days the typical consumer is exposed to so many paid pitches—estimates range from 600 to 3,000 a day—that people tend to tune them out. People also dismiss almost anything that comes from big companies..."Chipotle so far has got it nailed," Buczaczer says. "You have people evangelizing the brand because they love it."...

[Chipotle's founder and CEO] thought customers should be swayed first and foremost by the food. So instead of telling people about Chipotle's burritos he gave them away.

Imagine that. Instead of telling people about a product, you let them use it. For free. Then they come back to buy from you, if you make the experience relatively painless. Sounds like open source. But tastes better.

The UK opens up...to representative democracy

Not open source-related, but historic and hugely important, to my mind. Yesterday Britain's House of Commons voted to introduce an 80% elected House of Lords and a 100% elected House of Commons. The world just became a bit more open. (Or will, when the vote is finalized and goes into effect, which likely won't be for another three or four years.)

For those reading this in the US (or elsewhere, where popular elections are the norm), this is big news because the House of Lords has traditionally had seats allocated based on historic privilege, with some of this same privilege spilling over into the Commons. If your great-great-grandfather was a Lord, you inherited that from the family line, whether your credentials were nil or exceptional.

As Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, suggested:

This is truly a historic occasion. After nearly 100 years, the House of Commons has at last taken the momentous step to reform the Upper House and make it fit for a modern democracy. This is a famous victory for progressive opinion in Parliament and in the country.

Indeed, now when will we get to vote for the Queen? ;-)

Even among the best of friends...

Football (real football, not the American pansy kind) is a highly competitive sport, but it's a sport. It's not life and death (though you sometimes wouldn't know that by watching my reactions to Arsenal's matches). And while players compete hard on the pitch, I'm always surprised to find out how chummy they are off the pitch. (I've read that Arsenal players occasionally talk with Chelski players, which makes my skin crawl but.... :-)

Sometimes, however, even the best of "friends" get caught up in the heat of the moment, as Inter Milan and Valencia did yesterday.



Navarro apparently upset the Inter players, who took off after him at the end of the match (and, so I hear, caught up with him back in the dressing room). Not the prettiest of sights, but understandable in the heat of battle.

Occasionally, the open source world breaks out into verbal warfare, as we debate what open source means and other such topics. On that particular topic, it was interesting to see that those arguing for a hybrid approach to open source were almost wholly analysts/commentators and not actively selling open source.

"Pragmatists," as they style themselves, don't appreciate that by making open source mean everything, they make it mean nothing. And yes, customers do care (It's a bit tiresome to hear that customers don't care about source when I hear every single day that they do, and that it is a fundamental reason they buy from us, from Red Hat, from MySQL, etc.) I guess that's the difference between selling open source and talking about it. Mike Olson finally chimed in, but his company dies if 100% open source models catch hold, so I forgive him for his post. I used to have to defend stunted open source business models, too, when I was at Novell. I recovered. He will, too. ;-)

But there I go again - see, we sometimes get a little worked up, chase each other around the pitch, perhaps throw a few verbal punches, and then laugh about it the next day. I'm having a hard time letting this one drop, because the answer to the "What is open source" question is fundamental to its future success. I despised Stallman's intransigence for years, only to find that his unmoving adherence to free software has probably done more to keep open source grounded than anything or anyone else, even if I don't agree with him on every point he makes (and I don't).

We need firm definitions. We also need to recognize that we'll disagree and compete on those definitions. I'll try to throw a few less punches, though....

The Biblical definition of open source

In thinking through the recent (and age-old) "What, or who, is open source?" debate, I was trying this morning to settle on a general principle that would settle the question, at least in my own mind. I thought I was through with the question, but then I read Stephen O'Grady's perspective (very balanced, as ever, and very pragmatic), as well as r0ml's, and finishing up with Michael Tiemann's (who is somewhat authoritative on what open source means, given that he's the president of the OSI, which defines open source licensing and, hence, open source).

But I didn't stop with these authorities. I actually turned to the Bible in the wee hours of this London morning. A biblical scripture from Matthew came to mind:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. (Matthew 15:11)

Using a more positive paraphrase of this scripture, it's not what I consume that makes me open source, but what I produce.

This is why companies like EnterpriseDB are clearly not open source companies. They may be great companies (I, for one, really like EnterpriseDB), but they are not great open source companies.

Why? Because their primary products are not open source. Some say this is just a BSD vs. GPL issue (i.e., BSD-friendly companies aren't forced to release their code as open source, but this doesn't mean they don't contribute a lot of code to BSD projects). This is complete nonsense, as Dave Dargo points out. It's fine that BSD-style licensing does not require code contribution. But for a company to claim its open source bona fides, it must release source code. That is the essence of open source: what I produce/distribute/share. Not what I consume/keep.

So, let's try this:

An open source company is one that, as its core revenue-generating business, actively produces, distributes, and sells (or sells services around) software under an OSI-approved license.

Thoughts? Comments?