"The Apache Software Foundation is expected to launch on Monday an open-source integration server project, part of a bigger effort to create a full suite of Web services infrastructure software."
Building upon the Apache project is a natural extension of web services. As Apache is the market leader on the web (63% of the total market, this will drive further adaption of Apache in the enterprise by moving up the value chain by commoditizing previously valuable parts of the software spectrum.
"Chappell said that the Web services "intermediation" capabilities of Synapse are not directly competitive with commercial integration products, which offer more features.
"This will provide the architectural components that could be used in the broader scope of an ESB or be used in Web services management products," Chappell said. "
This is the beginning of the end for typical middleware companies. These are companies like Tibco, SeeBeyond etc. Why? While the commercial products offer "more features" those features are largely unused. CIOs want a unified look on their data across disparate systems. By offering that functionality at a significantly lower price point (free beer, free speech), they will lose the lower end of the market first. Eventually the feature set of Synapse will be sufficient to allow them to be used where a typical Application Integration software package maybe used.
For more information on Apache web services
Synapse
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Apache
Web Services
Monday, August 22, 2005
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Blinding of the Giant
I was reading an article about Bill Hilf, Microsoft's Linux Lab manager, when several things struck me as strange. First off Bill Hilf was hired in January 2004 from IBM. Before that Microsoft had no Linux lab. I find this remarkably telling. For years MS has been waging a FUD war on Linux yet apparently had blinded itself in the process. They assumed their initial FUD would be stop Linux in it's tracks and a deeper understanding of linux and open source wouldn't be necessary. So they didn't even bother setting up a lab to see why their customers were using Linux.
Another telling quote from the CIO of Microsoft,
"As a policy, I don't run anything that competes with Microsoft," Microsoft CIO Ron Markezich said in a December interview with CNET News.com. "My goal is to make sure Microsoft products are the best products in the world. It's an easy choice for me, in that sense, to run Microsoft technology. We don't run Unix. We don't run Linux. We don't run Oracle. We're 100 percent Windows, SQL Server."
No offense but if you don't run your competing products, how on earth are you going to make your products the best in the world? If you don't know what your competition is doing, how can you make a strong case that your product is better. The Oracle example is quite telling. Oracle is the leader in databases. If I were a CIO thinking about moving my mission critical application to SQL Server, I would want more confidence that Microsoft is a superior product (just a equal product means why would you switch?)
It seems to me that INTENTIONALLY blinding yourself because it wasn't built here is a particularly poor strategy, especially in an environment where you are selling the superiority of your products over the competition.
Part of the problem is the MS philosophy of eating your own dog food. Through the use of the product internally, you can drive improvement of that product. There is however downside to that approach, namely you blind yourself to the potential advantages that your competitors may have.
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Another telling quote from the CIO of Microsoft,
"As a policy, I don't run anything that competes with Microsoft," Microsoft CIO Ron Markezich said in a December interview with CNET News.com. "My goal is to make sure Microsoft products are the best products in the world. It's an easy choice for me, in that sense, to run Microsoft technology. We don't run Unix. We don't run Linux. We don't run Oracle. We're 100 percent Windows, SQL Server."
No offense but if you don't run your competing products, how on earth are you going to make your products the best in the world? If you don't know what your competition is doing, how can you make a strong case that your product is better. The Oracle example is quite telling. Oracle is the leader in databases. If I were a CIO thinking about moving my mission critical application to SQL Server, I would want more confidence that Microsoft is a superior product (just a equal product means why would you switch?)
It seems to me that INTENTIONALLY blinding yourself because it wasn't built here is a particularly poor strategy, especially in an environment where you are selling the superiority of your products over the competition.
Part of the problem is the MS philosophy of eating your own dog food. Through the use of the product internally, you can drive improvement of that product. There is however downside to that approach, namely you blind yourself to the potential advantages that your competitors may have.
Technorati Tags:
Open Source
Linux
Microsoft
Friday, August 19, 2005
Fewer Defects Found in Latest Linux Kernel
"An analysis of the latest Linux kernel has found that it contains fewer critical defects than the previous version, despite an increase in the amount of code, a source-code analysis firm said Wednesday."
Coverity noted that there were six major potential critical defects six months ago. In this latest kernel release,2.6.12, those critical defects were cleared up. Score one for the open source methodology.
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Kernal
Coverity noted that there were six major potential critical defects six months ago. In this latest kernel release,2.6.12, those critical defects were cleared up. Score one for the open source methodology.
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Linux
Kernal
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Lloyds - Insuring Open Source
In a move that removes yet another barrier and FUD point from Microsoft, noted insurer Lloyds of London has moved to offer indemnification for open source software for IP claims.
"A Lloyd's spokeswoman was unable to confirm details, but St. Clair said the insurance would initially cover the open-source LAMP stack, which consists of the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the Perl, PHP and Python scripting languages. Other open-source products may be added in future depending on market demand."
This is important on several fronts. First off it indemnifies one of the most critical components in the growth of Linux, the LAMP stack. We are seeing adaption of Linux largely because of this stack. New web services company are constantly built on this stack all the time. By offering indemnification Lloyds believes the IP stack of Linux is relatively clean. This is another vote of confidence for the transparency of Linux and the open source development process.
Much has been made the role of patents, OSRM commissioned a study that Linux infringes on potentially 283 patents. Here's the dirty little secret in software development today. Since they have allowed software patents nearly everyone's software violates someone else's patent. That's the truth. The fact that Linux potentially violates only 283 patents should be a good sign.
Right now everyone with a significant patent portfolio usually signs a cross licensing agreement with each other. The real question is what is going to happen once one of these large patent holders decided that they need to more effectively monetize their patent portfolio? It's hard to say. However attempts by relatively small patent holders (15-20 patents) to monetize somewhat dubious patents have not been hugely effective. While they do generate some revenue, no one has become a billionaire doing it. Indeed certain groups have banded together to fight patents, pooling their resources.
Getting this sort of indemnification for Linux and the entire LAMP stack is a great sign. Getting closed software indemnified at all is next to impossible. Most software companies like MS self under-write their indemnification policies. The last time I tried to get a closed source software solution indemnified, I was unable to do so. This is one of the most critical developments for Linux for continued acceptance in middle level companies and the Fortune 500.
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"A Lloyd's spokeswoman was unable to confirm details, but St. Clair said the insurance would initially cover the open-source LAMP stack, which consists of the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server, the MySQL database and the Perl, PHP and Python scripting languages. Other open-source products may be added in future depending on market demand."
This is important on several fronts. First off it indemnifies one of the most critical components in the growth of Linux, the LAMP stack. We are seeing adaption of Linux largely because of this stack. New web services company are constantly built on this stack all the time. By offering indemnification Lloyds believes the IP stack of Linux is relatively clean. This is another vote of confidence for the transparency of Linux and the open source development process.
Much has been made the role of patents, OSRM commissioned a study that Linux infringes on potentially 283 patents. Here's the dirty little secret in software development today. Since they have allowed software patents nearly everyone's software violates someone else's patent. That's the truth. The fact that Linux potentially violates only 283 patents should be a good sign.
Right now everyone with a significant patent portfolio usually signs a cross licensing agreement with each other. The real question is what is going to happen once one of these large patent holders decided that they need to more effectively monetize their patent portfolio? It's hard to say. However attempts by relatively small patent holders (15-20 patents) to monetize somewhat dubious patents have not been hugely effective. While they do generate some revenue, no one has become a billionaire doing it. Indeed certain groups have banded together to fight patents, pooling their resources.
Getting this sort of indemnification for Linux and the entire LAMP stack is a great sign. Getting closed software indemnified at all is next to impossible. Most software companies like MS self under-write their indemnification policies. The last time I tried to get a closed source software solution indemnified, I was unable to do so. This is one of the most critical developments for Linux for continued acceptance in middle level companies and the Fortune 500.
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LAMP
Linux
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Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Firefox Adaption Stalls
The early adaptors have all moved to Firefox apparently. It looks as though 8% is Firefox's natural open source market share. I wonder if the new Mozilla corporation will help drive adaption by giving corporations someone to talk to. That's a pretty common request among CIOs. Trying to gain market share against a product that ships with every single machine in the world is fairly hard. I use it and I find it a pretty good product. Of course now that the IE team is re-constituted and working away, MS will ship a product that's just good enough.
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IE
License Issue & Success of an Open Source project
One of the things recently discussed at OSCon was the proliferation of open source licenses. As more companies begin to open source some of their applications, their corporate attorneys often feel the need to re-write and redo licenses that have effectively been done.
"Referring to 63 approved OSI licenses and another 100-200 "floating around," Levin echoed others from the FSF and elsewhere in calling for a reduction in licenses. "We want to reduce any possible objection, concern, or friction point with using open source licenses," he said. "There are truly an unnecessary group of licenses which have been created because of lawyers' needs to justify their existence or because companies have a narcissistic need for differentiation. The slight variations are more often than not an overreaction by zealous lawyers."
I knew the moment that OSI started accepting licenses to approve that this problem was going to happen. Everyone wants their own licenses, even if it's just their own spin on the BSD license. We licensed under the Sleepycat for Xao and it seemed to work fine.
The problem that the proliferation of licenses creates confusion over the usage of the particular program especially in a situation where you want to build a new set of services on top of an existing set of open source programs. The confusion of parentage of such a chimera makes it impossible to decide which license to use and for developer to understand what rights they retain to the code. That's why it's pretty clear that the open source projects that succeed have clear relatively easy to follow licenses.
When I say success, I mean successful at attracting outside developers to the project . By using one of the traditional open source licenses that is well understood by the developer community, allowing them to understand exactly which rights they are giving up and which they are retaining. While your corporate counsel may want to write their own, I can assure you that someone else has covered all the issues you are facing.
One way to determine your license is to take a look at the business purpose for open sourcing your software. If your intent is to develop a community around your software, chose a well known license. (Sleepycat, BSD, GPL, Mozilla)
If your purpose is to have an "open source" product and most of the developers are going to work internally on your project, feel free to write your own. Just don't expect a whole lot of outside developers to contribute. Without a clear delination of rights, developers are much less likely to work on a project. Why waste the time?
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"Referring to 63 approved OSI licenses and another 100-200 "floating around," Levin echoed others from the FSF and elsewhere in calling for a reduction in licenses. "We want to reduce any possible objection, concern, or friction point with using open source licenses," he said. "There are truly an unnecessary group of licenses which have been created because of lawyers' needs to justify their existence or because companies have a narcissistic need for differentiation. The slight variations are more often than not an overreaction by zealous lawyers."
I knew the moment that OSI started accepting licenses to approve that this problem was going to happen. Everyone wants their own licenses, even if it's just their own spin on the BSD license. We licensed under the Sleepycat for Xao and it seemed to work fine.
The problem that the proliferation of licenses creates confusion over the usage of the particular program especially in a situation where you want to build a new set of services on top of an existing set of open source programs. The confusion of parentage of such a chimera makes it impossible to decide which license to use and for developer to understand what rights they retain to the code. That's why it's pretty clear that the open source projects that succeed have clear relatively easy to follow licenses.
When I say success, I mean successful at attracting outside developers to the project . By using one of the traditional open source licenses that is well understood by the developer community, allowing them to understand exactly which rights they are giving up and which they are retaining. While your corporate counsel may want to write their own, I can assure you that someone else has covered all the issues you are facing.
One way to determine your license is to take a look at the business purpose for open sourcing your software. If your intent is to develop a community around your software, chose a well known license. (Sleepycat, BSD, GPL, Mozilla)
If your purpose is to have an "open source" product and most of the developers are going to work internally on your project, feel free to write your own. Just don't expect a whole lot of outside developers to contribute. Without a clear delination of rights, developers are much less likely to work on a project. Why waste the time?
Technorati Tags:
Open Source
Licenses
GPL
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