How does this look? Right, or needs some improvement?
Aside from some nice colour etc. The subject of the Apache structure came up in a session and I thought a single image to answer things would be good.
I have the urge to make it larger and cover PRC, Legal, Security, Infra etc. Any thoughts?
90 min or so of Brad Smith and panel [Shuttleworth, Bottomley, Updegrove], mostly about the recent patent promise and the various patents alleged to be directed at Linux (or was it Open Source?).
Question from the audience - why charge businesses a ’small fee’?
It’s the obvious dodge point and answers were relatively unfulfilling. Personally - I think it’s so they still have them for cross-patent negotiations. I’ve not seen anything saying everyone gets the same small fee. [UPDATE: I’m told they’ve talked about doing RAND, which would mean everyone gets the same fee]
Next question - you’re getting involved in Eclipse now, would you use EPL?
Again relatively unfulfilling - they’d probably consider it some day. This is a standard answer in reality - you use the license of the community. So MS Eclipse plugins - I bet they’d be under EPL.
Next question - a pretty loaded one complaining that the leaders MS are talking to big companies, not open source. Fair enough - though I’m quite happy with the three people up there talking to Brad (Ubuntu founder, Linux guy (I think involved with the Linux Foundation) and a standards lawyer). Not very answerable.
Next up - “what’s the furthest compromise you’ll make”. Whee. Not answerable at all.
Next - Bill Gates said OS was Communism. Steve Ballmer said it was a cancer. When did this change? My understanding of the explanation is the obvious one - the world changes.
Financial Analyst asks why charge for the patents if not much money. Brad explained again that they think it is a necessary model.
Second question from the analyst is whether you’d keep supporting the open infrastructure at Yahoo. Brad points out he can’t answer that due to securities and wossnames.
Question from the front - can we create a model whereby a kid in a garage can make the new Windows without being afraid of being sued to death.
Brad answered interestingly here. Early on MS looked to copyright, but in the 90s the courts in the US said look to patents not copyrights. I can’t quote his exact phrases, I should carry a tape recorder eh? But he explained that that was not ideal.
Whee. Question for everyone else on the panel. Can MS ride both OS and proprietary wave. Everyone says yes. Mark explained that moving to services means copyright/patent less important, and he expects MS to figure that out. James pointed out that there is a standard invitation to all to be involved in OS, including MS. Andy predicted a flip where ‘those out there’ were more dominant than ‘those at MS’ and that MS should get involved sooner rather than later.
Matt Asay (host) asked: “Why MS? Why not Oracle, IBM etc. ” He thinks not because they have the most to lose, but the most to gain.
Recording that without misquoting Brad would be hard - he explained how he’s proud they have the courage of their convictions, and pride that they’re listening.
Overall - panel went quite well.
Went to a legal session earlier by Larry Rosen. He included a piece on the ethics of the license rather than just the license. We’ve been calling that the intent at Apache recently. Anyway - seemed to be well received. Understand the community, don’t nitpick the license text.
This came up a couple of times here at OSBC, not overblown but mentioned. It’s a bit painful to hear Legal people worrying about something that doesn’t feel like it should be a huge deal.
Then I noticed Alfresco’s nice FAQ entry on this:
<a href=”http://www.alfresco.com/legal/licensing/faq/#faq6″>FAQ #6</a>
Panel of people with big thoughts on the future of our beloved open world. Roger Burkhardt (Ingres), MySQL (Zach Urloff stood in for the ill Marten Mickos), John Roberts (SugarCRM), Jeff Whatcott (Acquia (Drupal company)) and Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu). Chaired by Michael Skok.
A somewhat interesting session, it went over the survey from before the conference and asked the panelists if they agreed with those surveyed. Very good way to model a panel session. I remember Mark Shuttleworth speaking at ApacheCon and not being very impressed simply because his focus (Linux/Desktops) was not a good fit for our general focus. Mark was very impressive on this panel - his comments were at the right time, applied to the right place etc, and always very good.
Of course there were bits I disagreed with - one day it would be interesting to do one of these panel things where I would feel the urge to get up there and speak my mind. Generally too English (polite… timid… quiet… whatever) to argue with them.
One of my disagreements is on a question as to whether Open Source is:
a) Business Model
b) Marketing Model
c) Development Model
d) All of the above
e) None of the above
The true answer is f) Community model. Wikipedia is a great Open Source success story. a), b) and c) are all true when you realize they are on top of a community model. As someone at lunch pointed out - very Cathedral & Bazaar; or Cluetrain as I pointed out. Open Source is a business model in that it’s a community model, communities are about conversations, and business is at the end of the day about a conversation in which defined value is exchanged.
While talking about the effect of Open Source on the economy, a very good point from the Jeff Whatcott - “Absence of money is a bigger push for innovation than lots of money”.
A couple of t-shirt ideas:
* “Open Source is People”
* “Open Source was Social 1.0″ (or maybe 1.5?)
Mark Shuttleworth asked a good question. Have we reached the IBM point yet? Is Open Source usage the default answer now and you have to justify not choosing that? Opinion was divided on whether we’ve reached that yet.
Sounds like Carrie is having fun with Nathan: Thinking on Creative Play.
I’m very happy with the lad. As Carrie explains, creative play applies to anything.
Personally I like to take a chunk of the credit for when I taught N to lie/make a joke. In classic Red Dwarf style one night, I held up a teddy bear and said “Banana”. He cackled. A few days later he started to do it too, understanding the hilarity in calling a teddy bear an elephant.
Creative play is inside the mind, not inside the toybox.
This is a thought that I’ve seen people have a lot at Apache. The second keynote at OSBC was on the technology behind CBS. It was the de facto set of technology choices:
Linux, Java, Apache HTTP, Tomcat, Hibernate, Spring, Struts, Lucene, Xerces, Xalan.
60% of that is from the ASF. 99% of the conversation here at OSBC will be about the other 30% (with probably not a lot this year about Java I think). It’s both our charm and our limitation. Our pro and our con. Can ASF things ever be talked about that much without losing that which made them so popular?
Spring of course is the great example of what might be. AL 2.0, yet commercial. However they own all the IP, could SpringSource be SpringSource if Apache held all their original IP? Could SpringSource survive if they donated their code to Apache? [Not that I’m suggesting that - it’s my example for whether Apache could create a JBoss, a SpringSource etc; or whether all the smaller companies trying to get there will struggle. ]
Awake. Breakfast. A price that only hotels can charge.
Registration. Bag, spam filled, but will probably prove useful once it gets home as conference bags usually do. We use ApacheCon bags to pack our shopping, and an EclipseCon bag will probably be my hospital bag.
Speaking of, fingers crossed everyone that nothing happens back home btw. Repeat the mantra… “Hang on, hang on, hang on”.
One item of note in the bag, a last minute addition of a presentation on “Can Open Source communities survive acquisitions and mergers”. That’s an interesting topic nowadays, so suspect I’ll head along.
Nice. “Video Killed the Radio Star” just came on - but some idiot has the bass turned way up and the initial drums sounded like a brachiosaurus farting.
Got to wonder if anyone else at OSBC is committing tonight 
Laptop behaved oddly on the flight down, it decided to start crashing for no reason. Not something I feel like spending money on right now, a new PC laptop, a entertainment centre computer, a Wii and a PS3 are all ahead of it on the to-purchase list.
Also sat and listened to the iPod as usual. Beautiful moment when the plane ascended, things were at an angle and said iPod slipped out of my trouser pocket and started its smooth chrome ride down the plane. That sense of utter helplessness as you watch it going made me laugh. Fortunatley someone grabbed it and it quickly found its way back to me.
I don’t recall what songs I listend to, but one mentioned “roses”. That reminded me of the roses outside my house growing up. That reminds me of the T-junction, the car always parked on the other side in front of the farmer’s field and the loose gravel that was always accumulated like scree by the side of the road. I can’t remember the colour of the electric (or was it waterworks?) box by the field. Shift scene by 500m to the playschool building down the road. 45 degree slabs of concrete, grass overgrowing the concrete and a church nextdoor with an iron fence of some kind - but what colour was the fence? Was it black, or just a dark green? I don’t recall.
It seems that colour is the first thing to go. Odd.
At least it’s one of the first things to go. People also are - Facebook has been educating me in the people who have vanished into the unseen clouds at the edges of my memory. What else is lost in memory. Songs are a nice way to dig into the hidden spaces in your head; as I’ve mentioned before, sunlight is also a nice way to dig in. Sit in a sunbeam, close your eyes, let your expectation of where you actually are change. I wonder what else is.
