Planet JM

Author: johnmark

  • Live Twittering a Birth?

    My wife is almost ready to give birth to our son. I’m debating whether to live twitter developments from the delivery room. Is this just TMI? Not a good thing to do? I still have a couple of weeks yet to decide…

  • Nick Carr: Bebo and Digital Sharecroppers

    This was an interesting article by Nick Carr that popped up in Google Reader today – it’s about the Bebo acquisition by AOL and how the founders have been rewarded handsomely, to the tune of $800 million, with diddly squat going to the artists who contributed site content. From the article:

    As for the millions of members who have happily served as sharecroppers on the Birches’ plantation, they’ll get the satisfaction of knowing that all the labor they donated to their “community” did indeed create something of tangible value. No doubt they’re thrilled that the little Bebo plantation, which they’ve tended so lovingly, is now part of the giant AOL plantation, itself part of the Time-Warner conglomerate.


    The article goes on to reference a great NY Times op-ed by Billy Bragg. It’s all must-read stuff.

    In the Open Source world, we deal with this all the time. People often ask how we can make money off the backs of free labor, to which I always answer: we don’t. But the question lingers, and for good reason. Being a community-centric company is a double-edged sword. After all, if you’ve successful in convincing a fair number of community members to buy into your vision, what, if anything, is your responsibility to them? Ultimately, my opinion rests on the assumption that Bebo.com is a rather different example from most Open Source community sites, because in those cases, the company gives the community items of great value, whether it’s the software, better documentation, or simply the investment into care and feeding of the community.

    This is in stark contrast to a community like Bebo’s, where the vast majority of content comes from the users. Sure, web sites like my employer’s are geared towards providing conduits for community contributions and feedback, but it’s always clear in that case that the owner of the web site is the primary source of an overwhelming amount of the content. In Bebo’s case, without user-generated content, there wouldn’t be anything of value at all.

    Well, at least I see a difference. What about you? What do open source companies owe their communities? What are their responsibilities? Put it in the comments below.

  • More Questions on the Open Source Initiative

    In addition to my post yesterday on the subject of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and whether they represent us, I was encouraged to see a few others pop up with a similar line of thinking.

    Mark Hinkle actually delved into the OSI by-laws and reported what he found.

    Reuven Lerner opened the question of who should lead the Open Source community.

    Both of these attack the problem from different angles, but the question remains: is the current setup the best we can manage? I would argue no.

  • Blogging Hyperic: Whither Initiative?

    I just posted this on the Hyperic.com blog:

    There has been significant conversation around the OSI of late, spurred by Bruce Perens campaign to become a board member. Having had a long history myself in Free and Open Source Software, the recent activity bears reflection and begs the question “What is the purpose of the Open Source Initiative?” Let’s take a look at the definition of Initiative (noun):

    1. an introductory act or step; leading action: to take the initiative in making friends.
    2. readiness and ability in initiating action; enterprise: to lack initiative.

    When I think of the OSI, I think of an organization that started 10 years ago to help define a market around Open Source. That market is now booming, so what is their current “Initiative”? The protection of the term “Open Source”? This is contradictory in that to protect it, they chose echo-chamber myopia as their methodology.

    Read the entire post here.


  • USA vs. Canada Tonight on Fox Soccer Channel

    For those of you who have had your fill of March Madness for the day, you will want to check out the Olympic qualifying semifinals tonight between the United States and Canada.

    If the US wins, they’re guaranteed a place in Beijing. If you’re interested, the match is on Fox Soccer Channel and ESPN Deportes at 9pm EDT / 6pm PDT.

    U-S-A! U-S-A!

  • The streaker, part deux




    For those of you who missed it, the above video clip saves for all eternity the “streak” that took place in last weekends Olympic qualifying match between the USA and Honduras.

    Someone managed to track down her MySpace page and interviewed her. And of course, the obligatory snapshot:




    (above photo Borrowed from SF at The Offside Rules)

  • I love ankle bracelets


    (photo courtesy of Soccer by Ives)

    It’s official – soccer matches are where streakers come to party. Ok, so she’s not a *real* streaker, but close enough for our Puritan value 🙂

  • Scientology and Apple?

    I take back every bad thing I ever said about Dan Lyons. As reported in Michael Cote’s tweet from Lyons’ EclipseCon keynote:


    “If the church of scientology chose to go into the electronics industry, you know, they’d be Apple.”


    Frankly, I didn’t know he had it in him. And then Lyons followed that up with this sidebar on a slide:


    “Apple PR is like a Russian prison guard with a rifle on the ramparts.”


    Wow, I’m sad to have missed it! I never thought I’d be a kindred spirit with the Fake Steve.

    Edit: Ok, that’s a tad hyperbolic. Lyons has said some monumentally stupid things in the past. But I’m with him this time.

  • Getting Ready for OSBC – March 25 – 26

    I was quite startled to learn yesterday that next week is OSBC. Apparently, I’m the only person crazy enough to go up against Mark Shuttleworth, John Roberts and Marten Mickos. I am moderating a panel titled The Community Imperative: Building and Leveraging Community into IT at 10:30am on Tuesday, March 25. For the remainder of this week, I’ll report on who’s on the panel, what they’ve been doing in the world of Open Source, and why you should care.

    I’m really looking forward to this, as I’ve always been a fan of OSBC. It will be fun. If you’re going to OSBC and have already seen Mickos, Roberts and Shuttleworth speak multiple times, then this is the panel for you!

  • Good Moves by the OSI

    I was heartened to read this writeup on CAOS and the canonical blog post by Simon Phipps. I have thought for some time that the way the OSI (and by extension, the OSD) is set up does not meet the needs of the current software landscape. If you look at Creative Commons, they explicitly recognize different use cases and different licensing terms based on use case. I never understood why the OSI insisted on a one-size-fits-all strategy that didn’t recognize the different goals of some “open” technologies that did not meet the criteria of the OSD. While they always claimed to be business-friendly and not about ideology, their inflexibility seemed to indicate otherwise and resulted in some not-so-friendly encounters with companies who published software under

    Now it seems that Simon Phipps may be attempting to move the organization into a more nuanced, flexible direction. I can only applaud this line of thinking as it’s long overdue. He suggests renaming the OSD to “Open Source Copyright Definition” and creating the entirely new “Open Source Patent Definition” and “Open Source Trademark Definition.” This is a welcome change. It’s not exactly the Creative Commons model, but I look at it as the first step to recognizing that not all open definitions are the same – and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.