Planet JM

Blog

  • 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.

  • Dear Dan Lyons: Open Source was Never ‘Counter Culture’

    Day 10,274 of misunderstood musings on Open Source. Dan Lyons talks about Open Source being in “an identity crisis” likening it to some punk band from the 70’s that’s now playing stadiums and losing touch with its original ethos. This is wrong on many, many levels.

    First off, Open Source was never counter culture. This has been a difficult lesson for many to learn, due to the casual conflation of Open Source with Free Software and the FSF. One could argue that there is a significant set of Open Source developers and users who believe very strongly in things like information rights, code reciprocity, and the like (I count myself in this group). But the real impetus behind the Open Source ecosystem has been decades-old economic trends which I outlined in this article.

    However, I do have to give Dan Lyons credit for this bit when discussing Sun’s acquisition of MySQL:

    “It’s a great publicity stunt, but how will giving away products Sun already owns, and spending $1 billion to acquire another free product, save Sun? Pixie dust would have to be at work here. It reminds me of a sketch from South Park where gnomes steal underpants as part of a three-phase business plan…”

    For whatever reason, Sun has spent a great deal of time commoditizing both hardware and software. One wonders if they’re actually trying to back themselves into the services corner, because they seem to be headed in that direction.


    So score one for the Fake Steve.

  • The GPL as IP Protection Tool

    Via 451 CAOS Theory, just learned that the Software Freedom Law Center settled its GPL infringement suit with Verizon. I’ll leave the details of the case as an exercise for the reader, but it basically involves a company not adhering to the terms of the GPL.

    As Jay Lyman of The 451 Group notes, this result is hardly a surprise:

    …the GPL is not some exotic, first-of-its kind license, document or legal doctrine. Actually, it is based largely on U.S. copyright law, particularly in the case of GPLv2, which is the BusyBox license. It amazes me that some people think the GPL will be refuted, defeated or ‘thrown out of court.’ That would mean ‘throwing out’ U.S. copyright law, and I don’t see that happening, ever.

    It amazes me how much misunderstanding of the GPL still exists. No, the GPL does not cede your intellectual property to the public domain – as a matter of fact, it does a pretty good job of protecting it. In fact, the GPL is a pretty good compromise between granting rights to all parties and protecting IP. This case is another demonstration of that. Verizon knew they couldn’t win, so they settled. Makes sense to me.

    There’s a reason we chose the GPL v2 when releasing Hyperic HQ under an Open Source license. As Eben Moglen himself has been known to say, It’s Good Not To Be Your Competitor’s Free Lunch.

  • Republicans Voting for Clinton?

    So I wonder if this is finally going to get some mainstream press: story on Republicans “spiking” the Democratic primaries in the hopes of pushing Clinton over the top.