Open Source Taxes, the IRS, and Dr. Seuss

Austan Goolsbee wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times about how Americans face an overwhelming burden every year spending time and money to file tax forms. Much of the information entered onto the tax forms is information that has already been sent to the IRS leading Goolsbee to suggest that the IRS could aggregate this information and send each of us a form with this information already pre-filled meeting the needs of the majority of taxpayers with fairly simple returns. This idea led Tim O’Reilly to comment, “Web 2.0 you say? Well yes. If Google were running the IRS, it’s what they’d do.”

This started me thinking …

What if the IRS was run by open source? Would we have collaborative tax returns? I could opt-in to the “open source taxes” program on the IRS site to start my return, which could be populated with the information that the IRS already has on file. Other organizations could collaboratively add information to my return (charitable deductions, etc.) I could collaborate with other tax preparers for free help and advice or pay someone like a traditional tax preparation company to provide this type of support and service (the Red Hat business model). Some savvy programmers would create nifty open source tools that allow me to simplify my tax return for certain obscure, long-tail scenarios that I share with only 25 other people in the world.

“If I ran the zoo, I’d make a few changes. That’s just what I’d do.” Dr. Seuss.

Red Hat acquires JBoss

We knew that JBoss was shopping around, and it looks like Red Hat made the acquisition today. It sounds like a pretty good match. They have similar business models, and Red Hat is intimately familiar with the tools and infrastructure market (Cygnus / GCC, for example). It will be interesting to see how the two corporate cultures come together.

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This Week in Open Source News Apr 3 – Apr 9

LinuxWorld Expo was held this week in Boston, and it was the first LinuxWorld that I missed since before 2001. There are too many news stories and press releases to cover here (not to mention the fire in the Unisys booth!), but I will try to cover a sample of the most interesting news.

The Portland Project Evolves

OSDL’s Portland project announced the technology preview for a new set of common interfaces for the GNOME & KDE Linux Desktops that are intended to make it easier for software vendors to port applications to Linux. With no common interface, vendors currently need to port applications to both GNOME & KDE. OSDL hopes that this will help increase the number of applications that are available on Linux desktops.

Stuart Cohen, CEO of OSDL, also hopes that Microsoft will port Office to Linux when Linux on the desktop has achieved critical mass. “Cohen considers the move inevitable in the same way that Microsoft eventually opted to run Office on Apple Computer” (InfoWorld). It will be interesting to see if Microsoft ever supports Office on Linux. A few months ago, I might have laughed at this idea; however, the next story leads me to believe that this might be a possibility at some point in the future.

Microsoft Gets Cozy with Linux

No, hell has not frozen over and pigs still cannot fly; however, Microsoft has announced support for Linux with Virtual Server 2005 R2. Virtualization is becoming widely used in IT shops and hardware vendors are adding support for it in the hardware, and Microsoft seems to want to keep pace with other virtualization products like Xen and VMware.

Microsoft also launched a new website to showcase their open source efforts and their interoperability with Linux and Unix. Right now, it is mostly blogs from researchers in Microsoft’s Open Source Software labs, and it will be interesting to see how this evolves.

Sun and Open Source DRM

Open source and DRM do not seem like two concepts that should be in the same sentence; however, Sun thinks that it just might be crazy enough to work. The idea behind the open source DRM is that consumers can have a little more flexibility with how they can use their DRM content, while the media companies can still protect their content. Even Lawrence Lessig, who still believes in a DRM-free world, thinks that as far as DRMs go, Sun’s open source DRM is not too bad.

Norway Increases Use of Open Source Software

Every week, I try to highlight one example of a government or company embracing open source, and this week Norway announced that they will start using more open source software to reduce dependence on large, international companies like Microsoft.

Firefox for Kids

Dietrich Ayala, Firefox engineer, presented to 120 fourth graders as part of career day on various topics including Firefox, Mozilla, and open source software. Here are a few of the more interesting quotes from his presentation notes:

  • Though almost every kid said they surfed the web, when I asked if they knew what a “browser” was, only a couple kids knew. However, I know that they actually *were* surfing the web because of the questions that they asked. It seemed that the browser was a piece of infrastructure that blended into their general computer experience.
  • Anywhere from 5-10 kids in each group had heard of Firefox.
  • 1-2 kids in each group had heard of “open-source”.
  • The kids knew of viruses and phishing. They didn’t understand what they were, but knew that they were bad, and from the internet.
  • They thought the Firefox logo was cool. They thought the Mozilla logo was cooler 🙂 Especially the boys. Several started grilling me on the anatomical incorrectness of the dinosaur: “If it’s from the pleocistene family it’d have a bump on it’s head and the nostrils would be in a different place.” I had no response to that. (Dietrich)

I suspect that some of these findings would apply to adults, too. Many people do not really understand what a browser is or what viruses and phishing are.

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Hippies, Open Source and Web 2.0

I listened to an interesting episode of Inside the Net hosted by Amber MacArthur & Leo Laporte interviewing Brian Oberkirch and Alexander Muse from Big In Japan. Most of the time was spent reviewing Big In Japan’s products, which sounded pretty cool; however, the most interesting part for me was a discussion about the differences in the dot-com era and the current web 2.0 craze.

During the dot-com bubble, money was king. The entire technology industry was obsessed with stock prices, and we spent an inordinate amount of time talking about IPOs, venture capital investments, and exit strategies.

This time around in the web 2.0 craze, the industry is behaving completely differently. Money is still important (we all need to pay our bills), but people do not seem quite as obsessed with money. The current web 2.0 environment is less about closely guarding your business model and more about being open: open source software, open APIs, mashups, and more. The web 2.0 culture seems to be about sharing and doing things that we love doing. Leo Laporte compared the current environment of cooperation, harmony, and altruism to the hippie culture of the 60s.

I think that open source has influenced the current web 2.0 culture. Open source has always been about sharing the source code to provide an opportunity to customize it to fit a particular need. Similarly, the web 2.0 environment is about opening up your data and allowing it to be used freely in creative ways through mashups or other mechanisms. Google Maps is one of the leading examples of this phenomenon.

The open source business models are also starting to mature and are beginning to demonstrate that companies can make money with open source software, which means that people can do something altruistic that they love doing while still making enough money to pay the bills. IBM is an interesting example; they sponsor developers who contribute to the Linux kernel and they contribute code through initiatives like Eclipse knowing that they will be able to sell related services, up-sell customers to more expensive products, and sell related hardware because of their work will open source. Web 2.0 seems to be learning from the mistakes and successes of open source with similar business models. For example, Big In Japan uses consulting and up-sell business models to support the tools that they provide free of charge.

Web 2.0 and open source companies will be interesting to watch over the next few years to see how the business models evolve to understand how sustainable these models are over the long term.

Is Open Source like VB?

Stephen O’Grady discussed an interesting idea on his blog about how open source is like visual basic:

“They share an important, even crucial, attribute: the ability to dramatically expand the size of their potential audience and userbase. How they accomplish that end differs dramatically; in the case of VB, it was largely a focus on simplification, ease of use and an improved toolset, while open source has relied more on transparency, low (or no) cost, inherent distribution advantages and collaborative development. The net result, in either case, is a dramatically expanded potential audience.” (tecosystems / RedMonk)

At first glance, I did not agree with the open source is like VB concept; however, as I was writing my response, I noticed more and more similarities finally coming up with one primary theme. Open source and VB were able to expand their audience and user base only when they shifted the balance of power into the hands of the end user rather than keeping all of the power with the developer.

The beauty of VB was that it was so easy to use that anyone could program in it. From my experience, the people using VB did not typically come from a traditional programming background; they were ordinary users or new programmers who now had the ability to easily and quickly write programs. Previously, this could only be accomplished with years of education and programming experience. With VB, the power was now in the hands of the users and not the hard core programmers.

Open source, on the other hand, began with developers scratching an itch (as Eric Raymond would say), but open source programs were often difficult or impossible for an ordinary person to install and use. It was not until open source software began embracing the end user as a primary customer that they were able to expand quickly. Firefox is a perfect example; users can easily get Firefox, install it, and find extensions and themes that allow them to customize their environment. Firefox, like VB, puts the power into the hands of the users rather than keeping it in the hands of the developers.

In summary, with VB and open source, putting the power into the hands of the end users seems to have a dramatic impact on how quickly the audience expands.

Mozilla Donates $10K to OpenBSD

Shortly after a plea for funding made by OpenBSD, Mozilla announced that they have donated $10K for OpenBSD, OpenSSH, and related development activities. Mozilla had several reasons for making this donation:

“In particular the Mozilla project uses SSH extensively for various purposes, including securing connections to the Mozilla CVS repository. The OpenBSD and OpenSSH projects have been experiencing some financial difficulties, and based on their importance to the Mozilla project and to the wider open source and free software world we felt that it was well worth showing our support for them.” (Mozilla Foundation)

Open BSD has consistently faced shortages of about $20K per year, which has been making it difficult to sustain development on the project. Hopefully, this funding will help OpenBSD at least in the short term.

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Purpose-Driven Technology and Open Source

Richard Silkos of the New York Times and Tim O’Reilly have been discussing a newly coined term, “purpose-driven media” adapted from Rick Warren’s concept of “A Purpose-Driven Life”:

“These are new-media ventures that leave the competition scratching their heads because they don’t really aim to compete in the first place; their creators are merely taking advantage of the economics of the online medium to do something that they feel good about. They would certainly like to cover their costs and maybe make a buck or two, but really, they’re not in it for the money. By purely commercial measures, they are illogical.” (New York Times)

Craigslist is a great example of purpose-driven media. They are providing strong competition for newspaper classified ads; however, Craigslist’s goal was not to make large amounts of money. It was designed to be a community resource. The New York Times article and Tim’s blog both pointed to Firefox as another example of purpose-driven media.

I am not sure that open source software is really purpose-driven “media”, since media usually refers to newspapers, magazines, blogs and other sources focused on content. A more appropriate term might be “purpose-driven technology” referring more to the method of creation (open source software) rather than a media outlet.

Open source software fits well within the Christensen disruptive innovation model by approaching the market in a very different way to fill a niche need along the edge of the market, but then grows to displace the mainstream market. This idea ties into the purpose-driven technology concept for open source software especially well when you consider the origin of many open source software projects and how they began to fill their niche market. Linux started when Linus Torvalds wanted a Unix-like system that ran on less expensive hardware for his own use. Linus did not start this project to make money or disrupt an industry; however, the end result was purpose-driven technology that may have seemed like an illogical competitor for Microsoft and Unix operating systems from an economic perspective. Many other open source software products had similar beginnings and a similar purpose-driven technology as a result.

Firefox Reaches 10% Market Share

According to Net Applications, Firefox According to Net Applications, Firefox now has 10.05% of the browser market share for March 2006 behind Internet Explorer, which has 84.7%.

It is great to see how the scrappy underdog has grown to 10% market share through innovation and grassroots, word of mouth advertising.

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