Multiple document format “standards” are competing for dominance, similar to the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format wars. The OpenDocument standard, which was ratified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) last week, was designed to provide a non-proprietary document standard for use by governments and other organizations. Originally, the EU said that they would recommend the OpenDocument file format if it was approved as an ISO standard; however, competing formats are resulting in a wait and see approach.

The issue is that Microsoft has submitted their own standard, the Office Open XML file format. We now have two proposed standards competing in the market, and the EU is reluctant to support either one in case the Microsoft standard is also approved. I understand that large organizations have competing agendas (I work for a large technology company); however, our customers would be better served if technology vendors could cooperate and reach some type of agreement rather than fighting it out in the standards bodies.

This week Microsoft launched adCenter, an advertising product similar to Google’s AdSense. The problem is that Microsoft launched the site without any support for non-IE browsers. As they strive to “evolve Microsoft from a software company into the world’s largest, most attractive provider of online media through MSN, Windows Live™ and adCenter” (Microsoft), they need to think outside of the Microsoft box to recognize the need to provide broad support for other platforms and browsers to be successful with the new direction.

The problem for Microsoft is that the people currently using alternate browsers, like Firefox, tend to be very vocal early technology adopters and technology influencers. By shunning this crowd, Microsoft is asking for failure. One example of this phenomenon came from Darren Barefoot’s blog entry titled “I Guess Microsoft Doesn’t Want My Money“.

I do not want people to have the impression that no one at Microsoft gets it. Robert Scoble, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft, understands that support of Firefox is a necessity for Microsoft. Scoble says the idea that people at Microsoft should only care about Microsoft products “must be washed from our corporate culture. … if you want the most passionate people in society to use your stuff, you must support Firefox.” (Scoble)

Microsoft needs to wake up to the reality that if they want to be more than a software company, they will need to embrace competing software.

On a personal note, this is my 100th Open Source Culture blog entry!

Open source is frequently compared to a religion complete with zealots and evangelists, and some religions are even using open source methodologies to create belief systems (known as open source religions).

However, Rev. Don Parris has extended this idea to a new level:

“This ordained Baptist minister with the Charlotte, N.C.-based Matheteuo Christian Fellowship has made it his mission to spread the good word about free and open source software (FOSS). The Greek word “Matheteuo” translates to “to make disciples,” and Parris has extended the moniker to include making other software users into Linux and open source disciples themselves.

Parris is a longtime user of the Ubuntu Linux distribution and a contributor to the Freely Project, which is a community of users that promotes open source software (OSS) in churches across the United States as a less expensive alternative to the high licensing costs associated with owning Microsoft Windows. Through the Freely Project, a cadre of technically savvy Linux users helps churches migrate from Microsoft Windows to free or less expensive alternatives.” (SearchOpenSource.com)

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I ran across this Free Firefox Facts eBook on Asa’s Blog. You can download a copy from firefoxfacts.com

As Schwartz takes over from McNealy, insiders are saying that Sun is considering open sourcing Java in time for the JavaOne conference in May. Schwartz led the open sourcing of Solaris, and he could be considering the same for Java. “According to sources inside Sun, an ongoing debate over whether to open-source Java is coming to a head with the JavaOne conference looming May 16.” (eWeek)

Peter Yared (previously Sun’s CTO of Liberty Network Identity initiative and CTO of Sun’s App Server Division) has been publicly calling for Sun to open source Java and take other actions related to open source. At this point, we can only speculate on what Sun will do. I personally think that Sun should open source Java; however, we will just have to wait and see what happens.

The Federal Aviation Administration saved $15 million dollars and completed an upgrade to the air traffic control systems in one-third of the projected time.

“The upgrade is part of a broader service-oriented architecture initiative that will replace proprietary traffic management systems with applications using Java, Web services, open-source software and Oracle products. …

The air traffic flow system, called the Enhanced Traffic Management System, predicts traffic surges, gaps and volume across the national airspace. The FAA tracks about 8,000 airplanes at any given time. The agency uses the real-time analysis system to keep the skies running smoothly.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is on all traffic management systems at the traffic flow central processing facility, located at the Transportation Department’s Volpe Center in Cambridge, Mass. More than 100 sites rely on the system for air traffic management, including military facilities and international sites.” (FCW)

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Have you ever wanted to know just how much money has been invested in open source companies? A recent article, The Open Source Venture Capital Universe, attempts to answer this question and more characterizing open source investing as: “A rollercoaster – as trite as that image may be – is the right analogy for venture capital investing in open source companies. And what a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Matt Asay puts the figure somewhere around $1.3B and rapidly growing. It is anyone’s guess for where open source investing will go from here.

I found this info via Alexander Muse at the Texas Venture Capital Blog.

Ross Mayfield describes the Power Law of Participation as patterns that “have emerged where low threshold participation amounts to collective intelligence and high engagement provides a different form of collaborative intelligence” (Mayfield). Within this model, a large number of users of social websites will not have a high level of engagement thus taking advantage of the value with few contributions back to the community while other users will contribute most of the content. This generates two very different forms of intelligence, collective and collaborative, which co-exist together to form the essence of a community.

This reminded me of a number of studies on open source that support this idea. For example, a case study of the Apache project published in 2000 found that 80% to 90% of the submissions came from a set of 15 core developers in a community of more than 3000 people. A study of the GNOME project had similar results with 11 people contributing most of the output. Relating this back to the Power Law of Participation, the small number of core community members leads to collaborative intelligence, while the larger community provides an important collective intelligence by contributing bug reports, ideas, and comments. These two types of contributors and the resulting intelligence generated both feed off of each other and allow the community to prosper. I would be interested to see how this applies to other communities.

Sources:

A case study of open source software development: The Apache server (Mockus, Fielding, & Herbsleb, 2000).

Effort, co-operation and co-ordination in an open source software project: GNOME (Koch & Schneider, 2002).

I have heard a number of people talk about Richard Stallman’s ideas in the context of wanting software to be free (as in price). This is a misunderstanding about how the Free Software Foundation defines the word “free” meaning freedom, including the freedom to view the source code, modify it, and redistribute it to others.

A recent incident in Brazil highlights this misunderstanding. At the 7th Annual International Free Software Forum, Stallman asked for a small donation to the Free Software Foundation (US$2.00 – $5.00) in exchange for the time that he spent signing autographs and posing for pictures. This resulted in a geek protest and march at the event. Richard Stallman responded with the following:

“I believe that all software ethically must be free, free in the sense of respecting the users’ freedom, but I don’t believe that software must be gratis–nor services, such as autographing or posing. Rather, I believe people deserve the freedom to decide whether to do these things. So I decline to support the newly formed gratis autograph movement. Instead, I hererby launch the free autographing movement, which advocates everyone’s freedom to sign autographs or not.” (NewsForge)

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Rob Enderle does not think Linux will ever get traction as a desktop OS. He presents an interesting argument based on history with IBM’s OS/2 and the OEM business model. He highlights a number of challenges including OEM costs, the number of Linux distributions, excessive advocacy, and more.

He also outlines “A Reliable Road Map to Linux Desktop Success”

“The list of clear requirements includes:

• Clear OEM resources to match or exceed those currently provided by Microsoft. This would include R&D support and co-marketing dollars.
• Embrace existing desktop requirements (roadmaps, application support, proprietary drivers, consistent patch releases schedules and documentation, clear escalation lines for support).
• Seek out reasonable advocates who will take direction from their executives and not from other advocates.
• Make it profitable for the OEM.” (Enderle)

His conclusion is that he doubts these requirements can be achieved. I think that we have many challenges before Linux can become a viable solution for broad desktop deployment, but I am not quite this skeptical.

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