The Open Road

Analyst: New developer demographics favor Linux, PHP

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COLUMBIA, S.C.--Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer might agree with The Who that "the kids are alright," but he's unlikely to appreciate their changing taste in programming languages and operating systems. But then, neither will Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

After all, according to at the Forrester analyst Jeffrey Hammond, speaking here Thursday at the 2010 Palmetto Open Source Conference, the rising generation of developers are more familiar with Ruby and PHP than Java or .Net, and increasingly opt to develop and deploy enterprise and Web applications on Linux rather than Windows or Unix.

The beginning of the … Read more

Google and Sun: Same vision, different results

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt is betting on a mobile, cloud-based future and is winning.

Former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz bet big on that same future...with dramatically different results.

What is the defining difference between these two executives and their companies?

It's easy to suggest that the answer must be because Google employees are simply smarter than their counterparts at Sun, or that Schmidt is a rock-star CEO while Schwartz was not. But history belies such facile reasoning.

For one thing, there's no shortage of Sun employees at Google, including, most recently and notably, Tim Bray, who … Read more

Can Mozilla be bigger than Facebook?

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Mozilla has made a name for itself by taking on Microsoft Internet Explorer in the browser market, claiming as much as 30 percent of the global market with its open-source Firefox browser. Mozilla's second act, however, promises to be much more difficult, with increased competition from Microsoft but also from open-source competitors like Google Chrome.

What should Mozilla do next?

"More of the same" probably isn't going to cut it for the open-source foundation. Though Mozilla's progress is admirable (and, in some ways, amazing), it's also "an anomaly," as Mozilla executive Mitchell Baker has opined, … Read more

Apple's free pass with the iPad

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For years, Microsoft set the agenda for anything and everything related to personal computers. Linux tried, and largely failed, to make a dent in the Windows hegemony. Back then even Apple couldn't get past the infallible "But it's not like Windows!" argument.

In recent years Apple has created its own reality distortion field, similar to the one created by Microsoft, by virtue of a steady stream of winning, innovative products.

Sure, people still say "But it's not like Windows," but now they mean that as a reason to use Apple products, rather than … Read more

The post open-source world (already here?)

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In a cloud and iPad world, does open source even matter?

Much as we in the open-source world may not like it, progress doesn't necessarily look like a heavily customizable system. In fact, it might just be the opposite. At least, once a market matures.

As Nick Carr elucidates in his response to Cory Doctorow, Tim Bray, and others who argue against the closed nature of the iPad, closed (and easy) may well be a signal of real progress:

What these folks are ranting against, or at least gnashing their teeth over, is progress - or, more precisely, progress … Read more

IBM patent claims show open source has arrived

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At least no one can accuse IBM of playing favorites when it comes to open source.

IBM, a longtime defender and advocate of open-source software, took a shot over the bow of the open-source community in March when it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the company behind the OpenHercules open-source project.

Has Dr. Jekyll IBM just met its Mr. Hyde?

On March 11, 2010, Mark Anzani, vice president and chief technology officer within IBM's System z business unit, sent TurboHercules a letter asserting its patents against the OpenHercules open-source project. In it Anzani expresses surprise that TurboHercules wouldn't … Read more

Apple's iPad: A beginning, not end, to innovation

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Cory Doctorow believes the iPad signals an end to innovation. It doesn't. Apple's iPad actually points to a beginning of innovation in personal computing.

Where Doctorow and I likely agree, however, is that such innovation won't come within the confines of Apple's beautiful iPad device, but rather at its margins.

Doctorow writes:

I believe--really believe--in the stirring words of the Maker Manifesto: if you can't open it, you don't own it. Screws not glue. The original Apple ][+ came with schematics for the circuit boards, and birthed a generation of hardware and software hackers who … Read more

Google: Not all geeks are created equal

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There must be something in the water in Mountain View, Calif. Or maybe it's the backrubs.

Google, notorious for its engineering-driven culture, really shouldn't be able to consistently crank out consumer-friendly products. But it does.

No, it's not perfect, as its somewhat inept forays into social networking have demonstrated, but for a company filled with 20,000-plus geeks, its software is decidedly non-geeky.

What's the secret?

After all, the open-source world is also dominated by engineers, but we have historically been accused (often correctly) as developers developing geeky software for other developers.

How are Google's … Read more

Integration is the new innovation

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Good companies create new technology. Great companies integrate existing technology.

At least, that's how innovation happens today. Apple gets a lot of credit for its highly polished products, and rightly so. It may be, however, that Apple is simply the best at putting a pretty face on tightly integrated home-grown and open-source projects like FreeBSD (underpinning Mac OS X), Lucene (powering search on iTunes), and more.

That's innovation in the vendor community, but, as Gartner analyst Mark McDonald points out, it applies equally well for enterprise IT:

Does technology change the value of the IT professional?

Yes, as … Read more