The Open Road

In case you wanted the slides from my opening remarks at the Open Source Business Conference, you can access them here. I've stored them with Adobe Share, a cool service powered by Alfresco. (It's also cool that Adobe mentioned what they're using, as Dave notes.)

Unfortunately, I don't yet have the two videos from both days available on YouTube. I have to mux the source because it keeps stripping out the video (leaving only the audio track) when I upload it to YouTube or convert it to .mov, .wmv, etc.

There are some good charts on open-source adoption in the presentation that you might find useful.

Over the weekend I was surprised to see my interview with Don Marti (now transcribed) hit Slashdot. I posted a link to the podcast a few weeks ago, but I guess more people are interested in reading what Don and I discussed than hearing us discuss it. (Not that I blame them - I'd do the same.)

As mentioned before, we talked about a range of things, but I most enjoyed talking about how open source changes the sales cycle. Until you've lived it, it's hard to comprehend just how powerful - and different - open source is in the software sales process.

In Alfresco's case, making our code available under the GPL has dramatically changed (for the better) the way we interact with our prospects and customers, as I note in the interview:

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Our head of support said something that I found funny (and somewhat accurate) today about working with me. I apologized for sometimes exploding on issues related to customers (I really do take customer service very seriously). She responded,

Matt, you always have something to say worth listening to...the trick is finding it.

Talk about a back-handed compliment! I wish I could say that it was ill-founded, but I do tend to get overly passionate/angry about things quickly (and then cool off just as quickly), and I spew a lot of verbiage to get a simple message across.

But then, you knew that already. You read this blog. I'm incapable of saying anything in succinct fashion.

Up until a week or two ago, I never used Facebook. My brother made me sign up and join so that I could be his "friend," and that's where I left it. Facebook still held a "college frat boy" stigma for me.

Over the past week, however, I've had a gazillion (well, 10-15) invitations to be a "friend" on Facebook. (I really hate that nomenclature, btw. These people are my friends, but they don't become my friend by linking to me on Facebook. It just feels weird.) What gives? Is it National Facebook Week and I just didn't know it?

And what am I supposed to do with these "Facebook friends?" ... Read More

OK. This feels a bit odd, referencing an interview with myself. (Actually, Glyn Moody did the interview the last time I was in London.) I only include it because, reading back through it, I can't help but be grateful for the serendipity that led me to where I am right now. Glyn noted before that I've "had what amounts to the perfect career in open source."

But I had nothing to do with it. i never consciously set out to do anything with open source. It just happened to me. Despite my best efforts, at times.

Talking through my last 10 years, it all flows with a unifying trend toward an appreciation for freedom in code at its heart. But I didn't start there (I was a mixed source zealot of sorts), and I never intended to land where I am today. It felt chaotic living through it. Only hindsight reveals the theme.

Anyway, in this interview I comment on the Microsoft/Novell patent deal, the dilution of the meaning of "open source," Alfresco's shift from MPL+Attribution to 100% GPL, the founding of the Open Source Business Conference, my departure from Novell, and my law studies under Larry Lessig.

On this last/first point, here's a snippet from the interview:

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RHX (Red Hat Exchange) has not taken over the world just yet, notes Ashlee Vance of The Register. Quite fair, and quite true. Ashlee talked with people from the uber-Linux geek camp and drew some blank stares when he asked about RHX.

But this was never intended to be the audience for RHX, as Matt Mattox of Red Hat explains:

The initial focus was on North American small businesses. To our pleasant surprise, we are seeing businesses of all sizes. There's one evaluation underway, for example, for tens of thousands of users.

Alfresco has an evaluation underway that looks like the one Matt references, but it's possible that others have, too. (Zimbra, perhaps?) At any rate, we've been happy with RHX - we expected it to get traction slowly, and it has actually been better than expected. As Red Hat and its partners invest more marketing dollars into it, I suspect it will only get better.

Even The Register seems optimistic, which is saying something.... :-)

We remain bullish about Red Hat's long-term prospects with RHX. Lord knows the open source crowd could use some organization around the myriad applications that have forced their way into data centers. The project, however, does seem a bit risky for the ISVs in that Red Hat could end up owning the direct line to their customers and would dominate the main open source software marketplace.

Good points. It will be interesting to see how Red Hat answers them.

I spent an engaging hour yesterday with IT Business Edge, talking about the likely industry impact of GPLv3. Other participants on the call included:

• Rob Enderle, an analyst and principal of the Enderle Group, and also a blogger with us at IT Business Edge;
  
• Bernard Golden, founder and CEO of open source consulting firm Navica and a blogger for CIO.com.
• Chris Maresca, founder and senior partner of the Olliance Group, a leading open source business consultancy.

Rob can be a firebrand, but I found him to be a perfect gentleman and his positions well-reasoned. He did help to make it a real discussion, rather than a "rah rah for open source!" love-fest.

Net net from the call: GPLv3 will not be as groundbreaking as it could have been and, in my opinion, should have been. It brings clarity for attorneys, but it doesn't fundamentally upstage the benefits of GPLv2. That's a pity, in my view.

Consider this my "Hello World" from the Land of CNET. I've spent the last year or two of my life talking with you from my Open Sources blog on Infoworld.com. Now it's time to open a new chapter.

For better or for worse, however, I'm the same person. With the same biases. And gunning for the same goal: complete and absolute world domination. :-)

Not really, of course. I'm a pragmatist and understand that the world moves slowly, especially in IT. Remember, I used to work for Novell where the company largely stopped selling new software licenses a few eons ago, yet continues to pull down over $1B each year.

That, however, is a testament to the power and peril of proprietary software. As Si Chen argues, one of the functions of open source is to pull down bloated monopolies and general inefficiencies in software economics. This blog is my attempt to help drive those inefficiencies out of the market.

I invite you to join me as we travel this ever opening road of software. I will undoubtedly be wrong at times, if history is a good indicator of the future, and so ask you to rebut erroneous conclusions, challenge assumptions, etc. If you've followed my blogs over the last four years, you know that I have changed my opinions in that time. I will likely continue to do so.

But that likelihood goes up the more you contribute back to my understanding . This is an open source blog. Your contributions matter.

One thing that I'd like to request, however: when commenting, please use your real name (unless you absolutely can't, for whatever reason). I use my real name and expect that anyone that truly wants to have a discussion will use theirs. I will delete any comments that are scabrous or attack me (or others) personally. Ad hominem attacks, however, have a reasonable chance of making it to "print" if they're accompanied by your real name. I can take abuse from those willing to stand behind it.

With that out of the way, let's get started!