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  • Stef 10:11 am on 8 August, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: business, ,   

    IBM and its success across a century 

    I spent many months together with IBM Italy during the first years of their ‘Linux initiative’ and learned to appreciate this huge corporation. I worked with their engineers certifying the now-defunct Linux distribution MadeInLinux for IBM x86 servers and later in a big marketing nation-wide tour to demonstrate the power of Linux to their massive VAR channel that had never heard anything good about Linux and Open Source before.

    I was lucky enough to meet Irving Vladawsky-Berger, the brilliant strategist that helped shape the present of IBM, leading the Linux initiative. I consider myself lucky to have met one of the leaders that turned a huge ship around and brought it to modern times.

    Nancy Koehn on HBR blog summarises the lessons worth sharing about IBM’s capability to Outlast Depression, War, and Competition

     

  • Stef 9:24 am on 6 June, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , business, , ,   

    What to do if adoption of copyleft licenses declines 

    Is adoption of copyleft licenses really declining? Blackduck Sotware with its own secret recipe says so, as Matt Aslett reports. Whether or not this is true we can’t tell because BlackDuck doesn’t publish their method to collect and analyze its data. In any case, I think that if you look at this debate from a different angle, these numbers don’t count at all.

    Twentyfive years ago there was no free/libre open source business and the GNU L/GPL licenses constituted the main corpus of free software available for use. The FSF used the strong copyleft mainly because of an ethical choice and also for practical reason to defend its code from appropriation by third party. Remember that at the time there was no ‘ecosystem’ and the notion of copyright to software was brand new.

    Now free software is developed mainly by companies for business purposes: their choice is not only to defend code from appropriation but also to allow building thriving ecosystem for Open Innovation. The other reason I see for the large popularity of permissive licenses is the quantity of software developed by Apache Foundation. It’s amazing how far their code has gone from the original idea of a web server.

    Whether BlackDuck has reliable numbers or somebody else does it’s irrelevant: numbers don’t count. I believe that if FSF wants to see more copyleft code out there, it needs to go back to its origin and get back to developing software that matters. The FSF needs to go beyond the GNU operating system and expand into the new areas of ‘cloud’, ‘social’ and ‘mobile’.  Projects like MediaGoblin and GNU.FM are the first steps in the right direction but more is needed.

    451 CAOS Theory » The trend towards permissive licensing.

     

  • Stef 10:59 am on 3 June, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , business, , , ,   

    Why is Asus selling bad customer experience? 

    When I read that Asus announced to ship three new models of its Eee PC with Ubuntu I was excited. Then I went on to read the full announcement and I found out ath

    NETBOOK INNOVATOR Asustek has announced that it will ship three models of its Eee PC with Ubuntu 10.10 preinstalled.

    It will ship Ubuntu’s older version, 10.10 while now we are at 11.04. So the first thing that Asus customers will see when they boot the machine and connect it to the internet is a cute screen that says “There is a new version of your operating system. Do you want to upgrade?” What? I just spent $ for this new system and it’s obsolete? And it’s not going to be a simple system update or a ‘service pack’: it’s a whole new version of the OS, different GUI and more.

    If they’re selling these machines at the Ubuntu (or general GNU/Linux) fans there is no problems as we’re used to fast upgrades. But if Ubuntu and Asus are aiming at Windows users, as it seems, I think they have to make an effort not to welcome their new customers with a message that can be read as:

    Welcome! You just bought an obsolete system!

    That’s poor customer experience.

    via Asus will preload ubuntu linux on three eee pcs- The Inquirer.

     

    • asd 5:20 am on 6 June, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      I hope their next netbooks will ship with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. In that version Unity might be more stable and since it’s LTS it will receive updates for three years from release. I’m not going to buy Ubuntu netbook before there’s LTS version available. I also think that they shouldn’t offer other than LTS releases for those who come from Windows.

  • Stef 9:08 am on 1 June, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , business, , , , , ,   

    Oracle ‘donates’ OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation 

    Oracle has done what Sun should have done a long time ago: put OO.org code into the hand of an independent foundation. The good news is that now a wider participation from corporations and individuals is possible. Hell, even Microsoft can now participate into OO.org development. I hope that soon the fork can be reconciled, too.

    My first thoughts is that Apache Foundation is a good home for Open Document Format, ODF. If the license will also change to Apache there will be more opportunities to create an ecosystem on top of the standardized format.The free software movement needs a thriving ecosystem around ODF so that we can edit and exchange office documents between computers, mobile and other devices without sacrifices. So far this ecosystem has failed to materialize and OpenOffice.org as a tool has many flaws (bad/old GUI, heavy and in areas like presentation is just bad).

    I personally welcome the change as I never believed that The Document Foundation had enough steam in its engine to radically improve the product. But I believe it can still maintain and improve LibreOffice until Apache’s community will start rolling the next generation of desktop productivity tools.

    Oracle ‘donates’ OpenOffice.org to Apache foundation | ZDNet UK.

    Comments from Rob Weir and Novell’s Michael Meeks.

     

    • Rob Weir 4:51 pm on 4 June, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for the analysis. I agree that the ODF support side is critical. Although some have criticized the he move to Apache 2.0 license from the previous copyleft LGPLv4, the Free Software Foundation actually recommends this:

      “There are only a couple of kinds of projects that we think should not have any copyleft at all. The first is very small projects.
      .
      .
      .
      The second is projects that implement free standards that are competing against proprietary standards, such as Ogg Vorbis (which competes against MP3 audio) and WebM (which competes against MPEG-4 video). For these projects, widespread use of the code is vital for advancing the cause of free software, and does more good than a copyleft on the project’s code would do.”

      http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html

      As the leading application supporting ODF, I think this is a good argument for using a permissive license for OpenOffice, to make this ODF support ubiquitous.

      • Stef 7:03 pm on 4 June, 2011 Permalink | Reply

        I agree with you Rob: the ASL is a good license to build a framework that supports ODF. LibreOffice may well continue to exist and be licensed under LGPL and keep existing, even thriving, as a desktop tool. I think there is space for both, as long as RedHat, Novell, Canonical and co. keep investing in The Document Foundation.

  • Stef 10:30 pm on 24 May, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: business, , , ,   

    First action from Microsoft after buying Skype 

    Every time Microsoft has the chance to demonstrate it can play nice with free software/open source companies, they fail. After buying Skype, Microsoft has canceled the agreement with Digium for the Asterisk/Skype bridge. As Simon says:

    In one move, we have illustrated the risk of a hybrid open source model, the danger of dependency on a proprietary system, a proof that Microsoft still can’t be trusted with open source and an impetus to open source innovation. All in one announcement.

    Amusing. via A Liberating Betrayal? – Simon Says….

     

  • Stef 3:00 pm on 16 May, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: business, chromebook, , gdocs, ,   

    Is Google Docs the weakest link in Chromebook? 

    Interesting thoughts on what Google should do to take over Windows with its Chromebook. I don’t agree with all of it, especially I don’t think that Google Docs should necessarily get all the features of MS Word (including the unnecessary ones) in order to succeed, but definitely worth reading.

    So when Google brags about the advantages of Chromebooks, I’m completely unimpressed because they are more than wiped out by the enormous sacrifices in basic compatibility and productivity that most people would have to make in order to move off Windows. The most fundamental problem is Google Docs.

    There’s no way to put this politely: As a replacement for Microsoft Office, Google Docs stinks. Its word processor is adequate but limited, its spreadsheet is rudimentary, and its presentation program is so awkward and inflexible that it makes me want to throw something.

    via Mobile Opportunity: Can Google’s Chromebook Break Windows?.

     

  • Stef 10:12 pm on 6 April, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , bing, business, , , , , ,   

    How is Google damaging consumers? 

    I kept this post as draft since I read Wired’s article about Google and their supposed dominant position. Today I read again about the new investigation of US Antitrust targeting bigG because it holds too much market share in online advertising and advertisers are getting upset.  I can’t understand why an antitrust agency is taking care of this. How is Google harming consumers? This seems to me a totally different case than the Microsoft antitrust judgement. With Microsoft, consumers were being harmed directly left with little to no choice to use their products in order to have ‘compatibility’. At that time, I think that antitrust bodies had a clear case: Microsoft dominance and abusive business practices were removing options to consumers.

    With Google the case seems very different: advertisers are free to stop advertising on Google any time they want. Contrary to Microsoft, Google cannot leverage any network effect to keep Internet users (the ‘consumers’) to stop using Google for search. I can go and use Bing any time I want: Google search uses an open standard, it’s a freakin web site. The simplest thing Microsoft has to do in order to take 40% of Internet users’ search is to pay a sufficient amount of money to Mozilla, and voilà: all Firefox users will have Bing as default search engine.

    Same thing with many other Googl services. If you don’t like Gmail anymore you can take all of its archive, contacts, and everything else and move it somewhere else: open standards (IMAP) at work again.

    And, should Microsoft not want to pay Mozilla, Google’s search engine can start to suck  any time or more privacy issues may arise, and users will move to the next best one (didn’t we all move to Google from Altavista already?)

    What am I failing to see in these new wave of antitrust complaints against Google?

     

  • Stef 9:08 pm on 7 January, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: business, , , ipo, , , zuckerberg   

    The master hack of mr. Zuckerberg 

    Eben Moglen mentioned not too long ago Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg saying:

    Mr. Zuckerberg has [...] done more harm to the human race than anybody else his age

    I wonder if he foresaw also that this golden boy would also try to hack the US financial system and get funds from Wall Street without actually going to Wall Street. And meanwhile he may be creating a new bubble, with the help of Goldman Sachs, supported by US tax money, according to Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF.

    I have the feeling that if the SEC lets it go, this financial hack may be remembered as Zuckerberg’s master hack.

     

  • Stef 7:36 pm on 22 September, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: business, , unicredit   

    Orrido olezzo emana dall’Italia 

    Troppo facile fare giochi di parole sulla vicenda Profumo, ma davvero è il caso di dire che qui qualcosa puzza. E si sente fino a qui!  Ma come, Profumo ha tirat su una delle più importanti banche del mondo, un colosso che può aiutare tutta la grande industria italiana rimasta ad internazionalizzarsi e che mi fanno sti mutandari leghisti? Me lo trombano? e per cosa, poi? La scusa dei libici pare solo una scusa, è evidente.

    Secondo Giavazzi siamo alle solite: i politici vogliono tenere le mani in tutta la pasta, e la spiegazione mi suona come reale (e terribile –il commento del sindaco di Verona è un pugno allo stomaco e questo post ha altri link interessanti). Ho raccolto i fatti leggendo la stampa estera (i ‘comunisti’ dell’Economist, Bloomberg e Reuters) che tanto di quella italiana non c’è di che fidarsi.

    Infatti questa vicenda raccoglie e amplifica tutti i mali italiani: i partiti che vogliono controllare ogni aspetto della società e i giornali che perdono di vista i fatti e falliscono nel loro scopo di informare. Luca Sofri fa un po’ di dietrologia guardando all’andamento delle azioni Unicredit influenzato dai titoli del Corriere, che ha dato in anticipo notizie non confermate. Sarà pure che soci RCS sono anche soci del Corriere, e qualcuno avrà messo pure qualche milioncino da parte. Ma non mi pare sia questo il ‘vero’ caso Unicredit.

    La sostanza mi pare sia invece la possibilità che un sindaco di un paesello italiano sia in grado di tirare giù il CEO della più grande banca europea. Se così fosse, che futuro volete che abbia il Paese se un politichello di bassa lega può raggiungere un obiettivo del genere? Ma pensiamo veramente che il distretto delle mutande/calze/sedie del veronese sia un patrimonio di così alto valore da meritare questo sacrificio?

     

  • Stef 11:02 am on 29 June, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: business, , compiere, love,   

    First thing: Love your community 

    I’m glad that Jorg Janke shared his experience of developing a commercial open source business with Compiere because you learn from failures as well as success. His long piece has some interesting parts, but what caught my attention most is the various experiments in the sales and revenue model. Janke says

    Compiere certainly did not fail due to its technology. It failed due to lack of sales and marketing expertise, execution and the wrong bet to “upgrade” open source minded partners and customers to a traditional, commercial model.

    Compiere’s experience shows that it’s very difficult to change the terms of an existing relationship with your community, developers/contributors and channel. It’s not enough to balance proprietary and open source components but you also need to keep the whole ecosystem happy while doing so. You need to make sure your community feels your love: that’s what Compiere failed to do.

    via Compiere Open Source failed? (Compiere from the Source).

     

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