][ stefano maffulli

The GNU Affero General Public License v3 is now officially an ‘open source’ license, approved by the Open Source Initiative.

Funambol started the approval process of the best license available to protect copyleft, and business based on it, from predatory practices. Fabrizio (Funambol’s CEO) celebrates the sweet victory on his blog mentioning the ’strange’ coincidence of Google caring only for GPL. For Google the ASP loophole is the key to their business, while they don’t like the A of Affero.

It’s a good day for all the companies that use the AGPLv3. I found some like Wavemaker, OSSDiscovery, Colosa and I wish Palamida started tracking AGPLv3 adoption too (Update: Blackduck Software already tracks AGPLv3 adoption). Here Funambol’s full press release with quote from Wavemaker’s CEO and Eben Moglen.

Update (thanks to Andi Zink):  Doug Levin’s post contains more software licensed under AGPL.

Some disappointing news today: Wengo stopped developing Wengophone, the VoIP SIP and XMPP/Jabber multiplatform client.   They announced it in the developer’s mailing list.

Update: the development of OpenWengo software has been taken over by an experienced Wengo programmer.

I wonder why Google isn’t contributing its gtalk code to free software projects like Kopete, Gaim or Adium: they use an open standard (XMPP) and they should have all interests to increase their user base.  My quest for a free software alternative to Skype continues.

I’m not sure that Bill Hilf’s declarations about Microsoft’s Open Source strategy give a complete picture of the corporate strategy in the near future to compete in a sector that radically changed since Windows came to light in the ’90s. I think that Microsoft is being disrupted and will have to split and go on two different paths. One will continue developing its flagship products (Windows and Office) the usual way. This path is the one that Ballmer and Mundie follow, I’d call it ‘Classic Microsoft’. We all know Classic Microsoft and I agree with Shaun Connoly’s (JBoss/RedHat employee) and Savio Rodrigues regarding its Open Source Strategy:

Microsoft has no plans on flipping any of its flagship products to open source. Period. [...]
Microsoft will aggressively fight/compete with products (open source or closed source) that pose a threat to its core products.

It makes perfect business sense. The main problem with this path is that it can’t last forever as it’s being disrupted. A symptom is that Microsoft’s revenues grow slower than competing products: Microsoft growth is stable around 7%-8%, while Google sports two-digits growth and Apple almost goes off scale. Plus there are many signals of decreasing licensing costs under pressure from FLOSS (see Gartner’s report, for example).

Microsoft’s other path is far more exciting and it revolves around a main transition set to happen on July 2008. Microsoft Chief Software Architect (Bill Gates) has quit and has already appointed the successor, the visionary Ray Ozzie. Where is he and what is he doing down there? I couldn’t find many public sign of his activities after his last post on his blog. I heard rumors from Seattle that he is working silently with his group, waiting for gates to open and run free (bad pun ). Fortune reports that “Ozzie’s assignment is to Webify everything” at Microsoft.

My guess is that Ozzie will lead Microsoft on the second path, the Disrupting Microsoft. On this path only speculations apply, but I bet that Disrupting Microsoft will be different: with a different strategy and a different approach to open source and the web revolutions than the one we are used to from Classic Microsoft. The Disrupting Microsoft will have to slowly take over Windows and Office, when they will be too tired (or expired) to sustain Microsoft’s hunger for revenues.

Realizing that Microsoft is being disrupted, Microsoft itself is creating its own subsidiary that will follow the disruption to eventually cannibalize Classic Microsoft (something Adobe should consider doing too). Bets are accepted, Ozzie will emerge from the salt mines next summer and we’ll see.

Negli ultimi giorni ho assistito ad alcuni episodi deprimenti. Google ha escluso agli italiani la possibilità di partecipare al concorso per lo sviluppo di applicazioni per Android, e questo di per sè non è piacevole. Ancora di più sono stati alcuni commenti che ho letto da parte di persone molto intelligenti e capaci i quali si concentrano sulla ‘protezione del consumatore’: le farraginose norme italiane in questo caso hanno fallito, creando un danno ai cittadini italiani, ma in generale sono utili perché i cittadini sono indifesi. A volte mi stupisco che così tante persone mettono a fuoco i dettagli ma trascurano la fonte del problema: in Italia gli italiani sono indifesi comunque perché la giustizia non esiste! Invece di sprecare tempo e risorse a scrivere leggi perfette e complete nei dettagli, a questo punto è meglio spingere per fare tabula rasa del sistema giudiziario e ricominciare daccapo. E poi, capolavoro, salta su l’avvocato che segnala l’eccezione! Bene, ma quell’eccezione per me è parte integrante del problema. Deprimente. Mi tiro su pensando all’alta qualità dei programmatori italiani, un motivo che convincerà Google a soprassedere e continuare a tenere l’Italia in considerazione.

A questo filone depressivo si aggiunge il modo in cui è stata approvata la nuova norma per le class action. Deprimente^2.

E per finire, vengo a sapere dal giornalista di Repubblica che il ministro Gentiloni all’evento con Chris Anderson ha detto una sola cosa, vagamente intelligente, mentre i blogger presenti evidentemente hanno visto un altro film dove Gentiloni ha parlato tanto ma facendo una figura diversa… D’altronde il suo ministero è anche il ministero che non ha mai risposto alle lettere e fax con richieste di spiegazioni riguardo la privatizzazione dei CAP italiani. Deprimente^3.

È una brutta barzelletta e stavolta non c’è nemmeno la scusa che è colpa di Berlusconi. È tutto da rifare, bisogna andare giù di ascia, non di sgorbie… altro che concertazione o cercare l’equilibrio. Meglio la cioccolata che i cioccolatai.