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Open Source Year in Review

December 28, 2005

CIO Magazine has a great list of the "Top Five Open Source Events of 2005" on their website.  The list:

  • Red Hat makes money from free software
  • Sun is making everything open source (except Java)
  • Motorola uses Linux in their phones
  • Firefox created 100MM downloads
  • VCs invested $400MM in open source start ups in 2005

They ask the question: What will happen in 2006? 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

Microsoft Engineers Wanted for Architel

December 28, 2005

Are you high-speed?  Energetic?  Looking for a challenge? Ready to jump in the game?  Quit wasting your time, start getting ahead.  Join a company that is going somewhere - FAST!!!

High speed support from ArchitelArchitel provides IT support to small businesses in the Dallas Fort Worth area.  Architel also sponsors an open source project called SimpleTicket as well as a set of pro-sumer blogging tools called Big in Japan.  Architel is looking for engineers to join the team.  Since Christmas they have added three new engineers and they are hoping to add two more before January 15th.  Are you looking for a new job?  Here is what they are looking for:

  • Microsoft engineers (Level II and III)
  • Four plus years of Microsoft server/desktop experience
  • Four year college degree (BA or BS) or
  • Former Military (USMC preferred)
  • Clean background and drug/tobacco free

They need engineers to support their clients.  You will get exposed to all of our businesses, but first and foremost you will be asked to provide engineering support to Architel’s small business clients.  If you are interested in joining the team email your resume, salary requirements and availability to us immediately.  If former military, in lue of degree, please indicate rank and type of discharge (be able to produce DD214). 

 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog |  

My old PowerBook for sale!

December 28, 2005

powerbook1.jpgI recently purchased a new 17" PowerBook G4 and want to sell my 15" PowerBook G4.  Here are the specs:

Part Number: M8859LL/A
Serial Number: QT3020GZN4M
Spec From Box: 1GHz, 14.2/512/60GB/SD/56K/AIRPORT
Existing Spec: 1MB L3 cache, 1GB SDRAM

I doubled the RAM to 1GB from the original 512MB.  It is running Max OSX Version 10.4.3 (Tiger).  Also, it has a nice SuperDrive (i.e. DVD burner/player).  The unit comes with the original box as well as a nice incase (foam cover - in picture). 

It is still covered by AppleCare until July 2006.   

PayPal Only!  Here is the ebay auction if you want to bid. 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

Trivia: Who created Ruby?

December 27, 2005

ruby.jpgYukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) created Ruby, an object oriented programming language.  According to the TIOBE list, Ruby is only the 26th most popular language.  Rails is an application written to facilitate text processing and system administration in Ruby.

Many of you have asked, "what’s so great about Ruby?"  The truth is, Ruby does quite a few things well, but it is certianly not a perfect language.  Matz makes a pretty good argument about the imperfection of programming languages in an interview found here.   

For more information about Ruby and Ruby on Rails visit their respective Wikipedia articles.   

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

SimpleTicket Promotion

December 27, 2005

Simpleticket | open source trouble ticket system written using Ruby on RailsSimpleTicket is an open source initiative originally launched by Kevin Marvin from Architel.  I am pleased to announce that SimpleTicket is now a distinct business/initiative from it’s parent.  Kevin Marvin will serve as the president of SimpleTicket, leading a small team of five developers to continue development and promotion of the ruby on rails based open source ticketing system. 

Check out the new SimpleTicket site and blog.  If you are interested in participating in the project just shoot me an email and I will put you in touch with Kevin.  We are excited about the prospects of this new business - making money by giving something away!

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog |  

Anti-Hype

December 25, 2005

Have you ever been to a movie without seeing a preview?  Your expectations are likely fairly low, but if the movie is halfway decent you are happy.  What about the flipside?  You have waited a year to see the latest blockbuster, but even if is ten times better than the previous movie you might be a little disappointed.  When your expectations are set too high the movie is a failure.  Solution?  Set expectations low…

Brian, and others, are riffing on the idea that Flock is overhyped.  I tend to agree.  Build something and let people start using - no need for a long drawn out PR blitz prior to the launch (note to self).  I am not sure I agree with David Parmet’s views on beta, alpha and prealpha (hehe), but there is something here.  Brian asks, "Who is doing the right kind of marketing given the new environment?"  I would love to know the answer.  Here are some of my ideas:

Flickr, Delicious, tech.memeorandum, and digg to name a few.  Want links?  Try Google - talk about good PR…

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog |  

Looking for schools…

December 23, 2005

stmarks.pngOur son turned four this summer and we have started thinking about where he will attend first grade.  Michele and I convinced ourselves that we should find a private school after we watched a special program on public schools in North Texas on KERA.  Last month we started the process by visiting the St. Marks School of Texas.  Here are the stats:

  • Established: 1906 (really 1950)
  • School type: Non-sectarian 
  • Headmaster: Arnold E. Holtberg
  • Location: Preston & Royal
  • Enrollment 817 boys
  • Faculty 106
  • Mascot Lion
  • Athletics 17 sports
  • Website: http://smtexas.org

History: In the 50’s a group of Dallas businessmen wanted to create ‘East Coast’ education for Dallas boys.  The school was created by combining the Terrill School, Texas Country Day Schoo, and Cathedral School.

The Scoop:  St. Marks is one of the preeminent private schools in the United States.  28% of the schools is composed of minorities.  The school is "most comfortable for boys who are smart, competitive, and at least somewhat athletic."  80% of the faculty members have advanced degrees, and 25% have been at the school for more than 20 years.  

Student Life:  817 students, average class size 15, and overall student/faculty ratio of 8:1.  SAT scores range from 25-75th percentile is 1250-1520.  Most frequently attended colleges include Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Dartmough, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, University of Chicago, and the University of Texas at Austin.  

Notable Alumni:

So if you have any suggestions or ideas about private schools in North Texas please send them along.

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Feed Icon Standard (Get on board)

December 23, 2005

You will note that we are using the new ’standard’ feed icon on this blog.  Get with the program and start using the icon today!

feedicon.jpg 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

Kids: Not Big in Japan…

December 23, 2005

sumo.jpgEvidently kids are not big in Japan as the AFP has reported that Japan’s population is declining.  Like Germany and Italy, Japanese young people find children to be a burden to their careers and lifestyle.  The government predicts that the population will be cut in half by 2100. 

 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

Wright Amendment Poll Scandle

December 23, 2005

The Dallas Business Journal conducted an online survey attempting to determine whether or not Dallas residents support repeal of the Wright Amendment.  What was interesting was the attempt by American Airlines and the DFW International Airport Board to ‘rig’ the poll.  On the second day of the poll (December 6th) more than 2,200 votes were cast from an IP address inside of American Airlines and 196 votes from the Airport Board.  At the time this represented 99% of all votes cast. 

The poll ran through the 18th and by the end of voting the votes from American Airlines represented 25% of the total and almost 2% from the very small Airport Board.  Interesting given that these two organizations represent .00002% of those who might vote in such a poll.  I think even more interesting is that Southwest Airlines did not respond in kind, in fact less than 1% of the votes came from their network.   

This comes on the heals of American Airlines getting caught editing Southwest Airlines entry on Wikipedia.  My views on the Wright Amendment are not secret (I blogged about them here), but I am really surprised that American Airlines would stoop to this level. 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments 

Southwest Venture Forum

December 22, 2005

The Southwest Venture Forum is holding their Venture Capital Update 2006 on Thursday, January 19, 2006 (7-9AM) at 5954 Luther Lane, Dallas, Texas.  You can register online at their website or call 214.768.3689. 

The keynote speaker is John S. Taylor, VP of Research for the National Venture Capital Association.  SMU/COX Caruth Institute for Entrepreneurship is hosting the event.   

What is the SVF?  The Southwest Venture Forum is a non-profit forum where entrepreneurs seeking to start or build a business can meet with sources of capital and professionals to facilitate the acquisition of financing and to obtain advice and information. The membership includes entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, bankers, attorneys, trade association representatives, accountants, and consultants who have experience working with early and intermediate stage growth-oriented entrepreneurs and their firms.

The forum is a breakfast meeting that occurs every two months from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. at the Park Cities Hilton on Luther Lane. Competitively selected entrepreneurs are invited to each meeting to give a short presentation on their companies. Each presentation ends with the entrepreneur expressing to forum members what they are seeking in order to build their business.

Past Programs Include:

11/17/2005-Video Games: The Next Internet?
[09/08/2005-NASCAR: Investment and Entrepreneurial Opportunities!
[07/21/2005-Exit Strategies: What Works Today!
[05/12/2005-Getting to Yes: Recently Funded Venture Success Stories
[03/10/2005-Investing In Women-Led Ventures
[01/20/2005-Venture Industry Update 2005
[11/11/2004-HDNET: Mark Cuban's Next AdVenture
[09/09/2004-Investing in High Growth, Low Tech Ventures
[07/15/2004-Building a Billion Dollar Business in an Emerging Technology: IP Communications
[05/12/2004-Megatrends in Private Equity
[03/05/2004-RF Identification: Dallas, the New Epicenter
[01/15/2004-Venture Industry Update 2004
[11/13/2003-Building a Business, Leveraging a Brand
[09/18/2003-Seed Investing in Technology Ventures
[07/10/2003-LBOs and Later Stage Financing
[05/08/2003-Venture Capital Today: Two Success Stories
[03/13/2003-Seed Investing: Terms and Strategy
[01/09/2003-Venture Industry Update
[11/14/2002-Building a $500 Million Company While Maintaining the Entrepreneurial Spirit
[09/12/2002-Angel and Alternative Financing
[07/11/2002-Current Realities in Private Equity
[05/08/2002-Venture Investing in Consumer Products
[03/21/2002-Building Market Share in Tough Times
[01/10/2002-Venture Industry Update
[11/08/2001-Leveraged Investing: Where is the Money Going?
[09/13/2001-Financing Opportunities in Urban Business
[07/10/2001-Wireless IP: The Handango Story
[05/07/2001-Rapid Growth Strategies
[03/22/2001-Telecommunications Entrepreneurship
[01/14/2001-Venture Industry Update
[11/08/2000-Time to Money--How to Raise Capital in 2000
[09/13/2000-Venture Investing Update
[07/12/2000-VC-backed E-Commerce Models

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog |  

Money in the open source world

December 22, 2005

Dallas is home to open source guru Raven Zachary (an editor for Enterprise Open Source Journal and founder of o*rev and Ofo).  Raven and I are getting together to talk about how we should release SimpleTicket (more on that tomorrow) we got together and he helped us pick the right license.  Anyway, I was reading his blog to prepare for our meeting and I came cross his post titled 100 Million And Counting detailing the money invested in open source projects.  Here are a few of the projects:

ActiveGrid $13MM, Alfresco $2MM, Black Duck $17MM, EnterpriseDB, Funambol $5MM, Greenplum, GroundWork $13MM, JasperSoft $8MM, Laszlo $18MM, Logicalware $550K, Openlogic $4MM, Pentaho $5.5MM, Simula Labs $15MM, SpikeSource $12MM, Ubuntu $10MM, Univa $8MM, MySQL $19.5MM, JBoss $10MM, SugarCRM $7.75MM Update: $26.5MM, Jabber $7.2MM, Optaros $7MM, GlueCode $5MM, SourceLabs $3.5MM, and Palamida $5MM.  

[reblog from October] 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment 

Dallas’ Open Source Guru - Raven Zachary

December 22, 2005

Interested in getting in the open source software game?  Are you located in Dallas?  There is just one guy you need to talk to: Raven Zachary.  He is the senior technical editor for the Enterprise Open Source Journal (EOSJ) and runs an open source consulting firm called o*rev. 

Check out his blog for updates on the open source world. 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

Legal Rules for Open Source

December 22, 2005

Using open source software for your business?  Here are Dennis Kennedy’s ‘Best Legal Practices for Open Source Software‘:

1. Understand the Different Approaches That the Open Source Licenses Take. It is important not to think about the Open Source licenses in monolithic terms. I divide the Open Source licenses into four families: GPL, BSD, Netscape/Corporate, and Custom. That’s not an "official" taxonomy, but I have found it to be a useful way to think about the various licenses and make it easier to analyze the relevant issues. Different licenses can have very different consequences. It also makes sense that everyone, including your lawyer, understands the technology, business and legal aspects of the decision.

2. Pay Special Attention to the General Public License. The General Public License represents a unique approach to software licensing and is the source of the notion of "copyleft." Many other Open Source licenses do not have the same terms. Most of the heated discussion and controversy you will hear about Open Source involves the General Public License. If you choose only one thing to have policies about and require special review of, it should be the General Public License. In my opinion, if you do not understand the GPL, you should be nothing more than a simple user of GPL software.

3. Remember the Source Code. In simplest terms, the biggest difference between Open Source software and commercial software relates to the source code of the program. In nearly every commercial software license, you receive only the object code of the program – the machine-readable executable version of the program. You do not get the source code – the "programmer’s version" – and you are likely to be restricted from even trying to produce or reverse-engineer the source code. In Open Source programs, you are entitled to the source code and can view it, fix it, modify it and improve it.

4. Make Reasonable Comparison with Commercial Software. It’s easy to find frantic concerns about Open Source software over reasons that apply just as easily to commercial software. In 2004, the threat of software patents to Open Source has been widely discussed. At the same time, we’ve seen Sun lose a patent infringement case involving its Java programming language to Kodak, with a settlement of $90 million dollars. Eolas won a patent infringement judgment against Microsoft. Is your comfort level, when you really think about, any better when you consider whether commercial software vendors can prove they own every bit of the code of their programs than it is for Open Source programs? Many of the same questions about contract enforceability of the Open Source licenses apply to all software licensed on a clickwrap or "clickthrough" basis. Analyze Open Source licenses in the same way you analyze commercial software licenses.

5. Think in Terms of Choosing, Rather Than Negotiating, Open Source Licenses. In a certain sense, Open Source licenses just "are." They are a classic example of the clickwrap license agreement. You take it or you leave it. As a practical matter, there may be no one to negotiate with. The community development model also drives people toward the common standard licenses. Even if you are a developer, you will find few incentives to create your own custom Open Source license. As frustrating as it can be to lawyers, the best approach is to evaluate the available choices and weigh the consequences, not to think in terms of ways to tinker with or improve the terms of agreements. The focus becomes legal risk management and valuating legal risk in the context of business decisions.

6. Do Not Confuse Open Source with Public Domain. Make no mistake – Open Source software is real intellectual property that is governed by a real license that puts limits on your rights and imposes certain obligations. The obligations may not be all that onerous in comparison to commercial licenses, but they do exist and you ignore them at your peril.

7. Inventory and Assess What You May Already Be Using. Be aware that many standard programming tools are Open Source programs. There are many stories of programmers and IT staff "smuggling" in Open Source programs that they prefer to work with or selling unsuspecting management on the basis of cost savings. You may find that both internal IT staff and third party contractors are using or have used Open Source code, tools or programs without your knowledge. You need to know what you have before you can determine what issues to address and how. It has become very important for both business decision-makers and lawyers to have a good understanding of the technology issues, including what the software does and the alternatives available. Many companies are moving toward Open Source because IT staff can paint a rosy picture on security issues to justify a move to programs they like or want to try. It is important not to take those arguments at face value and at least be able to ask the right questions.

8. Open Source Use Requires Open Source Training. There are many myths and misconceptions about Open Source programs and Open Source licenses. Many programmers incorrectly believe that Open Source code and tools may be freely incorporated into their work. Knowing the right questions to ask is half the battle, but IT staff, contract negotiators and legal personnel, including outside lawyers, must be trained on the legal issues involved with Open Source as well as on the policies and procedures that you decide to take.

9. Reasonable Policies and Procedures Are Not Optional. Many business people believe that if you give a lawyer a look at a business process and he or she will find the need for a written policy. In fairness, there are regulatory and other requirements that may dictate the need for a policy, but, in other cases, policies and procedures are good tools for legal risk management. Often existing policies and procedures can be revised to cover Open Source issues. With questions about security in Microsoft products, the business prospects of software companies and the evolution of subscription, on-demand and other models, there is no question that Open Source software will be an option in many software decisions. A ban on Open Source software will probably be as impractical and unwise as an "anything goes" or "Open Source only" policy. A reasonable, evolving set of policies and procedures crafted to fit the business needs and corporate risk comfort level of your company will invariably be the best approach to take.

10. Treat Open Source Policy as a Team Game. It has become very clear in the last few years that IT policy should not be made in a vacuum. Consider the privacy example. Companies that left privacy policies to the IT department or the legal department quickly found that "standard language" had enormous implications for the marketing department, executives, sales staffs and others. Nothing turned out to be simple or standard until all constituents got involved and worked through the ramifications. Similarly, Open Source usage, especially if development projects are contemplated, creates a wide range of legal and business issues that should not be handled in isolation. Theory has to meet practice to get the best results. If the lawyer only looks at the legal issues and the CIO looks only at the IT issues, you increase the likelihood of finger-pointing when an unexpected, but quite predictable, bad result occurs. No one, especially me, likes the idea of yet another committee meeting, but Open Source is a good example where time and effort spent on the front-end will pay off substantially over the alternative of cleaning up potentially messy and expensive situations in which you may one day find yourself.

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

What is Web 2.0

December 21, 2005

While most of the Web 2.0 world is running from the term, here in Texas I still get the question, "what is this Web 2.0 stuff I keep hearing about?"  I thought I would repost the Wikipedia definition here:

The term "Web 2.0" refers to what some people see as a second phase of development of the World Wide Web, including its architecture and its applications. As used by its proponents, the phrase allegedly refers to one or more of the following:

  • a transition of websites from isolated information silos to sources of content and functionality, thus becoming a computing platform serving web applications to end users
  • a social phenomenon referring to an approach to creating and distributing Web content itself, characterised by open communication, decentralization of authority, freedom to share and re-use, and "the market as a conversation"
  • a more organized and categorized content, with a far more developed deeplinking web architecture.
  • a shift in economic value of the web, up past a trillion dollars surpassing that of the dot com boom of the late 1990s.

However, a consensus upon its exact meaning has not yet been reached.

Many recently developed concepts and technologies are seen as contributing to Web 2.0, including weblogs, linklogs, podcasts, RSS feeds and other forms of many to many publishing; social software, web APIs, web standards, online web services, Ajax, and others.

Web 2.0 allegedly differs from early web development (retroactively labeled Web 1.0) as it is a move away from static websites, email, using search engines and surfing from one website to the next. Others are more skeptical that such basic concepts can be superseded in any real way by those listed above.

 

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Uncategorized |  

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