FredPod Program 100102 Show Notes

This program was produced on January 2, 2010. And today’s topics will include:

• Selections from “yum info recent” on the Fedora linux project.
  
• Today’s feature is a look at the state of the open source business model. We’ll go over the business approach of some well known open source companies, as well as ones you may or may not have heard about. I’ll include my own speculation about what could be possible in 2010.
• And we’ll close with a Creative Commons licensed work by beat under control.

Here are some Selections of updates from “yum info recent,” as in Recently Added Packages in the Fedora Project:

Name       : Miro
Summary    : Miro – Internet TV Player
Description: Miro is a free application that turns your computer into an
: internet TV video player. This release is still a beta version,
: which means that there are some bugs, but we’re moving quickly to
: fix them and will be releasing bug fixes on a regular basis.

Name       : arora
Summary    : A cross platform web browser
Description: Arora is a simple, cross platform web browser based on the QtWebKit
: engine. Currently, Arora is still under development, but it already
: has support for browsing and other common features such as web
: history and bookmarks.

Name       : bash
Summary    : The GNU Bourne Again shell [ as in Steve Bourne of AT&T’s Bell                   Laboratories ]
Description: The GNU Bourne Again shell (Bash) is a shell or command language
: interpreter that is compatible with the Bourne shell (sh). Bash
: incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and the C
: shell (csh). Most sh scripts can be run by bash without
: modification.

Name       : cherokee
Summary    : Flexible and Fast Webserver
Description: Cherokee is a very fast, flexible and easy to configure Web Server.
: It supports the widespread technologies nowadays: FastCGI, SCGI,
: PHP, CGI, TLS and SSL encrypted connections, Virtual hosts,
: Authentication, on the fly encoding, Apache compatible log files,
: and much more.

Name       : cpmtools
Summary    : Programs for accessing CP/M disks [ yes, we’re talking about the CP              slant M that originally stood for “Control Program/Monitor” here ]
Description: This yum package allows access to CP/M file systems similar to the
: well-known mtools package, which accesses MSDOS file systems. It can              be used for file exchange with a Z80-PC simulator, but it works on
: floppy devices as well.

Name       : drupal
Summary    : An open-source content-management platform
Description: Equipped with a powerful blend of features, Drupal is a Content
: Management System written in PHP that can support a variety of
: websites ranging from personal weblogs to large community-driven
: websites.  Drupal is highly configurable, skinnable, and secure.

Name       : gnome-keyring
Summary    : Framework for managing passwords and other secrets
Description: The gnome-keyring session daemon manages passwords and other types
: of secrets for the user, storing them encrypted with a main
: password. Applications can use the gnome-keyring library to
: integrate with the keyring.

Name       : gnome-web-photo
Summary    : HTML pages thumbnailer
Description: gnome-web-photo contains a thumbnailer that will be used by GNOME
: applications, including the file manager, to generate screenshots
: of web pages.

Name       : jna
Summary    : Pure Java access to native libraries
Description: JNA provides Java programs easy access to native shared libraries
: (DLLs on Windows) without writing anything but Java code. JNA’s
: design aims to provide native access in a natural way with a
: minimum of effort. No boilerplate or generated code is required.
: While some attention is paid to performance, correctness and ease
: of use take priority.

Name       : less
Summary    : A text file browser similar to more, but better
Description: The less utility is a text file browser that resembles more, but
: has more capabilities.  Less allows you to move backwards in the
: file as well as forwards.  Since less doesn’t have to read the
: entire input file before it starts, less starts up more quickly
: than text editors (for example, vi).
:
: You should install less because it is a basic utility for viewing
: text files, and you’ll use it frequently.  And you’ll find that less              is more; really.

Name       : mc
Summary    : User-friendly text console file manager and visual shell
Description: Midnight Commander is a visual shell much like a file manager, only
: with many more features. It is a text mode application, but it also
: includes mouse support. Midnight Commander’s best features are its
: ability to FTP, view tar and zip files, and to poke into RPMs for
: specific files. [ If you’d ever used Norton Disk Edit, mc looks a lot          like it. ]

Name       : openconnect
Description: This package provides a client for Cisco’s “AnyConnect” VPN, which
: uses HTTPS and DTLS protocols.

Name       : qbittorrent
Description: A Bittorrent client using the rb_libtorrent C++ library and a Qt4 Graphical User Interface. It aims to be as fast as possible and to provide multi-OS, unicode support.

Name       : rkhunter
Summary    : A host-based tool to scan for rootkits, backdoors and local
: exploits
Description: Rootkit Hunter (RKH) is an easy-to-use tool which checks
: computers running UNIX (clones) for the presence of rootkits
: and other unwanted tools.

Name       : uuidd
Summary    : Helper daemon to guarantee uniqueness of time-based UUIDs, that is              universally unique identifiers.
Description: The uuidd package contains a userspace daemon (uuidd) which
: guarantees uniqueness of time-based UUID generation even at very
: high rates on SMP, that is Symmetric Multiprocessing, systems.

Name       : xmms-flac
Description: FLAC is a Free Lossless Audio Codec. The FLAC format supports
: streaming, seeking, and archival, and gives 25-75% compression on
: typical CD audio. xmms-flac is the input plugin for XMMS to be able              to read FLAC files.

→

You can find additional information on these, and many other recently updated packages, by typing yum info recent at the command line.

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The Fredericksburg Linux Users Group, meets on the first Thursday and last Saturday of each month.  The meetings take place at the main Library in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on Caroline Street in Meeting Room 2:
You can find the FredLUG calendar by going to Google Groups and searching on F-r-e-d-L-U-G.  Near the top of the page is a link to the Google calendar containing the meeting schedule.
Besides the FredLUG Google Group, you’re also welcome on the IRC channel pound FredLUG on irc dot freenode dot net.

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Open source software has been increasing in popularity for at least the past 10 years.  And in this economic downturn that most of us are experiencing, the free-as-in-beer aspect has increased in attractiveness.  Also, for programmers and project managers, the free-as-in-speech aspect is truly liberating; this is enhanced by the code reuse fostered by the free-as-in-beer aspect.

Upstream projects, like Gnome, KDE, Apache, and many many others, are assembled into the various distributions, known as “distros,” and other packages.  These in turn are repackaged further downstream to eventually reach the end users.  I think it’s fair to say that most people involved in creating and using open source software truly enjoy what they’re doing.  There really is a community atmosphere around open source, in both doctrine and practice.

Doing what you enjoy, creating things of true practical value, contributing to the betterment of human-kind … What’s not to love?  The answer is nothing is unlovable about the thing itself.  But there is the thorny question of how to monetize open source, without draining open source of the very virtues that make it so wonderful.

Those with a major stake in the proprietary model are quick to point out, often with glee, that all these creative humans need food, shelter, and the other essentials of a complete life; and therefore the software is not worth creating if it does not generate revenue.  Arguably we all need to be compensated for our labor, so how does one earn a living with open source and still keep it … well … open source?

Let’s survey how it’s done in practice.  We’ll start with the company that cut its teeth on this business model, Red Hat.

Peruse the redhat.com website for Red Hat’s description of their offerings.  Try searching on redhat.com for pages with titles like “The Value of Red Hat’s Subscription Model and Support” and “Value of a Red Hat Subscription.”

Consider the expression “Subscription Model.”  There-in lies the key to Red Hat’s, and other successful open source companies, ability to make a good living with open source.  Red Hat’s linux software is under the GPL; after all, it is linux.  Similar to an anti-virus subscription, customers can keep the software if they cancel the subscription; but they are on their own for support and updates if they cancel.  One item in the case of Red Hat is the issue of access to the Red Hat Network, which is different from their GPL licensed linux main product; users would have to remove the Red Hat Network Code from their systems if they cancel; but if you’re going to cancel, there would be no value in keeping it. The Subscription renewal
F-A-Qs on redhat.com are a good reference.

Another linux distro, one that you might not have associated with subscriptions, is Ubuntu.  In addition to the T-shirts and coffee mugs in the Cannonical Store, cannonical.com also offers subscriptions to server support, cloud support, desktop support; and also a web-based product called Landscape Systems Management, which is used for remote systems administration.  I continue to hear of more instances where Ubuntu is implemented as a serious server solution, in addition to the its well known use as a desktop OS.

Like other GPL licensed linux products, Ubuntu is free.  Cannonical’s revenue is from what has been called the “ecosystem of products and services around Ubuntu.”

Any survey of the linux landscape would be incomplete without including Novell.  The SUSE linux distribution, is a major player.  A must-see on novell.com is the SUSE Appliance Program.  Anyone can use what they call the SUSE Studio to customize your own linux distribution.  It’s slick and not even that geeky. This is a serious tool for Independent Software Vendors and other creative entrepreneurs.  It’s free to use, and part of Novell’s revenue is from their relationship with several other enterprise IT players.

One of the users of Novell’s SUSE Appliance Program is a company called BitRock.  Although BitRock does not emphasize the word “subscription” on their website, bitrock.com, the software support for open source development has many of the same characteristics as subscriptions.

If you find Novell’s SUSE Studio attractive, it’s likely you will find even more so the offerings of BitNami, as in B-i-t-N-a-m-i.  The website bitnami.com describes the group as “A secret army of highly trained open source ninjas, sponsored by BitRock.” The home page of BitNami.com offers free development tools for popular open source tools such as Joomla!, Drupal, Mediawiki, Trac, WordPress, and SugarCRM.  It appears that BitRock is using BitNami as their own eco-system farm.

We’ve looked mostly at the big fish so far.  Now let’s consider how an individual or a small group of people might be able to actually make a living with open source products.  I think this is especially timely here at the beginning of 2010, with so many people hit so hard by the sluggish economy.  After all, one way that many companies are able to survive is by saving money not employing workers.  So how then do individuals survive when there’s no place for them in the businesses that once supported them?

The answer might be in the problem itself.  As the larger markets jettison what they consider to be excess business activities, the needs left by them still need to be filled.  For example, those smaller businesses that can no longer afford the support of a Red Hat or Novell, still have IT needs that must be met.  I expect that increasing numbers of these smaller companies will be forced by necessity to drop their familiar applications other mainstays, and look elsewhere for the functions provided by those apps.

With tools such as those at SUSE Studio and BitNami becoming more numerous and easier to use, there will be increasing opportunities for enterprising individuals to implement them for entrepreneurial purposes.  Traditional programming skills are now supplemented by creativity in packaging programs already developed.

More things formerly relegated to only über-geeks are being understood and used by others in the IT field.  Take for example Git, that’s G-i-t.  Git is an expansion on the functions of traditional development collaboration and version control tools.  Git’s functionality focuses on being distributed; as in being able to collaborate with others around the world without ever meeting them. Not just for software development, Git, can be used for many other project management purposes.  Watch for further advances in user-friendly interfaces to Git.

Just because almost anyone can do it, does not mean that a business person wants to divert attention from the core business to do a support function.  That’s best left to someone who enjoys doing that sort of thing.  Someone who has the aptitude and interest in solving problems that would only be stressful for the business person. That someone could be you.  It’s easier than ever to research opportunities like this.  Calculations would consider the cost of proprietary software and costly support contracts.

There is clear value in paying you.  You have no overhead.  No leases.  No licensing.  The net to you would be a livable but not excessive amount, and still less cost for your customers.  As the economy squeezes businesses more, the comfort of their usual applications will be a luxury they can part with.  And there is a way to make them comfortable with parting with those old familiar things.

To do this it will be necessary for the open source entrepreneur to part with some community practices that have long since needed a workable alternative.  Someone needs to provide something more than referrals to arcane documentation and forums. I love to look things up and test new programs; I know non-geeks dislike doing so, and for that I don’t fault them.

Open source has abundant selling points that will increasingly ring true.  A very visible problem with the proprietary software model is the extensive cost of licenses.  It’s a nice business model for the proprietary vendor; just replicate the product and collect your money without doing any more work. Sweet indeed for the vendor; but the economy is forcing changes upon that model.

It’s not only the cost of the licenses themselves.  Much too much effort and resources are needed just to keep a current accounting of licenses.  And when mission critical business functions are impaired due to lack of funds for more licenses, it’s time to look for workable alternatives.

One of the clear advantages of open source is the ability to scale at will.  Need another server; just spin off another virtual machine, or procure a bare metal server without the software cost.  Need more computers for expanded operations; just procure the hardware and deploy the additional desktops and laptops complete with full productivity software.

Yes, there will be reluctance to abandon the look and feel familiar to so many for so long.  However, as a business reaches its own economic tipping point, open source might make the difference between laying off needed workers and affording to keep them employed and productive.  Gnome and KDE are excellent desktop systems that come with every major linux distro.  Sure, they look different, but they’ll get over it.  Consider Firefox as an example of an open source product that looks different but has been embraced by the public; and arguably they’re loving it.

Open source software does not have to be offered in isolation; its full value is realized together with other endeavors. This is helped along as the disparate pieces of open source are increasingly easy to assemble into productive packages.  For example, imagine a small scale implementation of CentOS together with Moodle to operate a distance learning based training system.  Combine that with credit or non-credit courses taught at your local community college, and it’s possible to have something that is fun, productive, of clear social value, and profitable.

Perhaps it’s time for an entrepreneurial adaptation of the enterprise subscription model.  I see it as a need to be met.  And it should be a little easier to meet that need here in 2010.

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Today’s podcast will close with a Creative Commons licensed work by Beat-under-control entitled “This is beat under control.”

Enjoy.

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Thanks for joining us for today’s FredPod podcast.
This is Mark Walker.
Enjoy life, and we’ll talk with you next time.