Larry Augustin's Weblog

Free Software Piracy

This has got to be one of the funniest things I've run across in a while.  From Slashdot:

The idea that Free Software can be sold has some government officials perplexed. Times Online has the story. A UK Trading Standards officer contacted the Mozilla Foundation to report catching a business selling copies of Firefox. The organization confiscated the CDs with the intent to prosecute said business. When informed that such distribution was authorized, the officer first expressed disbelief that Free Software could be sold then said 'If Mozilla permits the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation'.

I practically fell out of my chair laughing over this one.  No, really.  It's OK to copy the software!

Sometimes those of us who have spent more than a decade in Free and Open Source Software forget that big parts of the world still don't get the model.  When I first tried to sell Open Source Software in early 2000, the response was very negative.  Customers told me point blank that they didn't understand Open Source, and couldn't buy it.  However, if I took the same software and sold it to them under a traditional commercial software license they had no trouble buying it.

Although today a lot of the world understands how to buy Open Source (see the customers of Red Hat, MySQL, JBoss, SugarCRM, Pentaho, etc. for example), a big part of the world still doesn't get it.  That's good news - it means the market is still young and there's still a lot of opportunity.

AJAX VLAB Panel Discussion Recap

Last night's AJAX panel discussion hosted by the MIT/Stanford VLAB prompted some thoughts on where browser technologies are going.  One of the points I made in the discussion was that AJAX was just a technology for building the client side of a client-server application.  It's an important technology for doing so because it has achieved a ubiquity that other client-side application development technologies have failed to achieve.  What we've done is create an application that is ubiquitous (the Web browser), and that application has a way of downloading and running code within its own contained environment.

This is a very important point that I don't think most people get.  When you visit an AJAX enabled Web site, you are downloading and running an application on your PC.  That application just happens to sit within a browser, and does not require going through your operating system to install.

What this means is that Web browser programming model will continue to evolve to make the process of developing downloadable client-side applications that run within the browser easier.  The Web browser is a cross-platform UI/client platform.  How long before "Web" applications are stored and run locally from your Web browsers "cache" without the need for any Internet connectivity?  It's not that far off, and sounds a lot like a downloadable client, doesn't it?

MIT/Stanford Venture Lab: The Next Wave of Web 2.0

On Tuesday February 21 I'll be part of a panel session presented by the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab entitled 'The Next Wave of Web 2.0: Is Ajax Where the Action Is?'  The session will be  6-8:30 p.m. at Bishop Auditorium, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, 518 Memorial Way, South Building, Stanford.  Om Malik from Business 2.0 will lead the discussion.  Other panelists include Scott Dietzen from Zimbra,  Dan'l Lewin from Microsoft, and Pradeep Tagare from Intel Capital.  Here's the abstract:

VCs and entrepreneurs are talking about a "funding frenzy" in the AJAX powered applications space. What is AJAX? It is the special sauce behind a new generation of rich internet applications such as Google Maps, Yahoo's Flickr, and a plethora of emerging Web 2.0 applications.

While some technology pundits are dismissing AJAX as nothing but a cool technology that enables web applications to act like desktop applications, others are claiming that there is more to AJAX then enhanced user interfaces. Many of the emerging AJAX companies have adopted disruptive business models that have successfully displaced incumbents' offerings.

Come and hear several break-out companies, including Zimbra, which are on the cutting-edge of Web 2.0. The panel will explore the source of value in AJAX, the viability of new business models, and the impact on software and user experience.

Rob Enderle Slams OSDL/Levanta Linux Study

Now here's a big surprise.  Rob Enderle has slammed the study recently released by OSDL and Levanta showing that Linux is easier and cheaper to maintain than Windows.  I think we all understand that any of these studies is going to somewhat reflect the biases of the sponsors.  But I find it ironic that Enderle criticizes OSDL's credibility while he's supportive of flawed Microsoft-funded studies.  I wonder who pays his bills?

OSBC February 14-15 San Francisco

I'll be at OSBC Tuesday (2/14) and Wednesday (2/15) next week in San Francisco.  OSBC is always an exciting show if you're interested in how Open Source is impacting the world of commercial software.  I'm moderating a panel Tuesday 4:00pm entitled "Pitching the CIO".  I'll have the CEOs of Alfresco, Zmanda, and LucidEra pitching their products to a panel of potential customers.  Imagine "American Idol" meets Enterprise software!  Here are the details:

02/14/2006, 4:00 PM - 4:50 PM
Moderator:
Larry Augustin, Board Member, Open Source Development Labs, Inc.

Presenting Companies:
John Powell, President & CEO, Alfresco.
Ken Rudin, CEO, LucidEra.
Chander Kant, Founder and CEO, Zmanda.

Panelists:
Tom Fisher, Vice President, Information Technology, Qualcomm.
Maurizio Ferconi, Managing Director, Financial Engineering, Putnam Investments.
John Alberg, Co-founder, CTO & VP of Customer Operations, Employease, Inc.
Tim Golden, Senior Vice President, Bank of America.

Three startups get their 20 minutes of fame pitching prospective CIO customers on their companies and products. Five minutes to pitch, and another 15 minutes of questioning by a distinguished panel of senior IT executives. Each of these startups raised money from tier-one venture capital firms - now can they sell to their target customers? A fascinating glimpse into the mind of the CIO: what they're buying, what they're not, and why.

"Howl's Moving Castle" Takes #1 Spot in Japan for 2005

Anyone who is a fan of Hayao Miyazaki's work knew that "Hauru no ugoku shiro" ("Howl's Moving Castle") was the number one film at the box office in Japan in 2005, but the MPPA of Japan has finally released the official results for 2005.  In the rankings of Japanese films, "Howl's Moving Castle" earned 19.6 billion yen (~ US $165M), making it the biggest hit followed by "Pocket Monster Advanced Generation" at 4.3 billion yen and "Koshonin Mashita Masayoshi (Negotiator)" with 4.2 billion yen.

I was lucky enough to catch "Howl's Moving Castle" at it's only California showing last year in San Francisco.  It's not Miyazaki's best work ("Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind", "Princess Mononoke", or "Spirited Away"), but average Miyazaki is better than most people's best anyway.  It will be out Match 7 on DVD and I've already pre-ordered mine.  I highly recommend it.