brentashley

Sorry for the title, scottandrew, I couldn’t help myself.

Pope John XXIII died in 1963, the same year as the JFK assassination. Now, 38 years later, they plop his body into a new see-through casket and parade him around the Basilica. His body. Long since bereft of his soul. I don’t get it. Maybe I’d hafta be catholic to get it.

Bring out yer dead! Bring out yer dead!

I’ve done my research in the last week on licensing – open source, commercial, private, you name it. Contrary to my initial hyperbolic stance, reason generally prevails and choice is abundant.

The one major open-source license that significantly restricts one’s ability to integrate the licensed software into a commercial product is the GPL. There is a Lesser GPL, the LGPL, which is meant for the likes of code libraries, which doesn’t have the same restrictions. The Apache and Mozilla Public licenses allow even more flexibility and impose even less requirements on the user.

As I pointed out with The PSL, developers should choose the license that suits their software’s intended use.

Throughout the various discussions I’ve had about the licensing issue, and in the reports I’ve read via other bloggers, a theme is emerging that says there need not be two polarized sides to this issue. When the dust settles, it will be apparent that the two models can coexist, based on different community needs.

Kevin Dangoor writes about The Software Commons in his new blogspace, and articulates my thoughts on this quite well.

From the far left of the GPL to the far right of patent frenzy:

NetObjects has been awarded patents on WYSIWYG HTML editing and they plan to start extracting pounds of flesh from all and sundry – Microsoft and Macromedia will be asked first to turn their heads and cough up a bundle.

This brings us back to The Software Commons. WYSIWYG HTML editing is as fundamental to modern software as a basic roux sauce is to cooking. The idea itself follows so naturally from preexisting word processors as to render it painstakingly obvious.

Will companies be able to get around this like they did with the Unisys LZW patent (ie, just use another compression technique – Had they patented compression itself, where would we be?)? At least that was an implementation of an idea and not the entire concept itself.

Perhaps offending software could be rejigged as WYSIWYG rich text editors, and their HTML component could just be considered a “save-as” conversion feature. That is, until someone appears out of the woodwork to hijack that by-then-entrenched industry with a well-placed patent they bought at a dotcom garage sale…

Aaaauughh! My frickin cable provider has me down again. I’m dialed up at 48k for now – lunchbag letdown. Of course, my server and domains are unavailable. I’ve gotta wait till tomorrow afternoon for a warm body to come out and have a look. Colocation is getting closer and closer. Conversely, I may just rant about it a bit and then return to SNAFU.

More input:

I’ve been taking a bunch of well-deserved flak for spouting my unripened opinion here. It’s opened a lot of discussion, though, so I think it’s overall been a good thing. My opinion is subjected to iterative refinement and you are exposed to the process through blogging. Dave has a phrase for it: the two-way web.

Bocconcini is unripened cheese, but it’s still to die for on sliced tomato with basil and olive oil.

When I started blogging a while ago, I open-sourced my opinions. Recently I checked in my new License module. Feedback from the opinion community has revealed some design process problems and adjustments are underway.

Development effort is being undertaken to understand the available licenses before incorporating them into my opinion-space. Release notes will be forthcoming when the new nightly opinion build is available.

Brent’s Potato Salad License (PSL)

You are hereby licensed to build, use and distribute Brent’s Potato Salad (the SALAD) according to the following rules:

If the SALAD is to be distributed, you must announce the following to your guests:

Portions of this meal were created using Brent’s Potato Salad Recipe.

Your guests must be made aware that the recipe is available to them without charge. You must supply photocopies of the recipe on demand.

If you include the SALAD as part of a paid catering gig, you are required to license the entire catered affair under the PSL, making complete recipes for all appetizers, entrees and desserts available at no charge to all guests.

Any derivative recipes based on the SALAD inherit full protection under the PSL.

“… Damn, if he’d only chosen the LPSL, we could have used this for the Schmolsky wedding. Looks like we’ll have to come up with our own …”

Microsoft plans to impose a software subscription model, whereby they provide you with software as long as you pay them…

Dan Gillmor has this to say about it:

Microsoft is steering customers toward software rentals, the idea of paying an annual subscription fee. When that system is the standard, will there be a version of the software that — as is standard today — allows customers to buy once and keep using the product indefinitely even if they decide to jump off the upgrade merry-go-round? Don’t bet on it.

As usual, my friend Greg Vincent pointed out some issues and got me thinking about various scenarios:

• Internal Memo: Due to the postal strike, Microsoft didn’t receive our cheque in time, so nobody can use Word or Excel or Powerpoint until this is resolved. Please stand by at your cubicles.
• Dear Customer: the provider of our DBMS software has been purchased by XYZ corp, who is discontinuing this product, so we can’t use it any more. We will be down for a month while we integrate another provider’s solution.
• Please Note: The significant price increase on this invoice is due to increased overhead. Our critical internal systems depend on software for which the subscription price has suddenly doubled, slashing our profit margin to zero.

What remedies will need to be in place for dispute resolution?

The landlord can’t double your rent or evict you without due process.

The gas company can’t turn off your heat in the winter.

This new model cries out for some legislative framework.

I’m working on a new project. Tomcat/JSP/Servlets/Oracle. There is a need for some synchronous RPC from client to middle layer. I’ve been considering XML-RPC and SOAP, but have decided for a few reasons to use Microsoft’s Remote Scripting with Erik Hatcher’s Java servlet. Time is of the essence, the specifications and tools for the other technologies are not mature, and another criterion that’s new to the game – intellectual property considerations.

It’s 1998. You want to add some new functionality to your commercial web application. You hop on the net, search Altavista, and find a few Perl CGI implementations, a couple of shareware COM objects, some commercial executables and COM objects. You decide which gives the functionality you want and you come to a pricing arrangement with them from zero to hundreds of dollars depending on the licensing, and you include its functionality in your offering, maybe add credits to your help page.

Roll forward to 2001. You want to add some new functionality to your commercial web application. You hop on the net, search Google, and find a few Perl CGI implementations, some COM objects and Java classes, some commercial packages, and a whole raft of projects on SourceForge. This time, though, it’s a minefield of GPLs, LGPLs, BSDs, Mozilla and Apache Public Licenses, homegrown licenses, et al. Using a product may impose upon you perpetual requirements impacting source release, documentation, distribution, splash pages, derivatives… the list goes on.

I’m not likely to convince my clients that they should open-source their heavily invested competitive vertical market solution in order to take advantage of the defacto reference implementation of this technology because it’s covered by the GPL. Time being a consideration, I’m not going to wait until the legal department has had a chance to investigate the implications of ten different types of licenses. So, we find a commercial implementation, build it ourselves, or use another technology that doesn’t burden us with these issues.

Am I naive in thinking that I was much more free (read:unfettered) when I could just buy the damn thing and then use it?

Independent consulting makes for a nomadic life. An adventure here, a campaign there, never a place to hang your hat. While alliances are made, they are usually transient. In the door, assess, recommend, resolve, ride into the sunset.

In a game where it’s all about relationships, the real long-term winning relationships are built in fits and starts, usually in project-oriented chunks. Clients, resources, allies, vendors.

In a heirarchical organization, it is practical and often necessary to make alliances with those around you, to mentor and groom candidates to succeed you so you can grow. As an independent, this is somewhat difficult. You have no staff or colleagues of your own to mould. Alliances with other consultants are useful but seldom take on a heirarchical form – other independent consultants are also in the business to be Batman – nobody wants to be Robin.

I’ve been involved for some time with a networking group (that’s human relationship building, not hubs and routers) that affords me the opportunity to meet other independent consultants. I find it very useful to meet and converse with other folks in the business. It fills some of the voids that set us apart from our “employed” counterparts, and occasionally results in business leads.

There should be similar groups and organizations where you are. Look ’em up. Get involved – just attending meetings and shooting the shit can go a long way. It’s good for you, good for your business.

I got spam today from Lucent.

SPAM!

From LUCENT!!

I would have thought that was WAY beneath them. First thing I did was check their stock chart. Sure, they’ve got over 30 billion market cap, but they must be getting desperate. A sure sign you’re turning the corner from being a market force to fighting for your life is that you’ve resorted to spam.