Open at Adobe

A funny thing happened on my walk to the train yesterday. One of my compatriots asked for clarification on the belief that open source does not innovate.

Not technology, mind you.  But innovation in product and market.

Now, I can come up with lots of interesting examples of technology, cooler, clever, etc. But my thoughts on products and companies were usually rejected. Some of those rejections are perhaps suspect; is Alfreso really related to Vignette?

So, here's the challenge. Give me a company or product that is open source from onset, and that defines a market or enables a new business. (note, not a new business model, a new business. )

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One of the comments asked for an extension to the question.

Well, trying not to limit this too much, but. Say that the Content Management Software defines a new business. Is this uniquely powered by open source innovation? Or is the RIA space? Is there something unique in mobile?

The successes of open source (quick, name the top ten products in open source) seem to be following a commoditization trend. What I want to know (since I'm really tired of this Ivory tower view of the world I'm limited to right now), is what am I missing? What product, project, or concept categorybegan with open source, or is uniquely enabled by open source?

Posted by Dave McAllister at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

An interesting question came up in some after-hours discussions the other day.

Is it ever a good idea to open source a program or technology from within a company if the company is no longer enhancing it? Basically, is dead code ever a good thing for open source?

My immediate reaction to this was no. Then yes. And finally, a definite maybe. (Inspired no doubt by a glass or to of my new fave-rave Cabernet, Parallel.)

So, it seems wise to appeal to the wisdom of the internet. What do you think? (If you want to go comment before reading farther, feel free, I'll wait).

First no.  It seems that if a company is no longer interested in a product, then the act of open source is a Monty Python attempt to run away. Companies that open source code, particularly complex code have a obligation to aid and assist the community in working with that code. One of my rules for considering open source (in fact, the principal rule) is "Who cares?". That question goes both ways.  Who cares about the code inside the company as well as outside the company. What shape is the code in?  Who takes ownership? It seems like the problems are big, bigger than any advantages.

But then, well, yes.  If a company isn't interested in supporting or extending a product, why shouldn't the open source community (mythical though it may be) have a shot at it.  Aren't there customers that are using it? What happens to them? Can't the mere act of opening good code balance against the lack of corporate support?

Finally (in vino veritas, you know), a definite maybe, surrounded by  ifs.

If someone cares that the program continues, and is will to commit their resources, why shouldn't the code be released? If the code is good enough, and doesn't include other properties, why not release it? If a community is available to control and govern it, why not? If the product was good enough to build a market on its own right, why should we believe it can't continue?

So, to both of my readers <grin>, what do you think? Should dead code be released?  Are there examples of it working, or failing? And what do you think are the steps that would help us decide?

Posted by Dave McAllister at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Recently, Mozilla got a new CEO.  An internal candidate (John Lilly, COO) moves into the role to create and drive the vision of an open web for the betterment of all.

In conjunction with the move of Red Hat, and others, it's apparent that there is a misunderstanding of the availability of CEO types in open source and open source talents for executive positions in general... or the reverse.  not sure yet.

As a guy who has sat through a number of pitches for start up funding (from A round to E round) on both sides of the projector, it seems that the issue is a lack of recognition that the business model is changing in the software industry. It's not enough to focus on the coolness of the technology.  It's more important to deliver the appropriate service, not just the appropriate product. oh, and by the way, make money, return value, keep yourself out of jail, be cool. Note again, it's not the "open source business model", it's the "business model" for "open source"

Stop and think about this for a second. Ignoring the business aspects and expecting the technology to drive uptake is a great way to keep a hobby alive, but not to create the world domination that open source development can attain. Open source is and should be far more than a hobby.

The new CEOs are most often from outside the tech industry... in fact, often from adjacent service industries. So, are the companies brilliant or simply lacking in vision for the folks in the trenches of open source. Or does the the misconception that open source types want to give it all away make this a moot and misunderstood point. And does the understanding of service industry types on open source mate well with the technical types creating the new universe.

Off the top of my head, I can think of 5-10 open source people I wouldn't mind running a start up as CEO that wouldn't show up on a recruiting search. I'm more limited as to ones that I'd trust  with my $50M business.  And I'd bet that none of my candidates would ever be acceptable to a big name VC/PE company. (it seems to be one of the standard questions these days "Who's going to be the CEO", often asked of the-then CEO).

So do we need a new crop of CEO talent? Open source trained, willing to accept that usines is changing? I think the answer is no... we just need the chance to prove what we all can build.

Posted by Dave McAllister at 07:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just registered for the 2008 Open Source Think Tank. It is an invitation-only event, limited to 120 people who want to discuss in depth issues around open source and commerce. In short, it fits my job, and my mind set.

I've been attending open source events since before it was called open source. I "flew" penguins in Raleigh Durham, had early discussions with maddog Hall, and even had my smirk photographed down under. I've got a Golden Penguin on my shelf... and would love to take on the chance for another. But that said, most open source conferences are just not worth (me) going to.

The OSTT, at least last year, was different. Interactive.  small groups discussing in depth concepts and beliefs around commercial activities and open source.  No holds barred opinions, and yet consensus. Meeting some of the major players and shakers in the industry. Meeting newcomers that both have a clue and give a damn. And darn little sitting around listening to drivel, and no marketing... well, not much.

During the event last year, we had a presentation on the-then GPLv3, rev (something).  Unfortunately for the presenter, I read ahead on a slide and started expressing my opinion on certain "features". Now, I am not a lawyer (though there were a "lot" of them there last year) but I managed to get a point across that may have made a difference, and with the current flavor of GPLv3, Adobe has actually considered it, and has adopted the LGPLv3 for one of our efforts. (But I am surprised they are letting me come back <grin>).

There are certainly folks who last year pointed out how elitist this event is. I heard from folks last year that it should be open to anyone who wanted to attend, free (as in beer). And you know, those people are probably the ones that I run into at every other show, telling me how Adobe is doomed, that Adobe should just open source everything. I talked about that in a different blog, and lets leave it at that.

I want discussion and reasoned opinion. And if you want to offer me that, feel free to let me know. I'm looking forward to the OSTT 2008, and expecting to come away with a new appreciation of open source and ways to make it work with and for Adobe.

Posted by Dave McAllister at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The open source head line from Adobe today is:

Adobe Announces Open Source Technologies for Enterprise RIAs.

BlazeDS Enables Developers to Productively Build Real-Time Data-Driven Applications

Now there's a lot of technical stuff. Important stuff.  Things that will make the web a better place.

But I'm not the technical guru.  For that I'd invite you to check out the BlazeDS stuff on Adobe Labs.

No, I'm more interested in responding to a question that comes up all the time. In short, "Why doesn't Adobe just open source everything right now?"

Sorry, not going to happen. Even with the advantages to an open source model, no large established company can merely flip the switch.  And sometimes the switch doesn't want to be flipped.

Our focus for open source is targeted to developers.  Developers understand open source.  Coders are capable of dealing with vagarities in code. And developers provide the benefits of open source code.

Even then, the number of people who ever write a line of code is relatively small. Most people just want to something that works, first time every time. Designers in multimedia are similar. The cost of open fragmentation is directly and exponentially proportional to the testing and customer costs. If your web browser can't correctly display a web site, do you tend to blame the browser or the site author? Survey says?

Adobe will continue to work with open source, but it will be a controlled process. We've been pretty aggressive over the last year. We'll open up things as they make sense.  This isn't a "cliff launch"; we're trying to get  a pretty large entity airborne here. And a long runway is required.

So, keep talking to us and with us. Just don't expect elephants to act like hummingbirds

Posted by Dave McAllister at 08:29 AM | Permalink

Humor

Warning, my sense of humor follows.  From the experimental labs at Google an interesting timeline of Linux.

And we thought Linus was a lot younger than this.

Posted by Dave McAllister at 07:25 PM | Permalink

So a simple question?

To you, what's the most important open source conference around? And why?

Is it OSCON, GOSCON, Linuxworld, OSBC, OLS? or does it no longer matter (shades of Uniforum, and the old X11 conference in the 80's)?

Posted by Dave McAllister at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Again, Jay of The Mows has succinctly expressed an issue in the open world of source and standards.

And there are some real issues here.

I was reading Consortiuminfo.org (as I always do when it updates). Andy Updegrove, who kept many of us informed on the machinations with OOXML, posted "Words, Standards and Torture: What's in a Name", which I highly recommend you read.  No, it's not about how standards meetings are torture, but it is about how words are the tools we use to define standards.  And sometimes those words mean different things to us all. Or get redefined. Or as best put by Indigo Montoya in "The Princess Bride"; " "You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means." Too often we honestly or deliberately choose to redefine meanings of words, like open or free.

Now, I have my opinions, and so do thousands (millions?) of others. We hear high visibility types like Richard Stallman talk about open versus free. We hear Jim Zemlin discuss the multidimensional intertwinings of open and free. And you know what? It only means what you think it means.

Words do have power.  They have the power you give them (or society gives them, in the form of laws or cultural pressures). I favor open source, and it should be my freedom to choose such. Yes, open source doesn't mean necessarily free (as in beer) nor necessarily free (as in speech), but I do expect to be free to make up my own mind.

To me, free is the ability to implement what I want when I want. (and yes, anarchy is the only form of government that works the way it was designed... extra credit to the first person identifying the source of that paraphrase). To me, my freedom should not impinge on yours, but yours shouldn't impinge on mine.  I don't like people saying " Ooo, your's is cool, give it to me". I do like saying "Here, try this".

Open standards should be about the freedom to implement. It shouldn't be about me giving you my implementation for free. While that can lead us into the messy area of patents, copyrights, the new "hate phrase" of intellectual property, I should be able to build to a truly open standard without impact.

There should be no winners or losers in the openness game. Not knowing the meaning isn't a path to winning.

Asking questions until we reach a mutual, freely derived agreement is winning for both sides.

Posted by Dave McAllister at 10:04 AM | Permalink

I'm quite sure Jay didn't realize he was drawing a political cartoon with The Mows but it's either that, or my mind is slightly skewed into reading between the lines. However, Jay again has managed to capture a unique view (yes, pun intended) on my worlds of open source and standards.

You often hear the phrase "Perception is Reality" used in marketing. A well-turned phrase, it indicates that what someone perceives about your product or service is (their) reality. And often, that reality is contagious, spreading rapidly to make others perceive a similar reality.

Companies often use this concept to distort reality, adding to their own ego-dollar (and real dollar) pile. You know, the ones that say "My car makes you more virile", My clothes make you look thinner", "My products make you better". We hear see and probably even taste this every day.

In open source implementation, self-delusion is not a good idea. Perception is perception and reality is reality. Yet time and again, we see a similar play in marketing of open source.  I always like the one: "Microsoft is a bad company, so buy me instead". (Not to say Microsoft isn't a bad company. .., but, just sayin').

Too often open source inside of large companies is "Perception is delusion".  I'm seen (and worked for) companies that see themselves as good citizens, while chaos reigns around them. A product is not good just because it's open source; a product is equally not bad just because it isn't open source. Experience the reality, if the product solves your problem, then it is good. And you should be  the ultimate arbiter of what solves your problem.

A few companies back, it was decreed that the company would use Exchange and Outlook, because it was the "only calendar system that works". Note the "Perception" here.  That perception was created by a failed attempt at other calendaring systems in 1997... yes, 10 years ago. Anybody got a different view? (I certainly do.)

A recent consultation started with the concept that "opening our product would reduce costs". Wrong again.  Open sourcing a closed product will always increase costs, in spite of the potential improved QA.

I do admit, when I first saw this comic (and yeah, I visit every day, it's my perceptional delusion), I immediately thought of the recent spin on OOXML and the failed ISO ballot. I leave it to the observer to do the logical proof, but let me point out that a press release is not (or should not be) a reality distortion generator, despite the existence proof of Steve Jobs at Apple. As for the press release, do the math.

While here at Adobe, we have delivered the PDF specification to ISO for standardization, we being very careful to avoid self deception. Note that we haven't managed to buy countries, stack ballots, or anything like that.  We are offering to have a conversation (remember that thing about openness, it's a conversation), check out the Inside PDF blog to find out more.

Perception is perception, reality is reality. In open source or open standards, the reality matters. Be it in Posh and Beckham (as Matt Asay points out) or in "The Mows", be sure you are not the one dis-floor-einted

comments welcome

Posted by Dave McAllister at 09:13 AM | Permalink

Well, Linuxworld San Francisco has come and gone.  I have to admit it wasn't the most exciting LWCE I've ever been to, but it is always nice seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

I also have to admit the coolness factor was several degrees off the  record.  While he was there, I'm told, I never managed to see Maddog. I did get to catch up with Russ Pavlicek (Cassatt), Robin (Roblimo) Miller (sourceforge) , and Adam Goodman (Linux Magazine).  I had a chance to talk James Gray and Jill Franklin of Linux Journal and express my wants to see some part of the culture of open source return to the "new, cool stuff". I had a chance to laugh with Patrick McConaughy (Avocent) and his oddball sense of humor.

I even got to teach a bit of Flex.

Yeah, me. (and wipe that smirk off your face!)

Adobe was part of a desktop Linux focus on the show floor.  Thanks to Dell, who provided the laptops (running Ubuntu, definitely drool-worthy), we had the open source components of Flex loaded up, and Flash as well. James Ward, Flex Evangelist, who built our quickie tutorial taught day 1. David Zuckerman, one of Adobe's Computer Scientists in Flex Engineering taught day 2.  And I taught day 3.

The concepts of Flex are easily gotten. The language is elegant. And the capabilities on Linux were amazing. But here, go see for yourself. The course materials are here.

Anyway, logistical difficulties aside, the course went fine.  People are always amazed at how easy, and powerful Flex is, and just how quick you can become proficient in it.

So, give it a try. Go get the bits you need from Flex.org or fire up one from here. And let me know what you think!

Let's see you at Max 2007:

Posted by Dave McAllister at 03:01 PM | Permalink

Hindsight being what it is, I’d like to think I was right, at least on servers, in embedded devices. Let’s hold judgement on desktops for a moment.

Linux is now just expected. Kind of like VMS in the 80’s, Windows in the 90’s, if you aren’t doing Linux, you are ignoring a significant and increasing part of the market.

"So what", you say? (And you’d be right… see, no one cares).

Well the issue facing Linux is a new and increasing confusion on what Linux is. In the last year as a consultant, I’ve met with 5 companies who wanted to know: 1. which Linux to develop for? and 2. how to get out of the loop on maintaining multiple, development-incompatible Linux flavors.

Well, there’s no good answer. We still have the Linux community (the last remaining “Cares” group ready to extol the glories of their favorite distribution, be it Red Hat, Novell, Ubuntu, or my choice for a new distribution “Britney Spears Linux” the distro with nothing hidden. It’s not trivial for companies, especially small companies, to pick and create support for all of the possible choices, nor does the current “standards” cover all the possible contingencies. (But at least the Linux Foundation is trying). BTW, big companies face the exact same challenge; they may have more resources to throw at the problem.

Already, the picket signs are up. “Just make it open source and we’ll do the rest”. Yeah right…

Believe it or not, it costs real money to release a product to open source. It can cost real money to contain potential damage from bad implementations. For instance, say I release a device driver for a new Schrödinger's cat powered storage device. I open source the Red Hat version of the driver, and it gets ported off to my BSpears Linux. Some unnamed company decides to use this driver and my hardware device to store their customer database, in spite of the “not supported” comments. When the device hits 80% full, the ported driver has a seizure and crashes, taking all the data with it. Guess who gets blamed… it ain’t Britney.

So, what’s the right play here? Should I go with the Red Hat dominant market share, the Novell (a newly-indentured servant of Microsoft) distro, some version that no one in my market uses? Should I focus on Germany (one answer), Japan (different answer) or the US?

So, what’s the hindsight going to be in 2010?

as always…

Posted by Dave McAllister at 09:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

By now, everyone, including the yellow eyed penguins in New Zealand, have seen the Microsoft patent news around Linux. If not, check out this feed at Reuters.

In short, Microsoft claims that Linux violates 235 of their patents, and for the good of the world, will insist that these be licensed. Or else (nudge, nudge). Well the claim is that they'd prefer to license than litegate, but what would you expect in an interview.

Anyway the issue here is really not around Microsoft's claims, but rather around watching a multi-year initiative in open source outreach go up in smoke.

A few years ago, Microsoft started an open source initiative to reach out to the community, led by Bill Hilf, and Sam Ramji, Microsoft's OSSL and Port25 had a long hard path to acceptance, and even some trust. Over the past year, it's been interesting watching as the community (at least smart types) moved from the pre-conceived notion of Evil Empire to a stsed "These guys aren't that bad". In fact, at a recent Open Source Think Tank, Sam managed to clearly explain the concepts and forces behind the Novell-Microsoft licensing deal.

Years of outreach, resulting in positive good will... gone.

The Forbes article demonstrates the ever present danger in Microsoft, that the spokespeople may not be clearly aligned in content. While unspoken, the message came across, at least to me, as "Mama spank!", if the bad boys of open source don't stop all this nonsense and come back into the fold. In one fell swoop, the threat of patents, of legal attacks are all highlighted, outlined and identified. And all for our own good.

So what is it?  Is Microsoft embracing the open source community, led by Port25, or is Microsoft out to destroy the underpinings of open source through the application of litigation.

It's not easy for large software companies to understand, much less embrace open source. Trust me, I can attest to this (with background in leading these initiatives at SGI and now Adobe). However, it gets much harder when the efforts are countered by voices on high.

In many ways, this is symptomatic of a company that fails to grasp the business concepts that open source can power. Note, I didn't say "open source business model". Open source is many things, but not a business model, instead it enables or acclerates business models. Sure, patent licensing or litigation is certainly a business model, but then, open source is an elusive target.

In short, I'm sorry to see that Microsoft, with the steps taken by Port25, have failed to be supported by its executives. Cause while Microsoft may think we are playing Monopoly (" Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200"), the open source world is building a whole new world.

As always, opinions are my own.

Posted by Dave McAllister at 08:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Hi there.

Welcome to Open at Adobe, where we’ll try to keep you aware of the activities around openness. Open Specifications, Open Standards, Open Source.

It’s been an interesting time in my few months here. I must admit that my view of open access to all things Adobe was actually a bit negative. It seemed like Adobe was just YASG (Yet another Software Giant).

However, with a little searching, it becomes apparent that Adobe is both committed to growing communities and making things readily available.

A quick example or two. Last November (2006), Adobe released the code to Tamarin (the ActionScript™ Virtual Machine) to open source under the control of the Mozilla Foundation.

In January we started the process of moving the entire PDF specification into and through the formal standards process, working with ISO to do so. This specification has always been open and available, allows the creation of PDF tools. As we go through this process, and standards always take time, we will be releasing control of the future of PDF, and allowing it to be guided by a formal external process.

Adobe plays a role in several external projects as well. Within our Apollo project is Webkit. The source changes to webkit are available from opensource.adobe.com, and we will continue to work to make webkit a better, powerful product.

Adobe has a number of interesting places you can find out more, from discussion forums, access to prereleases, and cool new technologies.

Open Source stuff : http://opensource.adobe.com
Labs stuff: http://labs.adobe.com Be sure to check out Apollo in labs!

And of course this blog!

davemc

Posted by Dave McAllister at 08:03 AM | Permalink