Once More unto the Breach

Microsoft Continued Standards Abuse, PDF and the XML Paper Specification

Andy Updegrove and Bob Sutor have both well covered the announcement that Microsoft is now going to submit its PDF competitive "XML Paper Specification" to ECMA for standardization, which means they'll no doubt run it to ISO after ECMA so as to claim an international standard. 

The economic point of standards is to encourage and enable multiple implementations of the thing specified providing choice and risk mitigation to customers.  A "standard" with one implementation is a vendor specification regardless of standards body imprimatur -- the economics benefits the vendor by enabling an ecosystem around their product.  So a successful standard needs to have multiple implementations.   

But there is another quality shared by successful standards.  Successful standards are based on existing practice and experience across a technology area.  There is a richness of trials, product successes and failures, over a period of years that feeds into the development of the specification that gets standardized once the right level of abstraction begins to become apparent.  You don't standardize new things because they need the ability to change and evolve.  You don't standardize a new product, because while standards invariably have mistakes, you don't deliberately want to standardize a new product's bugs. 

As Andy points out, Adobe's handling of PDF was indeed heavy handed.  But by the time PDF was launched by Adobe 10+ years ago, there was a wealth of broad industry experience in document formats, markup languages, page description languages, printer description languages and the appropriate levels of separation between them.  The format has stood the test of time with little change.  There are multiple readers and writers in the marketplace.  With the completion (finally) of the ISO standard, one can claim PDF is a successful standard. 

For Microsoft (or anyone else) to introduce a new and potentially innovative technology in the space should be encouraged.  Just because there is an accepted standard way of doing things should not mean society (through the marketplace) should ignore the opportunity to evolve a technology space and solve new related problems.   To publish the specification to encourage an ecosystem to explore and evolve the space (to the developing vendor's advantage) is also to be encouraged because that's good business practice, AND it provides the real-world economic test of the marketplace.  It also allows the vendor to reap the economic rewards of solving a new problem space for customers.    

But that's as far as something new should go.

Once again we have Microsoft dumping its new product specification into ECMA, with a scope that says the standard must align with the product.  They originally presented the format as their PDF killer as if that was somehow a feature customers need, so we also  understand they're not evolving anything, they're just competing with an accepted standard. 

I'm a big fan of Heinlein's (or Hanlon's) Razor, but regardless of whether this is malice or stupidity on Microsoft's part, it's very wrong from a standards perspective. 

We need just to say "no".

Interview with Beth Noveck as "Peer to Patent" Launches

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is swamped with patent applications and the patent examiners are drowning.  At this point in history, it can easily take 24+ months for an application to get through the system, and quality is suffering.  Beth Noveck leads the Peer to Patent initiative, a key effort to ease some of the pressure and vastly improve patent quality.  The program pilot began 15 June, 2007 with the support of the USPTO, after a long year of planning and organizing.  Its aim is to enable anyone with expertise to help vet applications for prior art, so the best possible patent is approved.  (The following flow diagram comes from the Peer to Patent site.)

The program is already at work.  Here's an example of one of the patents under peer review. (Sign up to participate.)

I've known Beth for a couple of years, since meeting her at the inaugural Government Open Source Conference in Portland.  When the opportunity to interview her came up at Assignment Zero, I decided it was time to contribute.  We never did get a chance to talk directly with her schedule and the pilot launch, but we managed to develop the interview over a few rounds of email.   The interview is up on the Assignment Zero site, (with promises of future publication in Wired). 

This is an important program and lots of companies that care about patent reform are sponsoring it.  It is perhaps most interesting that so many of them are in the computing and software fields.  But then we've also created the biggest mess for ourselves. 

Ari Jaaksi on Nokia and Open Source and the N770

Ari Jaaksi is head of open source software operations at Nokia, and is responsible for Nokia's N770/N800 and maemo.org initiatives.  When Nokia developed the software platform for the N770 internet tablet, they determined early on to use as much open source software as was feasible to deliver the device.  In a white paper on Ari's blog, he details the early learnings at Nokia around open source and product delivery.   

The concise 10 pages is stunning and worth the read in its entirety.  Nokia worked with a Debian 2.6 kernel, GNOME, the Hildon framework, and D-Bus to name a few open source components. Here's just a sampling of some of the observations:

On working in communities:

We used existing open sourced components such as the gnuchess chess game engine, bzip2 data compressor, id3lib for manipulating ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in digital audio files, and many more as such, whenever that was possible. The bigger the component or subsystem was, the better. When possible, we reused an entire subsystem and subsystem architectures, such as GNOME [GNOME 2006] and Debian [Debian 2006]. Instead of separate components we reused architectural blocks that already integrate several independent components.

In several cases we sponsored the development of existing components, such as the Linux kernel, DBUS, GNOME-VFS, GTK+, GStreamer, and OBEX to make them better meet our requirements. The additional work was needed especially in the areas of UI and usability, power management, performance, and memory management. Our engineers worked directly with communities participating development projects. We also hired and asked developers within the communities to enhance components based on our needs.

On cost savings:

The biggest cost savings came from the utilization of already available components. We utilized several free components and subsystems as such, with no modifications.

We also improved several components to better meet our requirements. Such improvement is cheaper than creating the needed functionality from scratch.

Some 2/3 of the code of the Nokia 770 is licensed under an open source license. These components made it possible for us to build the software cheaper than we could have done using closed and proprietary technologies.

On code quality:

If we compare the code from open source to the code developed by us, our conclusion is that open source is of better quality. We have more bugs and problems in the Nokia developed code. This is only natural because the majority of the Nokia code is build from scratch and is thus very young. Open source code, on the other hand, has mostly been used by others already. They have fixed the most severe errors already before we started to use the code.

If we compare open source code to commercial components used on our platform, the quality difference is not that obvious. The commercial components have typically been used by others, too. That has improved their quality.

On engineering flexibility:

Open source is flexible when we needed to fix a problem or change functionality. We often requested bug fixes or modifications to the commercial closed components on our platform. If the vendors didn’t have the capacity or will to fix the problem on time, we had few options. We could not fix problems  ourselves because the companies using closed source didn’t want us to access their source code. With open source components, though, we fixed bugs yourself, hired somebody else to fix them, or worked with the communities for the modifications. We thus had many options available, and in most cases we managed to fix the problems at hand. The free access to the code and to the  developers improved the quality of open source originated components within the final product.

On software licensing:

Software licensing is often a complicated and time consuming process. It requires a lot of negotiations between the licenser and the licensee. Based on our experience, an average in-licensing process for a software component takes 6 – 12 months. It is only then when you know if you can really use the component in your project or whether you need to find other solutions.

Licensing is simpler with open source. The licensor has already done the most of the due diligence work in advance. In most cases, the licensor keeps the copyright, doesn’t give any exclusivity, and gives the licenser full right to use the component any way needed. At the financial side, licenser has decided that the code is free, but the licenser may offer support or engineering services for money. Nothing prevents the licensor to go elsewhere for help, if so needed.

All the source code is available for the licensor to study and evaluate. The licensor can assess the community, companies, and available hackers supporting the technology in question. Also, the licensor can talk to others without worrying about trade secrets.

Open source simplifies and accelerates software licensing, and reduces  technology and quality risks. Instead of negotiation for months, the technical work can start immediately.

On confidentiality and the open source community: 

We worked intensively with communities already before we announced the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. Open source approach requires openness and information sharing during development. A high publicity launch, on the other hand, is the way to introduce consumer products to the public and you do not want to reveal the products before the launch date. There is thus a potential conflict between the open source openness and product launch secrecy.

The credentials, work, and history of open source hackers are open for everybody to see. The hackers typically want to work with interesting things also in the future. Therefore, they don’t want to become famous for jeopardizing somebody else’s project and misusing their trust. Thus, openness and open source can actually be much stronger bond than any NDA or monetary sanction one can put on an individual or a company.

Based on our experiences, we can combine open communication and product confidentiality. We had no information leakage prior to the commercial product announcements, although we had had tens of developers working on the software with us. For some of the developers, we had told very detailed information about the forthcoming product. Developing products in open source and yet maintain the confidentiality of the product plans and roadmaps was possible for us.

He further outlines some of the challenges of working in communities, managing the licenses, and where new costs showed up in the project, but summarizes:

Our experiences demonstrate that open source technologies and development model suit very well for such devices. We created the product in shorter time and with lesser resources that we have managed to develop other products utilizing proprietary software. In essence, open source offers time and cost savings in a form of readily available components and subsystems, available developers, and effective development model.

The one interesting thing he doesn't mention: the lack of royalties paid to a Microsoft or Symbian, but then this is a paper about open source software.  As the Asian markets open up, a billion handsets in China won't translate into a billion royalty payments for the OS vendors.  When that amount of money is at stake, experiments like this one are critical to getting the open source engineering model right to save Nokia billions of dollars long term. 

I've thought the Nokia 770 was cool since Mikko handed me his to explore.  The slides to Ari's original presentation on the N770 development are here.  Ari's paper is a fabulous contribution describing how a large company can engage in open source communities.  Ari maintains a blog that is also well worth tracking.

Enjoy!

Heading to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit

I'm heading to Sunnyvale this afternoon to participate in the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit at Google's Mt. View campus for the next few days.  I'll be staying at the Wild Palms.  I head home Friday evening out of San Jose.  By all means give me a shout if you're around.

Open Source Business 3 + 3

Mikko Puhakka began a challenge on his blog yesterday to list three success factors and three things to avoid when building businesses using free and open source software.  He then tagged five of us to jump on. (Mårten Mickos has already responded.)  So, here goes based on what I've seen and done: 

Three ways open source software can benefit your business:

• Open source software is a great way to enable innovation on your platform.  We all know there are shrinking orders of magnitude differences between the number of people that use your software, to the number that report bugs, down to the number that deeply contribute BUT those contributions can be golden in keeping the creativity and ideas flowing, as well as just plain brilliant direct additions to your product space.  There is no predictability as to when such contributions arrive, but they won't arrive if you don't make the software available. 
• Your community of users is an incredible asset to spread the word.  It's not just about people using your software for free and telling other people about it, but rather the fact that developers will start taking it to work and it will sneak in under the floorboards.  This is how the PC revolution started.  It's why Visual Basic is still huge.  It's how the Linux revolution happened.  So too with MySQL.  And then the CIO discovers it and they need to treat it as a proper product asset just like any other asset on which the business depends.
• Use open source software to rapidly develop new product complements for your solution.  It helps amortize the cost of development/support/maintenance across the community of developers/users/customers/partners/competitors.  You must, however, be a good community player. 
  

And three "ideas" to avoid when thinking about open source software and your business:

• Just because you published the source code does not make your product any more remarkable to your customers.  At the end of the day, you have a business to run, and that means customers need solutions to their problems.  A mediocre solution won't become "better", or the wrong solution won't suddenly fit the situation, because the source code is now available.
• Understand your value proposition and your core competency, and choose your license wisely: if your entire core competency that enables your core value proposition to your customers is embodied in the software, DON'T publish it in such a way that you give away the company.  I have seen a situation in the security world where the software solution was everything.  If they had made the software available under the wrong license, they would have essentially given away their future growth.
• Just because you published the source code does not mean the world is going to work for you for free.  It's been a while since we saw this level of naivety with the original Mozilla launch from Netscape, but I'm betting there are still a lot of business people that don't understand open source software economics that still have old ignorant opinions. 
  

So whom to tag next?  I'll reach for:

• Michael Tiemann (an early and original player),
• Manel Sarasa, OpenBravo CEO (keeping with growing interesting companies in other parts of the planet meme),   
• Jonathan Schwartz (because a big company opinion is always good to have, and Jonathan is nothing if not original in his thinking and his willingness to push the envelop),
• Stephen O'Grady (to get the analyst opinion in early), and
• David Skok (to get an interesting investor opinion)

Okay.  I can't stop here.  Three more opinions I think would be important to have:

• Javier Soltero, Hyperic CEO (because like Manel he too is in the throws of carefully building a company),
• Taiwen Jiang "D.J." (because China is coming)
• Amy Jiang (because China is coming, and Ubuntu is just plain important)

And Christopher Kuhn at OTRS jumped on board as well. 

OSBC 2007: Mårten Mickos Keynote

Mårten Mickos invariable gives great keynotes.  This year's keynote at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, "Why Freedom Makes a Better Business Model" (PDF 220K), was no different.

The joy of a Mickos keynote is that he actually wants to educate the audience, sharing his experience, and realizes that the audience didn't come to hear a sponsoring company product pitch.  (There is exactly one slide in the deck where he talks directly about a new offering from MySQL, BUT he does it in the context of how the company is exploring the business model.)  Mårten shares his experiences and observations from MySQL around freedom as a business enabler, innovation, the network effects enabled by using free software as part of the business model, as well as the challenges.   All in 22 short slides that mostly stand on their own.  Enjoy!

[If someone knows of a recording of the talk online, please send the link along.]

Openness, ODF, and OOXML from Sam Hiser

Sam Hiser has put together a comprehensive essay comparing the Open Document Format (ODF) standard and Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standard.  Sam is vice-president and director of business affairs for the OpenDocument Foundation, so has an obvious bias.  It is, however, a timely and very useful document considering the amount of government lobbying Microsoft is doing.  Sam compares the two standards based on:

• Specification development practices
• Usefulness of the specification from an implementors perspective
• Clarity of IPR rights
• Breadth of implementations (many ODF implementations on many platforms versus one partial OOXML implementation)

The document is an excellent summary.

Microsoft Advertising Windows Embedded on Google

I googled "microsoft xandros".
While I typically don't notice ads, I happened to notice the first sponsored link on the right side of the page:      

Linux Download
Customize your Operating System.
Learn more about Windows Embedded.
www.Microsoft.com

You end up on the Microsoft Windows Embedded page. 
The word "linux" appears nowhere on the page. 
Sort of wrong and funny all at the same time on multiple levels.

The Microsoft Xandros Deal

"Microsoft, Xandros Broad Collaboration Agreement Extends Bridge Between Commercial Open Source and Microsoft Software"

And so it begins again ...

What was Announced
The actual details will presumably be held secret for as long as possible, just like the Novell Microsoft deal. Here are the details from the announcement on Microsoft's press wire: 

Over the next five years, Microsoft and Xandros will focus on five primary efforts:

• Systems management interoperability: Xandros and Microsoft believe advances in system management technology can significantly reduce the cost of operating large computer networks running diverse platforms.  Xandros will partner with Microsoft to deliver value-added heterogeneous management capabilities that will work with the next generation management capabilities that will work with the generation of Microsoft  System Center and Xandros Systems Management products, which provide end-to-end service management.  Xandros will also join Microsoft and other management vendors in implementing the WS-Management set of protocols in Xandros BridgeWays cross-platform management products and in various systems management standardization efforts.
• Server interoperability.  Xandros will license a broad set of Microsoft server communications protocols. Xandros will develop enhancements to Xandros Server, allowing it to interoperate more smoothly with Windows Server in a network setting.
• Office document compatibility.  Xandros and Microsoft share the view that competing office productivity applications should, by design, make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another.  To that end, Xandros will join Microsoft and other companies that are building open source translators fostering interoperability between documents stored in Open XML and Open Document Format.  Xandros will ship translators in upcoming releases of its Xandros Desktop offering. 
• Intellectual property assurance.  Through the agreement, Microsoft will make available patent covenants for Xandros customers.  These covenants will provide customers with confidence that the Xandros technologies they use and deploy in their environments are compliant with Microsoft's intellectual property.  By putting a framework in place to share intellectual property, Xandros and Microsoft can speed the development of interoperable solutions. 
• Microsoft sales and marketing support.  The companies are committing to a set of sales and marketing efforts to promote the output of their technical efforts.  As part of this effort, Microsoft will now endorse Xandros Server and Desktop as a preferred Linux distribution dues to Xandros' efforts to establish rich interoperability and deliver IP assurance to its customers.  Also, a specialized team of Microsoft staff will be trained on the value propositions of this collaboration to customers and channel partners.  Xandros will also become a member of the Microsoft Interop Vendor Alliance. 

Fine.  Whatever.   I really wish marketing people would remember how to speak English like the rest of us.  The hyperbole and bombast just deaden the senses. 

What might it mean for Xandros
Xandros is looking for love (possibly in all the wrong places).  A quick tour of DistroWatch for the comparative view for Xandros over the past 12, 6, 3, and one month periods shows it falling from 25th to 28th to 31st to 40th respectively.  Ubuntu sat in first until the past month when it dropped to second in interest behind PCLinuxOS.  The harsh part of the story is that regardless of which period you view, there are a lot of well know, well packaged systems ahead of Xandros including Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, and Mandriva and that's just staying in the top dozen.  Even FreeBSD consistently ranks above Xandros on distrowatch.

I appreciate this is "interest" rather than sales as measured for Linux vendors.  But I'm looking for brand recognition here.  I even had to remind myself who Xandros was when I heard the news.  While that simply shows my ignorance, Xandros has been trying to be the "business person's" linux desktop, but Ubuntu and Novell have got to be hammering them pretty hard at this point in history.   

Novell signed its deal with Microsoft seven months ago.  They've made a lot of noise about how the coupon program has been GREAT for business.  (Other views differ.)  They weathered the community storm.  They have consistently said they don't believe Linux infringes any Microsoft patents, and that the IP related parts of the deal weren't about any current Linux patent infringement.  If you buy the public message, then the deal has likely been net positive for Novell, if only for the cash injection.  For Xandros this deal is their perceived chance to get some commercial love which they probably would like about now.

Corel is an investor in Xandros along with Linux Global Partners.  Corel has had a bizarre history with Microsoft, alternately suing and collaborating with them.  It should come as no surprise that a Corel spin-off like Xandros considers a deal with Redmond good business.

Xandros is giving:

• Xandros will implement WS-Management in BridgeWays (presumably in the next five years).
• Xandros is now a server communications protocol licensee.
• Xandros will join the ODF translator community.

Xandros is getting:

• The same deal on IP from Microsoft, i.e. Microsoft is generously promising not to sue Xandros customers.  Whatever.
• Lots of co-sales and co-marketing love. 

"By putting a framework in place to share intellectual property, ...."  There is no "sharing" happening today.  A quick search of the USPTO database reveals the number of patents with "assignee name" of Xandros: ZERO.  The number of patents with an "assignee name" of Microsoft: 6776.  The number of patents with an "assignee name" of Corel (one of Xandros investors): 40.  It might be interesting to know what rights Xandros had to Corel patents, and what rights they may have just cross licensed, but that's Corel's problem.

What does it mean for Microsoft
They get a new protocol licensee which I'm sure they'll be pleased to trumpet to the EU. 

They get a renewed messaging platform for their continued infatuation with customers and patents instead of customers and solutions.  It's a broken platform which shows no leadership, but that apparently won't stop them from pushing it. 

They get to continue the messaging shades of grey around Microsoft Office Open XML and ODF.  "Xandros and Microsoft share the view that competing office productivity applications should, by design, make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another."  Microsoft sees its death in ODF.  They will fight like a cornered rat and message appropriately. 

"Microsoft will now endorse Xandros Server and Desktop as a preferred Linux distribution dues to Xandros' efforts to establish rich interoperability and deliver IP assurance to its customers."  I've confidence the discussions with Novell on this are hysterical in both meanings of the word.  It has the potential to be a distracting headache from a reasonable partnership with a first-tier commercial distributor of Linux, to be able to tout an IP message with a third-tier player. 

Is there an implication with GPLv3?
Damned if I know.  GPLv3 is not truly finalized, and I've confidence better minds, legally trained and hard-wired to the current GPL development process will weigh in here.  BUT, I'd be hard pressed to say this deal actually matters.  Linux is what it is.  The way it's licensed will be decided by the community that invests in it.  The GPLv3 will be what it will be.  It will be used by the communities that choose to use it.  Any conjecture on whether Microsoft signing a deal with a third-tier commercial Linux distributor is going to effect the process seems a bit wild.  I've confidence saner heads will prevail.  Well ... after an initial snarl or two. 

Should anyone care?
I saw Allison Randall on a recent OSBC panel on whether the Novell-Microsoft Deal was "good" for open source. She sat with Sam Ramji (Microsoft), Justin Steinman (Novell), and Jonathon Corbet (LWN.net).  Sam and Justin did a mostly fine job of clarifying the agreement, but Allison's point that the deal is irrelevant for open source was more important. 

The Novell-Microsoft deal was a deal between two vendors just like any other deal involving co-marketing, technical co-operation, and IP cross licensing.  (With Xandros there's apparently no cross license as they have nothing to license.)  Novell thinks its best serving its customers.  Microsoft thinks its best serving its investors.  So too with this Xandros-Microsoft deal.

There is no more patent infringement validation here, despite Microsoft posturing, than the Novell-Microsoft deal.  A hundred companies using free and open source software in their offerings to customers could sign patent cross licensing or covenant deals with Microsoft, and it means nothing with respect to the veracity of Microsoft's infringement claims.  Patents are tickets to negotiations.  They are (sometimes) interesting opportunities for discussions.  But they are utterly unproved until they enter a courtroom.   Some companies see a Microsoft deal as a strategic leg up in their business.  It means nothing with respect to possible claimed infringement, and even less to other mainstream players like IBM, and Red Hat.   It's all just business. 

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

- Macbeth, Act V, Scene V

[Disclaimer: Microsoft is a client of mine.]

 

Open Tuesday: Mikko Interviews Ignacio Correas

Mikko Puhakka is a founder of Open Tuesday, a business man, researcher at Helsinki University of Technology, and an original investor in MySQL AB.  He's begun blogging again which is a good thing because he has great business perspectives on open source software.  While much of the blogging he does is in Finnish (to the detriment of those of us not fluent in the language), he does occasionally blog in English.  In this blog entry, Mikko interviews Ignacio Correas on the history of Warp Networks (versión española) and its open source strategy.  I had the pleasure of meeting Ignacio at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco recently.

Open Tuesday is starting to work on events in Warp Networks home town of Zaragoza, Spain, which is also to be home of the 2008 World Exhibition (versión española).  Ignacio, CEO of Warp Networks, is one of the principals involved.

Dinner at Cafe Pescatore with Ignacio and Heidi.