Once More unto the Breach

Ohloh Open Source Directory Passes 250,000 Projects

Ohloh announced yesterday that they now provide information and statistics on more than 250,000 free and open source software projects in their directory.

I have long believed that consumers of open source (users and buyers alike) don't want to buy "accredited" aggregations of open source. (Yes — I appreciate many CIOs say something different dressed in statements using "one throat to choke" but it's not what they do.) Red Hat, JBoss Inc, and MySQL AB all demonstrated over the past decade business execution based on being the "best" most focused provider of a critical piece of software. It wasn't simply their technology prowess, however, but their message to the market was equally sharp, clear and understandable, and their community engagement and commitment was obvious and well defined. When you consider other things that might reasonably be bought by an enterprise, you can see Alfresco's corporate growth here as well.

When a potential open source user wanted to find out "what open source software is available" to solve a problem, they were invariably left hunting across Google, SourceForge, and sites like java-source.net and FreshMeat. There was no consistency. The depth of information was sketchy. Some of it was bleeding edge software, some tied to the site. There was no sense of "what's good" unless you were already involved in a particular community, and even then community bias could get in the way. This gave way to a collection of directory solutions and companies that tried to bridge this gap.

Ohloh has always had the most useful and interesting directory for me. First, they have no direct sales model tied to the directory, so my trust in the depth and breadth of the information is high. Second, the beauty of the analysis is that the core data is metrics based on what programmers do, not what they say. I can see how big or small a community is, how long it's been around, how active it is, and this provides hard data when one then looks at the qualitative commentary. Third, it's always been comprehensive across the open source world and getting better all the time.

Ohloh summary view of the Eclipse Project

Over their several year history, they have continued to expand and add features to their core statistical analysis. They've built the community and expanded the number of repositories they support. Once one finds a project, one can see other projects immediately that are related through the tagging and stacking other Ohloh users share. The site is a proper social network for open source developers. It's been used to get a project manager's view of an open source project by the project's own leadership. As a resource for job hunters and recruiters it's invaluable to be able to see the visual resume of a developer. They've evolved their offerings to act as download host, and provide job and support services classifieds.

Over time Ohloh has also provided an API and interesting gadgets to add to project webpages, including the language calculator:

The code calculator (based on the COCOMO model):

And the overall statistics:

The Ohloh directory and community continues to get better and better as it evolves and matures. Congratulations on reaching the quarter million project mark!

Other data views from the Ohloh directory:

Disclaimer: I have done work for Ohloh in the past. I continue to act as an advisor.

Wired Publishes Assignment Zero Interviews

If you visit Wired.com today you will see the Assignment Zero work as the banner story.  Wired published the first three features and one of the Q and A's.  They will continue to publish our collective/collected work throughout the week, rolling two or three stories out each day. 

I participated in the Assignment Zero pro-am crowd-sourcing journalism experiment, interviewing Beth Noveck on the Peer to Patent project.  The collection of interviews is incredible, however, including interviews with the likes of Lawrence Lessig, James Surowiecki, Clay Shirky, and Chris Messina.  (There were 80+ interviews in all.)

It's a fascinating experiment.  I'm still asking myself "why participate" (aside from seeing your work referred to by Wired.com).  It certainly forced me to research and consider how to interview someone to [hopefully] get them to tell their story.  As I start to resurrect the podcast again, the experience proved invaluable. 

In the mean time, enjoy the interviews!

Blogging and Traditional Marketing

Clearly I've reached some new plateau in my "blog" status.  I received anonymous email from CNN Marketing encouraging me to blog about a press release they sent along.  It touched the wrong nerve.  Here's my response email:

Dear CNN Marketing ([email protected]),
Come on, guys.  Really.  I (obviously) take credit for the writing on my
blog.  You should take credit for your emails.  Otherwise we can't have
a discussion.  It would be like talking with the CNN logo on your
building.  Decidedly impersonal. Without a name, we can't even begin to
have trust.  No trust -- no relationship.

As a marketing organization, if you really honestly want to reach out
through the "new media" you've discovered, then have the courage to
reach out.  Step naked off the damned cliff and be bold.  I am on a
personal name/email/mobile basis with about a dozen journalists.  We
share news.  Sometimes I'm quoted in their articles and on their own
news blogs.  It's a relationship.  We respect one another and one
another's integrity and confidences.

You want me to be your pipeline?  Build a relationship.  I'm not your
pimp.  I can imagine the script that culled my name and address from a
blog search on "China" to cough it up to you, but your 1:many broadcast
is so so so traditional media.  I could explain "social arithmetic" to
you, but I'm betting you wouldn't understand.  Indeed, I've confidence
the management chain in CNN marketing will be very sure I'm wrong.  Too
bad.

But ask yourself: What possible incentive would I have to do ANYTHING
with the impersonal advert you sent to me?  I didn't even crack open the
zip archive you sent along. I write for my readers.  Why would I want to
"place ads" in my content on your behalf?

You did NOT do me a favour by sending me your content.  If I knew who
you were, however, it might have been different.  If you took the time
to introduce yourself, and find out who I am, and what I write about for
my readers, you might discover I'm not a good target for this piece of
information.  But I might be a GREAT target for the next bit you want to
pass along.

Please don't waste my time unless you actually want to have the
discussion and are willing to put your name on your work.

kindest regards,
stephe

Here was their "original" personal email that provoked the response:

Dear stephen.walli (Once More unto the Breach),

xxxxx xxxx in Beijing, the latest addition to CNN.com's highly 
rated 'The Scene' series has just been released! As a well-written blog 
on the topic I thought you should be amongst the first to know.  I've 
attached some press material about xxxxx xxxx which you are free to use
on your blog.

<pithy quote removed>

I hope you and your visitors find this interesting!  If there's anything
else I can do for you please don't hesitate to let me know.

The scene itself can be found at:
<url removed>

Yours Sincerely,

CNN Marketing
--
CNN EMEA, Turner House, 16 Great Marlborough Street, London W1F 7HS
Tel: +44 20 7693 0939

As I said: clearly they hit a nerve.  At least the marketing person from UNISYS that tried a similar stunt last week (a.) was bold enough he signed his name to the email, and (b.) had apparently taken a look at my blog long enough to figure out my readers might be interested in the press release he passed on to me.  (I didn't think so.)

It's not like there aren't enough books on blogging out there.  Maybe they should hire Hugh or Seth to explain it to them, or at least they should read their blogs to understand better.  They definitely need to get a clue. 

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Interviews and Blogs and National Public Radio

I was interviewed recently for a National Public Radio business segment titled "Microsoft Finds Itself at a Crossroads".  The story ran yesterday.  This interview is what provoked my post on Microsoft a couple of weeks ago and its follow-up.  I'm a little sensitive to what editors do to reporter's work to "punch up" a story.  (Think about what just happened to Shai Agassi from SAP.) 

I've been using the blog as backup to thoughts and ideas expressed in interviews that then pass through the editor's shears. Recognize that the one minute of audio on NPR was culled from a 30 minute interview.  The couple of quotes in Business Week came from about an hour and a half of discussion. Blogging (to me at least) is a great way to maintain the integrity of the ideas that would otherwise be lost on the cutting room floor.

Nothing Goes Away on the Web

Tom Adelstein has published an article recently in which he pulls an article using the Way Back machine that I wrote for USENIX ;login: a decade ago on the U.S. government bid protest in which the question was debated as to whether or not NT was a "POSIX" operating system. 

When I was being qualified as an expert witness in this bid protest, opposing counsel certainly had every thing I had published in old fashioned paper form to that date on the table in front of them, trying to get me to contradict myself in front of the judge.  (The entire experience was a fascinating introduction to the legal process.)  I am fortunately coherent (if not completely articulate) in my opinions over time with respect to software standardization, development, business economics, and open source.  My opinions evolve, but I have not (yet) changed opinions on these subjects in any sort of contradictory way.

I worked at Microsoft through a period when email was in the news constantly because of litigation involving evidence exhibits of interesting emails.  The unwritten rule of email was never write anything that you weren't willing to see blown up in 100 point type on a court room projector.   Debates continue about personal email in a work context.  This discussion will no doubt evolve to instant messenger chats and text messages.  The RADAR open source project we released certainly allows all such traffic to be captured and indexed if you were a U.S. financial institution needing to track every communication and still wanting to use the most current technology tools available. 

And now we all blog.

Our lives, however, are no more transparent than before it all went online.  In a legal context, everything is still discoverable (in the legal sense), but now that discovery is easier and faster.  In the social context,  when we communicate we need always to consider the context, peoples' perceptions and memory (fickle that it can be), and how it will represent us not just now but in the future.  This applies whether in a blog posted editorial or a refereed journal article, in a letter or card to a loved one, in front of a room full of people at a conference or in the pub over beer with coworkers.  The online world hasn't changed this. 

Even the reach I may have world wide through a blog posting found by Google doesn't change the necessity to consider international values and perceptions, as we have always had world-wide distributed media, books, conferences, journals, etc. 

A friend once (enviously) accused me of saying things other people only think.  But for all the things I "share" there is still a wealth of private material buried deeply.  (Indeed I can hide it better by boldly sharing other things.)  We self edit and self mediate all the time.  The online world doesn't make our lives more transparent than we already were willing to share (or not). It simply makes those things we share more accessible.