I had two interesting conversations today. One with Patrick Moran of NASA’s World Wind project, and one with Ryan Waite who works on Microsoft’s High Performance Computing platform. I’ll be posting the full transcripts in the future, but here are some random observations.

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There was a good post over at Open at Adobe (subscribed) about what it’s like for an ISV to “support Linux”. Linux is established. It’s in every fortune 500, and it’s certainly something that ISVs have to look at supporting, especially for server based products. But Dave indicates that it’s not trivial to actually do that. I’m curious, what are the specific issues that ISV and IHVs run into when they tackle supporting the various distros?

The Linux Hourglass

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I’d like this research project to output some diagrams of how various open and closed source software is built. I spent a couple hours looking into the process for how code makes it into the Linux kernel, and came up with the following diagram. Before the diagram, let me caveot the heck out of this by saying 1) this diagram has probably allready been produced, much better, and I just wasn’t smart enough to find it, and 2) my diagram is wrong in a number of important ways, I just don’t know exactly what those errors are.

Here’s the 1st draft. Please respond with corrections either as comments to this post, or you can email me directly at scottswigart@gmail.com.

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Inspired by some of the conversations we’ve been having, I’ve been thinking about how a program changes over time. If you look at spreadsheet programs as an example, they started out pretty simple. They were single-sheeted, with a limited number of cells, and a set of (mostly financial) operations you could perform on cells. Now they are multi-sheeted, explicitly extensible, graphics rich, and so on. What drove the addition of these specific features in later versions? What drove the order in which those features were added?

I have a pretty good handle on how those decisions are made in a closed source environment. Version 1 is usually a bare-bones implementation of the core vision for the product. For subsequent version, a product manager talks to customers and developers about what is needed beyond the base functionality. (Some have complex processes for doing customer and market surveys, while others use a less formal approach.) At some point, the product manager will release a Product Requirements Document, outlining desired changes and additions for the next version release. There is then a negotiation with the technical management staff to factor in cost, budget, and resources. Usually, some subset of the requested functionality is authorized for implementation.

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In our world of malicious hackers, software security is a primary concern. Any program that has active software interfaces, whether to the file system, a network connection, the Internet, or some other piece of software, is potentially vulnerable to attack. And unfortunately, some devote significant resources to engaging in those attacks. Since those attacks can lead to things like denial of service, program crashes, and destruction or theft of critical data, enterprise software consumers must make every effort to minimize their exposure.

The first step in minimizing exposure to hack-attack is to use software that is secure in the first place. While this is obvious, it’s also probably impossible. Any complex system of software will include bugs; it’s the nature of the beast. And some of those bugs are likely to take the form of security vulnerabilities. So where does that leave us?

Historically, the approach by software teams, whether using open or closed source development methodologies, had been primarily reactive. A very simplified, general view of software development, both pre and post release, looks something like this:

• Implement the software.
• Test the software for bugs, including security vulnerabilities.
• Fix the important bugs found.
• Release the software.
• As security vulnerabilities are discovered in the field, fix them in the code and release patches that repair the installed base.

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Microsoft just announced that they’re cutting several key features from their upcoming virtualization technology codenamed “Viridian”. To me this is a case study in some of the differences that you find between closed and open source development. Basically, it comes down to how each methodology grapples with the very first thing you learn about project management.

People at one time hoped that Viridian would ship at the same time as Longhorn Server (LHS), but Microsoft announced that instead, it would end up shipping 6 months after LHS. Apparently, Microsoft has made the decision that Viridian will not be allowed to slip further. In other words, the product has switched from being feature driven to being date driven. On that triangle, “fast” (a.k.a. schedule) just got nailed down.
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In our recent interviews with James Whittaker and Michael Howard, the importance of process came up. These two guys are focused on limiting security vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, so the conversation centered on security processes, but it’s just as true in all phases of software development.

It seems clear to me that closed source development has a built in advantage when it comes to process. It’s all in the fact that all phases of contribution are captive. (I know, that’s brutal.) What does that mean? It means you can mandate processes, and you can enforce them.

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CDW has repeated a survey done last November to track Windows Vista adoption. You can download the report for the cost of your e-mail address. Some key findings:

The top percieved benifits are:

• Improved Security (78%)
• Improved Performance (56%)

It’s pretty interesting to me that people think Vista will run faster than their current OS considering the increased hardware requirements for Vista. I also notice that people don’t seem to think that Vista will be great at supporting open standards (or don’t care if it will).

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In March, Forrester Consulting released a report entitled “Open Source Software’s Expanding Role in the Enterprise.” You can find it here.

The report is very interesting in my opinion, though it is skewed by the criteria used to include companies in the research. According to the report, “only companies that indicated that they had at least evaluated open source software were included.” While a skewed sample of this type yields richer information about the nature of open source adoption in enterprises, it does not yield a true percentage of companies over all that are using open source software.

One of the things I found fascinating about the report is that it is a write-up on research into the attitudes and behaviors of companies. It is a measurement of perception, and behavior based on that perception; it is not a write up on the objective benefits (however you would figure that) of using or not using open source. After all, when it comes to adoption, perception is reality. The report points that out. The report implies that two of the areas where perception may not line up with objective reality are quality and security.

When asked what led enterprises to adopt open source systems, there was high importance placed on supporting open standards, and the ability to use the software without restrictions. Of a slightly lower importance were not being locked into one vendor, and the fact that there is no license fee for open source. Perhaps surprisingly, access to the source and the right to distribute derivative works were not considered important by most respondents.

The highest scoring barrier to adoption is the availability of service and support. There are many open source systems that have well defined support infrastructures, provided either by the software community/company, or by third party companies, but there are many more where there is no clear mechanism for support. The other concerns felt by over 50% of the respondents were software security (this concern is ubiquitous I think, regardless of delivery model), lack of internal skills, and product immaturity.

Something that surprised me is that just over 50% of the respondents that use open source software use it in mission-critical applications. It speaks to the growing acceptance of open source software as enterprise-grade systems. In the final analysis, it seems clear that open source software is making real inroads into the enterprise IT infrastructure. As a development paradigm, it has come of age.

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From Geek.com:

Dell’s participation in this agreement will include the purchase of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server certificates from Microsoft. Dell will also agree to create a services and marketing program to encourage current Linux customers who are not Dell Linux Customers to migrate to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

More and more I’m seeing that the coexistence of closed and open source, Windows and Linux, are permanent parts of our future.

Virtualization puts many technologies on a collisions course. If you’ve used something like Parallels coherence technology, you just seamlessly switch from one application to another, with little thought as to which underlying operating system is running the application.

People talk about who’s going to own the desktop in the future. The answer is no one, and everyone. I’ll go out on a limb and speculate that in five years, most high-tech people (developers, IT pros, etc) will be running multiple operating systems on their desktop simultaneously. The real question is, who will own the hypervisor?

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Rough Type has a good writeup about the value of non-paying customers. The conclusion is that non-paying customers may indirectly contribute more to your bottom line than paying customers directly do. I think this is something that’s been strongly understood, even if it hasn’t formerly been quantified, and is evident in terms like “community” and “critical mass”.

If true, it makes you wonder about things like software piracy, ripping music and movies, and the like. The industry seems to be shifting away from DRM, and BillG even acknowledged that there’s an upside to piracy of Windows.

It seems the key is striking a balance where you get something useful for free, but you see real value in spending money to get even more. With open-source software, the upsell is often support. Microsoft seems to be testing the waters with $3 software, assuming that most people would prefer to be legit if the barrier is low enough.

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We just had a great conversation with Marc Miller. He works for AMD as Open Source Relations Manager of the AMD Developer Outreach Team. He’s also a board member of the Linux Foundation, and the Linux Foundation Desktop/Client Linux Technical Co-Chairman. It will take me a few days to get the conversation distilled down into a post, but as soon as I do, I’ll put it up here.

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George Berkeley, the 18^th century bishop and philosopher, presented a system of philosophical thought that came to be known as “Idealism.” The central idea in Idealism is that perception is necessary for existence. It is expressed in his famous phrase “esse is percipi,” or “to be is to be perceived.” This is the philosophical framework from which the question is asked: “If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Berkeley would have said no – no sound, no tree, no forest.

As the idea pertains to source code of open source products, it has been labeled “the Berkeley Conundrum” (Feller and Fitzgerald, 2002). The simple premise presented is that if source code is never examined, it is not an advantage to have it. As Joseph Feller writes in his book, “Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software” — “…many organizations would have neither the competence nor even the desire to inspect or modify the source code…”

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Jon Galloway on Why Microsoft can’t ship open source code
Basically, according to Jon, they’d get sued because everyone would want to find a way to take them down.

A Deeper Look at Flex Becoming Open Source
Basically, they want more users. Some people will only use things that are open source. Flex was free, so going open source doesn’t hurt them. It also helps build community (a.k.a. loyalty).

Nat Torkington over at O’Reilly has a roundup of open-source developer tools
IDEs, text editors, and debugging.

Asia’s set for an Open Source explosion
Bad news for companies looking for fat licensing fees from these emerging markets.

A million blogs can’t be wrong
I hope the WordPress folks put 6 digits in their usage counters, because any time now they’re about to count their 1 millionth blog in WordPress. I always suspected this blog was one in a million, but now I have proof.

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We’ve started a blogroll (right nav). If you know of other great blogs, feel free to comment.

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