LibreOffice
So the news yesterday was that The Document Foundation has been set up by a consortium of interested parties who are unimpressed with Oracle’s stewardship of the OpenOffice.org codebase and project. In short, the project has forked. This isn’t the first time a prominent open source project has decided as a community that the direction of a controlling company is not they way they want to go. In 2005 Mambo was an up and coming web content management system, but there were issues in the community and the strategy of the company. It forked. A foundation was set up, OpenSourceMatters and the codebase was forked into Joomla! So taking a lesson from history, what happened next to the two halves of the fork? Well I find Google Trends illustrates it rather well. Mambo is the blue line, Joomla! is the red line. If the fork had not happened would the blue line continued to a higher point today than the red line? Hard to say, in the bigger picture it looks like forking it was a setback, but it is clear that the fork managed by the foundation quickly gained more popular relevance (and no, this is not very scientific) than the one managed by a single company.
Lets have a look at OpenOffice.org vs LibreOffice. Clearly not much on the chart yet for LibreOffice except for a media spike at the end, it will be interesting to look at this chart in a year or so and see when the red line crosses the blue line.
Westminster eForum Speech
Today I had the pleasure of addressing the Westminster eForum event on Free and open source software in business, in government. I had a five minute slot following the excellent Karsten Gerloff of the Free Software Foundation Europe, then after speeches from Paul Holt, Andrew Katz and Christopher Roberts we had a panel Q&A with questions from the audience. Here are the notes from my speech, transcripts of the whole event will be distributed around Westminster. The seminar was sponsored by our friends at Sirius.
Hello & Good Morning Ladies & Gentleman.
My name is Alan Lord and I am co-owner of The Open Learning Centre; an Open Source Software Consulting and Services business based in Surrey.
In the few minutes I have I would like to briefly discuss a few of the themes that were suggested for this session.
So, starting with the first one then:
The challenges faced by small, medium and large organisations implementing Free & Open Source Software?
For me, one of the key challenges is Procurement:
Procurement practices have not kept pace with changing times. Existing policies and procedures often struggle with the idea of acquiring something that is ”free”. In addition, in our Free Software marketplace, many suppliers do not have the budgets or resources to participate in lengthy tendering processes and, frankly, often have better and less costly opportunities to pursue elsewhere.
Another challenge is lack of familiarity and knowledge: There is still a significant proportion of the population who haven’t really heard of, or understand what Free & Open Source Software is, even though they may use it everyday. The Open Source community has made tremendous inroads and awareness is definitely increasing, but bear in mind, we are competing against companies with multi-billion dollar marketing budgets.
Now I’d like to move on to mention something about:The costs of deploying Free and Open Source software?
Firstly, it’s important to recognise that the ”free” in Free Software generally refers to freedom and not necessarily the price; although Open Source Software is frequently zero cost too. It should be recognised that implementing any software solution has costs, whether or not the software itself is freely available.
Time, of course, is not free; training, consulting and other professional services require people and knowledge, all of which have a cost whether they be internally or externally sourced. Although I feel fairly confident in saying that Open Source providers tend to charge comparatively less, I would recommend you use your experience to estimate and budget for the financial costs of the professional services you will need to acquire. Typically, the work required will be similar, in volume at least, for any given project whether Free or proprietary.
The financial benefits of Open Source really make an impact once you start using it: There are no ongoing licensing fees; you may copy and replicate what you have as many times as you wish. Product development, bug fixes and new features can generally be introduced at your discretion, and not that of your software vendor.
Another question that is often discussed is:
Is Open Source Software vulnerable?
Open Source Software is widely regarded as being inherently more secure than comparable proprietary software. Generally I would concur with this; particularly with regard to Operating Systems such as Linux and BSD. However, no software is ever infallible or 100% secure, so as an IT manager one must take all available precautions.
Many of the stories of Open Source vulnerabilities are, in the end, down to lack of skill or knowledge in setting up and maintaining these systems; this is just the same as with the proprietary alternatives. Again, skills and good education are the key to minimising these risks.
Free and Open Source Software is created in a very different way to legacy software. The ‘source code’, or instructions, are public; anyone can look at them. In a well managed Open Source project this visibility actually helps to improve the security of the end product. The benefit of this code-transparency was famously described by Eric S. Raymond, a well known Open Source author and advocate:
“Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.”
And finally I’d like to touch upon the question:
Who is responsible if Open Source Software is compromised or malfunctions?
Well – to be blunt. You are.
But then how is this different to proprietary solutions? If you’ve ever read a License Agreement for proprietary software then I’m sure you will have noticed that they start by disclaiming all liabilities, warranties and risks. Here’s one sentence taken from a very famous proprietary software vendor’s license agreement:
“The entire risk arising out of use or performance of the OS Components AND ANY SUPPORT SERVICES remains with you.”
If your chosen proprietary software is compromised or malfunctions what happens? Basically, you await the benevolence of the manufacturer, who is hopefully still in business and has a copy of the version of your product. With Free and Open Source Software, you will ALWAYS have a copy of the source code available.
A key feature of Open Source licensing, and something that is specifically NOT offered in the proprietary world, is the empowerment to improve and change it yourself. This doesn’t mean that you have to write the code though, there are lots of developers who will do that for a fair price.
Thank you.
vtiger on demand – Open Source as a Service
Today we are adding a new offering to our regular line up of consultancy services and comprehensive on-site bundles and this time it is out in the cloud.
There is a clear general trend towards outsourced software as a service, back when this first became a viable concept technically it seemed complete madness to me to have all your valuable data locked up on some server you never even get to see. You would be at the mercy of the vendor, subject to them raising their prices or going out of business and with very little recourse when they do. This remains a major business risk with proprietary software as a service, but the benefits of not requiring in-house hardware and expertise to install and manage a useful and scalable solution are still quite compelling.
With Open Source as a Service things are somewhat different, you still get to wash your hands of the installation and management of the hardware and software, upgrades just happen and they are someone else’s problem. You get the low cost of entry and prices that that are in proportion to the amount of users that are getting value from it. You also get Freedom instead of lock-in. You can take your hosted cloud based software and run the same code somewhere else. Either on another bit of remote hardware you never see, or on a box with flashing lights that sits quietly in a broom cupboard somewhere in your building. You are not at all locked in to Open Source as a Service, you are using it because it provides benefits you want at a price that is good value, as well as financially supporting the further development of the software.
So the announcement today is that The Open Learning Centre is partnering with vtiger CRM to bring the vtiger on demand Open Source as a Service to the UK market. This is hosted out in the cloud (Amazon EC2 to be precise) and managed on a day to day basis by the vtiger engineers. We can provide an optional on-site training day to complement the hosted service and of course at any time you can transition from the hosted CRM to one of our Ubuntu based Libertus servers (or the other way round if you like). This is just one example of how Software Freedom makes total business sense and it illustrates the difference between free as in no cost and the much more important free as in Freedom.
PCs with Compulsorily Bundled Software Should Be Outlawed
The Windows Tax
Now a fellow Open Source blogger and businessman, Dr Adrian Steel of Mercian Labels, is trying, so far without luck, to get the cost of an unwanted Windows License refunded from a company called Fonestop Ltd. He’s kindly providing an ongoing record of the correspondence between himself and the supplier whilst he seeks a fair refund for the software that he does not want nor require.
This example goes a long way to indicate why the bundling of software and hardware in this way is so wrong. It is incredibly hard to buy a computer in the UK that is not already infected with an inefficient, outdated, expensive, bloated and, still alarmingly, insecure operating system called Microsoft® Windows™. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to get even a partial refund due to the updated terms in the EULA that comes with version 7 of the OS (you can read most of the license agreements here):
By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, contact the manufacturer or installer to determine its return policy. You must comply with that policy, which might limit your rights or require you to return the entire system on which the software is installed.
In earlier versions the statement about returning the entire system was not there. Here’s what the Vista EULA said:
By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software. Instead, contact the manufacturer or installer to determine their return policy for a refund or credit.
Reading Adrian’s struggle to get back the money that is rightfully his makes me quite angry. There are plenty of computer users that do not want or need Windows software when they buy a new computer. Even if they are not aware of the great Free Software operating systems such as Ubuntu or Fedora or many others, they probably already have a perfectly legal and valid CD of Windows in a drawer or cupboard anyway. Even I have a legal and valid Windows XP CD in my office; not that it ever gets used nowadays…
So what’s to be done? I really feel like starting some kind of campaign to get the lawmakers here and across the EU to make this kind of practice illegal. I as a consumer should be able to select and buy any computer I like and decide for myself if I wish to pay for a pre-installed operating system or not. That should be a choice I am free to make. Currently, apart from a few very brave and admirable vendors, I do not have this choice. And now it’s even harder to obtain a refund due to the change in the wording of Microsoft’s EULA.
These Brave and Admirable vendors deserve a mention:
- Brave because I’m sure that they will come under pressure from businesses like Microsoft to bundle their software and conform to the way that they want you to sell Computers.
- Admirable because they are standing up for something which is good and noble and may not be the most profitable course for their company to take.
As many of you know we started a website some time ago called Naked Computers to track these Brave and Admirable suppliers around the world. It’s been useful to many but it has been quite quiet recently and it could definitely do with a revamp to make it look more appealing (any WordPress Theme designers fancy knocking up a new look and feel for the site?).
In the UK there is one computer supplier that, in my humble opinion, should be applauded for their attitude: Novatech. I think that every machine they sell from their website or retail outlets are offered with or without an Operating System; it’s your choice. It’s quite interesting to look on their site and see just how expensive Windows really is: ~£70 to ~£800 or more!
Recently I noticed Novatech making a few noises on Twitter and I commented positively on their approach to selling naked computers. This was their reply to me:
@opensourcerer Thanks for recommending us, we sell all systems without operating systems as we like to give our customers a choice.
So come on you lot! Let’s try and come up with a plan, ideas and suggestions as to how to go about fixing this problem once and for all… Our company, The Open Learning Centre can host a wiki or something if needed but please use the comments here to start the ball rolling.
Are there any lawyers out there who fancy a challenge? Want to fight for Freedom and allow consumers to make their own choice rather than be forced to pay for something they frequently neither need nor want?
Finally, for those naive souls who believe that an EULA gives you some protection or guarantees, think again…
Ubuntu 10.10 Installfests
We are looking forward to the release of the next version of Ubuntu, version 10.10 the Maverick Meerkat. In the UK we have a tradition of release day parties and there are several in the planning stages already. As this release will be on 10/10/10 it turns out that is a Sunday, and we should in theory have access to the final iso images slightly before the release date itself. This means we have an opportunity to run installfests during the day of release. I am not sure how many installfests there will be, or where they will be, but if you are in the UK or elsewhere and want to run a installfest in your local library or wherever you can find, then feel free to use this poster design based on an awesome Meerkat photo. The low resolution version was already CC licensed on flickr, I asked the photographer about the high res version and when he heard it was for an Ubuntu poster he gave us the high res version under the same terms!
So if you want to use this you can check out the svg source and the bitmap image on Ubuntu with:
bzr branch lp:~alanbell/+junk/installfest
Then feel free to edit it using Inkscape (it looks a mess in the image viewer, but don’t worry, it is fine in Inkscape), change the time, date, LoCo logo (would be great if other locos around the world get value from this) and print it. You will need the Ubuntu font to print it properly, I am hoping the font will turn up in Maverick soon, but there is some doubt about that at this stage. You may be thinking that the orange is too orangeish, that is because it is the correct CMYK colours for printing which are quite a long way from the RGB colour specification (I have another blog post on that I am working on).
If you are in the UK and want to run an installfest near you then get in touch because I have an even better offer for you. Give me the details you want for the venue and time and I will print out a bunch of them and post them to you courtesy of our company The Open Learning Centre and the shiny new printer we bought today.
