Pass the Source

Bringing contestability back to the public sector desktop

For the last few months, the Open Source Society has been facilitating a project called the Public Sector Remix. This involves a number of public sector agencies investigating use of a free software stack on the desktop and understanding the barriers preventing its more widespread adoption. As the project has run out of money, my involvement is at an end, so it’s a good time to reflect on what the project has achieved so far.

The biggest challenge is overcoming inertia—the tendency to keep going in the same direction, because it’s the path of least resistance. Let’s be clear, there are no logical reasons to avoid free software on the desktop:

• modern FOSS stacks, such as Ubuntu and Novell SLED, are simply stunning and more than capable of meeting business requirements
• power users have the most to gain from the increased capabilities available from a FOSS desktop; e.g., try doing this with Microsoft Word (warning: PDF)
• vendors offering implementation, training and support services around FOSS are capable, passionate and committed (I’ll have more to say on vendor capability later)

Like any investment, it comes down to the business case and asking the right questions about how the investment will:

1. increase or decrease the cost of exiting from current desktop arrangements (if you are in a hole and want to get out, the first thing to do is stop digging)
2. increase or decrease our ability to collaborate and exchange information with others, who may use different desktop technologies (will we be more open, or less open?)
3. increase or decrease our ability to support and manage a diverse desktop software environment (will we have more choice, or less choice?)

If I were a public sector CIO, I would be asking my managers, “What are we doing to bring contestability back to the desktop?” The agencies participating in the Public Sector Remix project have a clear view of their business objectives and the benefits they expect to achieve. They want to adopt technology that can enable business, without strings attached, and discard technology painlessly if the returns are no longer justifiable.

The project has given me many thought-provoking moments, of which the most interesting has been the vexed question of ideology. Some people who consider themselves pragmatists say those who advocate free/libre or open source software are putting ideology first (forgetting that pragmatism is itself an ideology). They say the “correct” position for a manager is to be “impartial”. Linus Torvalds refutes this best:

I think Open Source is the right thing to do in the same way I believe science is better than alchemy.

To put this another way, taking an “impartial” position is like saying that intelligent design should be taught alongside evolution. I prefer to think that in the long run, more and more people will adopt a “free software first” policy—that we will choose FOSS on the basis of its additional inherent flexibility and freedoms.

FLOSS, not such a tragedy

I like this image from Groklaw, “The GPL Barter Cycle – A Graphic“.

Permission to use and/or modify the Tux image is granted provided you acknowledge me lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP if someone asks. Same applies to PoIR for the rest.

It reminded me about a post I wrote a couple of years ago for stuff.co.nz on the idea of the Tragedy of the Commons applying to FLOSS. That post discussed how the GPL commons could possibly be captured by software patents. However, certain historical aspects of this post were disputed by, of all people, my own father (see the comments).

To backtrack a little, whenever economists see a resource that is shared, a “commons”, they predict tragic results due to the impact of free loaders who refuse to play be the rules of sustaining this commons in the hope of a short term windfall.

The picture by PolR submitted to Groklaw reminded me of one difference between physical commons and digital ones. Physical commons, whether inshore fisheries or grazing pastures,have limits to their extent. They have scarcity value. Digital commons, such as software, do not. They can be replicated at nearly zero cost. The limiting factor is the cost of production.

So what does PoIR’s diagram show us? That as soon as an entity, let’s call her Linus, gets a return to their effort that is greater than zero they have gained value. And that is the value of FLOSS in particular. It doesn’t matter if millions copy Linus’ code and return zero value, all it takes is one external entity to return something and Linus has a gain.

This theory holds true for me at this point in time. Feel free to peer review.

New Year and Ministry of Health

First of all, happy New Year and apologies from all PTS bloggers for lack of activity. I know on my part it is not because I don’t have things to write about it is because there is so much to write about. We had some interesting stuff happening on the FOSS front on 2009 and I think 2010 is going to be quite year. In fact, I don’t think I have felt so positive about the understanding and interest in FOSS for a very long time.

But that is for other posts.

Labour’s ITC spokesperson, Clare Curran, pointed to a pre-Christmas press release by the Ministry of Health claiming “health dollars” (whatever they are) have been saved in their shiny new three year deal with Microsoft. The following comments should be taken in some context. It is obvious that following the unexpected failure of central Government to negotiate a deal with MS (and at the same time to properly explore alternatives) it is inevitable that individual agencies arrive at their own arrangements. They also have had very little time to do this, so late in the day was it that the central Government negotiations collapsed. This is not a great negotiating position for taxpayer representatives to be in and my sympathies are definitely with that agency. That said…

The issues with this deal are:

1. As Clare points out, the MoH needs to produce some facts and figures before making any claims of savings;
2. Did this procurement go to tender (note, this is *not* a case of SSC negotiating a price that agencies may choose to take up but an actual procurement);
3. Has the MoH learned the lessons of the past?

Point 3 needs some expansion. As a result of a Windows Virus infection last year we learned that the MoH was tied to IE5 due to legacy applications. Presumably they are also tied to Windows and other software that relates to IE5. The lesson is this, make sure that as applications are replaced and procured they have no proprietary tie ins. Make sure that they are not hooked into closed standards or environments that reduce future choices, increase vendor lock-in and end up wasting millions in “health dollars” in the future.

This policy and strategy needs to be given a public airing so that taxpayers and recipients of health services can be confident that our future investments in health IT return value to stakeholders rather than monopolistic multi-nationals.

Koala Bites Man

HP Mini came pre-loaded with SUSE Linux Enterprise Edition version 11. There is much to like about this and if I were coming from Microsoft Windows, I would be very comfortable to carry on using it. But it’s seriously corporate, and HP Mini lives mostly at home. So last night, I took the plunge and installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10; Karmic Koala to its friends. Bye bye geeko, hello koala.

I created USB versions of the regular Ubuntu and the Netbook Remix, and tested them both before opting for the Netbook Remix. In particular, I made sure wireless worked, which involved activating the proprietary Broadcom driver. Ubuntu told me to activate the driver and gave me the activate screen, Press the Activate button. No problem, everything worked flawlessly when running off the USB drive.

Then I installed the Netbook Remix on my hard drive. And the Koala bit me. Activate the Broadcom driver. Enter password. Press Activate. Enter password. Press Activate. Enter password. Press Activate. Nix. Nada. Nothing. WTF? The driver is there. Ubuntu knows it needs to be activated. It tells me to activate it. It knows I entered the correct password. But it does not work.

After hours of searching, the solution eventually emerged from Google, as other people discovered the same problem and mostly failed to solve it. There were lots of messages of the form, “I tried xyz and it didn’t work.”  I finally found a solution that worked for me. In Terminal:
sudo apt-get remove dkms
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source

Then restart the computer.

Let’s get this straight. It’s a netbook remix, aimed at consumers. Most netbooks don’t have an Ethernet port and rely on wireless to connect to the Internet. If there is one thing to get right, it’s wireless networking. This is a bug pure and simple. Did anybody actually test this? Not good enough, Mr Shuttleworth.

Apart from the wireless bug, the Netbook Remix is nicely put together. The work the visual design team has done to conserve vertical screen space is excellent; everything fits into one bar at the top of the screen, instead of the 3 bars that the regular Ubuntu uses. So: top honours to the designers; the testers have some explaining to do.

My next quest is to find a way to add a second workspace and move between them.

Open Access Week 2009 comes to Wellington!

A raft of Open-related presentations start in Wellington on the 19th October:

“As part of the worldwide celebration of Open Access week, the VUW Library and the School of English, Film, Theatre, & Media Studies are hosting a series of events to broaden awareness and understanding of Open Access to research. Find out about your rights as an author, learn about open access publishing and how to start an OA journal, discover open educational resources, the role of institutional repositories in New Zealand and more.”

http://www.creativecommons.org.nz/news_and_events/events/open_access_week_2009_comes_to_wellington

Vik :v)

HP Mini is a Cooper S

Once upon a time HP and DEC computers were made by engineers for engineers. The biggest difference between them was that some HP customers wore ties. Having just taken delivery of a HP Mini 5101 pre-loaded with Suse Linux Enterprise Edition 11, it appears that HP still has some engineers left, hiding deep within, perhaps only coming out at night. Certainly the suits running HP don’t seem to want customers to know that Suse is an option. And Novell doesn’t seem all that keen on its adopted child, either.

Thank you, HP, and well done.

However, the word “Enterprise” should have warned me, as a Mac user, that this is not for the casual consumer. Things I wish I had known before I started:

• it would demand 3 different passwords, and get very upset if it thought the passwords were inadequate; if a computer can curl its lip in contempt, Mini curled
• it wanted a wired network connection so I could register, and would not ask for a wireless password until after the system was configured (perhaps I could have entered it during configuration, I have no idea)
• once it had failed to register me, and kindly told me to register later, it hid the registration function far away from prying eyes; perhaps it’s an intelligence test (which I probably failed)

But it’s all working, all the updates applied themselves and it’s really very nice. The screen is sharp and bright. The keyboard is IMHO superior to the one on the 43cm (17 inch in old money) MacBook sitting 5 cm to the right. All up it’s a pleasure to use. Only…

Is it really progress to make Linux look like Windows on a bad hair day? Did the interface designers miss Windows 3.1 or something?

Adobe Acrobat? Is that really the best you can do? Repeat after me: free as in speech; not free as in beer.

Um… Where is The Gimp?

Why can I not change the date format from Tue Sep 29 to Tue 29 Sep? Earth to Novell: simple things should be easy; hard things should be possible. What is so hard about changing the date format? Haven’t you ever used a Mac? It’s not exactly atomic physics.

And why does Mini refuse to boot into the Ubuntu Netbook Remix from a USB drive? There must be a trick; it works for others. Will keep trying.

Thanks to Ascent for supplying with Suse. If I were a Windows user, I’d feel right at home with Suse, only faster and more secure. But as a mere consumer, I think I want Ubuntu.

Open Source Good Enough for Cars

For those still dubious of the reliability of Open Source, a recent story in the press is adding a lot of comfort. According to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8249530.stm, the collision avoidance software being built into the new Ford Taurus is Open Source. Not only that, but its predecessor was an Open Source target identification radar system used for the F22 fighter jet.

Vik :v)

Hoisted By Their Own Patented Petard

Microsoft is used to battling with software patents, both as the prosecution and defence, but now find themselves on the receiving end of an injunction that stops them selling XML-capable Microsoft Word in the US. They have 60 days to comply and/or appeal, and owe i4i a cool US$250 million for the infringement. Some are happy to view this as karma, I view it as yet another example of why software patents are a bad idea.

If New Zealand is foolish enough to allow them, any software development in NZ will be restricted by the activities of large patent trolls and the owners of foreign patent portfolios. Unless you have the backing of a major international company, you won’t be able to develop software without fear of prosecution or straightforward legal terrorism. The damage caused to NZ’s IT industry will be unimaginable.

Now, would someone like to remind me what patents are supposed to do for us? Right, encourage innovation. Clearly they do not do so in the field of computer software, and so equally clearly they should not be granted in New Zealand. You might mention that to your MP, you know, just to preserve your job and everything.

Vik :v)

Free on the green

Matt Mullenweg speaking at WordcampNZ. © 2009 Kathryn Wilson, used with permission.

I spent much of last weekend in the peaceful surroundings of the Mount Victoria Bowling Club with a committed crowd of  bloggers, and software developers enjoying New Zealand’s first WordPress conference, WordcampNZ.

Attendees came from around the country, with a scattering travelling further, including an appearance by Matt Mullenweg, one of the founders of the Wordpress project. Mullenweg ran a ‘town hall’ session where he talked about his passion for open source, the software bill of rights and some of the background of the Wordpress project and then took questions from attendees on the future of Wordpress development. While he was in town he also visited RadioNZ for an interview on the Saturday Morning with Kim Hill programme: Matt Mullenweg: blog king [ogg].

The two day conference covered a wide range of topics related to Wordpress and blogging. Barrister Steven Price, who writes the Media Law Journal blog, opened proceedings with an excellent talk entitled “Staying out of legal trouble”. He outlined six rules that can help bloggers to do just that and, having piqued my interest, disappeared straight afterwards.

Day one’s other presentations covered various uses and developments for Wordpress: organiser Dan Milward talked about building stores with the WP e-Commerce plugin; Ryan Hellyer of PixoPoint.com discussed his theme services for helping people to theme Wordpress without writing HTML and CSS; Miraz Jordan spoke about supporting communities for virtual Zen retreats; Philip Fierlinger of Xero.com talked about corporate blogging; Gareth Townsend talked about developing a better Wordpress interface for iPhone users; the folks at Xedbidy.com and the Indie Travel Podcast talked about travel writing; and Doug Casement told us all how to work with the press in “How to be a media darling“.

Day two had more of the same: Anthony Cole opened with a presentation on BuddyPress, the Wordpress “Facebook-in-a-box”; Chris Ipscombe gave a business angle with “Making great deals”; Harley Alexander discussed some of the finer points of theme development; Nicki Gemmell talked about the use of Wordpress to support school web sites; Bernard Hickey discussed his experiences of financial reporting using Wordpress at Interest.co.nz; Jeff Waugh discussed tactics for improving your Wordpress site performance; and, for the last of the formal presentations, Sam Bauers of Automattic talked about the forum software from the creators of Wordpress, bbPress.

It was a great conference for ideas and interesting discussions with other Wordpress developers and users and I’m looking forward to more like it in the future.

Apple to Users – You’re iDiots

It used to be that Apple’s closed model of tying hardware, software and services into one cosy walled garden could easily be ignored. This was for two related reasons. The first was their engineering prowess had failed them. So they nearly went bust in the 1990s and they had very little impact on the market place. The second was that only architects and some, very annoying, graphics designers used their kit. This situation was a far cry from the early PC days of Apple II’s (on which I cut my developer teeth) and the silicon revolution that put a “Computer on every desk“.

Apple II

Over the last five years Apple have rediscovered their technical mojo, from laptops (that work) to iPods to iPhones to iTunes they have begun to dominate market segments in a way they could only dream of towards the end of last century. Apple dominate the market for online music, they have effectively broken DRM, they have 86% of the smartphone market. They are in many areas of operation an effective monopoly. So, what do monopolies do in these situations? Well as New Zealanders we know what the power companies and telcos do, they try to reduce our choices and extract super profits from us.

I first really noticed the Apple effect a year ago on a trip to Toronto. Staying with family I tried to move files from my Ubuntu Linux machine to their Apple Mac. That was fine. The reverse exchange simply did not work. Apple’s default walled garden was set up in such a way to imply the only a mad user would consider transfering data from an Apple environment to something else. Now, if I or my family were more au-fait with the ins and outs of Apple I am sure we could have changed settings and completed the exchange. Maybe if I had a month instead of a week… Apple had effectively DRM’d everything so it would not work on devices outside of their brand.

The upshot is, however, if I want to participate in a world that is diverse and heterogeneous the last machine I would use is an Apple, and yes, that would fall well behind a machine with Windows.

The latest “you are an idiot” move from Apple comes with its inane closing off of iTunes to any devices other than Apple. Let’s say you are an iTunes user, and you pay Apple good money for their music and using that product to organise your collection. Then let’s say you, poor fool, decide that a Palm Pre suits you better than an iPhone; the infamy! Well, it used to be that you could synch your iTunes collection to your Pre. But not any more, now Apple’s latest release of iTunes closes this “important bug”.

The important thing here isn’t that there will not be workarounds for Palm Pre users – there already are – or that there  are no good iTunes equivalents you can use – there are – it is that Apple thinks you are an iDiot.

This attitude serves them well whilst their engineering prowess is high. But history tells us that Apple, and others, cannot and will not sustain that leadership. Already the Palm Pre, the Google Phone and Android are providing platforms that are not only as attractive as Apple’s they are far more open to developers and far more ready to play in a diverse and changing world. Apple is in danger of being hoisted by its own petard, and you, dear idiot, are in danger of being left with a piece of historical shiny – gosh that was once *the* thing to own.