In reality, licenses are only a small part of a project being truly open. They are just a layer of insurance comparable to traditional source code escrow.

What we really need is understanding of a bit more wholesome project openness. The actual goals of openness that the license should derive from. Here are some aspects to consider:

Project transparency

If a project aims to have outside users or contributors, they need to be able to see the history of changes in the software, decisions that have been made, and the open list of bugs or enhancements being worked on.

A released software package answers these questions poorly regardless of a license. Instead, what is needed is the project being developed out in the open, preferably using one of the common project hosting environments like Gitorious, GitHub, SourceForge, Launchpad or GNU Savannah. You can also host the project yourself using something like Trac or GForge but this limits access and visibility to the project.

The project must actually use the service, not just by code dumps at release time, but with constant development activity visible as code commits and active issue tracking. Depending on business goals it is also good to have future plans for the project visible to the public.

All of this is mandatory for others to gauge the viability of a software package to their needs. Josh Berkus presented a good list of things you shouldn't do to create a community around your project.

Contribution policy

Potential users and developers need to know how they can make their changes available to a package. Is it possible at all, are copyright assignments or some contributor agreements necessary, is there a documented process for submitting changes or even becoming an acknowledged developer in the project? Or is the project being developed behind closed curtains of a company?

Requirements and software stack

Another area some projects fail at is communicating how the software can be built and installed. If the only practical way to run the software is from released binary packages, or through buying consulting, is it truly open? Does the project require additional closed software or specific hardware to run with?

Specialized licensing concerns

Depending on the type of software other concerns may be being able to provide it as part of a Software as a Service offering, or being able to deploy it on some constrained or closed hardware.

Some software licenses address these questions clearly, like EUPL requiring contributions to be opened also when the software is offered in SaaS manner, or GPLv3 forbidding device manufacturers from locking down or 'Tivoizing' their hardware products.

Wrapping up

Most of these questions are well understood within the free software community itself. But we generally communicate it poorly by focusing the discussion on license technicalities. I guess this is because we're so used to working in this open manner that we take the it as a given. But users, especially in the public administration only see the licensing side of things because that is the only aspect we talk about and have definitions for.

A good exception for this is the Apache Software Foundation that has a well-defined set of rules that projects must follow before they can be adopted under the ASF umbrella. Maybe FSF and OSI should also publish some understandable guidelines and definitions for project openness?

Thanks to Aslan for the cake!

I think Qaiku, the conversational microblogging service, is doing this quite well. In your profile you have a simple setting:

Privacy of individual conversations comes from the settings of the person who initiated that thread. The setting is clearly shown in the sidebar. Some examples:

This way you can know who will be able to see your comments and make the decision before posting them.

The Terms of Service are not too tricky either, containing items like Be Nice and What is yours is yours.

Like the first iPhone, iPad 1.0 is a John the Baptist preparing the way of what is to come, but also like iPhone 1.0 (and Jokanaan himself too come to that) iPad 1.0 is still fantastic enough in its own right to be classed as a stunningly exciting object, one that you will want NOW and one that will not be matched this year by any company. In the future, when it has two cameras for fully featured video conferencing, GPS and who knows what else built in (1080 HD TV reception and recording and nano projection, for example) and when the iBook store has recorded its 100 millionth download and the thousands of accessories and peripherals that have invented uses for iPad that we simply can’t now imagine – when that has happened it will all have seemed so natural and inevitable that today’s nay-sayers and sceptics will have forgotten that they ever doubted its potential.

The success of iPad will mean more than just a completely new level of App Store economy. Other companies will certainly seek to emulate the model, coming up with their own post-WIMP devices and their own content and software ecosystems. This all will be a challenge for the free software movement.

The world of free software is still very much stuck in what computing was in the 90s. We think of desktop computers, we do not integrate with the web. And we do not get the transformation that is happening with personal computers. Taught by smartphones and cloud applications, users are moving from desktops through simple netbooks towards information appliances.

With information appliances you need a seamless user interface. You need an ecosystem where content comes alongside the software to utilize it. You need to move past the old WIMP metaphors and the idea of separation between data stored in a a file system and the software manipulating it.

So far the first convincing attempt towards this direction I've seen in the free software world is KDE's Social Desktop initiative. It allows users to connect with each other straight through the desktop, and it allows discovery of new applications and content to download and use straight in the applications. We also use it with Maemo's new App Downloader.

Threatened by the cloud from one end, and closed-ecosystem appliances from the other, it will be interesting to see how we react. Will we rise to the challenge and start providing new user experiences? Will we build a free cloud? Will we integrate with initiatives like Project Gutenberg and Creative Commons to provide the content integration? Will the open web be our safe haven?

Definitely interesting times to be a software developer.

There are many examples of this happening, from Facebook's framing of web to netbooks systems like the JoliCloud not having an address bar. Certainly many companies are looking at Mozilla's search engine revenue and Apple's app store model and want to emulate that, moving the web into silos of their own control. But at the same time, we're thinking of Linked Data and open, interoperable web standards.

Web indeed is at new crossroads.

Chris Messina predicts the death of URLs:

a future without URLs and without the infinite organicity of the web frightens me. It’s not that I know what we’ll lose by removing this artifact of one of the most generative periods in history — and that’s exactly the point! The URL and the ability for anyone to mint a new one and then propagate it is what makes the web so resilient, so empowering, and so interesting! That I don’t need to ask anyone permission to create a new website or webpage is a kind of ideological freedom that few generations in history have known!

Tim O'Reilly presents a call to arms:

It could be that everyone will figure out how to play nicely with each other, and we'll see a continuation of the interoperable web model we've enjoyed for the past two decades. But I'm betting that things are going to get ugly. We're heading into a war for control of the web. And in the end, it's more than that, it's a war against the web as an interoperable platform. Instead, we're facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill.

And it's time for developers to take a stand. If you don't want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don't wait till it's too late.

Um, hello? Folks, the whole point of doing open-source code is to let it fork. The idea is to accelerate evolution by encouraging weird mutations. Creating an open source program and hoping it won't fork is like decorating your house with a zillion Christmas lights and a forty-foot inflatable Santa and hoping nobody stops to look at it.

This is an interesting way to look at Open Source. Traditionally freedom to fork has been seen as a safeguard against dead projects or vendors, as a way to hand maintainership over to parties that are still interested.

But what FSJ is talking about is forks being beneficial by themselves. This is the model that Distributed Version Control Systems like git also promote: every developer has their own fork of the software, and merges to "blessed" repositories happen under the watchful eye of a maintainer.

This is quite a different model than the traditional centralized way of working with projects. Merging between forks has its costs, but if we embrace this model we gain lots of new developer flexibility and possible new workflows. DVCSs haven't been with us for a long time yet and so it takes some time for this new distributed way of working to take root.

For a while this has been done in wiki pages, but since that is not very flexible or connected, better ways have been discussed. The current approach being tested is workstreaming via a Qaiku channel:

Qaiku is a conversation-oriented microblogging service that suits workstreaming quite well:

• It has both a web view and a mobile view, meaning you can workstream on-the-go
• Channels support means activity log entries don't need to "spam" normal microblogging contacts with workstreams
• Private channels means you can track workstreams of confidential projects too
• API and RSS feeds enable us to integrate the workstreaming feed to the wiki pages or where ever we want to
• Separation of comments and actual activity log entries make it easy to discuss things related to the activities

In near future there will also be support for additional machine-readable "Qaiku Data" (like hour amounts, bug numbers, whatever). This is inspired by the Twitter Data initiative, but keeps the data separate from actual message contents to keep Qaiku human-readable. Once that is done, we could possibly build some more workstreaming-oriented UI for this on maemo.org.

So, if you're doing anything on maemo.org, sign up on Qaiku and start posting your updates!

Technorati Tags: microblogging, qaiku, workstreaming

Here's the initial floor plan that still lacks couple of desks:

Our development servers and other network infrastructure will move to AfHeurlinia where there is a diesel generator and pretty good connections, so the new office space will indeed be just office. AfHeurlinia is a very secure location for our servers, as the place is guarded by both ninjas and ferocious dogs.

Couple of workstations in the lobby area will be reserved for visiting contractors and may become available under some kind of coworking arrangement.

The new office will be a lot closer to many of our important clients, and has a very nice view to the historical Hietalahti area:

After Tuesday Apr 28th the new address will be Hietalahdenkatu 8 A 22.

Technorati Tags: nemein

But instead of locking yourself to another specific database, how about going with a content repository?

Content repositories are services that wrap different storage back-ends and provide an abstracted object-oriented API to them. As long as you write your application using the repository's interfaces, you can switch databases behind it at will.

For web development, there are two good alternatives:

• Java Content Repository: the content repository standard for Java applications that has many implementations, including Apache Jackrabbit
• Midgard2: generic content repository for PHP, C, Python, C# and Objective-C based on libgda

In addition to database abstraction repositories often provide other services like versioning, multilingual content handling and signals between multiple applications using the same repo.

Technorati Tags: jcr, midgard, mysql

To support the product launch we helped to create ReFuel Tehdas, an application for converting internet trash (bad pictures, advertisement banners) into money. To use it, you install a Firefox 3 extension with which you can then flag images as garbage:

The image will then be sent to our garbage processor, which churns it into money for your account. You can claim some of the money by ordering a St1 Visa card. Other users of the extension can see what has been already processed, as all garbage images are automatically blanked out from their respective websites:

This makes browsing even the noisiest websites a serene experience, as dutiful ReFuel users have probably already removed most of the obnoxious blinking banner ads.

Watching images pop into the garbage processor is also quite addictive, and gives an interesting insight into the dark subconscious of the Internet.

To try it out, register to the site or watch the screencast.

Technically the site is also quite interesting:

It uses the new Midgard2 platform, combining the PHP-based Midgard MVC framework with some Midgard-Python processing tools. It also utilizes Facebook Connect for easy registration, and is probably one of the first campaign websites out there to be based on Firefox extensions.

Much of the platform is same as what the Qaiku microblogging service uses.

Technorati Tags: biofuel, campaign, ecology, firefox, midgard, biofuel, refuel

Qaiku is a microblogging service, focusing strongly on discussion. Microblogging differs from ordinary blogging by the length of the posts, more topical content and automatically published micromedia, such as Flickr photo stream, Audioscrobbler stream etc. Allowed lengthier comments to the brief posts make discussion possible.



Technically Qaiku has been built on Midgard 2 platform. Some of the features Nemein will develop for Qaiku will be released in the open source Midgard 2 project.

On my list of priorities is a public API, OpenMicroBlogging support and location import from various services like Fire Eagle and Plazes. I hope to get hacking on these as soon as I return from the Linköping Midgard Gathering. Will be fun!

Technorati Tags: microblogging, midgard, nemein, qaiku

With some clients we invoice as we go, and with others everything is based on tight budgeted amounts of hours. However, as Cory Doctorow's 2001 essay on the utopia of Semantic Web reminds, humans are notoriusly bad at estimating the time something will take, and so often the resolution of a full or half hour is too strict for accurate estimation.

This, and the tediousness of time tracking has kept me looking for a better way. And such a way presented itself when having some discussions over coffee and cognac at a dinner party held in the Nokia Manor: how about stopping obsessing about strict amount of hours, and starting to use a bit more flexible model?

Following the Getting Things Done doctrine of allowing only "actionable" tasks, we would split every project into a group of tasks, each provided with a ballpark estimate labeled with terms common from the clothes industry:

• S: small, simple tasks that can be accomplished in around one hour
• M: tasks requiring a bit more concentration that often take around half a day
• L: tasks requiring lots of focus

We could've taken this to extremes and allowed XXL tasks, but again, to keep things actionable, it is better to split larger efforts into more manageable chunks.

Moving away from strict definitions of time used also would allow us to do something quite appealing: estimate the impact of a given task, the benefit a client will receive from it, and use that as the basis of invoicing.

Of course, this all will not free us completely from the evils of hour reporting. Finnish employment law requires us to keep track of working hours to make sure overtime is compensated, and many of the freelancers working with us bill us by the hour. But now this hour reporting will be greatly simplified as you can just "clock in and out" at the start and end of the working day instead of trying to keep track of various half hour bits and pieces.

And instead of tracking how much time we've spent at the office, we can start measuring the tasks accomplished for our clients. And that should be the more important thing for a consultancy.

Technorati Tags: nemein, gtd

Technorati Tags: nemein

The reasons for this are quite simple:

• Ubuntu follows the same synchronized release model as Midgard does, offering a predictable upgrade schedule
• In many cases the stable Ubuntu version has newer PHP and GNOME packages than debian stable. As these are Midgard dependencies this makes our life easier
• Ubuntu is one of the distributions supported by the openSUSE Build Service
• Ubuntu is still basically the same familiar rock solid platform that debian is

While not everybody is happy about the way Ubuntu has established itself in the market, there seems to be a strong gravitation towards switching to it, on both desktop and server.

I immediately added three apps, displaying my latest conference presentations, upcoming trip plans and posts on my blog:

This is great as the applications already were part of my workflow. However, in general it is not a good idea to trust web apps to be the only place where you keep your things.

In my case, I'm using my Midgard-powered website as the backup where I automatically gather information I publish on other services like Jaiku or Flickr. This means that I can use the convenience and collaborative features of social web applications but still remain in control of my data. In the future I may move this to an even more replicated setup...

Benjamin Mako Hill posted some thoughts on how the first generation of free software developers has grown:

Certainly, GNU has matured and accomplished wonderful things in last quarter-century. More importantly perhaps, it's produced wonderful progeny. It has spawned hundreds of thousands of free software projects, thousands of free or nearly-free operating systems, and an unbelievably vibrant global free and open source software community. Beyond the software realm, the free culture movement, most free licensing projects, and much of the access to knowledge movement can trace a connection back to GNU. We are living, and building, a new generation of the free software movement.

As computers are becoming more and more ubiquitous, and affect more and more every aspect of our lives, software freedom becomes a strong necessity. I personally have been involved with free software since late 90s. It gives me the operating system for our servers, our programming language, and our toolkit. It also gives me an amazing community to work and share ideas with. It is hard to imagine working in a world without them.

To support free software, write some code, use a free operating system, join the Fellowship, and celebrate the Software Freedom Day on September 20th!

Having read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash where the lead character Hiro, a fellow swordfighter and free hacker is making his living by collecting intel to upload onto the CIC library, the concept had some appeal. To test it, I created some pages:

Workstreaming
Workstreaming means collecting activities of geographically dispersed team members into a consistent news feed, enabling managers to track process and colleagues to stay up-to-date with the day-by-day happenings.

Developing P2P business applications
Moving business applications to the web has solved many issues like easier deployment and backups, but at same time introduced a single point of failure in the infrastructure. A group of open source frameworks seeks to solve the issue by helping developers to migrate their applications into resilient and scalable peer-to-peer networks.

Haedong Kumdo
Haedong Kumdo is a modern martial art based on ancient Korean sword techniques.

This should not detract from my open content activities, as the Knol pages are also Creative Commons-licensed.

A thousand years ago, men from my lands traveled here in search of opportunities and adventure. Now, due to intercontinental relationships and working permits, I follow their footsteps.

While Istanbul didn't score perfectly in Monocle's Quality of Life index, I still find it a quite appealing place for a web worker. The lifestyle is more relaxed than in the north, WiFi-equipped cafes are everywhere, food is good, and the old city and Bosporus are absolutely beautiful.

Web working while running a consultancy in Helsinki is not the easiest thing to do, but with some new processes, and new tools I think we may be able to cope. The main thing is to learn using telepresence tools better than we do now.

At least the web working test run I did in London earlier this month felt very productive. Now the plan is to split my time between Helsinki and Istanbul, and of course the mandatory conference trips. This all will be challenging for regular project work, and so good web working tips will be appreciated!

But in any case, my reasons for being in Istanbul go far beyond mere working environment and productivity...

http://jaiku.com/channel/Nemein

If you are a Jaiku user, feel free to join the channel. Others can follow it via the RSS feed.

As part of redesigning our processes, our company has been looking for a workstreaming solution. While private channels support in Jaiku would probably be the best option, we will now be testing ididwork.com for our needs.

Here is a quick overview of the first launched version of ididwork.com:

The good:

• Simple, pleasant user interface
• Tagging support (including machine tags), which means we can connect entries with Ajatus tags
• Email reminders for managerial review of entries
• Excel export of work reports

The bad:

• Users can be either managers or employees, not both. Managers don't have work to report?
• User's own log entries and log entries of colleagues are shown separately
• User can only belong to one organization. No multiple teams or projects

The ugly:

• No API
• No RSS feeds
• No XMPP support