powdermonkey

Open for the Future

Open for the Future

Programs such as the Army’s Future Combat Systems and organizations such as the Defense Information Systems Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency are using open technologies using non-proprietary software.

A roadmap for the adoption of open technologies was released last year by the deputy under secretary of defense for advanced systems and concepts. That paper proposed adopting open source infrastructure and technologies and applying open source to collaborative technologies being implemented by DoD.

One of the advocates of the open source approach is Brigadier General Nickolas Justice, Army program executive officer for command, control and communications tactical.

Justice acknowledges that many in the military acquisition community remain wary of open source. "They are concerned about the security of open source products as well as the level of maintenance they require," he said.

Mark you Calender: OSS webinar

On Feb 11, 2008, 3:00-4:30pm EST, David A. Wheeler will present on "Open Source Software and the DoD". It is open to the public, at no charge. This presentation is hosted by the Data & Analysis Center for Software (DACS), which is technically managed by the Air Force Research Laboratory - Information Directorate (AFRL/IF).

You can join at that time by calling (641) 715-3399, access code 206-816-387. Other ways of joining will be posted as that information becomes available.

Summary: "Open source software (OSS) has become widespread, but there are many misconceptions about it - resulting in numerous missed opportunities. This presentation will clarify what OSS is (and isn't), rebut common misunderstandings about OSS, discuss the relationship of OSS and security, discuss how to find and evaluate OSS, and explain OSS licensing (including how to combine products and select a license). It will show why nearly all extant OSS is COTS software, and thus why it's illegal (as well as foolish) to ignore OSS options."

Dec 11-12, 3rd Open Technology Developement Conference

Please plan on attending the next OTD Conference

December 11-12, 2007
Sheraton Premiere, Vienna, VA

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Conference and registration details: http://www.afei.org
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Conference Sponsors:         Sun    BearingPoint     Unisys
“Open source software is here to stay, and the community better get educated!” 
 - former CTO of DIA

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Keynotes Speakers:

Brig. General Nick Justice, USArmy

Mark Tolliver, CEO Palamida

Andre Boisvert, Chairman of Palamida, Compiere and Zenoss, former President and COO, SAS Institute

Bill Vass, President and COO, Sun Microsystems

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Benefits of attending this conference:

+ Connect and network with Open Source SMEs

+ Reinforce your position as a solutions leader

+  Improve your ability to guide your organization in open technology

+ Hear case studies on the use of open source software

+ Learn why Open Systems and Open Source are not the same

+ Learn about OpenSSL, DIACAP and software assurance/security

+ Understand the business model for Open Systems

+ Discover the emerging DoD acquisition best practices for COTS/OSS.

Open Source Enforcement Actions - What Can You Expect When There is a Knock on Your Door (and How Can You Prepare)?

Open Source Enforcement Actions - What Can You Expect When There is a Knock on Your Door (and How Can You Prepare)?
05/23/2007, 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM

Speakers:
Adam G Cohn, Asst. General Counsel, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Jason Haislmaier, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP.
Cristy Hamley, Asst. General Counsel, Trolltech, Inc.

what are enforcement actions?
- often start with informal inquiries
- not allot of rules of civil procedures, more a negotiation
- focus is often on enforceability
- typically kept quite (although not by NDA)
- not lon gin duration
- enforcement/defense can end up being costly
- big mistake is to focus on the license, not much case law, community beliefs important in understand the license
- willingness to work on issues is paramount, solution vary, no my way or the highway discussions
- interesting there is a lack of NDA's
Who is doing enforcement:
- community
- commercial
- fringe
- internal
Multiple 100's of actions
Both direct and indirect costs
how to respond: show respect but do not surrender
- involve management
- understand the accuser
- evaluate
- understand obligations
- decide negotiating points
- seek to work collaboration
- open dialog
- assume all disclosed proprietary info can/will become public
Best Practices:
- treat like SEC action
- understand accuser/target
- develop relationship/dialogue
- gestures and good faith matter, compliance required, very practical

Some questions i have:
- where are the community lessons learned website references
- what guidelines are given to developers
- what does a compliance program look like

fyi interesting paper here from one of the speakers:
CLOSING THE OPEN SOURCE COMPLIANCE GAP
Best Practices for Developing Open Source Compliance Programs

The Bazaar Cathedral: A Look at Open Source at E*TRADE FINANCIAL - Past, Present, and Future

The Bazaar Cathedral: A Look at Open Source at E*TRADE FINANCIAL - Past, Present, and Future
05/23/2007, 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM

Speaker:
Lee Thompson, VP & Chief Technologist, E*TRADE FINANCIAL

- etrade business forcing them into more open source
- first comapny to allow US reatil customers to trade in 6 markets worldwide
- vast majority of servers run Linux
- transaction speed decreased from 8-9 seconds to 4-5 seconds , below 4 about 3 now as they moved from proprietary to all open source. Also save 16 million dollars
- during the last big drop (400 points, feb 27, 2007) they handled traffic at about the same pace while everyone else was slammed with degraded performance
- difficult to scale rapdily when you have to pay for new licenses, allows for flexibility
- key point: etrade has become such a complex environment that testing in the traditional way (scheduling time in the center) became too hard . Instead using Maven and control tier for lifecycle management each etrade developer can have a test environment on their laptop, so they can simulate and fully test new ideas: --> distributed testing, since the environment is fully scalable
- uses Selenium Testrunner as the testing backplane, http://www.openqa.org/selenium/
- roughly 50 million lines of code at etrade
- really focus on constant monitoring at all places in the system
- prepare the systems for failure

osbc: Hacking the Newspaper: How an Open-Source Nerd from Kansas is Revitalizing Journalism

Hacking the Newspaper: How an Open-Source Nerd from Kansas is Revitalizing Journalism
05/23/2007, 9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

Speaker:
Rob Curley, Vice President, Product Development, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.

- WashPost all open source sack
- amazing speaker, used to work at Kansas and Naples newpapers

H&R Block huge user of open source

from Matt Asay:

Marc West's OSBC keynote

Marc is the CIO of H&R Block, a company
whose use of open source I find fascinating. Marc indicated several
times that much of what Block is doing would be impossible without open
source/open standards. His closing line was that "Open source is a
viable option for us," but much of the rest of his presentation showed
just how understated that sentence is.

Some highlights from his keynote:

• Newest technology is not always best, nor is it the most mature. The intersection of the best software through standards that wins.
• Some stats on H&R Block:
  1. H&R Block serves a market of 133 million consumers;
     
  2. 22 million consumers use Block's digital and retail offerings
     
  3. Block has 13,000 retail locations, with 100,000 seasonal employees (tax professionals)...which are only needed during the peak of tax system (it's like building up a slew of McDonalds franchisees overnight, then shutting them down again)
     
  4. Block makes half of its annual revenues in just 10 days
  
  
• Block therefore struggles with how to innovate "offline" when its business is online - if the system goes down during the peak season then the company loses tens of hundreds of millions of dollars.

To meet all these needs, H&R Block uses OpenLaszlo, Alfresco, Jive, Zimbra (email for these retail locations with full regulatory compliance at low cost), Red Hat, JBoss, MuleSource, MySQL, and other open source projects. Marc suggested that its offerings would be absolutely impossible without these open source projects - too expensive otherwise.

Open source gives Block "power," declared Marc. Power to innovate. Power not available in the old world of proprietary software. That said, Marc did say he's grateful that open source is "maturing," by which he meant that open source is looking more corporate. This open source power, in his words, is stabilizing. That's a good thing.

OSBC 2007: Colliding Worlds, Perspectives on the Converging of Open Source and Proprietary Software

Colliding Worlds, Perspectives on the Converging of Open Source and Proprietary Software
05/22/2007, 2:00 PM - 2:50 PM
Moderator:
Andrew Aitken, Founder and Managing Partner, Olliance Group

Speakers:
Niel Armstrong, VP, Information Technology, Activision
Tim Golden, Senior VP, Bank of America
Jason Maynard, Global Director, Equity Research Software, Credit Suisse
Mike Olson, Vice President, Embedded Technologies, Oracle Corporation
Raven Zachary, Research Director, Open Source, The 451 Group

Interesting panel, big overall point is that open source leaves your options open.

OSBC 2007: Panel-Constructive Disruption: An Enterprise Perspective on Open Source

Constructive Disruption: An
Enterprise Perspective on Open Source
05/22/2007, 11:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Moderator:
Robin Vasan, Managing Director, Mayfield Fund.

Speakers:
Wilson D'Souza, Director, Infrastructure Software Development, MIT
- using large amounts of OSS
Oliver Marks, Senior Manager Web Portal, Sony Playstation
- runs global collaborative network for SONY game developers
Daniel Cahoon, Architect, H&R Block
- H&R block, huge amount of open source, Marc West keynote in AM, said open source helps them define their competitive advatage
Russ Danner, Software Architect, The Christian Science Monitor.
----
D'Souza: open source never left MIT
Marks: 100% open source for collaboration
Open source keeps options open, key
Danner: using OSS content management and delivery, infrastructure and app's, cost important
Marks: wants app's that scale and are flexible. former model of using proprietary worked BUT cost was high and needed specialty consultants to help integrate. Put together 2 options, one open source and one the former way. The open source way worked, SLA worked and you can do it with open source, big lesson for H&R block. Demonstrated that it can work well and interoperability was key.
Danner: this is about value where ever you find it
D'Souza: have SAP at MIT and it works, open source aguments the mission

Where are the holes in the OSS market?

Marks: no open source calendering almost a plethora of app's. too much choice, (Me: everything is relative)
Danner: would like to see app's that touch the user and see users get involved with the developers (me: marry end-users to developers)
Cahoon: we have Death by Configuration file, need better management tools.can't innovate on the highest skills in the company. skills that cross between the two worlds. adapt to existing packages in companies today.

things seem to be moving up the stack...

D'Souza: Need cross platform online/offline outlook relacement
Danner: simplicity is key, need to focus on that. software still a culture run by techies. focus on the user.
Marks: facts on the ground stop innovaiton, Lotus is a trainwreck
Cahoon: Keeping vendors honest is important, oss helps. need vendors that are well matched up to you. Calling Oracle sucks, oss faster at feedback. Open source needs to slow down, companies like oracle need to speed up. need more predictability

What is the right cycle time:
Marks: sometimes allot to update, sometimes too much

Marks: Corporate bureaucracy slows things down in the US. Contacting is tough, IP issues need to be worked out

Scalability: Set Amazon's Servers on Fire, Not Yours

Scalability: Set Amazon's Servers on Fire, Not Yours
Don MacAskill, CEO & Chief Geek, SmugMug
his blog: http://blogs.smugmug.com/onethumb

slides posted there, download them

--> great presenation with hard numbers about how to outsource you data storage, processing and hosting <--

SmugMug
192 terrabytes data stored
140 million pictures
 doubling every year
$.15 per GB w/ replicas
Why use amazon: not a lot of web-scale expertise on Planet Earth
helps focus on the app, not the muck
Guess: ~ would saved $500k per year
actual
- 64 m to 140 mil photos
- disks $40k to 100k per month
- $922k would have been spent
- $230k spent instead
- $629 in cold, hard savings!
nasty taxes: $295k 'saved' in cash flow! bonus!
- and can resell hard disks, recouping sunk costs
labor mot included, because they had to move 100 TB of data onto
S3 sweet spots
- perfect for startups and small companies
- deal for 'store lots, serve little' business of all sizes
- not so great (yet?) for serving lots if you're a medium or large business. Transfer costs high if you can buy bandwidth
Like SmugFS (file storage) previous:
- everyone building same
-pain to screw in servers
Lessons:
- hot and cold model just right, SmugMug hosts 'hot' data roughly 10% stored locally, s3 holds all of it
- 95% reduction in number of disks bought, no local backup and then only 10% stored local
outages:
3 outages, 15-30 mins, 2 core failures
 and one DNS prob. Amazon.com affected
- 2 performance degradations, one our customer noticed, the 2nd they didn't.
 - not a big deal, everything fails, expect it.
SLA, Service and Support
Amazon a little weak with customer support
launching ec2 implementation soon
- image processing
- 500k - 1 mil images a day
- 2 terapixles of processing
- ridiculously parallel