Laredo Linux Users Group and Ubuntu LoCo

At the Friday Night movie last week, Luis Cisneros won "Refactoring HTML", and Alejandro Ramirez won "Live Linux CDs".

Antitrust
Revolution OS
Download: The True Story of the Internet
Hacker
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Three Amigos
Blazing Saddles
History of the World, Part I
The Codebreakers (BBC Documentary)

1. Main goal: Improve process of
   moving software from developer to user via packaging system.
   
   
   1. Two perspectives:
      
      
      1. ISV:

After Sun's acquisition of MySQL, some have asked whether MySQL will still be committed to Linux.

Mårten Mickos, the former CEO of MySQL and now Senior Vice President of Database Group at Sun Microsystems, gave a strong endorsement of Linux. Here are highlights that I found interesting:

Sun Microsystems is a "new" company. It's not the company it was 5 years ago. Similarly, Oracle is no longer just a database company. Both are diversified companies with an entire portfolio of offerings.

Nobody today can sell a monolithic offering. Components of the stack must be interoperable. Sun is now the biggest contributor to free and open source software. Consequently, Sun finds itself both friends and enemies with other industry participants ("Frenemies"), working on a variety of projects while competing on other products.

Sun acquired MySQL to become the leading platform of the Web economy, and the two companies have a bilateral mentor / apprentice relationship.

Both Linux startups and industry incumbents are doing and prospering as a result of adopting open source.

Most of the growth for open source is in new installations and new applications, where it dominates. Sun wants to remain a strong participant in the LAMP stack. Solaris has a strong niche position as a Unix OS, and Linux is (However, Microsoft is still a strong competitor. It's making money and competing better than expected.)

Overwhelming downloads of MySQL are to Windows machines, but the overwhelming majority of the business is Linux. People are experimenting on Windows, but deploying on Linux, because they need the scalability, performance, and stability of Linux.

The LAMP stack has expanded to far beyond the 4 initials. It now includes a heterogeneous mix of open source applications, with an occasional proprietary application thrown in. Competitors such as Sun must accept that and be willing to work with other applications. However, the GPL licensed LAMP stack has become the industry reference stack, always providing a fast and economical path to market.

Progress in the open source stack is driven by questions rather than answers. Consequently, solutions naturally develop because all questions are allowed. Proprietary, on the other hand, is based on answers that must be sold to fit the problem.

Everyone has a Linux strategy. The stablization of APIs and standards make stacks heterogeneous, reducing the lock-in of any particular component or product.

MySQL has experimented with business models, and will continue to. Some of the ideas have failed, but MySQL will be relentless in its drive to make a profitable business out of open source.

Open source is the best way to develop software, but how to make money with open source is not decided conclusively.

No company can afford not to have an open source strategy, not even Microsoft. The Yahoo acquisition makes clear that even Microsoft must embrace Linux.

Talk by Stormy Peters. Highly recommended.
Click here.

Most important success factor in bringing open source to the market is to become a part of and participate in the community. "Community" is an amorphous concept. We all belong to a lot of communities, and within the Open Source community, several communities exist.

Linux has become an entrenched part of the enterprise, at every level. Large companies have deep expertise in open source and technology, but medium and small companies don't have that bench strength. Consequently, vendors and technology providers must focus on how to assist the SME to integrate Linux and open source into the organization.

Open source is requiring greater legal analysis of the development process because mixing various licenses, open and proprietary becomes a problem. With complex product deployment, technology comes from many sources, and figuring out the licensing pedigree is complex. It is worth the effort because the revenue at stake is enormous.

I'm sitting at the Linux Collaboration Summit. I'll report in from time to time with news and notes for the Laredo Linux group.

We've heard this morning from the Linux kernel developers. The device drivers for Linux are making very solid progress, but the developers are constrained by (1) the extent to which hardware manufacturers involve the kernel developers, and (2) the extent to which the kernel gets tested on hardware. Proprietary platforms have money to acquire hardware for testing, but the Linux kernel team must rely on users and system integrator community to report bugs on the kernel. Lesson for Laredo Linux: if you have a problem with hardware, especially with kernel crashes REPORT THE BUG to http://bugzilla.kernel.org.

There is a lag between when a patch gets into the upstream kernel and when Ubuntu actually distributes the patched kernel. My opinion is that we in Laredo should learn how to compile and run the latest-greatest kernel and them participate in the development process. As an added bonus, there are a lot of companies here who are willing to pay very good money to young developers who know something about the kernel. :-)

It's official. I'm going to the Linux Collaboration Summit in Austin the first week of April.

The participants list reads like a "Who's Who" of computer science. I'm looking forward to meeting and learning from some of the best developers and engineers in the world.

Watch this space for reports from the summit. If anyone else wants to go, let me know and I'll try to get another invite.

Loye

See Matt Asay's blog here.

The Laredo Linux / Ubuntu Install-fest will be held 2:00 to 4:00 p.m., Saturday, March 8, 2008 at Cuadro Cafe.

You will need to bring your computer, keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Of course, if you have a laptop, everything is built in. If you plan on using your laptop connected to a separate monitor, though, bring the monitor you expect to connect to.

A word about "broken" computers: We will be installing Linux on working hardware. If your computer doesn't work, but the problem is because of software, installing Linux will likely "fix" your computer. But if your hardware isn't working, not even the mighty Tux can fix it.

Sponsored by:
Cuadro Cafe