Harold Jarche

Notes from Open Source Cybersocial Presentation

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Here are my follow-up notes on OSS (or "open source stuff", as Iain says), as promised. These continue from my pre-seminar notes, so you might want to look at them first.

The OSS Pitch

Strategic Position: Network enabled collaboration makes better software

User Position: You control you own destiny Core Competencies: Understanding Internet era software development methodologies; Using free-code distribution to gain market share; and Commoditizing markets to undercut major players

Key Messages: The Internet depends on OSS; You can make more money when you give away the software

Advantages of OSS $0.00 You can modify Global OS developer community You can help determine future direction Low cost ?¢‚Ǩ?ìtry it out first?¢‚Ǩ¬ù model No vendor agenda Rapid globalization (e.g. language choice)

Disadvantages of OSS Feature Creep Lack of Documentation Quality Control? By programmers, for programmers – but what about me?

These are open to debate of course

Discussed three business models:

Value-add model (e.g. Redhat)

Services Model (e.g. Productivity Solutions Inc)[disclosure: I’m involved with this company]

Co-operative Model (e.g. Avalanche)

Discussed the Creative Commons licenses, as well as the difference between the General Public license (GPL) and the typical End User License Agreement (EULA). An Australian firm, Cybersource, has an analysis report which compares the two (long PDF to download).

The source for open source software: Source Forge

Training vs Education (but it’s all learning)

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Some formative ideas on education & training:

Blogs, wikis, aggregators, social networking software, etc. are great tools for informal learning. They help in the creation of personal knowledge repositories and communities of practice. They enhance "learning", in the social-constructivist sense that I always believed our education system should. Given their decentralized nature, these informal learning technologies do not provide the kind of data that a formal system, like an LMS or performance management system, would give.

I think that one of the problems with our education system is that there is too much of a focus on getting quantitive data, like testing. These functions are more suited to a "training" system, where the performance requirements are clear, measurable and observable. In education, the performance requirements are fuzzy. There is nothing wrong with either a training focus or an education focus; each one has its merits. The problem is when you try to mix the two. The arguments that I hear over testing or the adoption of blogs in the classroom seem to be the result of mixing a training systems design approach with a general educational approach. Water and oil.

If your organisation, be it a school or a company, has clear performance expectations, then you should use proven performance technologies, such as drill & feedback, performance support, or a wide variety of other interventions. On the other hand, if your objectives are educational in the broad sense, then forget about testing and controlling, and allow learners to explore and construct their own knowledge.

Informal learning, facilitated by the likes of blogs & wikis, works well for general education, and for continued learning outside of the "classroom". Informal learning (education in the broadest sense) is messy by its very nature. Training, such as how to drive a car, can use a more scientific method to optimize training time, achieve the desired performance and reduce the risk of accidents. Training and education can even use the same tools, like simulations, but not the same approach. Education and training are complementary, but distinct.

Am I just splitting hairs?

On the End of Corporations

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Yan Simard has been hosting an interesting conversation on the future of the corporate model, the knowledge society, and what will happen to those left behind. These are all themes that I’ve covered before, and Yan provides his own unique perspective, especially on The end of corporations. We are of different generations as well, so it’s good to get his point of view on this impending(?) change in the world of work.

I’m fairly certain that networks of micro-organisations are on the rise, and will challenge the corporate model. I’m not sure if the corporation will become suddenly extinct though, as most of our laws and business practises favour the corporation over the individual. Witness who legally owns the intellectual property (IP) produced by the employee [answer: the corporation]. It’s only in some universities that the knowledge worker maintains these rights. While workers may not own the IP, they will always own the "know-how". This intangible know-how is the real value of knowledge – being able to do something with it.

Some day, lawyers and corporations may realise that IP itself has minimal value – as most IP isn’t worth the effort to protect it. The command and control corporate model may be forced to change when shareholders really understand the fact that the valuation of their average corporation is getting to be upwards of 85% intangible assets. These intangibles are worthless without the know-how of knowledge workers. Therefore the actual value of the average corporation, without its people, is getting close to zero. So where would you put your money?

Anniversaries

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June sixth is my first anniversary of being a free agent – Jarche Consulting is one year old today.
Of course, a far more important anniversary is the 60th anniversary of D-Day. Given my own military background, I would be remiss in also remembering those brave soldiers in the 1st Canadian Infantry Division who continued to fight in Italy through 1944; sometimes known as the D-Day Dodgers. Here are two verses from the song "The D-Day Dodgers", sung to the tune of Lili Marlene:

We are the D-Day dodgers out here in Italy
Drinking all the vino, always on the spree,
We didn’t land with Eisenhower
So they think we’re just a shower.
For we’re the D-Day dodgers out here in Italy.

If you look around the mountains, in the wind and rain
You’ll find the scattered crosses, some which bear no name.
Heartbreak and toil and suffering gone,
The boys beneath them slumber on.
They are the D-Day dodgers who’ll stay in Italy.

God bless you all.

Open Source Seminar

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These are my notes and some of the thoughts behind a presentation on open source that I will be giving in Moncton on Wednesday June 9th. The link shows my four points that I have promised to present.

I have only been seriously looking at open source and all of its ramifications since last September, when I started to post information for my clients and colleagues. Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. If anyone is planning on attending, you can see here if it will be worth your while. of course, some changes will be made to this outline in the next few days.

What is open source software?
According to Wikipedia, an open-content online dictionary open source software “generally is any computer software whose source code is either in the public domain or, more commonly, is copyrighted by one or more persons/entities and distributed under an open-source license such as the GNU General Public License (GPL). Such a license may require that the source code be distributed along with the software, and that the source code be freely modifiable, with at most minor restrictions, such as a requirement to preserve the authors’ names and copyright statement in the code, a concept known as copyleft.”

Perspective
According to The Cluetrain Manifesto (1999), “Markets are conversations.” and “People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.” Read the other 94 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto and then look at World of Ends (2003), which states that “The Internet’s Three Virtue are – 1. No one owns it 2. Everyone can use it 3. Anyone can improve it.

Building once, and selling to many at no additional cost, is a model for making money, but not a model for innovation. Unfortunately, this is the model for proprietary software development. The Internet has enabled enormous collaboration opportunities, at minimal cost. I believe that interconnected people and organizations can work together in sharing their know-how at a reasonable price, without huge software license fees eating most of the budget.

Technogy should enable innovation, not stifle it.

The Business Case for Open Source

Information technology infrastructure should not be the largest cost of any human performance or learning project.

It is not your technology that gives you a competitive advantage but your company’s strategy, leadership and the talent of your workforce.

Licensing from a trusted collaborative partner saves money and leaves the technology open to further development.

By driving down the cost of software or content, the open source model frees capital for other projects, thereby fostering innovation.

Most of the market leading products in the learning content management space (and other enterprise applications) are so costly that many organizations cannot pay the price of admission. Let’s face it, most organizations do not need a space shuttle to go to their mailbox.

What Others Have to Say

A recent article on The Myths of Open Source in CIO Magazine, stated that open source is not really about free software. Open Source is about standards, like internet protocol, which enable collaborative development. By giving access to source code, new applications can be developed quickly and collaboratively. If your organisation needs to collaborate, you probably need open source.

In April 2003, the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA) urged the Canadian Treasury Board to support the use of open source and open standards. CATA believes that open source “provides a foundation for lowering costs while increasing stability, scalability and security. This change in procurement strategy [by the Canadian government] provides an opportunity for our members to capture new markets”.

Business Models

Services
Focusing on Open Source allows a consulting services company to have discussions with clients focused on solving pressing problems while presenting broad options to the economic buyer.

Proprietary software development is usually controlled by a single company, with clear business objectives. Sometimes these objectives do not align with the overall market need. For instance, a proprietary software company was recently asked if its new application would be available in another language. A group of potential users even volunteered to do the translation, but the company was not interested. If this application was Open Source, the users could have gone ahead and translated the application presentation layer. Open Source applications can spread to marginal markets, such as developing countries, very quickly.

Buyer Cooperative
Here is an example of a business model, based on a for-profit cooperative, aimed at reducing members’ dependence on IT vendors. Project Avalanche is a cooperative which serves the technology needs of a wide variety of companies. The members pay an annual fee and share software, intellectual property, and further development costs. The business structure and legal framework also mean that members have a secure right to the use of any collaboratively-developed software. Analyst, Patricia Seybold says, “By sharing, evolving, and managing the quality control of each other’s software – software that is destined for deployment in large enterprise applications – and sharing best practices and other IP, corporate developers will be able to move much faster at lower cost. Project Avalanche is also a needed whack in the side of the head for today’s commercial software companies – it will give them lots of opportunities both to be more competitive and more cooperative. That’s a good thing.”

Open Source Learning Applications

Screenshots and quick explanations here.

Examples

Intellum Open Core
Moodle
ATutor

Demonstrations I will provide:

Open Office (a common entry-point for individuals into the world of open source)
ACollab (Community of Practice)
Drupal CMS (Weblog)

Creative Commons

A quick overview for those who have never heard of the Creative Commons.

CC = somewhere between no rights reserved, and all rights reserved

Basic CC License Components

Attribution
Non-commercial
Derivative Works
Share-Alike

Other Commons Licenses:

Public Domain (not really a license)
CC-GNU-GPL and CC-GNU-LGPL (for software)
Recombo (for creative mixing)
Founders’ Copyright (as originally intended, for 14 years)

Also will explain iCommons Canada

Keep It Simple

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Jay Cross talks about focusing performance improvement efforts on "worker effectiveness improvement, not KM" [knowledge management]. More and more people are disillusioned with large-scale KM, document management and ERP efforts, that force workers to comply with an imposed structure. I remember delaying the use of Goldmine in my last job, because I had my own system, and really did not want to realign my processes with an imposed one.

Perhaps the reason that blogs are popular, in spite of their limitations, is that they are easy to use, and there is no imposed structure. Many of us believe that our way is the best way, and need proof that doing otherwise would be beneficial. I find that blogging is becoming more and more about building my personal knowledge repository, while staying connected to wide-ranging conversation. As Jay states in his post:

KM should leverage natural processes, not try to change the basic ways things are accomplished.

An organisation’s entire KM effort could start with simple technologies. It could provide a blog to everyone, letting workers blog as they wanted. RSS aggregators could keep an eye on blogs of interest, and maybe even a blog rating system could included in the performance management system. Yes, the better writers would get better rankings, but so would those who solve problems. A bottom-up approach to KM, at a minimal cost, makes a lot more sense than betting that some centralized system, with a huge training bill, will solve all of our problems.

Oil and Silicon

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Rob Paterson talks about a new energy strategy, and our dependence on oil. His post specifically addresses the idea of energy self-sufficiency on Prince Edward Island. Rob cites Stephen Roach, on our oil economy:

In my view, the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìtrue?¢‚Ǩ¬ù shock probably comes with $50 oil. A sustained increase to that level for 3?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú6 months would represent a surge of more than 70% above the post-2000 average ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù on a par with fullblown oil shocks of the past. The recession call probably wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t be too far behind in that instance.

Will increasing energy costs drive a boom in virtual work, virtual learning and virtual communities? Will it be the next oil crisis that finally proves John Chambers (CEO Cisco) correct with his often quoted statement that e-learning will make e-mail look like a rounding error? The Chinese demand for oil will ensure that we will continue to live in interesting times.

New eLearning R&D Blog

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After a few false starts and some technical glitches, we have the new (and improved?) blog for elearning R&D in the region, available at www.learnnb.ca/blog/. This is a continuation of the posts started on the R&D Community Blog on this site, which will now be retired. The community now has its own web space, as part of the LearnNB site, which is hosted by the NRC.

I have also established a collaborative work space for interested community members. We are using the ACollab platform, which includes document sharing, file uploading and a discussion forum. Initial feedback is to use the blog for general discussions, and the collaborative work space for specific project-related issues. Please contact me if you would like access.

Feedback is always appreciated.

The Beginning of the End of Work

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Rob Paterson, a very interesting person who writes some of the best articles in the blogosphere, talks about the end of work as we know it. This is a recurring theme for me, as I’ve worked in very large bureaucracies, dot coms, and a university. Basically, it’s getting easier to be a free agent. Rob sums up the advantage of hiring a free agent versus a corporate consultant:

This then raises the larger issue of the erosion of the corporate ownership of tools and processes. Even lowly me has an office equipped way beyond most corporate counterparts. We have not only 2 PCs but 2 iBooks, a La Cie backup and all the peripherals. I can produce documents and do research that only a few years ago would have taken several people. Now I can do it all at home or on the road. Talking about on the road: I am even spared Hotel costs. I have family houses where I can stay for free in all the major cities in Canada and in London and Amsterdam. If pushed, I could stay with friends in many other places. My clients get my full attention and they do not hire the big guy and then have all the work done by a kid. They get all of me.

The free agents that I work with all give real value for their fees. We all know that we are only as good as our last project, and that one bad referral could be the end of our business. We are all focused, but constantly exploring the peripheries, without office politics to distract us. Personally, I’m working twice as hard, for half as much, but when it’s my work for a valued client it’s really satisfying. However, I have more time to read and explore because my boss lets me.

When you engage a free agent there is no hype, no marketing mumbo jumbo about "leading edge technologies, providing enhanced human capital return on investment". We just solve problems, or do work that you don’t have the time or staff to do. You get our full attention, and we do ALL of the work. Not a bad deal.

Collaboration by Jay Cross

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Jay Cross has made his ASTD 2004 presentation notes for "Collaboration Supercharges Performance" available, as well as the link to the entire 87 minute presentation in Macromedia Breeze. I have enjoyed all of Jay’s Breeze presentations, and the audio quality is excellent. It’s great to see this sharing of ideas made so easy for those of us not able to attend ASTD.