Sharing Source Code in the Cloud

As hosted development platforms become browser-accessible, new issues will arise regarding freely sharing source code among developers. Bungee Connect’s most recent update (April 20, 200 introduced its first (and still very early) version of a source code share. This creates a hosted code repository for Bungee Connect developers, and opens a raft of questions about the future of Free Software licenses in the age of hosted development.

Allow me to outline three code-sharing scenarios, and provide some thinking on how current open source licenses might fit:

1. Importing shared open source code would allow you as a developer to import another developer’s source code into your own code.
   This scenario could mandate that your code must now be contributed back to the original developer. For example, if the code was made available to you under the AGPL, then even without distributing the code, you are obligated to do so. However, if the imported code was made available under the GPL, then you likely don’t have to contribute the code back unless you do something to re-distribute the code you received from the share.
   From my reading of the GPL, it is specifically triggered when you “convey” the software you make with GPL-licensed code. (This was coined by Tim O’Reilly as “the SaaS Loophole.”) However, if you were then to share your own code that included the GPL software, you would be bound by the terms of the GPL to share your code under the same license. (For both GPL and AGPL code, this might get messy if you have also imported code that was shared under an incompatible licenses. But that’s nothing new in FOSS licensing, is it?)
2. Linking to shared open source code would allow you to make modifications to shared code separately and independently from whatever project you are working on. Essentially, you would be able to modify the shared code as you need, and then link to it like a library.
   It appears that there is no FOSS license that has considered this scenario! Because your application is hosted, you never “convey” your software to another party, so the GPL and LGPL don’t get triggered. On the opposite extreme, the terms of the AGPL would be applicable, as mere access to the software (rather than conveyance) applies. So, even by trying to insulate your code from the AGPL-shared code, you would still be bound by its terms. There is no Affero version of the LGPL–probably because this scenario has not been considered until very recently.
3. Linking to shared proprietary software would allow you to use another developer’s software without any access to its source code. Like a Windows DLL, you can use its APIs, but cannot modify its functionality.
   This scenario is certainly an option that many developers would want, but it’s really not that relevant to the FOSS licensing discussion, so I’ll leave it at that.

Is there need for an L-AGPL?

Likely, the most free way of sharing your code in a cloud-based code repository would be under a license similar to the BSD license, which allows other developers to take source code, use it, and modify it without an obligation to provide those modifications. Some developers find the BSD terms too liberal. If I share the software, I’d like for people to at least provide their fixes back so that I can benefit from their work as they have from mine.

The AGPL, on the other hand, may seem too draconian for some developers. I want to share my code under license to enforce the submission of fixes, improvements and extensions to my original code, but
I don’t want to force other developers to open the code for their entire project just because they included my code as a component. The AGPL would do that. So other developers may forgo using my code because I shared it under a license that is too viral.

Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same reason why many FOSS projects choose to use the LGPL instead of the GPL. But at this time, there is no L-AGPL (or A-LGPL).

What are your thoughts or insights? Are there places where my understanding of the licenses is incorrect? Is there aneed for an L-AGPL? If this seems an issue exclusive to Bungee Connect only, why do you think that?

LFNW: LinuxFest Northwest

At the end of the month I’ll be back in Bellingham for my 3rd time at LinuxFest Northwest. LFNW happens to be the last independent regional Linux event on the west coast, now that the guys from Socal Linux Expo have sold their event to IDG (which was announced happened on April 1, 2008, and I believed completely).

If you’ll be there, please come to my session:

“Freedom and the Cloud: Developer Platforms meet Software as a Service”
A new wave of software development is taking shape, allowing developers to create and deploy software entirely through the browser. In this talk, Ted Haeger explains platform-as-a-service and some of the issues it raises regarding software freedom. What is the GPL’s “SaaS loophole”? How do web service providers promote or discourage the ethics of Free Software? Why does the Affero GPL matter? How does free software enable invigorate startup innovation, and what are the ethical obligations to reciprocate of the companies that use free software to build their business?

I’m Presenting at LugRadio Live USA!!

Despite rumors that may have been previously propagated by certain people of a sullied character (me), I am now coming to LugRadio Live 2008. This weekend. At the Metreon. In San Francisco.

At noon on Saturday, April 12:

“Reverend Ted’s Noon Hour Extravaganza”
or
“Freedom and the Cloud: Developer Platforms meet Software as a Service”
A new wave of software development is taking shape, allowing developers to create and deploy software entirely through the browser. In this talk, Ted Haeger explains platform-as-a-service and some of the issues it raises regarding software freedom. What is the GPL’s “SaaS loophole”? How do web service providers promote or discourage the ethics of Free Software? Why does the Affero GPL matter? How does free software enable invigorate startup innovation, and what are the ethical obligations to reciprocate of the companies that use free software to build their business?

I believe that I might also be flagged as the back-up candidate to host the Gong-a-Thong should the Mighty Aaron Bockover chicken out. (Imagine my relief when I was informed that Aaron was chosen over me…because I’m not quite as pasty.)

Brother Jono on The Bungee Line

After a brief hiatus, Alex and I finally got back in the studio to create another edition of our fledgling podcast for web developers, The Bungee Line. This one features an interview with my friend and fellow miscreant, Jono Bacon.

Why would a web developer-focused podcast want to interview a Linux community leader? Well, if you’re interested in the joys and challenges of managing developer communities–and you are, trust me–then there is likely no better case study than that of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is perhaps the most popular Linux distribution available today, and it has a vast community of developers that contribute to it. For a year and a half (or so), Jono has been spearheading the community program for Ubuntu, and his experience in managing such a large and widely distributed community of developer certainly bears relevance.

Oh, and there’s also the part that unlike many people we approach to come one the show, his standards aren’t very high.

If Only I Were Going to LugRadio Live US

LugRadio Live is coming to the US, and I’m not going.

You should.

I have a friend coming to my place that weekend, so I won’t make it to the very first LugRadio Live in the US of A.

You should. Seriously.

I’m more than a tad bit distraught about not being at the show that I practically invented. But I can’t make it.

You should.

I could go on and on, but that wouldn’t change the fact that I’m not going.

Nevertheless…you should.

(Does that suffice, Jono?)

Screencast of Socal Linux Expo Presentation

As services and software start to move more and more into the cloud–the emerging domain of service providers hosting not just storage or virtual machines, but the actual code for web applications–some very interesting question arise:

• How does sharing code become easier?
• How can you provide developers maximum control over their creations?
• How will source code licenses work?
• How will the next generation of platform providers balance between security and confidentiality of their developer/users on the one hand, and the increased value that many developers place on using open systems?

These are the kind of questions that my company Bungee Labs is wrestling with, and I recently took a stab at presenting some of our current, early thinking in this area in my presentation at Socal Linux Expo.

The presentation was received quite well by the audience of some 30 people, so I took the time to assemble the slides and audio, and stitch them together with some screencast videos

Since SCaLE is a Free Software-friendly event, the image is linked to a Theora (.ogg) video file.

Video Stats

Run time: 55:51

Theora: 114MB

QuickTime: 150MB

If the file sizes are inconvenient for you, my apologies. I don’t have the best of video editing/encoding facilities at my disposal.

Please let me know if you find any issues in getting or viewing the video. Also, I am very interested in feedback regarding our current thinking regarding licensing.

Related Links

• Bungee Connect Terms & Agreements
  • You own your code. (Bungee Connect Developer Agreement)
  • Software Sharing in the Cloud (Publishing Licenses)
• SaaS Loophole References & Relevant Reading:
  • “Open Source Licenses are Obsolete” , Tim O’Reilly, August 01, 2006
  • “The GPL Has No (Networked) Future”, Bryan Richard, March 29, 2007
  • “The GPL and Software as a Service”, Tim O’Reilly, July 12, 2007
  • “GPL v3 Not a Concern For Google”, Sean Michael Kerner, March 29, 2007
  • GNU General Public License 3 (GPLv3)
  • GNU Affero General Public License 3 (AGPLv3)
• Lock-in Considerations
  • “Free But Shackled: The Java Trap”, Richard Stallman, April 12, 2004
  • Bungee FAQ (see “Exporting or Leaving Bungee Connect”)

Interviewed at Socal Linux Expo

SCaLE6 conference organizer, Orv Beach, interviewed me at this weekend’s big event in Los Angeles.

I speak in the interview about the switch from a large Linux distributor to working for a small startup, and some of what I have been doing at Bungee Labs over the past year.

SCaLE6: Returning to Socal Linux Expo

Once again I will be presenting at Socal Linux Expo. Each SCaLE so far has been a great show, and this 6th year promises to be excellent. Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon is keynote speaker this year (co-presenting with his beard), and his presentations are quite entertaining (even for denizens of Los Angeles, who are accustomed to seeing the occasional massive traffic accident). So if you’re in the Los Angeles area, come on down and check it out.

This year my presentation is about startups and open source, using case-in-point company, Bungee Labs. They booked me last in line on Sunday afternoon, so if you’re going, please hang out to the very end.

Drop me a line if you’d like to chew the fat, and whatnot.

Interview on the Linux Link Tech Show

The good fellows at the Linux Link Tech Show (and Dann) recently had me on the show. I tell a bit about what I’m doing at Bungee Labs, and discuss my past incarnation, as well as various thoughts about free software, some of the industry figures with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working, and other stuff. I was on with the guys for over an hour. Perhaps I talked too long, but the guys kept talking to me, and it made me feel almost…what’s the word for it?…interesting? To give you a sense of the tone of the show, the first thing I heard when I got on the line was one of the guys belch. Anyway, you can check out the episode from here: mp3, ogg.

Did Microsoft Squelch Korby’s Reply?

[Sep 2, 2007] Note: Far more important than my speculative words in this post are those in Korby’s reply. I encourage you to read it and consider carefully what Korby communicates–professionally and openly. Yahoo! is quite lucky to have Korby joining their team.

Did Microsoft Squelch Korby’s Reply?
Some of my readers may recall a while back that I posted some of my thoughts about Microsoft’s Claimspace initiative. (See “Can We Trust Microsoft with Claimspace?“) In that post, I challenged the mind behind Claimspace, Mr. Korby Parnell, to lay out the case why we the Internet community (and more specifically, the part of the Internet community among whom I frequently associate, which includes open source and free software technologists, advocates, and other riff raff) should trust Microsoft to host a system that proposes to aggregate information that links to our personal, online reputations.

Shortly after putting up my post, Korby accepted the challenge, and posted a brief “my response pending” on his blog, which he titled “Trust Microsoft with Claimspace.” I was intrigued by how Korby managed to except straight from the title of my post to make a rather gutsy claim of his own. Not the dodging and runaround that I was expecting at all.

This ought to be interesting, thought I.

Now–many, many weeks after my opening salvo, and Korby’s immediate promissory retort–there has been no reply.

What happened? Knowing Korby’s passion for his project, I really doubt that he forgot about his commitment to reply. (I actually gave him a heads-up that was going to post my original inquiry on my blog. His reply was something to affect of a friendly “Bring it on!”) And, from my all-too-few conversations with Korby, I get a distinct sense that he groks the free software ethos fairly well, and respects it, too. So, I don’t think that Korby has decided that either the topic or the primary audience for whom I wrote my initial inquiry are not important enough.

Voids in public information force people to fill in the empty space with conjecture, and seldom does that lead to a positive interpretation of the facts. (To be sure, one learns this well from spending time in Novell’s ranks.) The lack of response to defend Microsoft’s trustworthiness and intentions with Claimspace leads me to suspect that Microsoft cannot provide a satisfactory answer to my original question.

Can we trust Microsoft with Claimspace? From what I can tell, the answer is no, we can’t.

Photos from LugRadio Live 2007

I won’t go into depth about what a great time was had by all at LugRadio Live 2007. There were great technical sessions, and great energy. Attendees reacted pretty well to my presentation of Bungee Connect. And, I found every single item in the endless series nob jokes to be generally above par.

The first half of my photo set is online now at Flickr.
Warning: Some of these photos are sophomoric and in bad taste. Okay, most of them are.

Interview on LinuxWorld Podcast

Don Marti of LinuxWorld recently interviewed me about the role of a community evangelist.

In the interview I explain a bit about what I am doing over at Bungee Labs, and Don asks me a few direct questions about the Novell-Microsoft deal.

(I’ll also mention that before the interview I busted Don’s chops a bit about the Windows Server adverts on the LinuxWorld home page. All in good fun, though.)

Get Some Reverend at LugRadio Live 2007

Yes, indeedy, I’ll be there.

This seems to be the #3 question after my leaving Novell in April: “Will you still be at LugRadio Live this summer?”

Those who know me know that I cannot get enough of that warm, good ole Wolverhampton feeling. Wolverhampton! “City of Dreams.” Even now, from so far away, I can remember vividly the way it clings to the soles of the feet, the way its sweet air permeates the clothing and lingers for months. Aye, some might say that there will be too much Ted at LugRadio Live. Most, actually.

I will be presenting on Bungee Connect, a no-fee, on-demand development and deployment environment that my new company Bungee Labs provides. Also, I plan to provide the captive audience (mind you, not necessarily “captivated”) a humorous update on “My Winter of Discontent,” which involves my getting divorced, leaving Novell, finding a new job, and getting a new home, all while sporting my new glasses to correct my two astigmatic eyeballs. (A hell of a winter it was!)

If you want to meet up, hang out, jeer the Jono, drink beer, slap the Aq, shoot the shite, finger paint Ade’s head, etc., then drop a line to ted(Shift-2-on-a-US-keyboard)bungeelabs.com.

See you in Wolverhampton!

Can We Trust Microsoft with Claimspace?

During my all-too-long blog silence, I have been designing a developer community program for my new company, Bungee Labs. There are so many considerations and requirements to create a decent community program: organizational transparency, reputation/rapport systems, programs for recognizing and rewarding the best contributions, and so forth. The mix is enormous. It makes me wonder: Is there a software solution that can provide the comprehensive community infrastructure that an ambitious (and somewhat unrealistically optimistic) community planner requires?

[Cue dramatic "was it...murder?" music. Enter Microsoft.]

Last week, Korby Parnell, a friend and former colleague of Bungee Labs’ VP of Community, Alex Barnett, came down from Redmond to visit us at here Bungee Labs. Korby is amazingly knowledgeable in Internet culture and social software. Soon after meeting him, I quickly learned that none of my brilliant and inspired ideas for the Bungee Connect developer community were all that original. Furthermore, it turns out that Korby has been working to solve many of the the challenge of how to implement several of the ideas that Alex and I have been dreaming up. It comes in the form of Microsoft’s “Project Rapport,” soon to be released as a free no-charge service called Claimspace.

At first blush, Claimspace may appear to provide something akin to Technorati’s authority scoring, but it aims to be much, much more. I refer you to Korby’s blog post for an initial introduction. From what Korby showed me, over time Claimspace could solve many of the needs that Alex and I have identified for Bungee Lab’s community infrastructure. In fact, according to Korby, community managers and planners like Alex and me are exactly one of the personas that Claimspace intends to serve. There is just one problem.

It comes from Microsoft.

Why is that a problem? There are two reasons, both of which are social rather than technical. If Microsoft chooses not to address the first, then they will certainly have to address the second. Either that, or I predict that a more vendor-neutral alternative to Claimspace will quickly emerge and force community managers like me either to choose which one to use, or bifurcate our attention between both. (I beg you, Microsoft, please don’t put us community managers in that position!)

The first problem is that many social-software-savvy technologists will avoid using Claimspace altogether because people don’t trust Microsoft. A significant portion of the technologists who I need to attract into my community program assert–right or wrong–that Microsoft is evil. Humor of the last link aside, there are those who rigorously track what they see as Microsoft’s demonstrably bad behavior. In fact, just Googling “Microsoft is Evil” reveals how deeply the mistrust of Microsoft runs.

Can community managers like myself really afford to lose a portion of their potential recruits as a result of Claimspace’s close tie to Microsoft? One suggestion (which I made to Korby) is to line up a consortium of vendors to back Claimspace as an independent or multi-vendor industry initiative. Barring that, perhaps some of Microsoft’s less extreme detractors might get over their dyspepsia with some appropriate assurances regarding my second concern.

And the second concern is? It’s really just a subset of the first. Claimspace appears to propose that we entrust Microsoft with a crucial facet of our online identities: our professional, online reputations. Some may recall Microsoft’s Hailmaker disaster, an ambitious, nay, audacious identity effort that collapsed due to concern about Microsoft controlling online identities. For Claimspace, this concern won’t likely be a showstopper, but Claimspace, and those who decide to use it for community management, will likely lose a significant number of potential users because people get very suspicious when it comes to Microsoft and online identities.

I cannot emphasize enough how extremely compelling I find Claimspace to be. Korby’s thinking on it (beyond what he shares in the blog post) is comprehensive and brilliant. It would certainly make my life much easier. However, I doubt that I stand alone in expressing these two intertwined concerns (okay, they’re really just one concern), and I ask my readers to chime with their comments, for or against the validity of these concerns. I feel that they deserve to be addressed, so I toss it as a friendly challenge to Korby to see why we should believe that Microsoft can be trusted with our identities in Claimspace. Is being inclusive important enough to Microsoft to implement the appropriate mitigations for the concerns of those of us who do not trust that that Microsoft can be entrusted with our identities?

Here are some further questions that may help show the breadth of what need be considered:

• Where will Claimspace user identities be stored? Are identities centralized or de-centralized?
• How much information will Claimspace require in order to track an individual? Minimizing the amount of personal information required has to be balanced against the potential for stooging/doppelganging.
• What about arbitration? How will an individual be able to repudiate erroneous or malicious claims against his or her identity?
• Once in, can I later choose to opt out of Claimspace altogether, removing all record of my existence from Claimspace?
• How will Claimspace be made hack-proof? That is, could someone launch some kind of DoS-like attack against me in order to besmirch my reputation. (Besmirch. Huh huh…huh huh…)
• (I may add other questions as I think of them, but for now, that’ll do, Ted. That’ll do.)

9.6 Years: On Beyond Novell

A Brief Retrospective
I started working directly for Novell on September 26 of 1997. Prior to working for Novell, I was a Certified Novell Instructor, teaching all angles of NetWare, as well as other advanced network administration classes. I was recruited into Novell to do technical field sales. After two years, I took on a role as product evangelist for the new ZENworks product line, then briefly served as product manager for the management console iManager before becoming director of product management for the eDirectory product line. After that, I moved into marketing and served as director of marketing for GroupWise and Novell Linux Desktop, and finally shifted into my current role as user community guy/podcaster/blogger. In my current role I got to work with the members of Novell Users International, the open source community, and the brilliant engineers of SUSE and Ximian, as well as those of traditional Novell backgrounds. It has been a fantastic run.

April March 24th, 2007 was my final day working at Novell. Leaving will be anything but easy. The people who make up Novell’s technical community, both outside and inside of the company, have been wonderful to me. Still, I want to try something new. Spending almost a decade at a single company is a long time.

So where to?
This week, I started at Bungee Labs, an exciting start-up company based in Orem, Utah. Bungee Labs is making what open source business advocate Matt Asay called a “Sourceforge for the 21st Century.” Bungee’s debut at the O’Reilly Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco last week garnered this very thorough review. To me, Bungee Labs appears to be the first company that might be able to deliver on the promise (and hype) of Web 2.0, and on a grand scale rather than just one small niche area.

At the core of Bungee Labs’ strategy is the need to build a strong community of developers for the platform that Bungee offers. My job will be to help build that community. More specifically, I get to help guide the external awareness and advocacy effort for that company, and help to steer the company’s culture to be web savvy, engaged, and interactive with its community. Going to a company that has community at the very core of its strategy was a proposition too intriguing to pass up.

I’ll be working for one Alex Barnett, an extremely well-regarded technologist who, along with a few others such as Robert Scoble, helped to influence what became known as the “new” Microsoft. Of course the proposition of working with an ex-Microsoftie raised my suspicions, so before taking the job I researched Alex’s name thoroughly and could not find a single negative statement about him. The guy really seems to grasp how Internet social culture affects how businesses must relate to their various constituents and stakeholders. In other words, Alex groks community.

Loose Ends
As I understand it, Novell Open Audio will continue, with Erin Quill taking over where I leave off.

I plan to keep blogging, and I very much hope that many of my readers from both the open source and Novell communities will stick with me. Bungee Labs’ technology will be something to watch, and I will certainly continue to discuss issues involving free and open source software as they relate to Bungee’s platform.

To learn more about my new company, I encourage you to check out Bungee’s videos:

• Introduction to Bungee Concepts I
• Introduction to Bungee Builder
• Introduction to Bungee Concepts II

Lastly, please share your thoughts, either by public comment or private email. The new email address is “ted” at “bungeelabs” dot com.

Loose Ends Addenda:

• Yes, I will still be presenting on Novell’s behalf at LinuxFest Northwest.
• Yes, I will still be coming to LugRadio Live.
• Yes, Bungee’s site will soon be removing the iframes. (Sheesh!)