What's In Your Code?

View from the other side

Ran across this article today, an interview with Lee Thompson who is VP of architecture at etrade. He talks about a whole series of events in 2001-2003 which succinctly describe the freefall that Sun found itself in as low cost intel-based servers and linux hit the sweet spot of sun's product line. It is particularly interesting for me to read, since I was responsible for the iPlanet software which etrade was using. In fact, etrade was one of the customers that helped make Java and app servers a mainstream enterprise software development strategy. I think sun is recovering somewhat, with its open source strategy for solaris and other products - but this article is a real lesson in the harsh reality of the technology marketplace.

GPL 3.0

The long-awaited 3.0 version of the GPL will be presented in draft form soon. In our world that is a major event, since it is this license (and its cousin the LGPL) that have been the cornerstone of much of the IP theory and practice in the open source world. Steve Shankland has a good summary here.

For everyone in this area, it will be important to understand the direction that the FSF is taking and comment as appropriate.

Wackiest labels...

check this one...too funny. (regarding how not to use a 1000 degree heat gun).

But - there is something to be said for explaining whats in there and how you use it. Thats why this caught my eye. I don't want to reach too far for the analogy, but thats why we introduced the notion of IP Ingredients. Because transparency in software content is becoming more and more important, and more and more a good thing.

We're now into the new year and one of our goals is to further explore the notion of IP ingredients. I welcome any thoughts you might have - either as a comment here or to my email mark@palamida

IP Ingredients

Twice today... Maybe my new year's resolution is working...

Just saw this blog entry from Dana Gardner, talking about IP ingredients. I have been wanting to say more on the subject, but I think that Dana described it better than I could. We made this announcement in december, and set up IPingredients.org at the same time. Our hope is that we can start a dialog on the point that transparency in software content is a good thing, whose time has come. Obviously we have a commercial interest, but the notion is broader than that. If you think this idea has merit - visit IPingredients, and lets discuss how to move forward.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - The new year here (San Francisco) is getting off to a wet start - over 5 inches of rain near my home in the south bay, and more than that north of san francisco. So we're slip-sliding into 2006...

Jeff Luszcz, one of the Palamida founders, is giving a talk on Thursday January 12 on the subject of best practices in the use of code scanning tools. He's become quite an expert and if you are interested in the topic, this would be a terrific chance to talk with Jeff about it.

http://www.sdforum.org/SDForum/Templates/CalendarEvent.aspx?CID=1827&mo=1&yr=2006