Tag: Open Source

Digitize you charts with Engauge Digitizer

A few words of appreciation for an open source software that can help you a lot in your work, Engauge Digitizer (ED) from Mark Mitchell. ED is a simple, straightforward curve digitizer: it takes images with graphs like the one below and transform them (with a little help) in data you can use later on.

170804-Engauge-survival0

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References, references, references!

When I studied biology as well as when I did my Ph.D., our professors were always after us because of references. I think with their precious help we learnt the art of referencing: choosing good references, citing them at the appropriate location in a text and, of course, giving enough information at the bottom of the text to allow the reader to find these references.

I just finished reading two articles in a recent edition of The Economist and they reminded me how important are these references. These articles are What would Jesus hack? and Worrying about wireless.

First an aside: it might be an editorial choice but I would prefer to know who wrote an article rather than anonymity. I don’t have (and won’t have) anything personal against any author. I just like to know if I’m reading something written by a young Mr. I-know-everything with no background in the topic of the article or by a Mrs Specialist who appears to work in the field she’s writing about. In this blog, who I am is in the “About” section in the bar above.

In What would Jesus hack? the anonymous author is throwing a mix of everything and anything to make a story. And actually it works: the article has some logic in its sequence of statements. From an external point of view you may even think it’s a nice article. You discover news and organisations that you may have missed: an opinion from Antonio Spadaro in “Hacker ethics and Christian vision” (Google translation of the abstract), the reply from Eric S. Raymond, Elèutheros, … But you will also be staggered at the hotchpotch mixing Open Source, internet, Twitter, … Why not add Facebook then, the archetypal anti-privacy web service?

Richard Stallman changes my lifeThe only point that the article might get right is that some software programmers are somehow seeing themselves and / or seen by others as gods: Richard Stallmann, Linus Torvalds, Bill Gates (god turned philanthropist), Steve Jobs (god turned designer), etc. On top of that, every programmer had her/his Eureka moment when she/he solves a bug after hours trying to fix the code. Otherwise, I agree with what the unnamed author puts in the mouth of Kevin Kelly and that I can summarize by: “with more power comes more responsibilities”.

And, as I pointed out in the beginning, there isn’t any reference at the bottom of the paper version, any link in the digital version. Statements and people in this article could have been 100% fictional, no one would have known that (until you look for them on the web).

I have the same issue with Worrying about wireless: no sources, no references. I don’t forbid the anonymous writer to have an opinion on the topic. Just let the others also make their own opinion by citing the sources you are using. This article is just shaping the opinion of  readers in a hurry by using a partisan language and not citing sources. Even when indirectly citing sources (e.g. the WHO IARC classification), the anonymous coward succeeds in using negative wording to dismiss what doesn’t please his / her theory. I would have liked to have more information about the potential adverse effects of wifi waves in the long run, for instance. But I will unfortunately not believe such one-way gibberish.

Now you’ll tell me I don’t have to read The Economist and you’ll be right 🙂

Illustration credit: Duty calls by xkcd and Richard Stallman by Pladour on Flickr (CC-by-nc)

Implication of Oracle buying Sun on Open Source projects?

Oracle and Sun announced a few days ago that Oracle will buy Sun. Others are more apt than me to comment on the financial and strategic impacts of this move (for example, in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal or on Slashdot). I’m more interested in the potential implications this move could have on some Open Source projects which were backed by Sun. I indeed believe Oracle will continue the development of his contributions to Open Source software, whether they are notable (Btrfs or Oracle Enterprise Linux) or less visible.

In the last few years, Sun opened or started to open some of its (key) software like OpenOffice.org, Netbeans, OpenSolaris, Java, … Sometimes these moves were considered as a last hope to see them used (and developed) at a lower cost for Sun. Very often, these moves were criticised because the “opening” was only partial (non-free licenses, stranglehold on the development processes, …) or just announced (Java still needs to be fully opened). However, the openings of OpenOffice.org and Netbeans can be seen as successes: OpenOffice.org is a more and more used office suite and Netbeans fairly competes with another open development source-editor-cum-development-platform, Eclipse. In the beginning of 2008, Sun acquired MySQL AB, the company behind the probably most used database system for website development, MySQL. Unfortunately, rumors spread that Sun will close some of the MySQL features, leading to forks like Maria(DB) (rumors where later dismissed). Anyway, these software are (nearly) free. But they may not be in Oracle strategic plannings.

Oracle now owns 2 database management systems: Oracle and MySQL. Although they maybe do not compete at the same level and although I don’t see Oracle dumping one RDBMS (because of their respective user base), it could become expensive to maintain 2 code bases for the same goal.

Oracle now owns 2 operating systems too: Oracle Enterprise Linux and (Open)Solaris. And here, they compete at the same level: on enterprise desktops and servers. The beauty of Open Source is that OpenSolaris may survive thanks to its community if it would be abandoned by Oracle.

Oracle has now the lead on the development of an IDE, Netbeans, while it extensively uses and promotes its rival, Eclipse. Fortunately for Netbeans, it has a strong community behind … I guess it’s approximately the same for Sun virtualisation software, VirtualBox (no immediate use for Oracle) but I’m not really following these technologies so I won’t bet anything on this.

Oracle now also has the lead on the development of Java, a programming language cherished by a lot of companies around the world (some say Java is the COBOL of the 1990s …). Oracle also uses Java for its tools so I guess Oracle will continue its development. Whether the opening of Java will continue and if it does, at what speed, one can assume it will depend on the financial and/or fame benefits Oracle can gain from it.

Oracle owns now an office suite. I don’t really see how it fits into Oracle software portfolio unless Oracle really pushes hard its adoption in companies where Microsoft Office has a monopoly. Or Oracle intends to beat Microsoft by offering a complete solution, from corporate servers (with Oracle DB, Enterprise Linux, BEA/Tomcat application servers and Sun hardware) to corporate desktops (with OpenSolaris (?) and OpenOffice.org), Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison being known to forecast the end of Microsoft. By providing top-to-toe-solutions, this would make Oracle the next IBM but this is another subject.

So, except for Java (and maybe OpenOffice.org), I’m rather pessimistic on the future of these Open Source / free software projects. Does this mean that they will not survive? I don’t think so. They users/fans base is sometimes huge. And similar high-quality Open/Free projects live very well without one big corporation behind them ; think of PostgreSQL, Linux, Eclipse, Python/Ruby, etc.

Ryan Paul wrote an article in ArsTechnica on the same topic, for those who are interested.

Two nice schemes about Open Source

I don’t know how I stumble upon this report of a conference (English translation) from Avi Alkalay but I liked 2 schemes he showed.

In this first scheme (left), I like the way it reminds you that “Open” is not only about software, source code. But now that more and more people are aware of the benefits of Open Source software, it’s interesting to also stress the other sides of openness: open standards (like OpenDocument), open hardware, open architecture.
In the second scheme (below) is about the trend from private control / closed access to public control / open access (apparently from Rebecca Henderson; it could be interesting to find this whole presentation from 2004).

There is a third scheme in Avi’s post but there is something I don’t like in it, although it’s visually appealing. Although I understand that proprietary and open innovations should collaborate for the time being, I think that Open Innovation is the model to follow. Moreover, the “speed-to-market” criteria is, imho, better in the Open Innovation model (but maybe I should see Rebecca Henderson’s presentation).