Related link: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/rtessentials/

When I see or hear people knocking Linux for not having applications, I think of Jesse Vincent’s Request Tracker (RT). When I first found out about RT, I thought I had found a few hundred thousand dollars laying on the street. That’s the amount of money I would have had to spend on a proprietary trouble ticket tracking system comparable to ones from “big” commercial shops.

Having used expensive trouble ticket systems, I knew of their complicated nature. I had seen the best ones and some bad ones. None of the people with whom I worked ever criticized the cost because they didn’t think they could have done their jobs without a decent ticketing system.

RT proved itself a world-class product and it’s free software. Many times I have wanted to have it running on a laptop to show people that open-source applications exist that compare in quality to the most expensive proprietary ones.

I found some vindication when “InformationWeek” ran a cover story with a top line that read:

“Hey, Yahoo, Disney’s on the other line. Call you back.” And below that, the lead says, “Open-source software, led by Linux, is barreling into big business. P. 38″

The cover had a big penguin dressed in a power suite and tie, pocketing a Blackberry and holding a cell phone to his ear. InformationWeek (Sept. 26, 2005)

You can find an interesting story about it HERE.

One of my favorite quotes from the article says:

“One line of code at a time, application by application, web server by web server, the data centers of a growing number of major companies are taking on a new personality, one that smells of the ocean and waddles when it walks.”

Then this one hits home:

“If you missed the announcement of this industry-changing development, that’s because it never went out. The deployment of open-source software is happening a project at a time, and many of them are never publicly discussed.”

That’s how I view RT. The best ticket tracking system available and yet hidden from the site of businesses because of an unsuspecting media. I have often wondered why every major magazine catering to VARS, CxO’s and Enterprises hasn’t covered RT.

Well, now O’Reilly has published an excellent book which should help get the word out about RT.

Thank you Allison Randal for making “RT Essentials” a reality. I immediately started devouring the material and found a rich source of content I didn’t know existed. I have used RT for five years. Yet, I only mastered five percent of the product.

That shows me the terrific nature of RT. If I could accomplish as much as I have only using a small fraction of the product’s capabilities, then I should have a great time implementing more.

I plan to let my friends and colleagues know about “RT Essentials”. A few enterprise journalists need to review the book too. I’m certain if they had a clue about RT we could set aside the argument that no applications exist for Linux.

Respectfully submitted.

David Berlind over at ZDNet wrote a remarkable article called Did Microsoft send the wrong guy to Massachusetts’ ODF hearing?. If you missed this article, you’ll have missed the equivalent of what Intel’s Andy Grove called an inflection point. This one has the potential to have more impact than the release of the first Pentium processor.

David believes that Microsoft should have sent Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer to the hearing. In light of the continuing anti-trust litigation between Microsoft and the Commonwealth, one has to wonder if either Microsoft executive would have been appropriate.

Shortly after the announcement of the Commonwealth’s decision to require the Open Document Format for all state agencies, Australia compelled its entire government to adopt the same. One only has to wonder who else will follow. I would expect all countries across the global to break Redmond’s de facto standard.

How does this hurt Microsoft?

Consider it the equivalent of the breakup of a monopoly. What the US Justice Department did not do in court, Massachusetts did in practice. The value of Microsoft Office just fell drastically. Think of the tide retracting from the beach way back into the ocean. If you don’t know what that means, then I suggest you run as fast as you can away from the beach and head to high ground immediately.

If I ran Corel, Word Perfect Office Suite would have a patch that made it ODF compatible immediately. Sun Microsystems already released their Star office 8 product with ODF early and expect a few others to follow suit. If you don’t like Microsoft’s Office productivity suite, you probably won’t like their desktop either. It costs too much.

A Different World, Mr. Gates

Today, IT infrastructures stretch beyond the firewall. Vendors and supply chain management touch one end of the value chain, and customers and business partners touch the other end. The regulatory environment touches your infrastructure because of requirements stipulated in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), Sarbanes Oxley, DoD 5015.2, Patriot Act, Employee Retirement and Income Security Act, Consumer Product Safety Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, SEC Rule 17a-4, NASD 3010 and 3110 and much case law, to mention only the main ones.

The regulatory environment alone demands resources we did not consider necessary five years ago. Now, even small-to-medium size businesses have to make investments in storage area networks (SANS), back-up facilities and redundant architectures. Requirements for open standards and application security can bring heavy fines and penalties for non-compliance. In February of this year, the SEC levied fines totaling $2.1 million against J.P. Morgan Securities for failing to produce all of the e-mail requested during an inquiry.

The search for an enduring document format led OASIS to invent ODF. Thirty years from now and under current laws and regulations, you just might have to retrieve a document from an archived data warehouse. Massachusetts wanted, no demanded, that ability immediately. Microsoft did not comply.

What About Linux?

Massachusetts plans to roll out Openoffice.org’s Productivity Suite to its existing Windows platforms. But as many people understand, Linux has the better desktop environment for Openoffice.org and its cousin Star Office 8. Corel once ported the Wordperfect Office Suite to Linux and can do that again.

When one considers the need to cut IT costs in states, commonwealths and countries, then Linux starts to look even more attractive. Unbundled, Windows doesn’t look as good as Linux distributions which come with Openoffice.org as part and parcel of the operating system.

Some Final Thoughts

Microsoft has essentially alienated the rest of the IT industry. I can’t remember a single company that had so many people working in harmony against it, including IBM at the height of its arrogance. The Java Community Process provides just one example of an industry working again a company.

With all the pressure aagainst Microsoft, the levees had to experience a breach at some point. On September 23rd, I believe the levee broke. Only time will prove us right or wrong.

Respectfully submitted

Many historic examples exist where whole societies subscribed to some inaccurate belief. People of the early 21st century may think themselves immune but when it comes to some technologies the earth has neither motion or roundness. Regardless of the esteem with which an analyst may be held, many will share a similar place in history as those that spoke against Galileo Galilei: forgotten.

Analysts who deny Linux’s place in the enterprise as a desktop have either failed to interrogate the system thoroughly or have a bias. Few, if any other explanations exists. People either consider their habits more important than rational observation or their beliefs superior to others.

If one will simply take a set of tasks required of a desktop and investigate the leading operating systems, then Linux will accomplish the most. Additionally, Linux will have better response time, will use less resources and requires less administration.

So, how come so many analysts and members of the media challenge Linux’s place in the enterprise and among consumers? First, you might ask if that question has any relevance. You might as well ask how come so many people have an IQ of less than 100. Or why do medical doctors think they should be master pilots with ten hours of lessons?

People who have mastered the craft of writing, don’t necessarily qualify as expert analysts. I know few who can write and analyze an operating system. I know few people who can analyze an operating system and carry a conversation with another human being. Have you ever heard a writer say, “I’m not technical?” How about a technician say, “I’m not good with people?”

Linux desktops give many analysts problems because it’s their worst nightmare. To do the system justice they would have to admit that they don’t really know what they’re doing in the first place. If you cannot figure out Linux, you have no place pontificating about information technology.

Good analysts usually have excellent written and verbal communication skills. They socialize easily and can politic with the best. They generally make lousy technicians.

So, they hire others to do the job. What do they look for in junior technical analysts? They look for communication skills and someone who can explain things to them. So, when a young man or woman comes into a meeting and throws around the latest buzz words from the technical farm, suddenly a top analyst puts his or her trust on the shoulders of the next fool.

Last week, one of the Linux luminaries discussed media bias against Linux and took some heat for it. I read one of the media target’s responses and wanted to write him. I just couldn’t think of a diplomatic way to engage him in an interaction that would make a difference.

John Terpstra made a grand effort at explaining some of the myths in the media about Linux in an article at Search Enterprise Linux. I have a high regard for John. He’s one of the few people I know that can explain technical issues for an hour without putting an audience to sleep.

John’s premise dealt with IT decision makers’ tendency to purchase products without doing due diligence. No doubt, John made salient points. Many have seen the same thing in corporate offices.

I would build on John’s premise by saying that I don’t think IT decision makers could actually perform due diligence objectively. Oh, they could go through the motions and fill in forms and ask questions and cover themselves. But can they actually handle the standard body of knowledge?

If those in charge of IT decision making and their analysts could perform due diligence, then they would use Linux already. Call it a pathology if you want. Most of us in the business already know that we often work for people less capable than us. So, that proliferates the field.

I read this morning that a chain of stores in South Africa has decided to stop stocking Novell Linux Desktops. They said that their customers found it too complicated. Perhaps the sales people may have thought that. My research indicates that Novell’s Linux Desktop is easier to use than Microsoft Windows or the Mac OS X.

A national retail chain in my home town advertises $150 computers bundled with Linspire. I have made several trips to their stores and asked for a demonstration. Each time, the sales people attempted a bait and switch. They say something like, “for a couple of hundred dollars more you can buy a similar system with additional memory and Windows XP home edition”.

A thumbnail of the recommended upgrade system used to appear on the signage of the Linspire bundled machine. The salesman would point to the sign. That suddenly stopped when I spoke to the manager of one store and explained the law against false advertising. I bought one of those computers at the same time, got a nice discount and used it in a conference presentation. It worked well.

If you pay an analyst to advise you about Linux desktops and they say that Linux is not ready, consider a second opinion. Ask someone on your staff that uses Linux at home. That’s what IBM did about five years ago before they began selling it.

Related link: http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/dumb/

OK, looks like everybody has already blogged about this and the smoke from the mailing list fights has cleared a bit. Its a very fun piece, everybody involved with security in some shape or form must read it. However, do not treat the document as the “Revelations of St Marcus” :-) For example, his stance on hacking (combined with apparent lack of clarity in how he defines it…) will certainly raise same major league heckles. And, while being a visionary like Marcus Ranum does require you to step back from reality a bit, the step IMHO should not be too big…

Related link: http://www.misterpoll.com/1895245195.html

Finally I found an online polling site and can satisfy my intense curiosity about who people consider to be responsible for all the software vulnerabilities. Vote away! :-)

Related link: http://www.bsdnexus.com/petition.asp

If you keep abreast of BSD news, you’ve probably already seen the announcement
for the petition requesting CodeWeavers to port its CrossOver Office productivity tool over to *BSD operating systems.

I recently had a chance to talk with Frank Jahnke regarding his reasons for starting the petition and why you should sign it if you haven’t already.

Dru: How is the petition moving along?

Frank:

The petition started circulating on Monday morning with an announcement I made on the PC-BSD board. OSNews provided a link (I know one of their editors), and we were off. It was picked up quickly by the DesktopBSD people, who started distributing it on the German sites: their own, of course, and the larger BSD boards as well.

It’s been a week since the original posting, and we have collected nearly 800 signatures. There are still some important sites that have not been contacted, so we are not done yet!

Not all of the signatories are would be customers, but there are about a dozen committers and developers of FreeBSD, DragonFlyBSD, DesktopBSD, PC-BSD and MirBSD who have signed. More importantly, the CEO of CodeWeavers, Jeremy White, has noticed, signed the petition, and contacted us directly.

Dru: Why are you interested in seeing a commercially available product providing support for *BSD operating systems?

Frank:

I’d like to give you a tangible example that might help to explain to people why this product is necessary and why it fills a niche not provided by an Open Source product such as Wine.

I am starting a biotechnology company that will manufacture biological tools. Part of my funding will come from the National Institutes of Health, which invests quite some money a year in grants to further its interests in promoting health and curing disease. Part of the grant application process is a boilerplate, which identifies the company, what you are doing, the budget you are requesting and its breakdown, your people and their background, and so forth.

A 15 page proposal will typically have 45 pages or so of boilerplate. For a young company such as mine, each application will be different, and the boilerplate changes. And of course this is the last thing to be done before the grant goes in, since it includes pagination and a Table of Contents. Yes, these are all still submitted on paper, with an original and 6 to 8 copies that need to be delivered by the closing date.

The boilerplate forms are available in .doc and PDF versions only. The .doc files are extremely cumbersome, and Open Office does only an OK job which I don’t think is good enough. The PDFs work much better. Unfortunately, the Reader cannot save information entered into forms. You can enter them and print, but you cannot save them. For forms this long, it is silly to use the computer as a simple typewriter. It also does not allow you to recycle any portions of old applications.

Adobe Acrobat, the complete version, can save this information. You can enter it, save it, go back and edit it, and print it out. It works very well (including automatic summation of budgets), and does not require the latest, greatest version of Acrobat (I use 4.0). If there is an OSS way to deal with this, I sure haven’t found it.

So I have next to my dual processor, dual monitor FreeBSD machine an old PIII Win98SE box that I use primarily for these sorts of Windows applications. It is slow, the monitor is small, and the work flow is awful. I’m constantly sending files from one to the other and moving around between machines to do tasks on each. And that is with an impending deadline looming.

Acrobat 4.0 works flawlessly under Wine (I use 20050725 patched to remove the Heap error). The distiller portion does not, but gs works fine for my conversion to PDF. And when I say “flawlessly,” I mean everything: fonts, help files, menus, and placement.

Acrobat 4.0 is very old — about 6 years. The newer ones add some features, but overall they are not crucial. I think that’s true for a lot of business software — it is pretty mature, and the latest and greatest is often not needed.

If you have used Wine, you know that it is very inconvenient when programs are less well-behaved. You have to play with .DLLs, try this, try that, and often you don’t get very far. It would be worth a lot to me to have someone else do this sort of testing for me, and deliver something that works reasonably and gives me a guide on which programs work and which do not.

I’ll stop here (there are more stories and examples) but that may help give others who are interested in “entertainment” — web surfing, videos, p0rn, games, music, messaging and the like — a sense of real-world needs.

Dru: Why should others be interested in this petition?

Frank:

One thing to point out is that this is not simply a petition — it is the first step in a process of bringing potential customers and the company together to see if we can’t work together for our mutual benefit.

As I mentioned earlier, CodeWeavers’ CEO Jeremy White has signed the petition, and has requested people to go to the company web site and use their internal process to get this done. However, I think we are much stronger if we stay together as a group, rather than having the company deal with each of us as individuals. I’ve prodded CodeWeavers a few times to release a BSD product, but I’ve never gotten very far. And indeed, in none of my correspondence did anyone ever mention the route that White now
suggests.

Dru: Did you learn anything surprising as a result of the petition?

Frank:

You may find it interesting that the three of us doing the petition have never met. Scott Robbins is in NYC and has helped to get the word out to quite a number of sites and provided very useful advice and insight. Phil Pereira is in England; he’s doing the IT work (he coded the petition) and is hosting the petition. I’m in a rural suburb of Sacramento, CA, and have been the public face, writer, driver, have done the strategy and nearly all of the follow-up and damage control. Daniel Seuffert, while not part of the original three has done a wonderful job on working with the European sites, giving feedback and generally helping out.

I’ve also heard from others regarding their frustration with efforts similar to this: lots of people will say they want software, but most of those same people will not pony up the needed cash to make it happen. With all due respect, this is a REAL problem with the OSS community: unwillingness to give monetary value to software that is closed source.

But as I see it, I need to do certain things now, and if I have to pay for that, it is OK with me. As long as the software is worth it — and certainly not all of it is — it is a cost of doing business. I’d much rather use BSD for most everything, and use CrossOver Office with whatever Windows product I need for those times when I need something that is not available in OSS form. Since many of those needs are not particularly exotic, that should work for me.

Dru: Where do you plan to go from here?

Frank:

We will continue to get the message out with the petition. There are still a lot of communities that have not heard about it, and I would like to continue to raise awareness and signatures. I will soon talk with the CEO of CodeWeavers to see what sort of arrangement can be made with him.

Much of what can be done with that depends on the sort of company CodeWeavers is, and what sort of people have signed the petition. I’ve spent about half my career in strategic partnering with technology concerns (though not in computers or software). If there is something that can be worked out, I’ll do my best to facilitate it. That so many BSD developers and committers have signed I’ll take as very positive.

I want to show that I’m not just throwing out a petition and waving it at a company and demanding cool software for free. I’m committing a lot of time to this for which I’m not getting paid (and neither is my company, I’m afraid). I’m doing this because I think it can work, and it will help me and the larger community to solve real issues that bedevil the OSS community.

No, not all (or even most) of the 800 signatories to date will pay for anything. But I bet enough will that it can work.