- global cooperative efforts to develop software - Active X vs. Perl bugged him - March '98 free software summit - rms says "think free speech, not free beer" but we know what people will choose if you put it out there - Eric Raymond proposed new term "open source" - got national media attention - open source Internet support software incl. BIND, sendmail, Apache - thinks something missing - Linux actually product of community of developers - web defining of apps - friend wanted a computer to buy stuff from amazon.com - e-business websites like Visicalc, spreadsheets in 80's - killer app = amazon.com - what is computer app? - O'Reilly had first commercial website - online publishing business solicited by many companies to use proprietary online documentation systems - wanted single format Docbooks - Viola toolkit - 1st graphical web browser - '94 GNN Internet User's Guide and Catalog - ~300 websites - inpsired Mosaic - interactions w/ Microsoft - MS "great business model" - MS Cinemania had context-sensitive search control panel - MSN vs. web (web model won) - same technology, web more open - in late 70's hardware companies were main players, e.g. Digital, Prime - early 80's IBM released specs of IBM PC as open standard, created open playing field - book "Soul of a New Machine" - now anybody can build PCs - also new opportunities for software developers - split between hardware and software companies - later stagnation due to MS domination - back to amazon - low barriers to entry make possible Yahoo - "paradigm" shift" represented by web (like PC revolution) - Dell - hardware as commodity - Red Hat trying to be like Dell - assembler marketer, distributor of software - get with program 1) suppliers of software tools to developers of "internet apps", e.g. Yahoo - Yahoo, amazon changing interface dynamically - quotes.yahoo.com - Perl program (regexp) to mactch news stories to stock ticker 2) build services - Linux leads down wrong path - boxed software business model - need better coordinating of pre-existing work in OS community - like Activesurf with Red Hat - ORA and Apache guy - source exchange - OS developer exchange - marketplace for OS services (e.g. drivers) - outsourced project hosting services - Apache group - good model - no single leader - collaboration concept - uunet - first announced ISP - direct outgrowth of OS movement - supporting USENET, vehicle of hacker community - main message: "Don't think in old frame, find a way for people to want to give you money" -- End talk Q&A Q: Y2K A: Some problems, not end of world Q: OS vs. proprietary parallel between software and print industry A: Pragmatic argument - make less money than by giving away books for free - leave that up to author - new O'Reilly book running Red Hat Linux - might be GPL'd - want to maximize the amount of useful info provided - but sendmail book author wants big advance - people write software to solve their problem, rarely write documentation to solve their own problem - most people want to maximize revenue Q: MS conversion to web-centric view of world A: Very, very smart, not terribly ethical - learned from new paradigm - Sun slogan "Network is the computer" - use amazon as library for your program, i.e. apps sucking data from web - MS grasping that - new functionality in 98 Office is internet functionality from open source - plugs new User Friendly book