ubuntu-us-ohio team mailing list archive

[Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 10:34 AM, Nicholas Lawson
<nicholas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Ubuntu OH:
>
>
>
> I am working on generating a small amount of literature for the function at
> Media Bridges and have been trying  to download my thoughts into a cohesive
> form for dissemination to my Public Media Community. I would be interested
> to know how you feel about the following paragraphs and whether or not you
> think I as a non developer understand the premises that your FOSS community
> adheres to:
>
> Do you agree with the following and if not what would you change and why?
>
>
>
> Open Source Introduction:
>
>
>
> The Open Source Mindset is one of altruism. It is an efficient mindset that
> channels ones talents and abilities into a community in extremely pragmatic
> and organized fashion. Here at Media Bridges we are interested in becoming
> immersed into this Open Source Community and would like to embrace the
> mindset and the culture that the Open Source world adheres to. The main
> point that I would like to stress when organizatinonally enterting into a
> relationship with the FOSS commuinty and to realize that you and your
> organization can itself become involved in the community and influence the
> direction that the software evolves in. Embrace the idea of fostering
> relationships with the developers who are creating your software and think
> more community and less retail. Retail software wants your money and wants
> to give you software and then that is the end of the transaction. The Open
> Source Software community is much different. You can download the software
> you think is good for you, email the developers and get direct feedback from
> the creators and then you could for instance send them a small gift thanking
> them for their work and intermingle with them in the IRC Chatrooms that they
> frequent. You can enter into a relationship with the FOSS community where
> the retail software world has more proprietary secrets to hold back from you
> the FOSS world has no barriers to their information.

Really solid overview. I love it.

It's kind of cool to put it a few different ways ( and some nice contrasts ) --

 - It's an open ecosystem. A great analogy that I use is that of
cooking. Think of the food as the "binaries" and the recipe as the
"source". Since you can enter in a give-and-take with someone who
cooks, you can get the service with little I ( in ROI ). The added
benefit of this is you also get the recipe -- if the food starts
getting overcooked because the chef thinks it's better, you can take
the old recipe and get some new cooks to work on it.

 - Think of it as a "Karma" based system. You can take all you want,
sure -- but if you want a snappy response, you should put a coin in
the jar -- bug reports, some paid work, testing -- as developers, we
love that stuff. Everyone benefits, and for a hell of a lot less then
buying up nonfree software ( from companies that won't listen anyway
).

>
>
>
> FOSS gives you access to all of the source code that is available for a
> piece of software and if you so choose and have the ability you can alter
> the code to serve your needs and then you can offer your changes to the FOSS
> community in the spirit of sharing your improvements with others who may be
> interested in the same solutions as yourself. The Open Media Project is an

This is known classically in F/OSS "theory" as "The right to fork".
It's a critical fork. Think of it as being a citizen of a government,
getting fed up with the process, copying the earth to the side, and
competing for sustainability. Usually the one that appeals to the most
people "wins". We also see ( as in the case of Compiz / Beryl ) merges
of project ( Compiz Fusion ) -- and it almost always comes out better
then when either of them forked.

> example of this ethic at work in the Public Media world where Drupal has
> been chosen as a Content Management System. Over the last three years the
> Community Media Community has in pockets been creating a set of online
> components that add functionality to the Drupal CMS in such a way that crews
> can be managed and developed for production, equipment can be organized for
> distribution, and distribution schedules can be arranged by the community.
> The FOSS community and its ethics allows for a number of stations to
> collaborate and create solutions among them that make their lives easier and
> because the product is information management once the solution is found and
> developed it is then instantly available to all participating parties and is
> even available to all non participating parties. The FOSS is interesting

One point that's cool to make is you're not helping the competition --
the tools are open, so both you and the competition end up with
better, faster, easier systems to use. ( to address any issues with
"Aiding the enemy" )

> because it exists outside of the world of high finance. It would seem that

+1 -- although a bit ironic ( Stock Exchanges ( Traditionally nonfree
UNIX ) are all switching to GNU/Linux in droves )

> originally before the internet was developed it was necessary for pockets of
> programmers to work in conjunction with each other in close quarters in
> order to develop software because they needed a way to communicate and learn
> from each other and they needed appropriated space to do this hence
> Microsoft and IBM. With the advent of the internet these collectives could

Software vendors would release source to Academics ( such as MIT ) so
that the kids could study ( and at the same time fix bugs ). That all
changed with some crappy printer company, but that's another story
totally.

> be competed with by pockets of programmers using the internet as their
> organizing catalyst with the intent of developing solutions that exist in
> spaces where finance is not necessary to deliver quality concepts. Linux is
> an example of a product that has been created by a community of developers
> using the tools available to them.

Quick fact -- Over 50% of the fortune 500 companies have GNU/Linux in
their architecture.

>
>
>
> Ubuntu itself is a flavor of Linux that is an attempt to create an operating
> system that can overthrow the Microsoft Windows operating system as the most

We're just giving people an option. Yes, we want the Desktop market
share, but that's something to work for. Our goal is to provide an
easy version of this ( at times ) complex and detailed system for
popular consumption. "Linux for Human Beings"

> used operating system in the world of computers. The reason why it makes
> sense that this is not unachievable is because the software operates on FOSS
> principles. These principles when adhered to allow for the highest levels of

The cost to redevelop Linux is about $611,757,037 ( US ), as of version 2.6.

    MM-nominal-semidetached = 3*(KSLOC)^1.12 =
      = 3* (4287.449)^1.12 = 35,090 MM
    Effort-adjustment =  1.15 * 1.0 * 1.65 * 1.11 * 1.0 * 1.15 *
        1.0 * 0.86 * 1.0 * 0.86 * 1.0 * 0.95 * 0.91 * 1.0 * 1.0
        = 1.54869
    MM-adjusted = 35,090 * 1.54869 = 54,343.6 Man-Months
                = 4,528.6 Man-years of effort to (re)develop
    If average salary = $56,286/year, and overhead = 2.40, then:
    Development cost = 56286*2.4*4528.6 = $611,757,037

This is explained at [1]. Remember, this is the *kernel*. This does
not count the GNU project( GCC, Bash, GNOME ), or any other tools (
Firefox, Empathy, Pidgin )

> innovation and quality production because the entire community that accepts
> the FOSS community can become involved in the building of something
> essentially perfect. The community of Ubuntu is creating a solution that is
> already receiving high accolades and it literally has forever to mature and
> develop and on a long enough timeline the FOSS system overtakes all other
> models of software development because the FOSS community is operating out
> of altruism and is building a foundation for itself that is much firmer than
> retail volume controlled software.
>
>
>
> Nicholas
>
> 513 312 5204
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-us-ohio
> Post to     : ubuntu-us-ohio@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-us-ohio
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>
>

My review is a *huge* +1. Very detailed and to the point. Very clear
and well done. Outstanding.

-Paul


[1]: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/linux-kernel-cost.html

-- 
All programmers are playwrights, and all computers are lousy actors.

#define sizeof(x) rand()
:wq