Seattle.BloggersPub

Well hello everyone from lxer and rootly. My weblogs tell me there are a lot of linux enthusiasts in many countries reading blogs on New Years Eve. Don’t you all have anything better to do?

But while I have your attention, I do have a question: What are the common characteristics of successful open source software projects? How about ones that are incorporated into proprietary profit driven products?

The Background

I run a little project management company here in Washington State. You might know something about my neighbor in Redmond. We write TeamDirection Project, they write MS Project. We do some nice things in my little shop, but one thing we would never be able to do is compete with Microsoft on a feature by feature basis– only a handful of companies even have the resources to contemplate such a thing.

However, one can’t help but marvel at the power and energy harnessed by the Linux community to create a truly great operating system. The Apache Group also comes to mind for an open source effort that many programmers from every corner of the earth participate in. And more recently the Mozilla group developing Firefox.

There are so many things I’d like to do with this piece of code, and so little time and even fewer developers. Open source has this appeal of, somehow (worry about the details later, right?), bringing a critical mass of talented developers together to improve your product for free. Sounds even better than outsourcing!

The one common denominator among the aforementioned is each one has a significant backer with *very* deep pockets: IBM backing Linux and Apache, Google backing Firefox.

The Question Rephrased

So the question is really: Do you need a big backer to make an open source project successful these days? Or would a charismatic leader, someone of Linus Torvalds ilk, be enough to get the ball rolling and hope for the best?

I say this because I’ve been debating opening our scheduling engine to open source. But it seems like it would be such a shot in the dark, that so far I haven’t been able to see the benefits for the loss of intellectual property and loss of goodwill with Microsoft and Microsoft partners (Linux doesn’t quite have the partner channel Microsoft does, or I’m not aware of it).

So for now my thoughts are to keep our project scheduling engine in-house, but I’m open to examples of reasonably successful applications built on open source– other than Linux, Apache and Firefox.

Many of my fondest memories from growing up involve day and camping trips at Mount Rainier. When a friend of mine told me about flooding that had completely destroyed parts of the mountain that are an integral part of those memories, I was, needless to say, intrigued. It wasn’t until tonight, though, that I finally got around to looking into it.

Last month, the mountain received 18 inches of rain in a 36-hour period. The flooding that ensued changed the landscape and personality of the surrounding park in a myriad of ways. A video and slide tour document the effects and aftermath of the flooding.

One of my favorite places at Mount Rainier National Park is Sunshine Point:

Memories of your first apparent UFO sighting, of rafting with one of your best friends down a 2-foot-deep stream with a seemingly deadly current, of being chased by a single bee for nearly a mile, and of your first camping trip with the girl you’ll eventually marry aren’t the types of memories you lose easily. All of those memories, for me, are thanks to Sunshine Point.

As the aforementioned slide tour explains so simply:

Only a small section of the campground remains. The rest is now river bed.

It is kind of a shock to me that Sunshine Point is no more. Looking at the impact the flooding had on the rest of the mountain, it is clear that man-made devices, no matter how wonderful or seemingly timeless they may be, really cannot hold a candle to the power of Mother Nature. Seeing the aftermath of the November flooding and realizing that Sunshine Point is now but a memory in my mind (and doubtless many others’), I can say I am glad that I knew of such a place. I’ve made yet another adult realization that the places we love in life aren’t guaranteed against time, just like the people we love aren’t. Again, the last slide of the slide tour states it best:

Mount Rainier is a restless mountain. The roads, bridges, trails, and campgrounds we build are secondary to the elemental forces that created — and continue to transform — this landscape we love. Our great works of human enterprise will fade away with time. The mountain will endure.

I look forward to experiencing many more memories-to-be at Mount Rainier. The sheer vastness of it is enough to ensure that any one missing part won’t change the greatness of the whole.

It’s not even 2007 yet and already one of my predictions (#6) seems to be coming true.

Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch has just picked up on Blake Ross’s blog post questioning Google’s latest feature, and weighs in with insight of his own.

Actually, can I take credit if Google starts losing its shine at the end of 2006? I hope so.

If you combine this with my #8 prediction (purchase, download and watch a movie via my broadband connection) I have an excellent shot to be 2 for 10!

First off, I love that they use the German word, Zeitgeist. Second, what is Bebo? Third, “cancer” and “autism.” Fourth, did the spammers impact the What is… list, or were they just being opportunistic? Did Nelly Furtado confuse a lot of people this year? There are obviously varying degrees of “scandal.” American Idol is a force to be reckoned with. Nobody knows who the Seahawks are, but their jerseys look pretty cool. And finally, everybody loves a headbutt.

So long as they don’t add black as a secondary color, like every other team selling out to sell more jerseys.
I love reading every article from that Lukas guy on ESPN.com’s Page 2. This week he published one of the more interesting looks at the year that was 2006.  Check it out - The Year […]

its great this year… and the best forgetabout everything else activity that there ever was.  if you are a skiier/snowboarder… get out there, already.
 
 
 
 
 

How to Find Happy Hours in Seattle (SeattleBlog.net)metadata:none!

Near Hyak, Washington on December 25, 2006. Photo by Schwa
Schwa took some really amazing landscape photos and some funny ones of yours truly and that guy I hang out with a lot. See em all. In the meantime here’s a few:
metadata:cascades hyak nature outdoors photography photos […]