Former BEA Execs Launch New Open-Source Venture

This is a really good topic to examine. There are numerous trends
that are coming up in the world, and these are the next big software
companies … they have realized the writing on the wall.

The software platforms of the future are being built as “abstractions”
above the operating systems … and far above the kernels in use.
The world is very quickly becoming one filled with interpreted
languages, scripting languages, and virtual machines. Hardware is
becoming so powerful and so cheap that the compute inefficiences are
quickly masked, and “good enough” performance emerges. This is
even further demonstrated by the rapid growth in hardware “emulators”
or “virtualizers” like the VMware, Qemu, and Virtual PC solutions.

On top of this, we are actually watching the entire computer software
industry converge towards a complete “UNIX-compatible” set of APIs and
development tools. NetWare? Novell is moving to
Linux. Macintosh? It’s now based on Darwin.
Windows? Even they have SFU (Services for UNIX) that supports all
the same applications. UNIX-compatible software is what the
market is actually embracing … not “Linux” or any specific version of
kernel.

Most people do not realize that the majority of any “Linux”
distribution is actually a wealth of GNU tools and UNIX-compatible
software. In my research only ~3% of any distribution is “Linux”
itself … the rest is all of the common libraries, languages and
applications that we all hear about – Apache, MySQL, Perl, PHP, C#,
Java, Gnome, gcc, X Windows etc. – and all of those are
“UNIX-compatible” applications and services or have versions that run
on UNIX-compatible kernels.

If the world is now going to see a mass commoditization of the kernels
… with complete compatibility around a common set of development
tools, then the real play – that SourceLabs is pursuing – becomes the
certification and support of the wealth of Open Source software.
And if I were going to do it, I would ensure that I could provide all
of this software across *ALL* of the UNIX-compatible kernels in
existence … or at least the core four for now – Linux, Darwin,
FreeBSD, and Windows/SFU.

With a strategy to become the de facto provider of software across all
of these platforms, you would be able to provide the solutions to your
customers and not care about kernels. If there are problems with
one … you can move them to a different kernel without issues.
If they are a Windows shop, you get them to adopt SFU and
UNIX-compatible applications as a “migration preparedness”
strategy. If they are a Linux shop … you are ready to move them
if the legal issues take a turn for the worse.

In all cases, you are setting yourself as the optimal software
development solution … being paid to maintain and enhance the
software that truly hits the users and customers … while further
commoditizing and making irrelevant the kernels and low-level code that
everything runs on.

In addition, if you play this right you are able to take over Open
Source projects, and demand the copyrights be signed over for all
contributions … allowing you to further control the “fork” of
software that you are driving forward. Yes … people could
attempt to fork a project in a new direction, however it takes a lot of
effort … and if that occurs, you still charge your customers to
support and maintain the new fork … win … win … win.

So when I see this announcement, I have to say that I see this as being
the real win in Open Source and the current market craze.
Companies like IBM are well placed to capitalize on this also … and
you see that even the big IBM does not have a “distribution” of Linux
they sell … they are moving on beyond the lower layers, and up to the
applications. Companies like this are going to be well positioned
to allow their customers to take advantage of the newest kernels …
and move away safely from those that can not survive … or to ones
that are cheaper or free …

The abstraction of the operating system is well under way … and this
is the birth of a new business that is doing to the operating system,
what operating systems did to the processor.

I just started to experiment with Google Adwords. 
It is amazing what they have created, and how it all works.  One
thing that I would really like to see is a set of APIs so that I can
monitor my Adwords in near-real-time.

While searching (on Google of course!) for such APIs, I found a number
of fun articles about Adwords.  The first one was about The Google Adwords Happening … a very funny post.  Linked from there was the WifiSM page … again … some fun stuff!

After reading this, I started to wonder what might be some fun ads to
create … just to grab some attention … it would be amusing!

Ok everyone, it’s time to go out and buy your own “next generation” model rocket! 
The folks at Hokkaido Aerospace Science and Technology Incubation
Center (HASTIC) in Japan have created a rocket for the home hobbyist
… only $19,000!

“Measuring 1.6 meters (5.25 feet) long and weighing 10.5 kilograms (23
pounds), the rocket has a cavity that can carry a small payload, such
as a camera, weighing up to half a kilogram (1.1 pound), it said.”  It can go up to .6 miles high!

We’re back into the space age … first the X Prize … now home
rockets that use liquid oxygen!  I’m glad they are requiring the 2
day safety course!

I finally resolved another outstanding problem that has been bothering
me for a long time. It’s funny that I didn’t try this experiment
sooner, however I just happened to stumble on this earlier today.

I write a lot of scripts that I use with mrtg. In many of my scripts I use the wget
utility to fetch a web page, and then I “scrape” the web page for the
data that I want mrtg to graph. When I started to do this, I
noticed that when the target device was down, it would take wget a long
time to timeout. In reading the man page, it said to use the “-T”
option to set a shorter timeout. I tried all sorts of values, but
was not able to shorten the timeout to seconds.

Today, while reading a variety of web pages, I found that there is a “-t” (note the lower case!) option that sets the retries.
I don’t know – and can’t find – what the default number of retires is,
but by updating my scripts to have “-t 1 -T 10” I am now getting a 10
second timeout!

So it seems that my problem was not the timeout, but instead the number
of times that wget was retying the request! I have posted my
updated NoCat Gateway Monitoring script that contains the fix. Now I’m going to go and update more of my scripts!

A friend of mine sent me this link to a “animated web log post”
… and it’s pretty funny.  The part that I really liked was that
someone actually took the time to create an animated blog post to
communicate something that they experienced.

This really relates to a project that I am now working on with my
father.  He wanted to begin to record video and audio stories
about his life and his experiences to be posted on the web, or made
available to the family and friends.

My parents are running on a new PC, with Windows XP, and they have the
free copy of Windows Movie Maker.  I am now working with him to
get a newer USB camera with microphone, and then we will begin to go
through the process of practicing how to “capture” his
presentations.  I’m really looking forward to getting this going
so that both my mom and dad can begin to make these recordings. 
It will be fun one day for my kids … or my kids, kids … to be able
to go and listen to stories from their grandparents, or
great-grandparents.

We are entering into an age where teaching and communication of
knowledge is going to radically shift.  We will soon have a much
richer type of historical content that will be available to anyone that
is interested.  I often think about the questions that I would ask
my grand parents about their lives and experiences … I’m glad that
I’ll have the opportunity to ask those questions to my parents, and
have them record their answers in a much richer medium.

My wife and I were cruising the net tonight … we were looking into
some retirement information for a family member and came across the
Social Security Benefits Calculators on this page.  What was great was reading the links to the “Quick Calculator” …

Wow … this is not for kids!  😉

In my role at 80211.net I am currently
investigating satellite Internet access as a solution for some mobile
hotspots, remote locations, and rural users.  I am impressed that
years after hearing of the plans, there are several companies that are
on the verge of introducing satellite Internet access at competitive
prices.

There are several new technologies that are enabling this service, and
one of them is the Ka satellite band.  From what I understand, in
the Ka architecture, there are numerous satellites that are each
providing “spot” coverage that only covers a limited geographic
area.  In the one system that I am investigating there are 28
overlapping “spots” to cover the United States … up to 150 miles
offshore.

A user of one of these systems can expect to see decent bandwidth – up
to 3Mbps down, 1.5Mbps up – for a competitive price – somewhere around
$50-$80/month.  This is higher then in the center of a city
someplace, but that is the point … you can get satellite Internet
access anywhere!

The current generation of equipment seems to be based around fixed
dish, and “mobile” dish usage, however you can not yet use it while “in
motion”.  The completely stabilized versions are coming next year
… then things will get even better!

There are a lot of little companies here in Utah that are run by
ex-Novell employees. One of them, run by some friends of mine, is
a company called MAS Computers. MAS Computers deals in a lot of used and surplus computer equipment, along with carrying some new equipment.

The other day I went to look for a used computer to replace an aging
system. MAS Computers usually has a good inventory of slightly
older Dell Optiplex systems for ~$200. While I was there, I ended
up talking with my friend Steve, and he indicated that they had a large
inventory of Cabletron/Enterasys equipment they had obtained. I
have a specific application where I am looking for a 10/100 Switch that
is capable of “port mirroring” so that I can use ntop
to monitor one of my wireless networks. I went with Steve back
into the warehouse and was amazed at the number of switches they
had. And these are not small cheap units … but the high-end
Enterasys solutions!

They had a whole shelf of the 2H252-25R “Workgroup” 24-Port Switches,
so I went on-line to see what the feature set included. As I read
through the feature list and technical specs on the Enterasys site, I
was floored. This is an amazing switch, with numerous high-end
features … being sold for next to nothing! MAS is charging $225
for each unit … I found similar units being sold for over $5000 at sites like this one … and yes … it does provide port mirroring.

What really hit me was that this is a model that is still listed on the
Enterasys web site product page. It is listed as “Legacy” on the current switching products
web page … but it’s there. This is a multi-thousand dollar
product … that is in fantastic shape … being sold for hundreds of
dollars.

In a matter of years, this technology has slipped to being sold at a
fraction of it’s price. Since MAS Computers is a such a great
bunch of guys, I was able to trade in an older “dumb” switch and pick
up one of these “new” ones for under $200. Even at CompUSA they
are selling brand-new 24-port switch – with none of the capabilities of
these switches – for ~$150 and up!

The power in used equipment is reaching astounding levels … it is amazing to me what is being made available …

I am currently doing some work with 802.11 wireless access points that
are built on embedded Linux.  All of the major manufacturers of
wireless equipment – Cisco/Linksys, NetGear, etc. -are releasing
products based on embedded Linux.  What is amazing is the pricing
on these boxes.  Most of them are under $200 with several under
$100.  For a Linux system, this is pretty amazing.

What really hit me is how quickly embedded Linux systems are going to
begin to dominate the embedded systems market.  If I were going to
start any new embedded system design, I would immediately embrace the
embedded Linux architecture and supporting chipsets.  There are
numerous reasons that I could look at:

• Immediate access to a growing developer community / talent pool
• Access to a broad range of code for a wide range of purposes
• Low/No cost for the core software

What is pretty amazing to me is that I am now working on “Linux
computers” that I have purchased for under $100 … that could run on
batteries … and have an incredible amount of power.  All of this
is only going to increase the rate of new intelligent devices being
created and deployed … with extreme features.  There will always
be others … but I think that embedded Linux is on a roll …

Well … I finally did it.  And now I’m not sure that I really
wanted to.  I have been hearing about these beheadings going on in
Iraq and have been very curious about how they are being done.  I
keep hearing on the news that each one is described as “more gruesome”
than the last one.  So the videos are out there … I kept
thinking about taking a look.

I once had a friend who travelled to Saudi Arabia.  He was in a
market place in some town when he realized a slight panic was arising
in the crowd.  Before long people were moving in the direction of
the town center … and then he realized that Saudi “police” were going
to force everyone in the market into the town square.  He said
that he was quite worried when this happened … until he realized they
were being push to witness a public execution!  He said that a man
appeared on a platform reading the “charges” in Arabic, along with the
criminal and the executioner.  The alarming part was that the
execution was by beheading … and they did it in “three strokes” …
not all at once.

With the recent beheadings, I have to admit that curiousity got the
most of me … I ended up going out on the Internet and downloading one
of the videos.  I’m somewhat sorry that I did.  I would not
suggest to anyone that they do the same.

I am left with a feeling of complete disbelief and disgust.  I
could never imagine in this day and age that anyone would be capable or
willing to kill another human in such a gruesome way.  It is
utterly disgusting to watch and see a life wasted in this way. 
And to imagine that the perpetrators of these acts actually believe
that they are going to be giving any place to participate in the global
community after doing this.

It is a major reality check to remember that these individuals exist
out there in the world.  And they are committing these outrageous
acts against follow humans.  I do not have any problem with our
government being involved in the brutal realities of what it takes to
exterminate people like this from the earth.

I could never have imagined …