Blog Host: Mark Hinkle - vice president and CIO, NeTraverse READ ENTIRE BIO

Before I go I want to point out some things I saw this week that I thought were pretty interesting...

I stumbled across this widget of sorts in the new SuSE 9.2 called Kiosk. It looks like it's a framework to turn a Linux desktop into a kiosk. That's what it's called, too -- Kiosk. It looks like an ideal way to lock down a computer for limited use, so it might be really good for schools and multi-use machines.

I also got to play with Novell Desktop 9, which looks very clean. I guess it's all in the style of Ximian with the power of Suse Linux, one of the simplest desktop interfaces around.

I moved my Outlook mailboxes to Ximian evolution, and it worked like a champ. That's the very first time that happened. They can migrate all your Windows settings to Linux, and they are really nice guys, too.

Well, so long, and thanks again for tuning in.
Posted by Mark Hinkle I AM smarter than my software
16 DEC 2004 17:12 EST (22:12, GMT)
I had a project this week that relied heavily on a document that used VB macros, so I had to use Microsoft Word. I normally use OpenOffice.org, which gets the job done for me every time, but, being a good sport, I gave it a whirl. Well, I started to type, and I noticed red squiggly lines indicating my misspellings or at least words that weren't in the Word 2003 dictionary. The one that gave me a chuckle was copyleft. Then I started to type some more, and I got a little more help as formatting was applied for me throughout the document because of the update styles dialogue. Thanks. Then I had the pleasure of inserting a table of contents through a handy menu item. It was great, until somehow I changed the styles throughout my whole document. The software was so smart it changed it and ruined my table of contents because it knew better than I what I wanted. Oh, now, I know what you are thinking: I could have turned off the auto formatting and the highlighting of misspelled words. But in some twisted way I did want to see how far the program would go; it was like playing chess -- for every step forward I made, the program countered back, blocking my progress.

We have come so far since the days of Wordstar or WordPerfect, when all you did was type documents. No rich multimedia, no fancy formatting -- just good old formatting printing and maybe stashing a copy on a 5 1/4" disk. It's amazing how many features are included in today's office suites. The funny thing is that the vast majority of them don't benefit me a bit. I can't pick and choose how to add or remove features. What I get is just -- that what I get. Wouldn't it be nice if what I wanted was what I got? I think that would be how I would want to get my applications. It's how I get my operating system today. I can download the latest and greatest of Linux and then specify exactly what packages I want; it's very rewarding. If I was so inclined, I could leave all the graphical packages off and type line by line on my black and green console.

In the interest of getting more choices in your software, I want to mention today that the programmers of Evolution (that snazzy Linux e-mail client) are having an EPlugin hackfest today. EPlugins are widgets that plug into the Evolution Web client for all sorts of added functionality that may not be part of the base package. Right now their wish list is more oriented towards adding functionality to the Ximian-like pop-up menus and the like, but as time goes by those programmers may add something too cool for someone like me to conjure up on my own. Imagine this: You pick how you want the software to work or what features you want, and then you install them. I don't know about you, but it sounds good to me.
Posted by Mark Hinkle McGuffins -- free as in beer
15 DEC 2004 06:26 EST (11:26, GMT)
A McGuffin is a diversionary plot device that sets things into motion. The term was coined by Alfred Hitchcock and is often used in movies. For example, in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, the mysterious suitcase with the golden glow might be considered a McGuffin, as may the fact that Matt Damon's character in Good Will Hunting is a math genius. In Linux I think that the fact that Linux is "free as in beer" is a McGuffin; it's the interesting point that started to catch people's attention, but is it really the point of the story?

I contend that it's not. In fact, I think that the "free as in beer," which refers to the fact that GPL Linux software doesn't require any licensing fees, is just the way people get interested when the real story is that the "free as in freedom to choose how you use that software" is the important plot line. I know many people think that if it's free, it has no inherent value. Others flock to free offers, but with a weather eye to the "catch." With Linux there is no catch; what you see is what you get. Companies like IBM caught on to this notion early on and now some of the most complex computers in the world run on Linux.

Now that I got to use my new favorite word in a sentence, I thought I would take time to spotlight some technologies I ran into this week that might help facilitate some Windows/Linux interoperability.

• Captive NTFS is for those of you who want to read and write to your NTFS partition from Linux.

• NoMachine is a redisplay framework that allows you to redisplay your Linux desktop to your Windows PC. It's open source and can be used to not only redisplay Linux to Windows, but it can capture Windows Terminal Server or Citrix MetaFrame traffic and redisplay it to your Windows or Linux PCs.

• Nessus is a free security scanner that can access vulnerability risks on a network-connected computer. Use it to see what holes you may have in your PC, whether it runs Linux or Windows.

• And if you aren't sure how to install them, just download my favorite tool, Knoppix, which is pre-installed in the bootable Linux environment.

However, it has started my thought process about how great it would be to start an open source company that sells products and services, but not have to worry about licensing headaches. I do work for a software company that sells software and services, NeTraverse, and we are often at a crossroads as how to license our products -- by seat or by user, educational versus commercial, the factors that go on endlessly. At the end of the day my motivation is: How I can best serve my customers while best serving my own needs? Do I always have to compromise, or is there a right solution? I can happily say that with NeTraverse we are moving towards a model that is more open and that future products will include more and more open source software. We have a plan to move in that direction, but probably never 100%.

Well, I have decided that over the course of the next year I want to start an open source company, but not necessarily to make a pile of money. I want to prove the model somehow. I am often dismayed at claims by various parties about how to do this because the information available on how to succeed at this is often cloudy or privileged, and they can't share all the facts. I also think the only way to truly compare the differences between the two types of doing business is to do it one way and then do it the other. Right now I am learning about the publishing and the software world from a protected or proprietary standpoint that is covered by patents and copyrights. I would love to investigate the other side of the coin. I am not sure what product or service I would provide, but I have 101 ideas.

I look at Red Hat, MySQL AB and JBoss as companies working at profitable open source businesses. There is one thing, though, that might make things even more intriguing. Wouldn't it be interesting using the Web as a world stage to start an open source company and share all your dirty little secrets? Like how much revenue you generate, how you did it, how others can duplicate your success. Yep, I said it. Open yourself up to pure competition so that you can never rest on your laurels, turn your business into a pure foot race where anyone can come in and outdo you on any given day. It's like the Olympics of business. It would be exciting. It would be scary. It would be a fun. How many businesses are successful when judged by this standard? It would be, in my mind, more prestigious than being a Fortune 100 leader because it would simpler, maybe even a little purer. It would be the gold medal of business. Be open, be honest and be profitable. Just a little food for thought.
Posted by Mark Hinkle Knoppix 3.7 is now available
13 DEC 2004 12:02 EST (17:02, GMT)
One of my favorite open source tools is Knoppix, a live file system CD that allows you to boot your PC from a CD-ROM without interfering with your existing installation, even if you have another operating system, like Linux. The Knoppix CD includes the following updates for those already familiar with Knoppix:

• Kernel 2.4.27 + 2.6.9 (w/ ACPI)
• KDE update: 3.3.1 from Debian/unstable
• FreeNX 0.2.5 (Fabian Franz)
• Java security update (1.4.2_06)
• More supported graphics cards
• Isdntool-knoppix for easier text+GUI-based ISDN configuration

The Knoppix CD is a very cool tool. It runs a variety of software including the Mozilla Web browser, OpenOffice.org office suite and a ton of useful utilities to manage your PC, such as QTParted, a PartitionMagic-like partition manager for Linux and Nessus, a security scanner that allows you to evaluate a network-connected computer for security flaws, as well as applications too numerous to mention.

Knoppix is an excellent way to test drive Linux or to use as a resource disk for a PC that refuses to boot.

In conjunction with a USB storage key, it makes an excellent laptop replacement, since all the documents and settings can be kept in a persistent home directory on the key.

With this setup you can take your preferred environment almost anywhere you have access to a PC.
Posted by Mark Hinkle Keeping up with the Jones'
10 DEC 2004 05:28 EST (10:28, GMT)
I was reading a message board today and saw this message, which got my wheels turning:

Our company doesn't have the $$ to continually buy new hardware, new software, new operating systems every couple of years. We also do not have a reason to move to a wireless solution as we don't have 100s of administrative people roaming around the company with their laptops.

What our IT department sees is hype and sales ploys that tug on competitiveness with pitches that play the "keeping up with the Jones' next door" game or "you're a loser if you don't have the latest and greatest."

Simply put, to those that sell IT stuff is a business. Those of us who use it, it's just a tool. We simply don't have the $$ to continually buy new, very expensive, hip tools when the old ones work just fine for us.

For most companies information technology is not a business driver, it's a tool to help you accomplish core competency, whether it's running a hospital or managing air traffic at an airport. The problem that I see is that many software vendors have us locked into a upgrade cycle, despite the fact that many jobs haven't changed in the last five years and the tasks that we did five years ago can still be accomplished adequately with what we have today. But, with end-of-product support lifetimes and new security risks, many companies feel vulnerable to attack if they don't upgrade their operating systems, which has a domino effect. Because application upgrades can spark OS upgrades, which can force hardware upgrades.

When you become single-vendor dependent, you may be coerced into upgrades that sap profits and force you to march to the beat of one drum. That's my problem with Microsoft Windows. Going back to the days of my college economics class, I learned that a market in which any supplier owns the vast majority of market share (I won't say "monopoly" here, but I want to) leads to an inefficient market. Actually I think Linux is one of the best things that happened to Microsoft in a long time, since Linux is pushing the company to improve in ways it might not have, given a lack of competition. You see I like Linux, but I don't hate Microsoft either; I just feel that they push an agenda that benefits them more than me. Linux is introducing competition that may have positive effects on Microsoft and vice-versa. Competition is good; I take the example of the Red Sox and Yankees this year in the AL pennant race. I hadn't watched a baseball game in its entirety all year until this series, of which I watched every single game. Why? Because the competitive nature of the series improved its entertainment value for me and millions of others. Hopefully open source competition will raise the bar for many companies.

Lack of competition is not just a factor for operating systems. I recently attended a conference for hospital CIOs and sat in a meeting in which every single one of them used a product or group of products by one company. They informed me that they all used it and they all had issues with this group of products. Actually, in the morning session with that company, they verbally bludgeoned the company representative for hours. However, there were no alternatives in their vertical market, and they learned to live with it. Now my first thought was: Let's start a project that's an open source alternative to this suite of products. But soon I got bogged down, and it was out of my thoughts until today. However, this is another prime example of a huge market (I suspect these products yield billions of dollars in revenue for that company) that is served by a single vendor who has the lion's share and other proprietary vendors don't have the resources to tackle the challenge and unseat the 800-pound gorilla or even put it on a diet. An open source model that allows a group of vendors to compete with this Colossus would benefit the end users or consumers greatly. This is really the heart of why Linux and open source technologies (e.g., Apache, JBoss and MySQL) are making an impact on today's software industry.
Posted by Mark Hinkle Is Sun slow, or are they waffling?
09 DEC 2004 16:20 EST (21:20, GMT)
I was surfing the Web today and came across an advertisement for the Sun Java Workstation. This piqued my interest because I expected these AMD-based 64-bit workstations to run the Sun Java Desktop, since both product names start out with Sun Java. After clicking through the data sheet links to their W1100z and their W2100z, I see that they are "fully validated" for Solaris 9 and Red Hat Enterprise Workstation version 3. No Sun Java Desktop to be seen. I think this is sort of ironic, since Red Hat is eating Sun's lunch by gobbling up Unix converts in on the workstation and server alike (that's my opinion not based on any facts). However, I don't see Sun accepting Linux in the middle and high-end of the desktop computing market. I think that what they are really saying is that if you want high performance workstation, Solaris is the way to go; but if you can't afford that, check out this budget-priced Linux distribution (Sun Java Desktop), and we will sell you that and an office suite for less than some people pay for a mouse and keyboard. I guess they are dragging their feet with regards to the Linux desktop in the mid- and high-range, hoping that they can still bank on Solaris for workstations.

I suppose that for Sun to be successful in desktop computing, they need to be the driver-behind, thin-client infrastructure and power large numbers of low-budget machines using their very slick SunRay thin clients. However, for traditional thick-client computers, I think Novell and potentially some smaller players like Xandros and Mandrakesoft will be seeing better success in the middle of the market where Microsoft has made itself the 800-pound gorilla.

To gain that, middle-of-the-market desktop PC manufacturers (Dell and HP) need to at least give the option of Linux on all their PCs. I guess, like us, they are waiting to see who makes a run for it as a legitimate challenger to the boys from Redmond (even if legitimate means 10% of the desktop market).

I think that, as an addendum, it's Sun Microsystems Prez Jonathon Swartz, who makes some interesting points in his blog about how they want to drive volume and focus on "neutral, open standards," who tells me they understand that at the end of the day the big iron driving a client server architecture is how Sun will someday be a $50 billion company instead of a $11 billion company.

In all fairness to Sun, I think that they have done Linux a tremendous service by opening StarOffice via the OpenOffice.org project. Sun JDS gets high marks from me from an end-user presentation standpoint even though it seems to be from a behind-the-covers standpoint, it appears to me to be little more than repackaged SuSE Linux skinned with the Sun theme. However, maybe they are not committed to a Windows desktop computing displacement. I think that what they are really saying with Linux is: "Sure we can take a couple jabs, but at the end of the day we really hope to get a piece of the expanding Asian market where many of next years' desktop users will be first time desktop PC users."

And, speaking of China (and Asian companies), there is one idea in computing that I have been intrigued with over the last year called "fit-client computing" championed by Shaolin Microsystems that meets somewhere in the middle. Shaolin's "fit-client" workstations operate by executing programs on the local processor, but mounting the files back to a centralized storage facility. It's interesting -- all the speed of local computing and all the centralized management of thin client. It seems to me to be the best of both worlds. It makes provisioning fairly simple, processors on the desktop and storage in the data center with a little bandwidth thrown in for good measure.

It's an exciting time for desktop Linux, and I wonder if perhaps the desktop computing of tomorrow will be a result of a huge paradigm shift from today's desktop computers.
Posted by Mark Hinkle Mandrakesoft: Making a comeback
08 DEC 2004 14:11 EST (19:11, GMT)
I have never jumped on the Mandrake wagon, but I am not exactly sure why; I am a desktop Linux user and that distribution is one of the best. Mandrakesoft is one of the world's most popular Linux distributions, especially for desktop users. However, in January 2003 they entered "redressment juciciare," which is similar to a U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On March 30 , 2004, Commerce Court accepted Mandrakesoft's exit plan. Since then it seems that Mandrake has tightened their core operations and become profitable.

Mandrakesoft achieved an operating income of 0.86 million Euros (1.14 million U.S. dollars) and a net income of 1.39 million Euros ($1.85 million) in fiscal year 2003/2004. Per share, operating income was 0.18 Euros ($0.24 per share) and net income 0.29 Euros ($0.39 per share).

Also during the last months, the company has released three new products. All of them are interesting to me.

Mandrake has reached the 10.1 milestone with the release of their Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official, which is now available for both the 32-bit and x86-64 platforms. The Mandrake 10.1 product boasts improved hardware support, including out-of-the-box support for Intel Centrino chips and support for a wider variety of WLAN cards.

MandrakeLinux Move 2 is the second edition of the company's Live-CD technology, which runs from a CD without the need for installation, like the popular Knoppix distribution.

Globetrotter is another foray into desktop mobility. The Globetrotter product allows you to get double duty out of a PC by booting Linux from a USB drive that has MandrakeLinux preinstalled. Globetrotter comes on a USB Mobile LaCie hard drive designed by F.A. Porsche with 40 GB of storage. For PCs that don't support booting from USB devices, there is a bootable MiniCD.

Mandrakesoft is traded on Paris Euronext Marché Libre (ISIN Code: FR0004159382/MLMAN; Reuters code: MAKE.PA) and the US OTC market (stock symbol MDKFF).

I like Mandrake a lot. I think they are a geek-driven distribution (their engineering staff leads the company, in my mind). However, the thing that as always stuck in my craw about them is that I think their presentation is a bit ugly. Is that a reason not to use Mandrake? After all, you can customize the desktop to the n^th degree. I guess not, but considering Paris is one of the hubs of high fashion, maybe they could add a little pizzazz.
Posted by Mark Hinkle Can't we all get along? Or at least not be so hateful...
07 DEC 2004 05:58 EST (10:58, GMT)
I am a pretty nice guy. Or at least I think so, and when I see all the legal hatefulness associated with lawsuits surrounding vague claims to intellectual property rights, I often want to puke. I do feel strongly that we shouldn't steal and that if someone does rightfully own something they have every right to protect their property. However, I also am a big believer in sharing, which is what has made Linux successful so far. Sharing code and ideas allows people to bring out the best in each other.

I recently read an article by Tom Henderson in Computerworld (Vendors: Stop threatening us) about how fed up he was with software vendors threatening us. I really enjoyed the piece, since it really sums up my sentiments as well. I quote:

Ptui, I say. If you've got patents, play that card, and play it now. We're sick, mighty sick, of listening to it. Tell us, chapter and verse, what you think is the problem. Do it now. Stop the threats -- go in to action. We're the customers, remember? Stop harassing us with vague threats.

This chest thumping, lawyer-enriching hubris, and cold intimidation is causing this industry to slink around as though we're all guilty of something that we didn't do. If there's a license to pay, then we'll pay it. If you as vendors have manipulated the patent offices into granting a patent for something that you didn't invent, then back off. If you so thoroughly patent your future products so that no one can work with them, then you've lost compatibility, interoperability, and therefore any worth to us.

Otherwise, we want to see the tort. If you don't send it shortly, we'll all know that your huffing and puffing is truly a breach of ethics. We'll throw your salespeople out the door and not renew licenses that we've already bought from you. You'll not be welcome here, and that's for the next ten years, because we have long memories of companies that tried to manipulate and/or coerce us.

1. First, the invention must be novel. This is also known as the "first to invent rule." That is, you must be the first to come up with the idea and make your ownership known.
2. Utility -- The invention must be useful.
3. Inventiveness -- The invention is not obvious to someone skilled in the art.

However, since I am less than qualified for all this legal analysis, I would like to point out Lawrence Lessig's Blog, which is excellent.
Posted by Mark Hinkle Cross-platform applications set up Linux desktop adoption
06 DEC 2004 06:07 EST (11:07, GMT)
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Michael Robertson, CEO of Linspire, the desktop Linux company, about his latest product OOoFf! -- an abbreviation for OpenOffice.org and Firefox -- an attempt to bring these open source products to retail shelves. He was very keen on the idea that getting people to start to use cross-platform open source applications to prepare themselves to move to Linux.

I was excited to hear this because it's also my philosophy that such preparations set the stage for an eventual move to Linux. By adopting these applications on a familiar platform (Windows), it will minimize later disruptions and improve upon the chances of a Linux migration success later on.

I also think that both products, even without migrating to Linux, have a lot of merit. For example, the Firefox browser was among the first to include pop-up blocking and tab-based browsing in their feature sets. For those of you unfamiliar with tab-based browsing, it's very handy and offers an alternative to spawning an individual browser window for each page. Besides being able to flip pages, where previously you were tabbing through a file folder, you can also bookmark groups, so you can load multiple pages at once. I find this feature very useful because I can load five or six of my favorite news sites and read one while others load in the background.

However, the list of cross platform applications doesn't stop there. I am a big fan of The GIMP, which is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It's a good way to take a screenshot or crop pictures for a presentation or even create original artwork. I think a trend towards applications that don't tie us to one platform is the way to go.

I also have high hopes for other open source technologies that start out on Windows and allow themselves to be ported to Windows. One project I have been watching is called WorkBench, a project management package that Niku open sourced to their desktop scheduling application this summer. The Workbench technology currently is very reliant on Windows-only technologies, including MFC and another Windows third-party toolkit. But by "open-sourcing" (is that a verb now?) the software, it allows a development community to mold the future of the product. I am wondering if Niku's decision is an indication of a trend -- not their individual efforts but the indication of a paradigm change brewing in the industry (whether that be the Windows or Linux software industry).
Posted by Mark R. Hinkle