Android: thin client to the Cloud

As you probably know, the Android SDK has been released. If you haven't already, make sure you watch all of the videos on: http://code.google.com/android/

I have been window shopping for PDA's lately. All but the very worst physical interfaces (mice, keyboards, screen size, etc.) are sufficient for my needs. The problem comes from the software end. Like Sugar, the software just fails to be able to handle tasks in a way that I find useful, the worst software being the most essential software for my needs: the web browsers. The closest thing out there to what I need is that ultimate failure known as the iPhone (compare $15 extra per month for unlimited web data from Sprint, to the $60 per month minimum from AT&T: all SKD postponement and objective C dependency aside, the iPhone is not an economically sustainable option, like most other Mac products.)

Laptops with their hinges, hard drives and wide flat builds have too fragile of a feel for me to feel safe in investing in. I also need web/cloud access that I can get as easily and dependably as I get cell phone voice service, so that I can quickly and regularly review and modify web content while commuting or while being paid to do something completely unrelated. I suspect my job-hopping, boot-strapping, trash-talking life style is not that different from the "average" cloud user of the future, and I believe Android is the gateway to that future.

-BFGalbraith

Documentary Proposal

Seth Galbraith's "Cheap, Green Freedom: Cloud Computing as a Weapon" is an dramatic explanation of how the new wave of inexpensive portable networked computing devices is the new "AK 47" of the global justice movement.

Can this 1000 word essay be reduced to a 250 word script and turned into a 5 minute Youtube documentary for this blog?

• It seems like there are a lot of images in there, I could throw a script together somewhat easily.
• I've never composed anything that could be uploaded to Youtube, so using the software to take this from a short script to a 5 minute video could be more work than I think it is.
• This might be an overly militaristic message that we may not want to be promoting (though I think it's dramatic power should be considered.)

Google App Engine

Google App Engine

This is the greatest leap forward in history. If aliens study our world they will take notice of this innovation. Write in Python, utilize the Google Cloud Computing Infrastructure. Paradigm shift, done.

• http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/gettingstarted/helloworld.html

• Google's google-app-engine-samples

• /usr/local/google_appengine/new_project_template/
  • index.yaml
  • app.yaml
  • main.py

Posse: Portland Open Source Software Entrepreneurs

POSSE is dedicated to helping businesses in the Portland area and beyond reduce costs, mitigate risk, and make software choice easy by utilizing open source software.

POSSE members meet once a month to network with other open source software entrepreneurs, engineers and enthusiasts.

http://www.possepdx.org/

NPO and Total Market Dominance

As we were organizing this blog, someone asked me about "forming a non-profit", and I responded with my usual "that's an excellent way to take money away from the government tax base and use that money in a way that is not accountable to voters... it's an excellent idea for dedicated fascists." I have also been known to rail against Apple for not destroying the Windows market with a cheap MacMini or hand held device. These two ideas combined with fifth generation warfare concepts and the recent discussion of "how IS money made from FOSS anyhow?" have me rethinking my position on Non-profit Organizations (NPOs.)

First, an NPO is not required to survive off of tax-deductible donations. (NPO's aren't even required to accept any such donations.) The "for-profit distinction" section on Wikipedia sums it up nicely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-profit_organization#For-profit_distinction An NPO can hold massive assets, pay exuberant salaries, and make hefty profit margins on products and services. (What they can't do is redistribute those profits to "owners," they instead have to use profits to further the causes that the NPO is supposedly serving... which can include things like marketing and salaries.)

Second, why didn't Apple storm the gates of Microsoft and leave Redmond a pillaged pile of smoldering ashes? Because as a for-profit corporation, they probably determined they could make a higher over all profit margin by not lowering their prices... and they are legally obligated to make as much money as possible and increase their value for their stock holders (owners.) In this way, a for profit Corporation has more limitations than an NPO - an attempt at "total market dominance" is only justified by a for-profit corporation if it makes more money than less-than-total market dominance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_dominance For an NPO on the other hand, the most important metric is "number of persons served." NPO's are inherently focused on market dominance instead of over all profit margin.

Third, reading Scott Ritter's "Waging Peace" has me thinking in OODA loops now. Regardless of weather he realizes it or not, Ritter ends up recommending a very orthodox NPO strategy with very orthodox NPO strategic planning. This is because the progressives' "tyranny of the structurelessness" ( http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html ) is being out maneuvered by standard corporate/military organizational strategy inherently embraced by conservatives. It almost goes without saying that the corporate powerhouses in the software industry are similarly outmaneuvering the small grassroots software development movement. The exceptions to this is where the grass-roots software development movements are better organized:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_Foundation
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakai_Project#Sakai_Community_and_Foundation

My focus is on digital divide (and personal development through (usually electronic) simulation.) In order to achieve progress in digital divide, market dominance and market expansion is much more important than over all profits, though progress is seriously limited without paychecks. In order to have the agility of a corporation (pay checks & faster OODA loops) and the focus on market dominance (maximum number of customers), it seems that an NPO would be an appropriate structure after all.

Enablers versus Disablers

In other posts on this blog free open source software(FOSS) and software-as-a-service(Saas) are being talked about in positive terms as paradigms on the rise. I want to take a step to the more general to talk about the same technological landscape, but in more economic and social terms.

In sales, we can think of two very opposite types of selling. One is a disabler, where a "pain" is created, and the salesman then gets the mission to solve the pain. Synonyms for "pain" are "lacking", "problem", "social ill", "vexation", "need" and many more. The second sales type is the enabler. Interestingly, the enabler sales strategy delivers solutions to a "problem space" also. The distinction between sales types is the way the selling playing board is set up. The disabler subtracts from the buyers options first, then offers the solution in an environment of impoverishment. The enabler simply adds value to the buyer's already rich environment.

The rise of FOSS, Saas, and Cloud Computing are within an enabler paradigm. Business models that ride this wave, or push the wave higher, need to be that type of sales person. Obviously, this type is easily stereotyped as teacher or even altruist. Fine, let's accept that the type is, in street jargon, less mafioso than the disabler.

In the last few years I finally started seeing Bill Gates point. People need income. All free stuff within some domain means no one was making money. Bill Gates and Richard Stallman are the gods of the opposite salestypes, and Gates is saying with a world of Stallman's giving away software there is less of an industry, which translates into less people with money in their pockets buying houses and DVD players. Way to go Bill, I totally see your point.

But along comes Google, and suddenly it is no longer saintly and simple Stallman versus dispensing-large-paychecks-Gates. Strangely, Google enables with free services, and the only price the user has to pay is smart-advertising. This is not the old altruism anymore, and it is not the disabler either.

But a trajectory is set up in the FOSS computer with all its most groovy functionality relying on Google services, towards almost no money in the business.

The enablers will need to be more truly enabling. If the need is water, with sub $300 laptops and the FOSS infinity suite of powerful software, buyers live in the middle of a large lake. If you're going to sell in that environment, it better be a darn nice bucket for scooping water. Or a job in security, which is just working at the desalination plant.

Gartner: Cloud Computing to Eclipse Open Source

The State of Open Source, 2008 published by Gartner, Inc. notes that Open Source software is quietly taking over in "stealth applications" such as embedded devices which aren't as obvious as running Linux on a server or laptop. Gartner goes on to predict that Open Source software will dominate Cloud Computing infrastructure by 2011, and Software as a Service (SaaS) will eclipse Open Source as a way for businesses to cut IT costs by 2012. Reading between the lines, Mark Taylor from the Open Source Consortium points out that SaaS will actually be Cloud Computing apps based on Open Source software.