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by hjanssen on January 08, 2007 07:05pm
Locate soapbox - Place soapbox – Make sure I do not fall off or thru said soapbox – Stand on top of soapbox –
Start with a small cough, take a deep breath and begin………………….
The people I work with in the OSSL group know one of the easiest thing they need to do to push my buttons. The mere mention of Web 2.0 results in tirades from me that usually result in comments that are not fit for print.
Yet, I have decided to write a blog about this latest phenomenon called ‘Web 2.0’ or as I like to say, ‘the web that wasn’t.’
When I started this blog, I was sitting in the Barcelona airport on my way back from a presentation I gave at TechED 2006. The talk was about what we do here at the OSSL. But that really has no relevance to this blog.
While sitting in the lounge at the airport I was reading an article in USA today that was left by somebody on the chair next to me. (I wonder if that makes me cheap?) The article was written by Kevin Maney. (I honestly have never met him) And it was called ‘Packed Tech Summit With Vats of Yahootinis Ring Bubble Warning Bells’ (The USA Today in question was from November 16, 2006 – Page 9A)
Not really a title that seems to have anything to do with Web2.0, but if you can get a hold of the article, I highly recommend reading it. It very much describes the Web 2.0 phenomenon, and he draws comparisons with the big telecom 2000 tech bubble. I will not get into the article here; I will leave that as an exercise to the reader of this blog. But it was the catalyst for me to finally write a blog on what has been bugging me with Web 2.0.
Having worked with OSS since the very first Linux kernels came out, and with Unix at AT&T for quite a few years prior to that, I have seen a lot of great and sometimes not so great changes happen. But one of the things OSS allowed you to do is take it and for the most part do with it (or to it) what you want. To make it serve your purpose. It is a very evolutionary way of creating software. The strong and useful survive; the weak and useless do not.
For me there is no such thing as Web 2.0. There never was, and there never will be. The whole mistaken concept of what Web2.0 is is something that actually completely flies in the face of what I believe OSS has stood for. OSS has always prided itself for its independence, its freedom. Not being able to put a label on. Where the web or the OSS movement is today is in large part due to natural evolution. And the great thing about natural evolution is that you never really know where it ends up. It is always changing. So putting a label on something, a label that basically is used by the ‘establishment’ does the concept of OSS a disservice. And when that label seems to imply a version of something I really get uncomfortable. Anandeep Pannu send me an interesting link to a cartoon that very nicely sums up a lot of my feelings on this subject, you can check it out here:
http://twopointouch.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/userfriendlyweb20.1.gif
The cartoon seems to be done by the same person who does the cartoon in Linux Journal, It has the same characters and identifiers on the cartoon that Linux Journal seems to have.
And if Web 2.0 truly was such a thing that the OSS community was actively working towards can somebody than please tell me what Web 1.0 was? Or more importantly, please let me know what web 3.0 is _before_ it takes place. Not define something after it has happened.
When I explain to people my description of Web 2.0, I describe it as a big bus that has all kinds of developers on board (OSS and Commercial ones) they where all writing really cool stuff, and the never really did it with the idea of putting together what is now termed Web 2.0. Than there where the people that where running outside of the bus trying to slap stickers on it with Web 2.0 printed on it. It was something that was done not by people on the bus, but people that where running outside of it trying to keep up with it. Actually the people on the bus where not even aware that it was happening.
I have spoke to a lot of OSS developers, at conferences and thru contacts that I have, and often Web 2.0 comes up. And I am struck by the similarities of their view on it compared to my views.
For me one of the really cool things that has happened with the web in the last few years is that a lot of it was written by people who had a passion for solving or accommodating a vision of what they had (Both OSS and Commercial developers). The fruit of this labor then was merged and used by end users in such a way that the original creators never thought of. Which is the great thing about it!! Technology was adapted/used/applied by people around the world to solve or create things they really wanted. A really cool way of developers and end users getting together without there ever having been a plan to do so.
Often software is created for a specific purpose; a lot of technical innovation goes into it. And frequently we forget about the people who will end up using what we create. What is happening on the web (and I am starting to see it in other software areas as well) is that other developers or in a lot of cases end users have put things together that where never thought of to be put together.
If we could agree on calling it something other than Web 2.0, which for me invokes a clearly defined software release. Something it certainly is not. Maybe call it something like ‘The unintended web collaboration framework’ (Can you tell I do not work in Marketing, my slogans would not sell water to a dehydrated person in the desert!)
The web is an evolution; I for sure am not smart enough to know where it is going. But I am looking forward with great interest and enthusiasm how everything will look like a year or more down the road.
Takes a small cough – Steps down from his soapbox – Puts soapbox away –
by jcannon on January 05, 2007 04:21pm
In our final video interview featuring University Hospitals of Cleveland and their new Physician Portal, we have the opportunity to meet Joe Yelanich, Sr. Account Executive from First Consulting Group (FCG). FCG has a long history in the medical IT industry, and choose to deploy their solution on top of JBoss JEMS and Microsoft technologies.
Joe offers insight into the considerations and platform choices made from a consulting perspective, and why FCG chose a mix of JBoss, Java and Microsoft technologies to build their healthcare portal. More information is available on the technical and healthcare aspects to this solution in the previous segments. More information on FCG can be found on their website.
Format: wmv Duration: 6:58
Attachment: ms_uhhs_fcgP3.mp3
by jcannon on January 04, 2007 04:31pm
Yesterday, we published the first of three video interviews with University Hospitals of Cleveland, discussing their new Physician Portal, a healthcare solution built on top Windows Server and JBoss middleware system. Ed Marx, Hospital CIO, discussed the IT needs of the hospital, and how they arrived at a solution that built on - and took advantage of - both open source and Microsoft technologies.
Today, we get an opportunity to speak to Dr. Nathan Levitan, Chief Medical Officer & Senior VP of University Hospitals, and Dr. Ed Michelson, Chairman of Emergency Medicine. Each doctor provides insight into the healthcare impact of how different, disconnected legacy systems materially impacted the quality of care provided to patients, and how the implementation of the portal has been successful in linking patient information among, and within, its various network of 150 locations. In addition, management, usability and security are also covered from an end-user's perspective.
Format: wmv Duration: 10:16
Attachment: ms_uhhs_HealthP2.mp3
by jcannon on January 03, 2007 02:43pm
In late 2005, you may recall that Microsoft and JBoss announced a joint technology agreement to explore ways to better enhance interoperability between JBoss Enterprise Middleware Systems (JEMS) and Windows Server. This was an exciting announcement and a great opportunity to explore ways in which the two companies could work together for our joint customers.
Recently, we had the fortunate opportunity to visit one such customer, University Hospitals of Cleveland, who has implemented a joint JBoss/Microsoft solution. The result, a new hospital-wide Physician Portal, allows hospital clinicians to access multiple, diverse patient care systems as though they were one. The reduced complexity and enhanced interoperability not only save the hospital money, but improve the standard and quality of patient care.
In Part 1 of our interview - done on-site & in partnership with industry moderator Bill Laberis - we explore the technical perspectives of the solution with Hospital CIO Ed Marx. Tomorrow, we look at the healthcare perspective & will end on Friday with a discussion with First Consulting Group, the healthcare services firm who built the solution.
Format: wmv Duration: 12:34
More on University Hospitals: University Hospitals (UH) is a community-based health care system which serves patients at more than 150 locations throughout Northern Ohio, including seven wholly owned and four affiliated hospitals.
Committed to advanced care and advanced caring, UH encompasses the region's largest network of primary care physicians, outpatient centers and hospitals. The network also offers specialty care physicians to treat almost every disease and condition, skilled nursing, elder health, rehabilitation and home care services, and occupational health and wellness.
University Hospitals is the second largest private sector employer in Northeast Ohio and is within the top five largest private sector employers in the state of Ohio.
Attachment: ms_uhhs_P1Tech.mp3
by MichaelF on January 02, 2007 05:52pm
Just a quick note to let folks know that we are going film the Festivus Roundtable (if you're confused as to what I'm talking about click here) next week so if you have questions, please take a moment to submit them before Monday January 8, 2007.
You can leave comments here, on the original post, or via email.
Based on submissions to date we expect to have an interesting discussion and if you enjoy this one we'll wash, rinse and repeat (but promise not to wait for the next imaginary holiday).
-michael
by kishi on December 21, 2006 07:34pm
This blog continues what I started writing about w/ Thinking About HPC Infrastructure and what Frank wrote in about in Overloading Clusters.
After reading thru the previous blogs on HPC, someone might ask “What are some of the core components of HPC ?”. After all, once you’ve seen the outside of a Maserati or a Pantera DeTomaso, you’re not going to be satisfied just by ogling at it. Even after a test drive, the engineer in you will want to pop the hood and see what’s inside. Taking a similar approach let’s uncover some underlying HPC technologies by looking at any basic HPC setup. Once all the provisioning has been completed, the HPC system will be physically deployed with an OS and relevant drivers, utilities etc. Yet, before the actual HPC application can get installed across, there remains a critical step in the process, i.e. configuration of cluster and file system along with any tools and interfaces such as MPI (Message Passing Interface) etc. After peeling through the HPC application layer, its worthwhile to do a “deep-dive” into what really runs the HPC clusters. A broad category of these tools are:
If you’re trying to understand the “WHY” behind the existence of these tools and their importance, take a look at Cluster Management for example. Cluster configuration, installation and management can be difficult and requires intimate familiarity with the HPC hardware, OS, underlying architecture etc. Without specific tools that attend to and manage specific underlying HPC sub-components, HPC just won’t be what it is. So, it is worthwhile to understand the unique installation experience of the tools, such as the ones listed above to understand the complexity of HPC systems. Ready – let’s dive in to the installation and function of these tools:
1. SCALI: The SCALI management and MPI software packages provide deployment, monitoring and job scheduling services for a cluster. After you deploy this software, you will be able see all the compute nodes that may have been preconfigured or are configured on your system. Scali will enable you to monitor the systems and run jobs using the SCALI graphical interface. In order to license the SCALI software, you must utilize the scainstall command to produce a license request file. This file can then be sent to SCALI to receive a permanent key. For those that need some hand-holding through this, luckily SCALI provides very comprehensive documentation on their website. A large portion of the SCALI Manage User’s Guide is dedicated to pre-setup planning and configuration of the cluster and the network. The documentation provides detailed recommendations about how you can set up their Ethernet-based network environment and out-of-band management network. The documentation also provides a general overview about how to install and configure higher performance interconnects, including bonded Ethernet, Infiniband, Myrinet and SCI. The SCALI Manage interface provides simple tools to assist in configuring and testing DET, Infiniband, and Myrinet devices for use with the SCALI MPI implementation. The SCALI MPI software supports multiple Infiniband stacks including Mellanox, Topspin, Voltaire and Infinicon.
2. HP-MPI: HP-MPI is Hewlett-Packard’s Linux-based implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI). Many of the utilities distributed with HP-MPI are similar to other common MPI utilities such as MPICH - e.g. mpicc, mpirun, etc. In order to utilize the HP-MPI software, a license is required for each CPU core in the cluster. To obtain a license file you are required to obtain the MAC address from each node (typically eth0) and input that information into a form at licensing.hp.com. The resulting file can then be copied to the compute node. The HP-MPI software is non-functional until licensing files are generated for the nodes
3. CSM (Cluster Systems Management): The CSM software suite is designed to automate the deployment and management of cluster nodes. Nodes can be remotely installed with an operating system as well as the CSM software for later monitoring. The CSM software supports RedHat and Novell on multiple platforms. In order to obtain and install the CSM software one must register with IBM’s website and download the required RPMs. In order to configure CSM, it can remotely install the operating system and/or the CSM software on the compute nodes. Much like Platform ROCKS, CSM makes use of PXE functionality and RedHat’s kickstart or the autoyast software to remotely install the operating system. The CSM software provides multiple methods for defining the nodes that should be deployed and managed:
a. The first method involves creating a hostname mapping (hostmap) file, which is a colon-delimited file that defines a number of attributes of each node b. The second method also involves manually creating and editing a “node definition” (nodedef) file. This is the method suggested by the documentation for use with small clusters
Proper remote power and remote console capabilities greatly ease the administration and deployment of the compute nodes, however according to the CSM FAQ remote power management is not absolutely required. All the compute nodes must be rebooted (remotely or manually). They are then PXE booted and installed with RHEL4 using the kickstart installation system.
4. Maui and Torque: Both Torque and Maui are free software which must be compiled from the source distribution on the head node. Maui is an open-source job scheduler for compute clusters. It supports a number of task management features not found in other parallel batch processing software including policy-based scheduling and prioritization of tasks. Torque is an open-source resource manager for managing compute nodes and scheduled jobs. It can integrate with Maui to provide additional features for scheduling and managing scheduled tasks. Installation of Torque can be done using the guidance available in the Torque 2.0 Admin Manual .
5. Platform Rocks: Platform Rocks is a cluster deployment software that facilitates the deployment of various software stacks (“rolls”) onto the compute nodes. The software is capable of deploying the base operating system and utilities required for cluster administration, management and scheduling. The software can also manage configuration and updates to ensure consistency throughout the cluster. Platform Rocks is a suite of utilities that are packaged together as separate installable rolls. One of the main goals of the software is to allow for easy installation and integration of third-party rolls and applications. One unique aspect to the Platform Rocks installation approach is that the software installs an operating system on the head node, and also installs all the required rolls at the same time. The software can also automatically set up the subsystem required to install an operating system and other packages on the compute nodes (such as management agents, etc).
That about does it for a quick “deep-dive”. Let me insert a gentle reminder that these are not the only cluster or resource management technologies out there in the HPC space but rather the ones most prevalent. If you have additional tools that you have worked with, we’d like to hear from you and thank you for tuning in to Port 25. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
by jcannon on December 21, 2006 12:26pm
If you missed our post yesterday, we started a fascinating conversation with the Robotics team about the impetus and design goals of new Robotics Studio, from distributed intelligence & network-based agents, to why web browsers can provide strong interfaces to robotics control. In the second part of this conversation, we get a sense of what early work is possible with demos being run in the Robotics lab.
You'll note the reference to some of the work in the Channel9 sandbox to provide open code sharing - a simulation sample tutorial is here. Feel free to dig around.
by jcannon on December 21, 2006 11:41am
Just a quick note & pointer to Paul Thurrott's interview with Sam on Open Source, the Lab and why these intiatives are so important to Microsoft and to our customers. The interview was conducted back in October, but the podcast just went live at Windows IT Pro.
by jcannon on December 20, 2006 11:03am
Last week, Microsoft released the first version of Robotics Studio, an SDK that contains three sets of tools; first, a common runtime architecture that can be used across robot devices; second, a set of programming tools that harness the power of Visual Studio, and a physics engine, to allow programmers to build & test their robots in simulated 3D space; and finally, a set of tutorials and sample code to get started. In this video (there are two - we'll post the second tomorrow), we learn a little bit about the design goals & architecture behind Robotics Studio...tomorrow we have some very cool demo time with the team.
Why is robotics such an interesting area to watch? According to the latest statistics from the International Federation of Robotics, about 1 million personal robots will be sold around the world this year. And by 2025, the Japanese Robot Association predicts the personal robot industry will be worth more than $50 billion a year worldwide.
Additional Links: - Robotics Studio Home Page - Download Robotics Studio (Free for Non-Commercial Use) - Channel9 Interview
Attachment: roboticsp1.mp3
by anandeep on December 19, 2006 12:35pm
Archana Ganapathi is a Computer Science graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley.
Archana has been working in the area of Empirical Computer Science (which relies on real data rather than theory or simulation) and some of her research is on computer crashes. She worked on collecting data on Windows crashes and is in general interested in the idea of using real data to advance Computer Science.
Here home page is http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~archanag/ . Her paper on Windows crashes is “Crash Data Collection: A Windows Case Study” and another interesting paper she has written is “Why do Internet services fail, and what can be done about it? “
The Open Data Repository link referenced in the video is </FONTUNDERLINE: single>http://institutes.lanl.gov/data/. This is a temporary link with a public data set as there is currently not an official link for the repository that will eventually be hosted by USENIX. We'll be sure to pass along the official link as soon as it is available.
-Anandeep
by hjanssen on December 18, 2006 02:40pm
I have finally found a way to write more blogs!!! When I am in the office I have so much work that I rarely get enough time to sit down and concentrate on a blog. When I get home (My wife tells me normally later than she wants me to) I do not always have the desire to write a blog. But I am flying for work this week and I am finding all kinds of time!
What for me the line is that epitomizes the fact that I must have turned into my parents is “When I was Young”. Yet I am finding myself starting this blog with exactly that.
First a let me describe he catalyst for this blog;
A few months ago I attended OSCON 2006, one of the sessions I went to was called ‘PHP Security Hoedown’ given by Ed Finkler (http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/os2006/view/e_sess/9527)
Basically, what this session was about was talking about PHP security. The session was a response to security problems people have been finding with PHP. Specifically the installations and running of PHP.
He stated that a large part of the Security problems that PHP seems to be suffering from can be summed like this (I have taken some liberty to paraphrase some of the things that where said, but check the above link to his original presentation.);
PHP has a fairly shallow learning curve. Because it is a shallow learning curve, there is a lot of variety of people that are wide in range of skill sets. Basically almost anybody can get started in PHP and get something running pretty quickly. There are really only a small percentage of top level people who could be considered ‘experts’ in the language.
PHP has a fairly shallow learning curve. Because it is a shallow learning curve, there is a lot of variety of people that are wide in range of skill sets. Basically almost anybody can get started in PHP and get something running pretty quickly.
There are really only a small percentage of top level people who could be considered ‘experts’ in the language.
So, now we are getting to the part that I warned about. ‘When I was Young’.
Many moons ago, now more than I am willing to legally admit to, I started my career with Philips/AT&T who at the time had a joint venture, they developed very complex digital telephone switches. The 5ESS line. This was a very sophisticated telephone system that was almost completely written in C.
When I started my programming career with AT&T (Now over 20 years ago) you had to go through a lengthy process of learning the language C. Carrier grade software was and still is of very complex nature. Since people that have ever written in C know, it is a very powerful language that provides you with a very large gun to shoot yourself in almost every body part you can if you are not careful. So we where trained very well before we where let loose writing switching code. One of the other things that was required, if you wanted to make the jump into C++ (Mind you this was when there was no C++ compiler yet, but only CFront which was a pre-compiler/parser), you where not allowed to write in C++ unless you have been programming C for at least 3 years consistently.
There really where not that many higher level languages as there are today.
For the last few years I have seen more and more computer languages born, and in some cases die. And they all try to fix what their authors thought where missing in the languages that came before it. Another trend has been to make languages more accessible and easier to use to people who want to program of all walks of life. Imagine that! A language that does not require a 4 year degree to work in!
Some of these languages for example PHP and Ruby (They sure are not limited to these languages I might add!). They allow people with limited computing background to make in fairly decent programs in a small amount of time.
But this is where some of the security issues are showing up. The languages are becoming easier to use. But a lot of the operating systems they run on really have not become easier. So, many of these programs are now used without the realization on the part of the installer or programmer what the effect and impact of running their programs are on the operating systems. This seems to be a problem on both Linux and Windows platforms.
Although I applaud making programming languages easier for the more casual user, I do see that we are forgetting in many cases to make the environments these programs need to run in safer and easier as well.
I have seen so many times programs that write their files in ‘interesting’ and unsecured places. The presence of multiple libraries that might or might not support the application (heck, I am not sure what makes the thing run, so I will just copy all kinds of libraries in an attempt to make the application work).
File permissions that are set incorrectly, readable by the world. Incorrect owners etc.
And these are just some of the issues that seem to be present. And unfortunately a lot of these problems are easily fixed.
But I think that we need to do more as developers and system architects. Some of the suggestions that come to mind are:
It seems to me that languages need to be developed more with the end user in mind regarding deployment and the OS’s they will be running in. A language can have all the cool features you ever thought off, but if on deployment you create system issues of worse a bad security hole, than it all will have been just a hobby.
I can equate it to getting your drivers license, getting your license is fairly easy (at least in the US it is). And you can get it without knowing anything at all about cars. Car manufacturers have realized this and have made their cars tell the driver what is wrong with it. Now if you keep on driving your car with the ‘check engine light’ on, well than you are on your own.
If we want languages to be adopted and thrive, we better find a way to build in a ‘check program’ light.
by Bryan Kirschner on December 15, 2006 01:46pm
Web 2.0. Enterprise 2.0. Open Source 2.0. All the latest expectations for major revs of a good chunk of the information technology world seem to be heavily based on excitement about the possibilities for new forms of social networking and collaboration.
Nobody has more to say about how this can be done right—or wrong—than Barry Wellman.
Dr. Barry Wellman is the S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto and is the director of Netlab, a scholarly network studying computer networks, communication networks, and social networks. To quote from an introduction to a tribute event, Barry “pioneered innovative approaches to three fields:
He has authored 3 books and more than 200 journal articles. He is, to use images from social network analysis, perhaps the biggest “hub” of folks—students, former students, and industry and academic collaborators—who study online and offline communities (including open source communities) there is.
He’s also a really nice guy and was kind enough to take a few minutes to talk with us while he was at the University of Washington’s ISchool talking about “What is the Internet Doing to Community and Vice Versa?.”
by jcannon on December 13, 2006 06:29pm It’s been an interesting nine months on Port 25. For those keeping track, the endeavors of our lab have taken us to Portland, New York, California, Thailand, Boston and more. We’ve had the chance to speak to some leading minds in the free and commercial open source world, including Eric Allman, Andi Gutmans, Tim O’Reilly, Matt Asay, Miguel de Icaza, among others. And there’s more to come. So we thought, at this time of year, it was time for a pause – a moment of examination - to try something different.
by jcannon on December 13, 2006 06:29pm
It’s been an interesting nine months on Port 25. For those keeping track, the endeavors of our lab have taken us to Portland, New York, California, Thailand, Boston and more. We’ve had the chance to speak to some leading minds in the free and commercial open source world, including Eric Allman, Andi Gutmans, Tim O’Reilly, Matt Asay, Miguel de Icaza, among others. And there’s more to come. So we thought, at this time of year, it was time for a pause – a moment of examination - to try something different.
So here’s the idea. While we’ve had the fortunate opportunity to talk to many provocative folks across the globe that have been very generous with their time and knowledge, we’ve yet to turn the camera on ourselves and let you ask the questions. So let’s do exactly that. …We’ll take user-submitted questions (unedited), compile them, and then go around the table with the staff of the Open Source Software Lab to get the answers. Don’t hold back, feel free to air grievances (by grievances, I mean tough questions), or challenging technical issues you’re working on. We’ll try our best to address the most challenging, and most common, submissions. And given the often fiery tone on Port 25, there’s only one guiding principle to be smart about: questions of a derogatory, legal or unprofessional tone will likely be ignored. Otherwise, the ball is in your court to pose whatever Linux, Windows or OSS-related question that’s buzzing in your brain. Use the comments below to post your question (in the interest of total transparency), or if you prefer, you can submit a question via e-mail. We’ll take the top 7-10 questions and get Sam, Kishi, Bryan, Hank and Anandeep all together right after the New Year, and tape a roundtable discussion of the Q&A session. We’ll post the resulting conversation on Port 25, in totality, afterwards. If it’s a productive discussion, we can schedule more – or even think about a live Town Hall chat with more folks from across Microsoft. The tone of the conversation is really up to you.
Looking forward to hearing your questions ~ have a merry Festivus :)
PS. It may help to keep in mind the backgrounds of our lab staff – ie, it’s unlikely we can answer questions related to nuclear physics (that I’m aware of – Sam might have a few tricks up his sleeve).
by Bryan Kirschner on December 12, 2006 02:24pm
It’s been just over a month since I last blogged on the law-and-open-source –analogy, and, despite a cool, unrelated entry in the middle, I feel my blog karma is running dangerously low… But—proving either that life is a journey of continuous learning and joyful surprise, or, more simply, that good things come to schlubs who drag their feet—last week not only did NPR run a story on legal apprenticeship programs, I also heard a speaker who thoughtfully referenced Foucault in a talk on fostering innovation.
The first line of reasoning was about rather than being a case where the “source code” of the domain (law) was “closed,” law is a case where it is really, really “open:”
legal documents are almost universally public as well, so you can seek an example of someone else’s filing, brief etc from among literally millions of such documents—from the lowliest pleading to the most momentous Supreme Court argument. If a situation where the full text of millions of legal artifacts available freely (or for the price of distribution) aren’t like open source code…I’m not sure what is!
The implication, going way, way back to the first blog in this chain, is that it seems you can make a lot of knowledge (qua legal artifacts) “more like open” without new artifacts becoming “cheap” (lawyers still are, or at least feel, expensive).
There is a different angle, though: the second topic was about restricting access to the profession itself. Is law an example where the “openness” of knowledge is counterbalanced by extreme restrictions on being able to function as a lawyer—specifically multiple years of (often expensive) law school? In this blog entry I am going to take a stab at articulating three views on this: let’s call them “the bad scenario,” the “not bad but not great scenario,” and the “pretty cool scenario.”
(Since we’re comparing to open source development, I am going to make one simplifying assumption: having to pass a test—the bar exam—is entirely compatible with being “open.” I say this because I see it as analogous to many OSS communities: to become (say) a committer you basically show up and start doing some work to demonstrate your skills; the test is analogous. If the bar exam is broken somewhere in terms of content or form factor, I see that as a tweak as opposed to fundamental to the show-up-and-demonstrate-your-ability analogy.)
First “the bad scenario” (this is where Foucault comes in). To be somewhat painfully reductive, Foucault observed there is a relationship between the structures of power and (ostensibly objective) knowledge, and that a characteristic of the modern world was the application of “discipline.” Discipline, broadly speaking, is defining and conditioning a state of behavior that creates non-egalitarian power relationships such that it becomes “normal” and this dynamic becomes invisible within a formally egalitarian, “fair” and “open” environment. The real rubber-hits the road example here would be a cycle that works like this: based on a scientific and meritocratic rationale, three years of law school becomes a standard; as a consequence, most lawyers who pass through this system view it as both feasible(since they did it) and meritocratic (since they by definition did well, or at least well enough, in it). In tandem, it also means lawyers are relatively scarce and expensive and have similar billing rates and incomes, because they all ponied up fairly homogeneous investments. Thus, they have psychological and material incentive to perpetuate the system, because in rejecting it they would not only repudiate their own accomplishments, but possibly introduce competitors who could undercut them. In the end, the system justified its own perpetuation without controversy…because it seems to comport with the accepted paradigm of a modern profession.
On to the “not bad but not great” scenario. This is where Spence and Signalling Theory come in. The Wikipedia entries linker above are concise so I recommend reading them: the upshot is that for education to be used as a “signal” to help employers choose more valuable employees, it is not necessary for education to have any intrinsic value. The reason this is “kind of OK“—despite the fact that investing in education even if it doesn’t increase productivity seems intuitively perverse—is that at least solves a (communication) problem, and can be economically efficient. By contrast, the’ bad scenario” is quite likely to cause the behavior of the system will become very, very inefficient relative to a truly open consideration of all the options.)
Finally, the “pretty cool” scenario. Seven states enable people to become residents without attending law school through some type of apprenticeship program :
In Vermont, participants don't need a college degree, but they must have completed three-quarters of their undergraduate course work. Then they have to spend 25 hours a week for four years studying alongside a licensed attorney.
In Washington state, a “law clerk”
…shall study for 4 calendar years. Each calendar year shall consist of 12 months, with a minimum of 120 hours of study each month, including the time spent in performing the duties of a law clerk. The tutor shall give personal supervision to the law clerk averaging at least 3 hours each week. "Personal supervision" is defined as time actually spent with the law clerk for the exposition and discussion of the law, the recitation of cases, and the critical analysis of the law clerks written assignments.
(In both cases these positions can be paid jobs.) This suggests a radically different paradigm for entry into the profession (one might, and Foucault might agree, a “throwback” to a previous era), and a lovely mentoring dynamic. What’s particularly interesting is that women outnumber men in apprenticeship programs, and the typical age of the participants is older than law students. And while at least according to NPR the likelihood of programs like these increasing, among law schools there is an increasing incorporation of paid internships and flexible schedules.
I think parallels to each scenario can be made to the open source development domain, and thinking about the “balance” of scenarios in both the legal and software development domains will be a fascinating discussion. That blog will be along in less than 30 days, I promise….
by billhilf on December 11, 2006 09:00pm
We all use technology every day. This is the list of the 15 technologies that I found most useful (and in some cases extremely fun) in 2006. It includes all sorts of things, devices, software, open source, Apple, Microsoft, and so on. It's not about the manufacturer or the licensing model, just a list of the things I found useful and fun in 2006, and maybe give you some holiday shopping ideas for your geek loved ones.
1. Sonos music system
Blasting Styx's 'Lorelei' throughout your house, streamed wirelessly, is just awesome. Sonos is a Linux-based device (built by former Microsoft engineers). I have it set up to network mount my Windows server, which holds all my digitized music, so I can play literally every song I own anywhere in my house (or different music in different rooms) without pulling wires everywhere. And you all love Styx, don't deny it.
2. Infrant Technologies ReadyNAS
I back up that Windows server with a great and affordable NAS appliance from Infrant Technologies. It's a Linux-based appliance that holds a terabyte of SATA disks with a nifty technology they call 'X-RAID' which allows you to easily swap disks without reconfiguring the RAID setup.
3. Newsgator InBox
Like many, I now live primarily in email and RSS. I rarely visit traditional web sites, most information I get is RSS based. Newsgator delivers my RSS feeds directly into Outlook and is now an indispensible tool for my daily information consumption. Scoble turned me on to Newsgator and I've been a happy user ever since. Some of my favorite feeds? Make magazine, TechCrunch, TED Blog, O'Reilly Radar, National Geographic News, a bunch of personal blogs I follow and customized 'smart feeds' that are like pre-scripted Technorati searches.
4. iWeb
iWeb is easily my favorite graphical Web site builder for simple, personal web sites. I don't use the .Mac services (my personal Web sites run on Windows and Linux of course!), but the iWeb tool is still very easy and quickly builds attractive Web sites. My one significant complaint about iWeb is the actual file size of the sites it builds is just ridiculous, the Apple iWeb team really needs to work on optimizing this – hint: just use some typical storage minimums from the top Web hosters as your target.
5. Ruby on Rails
I don't do any real development any more but I certainly tinker and I've really enjoyed building some Web applications with Rails. The framework is quick to understand and lightweight enough to get simple web apps up and running. I've built apps on Linux and Windows (for the latter this was useful). I also love PHP and we have some great things going on there, but Rails was my programming experiment for 2006.
6. GShock Atomic Solar watch
I paid about $40 for this watch at Costco and I love it. It syncs with the atomic clock in Colorado, so time is always accurate. It runs on solar power (including office lighting). You can drive a tank over it or swim to the bottom of a lake with it on. It has multiple time zones, alarms, and a nifty blue light that automatically turns on when you rotate your wrist to check the time. Only downside is the atomic clock sync is radio based and doesn't work when I'm in Ankara or Manila but it still keeps the last known 'good time' so it's not too big of an issue. It's my perfect watch.
7. Game Systems: Alienware Area-51 PC and XBOX 360
I relieve stress through jogging and gaming (not at the same time). I use good running shoes and I use good game systems. These two are the best. My Alienware PC is juiced heavy, with dual nVidia cards SLI configured, 4GB memory, two Intel procs, etc. etc. It rocks. My 360 is also stellar and I just started using the new 1080p HD output, which makes the games that much more real – Splinter Cell baby!
8. RadioShack switching power supply
One addition I needed for my 360 system was cooling as I keep the 360 in a tightly closed cabinet space. I use a RadioShack power switching supply to power two cpu fans I have mounted to my wood media cabinet (see bottom of this blog for a photo) to blow out the warm air and keep the 360 in a cool environment. The power supply replaced a kooky 6V battery configuration I had previously and now I just switch on the fans and game away. This isn't necessary for all Xbox systems of course, but my cabinet has really poor air flow. There are some other ways to do this too through liquid cooling (literally modding the console itself), but they are rather complex – check this out.
9. Games: World of Warcraft (PC) and Gears of War (360)
It's hard to pick favorite games, but I've had lots of fun with WoW and GoW in 2006. Lately, I've let my 58 Warlock take a holiday in Azeroth while I build my GoW skills and I really do think that Gears is one of the best games for the Xbox 360 system. The graphic details, game play, challenge, and pacing are phenomenal and it's exciting to see titles like this push the 360's capabilities. And do play with a friend, it is much more fun. If you like shooters, GoW is a must have. As for WoW, I hesitate to recommend too strongly as it can occupy a LOT of your time if you get hooked. But… it is easily the best mmorpg I've played and the next major rev, Burning Crusade, looks fantastic.
10. AvantBrowser
I love IE7 and I use FireFox quite a bit, but most of 2006 I used AvantBrowser, which is based on the IE engine and adds a load of features, like tabbed browsing and RSS capabilities, and it's fast and functional. It's free, but you should donate if you use it to help the developers out.
11. Parallels Desktop virtualization for Intel based Macs
I use Parallels to run various Linux distributions on my MacTel (the Intel based iMac). It's good software and is the only virtualization solution for MacTel's currently. You can also run Windows virtualized. My main complaint: on the wireless iMac keyboard, the right 'Control-Alt' keys escape the mouse from the virtualized OS window but the left 'Control-Alt' keys do not. Silly bug, but annoying.
12. Motorola Q
I try not to carry a bunch of gadgets with me (which is why I love the multifunction gshock watch). The Q is the ideal phone for my day to day communications. It runs Windows Mobile 5.0 and allows me to sync with Exchange and read mail in Pocket Outlook (gzip is used in 5.0 and it helps save serious bandwidth when sync'ing mail, see here). The phone is very slim and you can carry in your pocket easily. Battery life could be better but for the form factor, I can live with recharging nightly. I use the Samsung i830 when I go international as it has both GSM and CDMA capable radios, but the Q is the phone to beat.
13. Microsoft Office 2007 and Office Communicator
Many if not most of Microsoft employees have been using Office 2007 and Office Communicator for most of 2006. This isn't a product pitch, these technologies have made my life significantly easier since I started using them. The new Office 2007 UI is awesome and makes productivity tool illiterates like me seem like power users. Communicator has also significantly changed how we IM at Microsoft, it's integrated with our Exchange server infrastructure and with our phones so I can right click someone's name in my IM window, select 'Call' and my desk phone will automatically flip to speakerphone and dial their number. It's quite literally changed how we communicate at work.
14. Windows Vista
I like Vista. There I said it. Faster, more reliable, more secure, more intuitive and better looking than any desktop system I've used. I'd say this if I worked for Microsoft or not. Chris Sells says it better here. These things among others have made Vista a very important and useful tool for me.
15. SpamBayes
SpamBayes is an anti-spam filter written in Python that plugs into Outlook. It's an open source project maintained on sourceforge. I've been using it since before 2006 and it's saved me from the massive waterfall of Spam that I get from all my various email accounts that I route into Outlook. Runs on Windows (Outlook), Linux/Unix and MacOS.
*Bonus* 15.5 Photosynth
This isn't really something that made my life more useful in 2006, but it's just smoking hot software that is worth spending a few minutes with. It's a tech preview from our Live Labs and it's a very cool new way to look at photos. Some huge possibilities with this technology. Enjoy!
(tech preview requires XPSP2 or Vista and IE6 or IE7)
Happy holidays and here's to a great 2007.
-Bill