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2004

  • 2 min read

BlogBridge open source license

I've done a little research about what the Open Source really means, legally, when it comes to BlogBridge. I wrote about this question a few months ago, and now, having consulted with people who know, here's an update.

First of all, start with the goals.

  • BlogBridge should be available, in source code form and executable form to everyone who wants to look at it and use it. It should be a bona fida open source project.
    Reasoning : We will be able to recruit others to help us build it; It is a significant differentiator among the other blog readers out there; And we can legitimately use services such as Source Forge to manage the project and its source code.
  • If a commercial entity wants to use the code to build a commercial business, we would like them to have to come to us for permission.
    Reasoning : Obviously, we aren't making any money on this; if someone else wants to, it would be nice if we were involved.

As it turns out, this is not an unusual set of objectives, and it is pretty straightforward to achieve.

As of BlogBridge 0.5.4, the product will be licensed under the GPL (rather than the LGPL which is what we had before.)

The effect of this is that the first objective above is fully achieved implicitly. The second objective is achieved, indirectly:

Because the GPL is quite strict in its requirements of releasing any modifications, enhancements, etc also under the GPL, it makes the source code as it stands unsuitable for a commercial purpose. The obligations attached to modifying the source would really discourage anyone from building a business around it.

(You might wonder, once you've released something as Open Source, can you decide to change the license? Isn't that prohibited? It turns out that it's perfectly alright.)

The code as it stands therefore is incompatible with a commercial project. If we decide that we want to embark on, or give someone else the ability to embark on a commercial project, what do we do?

We release a copy of the source code under a different, commerical license. This copy forms the basis of the commerical project. It's called "dual licensing " and it's a well understood and accepted model.

  • 1 min read

Can you change the license of an Open Source product?

This puzzled me. Once we released the BlogBridge source code under the LGPL, it was out in the open, and published to the world. Had we forfeited the right to change the license? The answer depends on who owns and holds the Copyright to the code.

As it is, all the code was either personally written by me (90%) or written by others who have agreed to transfer ownership to me. In other words,I hold a clear copyright to all the code, and that is the key. This makes it legitimate and legal to reissue the same source code under a new license.

What existed before (i.e. everything up to 0.5.3) under LGPL will not cease to exist or be available under the LGPL, but, all continuing work, enhancements and so on will be governed by the GPL and that's what counts.

So the key requirement is that, no matter what the open source license is, do you have clear ownership and if you do, you can re-release it under a different license. Makes perfect sense once you hear it.

  • 1 min read

Two really cool new applications

Today I was introduced by two totally different people to two really cool little utilities.

  • Anagram. This application works with Outlook and pulls and structures contact information out of emails. Simply, you select the text with the name, phone numbers, address etc. in the email, type control-c twice, and up pops a new Outlook contact record all properly filled out. It does similar things with appointments etc. Super useful and perhaps a more politically correct alternative to applications like Plaxo (Thank you Esther Dyson)

  • WordWeb. A tiny dictionary, thesaurus, word finder doo-hicky that lives in your toolbar. Type a word in and out comes all this useful information, in a compact, lightweight (unlike the others) form that doesn't get in the way. (Thank you David Carpe)

Each of these very useful tools sells for almost nothing, once again proving that no one can make money with software anymore.

  • 1 min read

MSN Sandbox

I just came across this - MSN Sandbox - where you can find various Microsoft goodies which are otherwise not available. Notable is LookOut the search product that MS has recently acquired. Haven't tried it myself - I prefer X1.

  • 1 min read

iTunes Rules

Here's a nice bit of civic participation : the iTunes Music Store is offering single click, FREE , downloads of the 9/11 Commision Report's Executive Summary, and of speeches from the 2004 Democratic National Convention. What a great way to make this accessible to us. Thanks!

  • 2 min read

Jon Udell on Bloglines

Jon (and many others) really like Bloglines a lot; I recommend his article - there's a lot to learn there.

I want to address just one point, which is Jon's prediction of the coming world domination by web apps. There's an interesting paradox , inconsistency or contradiction here, if you look at the following qoutes from his piece:

  • "Web applications such as Gmail and Bloglines are already hard to beat. With a touch of alchemy they just might become unstoppable. "

  • "… that Bloglines, like Zope, handles foldering about as well as you can in a Web UI -- which is to say, well enough. With an intelligent local cache it could be really good; more on that later."

  • "Finally, I'd love it if Bloglines cached everything in a local database, not only for offline reading but also to make the UI more responsive and to accelerate queries that reach back into the archive."

Is there a way to have our cake and eat it too? Is it possible to have the user experience of a real application with the universal access of a web application?

That's the BlogBridge experiment : a total inversion of the Web Application scheme. BlogBridge has a thick client (Java based) with the local cache and the flashy responsive UI and offline operation.

And we are about to launch the BlogBridge Service which is a Web Service (XML-RPC) allowing BlogBridge to synchronize both your feeds and folders as well as their unread status periodically.

In other words, you run the BlogBridge application and periodically it talks to the service (behind the scenes) and uploads your latest feeds, folders and unread state. If you run BlogBridge somewhere else, you BlogBridge talks to the service and grabs your latest info and you continue where you left off.

What do you think?

  • 1 min read

Announcing… The BlogBridge Service ;-)

hdrservice.jpg

Here's a sneak preview of something a little bit different. As of the next beta, we will be running a BlogBridge service off our BlogBridge.com site. Initially all it will do for you is keep things in synch as you use BlogBridge on different computers. Keeping in synch means making sure that you have the same 'favorites' configured and that your unread information is kept consistent.

It does require you to register, by giving us an email address and password to authenticate you. So that whenever you run BlogBridge it will pick up your favorites and not someone elses.

Oh, and it's free. For now 😉

Here's what the BlogBridge service setup looks like (click on it to enlarge.)

  • 1 min read

Will Wikis Rule the World?

I was recently asked by a VC friend of mine what I thought of a certain Wiki product. I thought my response to him (with specific product and people references removed) might be interesting. He asked me, "Have you kept track of what 's going on in Wiki-land, and what do you think?"

Here's my answer :

Yes, I have very much kept track of the wiki stuff. After doing eRoom, which is still among the best collab systems out there in my (humble) opinion, I very much believe that there's a whole next generation of collaboration that is needed. I say this because eRoom and others fall really short when it comes to get mass adoption. Wiki's might point in that direction.

That said, I think Wikis today are abominable. They have a few breakthrough ideas, certainly, but other than that they are IMHO very hard to use and will in their current form be adopted by few. Also in my opinion, in terms of enterprise adoption, they will suffer the same challenges that eRoom and all the others do: customers don't really experience enough pain collaborating as they do today over email and IM. They are and will continue to be hard pressed to spend real money on solving the 'collaboration' problem.

The more likely strategy , still, is one of verticalization : understanding specific use scenarios, building specialized flavors of collaboration stuff, and marrying this with the right marketing strategy and sales approach.