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I posted my thoughts on Sun’s acquisition of MySQL on TechBizMedia. Feel free to add your comments on the topic.

The so called virtual reality Guru, Jaron Lanier, long known for his criticism of “Wisdom of Crowds” attitude of Open Source development model and the Internet Collectivism (so called Web 2.0), recently wrote an article called Long Live Closed Source Software. I call his article as “Ignorance of an Individual”. In his article, he argues against open source process and calls upon the scientific community to not fall into the trap of the open source development model. I don’t know much about this dude but he comes out as someone who thinks that he can talk about science just because he attended a scifoo camp (a meeting where most of the participants are from the fringes of science. They do invite some hardcore scientists but mostly can be classified as a fringe group of geeks and people with experience in science. Well, such a meeting is important because it helps drive discussion about the interface between science and technology. But, my argument is that attending a scifoo meeting alone doesn’t make an individual a scientist). He uses Martha Stewart and Science in the same sentence and I am sure it talks about how much science he knows. If he had ever been in the hardcore academia, he would have understood that science is not trying to take the open source approach and, in fact, open source approach is an outgrowth of how science is done in the academia. Richard Stallman didn’t jump out one day and talk about free software. It was his experience in an academic environment that raised his awareness about the importance of sharing software code. If Mr. Lanier shows iPhone as an example of innovation, I can list Rockets, Theory of Evolution, Splitting of Atoms, Quarks, Nuclear Energy, and every other scientific innovation as an example of open source innovation because the academia’s approach to science is the predecessor to open source approach. In front of all the innovation listed above, Iphone comes as a kid’s toy made in a third world country. This is the kinda problem we face when engineers, marketers and business community start poking their nose into science. They just talk rubbish. I am not saying that these people should be kept away from science. They are very important for the commoditization of scientific innovation. They are the ones who takes the fruits of science to the ordinary citizens. My argument is that they should realize the scope of their role and not poke their nose into hardcore science. Science knows how to progress and thatz why the world is where it is today. I don’t expect people to understand the scientific process but I expect people to keep the “ignorance of individuals” away from science. Just because someone got to hobnob with Martha Stewart in a scifoo meeting doesn’t give the person right to talk nonsense about how science should be done. Lemme quote a paragraph from his article which clearly shows his ignorance about how science is done in the universities.

Academic efforts are usually well encapsulated, for instance. Scientists don’t publish until they are ready, but publish they must. So science as it is already practiced is open, but in a punctuated way, not a continuous way. The interval of nonopenness—the time before publication—functions like the walls of a cell. It allows a complicated stream of elements to be defined well enough to be explored, tested, and then improved.

Lemme explain here about what happens inside the walls of science laboratories. As a person who has spend 8 years doing physics in academia and someone who is still involved in academia due to some personal reasons, I can talk with clarity. There is some amount of secrecy today among certain groups in the scientific community but it is a recent phenomena. Partly, it is due to the competition for patents started off by companies in areas like chemistry and biology. This has spilled over to other branches of sciences too. If you start looking at the golden period of physics when people like Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, etc. were hobnobbing with each other to even the later periods of Feynman, Murray Gellman, etc., you will understand that science was done in a perfectly open source approach. Unlike what Mr. Lanier portrays, science was not done in bursts of secrecy. He calls the period between start of a research project to the publication of the results/findings in a scientific journal as a period of secrecy. I am pretty convinced that he has never participated in a scientific research project. Anyone with a background in science know about the level of communication that happens between scientists from around the world using letters (now email), telephone calls, discussions during conferences, even visits to other universities/institutes for discussion, etc.. All these communications takes place without the need for any kind of NDAs. If the approach of scientists during the so called period of silence was anywhere close to what Apple, Microsoft or Google do, they wouldn’t have conversed with fellow scientists in their field (including their competitors). Even in the 1990s, when I was doing science, I have done the same thing. This approach continues even today in most of the scientific community. Such actions by scientists is what we, in the software field, call as open source approach. In fact, this kinda sharing takes place even during the current day ultra competitive environment with companies in the scientific mix. Another point which he is quoting but failing to understand about the scientific process is that all the scientists in academia publish their research in scientific journals. Anyone, in any part of the world, can build on the published work, make modifications to the published experimental methods, extend the models, etc. This is open source approach.

I strongly suggest that Mr. Lanier should go around marketing Iphone and leave science to people who are capable of doing it. Science is better off without such nonsense. Open Source has done remarkably well by shifting the whole marketplace towards another era. Ignorance of an individual cannot demolish the wisdom of the crowds. Period.

I am going to write a series on Facebook-Scoble fiasco. Scoble has an issue with facebook on a personal level (his account got disabled and he was on the verge of losing all his social data) but I have an issue on a more philosophical level. There are so many misconceptions about the issue and I have tried to convince people of their misconceptions on twitter and also on some blogs. I thought I will take each and every point offered in support of facebook and discuss it here. I will try my best to publish my first post by tonite. If not, I assure you that it will be up tomorrow. In a way, I am upset about Robert Scoble losing his account but this is much more than one person getting kicked by some company. It is more about a philosophy and this is an opportunity for me to create an awareness about a fundamental right of each and every user in this world. I will be back soon with my first post.

During Scoble’s early days of facebook evangelism, I voiced my concern about data being locked up inside the walled gardens of facebook (in one of his kyte.tv sessions). At that time, he said he doesn’t care about getting struck inside a walled garden. I wanted to argue with him about the consequences of such a thinking but didn’t do it for some reason. Later, probably due to the influence of people like Marc Canter, he started embracing the notion of open standards. He even signed the Bill of Rights for Social Networks. I wrote about Scoble’s change of heart in a positive direction sometime during Sept. 2007. Today, his facebook account is disabled because he tried to take his own data with him. I am pretty sure he has fully understood why I tried to convince him long back about data portability. I am sure he has understood how dangerous it is to put the data behind a walled garden. Now, I am calling on him to become the champion of data portability in social networks. He has a huge following and he can use his position to create an awareness about the dangers of having your data behind walled gardens and the importance of data portability. If he takes up this call, he can get back at facebook, by forcing them to change their ways because of pressure from the users (remember beacon?) and he will also get a satisfaction that he played a role in creating a civilized world where users are empowered rather than greedy companies. Will you be the champion for openness, Robert?

Today Google announced their new project, Google Knol. Their idea is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. My first take on Google Knol is

If it is done correctly, it might kick the butt of Mahalo and if it is done wrong, it will add splog kinda pages messing up the search results

Before we I explain my reasoning, let us take a look at the two other competing projects, Wikipedia and Mahalo. In the case of Wikipedia, the collective wisdom of crowds are used to develop “authoritative” pages on different topics. Mahalo tries to become a “better” search engine by using a small group of paid employees and tipped “volunteers” to write search result pages which can be considered as “authoritative” collection of information on certain topics. Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, is planning to develop a search engine which will also put the “wisdom of crowds” to good use. I am pretty convinced that Mahalo cannot be a Google beater. Only an algorithmic search engine can solve the world’s search problems. I still stand by it. Mahalo kinda products can only add a layer of filtering to algorithmic engines. They cannot replace them. I am not sure what Jimmy Wales is going to do with his project but I am pretty convinced that it can only succeed if there is an algorithmic engine at the center with the “wisdom of crowds” offering a filtering layer. I have listed down my reasons to justify these arguments already, in the post criticizing punditry about Mahalo overthrowing Google. Also, if Jimmy Wales’ project takes off and gets a following like Wikipedia, then their filtering of algorithmic search results will be far superior than Mahalo’s results because of the sheer number of volunteers lending their “brain’s processing power” for Wales’ project.

Letz get back to the discussion about Google Knol. The knols on different topics are meant to be the first thing someone who searches for a topic for the first time will want to read. Now, Wikipedia plays this role in Google searches. Google is expecting their knols to replace Wikipedia in the search results. This has started a discussion in the blogosphere about the demise of Wikipedia. Any such talk is premature. The big differentiator between Wikipedia articles and Knol is that Wikipedia has one (well, in most cases) article on a single topic which is edited and tweaked by the “wisdom of crowds” whereas Knol gives an option for anyone and everyone to write a separate article on any  particular topic. For example, a topic like evolution could have thousands of articles offering two entirely opposing views, thereby confusing the readers. There is no “collective” wisdom to weed out the nonsense from sense. Thus Google’s Knol project lacks the “authoritativeness” of Wikipedia. This requires Google to come up with another algorithm that can rank the Knols on the same topic based on rating, comments, etc. Such a system is also a good breeding ground for another SEO like cottage industry. This is where my statements about “Google doing right or wrong in Knol” assumes significance. We have to wait for this project to become mainstream before we can know if it is going to work or not. Google has a very difficult job of bringing in “authoritativeness” in these Knols, in a totally unbiased manner. It is not an easy task. There are way too many topics where it will be difficult to establish the “authoritativeness”, when there are hundreds or thousands of articles on the same topic. It is easily done in the case of Wikipedia where the wisdom of crowds is applied to a single article. However, if Google manage to get it right, they are going to have a pretty neat system that will augment well for their search results. If Google has “good” search results as a result of Knols, Mahalo loses the meaning of its existence, unless they shift gears to offer something else along with their search results. If Google messes up, Jason Calacanis’ criticism of increased spam in Google search results will get amplified. We have to reserve our judgment on Google Knol till it used in a widespread manner and becomes part of mainstream search experience. But we can be sure that it is definitely not a Wikipedia killer.

Now you can import/export your Open Office docs to Google Docs. Pundits were predicting a marriage between Open Office and Google’s office suite ever since Google and Sun announced their partnership two years back. Well, we haven’t seen any marriage yet but there is an Open Office Plugin which will let you import/export from Google Docs and Docs at Google Apps for Domains. This is pretty neat and now I can work on a document when I am offline and export it whenever I get back online.

PS: If you are a Linux user, you may want to check out these workarounds.

Technorati Tags: OpenOffice, GoogleDocs, GoogleApps

When Google announced Open Handset Alliance and the release of Android SDK under open source license, I was pretty excited. In fact, few people like Robert Scoble even questioned my excitement during a twitter conversation. Some of the arguments put forward by pundits against my excitement towards Google’s strategy were

• Android is boring and the phone features are not enthralling
• The device is not out. It is just a PR blitz
• It is Google’s attempt to get monopoly
• Certain ridiculous assertions like it is a security nightmare
• Certain sensible apprehensions like “Android is not released under GPL but Apache software license and network carriers can still maintain their walled gardens”

To all those who were skeptical about Google’s open wireless strategy, I had argued that it is a welcome move, even if their skepticisms turns out to be true. It was my hope that an open source kinda approach is the only way we can break the monopolies of the giant wireless carriers. The open source approach put a dent on the Microsoft monopoly, even in the not so competitive areas like desktop software. Also, the open source revolution moved the industry from its dark ages to the current Web 2.0+ era, where the market place is opened up so much that new players are emerging every day. It was my hope that if the open philosophy is introduced into the wireless market place, the free markets will then take care of everything else and we will easily move into an open standards based wireless world. Google’s Android effort just did that. It brought in the concept of openness to the marketplace. Now only a more and more open approach can survive the free markets. Today’s announcement by Verizon just proves this philosophy. Now, the competition will drive more and more openness and we will soon have an open standards based wireless marketplace, empowering the consumers.

Some people are more worried about the lost subsidies from the wireless carriers for the handset. This is an unwarranted skepticism. Open source mobile software like Android and mobile linux software will drive down the costs of the handsets. Heavy competition among the handset makers will also drive down the prices. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a decent handset for $25 (I have seen $35-40 handsets in India when I visited the country few months back). In fact, even a sophisticated handset offering capabilities equivalent to a low end windows mobile phone might just cost around hundred dollars. I wouldn’t subscribe to any FUDs regarding high handset prices. I am pretty convinced that it is just a matter of time before we are bombarded with low cost handsets. Low cost handsets with complete freedom to choose any network and install any applications is the ultimate empowerment of consumers. When it happens, we will turn back and thank Google for the first step taken in this direction.

The best quote I have seen about Google’s mobile initiative comes from Forrester Analyst Charles Golvin through GigaOM

The impact is broad across all players in the mobile environment, driving innovative developers to craft new applications that leverage both the mobile networks and the Internet, and helping to change the way consumers behave when on the go. Google is far from the only beneficiary, as competitors like Yahoo (YHOO) and even Microsoft (MSFT) stand to benefit should they embrace this approach; the impact will build slowly over time as initially the devices using this platform will form a very small percentage of the market.

I would extend the same quote to Google’s Open Social initiative too. We are seeing pundits wondering about the lack of any open social apps or user experience. In order to really feel the impact of open social, we may have to wait for quite a long time. It will slowly build over various social networks and eventually into the user’s psyche.

PS: Please don’t get me wrong on my posts. I am not supportive of any of Google’s business strategies. I am only supporting their efforts to open up both the social networking world and the mobile world. These two strategies are going to be the first step towards achieving a future based on open standards.

Josh Catone has written a post on RWW titled “Why facebook shouldn’t fear open social“. His arguments run as follows (roughly).

• Users are what make social networks go.
• Things like open APIs and data portability and cross network compatibility excite pundits and developers, but most users care for only two things: a good experience (apps can certainly help here) and to be where their friends are.

He develops his story based on these two premises. I do agree with him that users are important part of social networks. Without users, the term social has absolutely no meaning. However, he tries to portray as if users don’t care about open APIs and data portability and they only care about user experience. I do not agree with his argument. His post is similar to the arguments put forward by supporters of Microsoft Windows OS against open source. Users may not care about portability of apps across various social networks. But they do worry about the portability of data from one network to another. It is very important for people to realize that an open standards based approach is not a business model. It is about freedom offered to users of the software/service. If pundits are getting excited, it is not because Google has come up with a business strategy to beat up facebook but due to the fact that some company has taken the first step towards open standards and, thereby, empowering the users. If Google uses this to whip up facebook, it is not a problem of the users. The important thing for users is the portability of their data. The way to achieve portability of data is by adapting open standards. This first step towards the open standards by Google is what makes this announcement important than user experience or anything else. Any experience of the user with a software or a service becomes totally meaningless if their fruits of the labor (time spent on the software/service) are held hostage by the company offering the software/service. Letz say I go to a brewery near my house to socialize with people. Suppose if the brewery says that I can only talk to those people inside the brewery and nowhere else because the beer in that brewery gives me enough kick to socialize with them, does it make any sense? No. Same is the case with social networking sites that tells the users that they can only have their social graph inside their site and nowhere else. In the case of brewery, the beer could enhance my social experience but the brewery cannot tell me that I can only socialize with my friends drinking only that particular beer and in their bar. I have the complete freedom to take my friends wherever I like in whatever way I want. It is this freedom that gives me the ultimate experience in my social life. If a particular beer in another hangout makes me sick, I should be the one to determine where I should take my friends next time. The freedom should be in the hands of users and this freedom is the best user experience anyone can ever have. Any argument that puts any other “user experience” over this freedom is plain “Microsoft talk” and nothing else. Josh, users might stay with facebook because their friends are still with facebook. But it is not permanent. The cost of switching from one social network to another is zero. Under such a scenario, it just takes one trigger to move the users from one social networking system to another. It is in the interest of facebook that they should embrace open standards. It is not necessary that they have to embrace open social. In fact, I would be more than happy if they can open up much further than open social that it looks like a walled garden. The bottom line is they need to open up if they want to stay competitive. They need to empower the users and allow them to control their data, if they really want to be the company of the future. Any attempts to discredit the opening up of standards is pure “Microsoft talk” and it is time to wake up to a reality where users are in control of their information than the company hosting it. We have moved from dark ages into a more civil society where open standards are the way of life. If data portability is built into the platform, developing a great user experience is just a child’s play.

Tags: ReadWriteWeb, Josh Catone, Facebook, Open Social, Social Networks, Social Networking