Nanoblog

Open Source Distilled - err at least this is what I think at the moment

·        The Internet has changed everything. Accept it.

o     Massive Connectivity is changing the way people engage and approach everything. Including business.

·        Open Source is not (in and of itself) about

o     Community

o     Intellectual Property

o     Commoditization

o     A business model (services versus product)

o     Openness

o     Standards

o     Vendor lock in

o     Choice

o     Quality

·        Good Open Source has all of these attributes but none of them define what open source IS. Open source is just a specialization of a larger movement initiated by the birth of the Internet.

(The telegraph, railroad, air travel, mail, phone, and electric systems etc all part of the pie but it is reasonable to say the internet is the birth of a new era)

·        The Internet creates connectivity, availability of resource and freedom to leverage and do.

o     The world is adapting to, and assimilating with this. Your kids are more assimilated now then you will ever be – it’s a natural thing – and a reality.  There are those who understand and those who do not.  There are those who can accept and those who cannot. There is a difference between understanding and accepting.

§        We resist emotionally

§        We resist philosophically

·        The Internet is only the beginning.  Technology and connectivity have been growing steadily but the shape of the curve is about to change. This point is stated (rather dramatically) in “The Singularity”.

o     Today’s Internet is accomplishing much – for such a weak solution.

o     Modest improvements would yield incredible growth – semantic web.

o     The Internet as we know it is weak and temporal. The freedom and opportunity it creates is real and permanent.

Back to open source.  Open source will be as successful as much as those involved recognize what is going on.  What defines the success of open source?  That’s not easy to say.  One measure is obviously success in the commercial world.  Its not the only measure.

Commercialism is great. Serve more then your own interests.  You are temporal. Your effects can be long lasting. Businesses will have to adapt and embrace the way people are changing and engaging or go extinct. Some open source companies get this. Some don’t.

If Open source doesn’t change the way we think about business then it is a waste of our time.

The crossroads of mediocrity and greatness

If open source isn’t changing the way we think about business then we are wasting our time. We are in business. We should be thinking about business. How can my business better serve my customers, my community, my planet, etc? How can I better serve my business in its mission to serve? When we look for ways to better serve and do business, whether we like to admit it or not we often find ourselves chasing after small potatoes, in pursuit of greatness, achieving mediocrity. “Staining out gnats and swallowing camels (Mat 23:24)”. I am not saying that open source is a gnat; by all means it should not be. Camel or gnat: ideology and wishful thinking will not define this; performance will. Business owners beware. How you approach open source will dictate the constitution of the impact open source makes on your business. I contend that open source applied to traditional business approaches will cost more then it is worth.

 

ERP, .com, and Open Source – rubber bullets

Is there a silver bullet to the application of OS? No, of course not; there is no such thing as a silver bullet (outside of the movies and beer commercials). Make no mistake, there are businesses looking for the elusive silver bullet. There are quacks and matchstick men that willing to sell these organizations exactly what they want (to hear). If we are honest with ourselves we can admit that we are all generally pain adverse and for many of us it is better to believe in a lie for the short time it provides relief. If you think open source is going to solve your problems simply for the fact that is open source and appears to be with in your price range; you can’t afford it. If you fall in to this category, the way in which open source may impact the way you think about business is generally that you will have learned (through much pain) that there are no silver bullets. It is likely, like many of us, you have tasted this bitter lesson before, and you may taste it yet again.

 

Sigh – What the heck is open source?

Some see open source as the marketing strategy of the moment. These are the folks who dump IP on a service like SourceForge and declare they are open source. We wish you luck. When you rely on “cheap” marketing to sell your product it is likely that you don’t have a product which truly serves your customers, your community, your planet; it serves only you. You add no value.  It is unlikely that a company could really exist on this approach and for those that can  we hope you have made / stolen the money you need to survive after your quackery is exposed. Dishonesty is not a sustainable model.

 

One question I ask myself time and time again is “what is open source?” Is open source about software, about IP, about community, about choices, about commoditization, about freedom (love, and liberty), about a focus on services rather then product, about catching more flies with honey then with vinegar?

Is open source about software, about IP?

Sun Microsystems is showing the world that open source, defined or not, is a concept which can be applied outside the realm of software. Sun is quick to admit it gets open source, but they are not saying what it is that they get about open source: and yes … they get it.

 

Is open source about community?

Of course you need community, but community doesn’t make open source. Oracle has OTN, Microsoft has MSDN, and Digital had DEC-Net. Community is necessary for open source but it doesn’t make open source.

 

Is open source about choices and commoditization?

Of course open source creates choices, and hastens commoditization. Are we really excited about something which is nothing more then a catalyst for the inevitable? If such is the case we are “swallowing camels...”

 

Is open source about freedom?

If open source is about freedom (as in free love) then it has a limited scope in business. No respectable CxO expects to get something for nothing. They are business men! They don’t expect to give something for nothing.  They don’t expect open source to give something for nothing either. If open source is about freedom (as in liberty); then great … as long as that liberty can be leveraged to increase business.   Liberty for the sake of liberty can remain on the roster of drunken late-night fraternity discussions along with Zeno's conundrum.

 

Is open source about a focus on services?

If open source means only that we focus on services rather then product for generation of revenue then the question becomes motive. Why would anyone give up a revenue stream? Of course they would, if giving it up meant more revenue. If you think commoditization, and increased customer options is the key to selling services then I ask only how long is it until your services are sidelined by another competitor?

 

There companies which view open source as a way to show case product via an open source community version with the intention to up-sell them an enterprise grade product. These companies are attempting to “catch more flies with honey then with vinegar”.  They are using open source as a carrot. These companies are leveraging open source. They are building a support structure that they don’t pay for. They are encouraging further development outside of their own. This is a sound approach. It certainly works (MySQL, SugarCRM, GreenPlum, Alfresco), are proving this. The bottom line is that the honey is bitter sweet to the community. Many of these organizations are in total control of what is considered for inclusion in the product (not the community). The company tends to come across as a benevolent organization and not a whole lot more. These companies see how open source can be used to generate / increase business. They get open source … sort of.

Don’t feel bad when others “Exploit” Open Source

Don’t feel bad when others “exploit” open source. Don’t be afraid to “exploit” open source. Businesses exist largely to make money. I am of the firm belief that businesses should exist for much more noble pursuits, revenue being the means to an end, but that’s me. The companies who have found a way to give to the community and leverage the community as a mechanism for generating / increasing business should be applauded. I firmly believe that if open source were only about freedom then no one would be able to make a dime on it, and it would remain in the realm of the bored and curious.

Open Source that makes a difference means Change in the way we think about business.

 

The companies that get open source are making money because of open source. There seem to be two fundamental approaches in play (with a many of variations / combinations).

• Community      / Professional Versions (SugarCRM, Alfresco, MySQL, Redhat, etc)
• Services      (Jboss, Liferay, Alfresco, MySql, Redhat)

 

There is endless debate about whether a company should only sell services versus sell a professional version (which includes non community code). I don’t see either of these two approaches or their blends as a problem. I think they may both indicate that traditional business approaches are being applied to open source. The issue is not that these companies will not make a profit; it’s that they are not going to make the kind of profit as the companies that are breaking the mold.

 

When an organization releases all of its IP and makes its revenues on services, it is not a given that gets open source. In deed, it may indicate that it doesn’t understand business because they are giving up sales revenue! As an OS Business -- you release 100% or your IP, it’s because it makes business sense to do so! This is likely because you realize the IP is not what is going to generate the most business.

 

When an organization uses open source as a carrot intended to up sell enterprise customers it may indicate that they do not understand open source. They understand it as leverage but not LEVERAGE!

 

The question is not whether to sell product, services, etc. This is a red herring! Companies that get open source realize the following:

 

Open Source is the STICK (CROP) not the CARROT!

 

IBM and Sun Microsystems have made this discovery and laid it out for the rest of us in plain sight. Seeing; we see not!

 

Focusing on the carrot is straining at gnats and swallowing camels. IBM has given away flag ship products and IP. In return it enjoys the benefit of huge services revenue and increased adoption of other flagship products.  IBM enjoys the comfort of sitting on almost every major standard initiative. They are in control, lashing away with the crop while you chase the carrot. IBM raised itself from the dead through this discovery.

 

Sun Microsystems recently released a new chip design to open source. It is not enough to commend the genius of this design. Take a processor that works, recognize that the floating point functionality is a waste of power, cycles and money for nonscientific computing and simply do away with it resulting in a blazingly faster processor that consumes less power (half) and costs less. Obviously, engineers and business people should learn a valuable lesson concerning complexity. Sun is thinking outside of the box in terms of hardware and business. By putting the new architecture in the public domain Sun is opening up business opportunities with fabrication facilities on off shore locations that may not be practical or even legally available to them under a traditional model.

Sun has shunned the carrot and taken up the crop.

 

For those companies which are truly willing to lay their models "on the altar" and change in their hearts, open source is working wonders. The rest of us are eating the scraps from the masters table or traveling down the path of self deception and destruction.

Enterprise Architecture

Not blowing up on the launch pad

There is no doubt in my mind that the subject of enterprise architecture is important, relevant and necessary, but there are a few cultural things that can threaten EA efforts right on the launching pad.

• Enterprise architecture must be made and kept practical. There is nothing impressive about a subject which is a mystery to your coworkers. If they cannot understand the subject or cannot see the practicality of the effort, there is no way they can help with or have the incentive for furthering the cause.  Enterprise architecture is practical because it effects everything it involves (including the people) directly on a day to day basis [see Enterprise Architecture Distilled].  Demystify EA, and keep it practical.

• Enterprise architecture has almost nothing to do with technology. The fact that this  point is generally misunderstood is one of  leading  reasons that EA efforts fail. Most EA efforts are started by IT departments. This is natural because IT tends to feel a lot of pressure for business investments in technology to deliver on things like integration with existing systems.  In order to deliver IT finds itself asking EA related question because IT EA is only one specialized abstraction removed.  The problem with IT attempting to decipher the EA is that, as members of IT, we tend to be technologists who eat, sleep and breathe technology. This mind set has two dangerous effects: first, we spend a lot of time thinking about this or that technological solution, and less time think about the true business concerns (from a business perspective). Second, many of us cannot remove ourself from world of acronyms, buzz words (like “Enterprise Architecture”), and techspeach which doesn’t mean much or anything to the business outside the IT department. More often then not IT staff is ill equipped to  effectively communicate; rendering the effort void. When working with enterprise architecture, take off your technocratic hat. Enterprise architecture has to do with systems (automated and manual) not technology per se.

Enterprise architecture distilled

What does enterprise architecture mean? Well, let’s concern ourselves with the first word first (makes so much sense). John Zachman [the father of EA] can be quoted as saying “The system doesn’t merely support the enterprise, the system IS the enterprise“. The enterprise is composed of the systems in its domain.

 

Architecture is the practice of design.

If you translate system(s) to mean the people, processes, procedures, and assets/information, then enterprise architecture can be distilled as:

Enterprise architecture is the design [model] of the people, processes, procedures, and assets/information [system(s)] within a domain.

 

This definition gives some insight into the magnitude of enterprise architecture, but it does not overtly justify it. In many cases today, systems are defined in vacuums. We have been building enterprises this way since the beginning, why change now?

 

Technology is the latent catalyst for this change. I know that in the beginning of this article I said EA has almost nothing to do with technology, and it doesn’t. However, EA has to do with systems and as time elapses more and more of our systems are implemented with technology.  As technology gains traction as the implementation of choice, and as it grows in capability its role in terms of the enterprise is changing.  When technology began to take it's place in the business space, it was used to support business and foster local efficiencies.  Today the role of technology in the enterprise is fundamental,  and deeply en-grained.  In many ways technology does not support the business; it is the business (you are what you eat?).

With today's technology comes capability and expectation. Businesses invest huge amounts of money in IT systems hoping that technology will deliver on its promises. When these investments fall short on their promises, business wants to know why. Technology, more then other implementations is subject to entropy, yet it offers the greatest potential. Entropy cannot be stopped; it is a fact of technology. Businesses have been looking to harvest the great potential of technology, while underestimating the effort required to fight it's entropy.  The miscalculation is likely due to the fact that we have never experienced the kind of grow we have with technology, and we have not yet come to terms with the fact that it now plays a major role in the foundational space of or enterprise. Strategy is the slowing agent in terms of entropy, and the lever when it comes to realizing the promises technology has to offer.

 

Technology is not the reason to model your enterprise. Technology is only the implementation. Even a pen and paper business would do well to model their business. Models enable us to create strategies for tomorrow and tactics for today.

As the demand for greater integration, higher efficiency, and lower cost continues to accelerate it is impossible to design in local vacuums of concern and still deliver the goods. Know that these demands will never decrease; a business that can not navigate these absolute requirements will not be able to survive as the information age progresses.

What is in our way?

Enterprise architecture efforts have many things that seem to impede them.

• We never did it before, why start now?
• We don’t know how to do it.
• Once we get started, we see how difficult it is.

What is in our way; is us. What we stand to loose by impeding ourselves is practical, sane business practice, and competitive advantage.

 

Technology holds the key to leverage. To understand technology as the key to leverage, one must consider how it's role has changed in the enterprise since the dawn of the information age. We no longer simply use technology for localized improvement of a particulare process or domain (which has only a linear effect in terms of growth), we now rely on technology in such a way that it has the capability to radically effect global phenomena within the organization, it's impact is geometric, and thus paramount.  However, the promises of technology will always fall short without proper vision and planning (architecture). If a business fails to see this, they will, in this information age, cease to be a business. The sooner a business can come to the realization that it must model itself and begin to holistically plan; the more competitive advantage it will have. This is a simple issue of pay now or pay later (if your business is around later). The longer you wait to get involved in enterprise architecture, the more it will “cost” when you finally do.

Enterprise modeling

The purpose of modeling your enterprise is to gain an understanding of the current state of the enterprise. Once the current state is understood, target states (strategies) can be derived. Models/enterprise artifacts are the requisite tools for success.

Enterprise models need to be multi-dimensional. They need answer a number of basic yet important questions in relation, and in parallel with other simular questions. These questions are the kinds of questions you learned about in grade school: Who, What, Where, When, Why, How. All of them; so simple, yet we often fail to ask them in conjunction with each other (let alone capture them in a model).

 

There are many approaches to the creation of enterprise artifacts, but no standards. Some of the approaches (e.g. Zachman Framework) are more comprehensive then others. Be as comprehensive as possible, stay relevant.

Who should be involved in EA

While EA movements often have their origin in IT departments, IT is not the place where EA should take place. This is largely because technology is implementation and has nothing to do with actual EA. Enterprise architecture is a business concern and should be carried out by business folks (enterprise architects). Enterprise architecture has a cultural impact and it should. EA is of a scope and nature that has a profound impact on the strategic maneuvers of an organization and thus has implications in terms of the distribution of "power" within an organization.  Enterprise architecture efforts need to have a vast amount of visibility into an organization and should be solidly vetted by top level management.  Changes to the system(s) [the enterprise] should go through, and be granted permits by the EA staff.

That being said, technology is the implementation, and there is no getting around the fact that technology is a major player. IT should have a representative on the EA steering committee.   

Enterprise Architects

Enterprise architects are responsible to facilitate the creation of enterprise models. The work of the EA architect at the highest level is purely conceptual and model based.  This is a space is a completely solution agnostic domain. In the information age the best candidates for architects are multi disciplined (Business domain / IT Architect) professionals. In reality enterprise architecture is a cultural animal.  Architects and EA related staff are not the wielders of a silver bullet gun, but coaches; empowered to help further a culture that has profound, positive impact on an organizations ability to operate strategically.  The enterprise represents all that it effects, and all should be involved [EA as a soft skill].

 

One level down involves high level solution archetypes. Solutions remain agnostic to implementation but are defined as high level solution strategies. Assuming that systems will generally be implemented with technology, IT architects play heavily in this space.

•  High level application approach

•  Integration strategy

•  Persistence strategy

•  Physical approach

 

References

John Zachman – ZIFA (Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement)
Naor Pinto and Jim Bowen -  for their feedback and consideration