Beyond the Code
or, how to win friends, influence people and make a living by writing open source software. It's not just about the code.
Follow me on Twitter as @jonobennett.
Monday 23 February 2009, 9:02 PM
Poles Apart
The Polish government appears to have watered down a law currently passing through the country's parliament, dropping a requirement for public sector IT projects to conform to open standards. Reports suggest that the Information Technology Development Act has had a clause removed that mandated open standards in its latest draft. The astonishing thing is that this appears to have been done "since any demand to use only open standards restricts a free market".
This couldn't be further from the truth -- that open standards create and nurture free markets. They're what's necessary for a properly functioning market to exist.
We have an open standard in this country that everyone knows as the 13 Amp plug, less commonly known as BS 1363. It's how most static bits of electronic equipment (and the chargers for the mobile ones) get their power. It's been in place since 1947, and replaced an earlier open standard (BS 546). What this standard means is that you can buy any mains-powered appliance in any shop in the UK, and be sure that you can plug it in at home, and it will get electrical power at the right voltage, frequency, polarity and with the correct level of protection it needs.
What this means for competition is that you're able to choose a new TV, PC, printer, Hi-Fi or even a humble desk lamp based on its merits, not purely on whether it's compatible with the mains in your house. This levels the market, rather than restricting it. Sure, manufacturers have to design kit to accept 230V AC at 50Hz when 180V at 120Hz may have suited their design better, but as a result their market is the whole country, not just those with sockets able to supply their peculiar power requirements.
Governments are happy to impose "restrictions" like this on other markets -- there are open standards mandated in all sorts of industries -- but seem to think that IT is somehow different. They also seem to forget that they work for us, their electorate, and we don't want our public money spent on products which lock us into one vendor.
Open standards are the only way of ensuring true competition. I hope the Polish government doesn't let its people down by failing to require them.
This couldn't be further from the truth -- that open standards create and nurture free markets. They're what's necessary for a properly functioning market to exist.
We have an open standard in this country that everyone knows as the 13 Amp plug, less commonly known as BS 1363. It's how most static bits of electronic equipment (and the chargers for the mobile ones) get their power. It's been in place since 1947, and replaced an earlier open standard (BS 546). What this standard means is that you can buy any mains-powered appliance in any shop in the UK, and be sure that you can plug it in at home, and it will get electrical power at the right voltage, frequency, polarity and with the correct level of protection it needs.
What this means for competition is that you're able to choose a new TV, PC, printer, Hi-Fi or even a humble desk lamp based on its merits, not purely on whether it's compatible with the mains in your house. This levels the market, rather than restricting it. Sure, manufacturers have to design kit to accept 230V AC at 50Hz when 180V at 120Hz may have suited their design better, but as a result their market is the whole country, not just those with sockets able to supply their peculiar power requirements.
Governments are happy to impose "restrictions" like this on other markets -- there are open standards mandated in all sorts of industries -- but seem to think that IT is somehow different. They also seem to forget that they work for us, their electorate, and we don't want our public money spent on products which lock us into one vendor.
Open standards are the only way of ensuring true competition. I hope the Polish government doesn't let its people down by failing to require them.
Wednesday 11 February 2009, 12:14 PM
A good week for OpenStreetMap
It's quite an exciting time for the folks involved in OpenStreetMap (which includes me). On 5th Feburary an appeal was launched to raise £10,000 for a new server for the project. Seventy-two hours later that amount had been raised, in no small part due to Google donating half the total in one go. The donations have kept rolling in and more hardware is being added to the shopping list.
Next, Cloudmade, the startup company created by OSM founder Steve Coast and early OSMer Nick Black is holding its first launch events in San Francisco and London. Cloudmade takes the open OSM data and repackages it into commercial products. This benefits the project, because for Cloudmade's products to be competitive, it needs the dataset to be as complete and accurate as possible, and so has been funding efforts to fill the gaps in OSM's coverage by providing money for Mapping Parties.
There's also the acquisition of SiRF by Cambridge Silicon Radio. The SiRFStar III GPS chipset is one of the best on the market, providing accurate fixes in tricky conditions, and a rapid Time to First Fix. It's also not very expensive in volume. If accurate GPS receivers find their way into more devices -- CSR's products tend to integrate several technologies in one chip -- then more people will own a device capable of providing data to OSM.
While there are still plenty of gaps in OpenStreetMap, things are looking bright for open geodata.
Next, Cloudmade, the startup company created by OSM founder Steve Coast and early OSMer Nick Black is holding its first launch events in San Francisco and London. Cloudmade takes the open OSM data and repackages it into commercial products. This benefits the project, because for Cloudmade's products to be competitive, it needs the dataset to be as complete and accurate as possible, and so has been funding efforts to fill the gaps in OSM's coverage by providing money for Mapping Parties.
There's also the acquisition of SiRF by Cambridge Silicon Radio. The SiRFStar III GPS chipset is one of the best on the market, providing accurate fixes in tricky conditions, and a rapid Time to First Fix. It's also not very expensive in volume. If accurate GPS receivers find their way into more devices -- CSR's products tend to integrate several technologies in one chip -- then more people will own a device capable of providing data to OSM.
While there are still plenty of gaps in OpenStreetMap, things are looking bright for open geodata.
