We 'Umbly Petition...

One of the novel options for companies introduced by open source is to release moribund apps in the hope that they might come to life again as free software. The two prime examples of this are Netscape Navigator, which begat Mozilla, which begat Firefox (somewhat painfully, it has to be said), and Blender, which begat, well, Blender.

Now those open sourcers are at it again, egging on the company MainConcept to turn over its unwanted MainActor video editing software to The People. Here's a petition for the same:

we, Open Source enthusiasts and non-linear editors, ask that MainConcept release most source code (if not all) of MainActor as Open Source so that the community can continue to support and improve it.

And who knew there was a self-styled group of "non-linear editors"? (Via PenguinWay.)

Signs of Eclipse

Microsoft never gives ought for nought. Few remember that originally you had to pay for Internet Explorer, which formed part of something called Windows Plus; it was only when beating Netscape Navigator became a priority that Internet Explorer suddenly became an indissoluble part of Windows that could never be removed without destroying the whole system (funny that I remembering uninstalling it without causing any global chaos).

So the news that Microsoft is making Visual Studio Express free begs the question: why? Since we can discount the theory that Steve Ballmer has become a closet communist, we might suspect that there is a competitive reason. Surely it couldn't be because that funny old Eclipse project is beginning to, well, eclipse Microsoft's own offerings among the "18 million recreational and hobbyist developers" that the press release mentions by the by?

Privacy Policy

As part of my exploration of Google, I've signed up for Google Analytics. This means that these pages now collect some anonymous traffic data - nothing personal. For the same reason, the site will ask whether it can set a cookie (one of Netscape's more enduring legacies). If you don't want one on your computer, just refuse: it won't make any difference to your access.

Splog in a Box?

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away - well, in California, about 1994 - O'Reilly came out with something called "Internet in a Box". This wasn't quite the entire global interconnect of all networks in a handy cardboard container, but rather a kind of starter kit for Web newbies - and bear in mind that in those days, the only person who was not a newbie was Tim (not O'Reilly, the other one).

Two components of O'Reilly's Internet in a Box were particularly innovative. One was Spry Mosaic, a commercial version of the early graphical Web browser Mosaic that arguably began the process of turning the Web into a mass medium. Mosaic had two important offspring: Netscape Navigator, created by some of the original Mosaic team, and its nemesis, Internet Explorer. In fact, if you choose the "About Internet Explorer" option on the Help menu of any version of Microsoft's browser, you will see to this day the surprising words:

Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.

So much for Bill Gates inventing the Internet....

The other novel component of "Internet in a Box" was the Global Network Navigator. This was practically the first commercial Web site, and certainly the first portal: it was actually launched before Mosaic 1.0, in August 1993. Unfortunately, this pioneering site was later sold to AOL, where it sank without trace (as most pioneers do when they are sold to AOL: anybody remember the amazing Internet search company WAIS? No, I thought not.)

Given this weight of history, it seems rather fitting that something called Boxxet should be announced at the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, currently running in San Diego. New Scientist has the details:

A new tool offers to create websites on any subject, allowing web surfers to sit back, relax and watch a virtual space automatically fill up with relevant news stories, blog posts, maps and photos.

The website asks its users to come up with any subject they are interested in, such as a TV show, sports team or news topic, and to submit links to their five favourite news articles, blogs or photos on that subject. Working only from this data, the site then automatically creates a webpage on that topic, known as a Boxxet. The name derives from “box set”, which refers to a complete set CDs or DVDs from the same band or TV show.

As this indicates, Boxxet is a kind of instant blog - just add favourite links and water. It seems the perfect solution for a world where people are so crushed by ennui that most bloggers can't even be bothered posting for more than a few weeks. Luckily, that's what we have technology for: to spare us all those tiresome activities like posting to blogs, walking to the shops or changing television channels by getting up and doing it manually.

It's certainly a clever idea. But I just can't see myself going for this Blog in a Box approach. Perhaps I over-rate the specialness of my merely human blogging powers; perhaps I just need to wait until the Singularity arrives in a few years time, and computers are able to produce trans-humanly perfect blogs.

What I can see - alas - are several million spammers rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of a completely automatic way of generating spurious, self-updating blogs. Not so much Blog in a Box as Splog in a Box.

Mozilla Dot Party 2.0

For me, one of the most exciting chapters of Rebel Code to write was that called, rather enigmatically, "Mozilla Dot Party", which described the genesis of the open source browser Mozilla.

Thanks to the extensive historical records in the form of Usenet posts, I already had a pretty good idea where GNU/Linux came from, but the reasons behind the dramatic decision of Netscape - the archetypal Web 1.0 company - to release its crown jewels, the code for its browser Navigator, as open source, were as mysterious as they were fascinating (at least insofar as they went beyond blind despair). So the chance to talk with some of the key people like Eric Hahn and Frank Hecker, who made that happen, and to begin to put the Mozilla story together for the first time was truly a privilege.

But it was only the start of the story. My chapter finished in April 1999, at the point where another key actor in the story, Jamie Zawinski, had resigned from Netscape, despairing of ever seeing a viable browser ship. (Parenthetically, his self-proclaimed "gruntle" and blog are some of the most entertaining geek writing out there. His "nomo zilla" forms the basis for the closing pages of my Mozilla chapter.)

What I didn't know at the time was that Mozilla would eventually ship that browser, and that from the original Mozilla would arise something even more important for the world of free software: Firefox. Unlke Mozilla, which was always rather a worthy also-ran - fiercely loved by its fans, but largely ignored by the vast majority of Net users - Firefox showed that open source could be both cool and populist.

Given this background, I was therefore delighted to come across (via Slashdot) chapter 2 of the story in the form of a fascinating entry in the blog of Ben Goodger, the lead engineer of Firefox. What is particularly satifying is that he begins it in early 1999 - at precisely the moment that mine stops. Is that art or what?

Birth of a Meme

First there was Flickr, now there is Flagr (via Jack Schofield): do I detect a trend here?

Is this a new -thon (telethon, walkathon, singathon etc.) of the online world? Could attaching the -r suffix to words be the Web 2.0 equivalent of all those Web 1.0 companies whose names began relentlessly with the prefix Net, from Netscape on?

Update: Jack Schofield has pointed that there is also Flockr, and we also have PICTR: any others?

Yahoo! Gets Del.icio.us

The only suprising thing about Yahoo's acquisition of del.icio.us is that Yahoo got there before Google.

The three-way battle between Microsoft, Google and Yahoo for dominance hinges on who can colonise the Web 2.0 space first. Google seemed to be ahead, with its steady roll-out of services like Gmail (albeit in beta) and purchase of Blogger and Picasa. But Yahoo is coming on strongly: now that it has both Flickr and del.icio.us it has started to catch up fast.

The dark horse, as ever is Microsoft: its recent announcement of Windows and Office Live show that it does not intend to be left behind. But unlike its previous spurts to overtake early leaders like Netscape, this one requires something more profound than mere technical savvy or marketing might.

Web 2.0 has at its heart sharing and openness (think blogs, Flickr, del.icio.us etc.). For Microsoft to succeed, it needs to embrace a philosophy which is essentially antithetical to everything it has done in its history. Bill Gates is a brilliant manager, and he has many thousands of very clever people working for him, but this may not be enough. Even as it tries to demonstrate "openness" - through SharedSource, or "opening" its Office XML formats - the limits of Microsoft's ability fully to embrace openness become clearer. But that is the point about being real open: it is all or nothing.

The question is not so much whether Microsoft will ever get it - everything in its corporate DNA says it won't - but whether Google and Yahoo will. In this sense, Web 2.0 is theirs to lose, rather than for Microsoft to win.