An early morning start to Monday for Mike and I was well worth the effort to attend a 8am breakfast talk by Mark Shuttleworth (founder of the Ubuntu project, second space tourist and all round cool guy). In fact, I honestly felt priviledged at the opportunity to meet Mark in person and here his views on the world.
Mark started by introducing himself and the Ubuntu project. Explaining why the world needed Ubuntu and more importantly a Linux distribution which focuses on the end user experience and making desktop Linux a reality.
Mark also informed the group that the next release of Ubuntu, the Dapper Drake release would be an “enterprise ready” distro with ISV/Vendor certification from IBM, Oracle, VMWare to name a few. And most importantly, Mark was backing this release with a guarantee of 5 years of support and updates. $10 Million dollars had been specifically set aside to provide support over this period.
The next subsequent releases after Drake will revert back to 6 monthly release cycles and focus on integrating the “best of breed emerging” and stable technologies. That way, features will be made available to the end user providing a far superior experience and platform than the overly hyped “Microsoft Windows Vista”.
Mark challenged the group to consider changing from stale proprietary license models and to get on board with delivering support services, customisation and other value-added services for Linux and open source software. Proprietary software and licensing models are dead or dying.
A detailed discussion was held regarding open document standards, Open Office and the DRM features of Windows Vista / Office 12. Something I was not aware of, but apparently the Australian Government is having fits about the DRM techonologies in the new Microsoft software which will have a very real impact on government doing business with the “Bruce citizen” (ie. you & me) as well as permanent archival and retrieval. To cut a long story short: DRM bad. Open document format good double plus.
I asked Mark what he thought the opportunities were for ISV’s (like Agileware) with the release of Windows Vista. Hardware upgrades, user re-training, infrastructure upgrade roll-outs, license costs were but a few.
Office 12 has had substantial UI changes, since Microsoft is trying to distance themselves from the Open Office project. End result, users will require re-training. So which is easier? Re-train users in new Office 12? Or simply, start using Open Office which quite frankly looks just like MS Office today.
Attendance at the meeting was good, despite the short notice and was a mixture of government, contractors, ISV’s and SMB’s.
Thanks
A big thanks goes out to Pia Waugh and Linux Australia for organising the Mark Shuttleworth event. Hoo rah!
BLUG = Business Linux User Group
I took the opportunity to meet with the VP of Linux Australia - Pia Waugh. And we talked briefly about an idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while. That is, the formation of a Business Linux Users Group or BLUG for short. Very receptive to the idea as were a few others. So I’m hoping that I can get a few people on board and give the idea a spin, who knows where it may go.
So what the hell is BLUG I can hear you wondering. OK then, here’s the rough elevator pitch (imagine me waving my arms around fanatically as you read this):
Linux and open source are deliverying serious business solutions today and this is happening everywhere.
Here’s the problem. No one is talking about it, raising the awareness or sharing these stories. Or if they are it is limited to within the confines of their own organisation. And if a solution is implemented for a particularly hard problem, again is this shared? And even if they wanted to share this knowledge where would they do it?
Business people (ie. people working in all sectors: Private, Government, Health, Education, Not For Profit etc. enterprises) need a regular forum where these type of topics can be discussed, where business problems and solutions can be discussed. And where the challenges of open source in business today can be thrashed out. It will be a open and *inclusive* forum for end users, implementors, ISVs, decision makers, developers, policy makers from all sectors. Basically, anyone that has an interest in the topic and being a part of a wider community.
Hence the idea of a BLUG = Business Linux User Group.
We already have a CLUG = Canberra Linux User Group. But that’s for sandals, board shorts, tank-tops and pizza. The grassroots guys.
BLUG is for business*
*Business being: Private, Government, Education, Health, Not For Profit etc. All possible enterprises where FOSS is used today. Non-exclusive membership. Inclusive.
Anyway, that’s the current idea. I’m going to continue talking to people about it, thrashing it out, refining it and hopefully get enough people together (10 or so) so that we can start having meetings and form an initial group committee. And as Pia suggested on Monday, once the group is up and running after 6 months or so have elections for a new committee and the group will run itself.
Seems that the 
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