Innovation in Software

On the 1st March (next Thursday, as I write this), I’m planning to do a mini re-launch of Vagueware.com and with a new website comes a new business model.

I will be phasing things in over the next 6-8 weeks. First, the “open innovation” phase, where ideas are thrown around, submitted and developed by anybody with an interest. Then the time to turn some of those ideas into real open source code, so anybody and everybody can develop the ideas further. And of course, run useful software. Finally a services model to make all your Rails deployment nightmares go away, and to bring some cashflow around those open source tools – support, maintenance, bespoke customisation will feature as well as hosted SaaS solutions.

However, I have a conundrum.

I’m busy finishing up work elsewhere right now. I have some todo items on older projects to close, and I am also involved in a second company completely unrelated to Vagueware that desperately needs some of my coding love right now. Time between now and next Thursday is tight. And the code base for the next version of Vagueware.com? Well, to be honest, barely started.

Right now, I need the splash page, and the ability for users to create accounts, edit wiki pages, for me to be able to structure some CMS around it all, add some forums, etc. It’s not a huge job, but to code it up from scratch even with the existing plugins out there might take longer than a week given other pulls on my time. It’s obvious that given the focus on it being a Ruby/Rails led set of projects, the time should be taken to develop the site itself in Rails.

There is an alternative though. Use something else other than Rails for now. Drupal does nearly everything I need and I could configure it all up this weekend ready to go. But it’s PHP. And that feels like a lie to me, and a lie to the other people I want to involve in this.

I could go meta and suggest that the first project is a tool to replace the site in Rails that would then allow Vagueware to become self-hosting. At least then the ideas would get started, and providing I was able to export everything from the inter-rim site when the job was done, nothing would be lost. It would allow those people who want to show up on day one to be involved in developing a community tool useful to them, and even have an input into how projects should be handled in the future. It could be an advantage.

It still feels like a major hack though. Anybody have any other ideas? I could delay the launch by another couple of weeks, but I’m keen to get started ASAP.

Well, I missed a few weeks of Sunday headlines, but I figured they’re worth the effort. Here are some links and things I think are worth looking at, but don’t deserve an article all to themselves:

PHP eats Ruby on Rails for Breakfast – this article is getting some digg love right now, thanks to its contentious title. Unfortunately the stats it quotes are completely ridiculous.

The main claim is that 5 times more lines of code are being contributed in open source projects in PHP than in Ruby. The author misses the point that this might be because it takes 5 times more LOC to do the same thing in PHP as it does in Ruby. My personal experience is that the factor is more like 10-15 times more lines than in Ruby. Ruby style emphasises elegant one-liners.

What’s more “Web 2.0 is being built in PHP” is a moronic statement to make given that most “Web 2.0” applications are close-sourced and therefore not included in the stats. Thankfully they gain some sanity towards the end by pointing out the growth in open source Ruby projects is much higher than those in PHP project, but they’re not prepared to do the basic maths to realise that in fact, PHP is dying relative to Ruby.

Firefox 2.0 is due to go for release to the general public on Tuesday, and includes some interesting updates. Improved tabs, anti-phishing bits and bobs, integrated spell-checking for online forms and better system crash restoration – important if you’re running Vista, I would imagine.

YouTube demonstrate why US Data Protection laws suck! – It would appear that if you’re a major Hollywood studio wanting to know a YouTube user’s name and personal details if they’ve been posting up videos with copyright material, you merely have to ask. I think this will be the start of a backlash against YouTube if confirmed, and may hopefully encourage somebody, somewhere in the US to campaign for EU-strength Data Protection laws. We’re not going to see any real improvement in online web applications from the US until the consumers are confident in the laws protecting their identities.

Washington Post calls Click-fraud – I’ve been confused by Google’s business model for some time, as it is simply so easy to defraud. I don’t carry ads on vagueware.com specifically because I’m worried about ever being implicated in any way in a click-fraud scam, even if I would never instigate one myself. Once mainstream advertisers realise how popular click-fraud is, I think you can expect a major adjustment in Google’s stock price. So what comes next? CPC is a great model for advertisers, but only if there is no fraud. I’m thinking CPA might be the next wave.

ZDnet ask ‘What do Apple’s earnings say about Open Source?’ – An interesting question, but flawed. If Apple had stuck with OS 9, they would be dead in the water right now. They needed a whole new OS, they needed it quickly, and they needed it cheaply. Their solution? They lifted FreeBSD, plus the Mach microkernel and put their own GUI and APIs on top of it, built some tools quickly, and they had a stable, high-performance OS ready to roll in just a couple of years. Open Source created the new Apple, and Apple know it – their head of release engineering is to my knowledge, still Jordan Hubbard. Jordan was the guy who started the FreeBSD project. Go figure.

Diebold source code ‘stolen’ – After my little rant yesterday, this is timely. Diebold are not keen on coders people like me seeing the source code to their machines because they’re worried we’ll find the smoking gun all the evidence points to: their machines are perfectly designed for the engineering of a massive election fraud. If we ever do go for e-Voting in the UK, I think it’s critical we only allow open source systems into the game.

Rock & Roll is about Freedom – Hugh riffs a little about what it might mean to deal with the fact that you are no longer a ‘Film Director’ because you’re not actually making films any more. I see where he’s coming from, but I disagree with his conclusion. I’ll always be ‘a Software Engineer’ even if I never use Z in my life ever again – true freedom is being able to define your own job title, irrespective of what society thinks of you.

If you’re a homeless guy, should you call yourself a homeless guy begging for change, or an entrepreneur at early-stage start-up? The difference it can make to you is huge. It defines your attitude to yourself, your life, people around you. It can give you drive, make you optimistic. Don’t ever listen to what society calls you – listen to what you think you are, and act on it. It’s the only way you’ll ever make your ideas come true. If Terence Davies wants to call himself a ‘Film Director’, I’d rather he did so than accept the label of ‘unemployed’.

Warning over UK race riot danger – Off-topic for here, I know, but whilst we’re talking about freedom, I’d just like to ask something.

Given that the UK is the country that has a history of defining personal expression through dress – mods, rockers, punks, goths, techno-kids, grungers, whatever – why is it so incapable of accepting a small piece of cloth that is purely a symbol of personal expression? Why is it any more threatening than a mohican, skinhead, a face full of piercings or an extraordinarily large amount of eye-shadow? People’s fears are so much stronger than their dreams in the UK.

That’s it for now. Next week’s articles should include one review of a Seth Godin book, a bunch of articles on development methods, and an analysis of snowflaking business ideas – providing I get time!