When the strategy fails, don't blame open source...

This article at infoworld.com got me thinking, Tizen failed because it's open source model or because it was badly managed?

It seems to me that the failure of Tizen has to do more with how the project has been managed so far, rather than with it being open source software. With Samsung betting heavily on Android, and Intel getting its hands on whatever OS can make its chips relevant, Tizen really had much chance to succeed.

As with proprietary software projects, open source projects success depend heavily on how the leader of the projects manage them. On both sides, there are far more projects that fail than those who become success stories. Neither development process comes with a warranty of success attached with it, since there are many factors that can determine if a project will be a success or a failure.

Trying to pin the blame on the open source development of Tizen, is quite shortsighted. As it states, the failure of Tizen is more a matter of strategy than of the open source model itself. Blaming open source instead of the poor strategy misses the point, since what failed was the strategy itself,

In a way, Microsoft has a big failure on its hands with its Windows Phone OS, since it barely stands on the smartphone market. The success story for proprietary software on mobile operating systems goes to Apple with their iOS, and the iPhone.

At the end, Tizen is a model on how not to manage an open source project. The failure can be blamed on the strategy used to mange the project, not on the open source model used to develop the OS.

Modify your software, or business processes, only if it brings added value...

This arstechnica.com article highlights a point that I think is something of a shortsighted view of the integration of software and business processes. It's the choice between choosing to modify the software or the business processes, so that they integrate in a way so that they add value.

There is no single answer, the reality is that each project is different from each other. As such, when the upgrade is being done one should map out when is modifying the software or the business process will bring the most value. In short, choose to modify the one that has to adapt to the other in order to make things work to the best of their capabilities.

It's also important to have in mind that, sometimes you're going to have to modify both in order to achieve the results you're looking for at the end.

That's why having a clear idea of how you're doing things, and the results you want to achieve. Only with this in mind, and fully mapped out, you can make the choice of what software you need to get and if you need to modify it in order to make it work for you. The same goes for your business processes, since the new software can be the key factor in making any changes in your processes be made smoothly.

Trying to force business processes to work with a certain software, or vice versa, is the recipe for waste of money and time. When making any kind of change in order to improve your business, make sure that what's change actually adds value.

Change only those things things that will bring the results you want, or add the value you need to bring in.

Vendors shouldn't be able to lock us in their ecosystem...

That Apple and Google are herding their users toward vendor lock in this arstechnica.com article describes, which spells bad news for users. Even for those who still aren't on either of those ecosystems, since they will be forced to pick a side if iOS and Android as become even more dominant players on the smart phone market place.

Even though Apple isn't that big on the desktop, it can herd some users to their computers if they make it hard enough to use the iPhone along with Microsoft Windows or Google's Chrome OS. The same goes for Android, that could have an easier way of locking people in since more OEM have access to their mobile OS.

Users should be the one who choose if they want to use devices from just a single vendor, or use a mix of devices from as many vendors as they choose.

That's why vendor should always use a common standard as a platform, so that interoperability between all our devices becomes the norm independently of the software that each one runs. It boils down to the fact vendors shouldn't any control on limiting what devices we get, by making it hard for their devices to work nicely with devices of other vendor.

What devices we get as users, which ones we link, and how we do it must be completely controlled by us. Vendors should have not have any control over the interoperability of devices, all should work with each other independently of brand or vendor.

At the end, users are the ones who need to have complete control over his or her devices. This is why interoperability between all devices must be baked in from the onset, by using a common standard as a platform so that all devices can work together seamlessly.

Vendor lock-in is only good for them, as users we must make them use common standards on their platforms.

Took a while, but still there is a long way ahead...

This column in wired.com made a good point about why people can't really share their files easily, and why it took so long for an app that lets you do that to come along.

Most often that not, it seems like the interest of corporations trump the interest of the people when it comes to sharing files. What's more disturbing, is the fact that in some cases governments side with corporations so that governments can control the flow of information. Thus, it becomes a lot easier to censor all that the power want to keep from the public.

While I believe that an app like onionshare and Tor project are available to the public, it also bothers me that they are not all that friendly to people who don't have that much technical know-how to make use of these tools. For must people, just entering to their sites to see what they are about might be a turn down to adopting them.

Now more than ever, there is a real need for projects that make this kind of apps that are easy to use by people with minimal computer skills. Which, in a sense is somewhat sad, because privacy should be something that we could take for granted on-line.

Both, onionshare and the Tor project, are great steps forward. Yet, there are just the first step in a long journey to win back our on-line privacy.

If I had my doubts about the NSA, now I've even more...

If it wasn't bad enough that the NSA was collecting data wholesale, without missing much, is plain wrong. But targeting readers of the Linux Journal, while labeling them as extremist takes the whole thing to a whole level of paranoia that it's really unsettling.

As a regular reader of the Linux Journal, I take offense that I could be labeled as a suspect and my movements tacked just because I've an interest on their content because it's interesting and useful for me as a GNU/Linux user. Not only on the tips on how to keep my privacy, but to get news and to stay up to date on whats going on.

I wouldn't be surprised if there are some people that are up to no good use information they find on the site for their wrong doing. Yet, I'm quite sure that most of us who access the site are either GNU/Linux professionals or enthusiasts that find the content useful and interesting. As such, it serves as both a forum to discuss whats new, or just have an interesting read to have an insight on whats new.

All in all, it makes no sense to say that the Linux Journal readers actions need to be tracked because we aren't a threat. Yes, the average reader of the Journal is more conscious about privacy issues on the Internet, and some will use the tools that appear on the Journal if they see fit to use them. But, that's no evidence that those readers who use them are to anything wrong.

If I was not that fond of the NSA, now I really have a problem with how it makes its choices on who to target for surveillance.