Posts in NZOSS OpenChat: NZOSS Online Groups

Just came across this news snippet:

'For years security professionals and election integrity activists
have been pushing voting machine vendors to build more secure and
verifiable election systems, so voters and candidates can be assured
election outcomes haven't been manipulated. Now they might finally get
this thanks to a new $10 million contract the Defense Department's
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched to
design and build a secure voting system that it hopes will be
impervious to hacking.

The first-of-its-kind system will be designed by an Oregon-based firm
called Galois, a longtime government contractor with experience in
designing secure and verifiable systems. The system will use fully
open source voting software, instead of the closed, proprietary
software currently used in the vast majority of voting machines, which
no one outside of voting machine testing labs can examine. More
importantly, it will be built on secure open source hardware, made
from special secure designs and techniques developed over the last
year as part of a special program at DARPA. The voting system will
also be designed to create fully verifiable and transparent results so
that voters don't have to blindly trust that the machines and election
officials delivered correct results.'

Rest of post

This is from Catalyst - training on free and open source cloud technologies:

CNCF Kubernetes Training in NZ (CKA & CKAD) Intensive training covering
the CNCF curriculum in detail (and optional certification)

Kia ora.

Catalyst Cloud has partnered with RX-M to provide intensive Kubernetes
training (and optional certification) in New Zealand.

RX-M is a charter member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF)
and will cover the CNCF curriculum in detail. The CKA course provides
knowledge on how to install and operate Kubernetes. The CKAD course
covers how to deploy and manage applications on top of it.

Please click on the links below for more information or to enroll.

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Bootcamp
<https://catalystcloud.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b1a6c2e1179ea8ae1aab0cc34&;id=745dc02456&;e=641c668610>
Dates: 1 April 2019 – 4 April 2019 (4 days)
Description: Kubernetes installation and operation, pod operations,
manifest construction, state and security operations, debugging,
maintenance, best practices.

Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Bootcamp
<https://catalystcloud.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b1a6c2e1179ea8ae1aab0cc34&;id=5eaeaee918&;e=641c668610>
Dates: 8 April 2019 – 10 April 2019 (3 days)
Description: Advanced pod design, application deployment configuration,
networking within pods, pod observability, state persistence.

Ngā mihi,
Bruno Lago

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Catalyst Cloud Limited, Level 6, Catalyst House, 150 Willis Street,
Wellington, New Zealand

Kia ora all

Some super fun data-related events are happening in the next coupla weeks
and it would be great to see those of you who're gonna be in Wellington,
there if you can make it :)

In order of date:

- 21 Feb - the *first open data Wellington meetup of the year*,
https://data.govt.nz/blog/our-plans-for-wellington-open-data-meetups-this-year/

- 2 March - *Open Data Day Wellington* (part of the international Open
Data Day event),
https://data.govt.nz/blog/international-open-data-day-saturday-2-march-2019/

- 9 March - *Women in Data Science* (which is booked out, but you can
get onto the waiting list!), https://data.sim.vuw.ac.nz/widsw2019/.

Please spread the word, too! Let's have 2019 become the year of lots of
excellent new (and old) faces, ever-improving diversity and just general
awesome getting-things-doneness :D

:D

x
a.

P.S. I'm one of the Open Data Charter's new Board members, so prepare
yourselves to be hearing more from me, potentially!

Rest of post

Hello everyone,

The organisers of 2019's Linux.conf.au (it's here in Christchurch in 2
weeks - 21-25 Jan!) have kindly extended a discount offer to full
(financial) NZOSS members, which makes the hobbyist registration price
$399 (discounted from $549, so $150 reduction!) for those wanting to
attend!

Given that the savings is substantially more than the cost of becoming
an NZOSS member ($40 - https://members.nzoss.nz) seems quite worthwhile!

If you haven't been to an LCA before (this'll be my 6th), they're
superb. Go.

I'll provide the discount code to any current (or recent 🙂 ) financial
members requesting one... The window for registration closes on 15
January, so don't dilly-dally!

Hope to see many of you there!

Dave

Rest of post

Here we go again. First it was encryption, not AI technology.

Obviously from the point of view of criminalizing open source AI software
this is a 'bad thing', but perhaps we should be looking at a ban on
developing AI software for autonomous combat? Would countries like China
and Russia cooperate?
The main problem is that unlike nuclear weapons or biological weapons the
development of software does not require large plants and equipment. It is
not really detectable at all, and so there would be no way to verify that
countries were obeying a treaty.
Banning export of software would isolate the US, potentially compromising
its lead by driving top skills overseas.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612453/a-us-attempt-to-keep-ai-out-of-chinas-hands-could-actually-help-china/?utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&;utm_medium=tr_social&;utm_source=twitter&;fbclid=IwAR3Lr1gvNTNtDUJ901aP98GvRzbsjJEhF7PqP8qfEn8oZXvGhuLvebqJOuY

On November 19, the US made its latest move by proposing
<https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-11-19/pdf/2018-25221.pdf> to broaden its
restrictions on technology exports.

The Commerce Department maintains a list of militarily sensitive
technologies that require a special license to leave the country. It’s now
proposing to add to the list, among other things, a host of foundational
tools and techniques in artificial intelligence, like neural networks and
deep learning, natural-language processing, computer vision, and expert
systems. These underlie consumer products such as the Siri-enabled
iPhone and computer-vision-enabled Roomba, as well as self-driving cars and
IBM’s Watson.

To be clear, the government isn’t proposing a blanket blockade. Commerce’s
“advance notice of proposed rulemaking” is just a request for public
comment. The department says it will use the feedback “to determine whether
there are specific emerging technologies” within each category that merit
restriction.

I made a submission yesterday in relation to the Electronic Invoicing
project currently underway by the Government.

Most of the text can be found here:
https://dev.to/cheetah100/electronic-invoicing-almost-two-decades-on-p4o

There was a time when "A Big Thing(tm)" like Linux Conf would have
generated a number of entries in a forum such as openchat... there would
have been a buzz around it and various people with an interest would have
said things like 'call for papers is open' and 'registrations are open'
etc.

This time, nada. I've seen maybe two entries in openchat about LCA2019 and
one of those was a cfp for one of the miniconfs...

So where are people getting their info from now about interesting FOSS type
events happening around the nation??

I know that LCA2019 have a couple of news feeds themselves once you sign on
but I'm curious as to why the conversations that lead to curiosity and
registration etc. don't seem to be happening in this channel...

Carl

Thanks Peter,

Are you aware of ZUGFeRD?

Cheers,
Danny

On Sun, Nov 11, 2018, 18:27 Peter Harrison <<email obscured> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I thought I would alert everyone to the fact that the Government were
> running a consultation around eInvoicing. In 2001 - yeah I'm that old - I
> ran a open source project called Internet Document Transfer (IDTrans) to
> promote the idea of interoperable invoices so you could send an invoice to
> someone and you would have a reasonable degree of certainty that their
> accounting systems would be able to load it. The idea was to have open
> source implementations and a open standard.
>
> So this seems to be similar - only only doing it for trans-tasman invoices?
> And it seems aimed at large companies rather than small business or
> consumers. And will be run by a organisation that will include software
> vendors, banks, and government, but not - you know - consumers or small
> businesses. And the IP will be privately held, and transaction fees applied
> to each invoice.
>
> I've been writing a submission today, but thought I should alert you all
> because there is only five days before the deadline - Nov 16.
>
> https://www.nzbn.govt.nz/using-the-nzbn/e-invoicing
>
>
>
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/business/better-for-business/nzbn/trans-tasman-electronic-invoicing-framework

Rest of post

Hi everyone,

I thought I would alert everyone to the fact that the Government were
running a consultation around eInvoicing. In 2001 - yeah I'm that old - I
ran a open source project called Internet Document Transfer (IDTrans) to
promote the idea of interoperable invoices so you could send an invoice to
someone and you would have a reasonable degree of certainty that their
accounting systems would be able to load it. The idea was to have open
source implementations and a open standard.

So this seems to be similar - only only doing it for trans-tasman invoices?
And it seems aimed at large companies rather than small business or
consumers. And will be run by a organisation that will include software
vendors, banks, and government, but not - you know - consumers or small
businesses. And the IP will be privately held, and transaction fees applied
to each invoice.

I've been writing a submission today, but thought I should alert you all
because there is only five days before the deadline - Nov 16.

https://www.nzbn.govt.nz/using-the-nzbn/e-invoicing

https://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/business/better-for-business/nzbn/trans-tasman-electronic-invoicing-framework

http://idtrans.sourceforge.net/

Hi NZOSS,

Linux.Conf.Au 2019 is being held in Christchurch, New Zealand at the end
of January 2019 (21-25 January). Early Bird tickets are on sale *this
month* (https://linux.conf.au/attend/tickets/)

As usual at LCA, we (Simon Lyall and I) are running a System
Administration Miniconf at LCA2019, and we're looking for your proposals
for presentations:

http://sysadmin.miniconf.org/cfp19.html

Please pass this on anywhere else you think people might be interested.

The LCA2019 Sysadmin Miniconf CFP text is included below for your
convenience.

Ewen

PS: The Sysadmin Miniconf is part of LCA2019; you'll need a ticket to
LCA2019 to attend/speak. Grab your ticket for LCA2019 while the Early
Bird pricing is available :-)

-=- cut here -=-
Call for Presentations
Linux.conf.au 2019 Systems Administration Miniconf

There will be a one day mini conference on Linux Systems Administration
held as part of linux.conf.au 2019. LCA2019 will be held in
Christchurch, New Zealand on 21 - 25 January 2019.

The organisers of the Systems Administration Miniconf would like
to invite proposals for presentations to be delivered at the Miniconf.
Please forward this CFP to your colleagues, peers, social networks,
and other relevant mailing lists. Please help by encouraging
submissions from people you would like to hear present at this
Miniconf.

This is our 13th Sysadmin Miniconf at Linux.conf.au. Previous
presentations can be found at the website:

https://sysadmin.miniconf.org/.

Presentation Topics

Rest of post

===================

We welcome talks on best current practice, new developments in
Systems Administration, cutting edge techniques and technologies,
and ways to better manage Linux environments large and small.

Topics for presentations could include (but are not limited to):

Virtualisation and Cloud Computing
Kubernetes / Docker / Containers / Orchestration
Infrastructure/Platform/Software as a Service (IAAS, PAAS, SAAS)
Sysadmin Administration in a "serverless" environment (FAAS)
DevOps and SysAdmin Culture
Systems Administration Best Practice
Monitoring and metrics. Collection, storage and presentation
Networkng: IPv6, SDN (Software Defined Networking), performance
DevOps, Configuration Management and provisioning
Bootstrapping systems, Lifecycle Management
Dealing with BYOD
Backups in a virtual/distributed world
Troubleshooting techniques
Keeping legacy systems functioning
War stories from the "Real World"

Presentations should be of a technical nature and speakers should
assume that members of the audience have at least a couple of years
experience in professional Unix/Linux administration (many in the
audience will have decades of experience).

Format of Presentations
=======================

We are now seeking proposals for presentations at the mini-conference.
We have openings for:

15-25 minute short presentations
5-10 minute "lightning talks"

Please note, due to the single day available (and whole-LCA opening
before morning tea), we expect the majority of available timeslots
to be 20 minutes or less, with possibly 1-2 slightly longer talks
if there is space in the schedule.

We have a general policy of accepting a high proportion of proposals
but handing out relatively short timeslots. Please see previous
years Miniconf schedules for examples of how the programme is
organised.

Submitting talks
================

Please note that in order to give a presentation or attend the
Miniconf you must be registered (and paid up by the time the
conference happens) for the main linux.conf.au conference. Presenting
at the Miniconf does not entitle you to discounted or free registration
at the main conference nor to priority with registration. Unfortunately
the Miniconf has no budget for sponsorship of speakers.

To submit a talk to the LCA2019 Sysadmin Miniconf, create an account
on the LCA2019 website:

https://linux.conf.au/dashboard

create a speaker profile, and then select "SysAdmin Miniconf Talk"
(in the "New Proposal" section of the Dashboard), or while logged
into the LCA2019 site, go directly to:

https://linux.conf.au/proposals/submit/sysadmin-miniconf/

Please pick a preferred length for your presentation from Short
Presentation (15/20/25 minutes) or Lightning Talk (5/10 minutes)
in the submission form; if you could do either (with more or less
detail) use the Private Abstract field to describe the options and
what you would prefer. In some cases we maybe able to add a few
extra minutes to a few Short Presentations if there is any spare
time left in the programme. Use the Private Abstract field to let
us know a few more minutes would be useful for your presentation.

Questions should be sent to:

lca2019 at sysadmin.miniconf.org

Dates and Deadlines
===================

To encourage early submissions, priority (both of inclusion and
scheduling) will be given to presentations submitted by 23:59 (any
time zone) on 31st of October 2018. If you have a good presentation
idea, please let us know early, even if you need time to finalise
the presentation abstract. Please let us know directly if you need
an early confirmation to assist you in arranging time off work or
travel; we will do our best to help.

2018-10-31 - Deadline for early submissions
2018-11-18 - Deadline for submissions
2018-12-04 - LCA2019 Sysadmin Miniconf programme published
2019-01-21 - LCA2019 Sysadmin Miniconf held (Christchurch, NZ)

Contact and Questions
=====================

Please see our website at https://sysadmin.miniconf.org for more
information on the miniconf, past presentations and presenting at it.

If you have any questions please feel free to email the organisers at:

lca2019 at sysadmin.miniconf.org
-=- cut here -=-

And humble apologies, I've totally munted the name of the award in the
subject: it should be the Clinton Bedogni Prize.

Rest of post

Hello all!

Just want to le you all know about an opportunity to nominate an open
source contributor you admire for real recognition (including a
financial prize):
https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/our_department/Clinton_Bedogni/ It'll be
awarded at the NZ Open Source Awards on 23 October.

Note the deadline is 8 October for nominations - so best to have a look
now and get nominating!

Cheers,

Dave

Rest of post

Very cool to see that one of NZ's most dynamic FOSS communities, the
Cacophony Project, has just launched its first commercial product: their
cacophonometer - https://cacophony.org.nz/cacophonometer-available-purchase

I encourage you all to have a look!

Dave

Rest of post

There are 3 types profiting from OSS:
1. The developer like Dave who are able to living the dream, developing
stuff they enjoy and making a good income into the bargain - I suspect a
minority.
2. The VC (parasites) that hook into a great OSS on the back of a
committed group of hobbyist developers who have been beavering away for
years to build something great.
3. Businesses/users who have adopted/use a great OSS project - reaping
the productivity. The target audience.

When the VC's start complaining I am less than sympathetic.

Phil

On 2018-09-04 12:34, aimee whitcroft wrote:
> Yeah, I'd also like to add my voice to the whole "high-growth revenue
> generation is super important because VCs" wut thing. Why should OSS be
> based around what VCs want? The whole high-growth-VC-blah-blah is
> problematic as hell to begin with, in a whole BUNCH of ways, so basing
> an
> argument that a movement (and the industry sometimes associated with
> it)
> need to fit that?
>
> Yeah, nah.
>
> On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 06:43, Peter Harrison <<email obscured>>
> wrote:
>
>> Clearly this article is an exaggeration. as many replying correctly
>> point
>> out people are making a living at open source.
>>
>> In 2015 I managed to get a project I had been working on for a couple
>> of
>> years released under the GPL. This actually cost me hard cash, but to
>> me
>> the value of having the code base which had been a couple of years
>> work by
>> a team of devs was too valuable to leave behind. And so as part of an
>> agreement with my employer the code was released under the GPL.
>>
>> I tried to promote the project to various companies, and while there
>> was a
>> positive reception in terms of some of demos it was not picked up.
>> This
>> project is a prime candidate for becoming a Software as a Service
>> offering,
>> although it needed more UI work.
>>
>> The good news is that a large multinational did pick it up in terms of
>> using it to deliver significant use value to the company. Not only
>> that but
>> I have been employed improving the software for the last couple of
>> years.
>> However, the development has been occurring in house. To be crystal
>> clear,
>> I am very thankful to this company. It gave me the opportunity to do
>> what I
>> love while working on GPL code. But the code, while remaining GPL, has
>> not
>> been released back to the public repo. There is no requirement that
>> they do
>> so under the GPL, as they do not distribute it externally.
>>
>> I'm currently working to get the code released back to the public repo
>> by
>> making business cases around the benefits of collaboration with other
>> companies, especially when the code has use value only. There is a
>> fair
>> chance this will work, but no assurances.
>>
>> There is a relationship between this situation and the article, in
>> that the
>> companies with the hard cash are more able to commit resources to open
>> source without related revenue. That is, when making the case to
>> software
>> development companies I couldn't supply a revenue source out of the
>> gate.
>> With a company that wants the software for it's use value they are not
>> seeking external revenue.
>>
>> I would far prefer to be working on this from the public repo with a
>> broad
>> set of users, but circumstances have conspired again to at least for
>> now
>> lock it away.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 1:19 PM Peter Reutemann
>> <<email obscured>>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > '"The economics of Open Source software are fundamentally broken,"
>> > argues Matt Klein, a senior software engineer at Lyft (who created
>> > Envoy). Here's a heavily-condensed version of his essay on Medium:
>> >
>> > If we take consulting, services, and support off the table as an
>> > option for high-growth revenue generation (the only thing VCs care
>> > about), we are left with open core [with some subset of features
>> > behind a paywall], software as a service, or some blurring of the
>> > two... Everyone wants infrastructure software to be free and
>> > continuously developed by highly skilled professional developers (who
>> > in turn expect to make substantial salaries), but no one wants to pay
>> > for it. The economics of this situation are unsustainable and
>> > broken...
>> >
>> > [W]e now come to what I have recently called "loose" open core and
>> > SaaS. In the future, I believe the most successful OSS projects will
>> > be primarily monetized via this method. What is it? The idea behind
>> > "loose" open core and SaaS is that a popular OSS project can be
>> > developed as a completely community driven project (this avoids the
>> > conflicts of interest inherent in "pure" open core), while value added
>> > proprietary services and software can be sold in an ecosystem that
>> > forms around the OSS...
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, there is an inflection point at which in some sense an
>> > OSS project becomes too popular for its own good, and outgrows its
>> > ability to generate enough revenue via either "pure" open core or
>> > services and support... [B]uilding a vibrant community and then
>> > enabling an ecosystem of "loose" open core and SaaS businesses on top
>> > appears to me to be the only viable path forward for modern VC-backed
>> > OSS startups.
>> >
>> > Klein also suggests OSS foundations start providing fellowships to key
>> > maintainers, who currently "operate under an almost feudal system of
>> > patronage, hopping from company to company, trying to earn a living,
>> > keep the community vibrant, and all the while stay impartial..."
>> >
>> > "[A]s an industry, we are going to have to come to terms with the
>> > economic reality: nothing is free, including OSS. If we want vibrant
>> > OSS projects maintained by engineers that are well compensated and not
>> > conflicted, we are going to have to decide that this is something
>> > worth paying for. In my opinion, fellowships provided by OSS
>> > foundations and funded by companies generating revenue off of the OSS
>> > is a great way to start down this path."'
>> >
>> > -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1939233
>> >
>> > Cheers, Peter
>> > --
>> > Peter Reutemann
>> > Dept. of Computer Science
>> > University of Waikato, NZ
>> > +64 (7) 858-5174
>> > http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
>> > http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
>> >
>> > ――
>> > View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/1j3Q6hsDyC8FyuL7LDI4lj
>> > Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>> >
>> > Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
>> >
>>
>> ――
>> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/jZBL945vWZRVGCI7UcQ1n
>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>>
>> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net

Rest of post

Yeah, I'd also like to add my voice to the whole "high-growth revenue
generation is super important because VCs" wut thing. Why should OSS be
based around what VCs want? The whole high-growth-VC-blah-blah is
problematic as hell to begin with, in a whole BUNCH of ways, so basing an
argument that a movement (and the industry sometimes associated with it)
need to fit that?

Yeah, nah.

Rest of post

On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 06:43, Peter Harrison <<email obscured>> wrote:

> Clearly this article is an exaggeration. as many replying correctly point
> out people are making a living at open source.
>
> In 2015 I managed to get a project I had been working on for a couple of
> years released under the GPL. This actually cost me hard cash, but to me
> the value of having the code base which had been a couple of years work by
> a team of devs was too valuable to leave behind. And so as part of an
> agreement with my employer the code was released under the GPL.
>
> I tried to promote the project to various companies, and while there was a
> positive reception in terms of some of demos it was not picked up. This
> project is a prime candidate for becoming a Software as a Service offering,
> although it needed more UI work.
>
> The good news is that a large multinational did pick it up in terms of
> using it to deliver significant use value to the company. Not only that but
> I have been employed improving the software for the last couple of years.
> However, the development has been occurring in house. To be crystal clear,
> I am very thankful to this company. It gave me the opportunity to do what I
> love while working on GPL code. But the code, while remaining GPL, has not
> been released back to the public repo. There is no requirement that they do
> so under the GPL, as they do not distribute it externally.
>
> I'm currently working to get the code released back to the public repo by
> making business cases around the benefits of collaboration with other
> companies, especially when the code has use value only. There is a fair
> chance this will work, but no assurances.
>
> There is a relationship between this situation and the article, in that the
> companies with the hard cash are more able to commit resources to open
> source without related revenue. That is, when making the case to software
> development companies I couldn't supply a revenue source out of the gate.
> With a company that wants the software for it's use value they are not
> seeking external revenue.
>
> I would far prefer to be working on this from the public repo with a broad
> set of users, but circumstances have conspired again to at least for now
> lock it away.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 1:19 PM Peter Reutemann <<email obscured>>
> wrote:
>
> > '"The economics of Open Source software are fundamentally broken,"
> > argues Matt Klein, a senior software engineer at Lyft (who created
> > Envoy). Here's a heavily-condensed version of his essay on Medium:
> >
> > If we take consulting, services, and support off the table as an
> > option for high-growth revenue generation (the only thing VCs care
> > about), we are left with open core [with some subset of features
> > behind a paywall], software as a service, or some blurring of the
> > two... Everyone wants infrastructure software to be free and
> > continuously developed by highly skilled professional developers (who
> > in turn expect to make substantial salaries), but no one wants to pay
> > for it. The economics of this situation are unsustainable and
> > broken...
> >
> > [W]e now come to what I have recently called "loose" open core and
> > SaaS. In the future, I believe the most successful OSS projects will
> > be primarily monetized via this method. What is it? The idea behind
> > "loose" open core and SaaS is that a popular OSS project can be
> > developed as a completely community driven project (this avoids the
> > conflicts of interest inherent in "pure" open core), while value added
> > proprietary services and software can be sold in an ecosystem that
> > forms around the OSS...
> >
> > Unfortunately, there is an inflection point at which in some sense an
> > OSS project becomes too popular for its own good, and outgrows its
> > ability to generate enough revenue via either "pure" open core or
> > services and support... [B]uilding a vibrant community and then
> > enabling an ecosystem of "loose" open core and SaaS businesses on top
> > appears to me to be the only viable path forward for modern VC-backed
> > OSS startups.
> >
> > Klein also suggests OSS foundations start providing fellowships to key
> > maintainers, who currently "operate under an almost feudal system of
> > patronage, hopping from company to company, trying to earn a living,
> > keep the community vibrant, and all the while stay impartial..."
> >
> > "[A]s an industry, we are going to have to come to terms with the
> > economic reality: nothing is free, including OSS. If we want vibrant
> > OSS projects maintained by engineers that are well compensated and not
> > conflicted, we are going to have to decide that this is something
> > worth paying for. In my opinion, fellowships provided by OSS
> > foundations and funded by companies generating revenue off of the OSS
> > is a great way to start down this path."'
> >
> > -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1939233
> >
> > Cheers, Peter
> > --
> > Peter Reutemann
> > Dept. of Computer Science
> > University of Waikato, NZ
> > +64 (7) 858-5174
> > http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
> > http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
> >
> > ――
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> >
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>
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--

-----

*aimee whitcroft*

*Note: I'm not generally available outside of Mon-Fri, 9am to 5pm NZT. If
you email me outside of those hours, please expect a delay in response :)*

linkedin.com/in/awhitcroft
nzoss.org.nz - Councillor
syntropics.nz - Founder
govworks.nz - Co-founder
govhack.org.nz - National lead (2017)
021 204 2536

At the risk of preaching to the choir or starting a flame war the
following amused me:

> Mac users compensate for skills with money.
> Linux users don't need to compensate.
> Windows users don't even attempt to compensate.
I picked it up from a former colleague who should probably remain
anonymous for now ;-)

Clearly this article is an exaggeration. as many replying correctly point
out people are making a living at open source.

In 2015 I managed to get a project I had been working on for a couple of
years released under the GPL. This actually cost me hard cash, but to me
the value of having the code base which had been a couple of years work by
a team of devs was too valuable to leave behind. And so as part of an
agreement with my employer the code was released under the GPL.

I tried to promote the project to various companies, and while there was a
positive reception in terms of some of demos it was not picked up. This
project is a prime candidate for becoming a Software as a Service offering,
although it needed more UI work.

The good news is that a large multinational did pick it up in terms of
using it to deliver significant use value to the company. Not only that but
I have been employed improving the software for the last couple of years.
However, the development has been occurring in house. To be crystal clear,
I am very thankful to this company. It gave me the opportunity to do what I
love while working on GPL code. But the code, while remaining GPL, has not
been released back to the public repo. There is no requirement that they do
so under the GPL, as they do not distribute it externally.

I'm currently working to get the code released back to the public repo by
making business cases around the benefits of collaboration with other
companies, especially when the code has use value only. There is a fair
chance this will work, but no assurances.

There is a relationship between this situation and the article, in that the
companies with the hard cash are more able to commit resources to open
source without related revenue. That is, when making the case to software
development companies I couldn't supply a revenue source out of the gate.
With a company that wants the software for it's use value they are not
seeking external revenue.

I would far prefer to be working on this from the public repo with a broad
set of users, but circumstances have conspired again to at least for now
lock it away.

Rest of post

The article leaves out dual licensing which was very profitable to Mysql
and others. These days there is also the crowdfunding model, patreon model
and the ICO model too.

BTW there was news recently where the average uber driver was making less
than $10.00 per hour so not a great model for people at all.

On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 1:19 PM Peter Reutemann <<email obscured>>
wrote:

Rest of post

> '"The economics of Open Source software are fundamentally broken,"
> argues Matt Klein, a senior software engineer at Lyft (who created
> Envoy). Here's a heavily-condensed version of his essay on Medium:
>
> If we take consulting, services, and support off the table as an
> option for high-growth revenue generation (the only thing VCs care
> about), we are left with open core [with some subset of features
> behind a paywall], software as a service, or some blurring of the
> two... Everyone wants infrastructure software to be free and
> continuously developed by highly skilled professional developers (who
> in turn expect to make substantial salaries), but no one wants to pay
> for it. The economics of this situation are unsustainable and
> broken...
>
> [W]e now come to what I have recently called "loose" open core and
> SaaS. In the future, I believe the most successful OSS projects will
> be primarily monetized via this method. What is it? The idea behind
> "loose" open core and SaaS is that a popular OSS project can be
> developed as a completely community driven project (this avoids the
> conflicts of interest inherent in "pure" open core), while value added
> proprietary services and software can be sold in an ecosystem that
> forms around the OSS...
>
> Unfortunately, there is an inflection point at which in some sense an
> OSS project becomes too popular for its own good, and outgrows its
> ability to generate enough revenue via either "pure" open core or
> services and support... [B]uilding a vibrant community and then
> enabling an ecosystem of "loose" open core and SaaS businesses on top
> appears to me to be the only viable path forward for modern VC-backed
> OSS startups.
>
> Klein also suggests OSS foundations start providing fellowships to key
> maintainers, who currently "operate under an almost feudal system of
> patronage, hopping from company to company, trying to earn a living,
> keep the community vibrant, and all the while stay impartial..."
>
> "[A]s an industry, we are going to have to come to terms with the
> economic reality: nothing is free, including OSS. If we want vibrant
> OSS projects maintained by engineers that are well compensated and not
> conflicted, we are going to have to decide that this is something
> worth paying for. In my opinion, fellowships provided by OSS
> foundations and funded by companies generating revenue off of the OSS
> is a great way to start down this path."'
>
> -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1939233
>
> Cheers, Peter
> --
> Peter Reutemann
> Dept. of Computer Science
> University of Waikato, NZ
> +64 (7) 858-5174
> http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
> http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
>
> ――
> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/1j3Q6hsDyC8FyuL7LDI4lj
> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>
> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
>

And that's pretty much what I thought as I read it... the main point seemed
to be that attracting VC funding was the name of the game... Making a
comfortable living was dismissed as a "lifestyle" thing. Really? I'd be
happy making a comfortable living working with Open Source any day of the
week.

That's not to say that funding isn't needed to develop some of these
services however it also needs to be recognised that VC ROI expectations
based on some of the financial frenzies in the past are unrealistic.

Carl

Rest of post

On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 22:59, Dave Lane <<email obscured>> wrote:

> Dunno about the rest of you, but I've been making a (pretty good) living
> for the past 24ish years writing free and open source software for money
> (and for fun - that's the best life, isn't it, enjoying your work?!)...
> Almost all of what I/we work is (A)GPL licensed. It's not quite as easy
> as having a built in proprietary monopoly, but it's not rocket science.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dave
>
> On 03/09/18 20:43, Simon Bridge wrote:
> > "Noone does open source coding for the money"
> > ... I think this is confusing open source with software freedom.
> > The term "open source" was invented specifically to make the anarchistic
> > coding/development approach more freindly to businesses.
> > So yes ... there are people doing open source coding for money, and there
> > are businesses that hope to exploit open source and software freedom to
> > make money.
> >
> > Businesses wanting to make money off open source are what the article is
> > talking about... not coding.
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 6:12 PM Phil Daintree <<email obscured>>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Bit confused ... open-source is not a "business model" - it is
> >> anarchistic doing coding for the love of it mostly. Surely no one does
> >> open source coding for the money?
> >>
> >> Phil
> >>
> >> Phil Daintree
> >> +64 (0)275 567890
> >>
> >> On 03/09/18 16:18, Don Christie wrote:
> >>> ― 1 file link ―
> >>>
> >>> Hi
> >>>
> >>> I had similar thoughts when I read the article. This advice ("stop
> >>> doing open source if you want to earn a living") has been given to the
> >>> FOSS community at least once a year for years and is reasonably
> >>> ignorable.
> >>>
> >>> It *is* a valid topic, and I', pleased to say LCA 2019 has accepted my
> >>> talk on the subject :-)
> >>>
> >>> "Who pays the piper? The caller of the tune."
> >>>
> >>> I'm happy to take suggestions on the direction this talk should take.
> >>>
> >>> Of note, business models, open or closed, are hard. There is no
> >>> guarantee of success or failure.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers
> >>> Don
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, 2018-09-03 at 15:51 +1200, Luke Munn wrote:
> >>>> LOL, this is pretty funny coming from somebody working for Lyft - a
> >>>> ride-share model predicated on offloading all the risk and expenses
> >>>> onto
> >>>> drivers in a highly precarious labor model while extracting profits
> >>>> from
> >>>> their work. Their competitor Uber has been compared to a cash burning
> >>>> machine and has burnt through millions since its inception. Moreover,
> >>>> their
> >>>> turnover rate - drivers still working after the first year - is
> >>>> estimated
> >>>> at between 50% (from their own commissioned study a few years back)
> >>>> up to
> >>>> 90% from a more recent study. And this 'sharing economy' model itself
> >>>> located in a broader business model of the startup, which rapidly
> >>>> churns
> >>>> through capital and employees, hoping to monetize or get bought out
> >>>> before
> >>>> burn out, bankruptcy and collapse.
> >>>>
> >>>> I have no doubt that FOSS has its own economic problems. But the
> >>>> Silicon
> >>>> Valley environment also assumes a particular economic model that has
> >>>> now
> >>>> become normalized, and we might at least recognize that open source
> >>>> is not
> >>>> the only economy that is 'fundamentally broken'. The economics of
> >>>> *non*
> >>>> open-source software, set in a broader environment of capital, are as
> >>>> pathologic as they are productive.
> >>>>
> >>>> best, Luke
> >>>>
> >>>> On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 13:20, Peter Reutemann <<email obscured>>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> '"The economics of Open Source software are fundamentally broken,"
> >>>>> argues Matt Klein, a senior software engineer at Lyft (who created
> >>>>> Envoy). Here's a heavily-condensed version of his essay on Medium:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> If we take consulting, services, and support off the table as an
> >>>>> option for high-growth revenue generation (the only thing VCs care
> >>>>> about), we are left with open core [with some subset of features
> >>>>> behind a paywall], software as a service, or some blurring of the
> >>>>> two... Everyone wants infrastructure software to be free and
> >>>>> continuously developed by highly skilled professional developers
> >>>>> (who
> >>>>> in turn expect to make substantial salaries), but no one wants to
> >>>>> pay
> >>>>> for it. The economics of this situation are unsustainable and
> >>>>> broken...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [W]e now come to what I have recently called "loose" open core and
> >>>>> SaaS. In the future, I believe the most successful OSS projects
> >>>>> will
> >>>>> be primarily monetized via this method. What is it? The idea behind
> >>>>> "loose" open core and SaaS is that a popular OSS project can be
> >>>>> developed as a completely community driven project (this avoids the
> >>>>> conflicts of interest inherent in "pure" open core), while value
> >>>>> added
> >>>>> proprietary services and software can be sold in an ecosystem that
> >>>>> forms around the OSS...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Unfortunately, there is an inflection point at which in some sense
> >>>>> an
> >>>>> OSS project becomes too popular for its own good, and outgrows its
> >>>>> ability to generate enough revenue via either "pure" open core or
> >>>>> services and support... [B]uilding a vibrant community and then
> >>>>> enabling an ecosystem of "loose" open core and SaaS businesses on
> >>>>> top
> >>>>> appears to me to be the only viable path forward for modern VC-
> >>>>> backed
> >>>>> OSS startups.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Klein also suggests OSS foundations start providing fellowships to
> >>>>> key
> >>>>> maintainers, who currently "operate under an almost feudal system
> >>>>> of
> >>>>> patronage, hopping from company to company, trying to earn a
> >>>>> living,
> >>>>> keep the community vibrant, and all the while stay impartial..."
> >>>>>
> >>>>> "[A]s an industry, we are going to have to come to terms with the
> >>>>> economic reality: nothing is free, including OSS. If we want
> >>>>> vibrant
> >>>>> OSS projects maintained by engineers that are well compensated and
> >>>>> not
> >>>>> conflicted, we are going to have to decide that this is something
> >>>>> worth paying for. In my opinion, fellowships provided by OSS
> >>>>> foundations and funded by companies generating revenue off of the
> >>>>> OSS
> >>>>> is a great way to start down this path."'
> >>>>>
> >>>>> -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1939233
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Cheers, Peter
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Peter Reutemann
> >>>>> Dept. of Computer Science
> >>>>> University of Waikato, NZ
> >>>>> +64 (7) 858-5174
> >>>>> http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
> >>>>> http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ――
> >>>>> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/1j3Q6hsDyC8FyuL7LDI4l
> >>>>> j
> >>>>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
> >>>>>
> >>>> ――
> >>>> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/4dBGY7kV1Hi5BHLZWpYIog
> >>>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
> >>>>
> >>>> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
> >>
> >>
> >> ――
> >> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/1tiSeE8nnLKH6Juy0AkGg9
> >> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
> >>
> >> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
> >>
> >
> > ――
> > View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/10vHROcs6Z9OO6X9fox9WP
> > Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
> >
> > Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
> >
>
>
> --
> Dave Lane, President, New Zealand Open Source Society
> e: <email obscured> m: 021 229 8147 w: http://nzoss.org.nz
>
> ――
> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/7F5GyQ2IBDA9MBaj2RtcnU
> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>
> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
>

Dunno about the rest of you, but I've been making a (pretty good) living
for the past 24ish years writing free and open source software for money
(and for fun - that's the best life, isn't it, enjoying your work?!)...
Almost all of what I/we work is (A)GPL licensed. It's not quite as easy
as having a built in proprietary monopoly, but it's not rocket science.

Cheers,

Dave

On 03/09/18 20:43, Simon Bridge wrote:
> "Noone does open source coding for the money"
> ... I think this is confusing open source with software freedom.
> The term "open source" was invented specifically to make the anarchistic
> coding/development approach more freindly to businesses.
> So yes ... there are people doing open source coding for money, and there
> are businesses that hope to exploit open source and software freedom to
> make money.
>
> Businesses wanting to make money off open source are what the article is
> talking about... not coding.
>
> On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 6:12 PM Phil Daintree <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> Bit confused ... open-source is not a "business model" - it is
>> anarchistic doing coding for the love of it mostly. Surely no one does
>> open source coding for the money?
>>
>> Phil
>>
>> Phil Daintree
>> +64 (0)275 567890
>>
>> On 03/09/18 16:18, Don Christie wrote:
>>> ― 1 file link ―
>>>
>>> Hi
>>>
>>> I had similar thoughts when I read the article. This advice ("stop
>>> doing open source if you want to earn a living") has been given to the
>>> FOSS community at least once a year for years and is reasonably
>>> ignorable.
>>>
>>> It *is* a valid topic, and I', pleased to say LCA 2019 has accepted my
>>> talk on the subject :-)
>>>
>>> "Who pays the piper? The caller of the tune."
>>>
>>> I'm happy to take suggestions on the direction this talk should take.
>>>
>>> Of note, business models, open or closed, are hard. There is no
>>> guarantee of success or failure.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>> Don
>>>
>>> On Mon, 2018-09-03 at 15:51 +1200, Luke Munn wrote:
>>>> LOL, this is pretty funny coming from somebody working for Lyft - a
>>>> ride-share model predicated on offloading all the risk and expenses
>>>> onto
>>>> drivers in a highly precarious labor model while extracting profits
>>>> from
>>>> their work. Their competitor Uber has been compared to a cash burning
>>>> machine and has burnt through millions since its inception. Moreover,
>>>> their
>>>> turnover rate - drivers still working after the first year - is
>>>> estimated
>>>> at between 50% (from their own commissioned study a few years back)
>>>> up to
>>>> 90% from a more recent study. And this 'sharing economy' model itself
>>>> located in a broader business model of the startup, which rapidly
>>>> churns
>>>> through capital and employees, hoping to monetize or get bought out
>>>> before
>>>> burn out, bankruptcy and collapse.
>>>>
>>>> I have no doubt that FOSS has its own economic problems. But the
>>>> Silicon
>>>> Valley environment also assumes a particular economic model that has
>>>> now
>>>> become normalized, and we might at least recognize that open source
>>>> is not
>>>> the only economy that is 'fundamentally broken'. The economics of
>>>> *non*
>>>> open-source software, set in a broader environment of capital, are as
>>>> pathologic as they are productive.
>>>>
>>>> best, Luke
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 13:20, Peter Reutemann <<email obscured>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> '"The economics of Open Source software are fundamentally broken,"
>>>>> argues Matt Klein, a senior software engineer at Lyft (who created
>>>>> Envoy). Here's a heavily-condensed version of his essay on Medium:
>>>>>
>>>>> If we take consulting, services, and support off the table as an
>>>>> option for high-growth revenue generation (the only thing VCs care
>>>>> about), we are left with open core [with some subset of features
>>>>> behind a paywall], software as a service, or some blurring of the
>>>>> two... Everyone wants infrastructure software to be free and
>>>>> continuously developed by highly skilled professional developers
>>>>> (who
>>>>> in turn expect to make substantial salaries), but no one wants to
>>>>> pay
>>>>> for it. The economics of this situation are unsustainable and
>>>>> broken...
>>>>>
>>>>> [W]e now come to what I have recently called "loose" open core and
>>>>> SaaS. In the future, I believe the most successful OSS projects
>>>>> will
>>>>> be primarily monetized via this method. What is it? The idea behind
>>>>> "loose" open core and SaaS is that a popular OSS project can be
>>>>> developed as a completely community driven project (this avoids the
>>>>> conflicts of interest inherent in "pure" open core), while value
>>>>> added
>>>>> proprietary services and software can be sold in an ecosystem that
>>>>> forms around the OSS...
>>>>>
>>>>> Unfortunately, there is an inflection point at which in some sense
>>>>> an
>>>>> OSS project becomes too popular for its own good, and outgrows its
>>>>> ability to generate enough revenue via either "pure" open core or
>>>>> services and support... [B]uilding a vibrant community and then
>>>>> enabling an ecosystem of "loose" open core and SaaS businesses on
>>>>> top
>>>>> appears to me to be the only viable path forward for modern VC-
>>>>> backed
>>>>> OSS startups.
>>>>>
>>>>> Klein also suggests OSS foundations start providing fellowships to
>>>>> key
>>>>> maintainers, who currently "operate under an almost feudal system
>>>>> of
>>>>> patronage, hopping from company to company, trying to earn a
>>>>> living,
>>>>> keep the community vibrant, and all the while stay impartial..."
>>>>>
>>>>> "[A]s an industry, we are going to have to come to terms with the
>>>>> economic reality: nothing is free, including OSS. If we want
>>>>> vibrant
>>>>> OSS projects maintained by engineers that are well compensated and
>>>>> not
>>>>> conflicted, we are going to have to decide that this is something
>>>>> worth paying for. In my opinion, fellowships provided by OSS
>>>>> foundations and funded by companies generating revenue off of the
>>>>> OSS
>>>>> is a great way to start down this path."'
>>>>>
>>>>> -- source: https://news.slashdot.org/story/18/09/01/1939233
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers, Peter
>>>>> --
>>>>> Peter Reutemann
>>>>> Dept. of Computer Science
>>>>> University of Waikato, NZ
>>>>> +64 (7) 858-5174
>>>>> http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/
>>>>> http://www.data-mining.co.nz/
>>>>>
>>>>> ――
>>>>> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/1j3Q6hsDyC8FyuL7LDI4l
>>>>> j
>>>>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>>>>>
>>>>> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
>>>>>
>>>> ――
>>>> View topic http://groups.nzoss.org.nz/r/topic/4dBGY7kV1Hi5BHLZWpYIog
>>>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>>>>
>>>> Start groups https://OnlineGroups.net
>>
>>
>> ――
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>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz?subject=Unsubscribe
>>
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Rest of post