SitePen: Passing the Open-Source Torch

Open-source participation helps SitePen amass an all-star team of Web developers.

SAN FRANCISCO—When companies such as Adobe, AOL, Eye-Fi, JPMorgan Chase, Sun Telelogic and even Google want a certain something in their Web applications, they go to SitePen, a Web application development shop that does a little support, training and consulting as well.

The reason these companies come to SitePen? The company has an all-star team of experts in AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), DHTML and Web 2.0 technologies. The company is a virtual who's who of AJAX stars, with CEO Dylan Schiemann and Alex Russell, SitePen's director of R&D, as co-creators of the popular Dojo Toolkit, an AJAX development library.

SitePen also features Joe Walker, creator of Direct Web Remoting, also known as DWR—a Java-based library for AJAX development—and Kevin Dangoor, the creator of TurboGears, a Python-based Web application framework. And that's just a short list of the Web 2.0 name brands employed at the company.

I met with Russell here and asked him how a small, distributed operation could attract and maintain so many hot commodities. He credited the open-source model.

"It's not like there's some secret to this," Russell said. "People want to work on things that matter to them, and insofar as SitePen is deeply intertwined with a number of pretty successful open-source projects, we wind up as people—not as the company, but as individuals—being incredibly identifiable inside those communities."

Open Source programmers earn more and combat trade deficit

The findings from the fourth-quarter 2007 Open Source Industry and Community survey is out. The authors say the results show open source is effective in combating trade deficit and that IT professionals involved in open source earn more than their more proprietary colleagues. Let’s check it out.

The survey was conducted by Australian based Waugh Partners, Pia and Jeff Waugh, between October and December 2007. Their data has been hinted at in the past, but finally this week they published their findings.

The report is available from Waugh Partners’ web site waughpartners.com.au and is freely redistributable under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Derivatives License which fundamentally means you are pre-approved to send it to anyone, publish it anywhere and quote from it, so long as attributions are cited. Perhaps slightly ironically the report was formatted using a proprietary package (Adobe InDesign) but that, of course, has no bearing on the substance of the report.

The survey was financially sponsored by NICTA – the [Australian] National ICT research centre as well as multi-national behemoths IBM and Fujitsu.

There were two specific surveys; the first was aimed at individuals who contribute to open source projects and communities – and in any capacity, not purely the actual development of software. This includes user group leaders, open source advocates and evangelists and more – even online Linux columnists. There were a total of 315 complete and legitimate responses received. An additional twelve incomplete responses were also included (and 44 discarded as not sufficiently complete.)

The second survey targeted companies that sell, support or service open source related technologies. There were 129 complete and legitimate responses. These companies self-identified as open source service and solution providers and over 50% said that open source makes up more than 70% of their revenue.

Pondering Windows' Bloated Demise

The prediction by Gartner that Windows is nearing collapse resonated cheerily through the open source community last week. Some bloggers, however, greeted the report with a healthy dose of skepticism, noting that Microsoft is likely to carry on quite nicely. Still, the penguin crowd can't resist an opportunity to bash Redmond, especially one this juicy.


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Well, it was a relatively quiet week on the Linux blogs, and we can only speculate that everyone out there was feverishly working on their taxes.

Yes indeed. Taxes, as we know all too well, are one of the few certainties in this world -- along with death, as our good friend Mr. Franklin so aptly noted.

It seemed fitting, then, that in this month of financial reckoning, so much of the conversation that was out there on the Linux blogs was focused on a reckoning of the other kind. A final reckoning, that is, and it relates to a technology we all know too well -- one, however, whose demise is unlikely to elicit many tears in the Linux community.
Final Collapse?

Yes, folks, we're talking about Windows. At a Las Vegas conference sponsored by Gartner (NYSE: IT) Latest News about Gartner last week, analysts Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald described Windows as "collapsing" and called the technology's current situation "untenable."

They also said that if the operating system is to survive, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Free Trial. Security Software As A Service From Webroot. Latest News about Microsoft will have to make some big changes.

Now, if anything could rouse the Linux community out of its tax-induced doldrums, it would be a whiff of Redmond blood. Not surprising, then, that the topic was widely discussed across the Linux blogs.
Nails in the Coffin

Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies: Linspire "Fact Sheet" Coming Soon

After failing to get any response from Linspire as to why they are not holding annual shareholder meetings, I asked them publicly to do so in my last blog, in a hopes that pressure from customers, partners and shareholders would encourage them to do the right thing. I hold a fairly large amount of Linspire stock, but I remain in a minority position with about 100 other shareholders. Not only has Linspire not held a shareholders meeting, but to this day, they have not even responded to my inquiries with so much as a "we'll get back to you on that." Their lack of responsiveness only heightens my concern with Linspire's present management and the company's future prospects.

During the discussion that took place in the thread of my last blog, someone quoted Ron Paul's statement "Truth is treason in the Empire of Lies." I don't believe this quote was originated by Ron Paul, but it was recently popularized by him in his book The Revolution: A Manifesto. I found this quote very profound in light of my experiences over the last 8 months since resigning from Linspire. The message conveyed in this quote has pushed me over the edge to start the process of going public with details and facts about Michael Robertson, Larry Kettler, and Linspire since my resignation there.

I resign from Linspire on July 31, 2007. On that day I believed Linspire still had a promising future, so much so in fact, that I personally tried to put together a multi-million dollar acquisition of the company within days of my resignation. To this day, that offer remains unanswered by Michael Robertson. I find it incompetent for Linspire's management to have not even responded to this Bona Fide offer, and I'm confident, had the offer been accepted, that I, Linspire customers, desktop Linux, and the other Linspire shareholders would be in a much better place today.

When I resigned from Linspire, my intentions were, of course, given my large number of Linspire shares, to do everything I could to help Linspire succeed. Unfortunately, in the eight months following my resignation, I have witnessed some of the worst management decisions I have seen in my 25 years as a business professional. Actions taken by Linspire's Chairman, Michael Robertson, and their CEO, Larry Kettler, are, in my opinion, destroying the company. Not only do I feel that Linspire's current management is squandering the Linspire asset, but soon after my resignation, Michael Robertson as Chairman, and Larry Kettler as CEO, levied criminal allegations against six past Linspire employees: the CEO (Kevin Carmony), CFO (Chad Olson), Controller (Bill Long), two Vice Presidents (Theresa Brennan and Randy Linnell), and the OS Team Lead (Clifford Beshers). This group constituted two thirds of Linspire's then management team.

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