Software libre

Hoy estoy en Mérida, en la inauguración del Centro de excelencia de software libre José de Espronceda (CESJE). Y me han dado la oportunidad de participar con una presentación, “Impulsando los negocios con software libre” (material: transparencias). En ella he tratado de resumir cómo el software libre puede usarse para potenciar negocios, tanto los relacionados con la producción de software como los relacionados con su uso.

En particular me interesa el caso de los negocios donde el software libre es un posibilitador, una herramienta que permite nuevas opciones y una mejora de la competitividad y las perspectivas de sostenibilidad. Cada vez más el software es un elemento que influye en la estrategia y el crecimiento de las empresas. En muchas de ellas, de hecho se ha convertido en el factor que puede ser o más limitante o más potenciador. Es ahí donde las características principales del software libre permiten una nueva relación de la empresa con los programas que necesita, una relación donde el control ha pasado, en gran medida, a manos del cliente (frente a los productores de esos programas). Esa es la raíz de la conveniencia del software libre en muchos negocios, y ese es el cambio disruptor que ya está siendo aprovechado ahí fuera.

Como siempre, doy la bienvenida a cualquier comentario que puedas tener sobre todo esto…

[Una nota sobre la presentación del CESJE. Ha quedado claro, una vez más, el apoyo institucional que tiene el software libre en Extremadura. Y no sólo porque el presidente de la Junta de Extremadura ha participado en el acto, sino porque claramente este nuevo centro está inscrito en la política de la Junta en el campo TIC. Desde luego, puede que a largo plazo la apuesta de Extremadura por el software libre salga de una forma o de otra, pero está claro que están teniendo la valentía sostenida de diseñar una política tecnológica que sienten como necesaria.]

While attending an inteteresting talk organized by e-Madrid, I’ve learned about libre (free, open source) machinery for building 3D virtual worlds.

I already knew about Croquet, but it seems to have evolved a lot since I last installed it. And now they are also building Cobalt, also libre, which aims to be a platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing hyperlinked virtual workspaces for research and education, based in Croquet.

OpenSim is a 3D Application Server which can be used to create a virtual worlds. It can be accessed via clients such as Hippo or the Second Life client. In fact, it seems that you can build the kind of worlds that you may find in Second Life, although it is not aimed to be a clone of it. You can use an already established server for a quick evaluation, but apparentely installing it to have your own server is not that difficult.

Open Wonderland is a platfor for building and running 3D virtual worlds. It seems to be oriented to developers, since part of the building implies Java programaming. A lot of modules provide ready-to-use extensions.

It has been a good surprise to me to see that this area is already being colonized by libre software. I’m going to find time to test all of these. Meanwhile, if you know some other alike libre project, or have comments about the ones in this post, please let me know.

Today, I spent the day at the Morfeo General Assembly. It was held in Madrid, in the premises of Telefonica I+D. For me, it has been a very interesting day, with the usual networking and all that. But in addition, I’ve found several aspects that I enjoyed especially.

The first one has been a certain change in focus. Instead of an Assembly by Morfeo members for Morfeo members, it has been quite open, showing in fact how Morfeo is well related (and even mixed) with other organizations, initiatives and communities. From this point of view, the presentations about Tibi, ASOLIF and Open Telefonica were quite interesting. Also, presentations by people from Ministry of Industry and CDTI about R&D projects (Avanza, Iberoeka, etc.) were quite clarifying about how those programs work, the chances of preparing proposals for them (and being granted!), the role of libre software in them, etc.

People attending the Assembly were also quite interesting by themselves. I guess that a large fraction of the Spanish innovative companies in the area of software and services were here, which produced quite interesting discussions during the breaks. BTW, many friends and old acquaintances around: this was also a good place just for keeping touch with them.

The surrounding IT infrastructure was a good complement, both for those in place, and for those who participated in the distance. Twiter helped a lot to have a sense of what was happening. This idea of broadcasting twits live to attendants (two projectors were used for that), which is becoming customary in many conferences, helped a lot to have out-of-band chatting. The Assembly was also streamed, and a nice mashup, built using EzWeb service (a Morfeo project), showed twits, pictures, web pages, streaming, and all the rest in a convenient single place.

Last, but not least, we had our presentation of the CENATIC Report on free software in Spanish Universities and R&D Centers (in Spanish), in which GSyC/LibreSoft has participated.

The idea of having short talks about project proposals and ideas, as a first step to formalize the kind of informal interaction that has been so productive in the past was also encouraging.

[Update: recordings of the talks are already available]

About three weeks to the Workshop on Public Data about Software Development (WoPDaSD 2010) deadline. As usual, co-located with the OSS Conference, this year hosted by the University of Notre Dame (IN, USA). This year registration will be free for those registered to the whole OSS Conference, but those willing to attend only WoPDaSD will be able to register for a small fee. Some papers presented at the workshop will be invited to submit improved, extended versions to an special issue of IJOSSP. As usual, papers using FLOSSMole or FLOSSMetrics data are encouraged, but other papers on the subject will also be accepted.

The 3rd Morfeo General Assembly will be held on March 10th, in Madrid. The agenda is already out, and includes the usual “state of the Morfeo project”. There are three main “events”: one will be devoted to business. another one to the media (including a press conference), and finally one devoted to the community. This is going to be the 5th anniversary, which is a long time since we had the first discussions on how to structure and bootstrap the Morfeo community. Let’s wait and see what will happen during the next 5 years!

I’m spending the morning at the Madrid Android Developer Lab, which we (GSyC/LibreSoft)are co-organizing with Google. The morning started with fresh Nexus One for everybody (about 200 people!), so lots of smiles. First talk was general stuff about how well Android is doing in the market, how are Android apps performing, and so on.

Quite an interesting Q&A part. I asked about the comments on Android forking the Linux kernel, and not contributing back to it. I was answered that Android is only forking for a while, because they are doing pretty specific stuff for the kernel, and have a really quick development cycle. But that they intend to contribute back to the main line of the kernel at some point, that they have no intention of forking away. Well, we’ll see… My impression is that it is both in the interest of Android developers (and Google), and Linux developers, to find a way for getting improvements and support for new hw back to the main Linux line. Other (many) companies have done that in the past, and ways can be figured out.

After a break (a lot of chatting about the Nexus one, a lot of known faces, no coffee ), we’re now dealing with technical stuff: code and information about the Android 2.x API. Lots of ideas to check and test.

Overall, this is being quite a nice seminar!

En marzo comienza el Master de Propiedad Intelectual de la Escuela de Organización Industrial, en el que participaremos varios libresofteros. A pesar de su título, tiene un enfoque bastante novedoso, con asignaturas como “Obras libres” o “Movimiento Open Acces”. En otras palabras, tamibén se tratan las situaciones donde los autores consideran que les conviene no reservarse todos sus “derechos”. A ver qué tal sale…

Esta tarde he estado en Cáceres, participando en el Congreso Internacional de Software Libre. La participación ha sido en una mesa redonda (o charla-coloquio, como la han clasificado), “El papel del software libre en la recuperación económica“, con Luis Casas (EOI) y Anabel Labarta (Penteo), con Paul Brown (Linux Magazine) de moderador. Interesante experiencia, aunque al final nos hemos ido un poco por las ramas, hablando más sobre la Universidad que sobre el software libre. Me llevé unas breves transpas que no usé (porque el formato no lo permitía). Mejor, ha quedado mucho más dinámico que si cada uno hacemos nuestra presentación…

Aprovechando el viaje, charla con mucha gente, como siempre en estos saraos Y esta vez, asistí a una charla y todo: la de Andrés Martínez (TID) y Manuel Velarde (CENATIC) sobre Morfeo Formación y los planes de formación de CENATIC. Interesante… Tenemos que estudiar cómo encajar nuestro master en esto…

Hoy en Palma de Mallorca, en la jornada “El Software Libre en el Sector Turístico” (organizada por la Fundació iBit), estaré en un ratito hablando sobre “Posibilidades de negocio en el campo del software libre” (transpas). Trataré de explicar cómo una empresa puede desarrollar su negocio en el campo del software libre, sobre todo como productor, mantenedor o integrador de software. Pero también tocaré, si hay tiempo e interés, las ventajas para las empresas que son usuarios de software.

Mientras me toca salir a la palestra, escucho (y veo) una interesante charla de Marco Táboas, donde entre otras cosas nos está contando cómo usar WordPress para realizar marketing en Internet.

Muchas gracias a Benjamí Viloslada, que me invitó.

Next Wednesday (that is, tomorrow) we’re organizing a small seminar. Two nice talks are scheduled: “Open source game software: landscape and opportunities”, by Jim Whitehead (University of California, USA), who is in a sabbatical with us, and “Being Open about lock-in effects in the Swedish public sector: Taking Open Source and Open Document formats seriously”, by Björn Lundell (University of Skövde, Sweden), who is visiting our group while in a project visit in Madrid. Come and join us!