Geek Walking

This is the third paper in the series, The Open Source Monopoly. The goal of the series is to expose a trend in open source that is leading to the creation of a new breed of 'effective' monopolies by commercial open source companies. In this paper, a solution is presented for how the open source community can reverse this trend and insure the long-term survival of the movement. This paper has led to the establishment of the Openstructure Community. The marginalization of open source In the last paper, The Economics of Open Source, I noted that there seems to be an increasing split between the "professional" open source companies and the "pony-tailed faction" of original open source developers and users. One of the many things that the movement has struggled with is to define how money is to be made from open source. An obvious way is for companies to offer paid support services for open source products - there are plenty of examples of this. But the d...

This is the second paper in the series, The Open Source Monopoly. The goal of the series is to expose a trend in open source that is leading to the creation of a new breed of 'effective' monopolies by commercial open source companies. Introduction This article expands upon my previous paper, "The Open Source Monopoly". In it, I laid out the premise that commercial open source (COS) companies of the likes of Red Hat, MySQL and JBoss are examples of a new trend in the open source movement. In this trend, which I call the "Commercial Model" of open source, these companies have positioned themselves to be the de facto "names" in the open source movement. While this may be seen as a natural evolution of the marketplace, I believe that it violates the true spirit of open source, a spirit based in freedom, artistic expression and technological innovations. The result of this trend is what I am calling an effective monopoly, one in which a select grou...

http://www.galatea.com/opensource.html "The Open Source Monopoly" was originally published as a single paper. It has since become the first in a series of three. The second paper, The Economics of Commercial Open Source, looks in more detail at the economic models of companies like Red Hat Inc., JBoss and MySQL AB. The third paper, Openstructure: A Call for Open Source Reform presents some solutions to the current trend in open source and offers a challenge to the open source community for reform. Last month I wrote an article on Apache Geronimo for JavaWorld called "A First Look at Apache Geronimo." In the summary, I stated that "Geronimo aims to be the first J2EE-certified open source J2EE server." As can be imagined, that statement generated a flurry of emails and responses, most of which claimed that in fact, JBoss was the first open source J2EE certified server. In my reply to some of the reader feedback I received, I clarified that ...

18 則好用的管理定律 1. 活力曲線（ 10% 淘汰率法則） 奇異公司每年會針對各事業單位的主管打分數，區分出 ABC 三個不同等級的績效表現。最傑出的 A 級員工必須是事業單位中的前 20% ； B 級員工是中間的 70% ； C 級員工約 10% ，奇異以常態分配的鐘形活力曲線（ Vitality Curve ）來呈現這種概念。 A 級員工將得到 B 級員工 2 ～ 3 倍的薪資獎酬，而 C 級員工則有遭到淘汰的危機， 活力曲線是年復一年、不斷進行的動態機制，以確保企業向前邁進的動能。 2. 手錶定理 一個組織不要同時設定兩個目標。一次戴兩支手錶不但不能讓自己知道更準確的時間，還會失去準時的信心。 對同一組織採用兩種管理方法，或設置兩個不同的目標，組織就無所適從了。 3. 酒與污水定律 把一匙酒倒進一桶污水中，得到的是一桶污水；把一匙污水倒進一桶酒中，得到的還是一桶污水。 組織裡永遠都有幾個麻煩人物，他們存在的目的似乎是為了把事情搞砸。主管要及時處理，才能避免它迅速傳染。 一個正直能幹的人進入一個混亂的部門很可能被吞沒，而一個懶惰鬼很快能把高效率的部門變成一盤散沙。 4. 不值得定律 一個人會用敷衍了事的態度來從事自認為不值得做的事，因此管理者要適當的分配工作。 讓成就慾較強的員工帶頭完成具有一定風險和難度的工作，讓依附慾較強的員工融入團體中共同工作。 5. 金魚缸法則 魚缸是透明的，不論從哪個角度觀察，裡面的情況都一清二楚。增加工作流程的透明度吧！工作透明度高，領導者就被置於全體部屬的監督之下。 強化領導者的自我約束，也增強了組織的凝聚力。 6. 洛伯定理 對管理者來說，要緊的不是你在場時的情況 ，而是你不在場時發生了什麼。如果你只想讓部屬聽你的，那麼當你不在身邊時，他們就不知道應該聽誰的。 7. 鰷魚效應 鰷魚因為個體弱小而採取集體活動，以強健者為自然首領。當首領的行動發生紊亂，鰷魚仍然會盲目追隨。 部屬的悲劇總是領導者造成的，部屬覺得最沒勁的事，是跟著一位差勁的領導者。 8. 木桶定律 一隻木...