Open source and business rules

Geoffrey De Smet
Geoffrey De SmetSoftware developer at Red Hat
Open source and business rules
●
The SkyNet funding bill is passed.
●
The system goes online on August 4th, 1997.
●
Human decisions are removed from strategic defense.
●
SkyNet begins to learn at a geometric rate.
●
It becomes self-aware at 2:14am Eastern time, August
29th
●
In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
●
And, Skynet fights back
Mark Proctor
Co-Creator
Project Lead
3
History
 1960 – Arpanet
 1969 – Internet
 1985 - Clips
 1991 – Linux
 1993 – Red Hat
 1995 – Apache Http Server, Java
 1998 – Netscape Navigator
 1999 – JBoss
 2003 - Spring
 2004 – Eclipse
 2005 – Drools 2.0
 2006 – Red Hat / Jboss Acquisition
 2007 – Open Source Java
4
Notable People
Richard Stallman
Eric S Raymond
Linux Torvalds
5
Cathedral & the Bazaar
 Published 1997
● Cathedral
● GNU Emacs, GCC
● Bazaar
● Linux
 19 guidelines
● Scratching an Itch
● Given Enough Eyeballs
● Release Early, Release Often
 Linus' Law
● "given enough eyeballs, all bugs
are shallow“
 Convinced Netscape to OSS
6
Free as in Free Speech
 Think of “free speech”, not “free beer”
7
Licensing
 OSI
● Open Source Initiative
 GPL
● Copy Left
 LGPL
● Business friendly Copy Left
 BSD/MIT/ASL
● Business friendly
 Attribution/Adware
● Nagware
8
Organisations
9
Technologies
 GNU
 Linux
 Netscape
 Gnome / KDE
 MySQL / Postgresql
 Open Office
 Java
 Apache
● Tomcat, Apache Server
 Jboss AS
 Spring
 Eclipse
 Open Symphony
● Quartz
 Code Haus
● Maven, Groovy, Drools, ActiveMQ
 PHP
 Perl
 Samba
 Gimp
10
Companies / Organisations
 RedHat, SCO, Debian, Slackware, SuSE (Linux)
 JBoss (Java)
 Spring (Java)
 O’Reilly (Documentation)
 VA Linux (Sourceforge, OSDN)
 Sun (Java, OpenOffice)
 IBM (Linux, Java, Eclipse)
 GNU Foundation (GNU/Linux)
 Electronic Frontiers Foundation [EFF]
 Apple (Darwin)
11
Threats
 Digitial Content Control and Licensing
 Lock-out of free software from tenders
 Cloud
 Software Patents
 Commercial Attacks
12
Failed OSS Attacks
 SCO
 Novel/Microsoft
 Oracle Linux
13
Oracle “Clones” Red Hat At Half
the Price
 Oracle “clones” Red Hat in October 2006
● Announces distribution “based on” Red Hat Enterprise Linux
● Oracle charges half what Red Hat charges for “same” product
● Enterprise-class support from thousands of trained technicians
 Customer benefits include
● Full stack from single vendor (just like Microsoft)
● Savings on high software acquisition costs
● Simplify life by dealing with fewer vendors
14
The Success So Far
 First 90 days download statistics
● 9,000 people download Oracle Linux
● 1,000,000 people download Fedora Core 6, another “free” Red
Hat “clone.”
 A veritable groundswell of support
● Reference accounts, particularly running non-Oracle software
● Ecosystem of third-party vendors stampeding to support Oracle
Linux
15
Effect on Red Hat Pricing
 What price changes did Red Hat make immediately in the
wake of the Oracle announcement?
● None. Zero, zip, nada.
● We’re not hearing of any individual deal discounting.
● Red Hat knows that they have a premium brand, so ignoring
people competing on price is the right strategy.
 The role of a premium brand
● Lamborghini ignores price competition between Hyundai and
Kia.
● Oracle ignores price competition between MySQL and
PostgreSQL.
 General Observations on Software Pricing
● Software is not price competitive at market level, no matter who
thinks it is.
● Software companies do discount on initial deals then make it
up with higher prices later, but this is hard with subscription
model.
16
Impact on Red Hat Stock Price
17
What happened here?
 What happened here?
● Wrong Economic Model of the Software Business
● Poor product launch -- self-inflicted problems
 Blogosphere figured out instantly that they are using CentOS
● Problems installing product; unreliable download site
 No credibility for support offering.
● No hiring of dedicated support.
● Sending database support reps to training class won’t cut it –
didn’t work for Novel in 2003 for SuSE launch, either.
 Focus on solving a vendor problem, not a customer problem.
● Raises indirect costs for switching.
● Raises “contingent costs” excessively for no benefit
● ustomers fantasize about vendor consolidation but won’t pay
for it.
 Solving the wrong vendor problem, at that...
18
Solving the Wrong Problem
 Controlling the entire stack
● Worked well for Microsoft until recently.
● Worked for IBM in the 1960s-1980s
● IBM knows well the limits of this strategy (no applications)
 Getting people off proprietary hardware
● RAC very successful at this; driving significant portion of growth
in database licenses
● Every dollar not spent on Sun or AIX hardware maintenance
can be spent on Oracle maintenance
19
What's the real problem
 Mature database business: is there a “Next Big Thing?”
● For 20 years, growth of database business is due to new
features allowing databases to enter bigger addressable
markets.
 Application technology is moribund
● When will double entry bookkeeping be replace by triple-entry?
● Incremental modules and riding platform shifts are the big
opportunities
 Company size makes it hard to sell individual products
● Makes it hard for a new acquisition to deliver “synergy”
(1+1=1.2)
 Integration of acquired products and technologies
● Risk of Project Fusion is enormous
● SAP can play conveniently against technology migration risk
and expense

20
What's the real problem
 Weak partner channel versus Microsoft and IBM
● Competing increasingly with partners makes it harder to sign
up new ones.
● “Community” is an important type of partner relationship
 ?? … Cloning Red Hat solves how many of these?
 (These are problems common to many large software
companies, not just
 Oracle)
21
Vertical vs Horizontal
 Horizontal
● Technology for your infrastructure
 Vertical
● Technology for a market solution
22
Business Model
23
Business Model
24
Business Models
 Hybrid
 Childrens Edition
 Dual License
 Authoring
 Professional Services
● Support, Training, Consultancy
 Integration to support stack
 Enabler of core business
25
Communities
 Organisation Structure
● Benevolent Dictator
● Democratic Consensus
 Organisation Body
● Commercially backed
● Commercially sponsored
● Volunteer(s)
 Social Contract
● License
● Standards and practices
● Interactions
26
Assessing Risk
 Health of Project
● Mailing list, irc
● Code commits
● Number of Developers
● % of internal to external developers
● Commitment and health of commercial backers
● Availability
 Leaders or followers
 Professional services
 Hiring
 Continued education
● Books, events, blogs, articles
 Ecosystem, 3rd
parties and satellite communities
27
Various
 Ecosystem
 Poisonous People
 Universities
28
Motivations
 Fun
 Learning/Exploring
 Mastery
 Being part of Something
 Making a difference
 Scratching an itch
29
About ME
30
It All Started Here
Birth of CDSS
Dendral
Baobab
Mycin
Guidon
Neomycin
Teiresias
Puff
Emycin
WM
Sacon
Centaur
Wheeze
Gravida
Clot
Oncocin
1970s
1980s
Prolog
31
Because Not Everyone
Is As Smart As He Is
32
Business Rules Engines
OPS5
ART
Clips
Jess
Drools 2
JRules
1980s
2010s
Drools 3
1990s
2000s
Drools 4
Drools 5
33
Declarative Technologies
 Production Rules
● Drools, Clips,
 Prolog
● Prova, SWI-Prolog, Kernel Prolog
 Semantic Reasoning
● JENA, OpenRDF
 Decision Software
● Open Rules
 Processes
● ODE, jBPM, Bonita, YAWL
 Event Processing
● EIP, Drools Fusion, Esper
34
Standards
 RIF
 RuleML
 PRR
 JSR94
35
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Open source and business rules

  • 2. ● The SkyNet funding bill is passed. ● The system goes online on August 4th, 1997. ● Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. ● SkyNet begins to learn at a geometric rate. ● It becomes self-aware at 2:14am Eastern time, August 29th ● In a panic, they try to pull the plug. ● And, Skynet fights back Mark Proctor Co-Creator Project Lead
  • 3. 3 History  1960 – Arpanet  1969 – Internet  1985 - Clips  1991 – Linux  1993 – Red Hat  1995 – Apache Http Server, Java  1998 – Netscape Navigator  1999 – JBoss  2003 - Spring  2004 – Eclipse  2005 – Drools 2.0  2006 – Red Hat / Jboss Acquisition  2007 – Open Source Java
  • 4. 4 Notable People Richard Stallman Eric S Raymond Linux Torvalds
  • 5. 5 Cathedral & the Bazaar  Published 1997 ● Cathedral ● GNU Emacs, GCC ● Bazaar ● Linux  19 guidelines ● Scratching an Itch ● Given Enough Eyeballs ● Release Early, Release Often  Linus' Law ● "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow“  Convinced Netscape to OSS
  • 6. 6 Free as in Free Speech  Think of “free speech”, not “free beer”
  • 7. 7 Licensing  OSI ● Open Source Initiative  GPL ● Copy Left  LGPL ● Business friendly Copy Left  BSD/MIT/ASL ● Business friendly  Attribution/Adware ● Nagware
  • 9. 9 Technologies  GNU  Linux  Netscape  Gnome / KDE  MySQL / Postgresql  Open Office  Java  Apache ● Tomcat, Apache Server  Jboss AS  Spring  Eclipse  Open Symphony ● Quartz  Code Haus ● Maven, Groovy, Drools, ActiveMQ  PHP  Perl  Samba  Gimp
  • 10. 10 Companies / Organisations  RedHat, SCO, Debian, Slackware, SuSE (Linux)  JBoss (Java)  Spring (Java)  O’Reilly (Documentation)  VA Linux (Sourceforge, OSDN)  Sun (Java, OpenOffice)  IBM (Linux, Java, Eclipse)  GNU Foundation (GNU/Linux)  Electronic Frontiers Foundation [EFF]  Apple (Darwin)
  • 11. 11 Threats  Digitial Content Control and Licensing  Lock-out of free software from tenders  Cloud  Software Patents  Commercial Attacks
  • 12. 12 Failed OSS Attacks  SCO  Novel/Microsoft  Oracle Linux
  • 13. 13 Oracle “Clones” Red Hat At Half the Price  Oracle “clones” Red Hat in October 2006 ● Announces distribution “based on” Red Hat Enterprise Linux ● Oracle charges half what Red Hat charges for “same” product ● Enterprise-class support from thousands of trained technicians  Customer benefits include ● Full stack from single vendor (just like Microsoft) ● Savings on high software acquisition costs ● Simplify life by dealing with fewer vendors
  • 14. 14 The Success So Far  First 90 days download statistics ● 9,000 people download Oracle Linux ● 1,000,000 people download Fedora Core 6, another “free” Red Hat “clone.”  A veritable groundswell of support ● Reference accounts, particularly running non-Oracle software ● Ecosystem of third-party vendors stampeding to support Oracle Linux
  • 15. 15 Effect on Red Hat Pricing  What price changes did Red Hat make immediately in the wake of the Oracle announcement? ● None. Zero, zip, nada. ● We’re not hearing of any individual deal discounting. ● Red Hat knows that they have a premium brand, so ignoring people competing on price is the right strategy.  The role of a premium brand ● Lamborghini ignores price competition between Hyundai and Kia. ● Oracle ignores price competition between MySQL and PostgreSQL.  General Observations on Software Pricing ● Software is not price competitive at market level, no matter who thinks it is. ● Software companies do discount on initial deals then make it up with higher prices later, but this is hard with subscription model.
  • 16. 16 Impact on Red Hat Stock Price
  • 17. 17 What happened here?  What happened here? ● Wrong Economic Model of the Software Business ● Poor product launch -- self-inflicted problems  Blogosphere figured out instantly that they are using CentOS ● Problems installing product; unreliable download site  No credibility for support offering. ● No hiring of dedicated support. ● Sending database support reps to training class won’t cut it – didn’t work for Novel in 2003 for SuSE launch, either.  Focus on solving a vendor problem, not a customer problem. ● Raises indirect costs for switching. ● Raises “contingent costs” excessively for no benefit ● ustomers fantasize about vendor consolidation but won’t pay for it.  Solving the wrong vendor problem, at that...
  • 18. 18 Solving the Wrong Problem  Controlling the entire stack ● Worked well for Microsoft until recently. ● Worked for IBM in the 1960s-1980s ● IBM knows well the limits of this strategy (no applications)  Getting people off proprietary hardware ● RAC very successful at this; driving significant portion of growth in database licenses ● Every dollar not spent on Sun or AIX hardware maintenance can be spent on Oracle maintenance
  • 19. 19 What's the real problem  Mature database business: is there a “Next Big Thing?” ● For 20 years, growth of database business is due to new features allowing databases to enter bigger addressable markets.  Application technology is moribund ● When will double entry bookkeeping be replace by triple-entry? ● Incremental modules and riding platform shifts are the big opportunities  Company size makes it hard to sell individual products ● Makes it hard for a new acquisition to deliver “synergy” (1+1=1.2)  Integration of acquired products and technologies ● Risk of Project Fusion is enormous ● SAP can play conveniently against technology migration risk and expense 
  • 20. 20 What's the real problem  Weak partner channel versus Microsoft and IBM ● Competing increasingly with partners makes it harder to sign up new ones. ● “Community” is an important type of partner relationship  ?? … Cloning Red Hat solves how many of these?  (These are problems common to many large software companies, not just  Oracle)
  • 21. 21 Vertical vs Horizontal  Horizontal ● Technology for your infrastructure  Vertical ● Technology for a market solution
  • 24. 24 Business Models  Hybrid  Childrens Edition  Dual License  Authoring  Professional Services ● Support, Training, Consultancy  Integration to support stack  Enabler of core business
  • 25. 25 Communities  Organisation Structure ● Benevolent Dictator ● Democratic Consensus  Organisation Body ● Commercially backed ● Commercially sponsored ● Volunteer(s)  Social Contract ● License ● Standards and practices ● Interactions
  • 26. 26 Assessing Risk  Health of Project ● Mailing list, irc ● Code commits ● Number of Developers ● % of internal to external developers ● Commitment and health of commercial backers ● Availability  Leaders or followers  Professional services  Hiring  Continued education ● Books, events, blogs, articles  Ecosystem, 3rd parties and satellite communities
  • 27. 27 Various  Ecosystem  Poisonous People  Universities
  • 28. 28 Motivations  Fun  Learning/Exploring  Mastery  Being part of Something  Making a difference  Scratching an itch
  • 30. 30 It All Started Here Birth of CDSS Dendral Baobab Mycin Guidon Neomycin Teiresias Puff Emycin WM Sacon Centaur Wheeze Gravida Clot Oncocin 1970s 1980s Prolog
  • 31. 31 Because Not Everyone Is As Smart As He Is
  • 32. 32 Business Rules Engines OPS5 ART Clips Jess Drools 2 JRules 1980s 2010s Drools 3 1990s 2000s Drools 4 Drools 5
  • 33. 33 Declarative Technologies  Production Rules ● Drools, Clips,  Prolog ● Prova, SWI-Prolog, Kernel Prolog  Semantic Reasoning ● JENA, OpenRDF  Decision Software ● Open Rules  Processes ● ODE, jBPM, Bonita, YAWL  Event Processing ● EIP, Drools Fusion, Esper
  • 35. 35