It still will be I think. I will most likely try to rewrite things to give an overview and go into detail on specifics later. Things are getting interesting at work so we will see how much time I have to pull that off.

Files

Ivan beat me to the punch on the main gist post. While at PyCon I had the opportunity to chat with Mike Fletcher, another OLPC volunteer whom I forget their name, Phil Hassey, Richard Jones, Jeff Rush, and about 5 other people who wandered in and out of the small sprint room we were all half passed out in. People came and went durring the discussion (I believe Richard and Phil went off to play a board game at one point as well) which ranged from modern Sci-Fi offerings to games to global warming being a net win for Canada to the history of the world (not the movie). I should have gone to bed well before the discussion started. The discussion turned to the object store on the OLPC platform. Jeff, coming from a ZODB background, was quite pro object store systems replacing ‘file systems’. This is a hot button topic with me. This topic has come up at every professional job I have had going all the way back to when I was an CO-OP at Motorola as a ‘Document Administrator’ (secretary). In fact the only two topics which are more hot button for me are ‘common application UI framework’s, and ‘security after the fact‘. I first started thinking about this subject back in 93 when I first started working on  MUDDs (warcraft, only 100% text for you youngins). The world was editable online (like a lisp MUSH) but also had revision history (via RCS initially). We were dealing with ’serialization’ and how objects were managed. I fell in love with the idea that everything could be described as having a set of attributes (tags) and really you wanted to store and manage these things by those attributes. Permissions were nothing more than attributes. Actions were nothing more than attributes. Meta data by definition were just attributes. We struggled with systems for this, but I came away convinced that we needed a new paradigm in object storage, and this ‘file’ stuff was running on borrowed time. It came up again at Motorola for document management. It came up again at OpenVision (later Veritas) for backup and security compliance. It came up again with ClearCase and Derived Objects. It came up again with ‘dictionaries’ and data management for VoiceXpress. And the code base I currently work on has something called ‘DFiles’ which I can not discuss except to mention the name (DRAT!)

Storage

Back to the discussion at PyCon. I wish I had a transcript of the discussion (no I don’t… I was not as coherent as I think I was). The Idea that everything is just blobs in a cloud of data where the tags determine the meta-structured is nice, but there are some problems. The first and most obvious problem is that it does not integrate well with existing technology and libraries. Decades of software has been written with the concept of files. You can try a fake mapping, and try to integrate things, but it does not work well. Then there is the concept of ’sub-blobs’. That is each of the pieces of data could have sub parts. This maps well to your document which might have a chart or spreadsheet as part of it for instance. This can greatly simplify serialization, and you get all those nice blob store things. Your in-memory structure is your serialization structure. But in reality we already have this. They are called files and directories. It is simply (*cough*) an implementation detail dealing with the storage mapping. Ok, there is nothing simple about it, but we will come back to this. The argument then turned to the fact that you can’t have a blob show up in more than one directory. False. Those are called symlinks, but again that is an implementation detail. One of the biggest benefits of an object-store-as-filesystem is the ability to find and manage things not in a ridged tree structure which does not scale well in the average human brain (where did I put my (ssh) keys again?) But in practice it is just replacing one confusing arbitrary structure with another on some level as it’s usefulness is measured by the quality of the tags, attributes, and indelibility of the data.If you had those things well defined in a directory tree structure, then it works just as well (as google desktop search proves). A more subtile problem is that not all tags/attributes are created equal. It took a long time for my betters and practical experience to prove this to me. Many attributes are only useful to programs. These programatic tags are for relating data, validation, encoding, and the like. Most of the time these are auto generated or involve mathematical computations. They are never intended for human interpretation,but are none the less crucial for data management. You can try to predetermine the different types of these meta attributes, or just lump them together, but neither of these approaches are really tractable. Spend some time deep diving into the abuses of the windows registry and you begin to get an idea of the issues.

I know I am glossing over all the details, and not really giving any points the attention they deserve. I am not even properly quantifying the points. Issues of language are completly being skipped over (try describing what a ‘word’ is in your application; try again when that application deals with speech and natural language… how does that abstract into meaningful tags?) Oh well. The point is there must be a happy median. We should be able to have something which has a file system programatic interface, as well as a generic data store interface. The browsing of the data should be an abstraction. If this is implemented with a classic journaling file system or in a database should be an implementation detail at the filesystem level. Why invent a new abstraction layer which everyone must now implement against when we have a perfectly good one that everyone already does? A file by any other name still contains data. If this is such a good model, think about extending it to namespaces. The problems in software code management (which is just data on a very real level) for which namespaces were invented exist on the filesystem as well. Chew on that while you code with Matrix.Optimizer and Optimizer.Matrix.

Google

Google has an interesting take on all of this. All of their service (news, documents, reader, calendar, mail, blogger, etc) all have a file like data storage for the objects represented. They use folders/directories (really tags). The only restriction is that the folders are only one level deep. I do not care for this myself. I would love to be able to have a ‘people’ folder under my ‘python’ folder and have only those times tagged with both ‘python’ and ‘people’ under that ‘folder’. Maybe that is just me. I would not want these sub folder relations to be automatic. I would want control over the layout, but have the population automatic. But that is the only extension to their system I would like to see. Beyond that it just works. It works with both the object store model and the file/directory model. If only google would open up their API’s a bit more to include this system. On wait, they just did. You know if I had hit ‘publish’ on this post last evening when I first wrote most of this, I would have been ‘prophetic’ or at least ‘first post!’.

It’s not all hearts and ponies and sparkle (even if it is python and an abstraction layer on top of django to boot!!!) I have been holding off on posting this err… post until I could formulate a non-reactionary opinion on the entire Google Apps thing. I now have an opinion and it is much along the same lines as Duncan McGreggor. The issues I have are both similar and yet unique to his, and I will post on them separately.

Python, and Conference Software

This post is already too long,and my laptop battery is dying (no the charger is at work ). Those of you that I talked with at Pycon about UnConference hosting know what this is all about, and I told you so . The last piece just fell into place. With that, good night

There were two guest speakers:

1: George Lambert, Goldenware Technology
2: Mike Pittaro, SnapLogic open source data integration Project implemented in 100% Python

I decided to try something new and record the event on my little sensa mp3 player. The audio is bad at best, but it is mostly audible. We were in Somerville so at some points an airplane goes overhead. If these prove useful to people I will bring better recording equipment next time. My A/V production equipment is tied up on another project so all I did was split the audio into multiple tracks and do a lame re-encode. I tried to keep the files to under 25Meg while splitting based on topics. Unfortunately meetup.com has a 10Meg per file limit and a 100Meg per group max, so that was out of the question. The first file is under 8Meg, so please check that out first and only if you can withstand the audio quality, check out the others. I and my bandwidth will appreciate it.

NOTE: The audio is extremely soft at points and at the beginning, so you will need to crank the volume up.

• Introductions and Django.June recap (mp3, ogg)
• Mass TLC recap, and an extensive discussion on GPLv3, Licensing, Patents, and Python (mp3, ogg)
• Lightning rounds with George Lambert and Mike Pittaro. (mp3, ogg)
• Open Discussion (mp3, ogg)

The software George Lambert mentions which is used to view changes in the GPLv3 draft is Plone! Though there is talk of converting the FSF web site over to a Django based one. I sent an e-mail to the lists giving better information on OLPC for those interested as well. Noah Kantrowitz responded offering to help anyone in the group get started with development.

I have long wondered how they get so much work done in such a short period of time. ‘When do they sleep?’ I have often though. Now I know, they don’t sleep. Ivan gave this talk on no sleep. Seriously, he had not slept the night before and was somewhere on hour 38!

Dan Bricklin recorded the video, and also has full audio recordings (podcasts) of the event. Dan has some other fantastic podcasts, including one with Antonio from Tabblo, so please check those out at your leisure.

It is always fun to watch Ivan give a talk, and even more fun to watch people who might not have known much about the project or had preconceived notions about OLPC, listen to him. I noticed a few people sit up and really take notice. One person (whom I will not mention by name as I never asked permission to use it), really seemed to ‘get it’. This person was alternately witting notes franticly, gasping, smiling, and at one point could only be described as ‘giddy’. Seeing that made it all worth while for me. I now see that PJ over at groklaw has made a post about the video as well, and it just made my year:

From this talk, I finally understand fully what the project is for. It’s not to design a cheaper laptop. It’s to create a a new way to educate.

Some of the most interesting information, for me, came not from the talk but from conversations before and after. One thing he mentions is that no one in the group is a ‘hopeless Idealist‘. No one is an ‘incurable optimist‘. Every one working on the project is very realistic. It is that realist approach which has kept the group grounded and able to get the work done. Ivan said he himself does not know if they will succeed, but what else is there but to try. There are problems, there are restrictions, there are complications. It is the ability to identify, breakdown, and then attack those issues which makes it all possible. They do not have all the answers, but they are working on finding them to the best of their ability. That is the reason why I feel this project will succeed.

One of the other side discussions was on personalization. The first thing children do is personalize their laptop, usually with stickers. This actually works as an added security feature. ‘It is much harder to sell one of these [laptops] with a My Little Poney sticker on it.’ The beta 3 and beta4 XO’s now have thermal transfers of the ‘XO’ character on the cover now. They approached the vendor and at first the vendor said ’sure we can do that’, then OLPC asked ‘What if we have 20 X color transfers and 20 O transfers, could you randomly mix them on each laptop produced?’ After some more technical work, they made it happen. The beta 4 machines will also have a textured surface like that of a golf ball, and a different plastic. This is being done to reduce scratching, add some strength, and reduce the visible ware which happens over time. There is some concern that stickers will no longer stick as well to the surface. If it is something that is important to the children, it is something important to them, period.

There was plenty more which occured at the summit, and both Dan Bricklin and Andy Updegrove have fantastic blog posts on the event. There was quite a strong python presence which makes me quite happy. Beyond OLPC, there were lightning talks on Zope, some side mentions on Plone, and SnapLogic. Mike Pittaro of SnapLogic gave a lightning talk at both the summit and at Wednesdays Python meetup. I have a (poor) recording of the meetup and will post that soon. There were hall discussions on Django, Turbo Gears, PHP vs. Ruby, Vs. Python, Drupal vs. Plone and Guido’s Python 3000 post. I had not had time to read Guido’s post so I couldn’t participate as much as I had wanted to. I don’t feel I have anything worth while to add about the rest of the event, beyond to say that I think Andy was too kind, and yes I was wearing jeans.

My goals for OLPC at this summit were to get the message out about this local effort and the revolutionary open source/hardware technology; this is a Massachusetts Technology Leadership Counsel event after all. Second, get the spotlight on the ideals and the software behind the project, not on the ‘laptop’. Third to get people interested enough to get involved. And, of course to promote open source and python. It is too soon to know if any of the goals were achieved, but I think the first two were thanks in large part to PJ over at groklaw posting the video.

One of the trademarks of this event is the level of audience interaction. The talks are not passive events where attendees absorb what is spoken up on some shielded dais. As in the past the event is broken down into three parts (legal, business, and community), plus a keynote. The plan is to have the event recorded, both audio and video, for release in multiple mediums.

Legal

The legal discussion will be on the GPLv3, both the road traveled so far and what the future holds. The process has been extremely open with the community participating in its drafting on an unprecedented level. This panel discussion is a continuation of that effort as well as an examination of that effort.

Business

The corporate panel discussion is not what one would normally expect. There is no real summary description for this panel due to the nature of it. How do you describe an open discussion? I will try. Listening to marketing folks from large companies describe why their open source strategy is the winner is not that interesting or rewarding. The focus here is on the audience and learning from the successes and failures of local companies large and small. Businesses who rely on Open Source are really relying on the communities they foster. The audience is made up of those communities and budding open source based ventures. Here is a chance to discuss the strategies of the day and get a greater understanding for this complex and thriving ecosystem.

Community

For the community section this year we are trying something new. Mark Withington of the Boston PHP group is running a Lightning talk session. These are ~5min presentations by local community members. These can be very exciting. One problem with any conference is that not all topics will interest all people. You also want to have a good range of topics. The purpose of the event is to foster Open Source in Massachusetts. this is done by building relationships and helping connect people. This can be hard for a small event such as ours. Lightning talks offer a great opportunity for this. For the general audience, they are given information dense overviews of topics and events they are interested in. If you are not interested in a topic, just like the local weather, just wait 5min. Presenters, while limited by time, are forced to communicate only the core information they need to get across. The idea is to engage the audience and get them interested in what you have to say. The point is not to answer all the questions an attendee might have for you or your project, but to just get the interested and hungry for more information. After all the talks are completed there will be a break before the keynote and space for attendees to gather and talk to the Lightning Talk presenters. Here is where connections are made and presenters can connect to those who are really interested in what they have to say, and can focus on exactly what people are interested in.

OLPC Keynote

As I have mentioned here and elsewhere, I feel that the software effort behind the OLPC project has been playing second fiddle to the hardware. There has been much attention given to the ‘laptop’, the innovative hardware technology, and some on the ‘child friendly’ interface. Very little has been discussed about the revolutionary new operating system being developed. Did you know the firmware is hardware independent? Did you know that while the kernel is based on Red Hat Fedora, the higher level operating system, including the file system is written in a dynamic interpreted language? Did you know that all you have to do is press a button on the laptop and you get to modify the code for whatever application is currently running? Did you know this is all done securely and using a revolutionary process management system where each process gets its own VM? This is not linux. This is something else entirely, and yes it is 100% open source. I will be handing out the Sugar SDK Live CD which includes a full linux development environment for developing applications for this revolutionary new system.

The Details

Second Annual Open Source Summit
Tuesday, June 19, 2007; 7:30 am registration; 8-12:30 pm
Microsoft, 201 Jones Road, Waltham, MA

Join us for this half-day summit as technology leaders discuss the current state of open source and the implementation of collaborative development models. The program will spotlight innovative open source companies in a rapid fire lightning round session. The summit will culminate with a keynote presentation on OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), an initiative lead by Nicholas Negroponte, as recently featured on 60 Minutes.

8:00 am — Opening Remarks

8:15 am — The Year in Review and the Years to Come: GPL3 and what it tells us about the current and future prospects of free and open source software. A member of each of the four GPL 3 Committees will review the new license, the process by which it was promulgated, and what it all tells us about the current state of free and open source software.

• Karen Copenhaver, Partner, Choate, Hall & Stewart (moderator)
• Ira Heffan, Associate, Goodwin Proctor
• Scott K. Peterson, Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property, Hewlett-Packard Company / Andover, MA
• David Rickerby, Partner, Choate Hall & Stewart

9:00 am — Open Source Strategies

• Jay Batson, EIR, North Bridge Venture Partners (moderator)
• Larry Alston, VP of Corporate Strategy, Iona
• Andy Astor, President and Chief Executive Officer, enterpriseDB
• Craig Dillon, Director of Enterprise Solutions, Microsoft
• Don Fisher, VP of Online Services, Red Hat
• Douglas Heintzman, director of strategy, IBM Software Group
• Justin Steinman, Director of Linux Marketing, Novell

10:00 am — Break

10:15 am — Lightning Rounds – Moderated by Mark Withington, founder & acting president, BostonPHP.org

• Akaza Research – Benjamin Baumann
• Apatar – Renat Khasanshyn, Founder and CEO
• BlackDuck – Jim Berets, Is the Sr Dir of Product Management for BlackDuck
• Drupal – Jay Batson EIR North Bridge Venture Partners
• enterpriseDB – Andy Astor, President and Chief Executive Officer
• IBM – Jean Barlage, Marketing Manager, ISV & Developer Relations
  
• Plone 3.0 – Nate Aune
• Simula Labs DevZuz – David Schwartz, VP, Business Development
• SnapLogic – Mike Pittaro
• SofCheck – Kent Bradford, VP – Sales & Mktg
• SugarCRM – Kelly Ann Bagley, Corporate Account Executive

11:15 am — OLPC Keynote - One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization aiming to redefine learning and education for the world’s children by providing each child with a specially-developed, innovative, and low-cost laptop. We will introduce the initiative and then dive into the challenging engineering behind the OLPC software platform, covering everything from its unusual firmware to its new child-friendly GUI.

• Ivan Krstic, Director of Security Architecture, OLPC

DIRECTIONS to Microsoft, 201 Jones Road, Waltham

(Interactive Map & Driving Directions also at http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/usaoffices/northeast/waltham.mspx)

From Downtown/Airport:
Follow 1-93 South to 1-90 West (Mass Turnpike). Mass Turnpike West to Exit 15 (1-95/Rte 128 North). I-95/Rte 128 North to Exit 26 (Route 20 – first exit North of Mass Turnpike). Follow Route 20 East through first stoplight. Take next left turn on Stow Street (following signs for Route 117). Take left at Main Street (Route 117 West) stoplight,then take second left onto Jones Road, at the blinking yellow light. Waltham Weston Corporate Center is located at the end of Jones Road (201 Jones Road). There is a parking garage under the building. Take the elevator to the 6th floor. You can also park in any lot around the building. When you reach the 6th floor, turn left and follow the corridor on your left.

From the South:
I-95/Rte 128 North to Exit 26 (Route 20 – first exit North of Mass Turnpike). Follow Route 20 East through first stoplight. Take next left turn on Stow Street (following signs for Route 117). Take left at Main Street (Route 117 West) stoplight,then take second left onto Jones Road, at the blinking yellow light. Waltham Weston Corporate Center is located at the end of Jones Road (201 Jones Road). There is a parking garage under the building. Take the elevator to the 6th floor. You can also park in any lot around the building. When you reach the 6th floor, turn left and follow the corridor on your left.

From the North:
I-95/Rte 128 South to Exit 26 (Route 20). Continue on rotary following signs for Route 20 East through first stoplight. Take next left turn on Stow Street (following signs for Route 117). Take left at Main Street (Route 117 West) stoplight,then take second left onto Jones Road, at the blinking yellow light. Waltham Weston Corporate Center is located at the end of Jones Road (201 Jones Road). There is a parking garage under the building. Take the elevator to the 6th floor. You can also park in any lot around the building. When you reach the 6th floor, turn left and follow the corridor on your left.

Join us for this half-day summit as technology leaders discuss the current state of open source and the implementation of collaborative development models. The program will spotlight innovative open source companies in a rapid fire lightning round session. The summit will culminate with a keynote presentation on OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), an initiative lead by Nicholas Negroponte, as recently featured on 60 Minutes.

8:00 am — Opening Remarks

8:15 am — The Year in Review and the Years to Come: GPL3 and what it tells us about the current and future prospects of free and open source software. A member of each of the four GPL 3 Committees will review the new license, the process by which it was promulgated, and what it all tells us about the current state of free and open source software.

• Karen Copenhaver, Partner, Choate, Hall & Stewart
• Ira Heffan, Associate, Goodwin Proctor
• Scott K. Peterson, Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property, Hewlett-Packard Company / Andover, MA
• David Rickerby, Partner, Choate Hall & Stewart

9:00 am — Open Source Strategies

• Larry Alston, VP of Corporate Strategy, Iona
• Robert Sutor, VP Standards & Open Source, IBM
• Don Fisher, VP of Online Services, Red Hat
• Justin Steinman, Director of Linux Marketing, Novell

10:00 am — Break

10:15 am — Lightning Rounds

• Andromeda
• BlackDuck
• DevZuz (Simula labs)
• Drupal
• enterpriseDB
• Please contact the Open Source Cluster Advisory Board at tom@masstlc.org if you are interested in presenting during the lightning round session.

11:15 am — OLPC Keynote. One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is a non-profit organization aiming to redefine learning and education for the world’s children by providing each child with a specially-developed, innovative, and low-cost laptop. We will introduce the initiative and then dive into the challenging engineering behind the OLPC software platform, covering everything from its unusual firmware to its new child-friendly GUI.

• Ivan Krstić , Director of Security Architecture, OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)

Cost: Members/Non-Members, $20/$40

Sponsors: Choate, Hall & Stewart; IBM

Register Online : http://function.masstlc.org/programs_new/event_single.cfm?eventid=787

1. The Software

This is the biggest oversight on the 60min. piece. The most revolutionary part of the OLPC story is, in my opinion, not the hardware, but the software. This is not a linux computer (not in the classic sense). This is a new type of computer from the ground up. The interface, Sugar, is nothing short of a revolution in computing and computer interfaces. The object store file system, the gear key, the list goes on. When an adult test user of the classmate (Intel’s alternative) was asked what it was like, they responded ‘it’s basically a small laptop‘. The XO is NOT ‘just a small laptop’, it is a learning machine. The first time you see that initial screen and use the ‘Zoom‘ metaphor interface, it is the only way you want to use a device. It just makes sense. The software is the yin to the hardwares yang.

2. Learning on a computer is NOT like playing a musical instrument

Geekcorp’s Director, Wayan Vota, a strong proponent of OLPC, makes a poor analogy, saying that learning on a computer is like learning to play a musical instrument. He states that without a teacher, the child will only be able to ‘make noise‘. My mouth dropped open when I heard those words, while my three year old hammered out an identifiable ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ on his toy xylophone in the background. Spoken like someone who does not have children. I can not enumerate all the problems with this analogy, nor the statement, in this space. If the OLPC were a windows or even a linux OS machine with the now standard Gnome or KDE interfaces, I would agree in part that a teacher would be needed to get the full benefit of the device. MySpace, YouTube, social networking sites, and even the text messaging short hand children are using today show how shortsighted Wayan’s statement is. Children did not learn how to code up their MySpace page in school. The reaction to some pages is proof that the majority of school faculty has no clue what the internet even is, let alone how to embed the latest javascript widget. To get around lacking interface designs, a new language is created! Sure this is not learning in the ‘classic’ sense. These kids are not using a workbook, solving predetermined problems where the answers are already known. They are solving real problems which have yet to be solved. They are adapting and learning outside the norms. For many children, this is ‘the norm.’ The XO is designed to excel at this type of learning. So when people are shocked to hear that the OLPC project wants to put laptops in the hands of children who do not have access to schools, ‘especially if they don’t go to school‘, why is there shock and horror their response? These are exactly the children who have the most to gain from such devices. Children adapt, children learn, lets give them the tools to do it. Schools are not always the most practical solution.

3. How is Intel harming OLPC?

I do not believe this has been clarified enough. Intel had a chance early on to be a part of the OLPC project. Instead they ridiculed the project. In order for the XO to meet the $100 goal, there needs to be a commitment of 3Mil. units. Intel realized that OLPC was succeeding, and instead of joining the project, decided to start up their own. They are going around to the governments who had approached OLPC to buy the XO and offering their device instead at a discounted rate (NOTE: OLPC originally did not approach anyone!) Intel is misrepresenting their device in that they tote the higher MHZ and memory as representing a better learning device, ignoring other inherent problems. This means that while promises were made, few agreements have been signed while governments wait to see what happens. This is directly undermining all of the OLPC efforts to date and jeopardizing the $100 goal. Intel now says they want to work ‘with’ the OLPC group; but they want to work with them on their device, not the XO. I could go on to discuss the fundamental differences between the projects, hardware, and software. I could go into great detail on the work by the OLPC to limit the impact on the environment with safe batteries, an open hardware spec that anyone can build, and upfront cost estimates instead of offering proprietary devices well below cost at a snake oil ‘introductory offer’ price. I could, but I don’t feel like typing THAT much.

If Intel is really serious about providing devices as a humanitarian effort, then they should join OLPC. If they want to donate funds to bring down the price of the devices, fantastic! If they want the devices to use intel chips instead of AMD’s, and to sell them themselves, the hardware spec is open, get to it. What they are doing instead is working against OLPC for purely monetary reasons. OLPC is a threat to Intel; a threat they dismissed as a joke, but are now more aware. If only they were wiser as well.

Interesting observations

While the XO was being used by 2nd graders, the Intel ClassMate was being used by children who appeared to be in middle school. While the XO was being used by families who have no electricity and children in over crowded schools, the schools using the ClassMate appeared to be quite affluent with school uniforms and small class sizes. The children using the XO laptops were collaborating and teaching each other how to use the devices and working together, the ClassMate users were sitting alone at their desks quietly. When Nicholas Negroponte saw children working together with the device he built against all odds, he said, ‘That is what we are doing!’ When Craig Barret, Intel’s President of the Board, was shown his companies marketing brochure given to the Nigerian government putting down the OLPC and selling the ClassMate he said ‘That’s the way our business works.’.