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April 19, 2005
At MySQL - interesting Opening.
I just got to the MySQL users conference. They have lots of plugs around that is cool after OSBC all the folks with computers were relegated to the edges.
They are talking about Live Journal right now. It seems like an interesting story about how the teenage desire to talk/write incessantly can over run computer database systems. They are discussing the best way to do cluster systems - Distributed Replicated Block Devise and other things.
I caught the end of the opening talk about the state of open source by Tienmann he brought up two really interesting topics
1) looking at the history of civilization - Guns, Germs and Steel - what is the ultimate and proximate causes of major technology shifts. He was asking the audience to think about the ultimate causes of the success of open source.
2) Massive Change - a book by Bruce Mau (that I bought and read in November)
for most of us design is invisible until it breaks.
He went into an interesting set of numbers from Microsoft - their own numbers announced for how much they are going to be spending on fixing security - It is growing exponentially in July 2002 the amount was 100 million and in March 2005 they announced they would be spending 2 billion. By 2008 they will either spend down their entire revenue or have to cash all the money they have in the bank. The assertion was clear - of bad design was causing this massive failure. Perhaps Kim's work there is part of getting to the simplicity on the other side of complexity that will solve some of these complex security problems.
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Software patents are a recipe for massive stasis in any field where their is a new patent for 20 years. He closed by asking some provocative questions about the binary relationship between the client and designer and if particular license re-enforced this - hypothesizing that GPL was strongly pluralistic and others were perhaps less so.
He closed with Moores Law - who is not referencing that this week?
He postulated Cox's Interperability Hypothesis. Linking Moores and Mentcalfs Laws. When one has 70% of the nodes one has 90% of the connections.
I looked up the Interoperability Hypothesis this is what I foundanother reference to Tiemann referencing - then I wonder is it real?
Michael Tiemann spoke to Open Source theory and quoted Alexis de Tocqueville's democracy on America.
He highlighted 'the value of option value' as a basic business
principle and a foundation of Open Source processes.
He Introduced Cox's Interoperability Hypothesis. "Metcalf's Law" value of network is proporational to the number of connections that can exist in geometric proportions. Spoke to themacroeconomics of compatibility. Proved that conventional economics rewards bad behavior.
Open Source leverages network economics; when the potential connections is in the billions versus the thousands, per Metcalfe's and Moore's Laws the productivity is millions of times better.
Here is another reference
Talking to Alan Cox, he says to look at Metcalfe's law, Cos'x [sic] (and why this reference didn't come up the first time) interoperability hypothesis. Degree of interoperability between competing subnets modifies the value of the network. Compatibility and cooperation increase value. Moore's law dominates in the small, Metcalfe's in the large. Fragmentation vs. dominance. Inertial power of the installed base. Force multiplier. Installed base size. 1M network has 1E6 force, 20 generations or Moore's law. 1B network has 1E9 force, 30 generations of Moore's laws.
Posted by Kaliya at April 19, 2005 11:42 AM