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July 24, 2005

Greece calling

Guess what - the hotel really does have Internet access and 3 Euros get you 30 minutes of IE 5 experience (in Greek) on Windows 98 (with a Greek keyboard). Anyway, that's good enough to read any emails of importance and check the odd weblog post. Meanwhile it's 40 degrees (Celcius), blue skies and all-inclusive catering. What more could you want? So, I guess I'll get back to that.

Actually I've been doing some thinking about "all-inclusive" vacations and the business model behind it. Interesting analogies to software - methinks.

Posted by Matthew at 07:37 PM | Comments (2)

July 21, 2005

Vacation

The first leg of this year's vacation starts in a few hours, when the family will be flying to Rhodes, Greece for 2 weeks of whatever it is they have there. No laptop this time and mobile roaming is really expensive in Greece, so I won't be using the phone to catch up with emails either. But, the hotel does claim to have an Internet-corner *grin*.

Catch you all in a fortnight. Don't go away.

Posted by Matthew at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2005

Building houses and customers in trouble

Yesterday, while munching on a currywurst at the local Imbiss, I overheard a conversation between two builders that seemed strikingly familiar:

"I'm fed up with my customer Mr. Schmidt"
"Why?"
"He rang me yesterday and wanted me to immediately come over and help him"
"What was the problem?"
"He'd been to the local DIY store, bought all these bits and pieces for his roofing project and was now stuck because he couldn't remember what the guy in the store had told him he needed to do. Isn't that just typical. They go out and buy the stuff cheaply at some store, get little or no advice and when they're stuck they call me and want me to help immediately."

"Aren't you glad there are customers like that that then at least call you?"

Some days are real eye-openers.

Posted by Matthew at 08:05 AM | Comments (2)

July 18, 2005

Bill joins SpikeSource

No, not Gates - Joy. Bill Joy joins the board of directors of SpikeSource. SpikeSource also announced two new executive positions.

Posted by Matthew at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)

Cocoon Blockathon

The Cocoon gurus have descended on Stuttgart and are now hanging out at the "Blockathon". If you're looking for the low-down on whats next for the XML application framework, then check out the Wiki, where firsthand reports are being posted.

Posted by Matthew at 02:12 PM | Comments (0)

July 16, 2005

Danny Rimer at EuroOSCON

I've just noticed that Danny Rimer from Indexventures is listed as speaking at EuroOSCON. This is great and I take at least some of the credit (thanks) for suggesting we get him to speak (I'm on the EuroOSCON program committee). I'm sure having a VC like Danny speak will be interesting for any budding Open Source startups over here.

Posted by Matthew at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)

Built-in exit strategies

Kids have a built-in exit strategy: Age. On Friday I took our youngest son, Nicolas, to Kindergarten - for the last time. In fact it was (probably) the very last time I take one of my own kids to Kindergarten. 7 years of Kindergarten (that's with 3 kids) - over. Gone. Never to return.

Another exit strategy from Kindergarten may be foul language - check out the movie that Nat Torkington made with his kids.

Posted by Matthew at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2005

JavaForum pictures and presentations

Here's a picture of me speaking on Open Source business at last week's JavaForum in Stuttgart. More pictures from the conference are here. You can grab the presentations from this page.

Posted by Matthew at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

EuroOSCON sessions up

At last more details on EuroOSCON, scheduled for the 17th-20th October in Amsterdam. I will be speaking on the business track.

Sebastian is speaking too - I must make sure I drop in on his session and wave.

Posted by Matthew at 05:05 PM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2005

BBC Open Source projects

The BBC has a site dedicated to the Open Source projects that they have released and are maintaining.

Posted by Matthew at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

Surprises

On Saturday the family and I flew from Paderborn to London-Stansted and took a rental car up to pay a surprise visit on my mum. My sister and family was visiting from the US and I hadn't seen them for about 8 years or so. We surprised them quite a bit and spent a great couple of days in North Norfolk. We even managed to squeeze a trip to the beach into our visit.

The only thing that didn't quite go as planned was our return trip. Our flight back was delayed for an hour (i.e. 10 minutes longer than the actual flight from London to Paderborn takes) and we didn't arrive back until 1am this morning.

The incoming AirBerlin flight was delayed because they had to fly from Paderborn to London via Hannover to pick up some stranded passengers. The flight-time from Paderborn to Hannover is 20 minutes.

Posted by Matthew at 06:45 PM | Comments (0)

July 08, 2005

London - the Olympic citizens

Driving back from JavaForum yesterday and I caught the sad news from London, which then accompanied me via radio for my complete 4 hr trip from Stuttgart to Paderborn. Plenty has been written about what happened and while it is clear that there is no such thing as complete protection from this type of thing, I think the clearest message has to be that we are not going to stay in bed and pull the covers up over our heads in fear.

Or as the London News Review wrote here:

And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub.

Posted by Matthew at 09:20 PM | Comments (0)

JavaForum impressions

I spent yesterday in Stuttgart at JavaForum. It was the first time I've attended that particular conference and I was quite impressed. 800 people converging for a day of sessions on everything Java made for a packed convention area. The conference was well organized by the Java User Group, but I had the feeling that the venue is at its capacity limits. JavaForum is more Java focussed than JAX, where there are a wider range of topics. Because JavaForum is only a single day, it obviously attracts a more local crowd of Java enthusiasts.

Posted by Matthew at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)

July 06, 2005

CIOs complain about Open Source

Networkworld publishes an open letter to the Open Source community that lists the points CIOs would like to see improved in Open Source projects (you know, stuff like better documentation, focus on the end user etc.).

The letter shows (unfortunately) just how clueless many CIOs (or the journalists that write this type of thing) still are. If the companies are interested in using Open Source, then they will need to commit to the Open Source project and in so doing - become part of it. If you, dear CIO, want better documentation for the Open Source project - then ask yourself - "what can I do to help the project create better documentation." Appoint someone from your company to get involved and scratch that itch!

This type of complaining (and I hear it nearly every day from one person or the other) shows how Open Source software is still thought of as being "a product" with a vendor you can write complaints too. In the case of most Open Source projects, you might just as well address the letter to yourself.

As a CIO you're part of the community too!

Posted by Matthew at 02:44 PM | Comments (1)

No software patents (in Europe)

The EU parliament has just thrown out the software patent directive put forward by the EU commission.

Posted by Matthew at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)

July 05, 2005

Off to JavaForum

Tomorrow I'll be driving down to Stuttgart and on Thursday I'm speaking at JavaForum. My session is "Open Source for managers - don't panic" and I'll be mixing bits from themes like "what is Open Source", "what's this community thing" and "how can commercial entities get involved but not get burned" into my view on why Open Source is a force that every software company needs to come to terms with sooner or later.

If you're going to be there then wave.

Posted by Matthew at 08:06 PM | Comments (1)

July 03, 2005

20 years change - what?

20 years ago I had just graduated from German high-school and on the day of the LiveAid (dare I say - the original) concert I returned from my first longer vacation away from home. Everyone and his dog was glued to the TV back on that day and there was this "feeling" that Bob Geldorf and the rest of the pop crowd were really trying to change something. And we were there with them. A feeling that even came back (slightly) when I watched the DVD version.

But 20 years on and maybe I'm too much of a cynic now to think that we can't really change anything at all. If the original LiveAid concert had been a success then why did we need another? Why are over 30.000 children still dying each day from poverty?
Sure, it's a noble cause and my hat is off to the people who put something like Live8 together. It must be a logistical nightmare and they pulled it off really really well. But how naive are we to think that politicians anywhere will take a cue from "a pop concert" (ok, a large one) and change the way they run the world? As Steve notes, they can't even take care of their own part of the world - let alone a continent as diverse as Africa.

But at the same time it's also too easy to lean back and smile smugly at the superficial pointlessness of an effort like Live8. So, while the event may have been too full of "well intentioned self importance" at the same time, as one of the comments to Hugh's blog piece writes "I'd still pick well intentioned self importance over inaction, however". True.

Posted by Matthew at 07:53 PM | Comments (1)

July 01, 2005

Amsterdam - European Open Source City 2005

This year sees the beautiful city of Amsterdam take the crown as the "European Open Source City 2005" (neat award idea methinks).

After a very successful HollandOpen in May, the Cocoon community will be setting up their tents from the 5th-7th of October for the now legendary Cocoon GetTogether. A few days later will see O'Reilly hosting the first EuroOSCON in the same capital.

Unfortunately it doesn't look as though I will make the Cocoon GT this year (Autumn vacation with the kids).

Posted by Matthew at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)