Open Source Matters

December 24th, 2008
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“Open Source” is one of those buzzwords that probably doesn’t matter much to most people. But its our bread and butter. We use Open Source products to run our servers. We use it to build and manage websites. We use it for hosting, marketing campaigns, and internal business applications. And its not just us. Much of the Internet is built with Open Source products. Google for instance, is built on Linux, an “Open Source” operating system. Its worked out OK for those guys. And Apache, an Open Source web server, has been the #1 web server on the planet since 1996 (based on Netcraft web surveys), despite Microsoft really working to flex its muscles in the server realm. Apache has succeeded because the Apache Foundation produces a first rate product, that is fast, featureful and robust. Firefox, the web browser, is something that possibly resonates with more people. Its Open Source too.

OK, Open Source matters to us, but why should it matter to our clients? Well
because there are number of benefits to Open Source development, that trickle
down and benefit our clients, and ultimately, our client’s users.
Using Open Source tools will allow us to produce quality products:

  • At Less Cost
  • Faster
  • Using the newest web-based technologies
  • With better support for web standards


Now let’s look at why this matters a little more closely:

  • Less costly. While many Open Source products are “free” (meaning
    without monetary cost — “free beer” vs “free speech”), they are not all
    “free”. But certainly we can bring a server on line with minimal software
    expenditure. We can then build the finished products that will be the
    websites on that server using tools that often cost relatively little.
    These savings get passed directly to the client. Money matters.
  • Faster development cycles. Most of the core software we use for server
    deployment and website building can be downloaded and installed in a
    matter of minutes. Of course, we are providing a number of value added
    improvements to this code, so that the finished products are just what our
    clients want. The fact they we can readily access code that has some of
    the functionality that our client wants, makes it easier for us to look at
    that “open source” code, modify it, add to it, and improve it as we see
    fit, and then launch it. Anyone that has done Open Source development will
    tell you this is a huge time saver in many instances. Time matters.
  • Fast adoption of new web-based technologies. Things happen faster in the Open Source world. The development cycles are much faster than in the closed source world. Anyone can start a project any time they want and explore or adopt new ideas and features at the drop of hat. When new ideas come along, and if they hit a nerve on the web, they spread like wildfire. Open Source by its nature responds quickly. Closed, proprietary systems have to wait for the next software production cycle. And if they misjudge the merits of a new concept, maybe two release cycles. (How many years did it take Microsoft to acknowlege and adopt RSS? Three? Four? Five?). Technology matters.
  • Better support for web standards. The Internet is built on “standards”.
    Standards provide a common language so that one system here can talk
    reliably to another, very different system over there. There has to be a
    high level of commonality in protocol implementation for this to work
    the way we’d like. One way this can fall apart, is proprietary closed source
    providers that have a dominant market position, can play fast and loose
    with the standards. Their non-compliant products always can be made to
    work with their own products, but working with somebody else’s product
    that is standards compliant, gets to be hit or miss. So
    the little guys on the standards compliancy side have to adjust what they
    do so that it works correctly with both the standard compliant vendors,
    and the big boys with non-standards compliant products. Anyone who has
    worked with web development will tell you that Microsoft’s Internet
    Explorer browser is a nightmare to code for, just for these reasons. It
    has had a history of poor standards compliancy (this is changing for the
    better now). When we are talking a potential audience of millions and you have a few percent that you miss because of compliancy issues, its going to add up pretty quickly. Standards do matter.

These are meat and potatoe reasons our customers receive tangible
benefits from our participation in the Open Source software community. They
are more likely to get a quality product, faster, and cheaper than if the same
project were built soley with proprietary, closed source products.

But there is one last reason that Open Source matters. And this is a
philosophical point: because its open, and its “free” [1]. We, in the United
States, live in a free and open society. At least, we aspire to those lofty
ideals. We preach them and foster their acceptance around the globe. I’m
hardpressed to think of a way to use those two words in a sentence, and come
up with anything that has a negative connotation. We have free speech, freedom
of the press, freedom to worship as we please (or not), freedom of choice, of
assembly, and so on down the line. Freedom is just “good”, no?

Yes, free access to the code we use to build servers, sites, applications and
share information with is a good thing. It allows us to share and improve a
global codebase that is open to all of us, not just the few. It is not held
in proprietary hands and licensed to us temporarily as the masters of that
codebase see fit. It belongs to us, we, the people. Yes, freedom matters too.

Open Source matters.

Life Happens, Open Source

Coming Attractions

November 11th, 2008
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Musings on Life

  • How granddad invented Tabasco Sauce
  • I own a piece of the Titanic (and you don’t)
  • My best friend was a dog
  • Freedom Geek
  • Hitler’s Doorknob
  • Famous Kentuckians no one has ever heard of
  • If 6 was 9. Or that’s what happens when earth fucks with space
  • Will script for food
  • Sued by a moron
  • She was a heavy hippie mama (with great big legs)
  • “Right this way smiles a mermaid”

Life Happens

How granddad Invented Tabasco Sauce

November 11th, 2008
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The True History of Tabasco Sauce.1

This is really one of those rags-to-riches, American success stories. To get to the beginning of the story, let’s start at the end, and then march backwards. First, some family history …

My mother is Laura Bullitt Burgiss,
whose father was Hugh Kennedy Bullitt,
whose mother was Heloise Kennedy Bullitt 2,
whose mother was Anne White Kennedy,
whose father was Maunsel White,

and the guy that invented Tabasco Sauce.

I guess that makes him not granddad, but great-great-great-grandad.

Maunsel was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1784. Orphaned at the age of 13, he emigrated to the “colonies” in the late 1700’s, settling first in Louisville, Ky. where he worked as a clerk in the shipping industry. Commerce was primarily river based goods at that time, and eventually he relocated down-river to New Orleans. He quickly did quite well for himself in various business ventures, becoming wealthy, eventually owning several plantations, including the “Deer Range” plantation (near New Orleans), where he hosted such notables as Andrew Jackson, and Lady Wilde (Oscar’s mom). By the time of the War of 1812 he was well established, captained and financed the “Lousiana Blues” regiment.

The principal crop of his plantations was sugar cane, but Maunsel dabbled in various other horticultural interests, including a failed attempt at marketing a fermented beverage made from oranges. He also had a taste for peppers.

A sea-captain friend, who traveled the Caribbean, returned one day with a handful of pepper seeds from the “Tobasco” region of Mexico, which were unknown in Louisiana at that time. Maunsel began cultivating these peppers. As was the custom of the day, these were called “Tabasco” peppers (variously spelled “Tobasco”) for their native region.

The traditional method of preserving peppers was to dry them. Tabasco peppers are unusually oily, and Maunsel found they did not dry well in the heat and humidity of south Louisiana. Not to give in easily, he experimented with sauces made from the peppers which he bottled, and was known to give freely as gifts to friends and neighbors. He eventually settled on a vinegar based sauce. “Maunsel White’s Tabasco Sauce”, as it was known in its day, was well known in the area prior to 1850, and the successful marketing of THE TABASCO® Sauce in the 1860’s by the McIlhenny family of nearby Avery Island, Louisiana.

The McIlhenny family (founders of THE Tabasco Sauce) were neighbors and acquaintances of Maunsel White, and undoubtedly knew of his sauce, which pre-dated their own concoction (despite their apparent denials). Though well known locally, Maunsel never marketed his own Tabasco sauce. Family members did market several sauces bearing his name after his death. He died well before the commercialization of the product that he inspired.

Hal Burgiss

1
The above facts were taken from the memoirs of Heloise Kennedy Bullitt, my great-grandmother, and grand-daughter of Maunsel White, published as “Recollections of my Childhood“, on July 24th, 1936.
2
Interesting historical note: Heloise’s dad, Hugh Kennedy, also an Irish immigrant, was “appointed” mayor of New Orleans at the end of the civil war by Abraham Lincoln.

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