Open Source and Open Standards Bill

See Open Source and Open Standards Bill at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

The other day there was a discussion on the VAGUE mailing list about an open source and open standards bill (H.516) [PDF] recently introduced in the Vermont General Assembly (a.k.a. legislature). It's technically an amendment to an existing act and has the following stated purpose:

This bill proposes to require the department of information and innovation to advise against the acquisition by a state agency of proprietary software or software that operates by means of proprietary protocols when acceptable functionality can be achieved with open source software and open standard protocols and to ensure that the expected total life-cycle costs of software are fully evaluated prior to acquisition.

Overall I see this as a positive move for the State of Vermont. It does not seem to put the requirement for open source and open standards ahead of the particular business needs at hand since it only "advise[s] against the acquisition by a state agency of proprietary software or software that operates by means of proprietary protocols when acceptable functionality can be achieved with open source software and open standard protocols." However, Mitch Lieberman points out:

@BradleyHolt functionality does not directly = biz value IMHO, biz value needs to include ROI of functions, thus includes TCO

I agree with Mitch that the bill could do a better job of addressing not just functionality, but also return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO). These should be the primary considerations of any responsible organization in deciding what software to use. However, since it is the public's money being used to purchase this software it is worth considering whether our resources are being used to further entrench proprietary software and standards, or whether we are instead enriching the public commons by supporting open source software and open standards.

In addition to the above, there are some details of the bill that demonstrate some possible misunderstandings of how open source software works. While it's not anywhere in its text, the bill is described as being "An act relating to comparing the costs and benefits of downloading free open source software with purchasing proprietary computer software." There are a couple of misconceptions in this one statement. First, cost should not always be the primary motivation behind using open source software: the freedoms it gives you are just as important. In fact, not all proprietary software costs money and not all open source software is available free of charge. Second, "downloading" is simply a means of distributing software. Proprietary software can often be downloaded. Open source software is sometimes distributed on a physical medium.

It's not stated explicitly in the bill, but people sometimes think that if they release their own software under an open source license they are somehow giving up control of the licensed software project. While there are many benefits of giving up control (which are outside the scope of this blog post), it's worth noting that you don't have to. When you license your software you still own the copyright on that software. You can still do whatever you want with that software, including release it under a different license later. Once you accept outside contributions then you need to honor whatever license has been given to you be your contributors (unless they agree to transfer copyright to you, but this can be tricky). It's your choice whether or not to accept those contributions in the first place. You are still completely in control (as long as you want to be) and have simply given others the possibility of benefiting from your work.

Moving On

See Moving On at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

Today is my last day at Vermont Oxford Network and I will now be working at Found Line full time. This was not a decision I took lightly. Vermont Oxford Network is a great place to work and they've got an excellent team. For the last four and half years I've been developing software that improves health care for newborn infants. I feel like I've made a contribution beyond just the work. However, it's time to move on to something different.

Jason and I started Found Line almost five years ago and I'm looking forward to helping him and Liz continue to grow the business. We've got some really great clients and I'm very happy to have more time to focus on their projects. I'm also excited about the opportunity to work with free/open source software and open standards full time. So, time to go catch up on some work!

Free/Open Source and Proprietary Software Symbiosis

See Free/Open Source and Proprietary Software Symbiosis at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

Last week on The Browser I was talking (again) about free/open source software and open standards. Jonathan Butler (the host) asked what my thoughts were about my iPod touch which is proprietary hardware and software. Paraphrasing my answer, I said that Apple has created a killer product and a big part of this is their complete control over the platform. However, long-term innovation can only be sustained by free/open source software and open standards.

I was thinking about that question after the show when I remembered something: there's a ton of free/open source code in the iPhone and iPod touch. These devices run a version of OS X, parts of which come from the free/open source FreeBSD operating system. Safari, the device's web browser, uses the free/open source web browser engine WebKit. Contrary to popular belief, many free/open source software licenses allow you to make proprietary derivative works. Apple does contribute software back to the free/open source community even though they are not always legally required to.

My point is not to praise Apple's contributions. Likely these contributions are beneficial to them. If they branch a free/open source project and their branch strays too far from the original, they will have a hard time incorporating new features from these projects. Linus Torvalds (credited with developing the Linux kernel) recently commented on Microsoft's contribution of code to the Linux kernel:

I agree that it's driven by selfish reasons, but that's how all open source code gets written! We all "scratch our own itches". It's why I started Linux, it's why I started git, and it's why I am still involved. It's the reason for everybody to end up in open source, to some degree.

Apple and other proprietary software companies (maybe even Microsoft) are starting to demonstrate an interesting symbioses with free/open source software. While I do think that free/open source software is better for "consumers" and beneficial to society in general I don't think any of that is a necessary argument in support of free/open source software. I think that it is an approach that will ultimately create more value and be better at sustaining innovation than proprietary software. Smart software companies are starting to recognize this. Apple has reduced their upfront and ongoing research and development costs by tapping into free/open source software, even if the products they deliver to customers are proprietary. They also seem to understand the value of releasing some of their own software and modifications under free/open source licenses: they will get back more than they put in and the reward is greater than the risk.

Open (local) Government

See Open (local) Government at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

Last night I went to the Burlington, Vermont City Council meeting to listen to our newly re-elected mayor, Bob Kiss, give his State of the City speech and watch the City Council attempt to elect a new council president. I said "attempt" because, after 14 rounds of voting, they were still deadlocked 7-7 for opposing candidates. However, that's not what I want to talk about. In Mayor Bob Kiss' speech he made the following statement:

My administration worked closely with the Open Government Committee formed by resolution of the City Council. In response to committee recommendations, we’ve included more information about public meetings on the City web-site and the Planning Department added a new section about proposed and pending zoning amendments. During the campaign it was clear that people want to know more about the activities of each city department. Over the next year we’ll look closely at how to finance and build a more uniform, responsive and user-friendly City website that will keep you better informed about public meetings and how you can participate in the process of government.

I'm all for open government and the City of Burlington, Vermont could certainly use a better website. I'd like to give the city some advice on its priorities in building a better website. This blog post is my first round of advice, but I'd like to hear reactions from other web people in and around Burlington — or anyone else who has an interest in our city having a better website! This advice is based on the goals outlined by Mayor Bob Kiss: that the website is inline with the spirit of Open Government, is responsive, and is user-friendly.

First, the website must be accessible and use open standards. I put these two together because by using open standards the website can be accessible. Specifically, the website should use strictly semantic XHTML. This allows for its use in the widest range of user agents (browsers) by the widest range of user abilities (as opposed to disabilities). Its presentation should be progressively enriched through CSS and its behavior should be progressively enhanced through unobtrusive JavaScript. Progressive enhancement means that the website is useful, at its core, without any CSS or JavaScript. It becomes more useful through the use of CSS and then, perhaps, even more useful through the use of JavaScript. However, neither CSS nor JavaScript should be required to access the website's content.

Second, the website should be built using free (as in freedom, not cost) and open source software. It is our government's responsibility to use non-proprietary software wherever possible. When it comes to building websites and web applications, there are no excuses for not using free and open source software. The capabilities of the open web platforms available equal, or exceed, the capabilities of proprietary web platforms. Any custom software developed for the city's website must be licensed to the city under a free and open source license (this does not mean that the city shouldn't pay for this software to be developed).

Third, the city should embrace the concept of open linked data. This means that the city should publish data, not just content. This data should be both human and machine readable. This allows third parties to access raw data and repurpose this data in new and interesting ways. To this end, data and content should be either put in the public domain (which is probably the case already) or use a Creative Commons license. Where possible, the city's website should consume open data published by others rather than duplicating effort. There are several technical approaches to publishing and consuming open linked data including Microformats and the Semantic Web.

I hope these recommendations are useful. Once I've heard some feedback from other web people, I'll forward these recommendations to my city councilors and the mayor. Hopefully they'll find it helpful in improving the city's website!

The Web Is Not A Visual Medium

See The Web Is Not A Visual Medium at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

A claim you may have heard me make before is that the web is not a visual medium. Some of you know exactly what I mean and some of you probably think I'm nuts. For those of you who think I'm crazy, let me elaborate. You, like most people, probably experience the web visually. However, this visual aspect is only one facet of the web. Underneath the visual aspect you will find that the web is a structured, or semantic, medium. This means that people (or even machines) of varying capabilities (as opposed to disabilities), using all sorts of user agents (a fancy way of saying web browsers) can experience this same web non-visually. If built correctly, the same web page should be accessible to you visually as well as to visually impaired people, search engine robots, people that want to use text only web browsers, people using older versions of web browsers (backward compatibility), people using mobile devices, and user agents that weren't even invented yet when the web page was first built (forward compatibility).

There's one catch. There are many web sites and web applications built on the incorrect assumption that the web is a visual medium. The web designers and web developers who build these web sites and web applications break the web. In order to not break the web, web designers and web developers need to use open standards starting with plain old semantic (X)HTML. This semantic (X)HTML can then be progressively enriched/enhanced using CSS (for presentation) and JavaScript (for behavior). This approach works well with the concept of One Web which "means making, as far as is reasonable, the same information and services available to users irrespective of the device they are using."

Craig Cook has a good article about How to Grok Web Standards in which he addresses many of these ideas and more. If you still think I'm crazy, hopefully it's not because you think I'm wrong about the web not being a visual medium. If you don't think I'm crazy then maybe in another blog post I'll talk about why I think that content management systems (CMSs) in general, and WYSIWYG editors specifically, break the web.

The Social Graph

See The Social Graph at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

In my last post about the semantic web I mentioned the XFN project which allows individuals to define their relationships to others simply using semantically marked up hyperlinks. I also said that a global graph can be made of all of these relationships making the "walled gardens" of existing social networking sites obsolete. Before I continue, I should probably mention that the word "graph" in this context refers to graph theory in computer science, not a chart or diagram (although these graphs could be visualized). At risk of over-simplifying: graph theory talks about how individual "nodes" connect to one another and how data can be extracted from looking at these connections.

Google has an interesting project called the Social Graph API that lets developers "utilize public connections their users have already created in other web services. It makes information about public connections between people easily available and useful." It uses public XFN as well as FOAF data to accomplish this. FOAF is, interestingly enough, an example of something designed around the W3C's Semantic Web specification. Here's a video that explains a bit about how Google's Social Graph API works:

The power of this open data is another example of why facebook won’t last as a walled garden. I don't expect existing social networking sites to simply disappear. However, open standards like XFN and FOAF will help level the playing field amongst social networks by allowing even small social networks to benefit from the network effect. Having lots of social networks trying out different things can only be good for innovation in the long run.

TMD VT Social Media Recap

See TMD VT Social Media Recap at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

Wow, thank you to everyone who participated and helped make Town Meeting Day Vermont '09 a social media success! In the spirit of openness, I wanted to share some things that Jason and I learned from the tmdvt.net/09 experiment. First of all, some disclaimers. It's important to note that we were just one small part of something that was bigger than us. Our goal was to encourage people to use tagging on Twitter, Flickr, blog posts indexed by Technorati, YouTube, and Delicious so that others could easily find Town Meeting Day related content. It didn't matter to us if people used tmdvt.net/09 directly, what mattered was that people used the relevant tags when publishing or when searching. In fact, I doubt that tmdvt.net/09 had much of an effect on adoption of the #tmdvt hashtag on Twitter, which was the site that, by far, had the most tagging activity.

Before you continue reading the rest of this blog post, you should read my first post on Town Meeting Day Vermont, Bill Simmon's Town Meeting Day & social media, Cathy Resmer's Town Meeting Day 2009, and Ryan Freebern's Townsourcing; or, the promise of localized community media for some background and other perspectives… OK, back? Great!

A big thing we noticed was that since most users found out about tmdvt.net/09 through Twitter, they expected the same level of immediacy as Twitter from the other websites we aggregated. Flickr, Technorati, and YouTube all had delays that were longer than what users expected. Delicious bookmarks didn't show up immediately but were still relatively quick. We couldn't quite figure out why some of the content from Flickr was delayed. It seemed to be based on a variety of factors, such as the account's submission frequency (possibly as an anti-spam measure).

As I mentioned earlier, the heaviest tag usage was on Twitter with over 360 tweets from countless people using the #tmdvt hashtag. Next up was Flickr with over 150 uploads tagged with tmdvt09 from a handful of users. Only 6 blog posts used the tmdvt09 tag and were picked up by Technorati: 1 was my original post about the tag, 1 was from Vermont Public Radio's blog, and 4 were from The Seven Days Staff Blog. I think there were more blog posts that used the tmdvt09 tag, but for whatever reason these didn't get indexed. Only 2 YouTube videos were uploaded and tagged with tmdvt09. There were 21 bookmarks tagged with tmdvt09 on Delicious; however, none were tagged enough to be considered "popular" by Delicious.

CCTV Channel 17 pointed out that they were posting exit interviews to blip.tv and that there was no option for that on tmdvt.net/09. It appears that blip.tv doesn't support tagging or categorized feeds so we had no way of syndicating content specific to Town Meeting Day from blip.tv or CCTV's channel. However, a representative from blip.tv was paying attention and was quick to respond to my tweets, which I was very impressed by.

I was also impressed with local news outlets bridging the gap between traditional and social media during Town Meeting Day. Seven Days, Burlington Free Press, Vermont Public Radio, Vermont Community Access Media, and CCTV Channel 17 all had a presence on Twitter, and some had a presence in other social media as well. I had conversations with representatives from several of these news outlets and there was a general interest in further engagement in tmdvt.net/10.

The original sketch for tmdvt.net/09 included tabs for traditional media outlets in addition to the tabs for various social media websites. I don't think social media will replace traditional media. Traditional media provides the resources (i.e. time and money) to do real reporting and the authority that comes with that legwork. I do, however, believe that traditional media and social media can learn a lot from each other, which is part of why we wanted to put them at the same level on tmdvt.net/09.

In order to include traditional media, we needed Atom or RSS feeds specific to Town Meeting Day content. In my research, and in talking with several people from the media, I couldn't find anyone who was currently doing this. The Seven Days Staff Blog was the closest with their Town Meeting Day 2009 category. However, they didn't have an Atom or RSS feed set up for this category, so it would have been very difficult for me to try to aggregate that content. My challenge to the news media is to provide more fine grained feeds so that your readers can decide exactly what type of stories they're interested in reading. It will likely increase the number of people who subscribe to your Atom or RSS feeds and allow people like me to make mashups using your content.

I think there is a lot to be learned from this experiment and I'd love to hear what insight others may have about this. Let's continue the discussion online. Also, it might be interesting to have an offline discussion sharing perspectives from this year's Town Meeting Day and ideas for similar events in the future. If you're interested, let me know!

Getting Semantic

See Getting Semantic at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

In a previous post, What You Need to Know About the Semantic Web, I shared my letter to Harvard Business Review's editor about their recent semantic web article. I realized after I made that post that I should probably have addressed the difference between the Semantic Web (a proper noun) and the semantic web (lower-case). The Semantic Web is a formal extension to the World Wide Web that attempts to add semantic data to the web. There are all sorts of terms and acronyms associated with the Semantic Web such as the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL).

The semantic web (lower-case now) is a more loosely defined term. Generally it refers to a variety of efforts to make the existing web more semantic. The Semantic Web is certainly one part of the semantic web. However, there many other semantic web efforts other than just the Semantic Web project. These efforts often overlap, intertwine, and compete.

My personal favorite semantic web related project is Microformats. Microformats start with making existing web content semantically structured, instead of structured for presentation. See my previous entry on Plain Old Semantic HTML (POSH) for more information on this concept. Microformats then use HTML markup (i.e. elements, classes, ids) to define data structures based on existing formats. For example, the hCard Microformat "is a simple, open, distributed format for representing people, companies, organizations, and places, using a 1:1 representation of vCard (RFC2426) properties and values in semantic HTML or XHTML." There's at least one browser extension that can extract hCard data from web pages. I'd be surprised if search engines haven't already started using this semantic data to better index content.

Another very interesting Microformats related project is XFN (XHTML Friends Network). In Jonathan Butler's recent blog post on CRM, VRM, and the tip of an iceberg he highlighted Tom Ilube's statement that "the semantic web would cut out the intermediary and restore control of personal information to the individuals who are its true owners.” XFN is a great example of this in action. It allows individuals to define their relationships simply using hyperlinks. Taken to an extreme, a global graph can be made of all of these relationships making the "walled gardens" of existing social networking sites obsolete.

Browser Correction

See Browser Correction at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

On last week's The Browser interview (audio) with Jason Pelletier (jason_pelletier) and me, Jonathan Butler (jonathanpb) asked me for an example of a proprietary framework and I used Adobe Flex as an example. It turns out that the Flex SDK is actually not a proprietary framework and is, in fact, open source. I should have known this since Adobe Flex was the topic of a whole PHP users group meeting awhile back. John Boone (jbgoode12) pointed this out to me in an interesting conversation he and I (BradleyHolt) had on Twitter:

jbgoode12: @jonathanpb @BradleyHolt @jason_pelletier listening to ep 2 of The Browser - also very interesting! One correction: the Flex SDK is open src (view tweet)

jbgoode12: @jason_pelletier @BradleyHolt @jonathanpb It's true that the Flex IDE costs $$$ but you can create Flash w/open src: http://opensource.adobe.com/wiki/display/site/Home (view tweet)

BradleyHolt: @jbgoode12 Good point! I guess I was thinking about Adobe Flex Builder. Didn't meant to pick on Adobe, just one example of proprietary SW. (view tweet)

BradleyHolt: @jbgoode12 Oh, and thanks for listening to the show, glad you're finding it interesting! (view tweet)

jbgoode12: @BradleyHolt @jason_pelletier It's like how Micro$oft does it : they have open SDKs but the IDEs are $. FB is based on Eclipse, tho (view tweet)

BradleyHolt: @jbgoode12 Yeah - technically open source but to do anything practical takes lots of work or spending money to make it easier. (view tweet)

BradleyHolt: @jbgoode12 But you're right, the framework itself (Flex SDK) certainly appears to be open source. I stand corrected :-) (view tweet)

jbgoode12: @BradleyHolt It'll be interesting to see if an ecosystem grows around the Flex SDK, like maybe the relationship between .NET and Mono... (view tweet)

BradleyHolt: @jbgoode12 That will be interesting to watch. The Flash Player is still proprietary (although there are some alts) which could be a problem. (view tweet)

jbgoode12: @BradleyHolt right. and the flash player being proprietary kinda makes the rest moot... plus you can do a lot with frameworks like jquery. (view tweet)

BradleyHolt: @jbgoode12 I love jQuery! Would be cool (but unlikely) if Adobe truly opened up everything Flash related as open source and open standards. (view tweet)

I appreciate John's correction and love having conversations like the one above. I hope The Browser inspires many more conversations!

Found Line on The Browser

See Found Line on The Browser at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

Tomorrow night (Wednesday February 11th, 2009) Jason and I will be on Jonathan Butler's new radio show, The Browser. We'll be talking about Found Line, our work, free/open source software, and open standards. We'll also talk a little bit about the Burlington, VT PHP Users Group. You can listen to the show at 6:00pm on Burlington, Vermont's local noncommercial low power FM radio station, WOMM-LP 105.9 FM The Radiator. If you're not in listening range you can catch the show online or get the podcast later.

What You Need to Know About the Semantic Web

See What You Need to Know About the Semantic Web at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

The February 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review has an article in their Breakthrough Ideas for 2009 series that addresses What You Need to Know About the Semantic Web. I was happy to see the semantic web being talked about seriously in a business magazine. I think the author is right when he says that many business will be caught off guard by the semantic web. However, I took issue with the author's implication that the only semantic web technology that mattered was the Resource Description Framework (RDF) and his neglect of other technologies, such as microformats, that may make the semantic web a reality before the RDF vision is complete. Below is a letter I sent to the editor addressing this issue.

Dear Editor:

Tom Ilube is correct when he says that the semantic web is "likely to catch much of the world off guard." He implies that the technology that will first bring about this change is the Resource Description Framework (RDF). A combination of simpler technologies may make the semantic web a mainstream reality before the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) RDF vision is complete. On the web, simple approaches to solving problems often gain traction before more complex ones. In this case these simpler technologies include Representational State Transfer (REST) and microformats. REST is a concept that was introduced by Roy Fielding in 2000. It is an often overlooked, yet fundamental, building block of the web that has gained more recognition in recent years. Microformats are an incremental "pave the cowpaths" approach to adding richer semantic data to the existing web based on established open standards. Granted, microformats don't have the same scope as the W3C's RDF specification and their goals are only somewhat overlapping. However, it is important for readers to be cautious about placing all of their bets on one technology when there is not yet a consensus as to what technology (or combination of technologies) will make the semantic web revolution a reality.

Bradley Holt
Technical Director & Co-Founder
Found Line
Burlington, Vermont

The (not so well thought out) case against Web apps

See The (not so well thought out) case against Web apps at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

I just read Neil McAllister's post: The case against Web apps. I couldn't resist sharing my thoughts on what he had to say (and I wonder now if his article was intended as a troll).

"1. It's client-server all over again... Scaling small server farms to meet demand can be a real challenge -- just ask Twitter."

Twitter is a bad example, Neil. By its nature Twitter requires a client-server architecture. Unless, of course, he's suggesting re-architecting Twitter as peer-to-peer application. Interesting idea, but probably more complicated than scaling server farms.

"Furthermore, security vulnerabilities abound in networked applications, and the complexity of the browser itself seemingly makes bugs inevitable. Why saddle your apps with that much baggage?"

The first part of that statement is mostly meaningless. Sure, unplug most applications from the network and you'll instantly have less security vulnerabilities! Is Neil suggesting that developers will have less bugs if they build the whole stack themselves? Doubtful. Having a large part of the stack maintained separately is a nice benefit of web applications. Developers can focus on getting their part right, and let other people worry about getting the other parts right.

"2. Web UIs are a mess... Buttons, controls, and widgets vary from app to app. Sometimes the menus are along the top, other times they're off to the side. Sometimes they pop down when you roll over them, and sometimes you have to click. That inconsistency hurts your development budget, but it hurts usability more."

Desktop applications are just as guilty of having inconsitent UIs. Programmers break the rules all the time regardless of the platform. We need more UI experts and we need to stop making programmers responsible for the UI.

"3. Browser technologies are too limiting."

So? The web has its own advantages that I will not enumerate here as they are (mostly) well known. It's a different platform. People need to stop trying to build web applications as if they were desktop applications (hint: REST).

"4. The big vendors call the shots... Increasingly, the evolution of Web standards is being driven by major browser vendors -- new features are implemented first and standardized later. Independent developers have little genuine input into the future direction of the Web. And that's to say nothing of the ongoing bickering between the various vendors. Does it make sense to rely on client-side software that's such a moving target?"

No one's claiming the standardization process is perfect. But, at least it happens mostly in the open. All it takes to solve this problem is for more people to step up and get involved in promoting web standards. Stop complaining and get involved!

"5. Should every employee have a browser? ... You could make a case that it's unwise to allow employees unfettered access to the Web if your company values productivity, particularly in high-turnover environments such as help desks and call centers. But if your internal applications are Web-based, you'll need to either host them onsite or maintain careful router or firewall rules to prevent abuse of your Internet services."

I'm not even sure what Neil's point is here. This is a company-by-company decision. If it's important for a company to block web access, then surely they can figure out how to write the appropriate firewall rules to allow their own web apps to work? Overall I thought this piece was not very well researched and had some major logic gaps. If its goal was to be flamebait then it did a good job.

CSS for Web Developers

See CSS for Web Developers at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

The Burlington, VT PHP Users Group will be meeting Thursday January 22nd from from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. Since we (Found Line) recently had some demolition - I mean renovations - done we've got a bit more space so thought we'd finally host the meeting. Here's a description of the presentation, "CSS for Web Developers", that Jason will be giving:

Most web developers don't consider themselves designers—and shouldn't. The reality of working on a website or web app, however, is that developers must either wear the designer hat or must interface with a designer/design team. Having a solid understanding of design best practices makes for a more efficient process and a higher quality product. Come hear more about web design and CSS from a designer's perspective. We'll cover semantic markup and its influence on CSS implementation, reset and debug stylesheets, tools for creating and debugging CSS, coding standards, and maybe even microformats if time allows. The goal isn't to convert developers into design experts, but rather to give an overview of an effective design process that works for designers and developers alike.

Jason Pelletier is Creative Director and Web Designer for Found Line. The Burlington-based creative firm develops standards-based websites, product packaging and marketing strategies for growing businesses. Clients include Seventh Generation, Vermont Public Radio, EatingWell and True Body Products. Prior to co-founding Found Line, he managed creative resources for Seventh Generation, and was a designer for Stonyfield Farm.

More details here. Please pass this on to others you think might be interested. Pizza will be provided and we will be giving away a "please don't hurt the web - use open standards" t-shirt as well as a copy of Jeffrey Zeldman's book "Designing With Web Standards". Hope to see you there!

VPR Reports Campaign 2008

See VPR Reports Campaign 2008 at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

For coverage of local Vermont and national election news, check out the VPR Reports Campaign 2008 page that we (well, Jason really) put together. The 2008 Election Map is a Flash widget provided by NPR but other than that the page is all XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript (via jQuery and jQuery UI). Check back throughout the evening for updated information and listen to live coverage on VPR starting at 7pm tonight!

Proprietary Skype

See Proprietary Skype at its new home on bradley-holt.com.

Peter Saint-Andre (Executive Director of the XMPP Standards Foundation) has pointed out the Free Software Foundation's recent addition of a "Free software replacement for Skype" to its list of High Priority Free Software Projects:

Skype is a proprietary Voice-over-IP program that uses a proprietary protocol. Skype is seducing free software users into using proprietary software, often two users at a time. We do not want to encourage the creation of a Skype compatible client, but instead, we want to encourage you to create, contribute to, or promote the use of free software alternatives to Skype, such as Ekiga, and to encourage to adoption and use of free VoIP, video, and chat protocols such as SIP and XMPP/Jingle.

I have long been annoyed by Skype's closed platform and have refused to use it despite its popularity. Skype users can only communicate with other Skype users (or PSTN users through SkypeOut) because they do not use an open standard and do not federate with other VoIP providers. This destroys much of the value proposition of using VoIP and ultimately reduces VoIP (in people's minds) to simply "free/cheap phone calls." In other words, Skype is helping to hold back an entire industry from innovating.

At Found Line, we use two open VoIP standards: XMPP and SIP. Google Talk provides our XMPP service (through Google Apps) and is used mainly for internal communications. However, Google Talk is connected to the public XMPP network so, just like with email, we can communicate with anyone else using the same standards. Junction Networks provides us with very reliable SIP hosting and allows us to communicate (at no cost) with anyone on any public SIP network. They also provide us with a PSTN gateway (so that we can make "normal" phone calls) and a hosted PBX (auto attendant, unlimited extensions, etc.) all at a very reasonable price.