Plaintext
Open Visions Issue One
OPEN-MINDED
CEOS
A collection of essays and interviews from opensource.com
IN THIS BOOKLET
ARTICLES
3 The open source renaissance
Brian Gentile, Chairman and CEO of Jaspersoft
5 Transparency, participation, and collaboration:
The distinguishing principles of open source
Brian Gentile, Chairman and CEO of Jaspersoft
8 How does open source affect company culture?
Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems
10 An architecture of participation
Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems
13 Open source hardware: Fast and malleable
Nate Seidle, CEO of SparkFun
16 The best idea wins
Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat
INTERVIEWS
18 Glen Moriarty, CEO of NIXTY
21 Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch
25 Micki Krimmel, CEO of NeighborGoods
Introduction 1
Open source
changes the world
And when the world changes, so do the ways But the leaders we feature here embrace
we work together in it. these potential consequences, because they
know that openness can produce positive
At opensource.com, we explore how
results unlike anything we’ve ever seen.
embracing open source principles and
While some of their peers redouble their
practices — like transparency, meritocracy,
efforts at secrecy, hierarchy, and control,
community, participation, collaboration, rapid
these open-minded CEOs have chosen a
prototyping, and sharing — can lead not
different tack.
only to a powerful method of engineering
software, but to a whole way of life. An open They’re all working in different fields, but wo-
source way of life. ven throughout their essays and interviews
are some important — and difficult — uni-
The essays and interviews collected here are
fying questions: How can we bring people
the fruit of an ongoing conversation about
together to do great things? What motivates
living and working the open source way.
them? How can we coordinate them when
Their authors are CEOs from some of today’s
they unite? How does working the open
most intriguing companies. We call these
source way allow us to anticipate the future
leaders ’open-minded’ because of their intu-
and adapt to thrive in it? And what counts as
itive sense that the open source way is the
success? Their answers are compelling.
best way to do business. You’ll see what we
mean. These authors are tireless champions The first part of this volume consists of
of open source values in their organizations essays that open-minded CEOs have penned
and their communities. for opensource.com, essays teeming with in-
sights into what it means to organize people
Working the open source way isn’t always
for achievement in the twenty-first century.
easy, as any of our contributors will quickly
In part II, we feature interviews with the
note. Fostering an organizational culture that
heads of companies aiming to reinvent entire
encourages employee autonomy, extensive
domains — education, for instance — the
collaboration, and rigorous meritocracy can
open source way.
disturb traditional management styles. Being
transparent can open a company to new Each piece is an example of how being
risks. A commitment to rapid prototyping will open-minded can radically alter not only how
likely produce some embarrassing failures. we work, but also how we lead. Enjoy.
And sharing forces everyone to rethink no-
tions of ownership, property, and value.
Open-minded
ceos
articles
The open source renaissance 3
The open source
renaissance
Brian Gentile, Chairman and CEO of Jaspersoft (originally published March 2010)
It occurred to me recently that the open others to share in the use of their patents
source movement is really nothing less than and copyrights, because they think such
a renaissance. Perhaps that sounds grandi- distribution will dilute their value — when, in
ose, but stay with me. fact, sharing can substantially enhance the
value. Fundamentally, “open source” is about
If you think about it, for a few hundred
the sharing of ideas big and small and the
years, some of the most significant advance-
modern renaissance represents newfound
ments by mankind have come from, and are
understanding that sharing creates new value.
maintained in, proprietary (closed source)
methodologies. In many areas of science, the sharing of
ideas (even patents and copyrights) has long
Take, for example, U.S. patent and copyright
been commonplace. The world’s best and
protection laws and policies. They reinforce
brightest physicists, astronomers, geologists,
proprietary, “closed source” rights and
and medical researchers share their discov-
policies. As a result of this system, many
eries every day. Without that sharing, the
substantial U.S. companies have formed
advancement of their ideas would be limited
around breakthrough ideas, but incentives
to just what they themselves could conjure.
are in place for those companies to guard
By sharing their ideas through published
and protect their intellectual property, even if
papers, symposiums, and so on, they open
others outside the company could extend or
up many possibilities for improvements and
advance it more rapidly.
applications that the originator would have
Now, to be clear, patent and copyright never considered. Of course, the Internet
protection is necessary because it prop- has provided an incredible communication
erly encourages the origination of ideas platform for all those who wish to collabo-
through the notion of ownership. But, too rate freely and avidly and is, arguably, the
few people consider the upside of allowing foundation for this renaissance.
4 Open-Minded CEOs
That’s why it’s ironic that one of the laggard ideas, given that few others would genuinely
scientific disciplines to embrace open source be able to exploit them. But, once again, the
is computer science. For the past 40 years, for drive to create a business using historically
example, incentives have been strong for a consistent methods has limited the pharma-
company to originate an idea for great soft- ceuticals industry to closed practices.
ware, immediately file a patent and/or register
So, returning to computer science and
to copyright it, and then guard it religiously.
software, maybe the reasons for not sharing
No one would have thought that exposing
are based on the complexity of collaboration?
the inner-workings of a complex and valuable
That is, it’s hard to figure out someone else’s
software system so that others might both
software code, unless it’s been written with
understand and extend it would be beneficial.
sharing fundamentally in mind. Or maybe
Today, however, there are countless examples
there’s a sense that software is art, and I
where openness pays off in many ways. So,
want to protect my creative work — more
why has computer science and software
like poetry than DNA mapping.
lagged in the open source renaissance?
Either way, the renaissance is coming for the
That computer science is an open source
software industry. Software will advance and
laggard is ironic because the barriers to
solve new problems more quickly through
entry in the software industry are relatively
openness and sharing. In this sense, comput-
low, compared to other sciences. One might
er science has much to learn from the other
think that low entry barriers would reduce
areas of science where open collaboration
the risk to and promote the sharing of ideas.
has been so successful for so long.
But, instead, software developers (and com-
panies) have spent most of the last 40 years Fortunately, the world of software is agile
erecting other barriers, based on intellectual and adept. According to research by Amit
capital and copyright ownership — which is Deshpande and Dirk Riehle at SAP Research
perplexing because it so limits the advance- Labs, during the past five years the number
ment of the software product. But, such of open source software projects and the
behavior does fit within the historical under- number of lines of open source software
standing of business building (i.e., protecting code have increased exponentially. The
land, labor and capital). principles that this new breed of open source
software have forged are already leaving
Another relative laggard area — and an inter-
an indelible mark on the industry. Soon, its
esting comparison — is pharmaceuticals and
proponents believe, all software companies
drug discovery. When I talk with colleagues
will embrace these fundamental open source
about this barrier-irony phenomenon, this is
principles: collaboration, transparency and
the most common other science cited (i.e.,
participation. The course of this renaissance
another science discipline that has preferred
will be our guide.
not to share). But, in drug discovery the in-
centives not to share are substantial because
the need to recover the enormous research
costs through the ownership of blockbuster
drugs is extremely high. In fact, because
the barriers to enter the pharmaceuticals
industry are quite high, one might think that
would promote openness and the sharing of
Transparency, participation, and collaboration: The distinguishing principles of open source 5
Transparency, participation,
and collaboration: The
distinguishing principles
of open source
Brian Gentile, Chairman and CEO of Jaspersoft (originally published September 2010)
I believe that, over time, Jaspersoft’s dis- reach not just all technology companies, but
tinction will be less about it being an open all other industries as well.
source software company and more about
As I’ve described in many settings, the prin-
its abilities as a great business intelligence
ciples of open source software are transpar-
software company1. I expect declining
ency, participation and collaboration. These
distinction for our open source-ness will
principles stand, in many ways, in stark
partly occur because the success of open
contrast to the aged, proprietary ways of
source software and the benefit it brings
doing business. I’ll briefly define and explain
the community and customers become
each of these three principles.
better accepted and understood each year
(and, therefore, less unique). I also believe Transparency
that the most valuable aspect of the open Doing the right thing when no one is watch-
source model will long endure, way after the ing may be the best definition of integri-
sheen fades from the download, forum post, ty. You combine that with frankness and
or roadmap voting. That is, the principles of honesty, and you have the first open source
open source software are its most distin- principle, transparency. With open source
guishing characteristic and will eventually software, anyone can watch. Jaspersoft
6 Open-Minded CEOs
software engineers and our community con- Open source community distinction emerges
tributors know that every line of code they because its members participate by using
write will be made available for inspection either their time (i.e., skill) or their money. Ei-
and comment by a very large community. If ther is valuable and helps to make the open
they have any discomfort with transparency, source project thrive. The only sin in open
they would choose a different vocation. source is not participating. In other words, if
a community member is using open source
This transparency transcends software en-
software and deriving real benefit from its
gineering, though, to all aspects of the busi-
existence, then participating by providing
ness. In every way possible, an open source
time or money should be seen as basic and
company should be transparent; that is, frank,
reasonable reciprocity.
honest and operating with integrity. If a mis-
take is made — admit it, describe how you’ll Collaboration
make it right and move on. If an important
Collaboration is about collective engagement
milestone is reached that deserves cele-
for the common good and is the fastest
bration — announce it, enjoy the moment
route to open source project success. If an
of pride and move on. This is the obligation
open source project is a neighborhood, then
an open source company maintains with its
collaboration is the barn raising. Distinguish-
customers and community. And, those using
ing this from “participation,” collaboration
the open source projects/products must be
is about helping others in the community
equally transparent through their actions and
because doing so advances the project and
deeds. For example, the community must
its usefulness for everyone.
adhere to the terms of the particular open
source license, using the software only as My favorite example of collaboration is
those terms allow, reflecting their transpar- knowledge sharing through forums, blogs,
ency. In short, transparency is about doing and idea exchanges (in some circles, called
what you know is right. In a community, the ideagoras). On JasperForge, Jaspersoft’s
effects of transparency are amplified. open source community web site, there are
more than 160,000 registered members
Participation
who have collectively offered nearly 80,000
Actively giving back in a very tangible way is forum entries across all the listed top-level
the heart of participation. Making the open projects. The variety of questions and issues
source projects, of which each community being addressed by and for community
member is part, more successful and more members within the forums is staggering.
capable should be the common goal. Giving And, the vibrancy that emerges through
back can mean many things, including and this exchange of skill is core to large-scale
especially either committing time through community success.
code contributions (for those community
While forum activity remains brisk, I’m
members with the skill and expertise) or pur-
equally proud of our guided use of an idea
chasing/licensing the software if the project
exchange within JasperForge. Each top-level
is in any way commercial open source. Code
project includes a roadmap where commu-
contributions can include not just feature
nity members can comment and vote on
advancements, but language translations,
planned features. This not only allows many
bug fixes, and quality assurance testing
voices to be heard, but provides a valuable
assistance, among others.
Transparency, participation, and collaboration: The distinguishing principles of open source 7
calibration for Jaspersoft and its community,
ultimately yielding the most important prod-
uct features and advancements in approxi-
mately the best priority order.
There are many more examples of collabora-
tion in action, across JasperForge2 and other
leading open source sites, but these are
some of my favorites.
I talk about these three principles of open
source regularly, and I’m fond of concluding
that the real benefit of collaboration accrues
to those who participate transparently.
That’s just my clever way of mentioning all
three of the open source principles in one
actionable sentence.
1. www.jaspersoft.com 2. www.jasperforge.com
8 Open-Minded CEOs
How does open
source affect
company culture?
Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems (originally published February 2011)
An open source company is naturally a cannot or should not be shared with everyone.
company that produces open source code for How does an organization hold a balance be-
others to consume. But how does the notion tween being culturally open and maintaining
of producing software code in the open the level of professional discretion required
affect company culture? by its customers, its board of directors and
others? How do employees know when to act
I believe that an organization cannot produce
open and when to keep closed?
open source code if it is not generally open
itself. By this I mean having culture of trans- During my eight-year tenure as CEO of
parency and of openly sharing information MySQL, we believed that openness, both in
and ideas. The same basic environment our product and our company culture, would
that is often found in open source develop- lead to greatness. As a result, there was a
ment — a sense of open community, where daily vibration around the topics of open
everyone is welcome to share their opinions and closed. For example, it was vital to keep
and ideas — is often present in open source information we received from customers
companies as well. confidential, but it was also important to
make every new piece of the server code
But a company is different from an open
open. Knowing what should remain undis-
source community in a key way: In every
closed and what could be openly shared was
commercial entity, there is information that
How does open source affect company culture? 9
a skill that we wanted every employee to passionate about their jobs and the mission
master. This kind of deliberation is less of a of MySQL.
factor in a traditional corporate environment,
Today, three years after MySQL was acquired
in which the default environment is generally
by Sun, I can still easily detect the MySQL
closed. At MySQL, each employee had to be
spirit in my past colleagues when I meet
empowered and enlightened to know when
them here and there. There is an assumption
to be open and when not to.
that information will be shared. There is a
Within this balancing act of open and closed, conviction that debate is useful. What we
we followed a principle of being open all know is that inclusiveness and openness
as much as we could. That’s a good and of open source communities, when injected
beautiful principle, but knowing exactly how into a company culture, can create some-
to apply it requires fine-tuned judgment. As thing special.
noted, we kept customer information and
minutes from board meetings confidential.
We did not share personal information such
as salaries and performance evaluations. But
we really tried to make everything else open:
bug database, work lists, design documents,
and so on. We also tried to keep business
information open. We were open about
our business model, our partners, and our
downloads. And we agreed that in our public
communication, we should disclose as much
information as possible.
Internally we tried to be open, too. We
informed everyone of broad resolutions.
We discussed difficult strategic choices on
company-wide conference calls and in broad
management meetings. We encouraged ev-
eryone to have an opinion of everything. This
radical openness did not come free of charge,
however. MySQL AB was known as a compa-
ny whose staff could debate topics endlessly.
Some of our employees and managers were
frustrated with the long decision-making
cycles. Sometimes openness became the
priority rather than a means to an end.
But in retrospect, it is difficult to regret the
way we operated. Although the principle of
openness may have at times taken a toll on
our productivity, it also helped foster em-
ployees who were brilliant spokespersons for
the company and brilliant decision makers
on their own, all the while being amazingly
10 Open-Minded CEOs
An architecture
of participation
Mårten Mickos, CEO of Eucalyptus Systems (originally published June 2012)
What happens when half of the world’s pop- exception. The world used to be about com-
ulation lives in cities? When over three billion mand and control. Someone told you what to
people are online? When there are more do. There still is a lot of that. But collabora-
than 15 billion connected devices? tive innovation is taking over. We are coming
to a stage in our civilization where regular
Old organizational models hit end-of-life.
functions are masterfully automated and in-
People behave differently. Organizations
dustrialized, and our focus as human beings
behave differently. What worked in the old
can and will increasingly be on innovation.
world doesn’t work in the new.
In the area of innovation, the most powerful
Through the ages, people have collaborated creation happens in teams, groups, and
around common goals. Joint creation and crowds — across organizational boundaries.
joint production are not new ideas. It could When we architect for such participation, we
be argued that the old religious scriptures can multiply the power of innovation.
were crowd-sourced. Most other activity
Linus Torvalds stumbled over this mecha-
back then was strictly controlled by a ruling
nism over 20 years ago. In an act that was
leader or harsh environmental conditions. But
part abandonment and part invitation, he
when people engaged in new and intriguing
somewhat unknowingly threw out an intrigu-
topics of the time, they worked together.
ing challenge to software developers all
They collaborated.
over the world: Work with me to build a free
What is changing now is that participato-
ry models are becoming the rule, not the
An architecture of participation 11
operating system. And people did — willingly, Millions of freeloaders providing a marginal
spontaneously, and brilliantly. benefit amounts to much more than a small
number of contributors each providing a big
Soon, a number of free and open source
benefit. This is why the size of the ecosys-
software projects were defining the archi-
tem matters. With three billion people on
tecture of participation — a model for how
the Internet, freeloaders are more abundant
to engage people with different ambitions,
and more useful than when we had just
different mandates, different employers (or
three million people on the Internet (which
no employer at all), and different communi-
was approximately the time when the Linux
cation habits in joint projects that unpredict-
project started).
ably but inevitably produce superior results.
This is why the architecture of participation
That’s the essence of the architecture of par-
is now overtaking systems of command and
ticipation. You construct rules of engagement
control. The volume of participants is so
that allow disagreeing people to let their
large that any attempt to be fully in control
work products agree. This is a system where
inevitably leads to a group too small to
the designer invites input from contributors.
have meaning. The number of people you
The end result is an ecosystem that evolves
can control are vastly outnumbered by the
faster than any individual initiative, resulting
people you can only hope to influence, but
in a work product with fewer deficiencies.
not control.
The architecture of participation is more than
Let us also be clear that the architecture of
open, and more than crowd-sourcing. Open,
participation is not anarchy. It is also not a
strictly speaking, means that you share your
democracy. Every architecture of participation
production with others. It doesn’t necessarily
has an architect. There is a steward of the
mean participation. Crowd-sourcing means
project. The steward can be a single individ-
many people contribute to a production. It
ual (like Linus Torvalds), a team (think about
doesn’t necessarily mean that they would
the creators of the Apache web server) or a
exchange value with each other. It’s not
company (such as MySQL AB). The steward of
enough to be open and it’s not enough to
the project sets the rules of engagement.
crowd-source. We must build an architecture
of participation where different participants If the rules are too strict or egregious, people
with different agendas can exchange ideas will not participate. If there are no rules,
and models, and everyone has access to the people will not know how to participate. In
end results. It’s not easy to do that, but it the ideal architecture of participation, there
also is not impossible. is a steward of the project that sets priorities
and design goals and then simply ensures
The beauty of a well-functioning architecture
that the field is open for participation by
of participation is that there is no significant
anyone and everyone. To scale collaboration,
distinction or conflict between the public
it makes sense to create useful interfac-
good and the private good. It’s just good. It’s
es — APIs that allow individual initiatives to
good for each participant, and it is good for
evolve at their own pace while interacting
all. It does not matter whether there are free
with each other through the agreed interface.
riders or freeloaders in the system, because
the moment they take any action whatsoev- Architectures of participation exist all over
er, they become at least marginally useful to the technology sector today. It’s not any
the entire system. longer just about open source. Wikipedia
12 Open-Minded CEOs
brings together those who can express facts
and concepts in writing. Facebook brings
together those who can express their daily
lives. oDesk and the Mechanical Turk bring
together those who have work capacity to
provide to others. Kiva.org brings togeth-
er those who have a penny to spare for
someone who is working hard. Twitter brings
together those who can express useful
information very briefly. The Human Genome
Project brings together insight about DNA.
The Khan Academy brings together the best
in educational practices. The Linux Founda-
tion continues to bring together those who
can express computer behavior in the form
of kernel code.
We are only in the early stages of the
architecture of participation. Cloud comput-
ing is a participatory endeavor. The mobile
application space is exploding with partic-
ipation. Large traditional corporations are
launching social initiatives and participatory
fora. National governments are opening up
for citizen participation. The list steadily
grows longer.
The ideal architecture of participation com-
bines the best of ownership of design with
the best of collaboration by the masses. If
you have no architect, you have no participa-
tion. But if you have no participation, it mat-
ters little what the architect does. When the
architect (whether it’s a person or a team) is
a master of the trade and also a welcoming
recipient of contributions and participation,
the results can be amazing.
Open source hardware: Fast and malleable 13
Open source
hardware: Fast and
malleable
Nate Seidle, CEO of SparkFun (originally published May 2012)
SparkFun is not like BMW. We will never be lots of bribes from engineering when we
the company to produce the luxury market forget to break out the right test points),
version of breakout boards and development but over the past 9 years of building stuff,
tools. I believe the only way SparkFun will we’ve figured out ways to change quickly.
survive this quickly changing world is to be Thanks to the huge efforts of a team of
malleable. We have to be ready to change. people1 we can change any part of a design
(PCB layout, schematic, BOM, firmware, test
SparkFun’s audience is often a first-time
procedure, test jig, kit instructions, product
user and we want them to have the best
description, product images, you name it) in
experience with the documentation and
days, not months.
resources like tutorials, pictures, example
code, and anything else we can provide
to make them successful. By constantly
revising our products, we often find ways to
make it more likely for our users to succeed.
The firmware will get better, we will figure
out better power protection, and we’ll make
the end product easier to use. This causes
lots of stress on our production line (there’s
14 Open-Minded CEOs
Phillip Torrone recently posted a great article Now imagine what it was like in the Spark-
on problems and counterfeits2 in the Open Fun offices the first time we saw our product
Source Hardware (OSHW) world. All sorts of (our baby) built by someone else? It was
great discussions ensued! Jan Malasek 3 from not easy. But guess what came of it? We
Pololu made some great points about the now know we need to innovate, and do so
appropriate time and place for OSHW and constantly. If we can’t be the best at some-
Paul Stoffregen4 raised some valid concerns thing, we’d better get the heck out of the
that OSHW may encourage lower quality way. Intellectual property allows for some
products. I’m here to state two things about protection, albeit at a legal expense. On top
OSHW as it works for SparkFun. of that, IP holders can be tempted to sit on
their laurels and in this day and age, that can
be the kiss of death. We use open source
hardware as a way to stay sharp.
2. OSHW makes for better products.
We believe it is better to iterate on a design
and be and transparent and forthcoming as
possible. You will find some SparkFun prod-
ucts with silkscreen errors8 and even green
wires9. We have even shipped kits without
the PCB (!!!). Yep, we screwed that one
up badly but we contacted the customers
as soon as we found out and sent out the
1. OSHW makes us a better company.
missing PCBs. All lessons cannot be learned
Releasing the design files5 for a product in a vacuum. At SparkFun, we find it’s better
means you have enabled all your customers to give our customers the most options pos-
and a few competitors as well. sible, listen, then incorporate their feedback
into new product revisions, which is very
We sold the original Fio6 for about 12 weeks
much in line with the spirit of open source.
before Seeed Studio7 sold a better version.
Some could argue that shipping an unfinished
Eric Pan runs Seeed Studio and does a fine
product is not the correct way to do business.
job of it. They did everything right (kept
I have had to train myself and the people
the license intact, gave attribution where
around me that a project is never done, there
required) and even improved the design a bit
are always ways to make it better. This is the
(they used easier to find parts).
basis of engineering. We believe we should
get the product to do one thing well and
then set it free and allow others to hack on it.
What we thought was an important feature
may turn out to be needless.
It may not appeal to everything, but is this
fast release cycle a good thing or bad thing
for Open Source Hardware? I believe this
is the core of why OSHW is fantastic. We
have learned from our problems and we
Open source hardware: Fast and malleable 15
share them10 so that others do not make
our same mistakes. In a very clear way, we
educate and enable our customers and our
competition equally. Similarly, we will stand
on the shoulders of folks who have had
great ideas (Leah Buechley11, Brian Schmalz12,
Bill Premerlani13, and countless others) and
made powerful tools (Arduino14, Saleae15,
mbed16, the list goes on). What will separate
companies from one another in the future
is not their designs, it will be their service,
their quality, their price, and their ability to
produce meaningful products. This is the
nature of the game we play and it is my job
to make SparkFun the best at responding
to incremental change that allows for better
end products and happier users.
1. www.flickr.com/photos/sparkfun/6686434511 8. www.sparkfun.com/products/10104?
2. http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/18/soapbox- 9. www.sparkfun.com/products/10183?
counterfeit-open-source-hardware-knock- 10. www.sparkfun.com/tutorials
offs-101/
11. http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Eleah/
3. http://blog.makezine.com/2012/04/25/makes-
interview-with-jan-malasek-from-pololu/ 12. www.schmalzhaus.com
4. www.pjrc.com 13. www.sparkfun.com/products/11115?
5. www.sparkfun.com/products/10116? 14. www.arduino.cc
6. www.sparkfun.com/products/8957? 15. www.saleae.com/logic/
7. www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2009/01/10/ 16. http://mbed.org
funnel-io-remixed-by-seeedstudio/
16 Open-Minded CEOs
The best idea wins
Jim Whitehurst, CEO of Red Hat (originally published May 2012)
There’s a Southern expression that goes, of that thought has helped shape collabora-
“Says easy, does hard.” In this case, it’s easy tion at Red Hat, even when we’re addressing
to say that your company is focused on business questions unrelated to software
collaboration and ideas. But many execu- per se. Working this way means that nothing
tives conflate the terms “collaboration” and matters but the idea. The idea wins.
“consensus.” Seeking consensus and creating
Just as it’s neither possible nor advisable to
a democracy of ideas is not what we at Red
listen to every person’s input on every issue,
Hat would call collaboration. In fact, it’s a
we don’t want to get to a place where we
misstep. Rather, managers at Red Hat make
hold hands and agree on everything. At Red
it a practice to seek out ideas from those
Hat, we want to foster effective collaboration
who’ve shown that they typically have the
and create an environment focused on ideas.
best ideas — those who have risen to the
Over time, the people who consistently have
top of our meritocracy.
good ideas will be listened to.
To get to the top, though, it’s not enough to
Of course, no one’s immune in the Red Hat
merely have an idea; you’ll also need to de-
meritocracy. Being the CEO doesn’t protect
fend it against all comers. That means there
me from being called out sometimes. I, too,
may be disagreements. Voices will be raised.
have to be ready to defend my ideas. And
Building your reputation, therefore, can take
you know what? I encourage it. I celebrate
time, patience, and a thick skin.
it. That’s how you can ensure the best idea
This environment can seem harsh at first. wins in the end.
But keep this in mind: Open source software
developers say, “In the end, nothing matters
but the code. The code wins.” And the kernel
Open-minded
ceos
interviews
18 Open-Minded CEOs
Interview with
Glen Moriarty,
CEO of NIXTY
(Originally published September 2010)
Why is open education important? to education? It has gone up! It goes up no
matter what. When inflation is up, educa-
Open education is hugely important for a
tion goes up even more. When we are in a
variety of reasons. There are several writers
deflationary environment, as we are now,
who have covered this space much better
education still goes up. It is simply not sus-
than I can; a couple of key people in this
tainable. I won’t bore you with details about
space include David Wiley1 and George
the “education bubble.” The interested reader
Siemens2. Rather than attempt to cover the
can check out Anya Kamenetz’s DIY U 3 for
full range of this question, I’ll highlight a few
more details. The primary point here is just
reasons why we think it is important and
that education is too expensive and open
especially relevant to what we are doing
education is a brilliant way of dramatically
with NIXTY.
decreasing educational costs.
Reason #1: Education is too expensive
Reason #2: The US approach to higher edu-
In the United States, house prices have cation doesn’t scale
dropped 30-40%, gas has decreased from
David Wiley astutely observed several years
$4.00 to $2.44, and for those with children
ago that educators have limited bandwidth.
(yes, I have 3), a gallon of milk has dropped
They simply do not scale. We need to find
from $4.00 to $3.19. What has happened
Interview with Glen Moriarty, CEO of NIXTY 19
ways to harness non-educators and tech- education. We believe the open education
nology to meet the needs of people across movement will be at the center of education
America and around the globe. Our current in 5 years. We are delighted to be part of
system of closed education cannot meet the this group.
goals of the Obama administration, nor can
There have been comments around your
it meet the demands of a growing globalized
content management challenges — how
economy. Open education can help solve
will you control content quality?
these problems because it scales.
We have several controls in place to help
Reason #3: Copyrighted materials are limited
control content quality. First, you can only
and decrease educational progress
post or comment if you are logged in. Sec-
Educational materials that are protected, ond, all contributions (posts, comments, and
top-down, and static are limited and hinder soon content) can be upvoted or downvoted6.
educational progress. Open educational ma- These votes are tracked in each person’s
terials are the opposite: they can be remixed, reputation points. Additionally, all comments
altered, and tailored to meet the needs of a and posts are cataloged and can be searched
variety of people. on a person’s eportfolio7. When a person
visits another’s eportfolio they see their
How has NIXTY involved the existing open
display/professional elements (CV, resume,
source community and how have they
recommendations, work examples, etc.) and
rallied around NIXTY?
their process elements (comments and posts
People in general love open education, and published across the platform). Third, each
they seem quite enthusiastic about NIXTY. instructor has full delete capability. They can
We have received a ton of press (this invited delete any part of their course. Fourth, and
article included!), and we are very thankful. this will be released in the near future, items
We are still in the early stages, but people published in WikiCourses will have the option
see the vision, and it is something that most of being marked for deletion. Once a certain
people want to get behind. threshold is hit, the content will be automat-
We have consulted with many open edu- ically deleted.
cation experts. Many of them see the value What are some of the principles from
in NIXTY and have helped us spread the the open source way that will help
word to others. We are very fortunate to NIXTY’s growth?
have several experts on our Open Education
There are a number of principles from the
Advisory Board.
open source way that will help NIXTY’s
We are excited about playing our small role growth. The first is a sense of community.
in the open education movement. I’m not We actively work with students, educators,
sure there could be a better group of people instructional designers, and open education
to work with. John Seely Brown4, in his experts to inform what we do. They are part
new book, The Power of Pull 5, talks about of our community, and their feedback results
working with people on the edge. His main in real change on the site. That said, we need
point is that people on the edge transform to take things further. We have open forums
the center. From our perspective, the open on our site but need to find more ways of
education movement, now at the edge, is making direct contributions executable. We
the primary driver behind transforming also plan on releasing an API. The second is
20 Open-Minded CEOs
a commitment to releasing early and often.
We are a fairly small group of people and
have limited resources; it helps to look at this
as a strength. It ties us closer to the com-
munity and causes us to engage and listen
in deeper ways. Third, NIXTY is tied to the
idea of universalism. We are actively working
to build a global default educational system
that scales. We care deeply about providing
tools, and the ability to remix content, so
that it can be tailored to different contexts
and geographic regions. Finally, the last main
principle would be user innovation. NIXTY is
a platform that others can build on to help
solve the educational problems we face.
1. http://opencontent.org/blog/ 5. www.edgeperspectives.com/pop.html
2. www.elearnspace.org/blog/ 6. http://nixty.com/login
3. http://diyubook.com 7. http://nixty.com/eportfolio/glen
4. www.johnseelybrown.com
Interview with Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch 21
Interview with
Aaron Fulkerson,
CEO of MindTouch
(Originally published May 2010)
Can you tell me a little bit about the culture where people are scared because they don’t
at MindTouch? How would you describe the know if they will be fired from day to day?
culture at the company that you built? How Well, that never happens at MindTouch.
does it reflect the open source way? Instead, we put people of concern on a
correction plan for 60 days.
First and foremost, everybody at MindTouch
is really passionate about open source and Regarding excellence, we want our people to
open standards. Furthermore, Steve and excel. That’s why we give all of our co-work-
I built this company around three cultural ers $600 per quarter to spend on profes-
tentpoles: honesty, excellence, and pride. We sional development, which could include
want to work with people who love what classes or any other development tool of the
they do and are always trying to make them- employee’s choosing.
selves better at what they are doing.
And finally, pride. We’ve worked hard to fos-
The way that we’ve adopted and system- ter a culture where everyone at MindTouch
atized these three doctrines (or pillars) ties feels comfortable bringing attention to the
in very directly to the open source way. For co-worker who might be in need of some
example, we don’t fire anybody on the spot if improvement. “You know that work you just
you’ve been with MindTouch for more than 6 did? Well, it’s not the best work I’ve seen.”
months. Have you ever worked at a company
22 Open-Minded CEOs
And that goes all the way to the winners like Jim Gray4 and Robin Milner5 in
executive team. my time working there. It was a very differ-
ent experience from what one might expect
I’ll give you an example. One of our market-
within Microsoft.
ing admins had a concern about how one of
our outside vendors was being treated. She Speaking of Turing Award winners, I studied
felt comfortable enough to go to the head under another while a student at UNC-Chapel
of the department and say, “Look, I don’t Hill. Of course, that man is Fred Brooks6, au-
like how you’re treating this outside vendor. thor of the Mythical Man Month and founder
We’ve been delaying, delaying, delaying in of the computer science department at UNC.
giving the vendor an answer and haven’t yet He’s a god.
paid them.”
In your experience working at proprietary
There is absolutely a cultural meritocracy at companies, do you feel that aspects of a
MindTouch. The guy who runs our support company’s culture can stifle innovation?
team started out as an office manager, and And, conversely, can aspects of an open
very quickly moved into running the entire source company’s culture accelerate the
support team. He just excelled at it. rate of innovation?
And almost every single one of our devel- Some people, when they first come into
opers, every single person in engineering, MindTouch, are surprised by how much
has a side project that they are working freedom they have, both in rising to the
on — whether it’s a side company, or an occasion and taking on responsibility that
open source project. might be outside of their specific domain or
sphere of influence, but also in simple things
Leaving Microsoft to start an open source
like engaging the community.
company must have been an interesting
transition. Can you compare and contrast I had a new employee once ask me “Can I
the culture at the company you’ve built write a blog post on this?” I said, “Well, yeah,
with that of Microsoft? why are you asking me that? It’s like asking
me if you can go to the bathroom.” (laughs)
For me, my experience at Microsoft wasn’t
that different from working at an open Who can tweet on the MindTouch account?
source company because Steve and I were in Whoever wants to! (laughs)
a small research team that reported directly
It’s that culture of openness that is so typical
to Craig Mundie1, who had been the CTO. On
of open source companies and you don’t see
my team was Chuck Thacker2, who just won
in most software companies.
the Turing Award a few weeks ago, and guys
like Henrik Frystyk Nielsen3 who also worked As MindTouch grew and we started bringing
on HTTP 1.1 and co-wrote the SOAP 1.1 & 1.2 on some people who might have had more of
specifications. Somehow Steve and I lucked a background in proprietary companies and
into this small group. were unaccustomed to working with open
source, it even became apparent to me that
My time there was very different from what
for them it felt odd. But as we all grew to be
most people’s experience might have been
more comfortable being open and honest
at Microsoft. It was more academic. I had
and authentic, it created a humanness for
the opportunity to not only work with a
the company that resonates with users and
Turing Award winner, but I met other award
prospective customers. And it drives more
Interview with Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch 23
users and prospective customers. So that’s keting and other such things to go out and
one key thing that I’ve seen. fight against Oracle and Microsoft.
Another thing that I have come to realize is We’ve been successful by making our
that companies that have tried to own the products freely available, building up a large,
protocols and own the standards generally very fanatic install base of users, and then
don’t succeed. Look at what happened offering them commercial solutions built on
during the SOA era — you know, SOAP and top of that.
all these very heavy web services — the
Opensource.com is about applying open
reason why those web services were created
source principles beyond technology. How
the way that they were was because large
do you see open source playing a role in
companies like IBM and Microsoft and all
areas such as business, education, law or
those people who were involved in the stan-
government? Can you see any opportuni-
dards creation wanted to sell very expensive
ties in today’s world for the open source
heavy tools on top of the services infrastruc-
way being applied to solve some of our
tures. And it was frankly a huge failure that
biggest problems?
undoubtedly set us back 5, 7, maybe 10 years
because they wouldn’t embrace these open Absolutely. We’re seeing it in education,
standards that already we’ve proven could obviously, with MIT and several other very
scale and provide a very extensible platform. prominent universities making their course-
ware, videos, and tutorials available online.
Specifically I’m talking of course about HTTP
and XML. You look at how these very large I have also witnessed firsthand how this is
companies put all of their weight and dollars changing the legal landscape. It’s funny —
and marketing budgets and essentially and most people don’t realize this — but the
everything they had into creating this new small start-up open source companies that
world of SOA, and all these promises were came up in the 2004-2006 cohort, of which
made… it was all about them owning the MindTouch is one of the younger ones, all
protocol, owning the platform, providing very shared the development of things like legal
heavy tools and ultimately it was proven to contracts and partner agreements to save
be a huge failure. on legal costs. My contracts might be a little
different now, but I remember for the first
So instead we opt to live in a completely dif-
few years, MindTouch’s contract templates
ferent world where it’s open standards and
tracked back even to JBoss.
everybody benefits — including companies
like MindTouch who adhere to open stan- What I’d like to see — and I’ve pushed hard
dards. Everything at MindTouch is like-ori- on this but have never been able to see
enting… meaning it’s all HTTP. Everything any movement yet from my efforts — is an
we do revolves around open standards. And emergence of open source as applied to
again, it’s a huge benefit. manufacturing. We have seen some projects
around electric cars, and people like the
The third thing I’ll say is that MindTouch
BugLabs guys and others working on per-
would have gone out of business a long time
sonal devices and things like that. But what
ago if we hadn’t been able to build up an in-
I foresee happening is that as more and
stall base. In the beginning we bootstrapped
more of our manufactured products become
this company — we certainly didn’t have all
commodities, true innovation will come from
the resources to dump into sales and mar-
sharing with one another just how these
24 Open-Minded CEOs
things are manufactured. I think everyone an individual’s Twitter and Google “buzz” to
will benefit as a result. determine one’s impact and broadcast power.
I was a bit skeptical at first but agreed to
MindTouch recently released a list of
conduct the analysis, but told my team I
“The 20 Most Powerful Voices in Open
wanted to see the list first before posting it.
Source” 7. According to the post, the list
comprises “the most vocal” open source A bit hesitant, I looked down the list and
leaders, i.e. the ones holding the “biggest thought “yeah, I can see it breaking out this
megaphones.” In a community-based for- way.” What I thought was especially cool
mat, do you feel that being the most vocal about it was that there were a lot of people
is equivalent to being the most powerful? who I didn’t even know on the list. Channy
Yun15 from Korea, others from abroad… names
No, I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.
and faces that aren’t instantly recognizable.
MindTouch conducted what was (and prob-
And I thought that was pretty awesome.
ably still is) the most comprehensive survey
of best practices in sales and marketing in We expected the “I don’t know any of these
the enterprise open source space, back in people, so it can’t be right” reactions. But
September 20098. We had 25 open source that’s OK. They might be huge in Korea, or
companies participate in the study, including huge in Italy, or huge in the communities in
SugarCRM, Jaspersoft, Alfresco, and others. which they participate.
One of the questions we asked was, “Who So overall, no, I don’t necessarily believe that
do you think is the most influential person having the biggest microphone makes you
in open source?” We had 50 executives the most influential person. In fact, with
respond to the question and released the regards to open source, I think volume can
results of that question in a post to the actually be ineffective. Megaphones aren’t
MindTouch blog in October 20099. Larry Au- always the best way to reach engineers.
gustin10, CEO of SugarCRM, received the most
mentions. Matt Asay11, Mårten Mickos12, Jim
Whitehurst13, and Dries Buytaert14 rounded
out the top 5.
The “Most Powerful Voices” study was a
different way of looking at this metric. We
developed an MPV measure that considered
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Mundie 9. www.mindtouch.com/blog/2009/10/27/most-
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Thacker influential-people-in-open-source/
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Frystyk_ 10. www.linkedin.com/in/larryaugustin
Nielsen 11. www.linkedin.com/in/mjasay
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_ 12. www.linkedin.com/pub/marten-mickos/0/1b/7b5
%28computer_scientist%29 13. www.linkedin.com/pub/jim-whitehurst/9/
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Milner 33a/625
6. www.cs.unc.edu/cms/our-people 14. www.linkedin.com/in/buytaert
7. www.mindtouch.com/blog/2010/03/17/mpv/
8. www.mindtouch.com/blog/2009/09/01/why-
this-open-source-success-formula-will-increase-
your-revenue/
Interview with Micki Krimmel, CEO of NeighborGoods 25
Interview with
Micki Krimmel, CEO
of NeighborGoods
(Originally published October 2010)
What one big opportunity, outside of tech- emerge to help facilitate sharing of resources.
nology, has the best chance of being solved And emerge they have! Countless services
the open source way (i.e., through collabo- such as CouchSurfing, Bright Neighbor,
ration, transparency, sharing, meritocracy, Chegg, Relay Rides, and NeighborGoods have
rapid prototyping, community, etc.)? launched recently to help people share rooms,
cars, textbooks, and household goods.
I think we are at the beginning of a huge shift
in our economy where we are trading in the Two books have recently debuted analyzing
mindless consumption of the 20th century for this trend, What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise
a more sustainable, collaborative model where of Collaborative Consumption 1, and The
we value community and access to the things Mesh. A recent study published by Latitude
we need over ownership. In recent years, Research and Shareable Magazine shows
people have become increasingly frugal and that our increasing use of online sharing
aware of the impacts of their consumer habits. tools is a solid predictor of increased offline
Our strained pocketbooks and our values as sharing: “75% of participants predicted that
a society no longer support the conspicuous their offline sharing will increase in the next
consumption that has driven our economy for 5 years.”
decades. Simultaneously, we have become
I know it seems overly optimistic, but I believe
increasingly comfortable sharing and con-
the more opportunities we create for people
necting with others online. This has created a
to share and connect instead of spend and
fantastic opportunity for new technologies to
26 Open-Minded CEOs
purchase, the happier we will be. Now that’s part of your community. We’re just like you.
a business model built the open source way. We created this space to help you connect
with your community.”
What are some of the unexpected things
you’ve discovered from NeighborGoods2 What attributes from the open source way
experiences that have strengthened the stand out as pillars for community building,
communities where people live? online and in real life?
The environmental and financial benefits Honestly, all the pillars of what you dub the
of sharing physical goods instead of buying open source way (i.e., collaboration, trans-
new are obvious. And honestly, being more parency, sharing, meritocracy, rapid proto-
sustainable and saving a few bucks is reason typing, community) play a role in community
enough to borrow a lawnmower instead of building. There is a certain sense of humility
buying a new one. But it’s not the reason underlining all those terms that is vital to
people are sharing on NeighborGoods. By far fostering any community. The word “com-
and away what we hear from our members munity“ gets tossed around a lot these days,
is that the primary benefit they receive from but it’s not the same thing as an audience or
sharing is meeting their neighbors. In my own customer base. Community requires the par-
neighborhood, our sharing group has done ticipation of its members and that requires
wonders to strengthen our community. With humility on the part of the organizers.
a vacuum cleaner here and a wheelbarrow
How do you apply the open source way in
there, we’ve created a really solid support
your everyday life?
group in our neighborhood. We help each
other move furniture, watch each other’s pets, A few years ago, I experimented with what I
and check the mail when someone is trav- called The Open Source Dating Project. The
eling. NeighborGoods helped create a small idea was that I would go on dates and post
town feeling in the middle of Los Angeles. all the details so people could vote for who
got a second date. It was more of a thought
Thinking about your role in Al Gore’s An
project than anything real since I didn’t quite
Inconvenient Truth, what is the most
have the nerve to do it. But yeah, I would say
difficult thing about building communities
that I incorporate the open source way in
online, and what advice would you share
a lot of what I do in everyday life. I decided
with others?
early on with all this social media stuff that I
The biggest mistake is thinking you can wouldn’t have much of a filter. I try to be as
“build a community” to start with. Especially transparent and authentic as possible with
when you’re dealing with an issue like global how I present myself on the web. And that
warming, it’s silly to think you can spark a openness has provided countless opportu-
movement from scratch. The key is to figure nities for me to make a name for myself and
out which communities are already aligned to meet amazing and interesting people. I
with your sensibility and give them a way to also really enjoy the process of collabora-
take up your cause for you as a part of their tion. I consider myself lucky every day to be
own identity. So you’re not asking people, surrounded by smart and talented people
“Hey, come be a part of our new community.” who are willing to share their knowledge and
Instead you’re saying, “Hey, look! We’re a ideas with me. I try to always do the same.
27
1. www.opensource.com/life/10/9/book- 2. www.neighborgoods.net
review-whats-mine-yours-rise-collaborative-
consumption
28 Open-Minded CEOs
Image credits
All imagery in this booklet is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported license (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Cover image
www.flickr.com/photos/billmorrow/7677126048/
The open source renaissance
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4424154829
Transparency, participation, and collaboration:
The distinguishing principles of open source
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4371000464
How does open source affect company culture?
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5497223174
An architecture of participation
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/7496799718
Open source hardware: Fast and malleable
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/5041738335
The best idea wins
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4426824995
Image Credits 29
Glen Moriarty interview
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4996643102/
Aaron Fulkerson interview
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4586670271
Micki Krimmel interview
www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4586670271
Written content is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Download an electronic copy of this book at www.opensource.com/CEO