United States Comptroller General David Walker was on 60 Minutes tonight. He has some health care fun facts:

• The United States health care system is a 5x greater problem than social security.
• Medical costs are, and have been (didn’t catch time frame) rising at more than twice the rate of inflation .
• The Bush administration’s prescription drug bill added $8 Trillion additional dollars required to the already $15-20 trillion dollar underfunded Medicare program.
• To fund the Bush administration’s prescription drug program we need $8 Trillion invested today at today’s treasury rates to pay for it (I think he said over the next 20 years), we have $0 saved to pay for this.
• The United States is #1 in the world…in health care costs.
• In the United States we spend 50% more of our economy on health coverage than any other nation on Earth.
• We also have the largest percentage of uninsured of any major industrialized nation.
• We have above average infant mortality in the United States.
• We have below average life expectancy.
• We have much higher than average medical error rates among industrial nations.
• It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that health care is:
  • The #1 fiscal challenge for federal government.
  • The  #1 fiscal challenge for state government.
  • The  #1 competitive cchallenge for businesses.

Who is this guy? Surely not someone we should listen to, surely everyone thinks he’s crazy? No, not exactly. The Heritage Foundation, the Brookings Institute, and the Concord Coalition, among others, all agree with David Walker’s figures and projections.

I have been insisting for some time now that the social security is a lesser issue to health care. More importantly, gays, immigrants, and flag burning are non-issues. And yet I’m often asked my opinion on these topics. Moreover, shockingly the latter three are more often discussed “issues”. Anyone who insists these are issues are either a). complete idiots b).  attempting to employ a modern day version of race-baiting.

My blog has a new name and a new domain. Fourth time in four years. Also, its performance has improved by an order of magnitude.

Matt Asay.Weblogs.Infoworld

Alfresco just released their source under GPL with a FLOSS exception.

This move is about choice, in other words. Choice for our customers (Freedom of access to the world’s best content management system). Choice for our partners. Choice for our competitors (join us or get run over :-). Choice for the community.

…The GPL is open source’s best business license. It is open source capitalism – the free market at its finest.

Freedom pays great dividends.

…the proprietary software companies we compete with have a limited shelf life. 🙂

Welcome Alfresco and kudos. Enough of this non-OSI-approved modified MPL bullshit. If your license is not approved by OSI then you’re not open source. Real simple. Worse yet you have companies like Socialtext. I think I’ve remained silent about these guys too long. Socialtext has claimed to be open source and fervently waved this banner since their founding in 2002. However, they didn’t release a stitch of source code until July, 2006. Four years later. WTF? When they did release their source they did so under a non-OSI-approved modified MPL license. WTF? Most recently Mayfield suggested that because they’ve allegedly "supported Kwiki for years" this makes Socialtext open source. I’ve been using Kwiki at every O’Reilly event (I love O’Reilly) and to the best of my knowledge Kwiki hasn’t changed in three years! I’ve kept my mouth shut because they’re competitors and I assumed others would have cried foul over their behavior long ago. Oddly, no one has. Then a few months ago (around Thanksgiving 2006) murmuring started about attribution licenses, which really is of lesser concern as far as Socialtext is concerned. Berlind blogged about how he can see it either way blah blah. In the end he called for "disclosure" as to whether the license is OSI approved or not. If you’re not, you’re not open source! What’s there to disclose? I responded here. Shortly thereafter Berlind sent me an email titled: "Laughable." It may have been a tad condescending, but in general he stated that disclosure is a good thing he didn’t see how anyone could disagree. Sure, I was a tad harsh, but I didn’t get the impression he was saying anything of use and I was also a tad offended by his statement: "the supposed keeper of the official definition of ‘open source’ and the consortium to which open source license authors typically turn to have their licenses ratified as adhering to that definition". Supposed? Typically turn? Read his post, read my response, you be the judge. As a side note, isn’t Berlind on the advisory board for Socialtext? I know one of those ZDNet blogger dudes is and I thought it was him. I’m not certain. UPDATE: I don’t think it’s Berlind, but I know there is a ZDNet journalist/blogger guy who is on Socialtext’s advisory board. Update’: My bad, it’s Mitch Ratcliffe.

Nat Torkington while organizing OSCON (which I love and is where we launched www.opengarden.org, OSCON06) recently asked: "Is ‘Open Source’ Now Completely Meaningless?" Well, if we continue down this road I don’t see how it couldn’t become meaningless. By the way Nat, I don’t think you should make a hard and fast rule as to whether you should disallow closed source companies to participate in OSCON. Do it on a case by case basis because surely there will be some worthy exceptions. Anyway, back on subject. What I propose is that OSI manages a wall of shame for companies that behave inappropriately with respect to use of the term "open source". It could work something like this. 1). The accused company receives a public warning via email and it’s also published online (posted on a wiki perhaps). Along with the warming the company is asked to cease their inappropriate use of the term open source and provided clear steps for complying with OSI. 2). The accused follows the steps for compliance in the provided timframe or they receive public censure, which starts with a public admonishment of their actions and could be escalated. All this is archived (hence the wiki suggestion) and indexed. Perhaps OSI could work with SourceForge.net and other sites to create a coalition that could perfrom the censure.

Why is this better than the current process? Well right now it’s very ad hoc. Only geeks know what’s going on because we’re the only ones willing to participate in a rabid discussion list. Ultimately OSI has no stick to wield and everything is pretty quiet outside geek circles. Even within geeky circles people are confused and it’s unclear if someone is violating the will of OSI. Also, this way when someone performs a web search for the aformentioned accused company the warning and censure would be found in the search result set. Thus providing a monetary incentive for compliance with OSI’s will. I very recently emailed these thoughts (mostly) to Tiemann. UPDATE: Michael and I spoke. I talk about it in this blog post. Something needs to be corrected though because this is a growing trend that seems to be spurred on by the flood of cash resulting from the venture capitalists’ interest in open source. And to compound the problem you have very media savvy folks with deep deep pockets that are very clearly manipulating public perception by injecting their will into journalism (mostly bloggers).

Anyway, enough soap-boxing. Back to Alfresco. What’s the intent of the Alfresco FLOSS exception (also employed by MySQL and others)? It’s meant, as far as I can tell, to maximize freedom in extending and integrating with dissimilarly licensed FLOSS software. Meaning, whatever you extend or integrate can continue to maintain it’s own licensing as long as it’s OSI approved (or on a list of OSI approved licenses that Alfresco provides). We achieved the same end result at MindTouch by providing DREAM under LGPL. DREAM is our Distributed REST Application Manager and what we’re building MindTouch DekiWiki on top of. In fact, we’re slowly discarding MediaWiki PHP logic for C# on Mono/Net 2.0 in the form of DREAM services. And as you would imagine DREAM is also powering our API. It will should be technically feasible that ultimately one could install just a PHP layer on their shared server and have a very sophisticated Service Oriented Distributed Architecture (SODA) powered by DREAM providing all the business logic. Think about that for a moment. It has huge benefits and enormous ramifications. Anyway enough about us. Is this FLOSS exception OSI approved? I saw one reference to it being an OSI approved exception, but I really don’t know if it is. It’s exception is only for other OSI approved licenses, it’s got to be.

Review: MindTouch cleverly packs wiki in a virtual appliance

MindTouch Deki
Availability: Now
Pricing: Free (five-user, unsupported); starts at $995 for supported version with advanced features.
Verdict: MindTouch Deki’s packaging as a VMware virtual appliance greatly reduces setup efforts and IT resources, while providing the security of in-house installation. As a business wiki, Deki’s also notable, providing easy page setup and editing, multiple collaboration features, and the possibility of integration with other enterprise systems because of its XML underpinning.

I should have posted this weeks ago but I didn’t think of it. Infoworld recently reviewed MindTouch Deki. We were supposed to be in the print publication along with a comparison of us against the competition, which I’m told was quite favorable, but some snafu happened because the editor didn’t get the updated version of the story until rather late. 😦 Anyway, thanks to Mike Heck for the review.

MNteractive

People just getting into information architecture (t d) frequently ask me which application to use for creating wireframes. After nearly a decade of making wireframes myself, I still ask this question on a client-by-client basis if not a project-by-project basis.

Garrick needs to add Dia to his list of applications/technologies useful in creating wireframes. Dia is an open source (meaning, among other things, it’s free) Visio. It’s young, but promising. Here is Dia’s project page

San Diego’s manufactured festivals: Carnevale and Mardi Gras. Matt Yukor, the Visions restaurant bartender, is drunk and itching for a fight.

Little Italy has a Carnevale night. Tara, Ashby, and I spent about an hour and half walking around the neighborhood checking out the stilt walkers, musicians, and people wearing Venetian masks. I asked on gentleman on stilts if I could ride on his shoulders. He said ‘no’. I asked if he would consider at least giving me a piggy back. Alas, he said no to this as well. We grabbed a Guinness and Calamari at Zia’s Bistro. They do wine events early evenings on the weekdays. We hadn’t been there, but we liked it. As for Carnevale, it was pretty sedate. Then again we were indoors by 7PM. Maybe it got crazy after we left, but I doubt it. The whole concept of Carnevale is cooked up by the local businesses in order to get folks from outside Little Italy to come out and spend money. I noticed Fillippi’s had a line of people going darn near around the block. This is one of the busiest places in Little Italy, but not one of the best in terms of quality of food.

• Carnevale photo set

San Diego does Mardi Gras. Kind of. The city cordons off a 2 block by (about) 10 block wide swath of the city in the Gaslamp district, creates a police militarized zone of happy-fun-time, and charges $20 for admittance. I didn’t actually go to Mardi Gras, but Steve and I walked the circumference of the event bar-hopping along the way. Neither of us could convince ourselves, or one another, that spending $20 a person to listen to DJs, second rate cover bands, and throngs of drunks cheering maniacally at passing PG-13 rated floats was a good use of our dollars. We did decide that if we saw a hole in security we would slip in. However, the city was damn serious about collecting their $20 a person. Security was better for this event than I have seen at some military installations. I’m serious. There were police in staggered patrols around the circumference on horseback, bicycle, foot and squad car. I don’t believe we were ever out of site of police or hired security. The city likely needs to collect $20 a person because keeping people out must have cost a fortune! Inside the event, Damien told me, they were equally serious about maintaining absolute control. Allegedly, even crossing the street was a security risk in the eyes of the police and was disallowed. This made it difficult to meet up with friends on the opposite side of the street.

In lieu of Mardi Gras, Steve and I started off at an Irish pub on 4th st. We had a couple Guinness. We then walked all the way around the event. On 7th street we almost stepped into a restaurant called Visions, which Steve had been told by somebody was a happening and funky place. While walking toward the, albeit side, door I was physically halted by a fellow named Matt Yukor. He was a tall 30-ish bartender who shoved his hand into my chest and demanded to know: "where do you think you’re going?" I told him we were planning on going inside to have a drink and he derisively sneered: "no you’re not" with an alcohol laced breath and slight slur to his speech. Apparently Matt Yukor had been drinking on the job. Evidently the bar was in the Mardi Gras and Matt Yukor, the bartender for Visions restaurant, San Diego, CA (search engine optimization) thought it appropriate to lay hands on a potential patron and assert what little authority his life afforded him. I thanked him for letting us know it was closed to the public as I gently placed my hand on his chest in a much more ginger manner than his was thrust onto my body and told him to have a good night. As Steve and I turned to leave it must have struck Matt that I had made a point of mimicking his actions and he flipped out. Matt Yukor, Visions restaurant bartender, San Diego, CA was itching for a fight. I suggested to him that he probably shouldn’t shove potential patrons. With his chest puffed out he charged us in an attempt to rub against either of us, mind you we were already walking away. It was hilariously reminiscent of high school, which I’m guessing Matt Yukor, 30+ year old Visions restaurant bartender (another attempt at search engine optimization), likely did not graduate from. This made me stop and smile. I asked a couple other employees who were smoking nearby what Matt’s name was. Matt Yukor proudly announced his name and even spelled his last name for us: "Matt YUKOR–Y-U-K-O-R". I hadn’t asked for the spelling, it struck me that he may be attempting to prove that he could spell. Meanwhile another employee proudly hollared at us: "the owner don’t give a fuck so don’t bother, he don’t give a fuck man, I’m serious." Hehehe… Needless to say, avoid Visions Restaurant in San Diego, CA where Matt Yukor drinks on the job, is itching for a fight, servers don’t speak grammatically correct English, and allegedly the owner "don’t give a fuck".

Steve and I left Visions Restaurant in San Diego, CA and went to the the Marriott’s Altitude bar, which is on the 23rd floor (if I recall correctly) and overlooks the ball field. A very cool place where the staff is classy and polite. Finally, we finished our night off at La Cantina. Daniel the bartender sings opera and makes the best damn margarita I think I’ve ever had. Here’s how he does it: 1 lemon, 1 lime, 1/2 an orange, 2 shots tequila, and about 1 1/2 shots of Controy. All shaken vigoursly with ice, served in a salted glass with a lime. Killer. Not too sweet, just right. The food is pretty good there too.

• Mardi Gras photo set

If you haven’t heard. MindTouch has centralized our offices in San Diego. Come out and meet the crew.

Details

When

Friday, March 2, 2007 5:00 pm PST

Where

Map: Google | Yahoo | MapQuest

See other events at this venue

What

News.com

I like Larry Page. I’ve respected him, but I didn’t know I liked him before tonight. I just read about his urging earlier this week to members of AAAS to take their research out of halls of academia and engineer it into something that will benefit society, or, at least, make sure their findings can be consumed by someone who will. He also encouraged them to be politically active.

…take their scientific studies, market them better and make them readily accessible to the world. That way, the world might have a better chance at solving problems like energy consumption, poverty and global climate change.

“Virtually all economic growth (in the world) was due to technological progress. I think as a society we’re not really paying attention to that,” Page said. “Science has a real marketing problem. If all the growth in world is due to science and technology and no one pays attention to you, then you have a serious marketing problem.”

To that end, Page urged the group to take on more leadership roles in society, i.e., politics, so that they could control more funding for research and development. He also said that scientists should get in the habit of investing part of their scientific grant money to marketing budgets, in order to get the word out to the media about their research.

This concept of science having a marketing problem is not new. I’ve heard this discussed for years. However, I’ve not seen it discussed in such a public forum and it’s great to see it getting wide spread coverage. Also, Page’s emphasis on entrepreneurship (not included in the above quote) resonates with me. I believe entrepreneurship (and federally subsidized education) is what’s made our country the dominant world power.

So, we have:

1. Science should make every attempt to ensure research is accessible in order to maximize the potential that science benefits society.
2. Scientist should be politically active.
3. Academia should treat entrepreneurship as a positive outlet for their research.

All very obviously positive thoughts. It’s important to note that scientists need to be politically active now more than ever. Finally, Page provides us with some real world examples of how today’s science can be today’s solutions:

– Build fewer roads in underdeveloped parts of Africa. Instead, he suggested ultralight planes capable of traveling at up to 145 kmh and which would consume less gasoline than ground vehicles.

– Solar energy installations in the Nevada desert were capable of producing 800 megawatts per square mile (2.5 square km), somewhat less than half the 2000 megawatts of a nuclear power plant, he said. (A midsized natural gas-powered plant generates around 400 or 500 megawatts).

– A major limitation to wind power is the need for a distribution grid to move power from regions where wind blows to where populations are centered. He said 80 per cent of the electrical grid of Europe and North Africa could be served by an ambitious wind distribution grid cross-connecting the two regions. “Are we going to build that grid? I don’t think so. But I think it would be a good idea.”

As I write this I’m watching: “Who Killed the Electric Car“. Very relevant. It’s a good watch. Definitely infuriating.

After years of me cajoling Tara she’s finally started blogging. She’s video-logging at blogger: my bunnybear, which happens to be the name of Ashby’s favorite stuffed animal. I couldn’t convince her to use WordPress (open source), but blogger seems pretty cool with how easy it is to tweak skins and site layout. She’s just using her little Elph digital camera right now. We have an old digital 8MM, but it’s just so big. Maybe we should be looking for a nice (cheap) small mini-dv camera. Uploading videos with Google Video’s desktop uploader is a snap. It surely seems superior to uploading to YouTube via their webform. However, both sites ask too many damn questions when you upload. They want tags, descrips, titles, all kinds of nonsense. Still very easy though.