A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To The Science Centre

FOSSAsia 2016 keynote

Transcript

1. A Funny Thing Happened On My Way To The Science Centre Harish Pillay Red Hat Asia Pacific hpillay@redhat.com
2. The Singapore Science Centre
3. The SSC is the celebration of the triumph of the sharing of knowledge ...
4. … and the pursuit of curiosity which is the essence of what it means to be Human
5. And this pursuit of curiosity is relentless
6. And the pace of the pursuit is accelerating
7. And the pace of the pursuit is accelerating as more people get empowered
8. Science wins because of peer review and independent reproducibility of results (coined “the scientific method”)
9. Failing peer review and independent reproducibility of results is not the end but ...
10. … an acknowledgment that assumptions need to be revised, new paths to be explored
11. Just as openness and sharing in Science continues to benefit us all ...
12. … FOSS' mimicking of those strategies of success suggests that ...
13. … FOSS has won!
14. Or has it?
15. I posit the following:
16. FOSS is now entering “Phase 3”
17. Phase 0
18. Phase 0 was from the dawn of computing (Charles Babbage perhaps?) till about 1985
19. In Phase 0, software was considered primarily as a tool for making hardware work, but not much more (in general)
20. Then in 1985, RMS set up the FSF and the Four Freedoms was articulated
21. Four Freedoms 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose
22. Four Freedoms 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
23. Four Freedoms 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour.
24. Four Freedoms 0: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this. 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour. 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
25. This brilliant hack gave a mental framework to share software ideas
26. It granted the license to collaborate and encouraged the overt sharing of ideas (in software)
27. Phase 1
28. Phase 1: from 1985 till about 1999 – a 14 year period
29. Phase 1 saw the spread of the ARPAnet/Internet and the dot com boom up to until the IPO of Red Hat in 1999
30. Phase 1 brought us the World Wide Web, the LAMP stack, and the opened up browser (Netscape Navigator anyone?)
31. Phase 1's FOSS had street creds to build the Internet and began seeding inroads into the tougher (conservative?) “enterprise”
32. Red Hat's IPO in 1999 was an ah-ha moment that there is a way to build an economically sustainable business around 100% FOSS
33. Phase 2
34. Phase 2: from 1999, through the dot com bust to 2012
35. Phase 2 brought us “Web 2.0”, AJAX, Firefox, Hadoop, broadband, smart phones, KVM, Xen and OpenStack (towards the tail end)
36. And culminated, in early 2013, with the release of the Linux container format called Docker
37. Phase 3
38. Phase 3: Since 2013, we have gotten Containers (Docker), IaaS (OpenStack), various PaaS (OpenShift etc) and now ...
39. … voilà ...
40. … the “tougher” and conservative enterprises are tripping over themselves to get FOSS into their core systems and corporate ethos.
41. So has FOSS won?
42. I assert that FOSS won phase 0-2 and Phase 3 is well underway
43. My money is on FOSS winning Phase 3 handsomely
44. Science too wins in phases - the Science Centre nicely showcases this
45. As we move into IoT, sensor networks and the Smart Nation, the ONLY way to do it right and succeed is with FOSS as the foundation and core
46. The intellectual haven that the Science Centre is, reminds us that open is the best way forward ...
47. … and so it shall be with software.
48. Phase 3 is an amazing time to be alive!
49. Viva la FOSS!
50. Thank You! Harish Pillay hpillay@redhat.com h.pillay@ieee.org @harishpillay