Latest in Industry and Research Publications
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On the state of using vs. contributing to open source
Digital Ocean just published a survey of developers that indicates how companies are getting more comfortable with using open source, but remain much less comfortable with contributing to open source. Matt Asay and Chris Aniszczyk picked up on this, suggesting that open source will become more sustainable if we get those contribution numbers up. What…
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Data structures vs. functions in the age of microservices
The old wisdom of “data structures over functions” has stood the test of time for probably 50 years now. It states that long-term, a system is better built on sound data structures than functions. While functions may hide clumsy data structures for a while, when faced with evolution and new user needs, poor data structures…
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Open source license compliance in mobile apps
Open source license compliance is not for the faint of heart. Among many things, a company needs to tell the recipients of a distribution which open source software is used in their products. In the case of mobile apps, free or not, the user is the recipient and the app is the distribution. Downloading an…
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Why I don’t teach a traditional software architecture course (any longer)
tl;dr The software development contexts that I deal most with these days are open source projects and fast-moving startups; both don’t seem to have much use for what is traditionally taught in software architectures courses. Let me start by saying that I love a good software architecture as well as software architecture in general. My…
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Some argue that dual-licensing in commercial open source indicates a lack of ability to provide superior service
This is obviously wrong. The use of dual licensing and the ability to provide superior service for open source are unrelated forms of competitive advantage, and without further circumstances, a business should exploit both advantages. Let me explain. Dual (or multiple) licensing is a strategy, in which a company develops software, releases it under an…
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The dancing robot dog: Magic trick or real artificial intelligence?
You may have seen the video below by Boston Dynamics. It shows a robot dog dancing to Uptown Funk by Bruno Mars. It is fun and funny to watch, but people also expressed serious worries about robot inroads into human behavior. However, there is no explanation by Boston Dynamics and it is not at all…