1. open for business

• glyn moody

2. good news, bad news

good news

we are living through a transition that is not just once in a lifetime, but *once in a civilisation*

bad news

we haven't done this before, so we don't know how to do it

3. blown to bits

once in a civilisation transition

from a world of atoms to a world of atoms + bits

4. from an analogue world to an analogue + digital one analogue to digital media

vinyl LPs to CDs

5. video tapes to DVDs 6. books to ebooks 7. the rise of the digital

analogue has been with us since the beginning of consciousness

8. digital has been with us *longer* - since the beginning of life 9. digital DNA

DNA consists of very long strings of Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, Thymine A,C,G,T

10. this is a *digital* code:

A -> 00

11. C -> 01 12. G -> 10 13. T -> 11 CGGTATAAT -> 011010110011000011 14. life is digital

complex life would be impossible without digital information

15. only digital information can be repeatedly copied faithfully 16. the re-invention of digital

Nature got there first several billion years ago

17. humans only got there about 70 years ago 18. specifically, Alan Turing got there about 70 years ago with his description of a Turing machine 19. there is only one computer

one deep consequence of Turing's work is that it proved all (sufficiently powerful) computers are essentially the same

they can be made to emulate any other computer

20. they can run any software written for any computer 21. there is only one computer revolution

not possible to limit computer advances to one particular field

22. digital's 0s and 1s do not come in different flavours 23. increase in speed, increase in capacity, decrease in size, decrease in cost affects *every* application of computing, not just one corner of it 24. there is only one Internet revolution

what applies to computers, applies equally to the Internet

25. improvements in transmission speed and reductions in cost apply to *all* digital data that flows across it: there is no discrimination 26. this is the essence of Net Neutrality 27. the race to the bottom

computer and Internet progress is a scalar quantity its magnitude may vary, but its direction is constant so there is an inevitable race to the bottom

28. the cost of processing anything, storing anything and transmitting anything, tends ineluctably to zero 29. of CDs...

first CD appeared in 1982

without any kind of copy protection

30. because it was impossible to copy the CD's 700 Mbytes of data: the 1983 IBM PC XT had a 10 Mbytes hard disc less than one song 31. similarly impossible to share it across the Internet: the Hayes Smartmodem, released in 1981, had a speed of 300 bits/s about 400 hours to upload one song 32. ...and MP3s

developed in early 1990s, just as Internet was taking off

33. used clever tricks to reduce music file size to 10% of original reduced time to upload file by factor of 10 34. modem speed then 14.4 Kbit/s less thanone hour to upload/download one MP3 song: slow, but possible 35. today

Mbit/s broadband connection mean that entire films can now be shared

36. P2P networks like BitTorrent make it even easier to distribute those files and share them in the background 37. 1 Terabyte hard disc (1000 Gbytes) costs 50; stores 150,000 MP3s 38. tomorrow

a 1 Petabyte (1000 Terabytes) USB stick will cost 50 and store every song ever recorded in CD quality (no compression)

39. a 1 Exabyte hard disc (1000 Petabytes) will cost 50 and store every film ever recorded 40. the race to the bottom will be over 41. absolute zero

the race to the bottom means any digital content can be copied and shared and hence acquired for a trivial cost that is tending to zero very rapidly

42. what does this mean for business? 43. DRM: less than zero

DRM is not the solution

DRM only needs to be broken once for content to be uploaded, copied and shared everywhere

44. DRM will always be broken at least once 45. DRM makes digital content less valuable than freely-available versions without it 46. digital content with DRM is actually worth *less* than zero 47. the law is an ass

stricter enforcement of copyright infringement laws is also counterproductive because it's predicated on attacking your actual or potential customers

48. worse: many surveys show that unauthorised downloaders spend *more* on content - they are actually your *best* customers 49.

what's left?

to stop sharing of digital goods there is nothing

50. the only option is to *embrace* it 51. not surprisingly, first to do so was the world of computing 52. free software/open source 53. GNU/Linux 54. what's GNU?

GNU born in 1983 at MIT

55. GNU is GNU's Not Unix - a recursive acronym 56. one man's attempt to create a free version of the leading Unix operating system 57. a change of heart

by 1991, GNU was still unfinished: it lacked a kernel - the heart of the operating system

58. in March 1991, 21-year-old student Linus Torvalds started writing one just for fun in his Helsinki bedroom 59. key inflection was August 1991, when he opened up his Linux project using the Internet 60. opening up

decentralised

anyone, anywhere, could join in

bottom-up

people fed suggestions, problems and solutions to Linus

collaboration easy

Internet was more affordable

scalable

no formal training required everything is out in the open

61. Linus' Law

Eric Raymond: given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow

62. different people approach a problem in different ways 63. adding more people increases the probability that someones approach will match the problem in such a way that the solution is obvious (shallow) to that person 64. power, economy, reliability

91% of top 500 supercomputers run Linux

1% run Microsoft Windows

Google runs its services on millions of servers running Linux

so does Facebook, Twitter etc.

Android mobile phone system runs on Linux

400,000 handsets activated daily

65. launched November 2007 66. billion-dollar business

Red Hat(1993)

annual revenue to February 2011 $909 million; profit $107 million

main products

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

67. Jboss Enterprise Middleware services

consulting, customisation

68. technical support 69. training & certification 70. easy as nails

Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I-IV

free first 9 tracks

71. $5 download all 36 tracks 72. $10 2xCD with 16-page PDF booklet 73. $75 Ghosts I-IV in a hardcover fabric slipcase containing: 2 audio CDs, 1 data DVD with all 36 tracks in multi-track format, and a Blu-ray disc with Ghosts I-IV in high-definition 96/24 stereo and accompanying slideshow 74. but that's not all... 75. $300 deluxe edition

4-LP set of Ghosts I-IV on 180-gram vinyl in fabric slipcase

76. separate, large, enhanced fabric slipcase containing 3 embossed, fabric-bound, hardcover books

Book 1: 2xCDs, DVD, Blu-ray slideshow disc, as for $75 option

77. Book 2: 48 pages of photographs 78. Book 3: two exclusive art prints 79. sold out

despite the high price-tag, the Deluxe Edition sold out in two days

80. limited to 2,500 copies 81. gross income $750,000 82. getting personal

Jill Sobule used a donation model

$10 download; $25 - advance copy of CD; $100 these plus T-shirt; $200 free admission to her shows for a year

83. $500 mentions customer's name in instrumental track; $1000 song written personally for customer 84. $5000 comes to your house and sings for you and friends; $10,000 - *you* get to sing on her CD 85. open opportunity

allowing digital content to be shared freely doesn't mean it's impossible to make money

86. make money in different ways 87. but sharing digital content also brings other big benefits that can save and make money 88. open innovation

open development brings past and future users in early

89. offer critiques of your ideas, plus their own 90. allows collaboration with companies on pre-competitive work 91. open marketing & sales

when you allow digital content to be freely shared, you turn the Internet into part of your marketing department

92. best kind of marketing: word-of-mouth recommendations to friends and family 93. allows try-before-you-buy 94. open products

builds closer links with customers

95. openness allows greater customisation

greater need for post-sales input and consultancy

digital abundance makes new kinds of revenue streams based on scarcity possible

human-based services

96. analogue goods 97. open culture

going open has many other benefits

98. encourages other companies to do the same 99. encourages other open projects

open content, open access, open data, open science

increases the knowledge commons 100. encourages open government 101. generates new business opportunities 102. open society

society based on openness and sharing

more collaborative

103. more creative 104. more innovative 105. more efficient 106. more sustainable 107. more fair 108. more happy 109. more safe 110. openness is inevitable

the once in a civilisation transition is unstoppable you can't de-digitalise the world

111. the choice is between exploiting the resulting digital abundance by opening up... 112. ...or watching your competitors do it first and maybe closing down 113. a binary choice

[email_address]

114. twitter.com/glynmoody 115. identi.ca/glynmoody 116. opendotdotdot.blogspot.com