I was having lunch today with some editors of a local weekly. After listening to them talk about what they do I realized that we do it too. We’re editors.
They edit articles, we edit software.
We prune it. We clip off the extra features like they clip off the extra words. We trim the interface like they trim a sentence. We chop products in half like they ask for 5000 words instead of 10,000.
The editing process is what make a great product. Editing the feature list, editing customer requests, editing the interface, editing the code, editing the marketing, editing the copywriting.
The piece immediately made my think of Simon Phipp’s seminal essay, The Subscription Model: A Necessary Trend for Open Source Deployers, elegantly dubbed We’re In The Editorial Business by Tim Bray. While Tim’s title may have a higher signal to noise ratio than Simon’s essay, its clear who deserves credit for the insight.
Java Desktop System is just like this. Almost all the elements that comprise it – the Mozilla browser, the Evolution mail and calendar client, the StarOffice document productivity suite, the underlying GNU/Linux operating system they depend on, the Gnome desktop environment they use and much more – come from open source communities. You could go get all those parts yourself – they are all available gratis. But then you’d have to integrate them yourself, support them yourself, accept joint liability for their use of ideas yourself.
Instead, Sun acts like the editor-in-chief of the JDS ‘publication’. Staff select the software components to include and exclude, work to integrate them, constribute to each of the open source communities to improve their compatibility and completeness. Sun packages and delivers the final publication, offers support and updates, fixes security exposures, offers indemnity and generally joins the communities so you don’t have to.
You don’t buy the software from Sun – instead you subscribe to the editorial outlook. Sun’s editorial view is to deliver high function, ease of use, data format and networking compatibility, low migration cost, re-use of existing hardware, escape from Windows viruses and security risks and minimal retraining. If that’s an editorial outlook that fits your corporate needs, you’d do well to subscribe.
To take the analogy further, you’re not just subscribing to a publication that’s tightly bound together between stitched hard-covers. JDS is more like a publication delivered in a ring-binder on punched paper. You’re free to insert extra pages – add software like Wine to allow existing Windows applications to run, for example. You’re free to remove pages you don’t need.
Perhaps the key point not made by Piotr, but which ties Phipps vision to that of the founders of 37signals is that subscription services, combined with a compelling editorial outlook, are something people are willing to pay for. People should pay for services that are good. 37Signals is an O’Reillyian architecture of participation. Sun is trying to build one.. but maybe needs a more aggressive editor to cut out some of the cruft.
John Loiacano, Sun’s VP of just upped sticks and left Sun for Adobe.
I would like to respectfully suggest that Sun, in replacing John, think in terms of an editor. Perhaps Sun needs its first Chief Software Editor. Whoever the new person is, Sun should consider Tim Bray as a potential right hand man. He says he is fed up with standards warfare, so why not find out what he can do in product management? Sun needs to make sure every one gets the lesscode memo. Its war out there.
Perhaps ironically – Johnny L’s new role at Adobe will require some iron discipline deciding what makes the cut in the Adobe/Macromedia creative portfolio.
This business really is about editing. No wonder Tim O’Reilly is on the money so often.
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