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Kimbro Staken exploring creative use of technology and whatever else happens to seem interesting.
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JumpBox Redefines Server Software by making it easy to throw away
“Making it easy to throw away”, that sounds like a pretty odd benefit to a piece of software. But it’s a characteristic that is more desirable than we’d usually admit. Mac OS X has shown us how this can work for desktop software and it’s a great feature. It makes it really easy to try software without worrying about it mucking up your system, if you don’t like it just throw it away. Of course if you do like it, it’s also easy to just keep using it. This is what JumpBox brings to server software. Think of it as server software that doesn’t muck up your system and if you don’t like it you just throw it away.
This is what’s been occupying my time for the last year or so and today we released our first production builds based on the JumpBox Platform 1.0. Nine JumpBoxes are currently available (but if you catch us at OSCon or the TechCrunch party this week we’ll give you a DVD with all the apps plus an unreleased tenth JumpBox). Here’s the list of current applications
These things are really easy to get running. All you need is virtualization software from VMWare or Parallels and they work exactly the same whether you use them on Mac OS X, Windows or Linux. So maybe there are a few other benefits beyond being able to throw them away.
Anyway, it’s a big day for my little company. It’s been a year since we started it and it’s a strange feeling to move from being a venture into actually being a business. Now is where the real work begins though.
This entry was posted by Kimbro Staken on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 9:42 am and is filed under Virtual Appliances, Virtualization, JumpBox. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:04 am
How about qemu/kvm?? Is it supported?
July 24th, 2007 at 11:30 am
JumpBoxes do actually work (though they aren’t supported) on QEMU and probably work with KVM though we haven’t tested that yet.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:15 am
Hi,
Just came across your JumpBox system, nice concept.
Got one little question, on the product overview you list: Access for full application customization - as a paid option. As in I can’t get access to the bundled software to make changes unless I pay you a fee.
Isn’t this against the GPL?
“The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed.”
Just need a clarification, thanks.
November 10th, 2007 at 8:36 am
It’s not a violation because the GPL simply requires that you provide the source code to anyone who asks for it. It’s that source code that can’t be obfuscated. We try really hard to not modify the applications we distribute and happily provide the source code for any of them when asked. We’re not here to try to “lock up” the applications, we’re here to bring them to more users and add value. It’s the value add that we charge for and part of that is access to all the work we did to bundle the app and make it easy to use.
November 28th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Hi Kimbro,
From your reply at Sean’s site:
“If you want to use a JumpBox installation to run the modified code then you’ll need an unlocked JumpBox which does require a fee, but we’re not charging you that fee for access to the source code.”
So if I I want to tweak an app running in a JumpBox, I must pay for that privilege. I’ve been involved with dynamic PHP apps for quite a number of years and I’ve yet to run a vanilla version of an app, they all need tweaks.
Installing a plugin requires ftp access to upload the plugin before the admin side can see it, same with a theme change or anything you care to add to a running install.
Can you email me the source code for the versions of PunBB and DokuWiki that is running on your JumpBox. I happen to work on these two projects.
Thanks.