A worthy challenge for open source: rebuild "I Want Sandy"

A worthy challenge for open source: rebuild "I Want Sandy"

Once in a while, a new product or service comes along that fundamentally shifts how we live every day. All of us can [...] Once in a while, a new product or service comes along that fundamentally shifts how we live every day. All of us can [...]

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Terminal Tips: Rebuild your Launch Services database to clean up the Open With menu

Filed under: Terminal Tips , Leopard Problem : Some piece (or...

Open Source Collaboration Software Maker Open-Xchange Secures $9 Million

Open-Xchange has closed a Series B round of venture funding to the tune of $9 million. The round was led by German venture firm eCAPITAL Entrepreneurial Partners AG and joined by BayBG and existing Munich-based investor BayTech Venture Capital. Open-Xchange received a total of $8.8 million in a Series A financing round from angel investors and BayTech back in 2006. Built as open source software, Open-Xchange aims to provide an alternative to commercial platforms like Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, including features like mobility support (iPhones, Blackberry), document sharing, shared calendars and shared address books.

Open Source is Ideal, Open Formats are Critical

It seems, lately, more people are embracing open source software. From the Android phone to OpenOffice.org"s latest, free software is getting (well deserved) good press. In a perfect world, all projects would make their code freely available, and everyone could benefit from the resulting innovation, security and interoperability. Since it"s likely the planet will be waiting a long while for perfection on a few fronts, would approaching open source adoption differently -- same goal, different strategies -- help foster interest and acceptance? How can advocates show the greatest benefits of open source to the most people in the least amount of time? More emphasis on the importance of open file formats would seem a reasonable starting point. Why? Wouldn"t tackling the source code, and encouraging openness there make proprietary file formats a thing of the past anyway? Wouldn"t it, ultimately, be a duplication of effort? There are two reasons that the open format aspect of the free software movement needs special attention. The first is simply that file formats are familiar to anyone who has ever worked with a computer. The code that makes an application run is an abstract concept to many, and whether it is open, or closed, means very little. There are few people who can say they"ve never received a file they"ve needed to edit, or open -- but couldn"t with the software on their computers. Telling people that open software is useful is fine. People who aren"t necessarily open source enthusiasts using it, and seeing that it"s useful is better still. But open source code is a foggy concept, even if people genuinely like the resulting application. It doesn"t take much more than a supervisor"s file requiring immediate edits that can"t be opened, or a slideshow appearing radically different when shown in another version of the software it was created in, for people to understand the importance of open formats. It can certainly be argued that it"s not quite the same thing. And that is one hundred percent correct, it isn"t the same. But it is a frame of reference that many can relate to -- and the concepts are related, and overlap. The second reason open formats need a boost to ultimately promote open source is a social issue. It is stated nicely in the GeekPAC position paper: ...we would even go so far as to suggest that information rights are human rights, because of the fundamental role that information plays in shaping our culture and economy. Information plays such a fundamental role in our daily lives, in fact, that to restrict one"s access is to restrict one"s ability to fully participate in a global culture, thus handicapping economic progress. It sounds dramatic. It is dramatic. Look at it this way: Open formats bring information to every person with access to a computer. Information is inherently valuable. Again, a frame of reference comes in to play here -- I know something I did not previously because I could access information with tools I already possessed. The value of the open format transfers to the value of the open code. Encouraging software developers (whether new to the industry or well established) to open their code, and encouraging others to try open source software is always worth the effort. This shouldn"t be set aside. It seems, though, that an emphasis on promoting openness in an area many relate to, and can actively benefit from, could bring new levels of support and appreciation for all that open source software has to offer. Trackback URL for this post: http://ostatic.com/trackback/174660 blogs adsense from blogs adsense on Sat, 2008-10-18 06:05 The vital thing to remember is that you must be patient. Related Activities Comments (1) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Blog Posts Q3 Results in Less VC Funding for Open Source Vendors (post comment) Recompiling Open Source Attitudes (1 comment) MythTV, Rainy Day Project With Staying Power (6 comments)

Nominations Open For OSCON's Open Source Awards

What do Pamela Jones, Chris Messina, Doc Searls, and Angela Byron all have in common? Aside from being very cool people, they’re also all past winners of a Google-O’Reilly Open Source Award. The honor is bestowed on people in the FOSS community  who have “demonstrated exceptional leadership, creativity, and collaboration in the development of open source software. The 2009 award winner will be announced at this year’s O’Reilly Open source Convention 2009 (OSCON) later this summer so if you know someone who you’d like to see win, there are still a few weeks left to nominate your favorite geek. OSCON Program Chair Allison Randal writes, “The nomination process is open to the entire open source community, closing May 22, 2009. Send your nominations to osawards@oreilly.com. Nominations should include the name of the recipient, any associated project/org, suggested title for the award ("Best Hacker", "Best Community Builder", etc.), and a description of why you are nominating the individual. Google and O'Reilly employees cannot be nominated.” Enthusiastic commenters on Randal’s blog post have already begun to kick around some names: PostgreSQL’s Tom Lane for Best Hacker, OSI’s Russ Nelson, and Dave Winer for “the invention of... the modern Web 2.0 world as we know it." Of course, only nominations received at osawards@oreilly.com will be considered, but we’d like to know who you think should take the prize. Make your nominations according to the rules, then come back here and let us know your suggestions in the comments.   Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Blog Posts Community Leadership Summit, Kick Off OSCON at an "Unconference" (1 comment) Will Open Source Conferences Go the Way of BrainShare? (4 comments) OStatic Buffer Overflow..... (post comment)

VMware’s Next Open Source Step: VMware View Open Client

No, VMware isn"t going open ...

Sun Doubles Down On Open Source

It"s shown a commitment. Can it get the sales?

Open Source about FLV Player

Category: Flash > Animation Open source refers to the spreading method for specific software. Generally only the developer or the copyright owner processes the open source codes. Post date: Nov 21, 2008

My First Open Source Project

I started an open source software project a ...

Open source gadgetry for one and all

Make, as usual, has an excellent round-up of open source hardware kits based our own favorite, the Arduino. The list includes all the add-ons, like the Ethernet and Motor shields, and devices like the Seeduino, a more powerful Arduino clone. My buddy Paul has a few of these and is building stuff as we [...]

Myst URU To Go Open Source

Myst Online: URU has had a rather rocky life. Having been canceled, IP passed between three different companies, only to get shelved after a brief stint on the online service Gametap. But all is not lost with this ill-fated title. Developer Cyan Worlds has recaptured the rights to their title, and has decided to release the game sound, client and server architecture included, to the open source community. That means not only will the game continue to live on as a free to play, free to host title, the likelihood of linux and Mac OS X ports is greatly increased. This bold maneuver not only reinforces a good precedent (see: Castle Infinity) for game developers to keep their online games, well, online, it also allows players to improve and extend games that haven"t had the best of luck. Myst Online goes fully open-source [Massively] [via C|Net]

Why Windows Must Go Open Source

To maintain its developer ecosystem and protect its...

Why Windows Must Go Open Source

To maintain its developer ecosystem and protect its apps business, Microsoft has no ...

Open Source Communism

Q: What does Little Green Footballs have in common with Cuba?...

IBM + Sun: Too Late For Open Source?

Anything IBM could ...

An Open-Source Presidency

From the Article in Forbes: The U.S government can save billions and foster innovation if it deploys open-source software. President Obama has been praised and vilified for exploring the use of open-source technology. Yet touting open-source software use in the public sector is nothing new. The U.S. actually lags behind the governments of the Netherlands, Brazil [...]

Open Source Was Just The Beginning

If Tim O"Reilly"s...

XML editor open-source

Syntext has released its Serna Free XML editor as open-source software. The application is a WYSIWYG... ---- linkMacLifer: The best apple mac computer hardware and software posts from around the web

Open Source You Can Use: October Edition

In this edition: Chrome vs. Flock, a new OpenOffice.org release candidate, leaving behind free-as-in-beer, and a tiny open source gem.

Open Source and the Financial Meltdown

Dana Blankenhorn makes some good points in a post from today titled Open Source in a Time of Recession. One of the better points is that, despite the incredible turmoil in global markets and economies, we actually haven"t met the official definition of a recession yet here in the U.S., which would be two consecutive quarters without economic growth. Nevertheless, the financial gloom and doom we"re seeing will cause constricted business spending on software, and open source stands to benefit from that in several ways. There may also be some unexpected events in the works. As Blankenhorn points out, and as others have been predicting, consolidation is very likely in the technology industry itself. Technology stock indexes are lower now than they have been in four years. Companies with big cash reserves are likely to be on the lookout for inexpensive acquisitions. I noted that Bill Gates said this past Sunday that there will definitely be no depression and no major recession as a result of the current crisis. "It"s a very interesting crisis," he said. That"s how you react when you have tens of billions of dollars. Dan Farber found Gates" comments overly optimistic. "A hacker or terrorist hoping to destabilize economies couldn"t have done a better job than the financial industry itself," he writes. While lots of open source analysts are emphasizing that businesses will increase their adoption of FOSS amidst this turmoil, there will be more impact on open source than just that. We wrote here, prior to the current financial disaster, that many people are speculating about a possible Oracle acquisition of Red Hat. Red Hat has been delivering solid financial performance for several quarters now, but its stock has plummeted in the past six weeks. Here, Matt Asay expresses concern that an acquisition of Red Hat by Oracle or another big company could mean the end of independent open source. I tend to think Blankenhorn"s analysis is right on the money. Previous recessions and meltdowns have brought huge upswings in the technology industry overall. "The PC boom emerged from the bottom of a recession in the early 80s, and the Internet boom from another in the early 90s," Blankenhorn notes. This time, open source is likely to have the wind at its back as the markets pick themselves up and dust themselves off. There will be increased adoption and extension of top open source products, as we saw with the NTT and PostgreSQL news yesterday. There are likely to be acquisitions as well. One thing"s for sure: Things aren"t just going to stay the same. Trackback URL for this post: http://ostatic.com/trackback/173663 Related Activities Comments (2) Post a Comment Ask a Question Related Software Red Hat Linux (11 alternatives, 1 review) oracle (5 alternatives, post review) Related Blog Posts Paid and Unpaid FOSS Developers: A Powerful Combo (1 comment) Red Hat Posts Strong Numbers, Tips Cap to JBoss, Virtualization (post comment) Performance Problems Plague Perl on Red Hat (6 comments)