10.24.13

Open source is brutal: an interview with Google’s Chris DiBona

Jobs Demand Rising for Linux and Open Source Skills

Have you been looking for a job, or perhaps some work on the side? If so, and you have Linux or other open source skills, the news is good. Demand for Linux and open source workers continues to rise. We’ve covered this trend as reported by careers sites such as Dice.com, and by The Linux Foundation, but one of the most detailed breakdowns appears at LinuxCareer.com, through its IT Skills Watch report. In addition to reporting on demand for Linux skills, it breaks down how the demand looks for workers with skills in other areas ranging from PHP to Apache Tomcat.

Rupee slide: Indian cos like iGate, Hungama Digital opt for open-source softwares to cut costs

Indian enterprises are increasingly moving to open-source software, recognising the cost benefits and flexibility it offers over proprietary software. A falling rupee, which increases licensing costs, is likely to hasten the shift from softwares made by companies like SAP, IBM and Oracle.

The government has already embraced open-source in a big way — the Aadhaar project is a case in point. Now, companies like Hungama Digital Entertainment, Uttam Energy, Bilcare, payment processor Euronet, insurer Star Union Dai-chi and IT outsourcer iGate — have also started using open-source software. And the list is growing.

Twitter turns to open source to prevent service disruptions

To prevent disruptions and scale up its service while keeping costs down, Twitter has had to drastically change its core infrastructure, taking up open source tools while doing so.

Community management tips from Greg DeKoenigsberg of Eucalyptus

United Nations lauds open source for water resource planning

Unesco, the educational, scientific and cultural organisation of the United Nations, is promoting the development and use of open source solutions for water resource management. At the end of June, in Paris the UN officially launched a network of experts ‘Hydro Open-source software Platform of Experts’ (HOPE), to “contributes to the dissemination of innovative practices”.

Special Journal Issue: The Unstoppable Rise of Open Source

Oldenbourg Verlag just published a special issue on open source that I edited. Titled “the unstoppable rise of open source” it provides a five-article overview of open source past, present, and future.

Why Open Source?

In all my writing work, I use only Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to get the job done. I’ve been questioned about this a number of times, and the best answer I can give people is: It’s complicated. There are lots of reasons I use FOSS over all other options, and I think I’m ready to put them all out there for y’all to see.

Finally SOS Open Source Goes Open Source!

I am happy to inform my readers that finally SOS Open Source will soon be released in open source!

Open source to bridge the global digital divide

I vividly remember my first experience using the Internet in 2000. The amount of information I was hit with by typing my first search term, university, was far beyond my wildest imaginations. This plethora of knowledge filled my mind with wonder, excitement, and enlightenment. I suddenly had the power to read, analyze, and learn about anything and anyone. The knowledge created by some of the greatest minds in the history of mankind was at my disposal, free of cost and just one single click away. I felt empowered.

Technology Trumps Dogma, And Other Open Source Insights

Marten Mickos is one of the most respected leaders in open source. Here’s why.

10 open-source alternatives for small business software

You can’t run a business—even a small one—without technology. You need computers, smartphones, file storage, a website, and a whole host of other tech assets. So how do you afford it all with a budget that’s tighter than a hipster’s jeans?

IBM Releases FusedOS Operating System

Just days after a brand new cloud operating system was released, IBM is out with a new operating system of its own. FusedOS is IBM’s new research project that’s now an open-source general purpose OS.

Open Source Software is Only the Beginning

Open source is all about collaboration. When you write some code and put it out there for others to read, use, and build upon, you’re giving a gift to the world. With the instant global communication the Internet provides us today, countless developers around the world can (maybe even anonymously) collaborate, giving and taking code, sharing knowledge with each other, and advancing our collective corpus of work.

When Open Source software get nothing in return

There was a slight compensation when the German city of Munich reportedly were planning to distribute free CDs of Ubuntu 12.04 to its residents. That’s a step forward but certainly not good enough. Why I say it’s not good enough is because they can do more – a lot more than what they are currently doing.

Since these organizations will more than likely have their own support team and not rely on purchasing support contracts, the only reasonable source of revenue via clients buying support contracts for Open Source software gets blocked.

Why and how to set up your own wiki with Dokuwiki

DokuWiki is a simple but versatile wiki. Find out how to install, configure, and begin using DokuWiki.

Open-Source Systems You May Have Taken for Granted: 10 Examples

Quantity, Reason and enduring Freedom

Where is Free & Open Source Software headed to? On the one hand, there is a trend that seems to veer it towards a more professional field, with new analysis and tracking tools that aim at improving not just the quality of code but its legal compliance as well. More and more large companies adopt FOSS either as users or as developers, or both, and that’s a good thing too. But does this announce the upcoming end of copyleft licences and that more structured approaches will ultimately kill the wild and spontaneous bunch that FOSS “once” was? No it won’t. First, the FOSS adoption among enterprise field does not depend on one license only. There’s also a lot of enterprise software released under GPL, by the way. But perhaps we have to accept and embrace Free and Open Source Software for what it is: an undefinable field that is at the same time a state of the art, a set of business models around software and services, a demand for our digital freedoms and a set of best practices on digital innovation alongside an extremely effective way to license software. And yet I’m not even sure I’ve covered it all. Today FOSS is growing not just in the enterprise: it’s at the core of the Makers’ movement and the 3D Printing revolution; it has inspired the Open Hardware movement, the Open Knowledge and countless other initiatives. Very few of these have reached a maturity stage and even inside the realms of FOSS development, things continue to be the same: at the beginning, a developer has an itch to sratch, and code to share with the world….

How Things Work: Open-source software

Most students at Carnegie Mellon have used, or at least heard of, open-source software. Examples of such software include the browser Firefox and the mobile operating system Android. Open-source software, in most basic terms, makes its code publicly available for modification and distribution by users. Proponents believe that creating an open community of programmers who modify software for their own uses provides the best possible experience for users, allowing them to customize according to their own needs.

I Didn’t Know They Use Open Source! – Part 3

Why Hasn’t Open Source Taken Over Storage?

Open source products have very uneven penetration into the world of business technology. If you look at content management systems or languages, open source rules. But if you look at the market for ERP software or for storage systems, open source hasn’t made much of a dent.

All Things Open conference preview

The dates of October 23-24 have been circled on my calendar for a while. Why? Because All Things Open is coming to Raleigh, NC. It’s the first open source-focused conference of it’s kind to come to the capital of North Carolina. I’m also excited because having the conference come to Raleigh fulfills one of the five pillars in my definition of an open source city.

LinuxCon North America 2013: an air of Jazz

It was really great to be able to attend LinuxCon in New Orleans in September. I’d like to thank again HP’s OSPO team and in particular Eileen Evans, VP leading it, to sponsor my travel there. HP is also a Platinum sponsor of both the Linux Foundation, CloudOpen & LinuxCon events.

OSS4B, International Open Source Business Conference, Prato (Italy), 19-20 September 2013

‘All Things Open’ Conference Offers Enterprise & More

When IT-oLogy opens the doors to the All Things Open conference in Raleigh on October 23, the focus will be on open source in the enterprise. That’s only fitting, given the fact that Raleigh is Red Hat’s playground–and Red Hat practically wrote the book on enterprise level open source.

Live From LinuxCon: The CloudCast Podcasts on OpenStack Neutron, Canonical, PaaS Deployment, Puppet and Leaving VMWare

11 Keynote Videos from LinuxCon and CloudOpen New Orleans

GNU Make 4.0 Brings New Features, Extends With Guile

Version 4.0 of GNU Make, the widely-used software that’s relied upon extensively by developers and those building their software from sources, is now available. GNU Make 4.0 does bring with it a handful of new features and capabilities.

Who takes free software to new heights?

Cambridge, MA Software Freedom Day recap

People trickled and and were greeted by the friendly face of FSF operations assistant, Chrissie Himes.

Pump API progress video

Hey all. Things are busy here in MediaGoblin-land, but we’re making great progress. Since our last update several things have happened, including Natalie Foust’s branch being merged! So administrative tools have officially hit git master. That’s great news!

Easy OpenCL with Python

Use OpenCL with very little code — and test it from the Python console.

When open source invests in diversity, everyone wins

It’s results like this that convince Jessica that when open source communities invest in diversity outreach, everyone benefits. Since implementing a beginner series, intermediate workshops, and open source sprints, the Boston Python user group has over quintupled in size, from 700 members to 4000+. They are now the largest Python user group in the world. That type of growth is something all open source communities should aspire to.

writing a lua interpreter

Shell Scripting vs Programming

The shell is the most basic of environments for working with your Linux system. Whatever you may think of working in a text environment, I guarantee that once you have fully experienced the power of simple text, you will be forever convinced. Text is compact. Text is fast. System administration over a network is best experienced at the shell level. Those forced to resort to graphical tools over a slow Internet connection are also quickly converted.