Open Source
Uncovering open education challenges with ISKME’s Lisa Petrides
Creative Commons is helping to shed some light on open education resources in a recent interview with Lisa Petrides from the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME): Open Education and Policy. The good news, there is a lot of policy change at all levels of education. The challenge is
Let the open source way take you outside your comfort zone
This is the second in a series exploring the things I have learned from the open source way during my journey with Red Hat.
In the traditional proprietary software world, developers are limited in their ability to collaborate with other developers outside of their own companies. In contrast, developers in the open source software world collaborate beyond the walls of the company. And collaboration isn’t limited to software development, but also extends to collaborating in multiple ways with customers and partners.
Community mailing list created
Do you want to help out with opensource.com but just aren't sure how? Interested in seeing some of the behind-the-scenes work that's going on? Do you want to help contribute to some of the work? We've recently created a new community mailing list that is open to anyone and everyone.
You can subscribe to the list at:
Initial thoughts on Bilski
The Supreme Court finally issued a decision in the Bilski case today [PDF]. For those troubled by the problems surrounding software patents, the opinion will be disappointing, because it does not resolve those problems. But it would be a mistake to view the opinion as a victory for the proponents of expanding software patents. In fact, there are some aspects of the opinion that auger well for the future.
Larry Lessig takes on Washington
I had the opportunity to sit down with Larry Lessig last week. Co-founder of Creative Commons, law professor, author, and copyright guru, Lessig is a visionary of law and technology policy.
In the FLOSS community, Lessig is best known for his book Free Culture and work on copyright policy. In his view, attitudes towards copyright started to change when we saw kids and grandmothers sued for file sharing. Lessig has never argued for abolishment of copyright, but he has always argued that there needs to be balance―a more permissive society that allows artists to reserve the rights they need, while allowing others to remix and improve without fear of prosecution.
But two years ago, Lessig moved away from the copyright field to invest more time researching institutional corruption and citizen-funded elections.
Integral Innovation
In his keynote speech at the Red Hat Summit in Boston, Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst made the case that of the $1.3 trillion USD spent in 2009 on Enterprise IT globally, $500 billion was essentially wasted (due to new project mortality and Version 2.0-itis). Moreover, because the purpose of IT spending is to create value (typically $6-$8 for each $1 of IT spend), the $500 billion waste in enterprise IT spending translates to $3.5 trillion of lost economic value. He goes on to explain that with the right innovations—in software business models, software architectures, software technologies, and applications—we can get full value from the money that's being wasted today, reinforcing the thesis that innovation trumps cost savings.
But then along comes Accenture's Chief Technology Architect Paul Daugherty, and in his keynote he presents a list of the top five reasons that customers choose open source software (which is now up to 78% among their customers):
#1 (76%): better quality than proprietary software.
#5 (54%): lower total cost of ownership.
So which is it? Does innovation trump cost savings? Or does quality trump cost savings?
Project Harmony looks to improve contribution agreements
On 16 June Project Harmony had its first official meeting in Boston, and we're planning another in London on 1st July at Canonical's offices. Its initial goal is to avoid proliferation in contribution agreements across FOSS software projects where those organisations chose to work with contribution agreements.
A Canonical instigated project, being led by their General Counsel, Project Harmony is open to all interested parties to join. It presently involves a group of industry interested parties, from companies, projects and those with personal interests in FOSS.
Linux as a catalyst for a smarter planet
In this morning's Red Hat Summit sessions, Jean Staten Healy and Bob Sutor of IBM presented on the solutions that communities around the world are implementing using Linux as a catalyst for a smarter planet.
The IT industry exists to solve problems. And you can solve them at a micro level, or you can look problems that are so huge, they affect countries, or the entire world. The range is huge, and complexity varies tremendously. Smarter Planet is about a macro approach. It's meant for those really significant problems and to answer how IT can help solve those problems.
Seriously, why do you still have an iPhone?
All right, I get it. The iPhone is certainly a leader in both terms of sales and product ingenuity. I have often been known to blast Apple for being late to a party, then claiming they are introducing some incredible new feature (see Spaces vs Virtual Desktops). I won't hide the fact that I am not a fan of Apple. Even so, the iPhone is truly something innovative.
How do you explain the open source way?
This open thread is an opportunity for you to tell us how you explain what the open source way is, but without mentioning software or technology.
Open Economics: Inspiring confidence through transparency
Market confidence is a valuable commodity in tough economic times. And governments will try just about anything to inspire some. Recapitalization--bailouts--for struggling sectors is one approach. Another (less deficit-inducing) solution seeks to inspire confidence through a sizable dose of transparency. Bank stress tests are beginning to figure prominently in the later effort. Stress tests measure how well financial institutions perform under financial "what if" scenarios.
Poll: How do you get your music?
If you have ideas on articles about music that you'd be interested in, let us know in the comments. We'll do our best to tune-up a blog post.
Two tips for meeting survival in an entrenched bureaucracy
It might be a better world if we all worked in open, collaborative organizations where the best ideas win. But unfortunately, the reality is that bureaucracy still rules in all but the most progressive companies. We have a long way to go. The reality doesn’t always match the dream.
In the real world, we generate great ideas, propose elegant solutions, and then force them to run the bureaucratic gauntlet. “the best ideas win” becomes “the safest ideas win” (and then lose eventually) as they travel through the bureaucracy and its meetings.
Strategic Planning the Wiki Way
BE BOLD. Those were the closing words of Eugene Eric Kim's enlightening talk at our first Open Your World forum. To what was that advice pertaining? Look no further than the title of Kim's presentation: "Wikimedia: Strategic Planning the Open Source Way."
Crowdsourcing vs. collaboration: Which yields superior results?
Lately I feel like I'm trapped in an endless loop of a certain Steve Ballmer moment, except the refrain is “crowdsourcing, crowdsourcing” on one hand, and “collaboration, collaboration” on the other. It seems everyone has jumped aboard either the crowdsourcing or the collaboration train. Call me a fence-rider, but I'm staying firmly on the platform.
Sure, I believe there is wisdom in crowds. But there is also power in collaboration.
Graham Taylor and Karsten Gerloff on free software/open source in Europe
Graham Taylor of OpenForum Europe (OFE) and Karsten Gerloff of Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) cite standardization policy as the principal battleground for free software & open source communities in Europe. As Taylor observes, “We [OFE] identified that 90% of the public sector had lost their choice about freely choosing the next step [of software procurement], using all proprietary technologies.”
Open source scores in the World Cup
I haven't watched any of the World Cup except for a few highlights on ESPN. I have, however, heard (no pun intended) about the vuvuzela horn. The World Cup is a big deal to football (soccer) fans around the world, but the vuvuzela horn is making quite the buzz.
Some folks seem to be annoyed by the sound and want to watch the game free of the vuvuzela horn noise. Create Digital Music has a solution for you:
How to find a community's cheeseheads when they aren't wearing foam hats
The other day I was chatting with friend and digital strategy/social media expert Ken Burbary on the phone. He was advising a colleague on some good community-building techniques to consider when all of the sudden the following words came out:
"You have to find your cheeseheads."
What? I did a double-take (or at least the conference call equivalent) and asked him to repeat himself.
I had heard him correctly.
A new and better Open Source Initiative
When I said recently that we still need the Open Source Initiative (OSI), it started a flood of comment. There's no doubt that we need OSI - but we need a better OSI. The one we have now is just too small to be effective and too mired in past successes; a renaissance is needed. You can help.
Drug companies to collaborate on Alzheimer's disease
The rising cost of development and research is making drug companies turn to each other for help. Rival companies that include Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Roche plan on sharing clinical data in a standard format. But this isn't the first time we've seen pharmaceutical companies start to share data.