Open Source
Build an authentic, valuable online community
Over the last two decades, I have been a member of numerous types of Internet communities and a drive-through visitor at countless more. The technology has varied: email listservs, Usenet, chat rooms, blog commenting, forums and message boards, RPG. Within theses communities the written and unwritten rules are as diverse as the underlying platforms, and these elements combine to make up the culture and communication styles of each group.
A new contributor agreement for Fedora
A little over a month ago, the Fedora Project announced a plan to replace the existing Fedora Individual Contributor License Agreement (FICLA) with something new, which we've imaginatively titled the Fedora Project Contributor Agreement (FPCA). After gathering some feedback on the first draft from the Fedora community, the Fedora Project published a revised draft.
The correlation of Mirabelles and sustainability
What most people do not know about the making of software: It Is Hard.
Rock n' Roll, instant messaging, and Creative Commons
What do instant messaging notifications, quintessential 80s rock and a hatred of Autotune have to do with one another? Thanks to the wonders of open source, the Open Your World forum brought together three individuals from decidedly different musical backgrounds with the likes of Brad Sucks, Curt Smith and Daniel James sharing the "stage" of our Creative Commons and the Music Industry panel.
Radically Simple IT with Dr. David Upton
We were extremely fortunate to have Dr. David Upton, chair in Operations Management at Oxford University, kick off our first ever Open Your World forum. Dr. Upton's presentation, entitled "Radically Simple IT ... or, a Strategic Argument for Open Source in Business" was a highly relevant and insightful commentary on how open source principles can help business leaders transform how they approach and engage the more traditional strategic planning process.
Tell your story with opensource.com at the Summit
Earlier this year, Red Hat launched opensource.com as a way to shine a light on the places where the open source way is multiplying ideas and effort beyond technology. The open source way is more than a development model; it defines the characteristics of a culture. Openness. Transparency. Collaboration. Diversity. Rapid prototyping.
Through opensource.com, we want to find out where the open source way is headed next. Hear what you're doing. Tell you how to get involved. Help you apply it to your life and the world around you.
Report Card on Federal Openness
Open Source for America (OSFA) has announced a report card scoring the openness of federal agencies and departments! Today marks the six-month anniversary of the Obama Administration's Open Government Directive, a big step towards greater transparency, collaboration, and participation in government.
We can accomplish more by sharing
This is the first in a series exploring the things I have learned from the open source way during my time at Red Hat.
About 9 years ago I joined Red Hat and my life changed forever.
As for my background, currently I'm the Senior Vice President of People & Brand at Red Hat, responsible for shepherding the human resources, learning, and brand and creative services functions within the company. I am a mother, a lawyer, a business school grad, a female executive in a male-dominated industry.
And I believe in the open source way.
Poll: Why do you still have an iPhone?
Trust: the catalyst of the open source way
Let's face it. There are tons of projects out there in the world being run the open source way today. While the great ones can accomplish unbelievable things, the bad ones, even the average ones, often fail to achieve their goals.
In many cases, the failed projects still used many of the tenets of the open source way, transparency, collaboration, meritocracy, etc. So why did they fail?
Open Your World recap: Dr. John Halamka on healthcare, the stimulus, and standards
Dr. John D. Halamka, is Chief Information Officer of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a practicing emergency physician, and holds several other positions, which are listed on his profile at his Geek Doctor blog. According to Halamka, his datacenter “holds a couple of petabytes of healthcare data for 3 million patients, and the entire infrastructure is run on Red Hat technologies. So I have multiple datacenters, multiple clusters of Linux servers, and we haven't had downtime in a couple of years.
Where's my bus? Open data enables real-time route info for Boston riders
At Gov 2.0 Expo last week, Joshua Robin, the Director of Innovation and Special Projects at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, described how MassDOT was inspired by the simple concept of open data modeled by the National Weather Service.
Being more transparent about participation
Last week we published an updated version of our participation section. We wrote a short post a few weeks ago about how we could make contributing to opensource.com an easier and more transaprent process. In the spirit of release early and often, the next version is now available.
If you want to write an article for opensource.com, design an image for illustration, or take a more active role as a commenter or contributor, we've compiled some info on all of these items.
You can find them in different areas around the site or at our participate link in the header. Here is the list of what's been updated:
Go fly a kite: Mapping the oil spill the open source way
Last month, as the mainstream press reported on the worsening environmental and economic crisis that is the British Petroleum spill in the Gulf Coast, I and a small group of DIY mappers flew down to New Orleans to coordinate a grassroots, citizen effort to map the spill. Instead of helicopters and satellites, we deployed a new generation of low-cost tools, including weather balloons and kites with cameras attached.
Tiemann on transforming IT the open source way
“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Michael Tiemann used this quote from Albert Einstein to lead off his talk at last week's Open Your World forum. His presentation was called “Transformation and the Open Source Way”
Open pharmaceutical innovation
When it comes to infectious diseases, sharing is generally discouraged. But recently, pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) opened up the designs behind 13,500 chemical compounds, which the company narrowed down from over two million, that may be capable of fighting malaria.
The process of determing which compounds could yield a malaria drug is time consuming and complex, but GSK hopes to inspire other researchers to pool their intellectual property and work together to develop new and better medicines to fight the diseases that are rampant in the world’s poorest countries.
Scholarships for open source contributors
Proponents of getting students involved as contributors in open source projects often cite the benefits of having a portfolio and a stellar network of references for job or even school applications. What some don't know is that there are scholarships specifically geared towards open source contributors - and that, for those who want to encourage more young people to get involved in FOSS, these scholarships are quite easy to set up and administer.
Contributing back to society: eejot.org
Meet Prabhat Jha. He founded an organization called Eejot, which means "light." Its mission is to improve and facilitate education in remote villages in Nepal.
Recently, he traveled back to the village in Nepal where he grew up, and turned his vacation into an opportunity to give back to his community. Watch the video to learn more about the work of Eejot, which includes mentoring and education, health camps, and open source awareness seminars.
Spreading the dandelions: Open Your World recap
Thank you to all who joined us for the first Open Your World forum yesterday, and a special thanks to our speakers. We hope you all learned something new to apply to your lives.
attachments: Open Source for America, Jeremy Allison and Terri Molini Open Source License Compliance, Richard Fontana The Stimulus and Standards, Dr. John Halamka The Challenges and Rewards of Diving In, Matt Jadud Wikimedia: Strategic Planning the Open Source Way, Eugene Eric Kim Free and Open Technologies: A Policy Update from the European Union, Karsten Gerloff and Graham Taylor Transformation, the Open Source Way, Michael Tiemann Radically Simple IT or.. A Strategic Argument for Open Source, Dr. David Upton The Open Source Way: Creating and nurturing communities of contributors, Karsten Wade Music Q&A: Daniel James, Curt Smith, and Brad SucksOpenness, transparency, and community: The future of commenting on the web
It's not often that I find something in the comments on a major news site that's more interesting than the original article. But that's exactly what I just came across--and it's a comment about comments. How meta.