Business

Could open source build a jetliner?

I know this might sound like an odd question. It first came up in a conversation I had with Gary Hamel, the eminent business thinker and one of the first people to recognize the importance of distributed co-creation and that it will change management in the 21st century. We were discussing how the power of participation could replace traditional management for purposes of coordination and what it's limits might be. We ended up using the analogy of building a jetliner as our best example of where tight coordination is required. This question has been nagging on my mind ever since. » Read more

23 CommentsPosted 15 Jan 2013 by Jim Whitehurst (Red Hat)

How the mobile revolution is challenging open source user interfaces

In the past couple of years, a powerful paradigm shift has occurred in user experience (UX) design. UX designers used to focus on desktop users but now, mobile devices and mobile users are at the center of attention. The evidence for the importance of this paradigm shift is stifling: Morgan Stanley predicts that by 2014, mobile users will exceed desktop users. Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt says that "if you don’t have a mobile strategy, you don’t have a future strategy."

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16 CommentsPosted 14 Jan 2013 by Pascal Mangold

How open source is driving the future of cloud computing

In 1998, Amartya Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. The lecture he gave, titled "The Possibility of Social Choice," succinctly captured both the subject of his work (generalizing economic theory to cover social groups of disparate actors rather than just individuals or corporations) and his irrepressible sense of humor (because the generalization applied to Arrow's Impossibility Theorem). Sen's crucial insight (for me) is this (emphasis mine):

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0 CommentsPosted 10 Jan 2013 by Michael Tiemann (Red Hat)

2012: What a year for Linux

Global research and advisory firm, Forrester, said, "The explosion in open source projects in the HTML, mobile, cloud and big data spaces such as Android, jQuery, PhoneGap, Sencha, Hadoop and Cordova are driving a new model and a golden age of 'app' development."

Clearly, Linux had a great year—as did their many dedicated developers, communities, fans, and users. » Read more

1 CommentPosted 2 Jan 2013 by Jen Wike (Red Hat)

Protect choice and freedom in technology by choosing open source solutions

I remember first meeting Jeffrey A. "Jam" McGuire in person at DrupalCon Denver. We talked about communities, music, and shared ways to show why open source is a better way. Even before meeting him, I could tell from my first interaction with him that he was passionate about Drupal and open source. He's becoming an in-demand Keynote speaker and presenter at Drupal and other business and software events around the world. He's already a staple for the Intro to DrupalCon session and always seems to incorporate music and singing as part of the performance. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 21 Dec 2012 by Jason Hibbets (Red Hat)

The secret ingredient in open source

Open source has a secret. Do you know what it is? It has to do with a common characteristic found across successful open source communities that set them apart from others.

For those that are new to open source, understanding the intricacies of how open source communities share, communicate, and govern themselves may take a while to understand. Each community is different, but there are a few commonalities between them that lay the foundation for a successful project. If you’re just getting into open source, be sure to read more about the different tools that organize communities of practice in The Open Source Way book.

For those open source veterans out there, I think you’ll agree that » Read more

3 CommentsPosted 10 Dec 2012 by Jason Hibbets (Red Hat)

How open source is outliving the hype 13 years later

Open source as a buzzword has lost much of its buzz. It’s not quite as dead as "SOA," but it’s definitely been supplanted by today’s favorites: the Cloud, Mobile, and Big Data. Open source's demise as a hype label was inevitable—it’s hard to fake giving away your software for free (although there were more than a few companies over the years that were called out for being "faux-open source" with their freemium models or commercial licenses to the code).
Thankfully, "open source" has outlived the hype to provide real value to the industry and to customers.

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3 CommentsPosted 3 Dec 2012 by Bryan Cheung

Reclaiming the Buffalo router with free and open source LibreWRT distro

I would like to take a few moments to introduce Buffalo, the access point and router which provides network connectivity to portable computers in the Free Software Foundation's office. More specifically, we are using Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, which features the free-software-supported Atheros AR9132 chipset with 32MB of flash memory and 64MB of RAM.

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2 CommentsPosted 27 Nov 2012 by Martin Dluhos

Why businesses are adopting the open source community approach

A few months ago, I joined Red Hat as a marketing apprentice (intern) in Paris, France—where I am also continuing my studies at France Business School—and it became clear to me that my vision of what open source is and what it means to be part of the community has changed. This evolution has significantly altered the way I am participating in projects and communiticating with peers.

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2 CommentsPosted 19 Nov 2012 by Florian Monfort