Life

Open source games: It’s a team effort

I've been involved with a fair share of open source activities, game-related and otherwise, and by and large I have thoroughly enjoyed the ride. It all started with an overly ambitious open source game. It never went anywhere, yet I treasure the time I spent working on it. This project sent me head first into the marvels of collaborative open source--and game development, without any training wheels. It’s an experience and an education that comes highly recommended, but is not without its hits and misses. Getting it right the first time ultimately comes down to chance, but if nothing else, sharing my experience might improve your odds. » Read more

12 CommentsPosted 8 Feb 2011 by Erlend Sogge Heggen

More ratings, please

Given the interest in my earlier article about a scorecard for open source and my own rough-and-ready benchmark proposal, I’d be interested in seeing how well the benchmark works at rating a variety of open source projects. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 7 Feb 2011 by Simon Phipps

The open-by-rule governance benchmark

What does authentic open source community governance look like? An open source community will involve many people gathering for their own independent reasons around a free software commons with source code licensed under an OSI-approved open source license. But there's more to software freedom than just the license. » Read more

0 CommentsPosted 7 Feb 2011 by Simon Phipps

Will reading your doctor's notes make you healthier?

In an old Seinfeld episode, Elaine visits her doctor  and manages to sneak a peek at the physician’s notes. She sees she’s been labeled "difficult." The doctor grabs the notes from her and after a confrontation, jots down more notes. Later, Elaine convinces Kramer to try to get access to her chart, but he walks out empty-handed only to report, "they’ve now created a chart on me."

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) now allows patients access to their medical records, but few patients—like Elaine--have ever lain eyes on their records. And those who try commonly face bureaucratic obstacles and exorbitant copying fees.

One doctor thought that openly inviting patients to review these records could better engage patients, and increase their understanding of health and treatment regimens. So he decided to find out for sure. » Read more

4 CommentsPosted 3 Feb 2011 by Lori Mehen (Red Hat)

Telling the open source story - Part 2

Shortly after we published Telling the open source story - Part 1, Jelly Helm--the creator of the the Wikimedia Foundation videos discussed in that piece--came to speak to the People and Brand group at Red Hat. Jelly talked to us about how he approaches finding a brand narrative--the story that anyone, anywhere in the world can understand and connect with. And then we talked about the best ways to reveal those kinds of stories.

It was an interesting encounter and a few general themes emerged. » Read more

1 CommentPosted 2 Feb 2011 by Colin Dodd (Red Hat)

An anthropologist's view of an open source community

In the first session of FUDCon talks this past weekend, Diana Harrelson reported on her anthropological study of the Fedora community, which she used to find ways to sustain and grow an open source development community. She studied the group from the Fedora 12 launch through the Fedora 13 development cycle while she was a master's candidate at the University of North Texas. (She now has that degree and is working towards a PhD in human computer interaction.) Here's are a few of her findings, much of which certainly apply across open source communities, not just to Fedora. » Read more

13 CommentsPosted 31 Jan 2011 by Ruth Suehle (Red Hat)

Intersection of core values in open source and domain driven design

A few weeks ago I gave a talk entitled "Breaking the Software Death Cycle with Domain Driven Design" at the New York DDD Meet-up at Microsoft. Domain Driven Design (DDD) is a way of thinking and a set of priorities, aimed at accelerating software projects that have to deal with complex domains. My talk was both an introduction to DDD and a story about turning a large failing project around. As we analyzed triggers that enabled my team to be successful, I couldn’t help but notice the overlap in what DDD promotes in an organization and the core values of open-source.

But first, how does one identify a software death cycle in progress? These are my favorite symptoms: » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 31 Jan 2011 by Daniel Doubrovkine

Join us virtually at FUDCon and share your open source story

FUDCon Tempe gets started tonight. Even if you're not there, you can still join in. We're finishing up the opensource.com anniversary week by liveblogging open source stories from FUDCon.

What kinds of stories? » Read more

2 CommentsPosted 28 Jan 2011 by Ruth Suehle (Red Hat)

Best images of 2010 and how to contribute the next one

In December, we asked you to vote on your favorite images from 2010. Numerous people voted on the five most popular images in each channel (chosen based on Flickr views), and the winners are:

» Read more

1 CommentPosted 28 Jan 2011 by Libby Levi (Red Hat)

Looking for input: Our first reader survey

If there's one thing that's important to us, it's community. And we want to know how our community (that's you) feels about opensource.com. Please take five minutes to give us some feedback through our first opensource.com reader survey. It's pretty short, and your feedback will help us give you better content delivered the way you want to get it.

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0 CommentsPosted 27 Jan 2011 by opensource.com Admin (Red Hat)