Life

What are you doing over the holidays?

Happy Holidays from opensource.com!

We hope that you have a great break (if you get one!) and spend some time doing the things you like most. Many of us will spend it doing a mix of activites, like: » Read more

1 CommentPosted 24 Dec 2012 by Jen Wike (Red Hat)

OpenPhoto: Elegant photo hosting in an open source package

Think of all the photos and videos you've stored on various devices and social networks over the years. Enter: OpenPhoto, a new, open source platform all about gathering them into one place and never losing them. Their software imports your photos from Flickr, Facebook, and Instagram, and there's an app for the iPhone (Android coming soon).

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0 CommentsPosted 21 Dec 2012 by Beverly Pearl

Open source hardware relies on Creative Commons and crowdfunding

When talking about open source, many people's first thought is the GNU General Public License (GPL). While the software world has been revolutionised by GPL, the hardware world has seen little change.

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6 CommentsPosted 20 Dec 2012 by Alvin Chang

The founder gap: Why we need more women in open source

Look at the founders of any Internet startup, and you're almost certain to find an open source expert among them. Take Google, the biggest Internet success story of them all. Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin built and ran their brand-new web indexing tool on servers running the open source operating system Linux—and still do, 13 years and several billion dollars in profits later. Pick an Internet startup—Facebook, Zynga, Groupon—and chances are you'll find open source software running on its servers (and an open source-savvy founder in the boardroom). » Read more

20 CommentsPosted 20 Dec 2012 by Valerie Aurora

How open source is disrupting visual art

If you’ve seen an unbelievable interactive projection or a mind-blowing piece of generative video art, odds are you’ve come across openFrameworks, an accessible programming platform that has helped create projects like Arturo Castro and » Read more

1 CommentPosted 19 Dec 2012 by Kyle Chayka

Women in computing: An interview with Leslie Hawthorn on the Grace Hopper Conference

I sat down with Leslie Hawthorn, Community Manager at Red Hat, and chatted with her about the 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference that was held in Baltimore, Maryland this year. She confided that the theme, Are we there yet?, is a reference to the idea that while women have made many strides for equality in terms of equal pay, equal work, and so on, the group still feels like women in tech have a long way to go.

The idea behind the Grace Hopper conference is to provide a gathering place for women in technology to be able to network, knowledge share, and enhance their technical skill sets; with the general conclusion being that we are going to get there, through mutual support and collaboration.

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3 CommentsPosted 18 Dec 2012 by Jen Wike (Red Hat)

Should Instagram automatically license photos under Creative Commons?

Instagram has undergone several big changes lately, most noteably taking away the ability to quickly view Instagram photos on Twitter. Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom described this update during the LeWeb Internet conference in Paris as Instagram's evolution, and explained that the company would naturally change as it grew. » Read more

10 CommentsPosted 18 Dec 2012 by Casey Brown

Zanata, an open source translation platform

Zanata is an open source translation platform written in Java that offers translation memory, an online translation editor, and workflow integration with REST APIs and command-line tools. For translators, it is a web browser-based translation environment where previous translations provide context for their work. For software developers, it's an integration tool that provides a centralized localization repository along with translation tools that save time and resources.

Product Manager, Runa Bhattacharjee and Lead Developer, Sean Flanigan, have more to say in this interview.

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0 CommentsPosted 16 Dec 2012 by Jen Wike (Red Hat)

Make your street an open street

If you think streets are for driving, you’re not alone. But you are also not thinking outside the box. Open Streets initiatives are taking root across the continent, with communities everywhere looking to use their streets for walking, dancing, bicycling, partying, and dozens of other activities that can help build healthier, stronger, more sustainable communities. Here are three ideas and resources from the Planning Tool Exchange to help you open your streets to more than just cars.

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1 CommentPosted 14 Dec 2012 by Rebecca Sanborn Stone

Values of science at odds with desire to turn it into a commercial product

Scientific software tools have long lived in the conflict zone between open source ideals and proprietary exploitation. The values of science (openness, transparency, and free exchange) are at odds with the desires of individuals and organizations to transition scientific tools to a commercial product. This has been a problem in neuropsychology and neuroscience for decades, and extends outside the bounds of software.

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1 CommentPosted 13 Dec 2012 by Shane T. Mueller