community

One of the challenges of working in the space between academia and open source communities is translating the cultural and timescale differences. One approach to bridging the gap is to empower people already in the academic space–like professors--to navigate the free and open source software (FOSS) world and bring that knowledge back to the institutions they come from. The week-long POSSE Professors' Open Source Summer Experience (POSSE) workshop, sponsored by Red Hat, aims to do just that. » Read more

A collaborative activity dubbed Project Harmony is now under way between corporate and corporate-sponsored participants in the free and open source software communities (not to be confused with the Apache Java project of the same name). The project seeks to harmonise the various participant and contributor agreements – collectively termed “contributor agreements” by some – used by many open source projects. » Read more

One of our frequent writers in the Business channel, Chris Grams, gave the keynote at DrupalCamp Boone today on "Designing culture: The other community plumbing." This post is based on that talk.

Drupal is great as a content management system. But as much as we like it, a community is not built by Drupal. It's built by people. Getting people to work together is not solved by a Drupal installation alone. You need culture--the other community plumbing.

Can culture be designed? Yes. » Read more

We’ve accepted the obvious benefits of open source principles in business and education, law and healthcare. Openness, transparency, and knowledge-sharing helps more people prosper more quickly. We theorize that it can work in any endeavor where communal information needs to be collected, shared, and maintained. In the Life channel, we get to examine some of the less-obvious avenues where open source is found--and here is one that even surprises us a little: open source religion. » Read more

Last post, I discussed how governments, especially state and local, should be thinking differently about the ways they engage online with the people they serve. » Read more

On Wednesday, September 1, opensource.com will be hosting a webcast with Stefan Lindegaard, one of the world's leading experts on open innovation. » Read more

It's taken me months to approach this article. It was going to be about the day-to-day life of tenure-track faculty. But, in the end, I can't write it. I've started this article a half-dozen times in the past few months, and writing about the day-to-day life of the faculty is not something I can do right now. » Read more

Community, collaboration, and meritocracy are a few of the principles of the open source way highlighted in the most recent McKinsey Quarterly report, “Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch.” » Read more

Openness in the military is coming of-age, as was evident to the attendees at the 2nd Military Open Source Software (Mil-OSS) working group held August 3-5 in Arlington, Virginia. This grassroots gathering of practitioners in the art/science of creating military capabilities was unique in its inclusive atmosphere of government civilians, military uniformed (and retired) personnel, government contractors, and university academics. All gathered with one goal: » Read more

When the open source way starts finding its way to the likes of the pharmaceutical industry, it turns a few heads. A combination of free access and open data has started changing the medical research model, beginning with drug companies collaborating on research for Alzheimer's disease.

Dana Blankenhorn from ZDNet was dead on when he said » Read more