community - Page number 11

Some of my collegues at Red Hat have been working for some time now on a book/wiki titled The Open Source Way.  It is aimed at answering the very important questions of "How?" for a given set of Whats, and its a very important resource for those who are ready to roll up their sleeves and to start putting open source principles to work.  But, why would anybody want to do that?

Why indeed... » Read more

Many ask how the idea for Rentcycle came to be. I'm not from the rental industry. I've never started an Internet company before. So, how is it that I got here? Although a combination of factors truly helped the stars align for Rentcycle, there's one major influence that planted the seed for the idea—my first job out of college at Red Hat, the open source technology company. » Read more

Experiential learning using open source is fraught with opportunities for disaster.

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“The knowledge and information that my children are getting through the formal education system--is it good enough for them to face the rapid advancements in science and technology?”

“Are my kids getting ready to face the rapid changes in social structure?”

“Are my children developing a solid foundation to be successful in a globalized world?”
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I am a huge advocate of the concept of open source software. As a society, we are at a point where information sharing is more critical than ever. Technical forums support the mission of open source in multiple ways. First, they allow programmers to work outside of their expertise. Second, forums allow people to share their experiences with software. Last, they allow scientific researchers who are not always (not usually) well-trained programmers to carry out their research with an entire community to help them make design decisions and help them through technical difficulties. » Read more

Open source has achieved a bit of popularity in the tech world, and has even become a bit mainstream. I sadly think this means that many have and will continue to miss the point of what being open source really means. Open source doesn't just mean showing source code. Many people think that such code drops are the only thing necessary for open source buzz to take over. » Read more

In a July 2010 post on opensource.com, Jonathan Opp wrote about the nature of giving and participating in a gift culture/economy. One point that he mentions is the benefit of giving freely, without strings attached. I’d like to expand on that, since I think there’s a lot we can learn from recognizing the hidden strings that we sometimes attach to our gifts. » Read more

Since the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) is doing the brave work of open sourcing VistA, we felt we owed it to them to practice the open source way in our response to their draft request for proposals (RFP). » Read more

Three Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) students recently gained recognition for a Humanitarian Free and Open Source (HFOSS) proof-of-concept project, Open Video Chat (OVC).  OVC put a functional video chat program written designed for deaf students on to the OLPC XO 1.5 computer. This is the story of how it got started and where it can go from here. » Read more