open source software - Page number 8

The idea of standards stretches back many years. While competition is good, competition around basic attributes of products in mature markets can obstruct customers. When they work–standard electricity voltages, standard railway gauges being two examples–society benefits greatly from them. Quality standards in particular prevent vendors messing with the attributes of products in ways that could be harmful. » Read more

Creative Commons posted two pieces to their blog today regarding their licenses, and in particular, CC0, the Creative Commons public domain notice.

Plaintext versions of Creative Commons licenses

The Creative Commons licenses are now available in plaintext form: » Read more

Adam Drew makes open source music. He writes, records, and produces all his own sounds using Linux and all FOSS tools. Read more in his post from last week. » Read more

The Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit tends to focus on technical and legal sessions for industry experts — but one of the better sessions at the Summit was Press Training for Community Projects. Led by Jennifer Cloer, the Linux Foundation's director of communications and community, the session drew a great mix of open source contributors and press to trade ideas. » Read more

Applications are now being accepted for Rock Health, a program rewarding ideas that will "catalyze innovation in the interactive health space."

From Rock Health: » Read more

NASA has been implementing an Open Government Plan for nearly a year, and this week they held the first NASA Open Source Summit in Mountain View, CA. But the roots of open source at NASA go back much further, to its founding legislation in 1958, which designed NASA as a source that would "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information"--a goal perfectly suited to an open approach. » Read more

I have been asked to turn "Open for Business" into a monthly column, focusing on applying the open source way to business. Let the reader beware that I am not a millionaire. I don’t own multiple houses or drive a new car, but for the past eight years I have made a living running a business focused exclusively on open source software (and that’s without needing outside investment). The suggestions offered in this column fall in line with our business plan of "spend less than you earn." I hope others will find them useful.
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When you procure proprietary software, you buy a right-to-use license and then a support agreement. But when you buy open source, you already have the right-to-use from the OSI-approved free license, so you should compare the subscription cost with just the cost of a proprietary support agreement. Right?

Wrong! The open source subscription includes all the same elements as the combination of both purchases. In most cases, if you are receiving equivalent value, you should expect to pay similar prices. » Read more

As I wrote previously concerning indemnity, I constantly encounter both governments and companies claiming they have policies permitting or even favouring open source software. Yet there's still a huge amount of proprietary software being procured by them. » Read more

All over the world, I encounter both governments and companies claiming they have a policy permitting or even favouring open source software--indeed, the new President of Brazil just issued a decree on that subject. Yet when you actually look at what they are doing, you find that there's still a huge amount of proprietary software being procured.
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