open source - Page number 43

Revolution is easy. Nation building is hard.

At Gettysburg Abraham Lincoln dated this nation's founding to the Declaration of Independence. We celebrate July 4 as our national day.

Personally, though, I'm a fan of June 21. That's the day, in 1788, when New Hampshire ratified the Constitution. As it was the ninth state to do this, it was on that day that our form of government was truly established. (For those keeping score at home, that's 11 score years and, as of now, a little less than eight months.)

For Libre Office, September 29 is their Independence Day. That was the date, last year when The Document Foundation was created to fork the code base of OpenOffice.org from its corporate owner, Oracle. » Read more

One of the fun parts of blogging for PCWorld.com is getting reader response e-mails from all over the world. You never know who is going to read what you write. Sometimes they'll spot the blog post on the PCWorld Web page, or as a link in a tweet or even as a Google search result several months after the blog post was published.

I've blogged previously about Inkscape, the free vector drawing program for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows, so I was thrilled to receive an e-mail from Sheena Vaidyanathan, who teaches Inkscape to elementary school students in Los Altos, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Here is how Sheena explained her teaching to me: » Read more

An open source company is naturally a company that produces open source code for others to consume. But how does the notion of producing software code in the open affect company culture? » Read more

"In 2004, six months after suddenly losing my father, I became a single dad. I was forced to give up my travelling position as an application specialist for a large ERP software manufacturer."  

Aaron Nursoo first became interested in open source software because it was free.  He saw in it an opportunity to teach himself skills that would help him to restructure his life and allow him to support his family. » Read more

Governance is the word for open source in 2011. Governance breaks down to two topics, structures and process.

The same elements that make for a stable democratic system also make for good open source governance. This doesn't mean you need a balance of powers, or a judicial branch. It means you need the rules of governance clearly stated, and a process that will allow the best ideas to get prompt action from those running the project. » Read more

I started pondering what qualities would define an open source city a few months ago when my friend Tom Rabon mentioned it to me one day. I was curious how the city I live in, Raleigh, NC, could attract other open source companies and be the world's hub for open source and a leader in open government. How could Raleigh be the open source capital of the world, similar to what Silicon Valley is to technology and Paris is to romance?

I think the answer can be found in both the government and the people. » Read more

The fact that the State Department hosted a conference last week on open source shows how far the U.S. Federal Government has come in terms of tech policy. Yet the content at Tech@State: Open Source often illustrated that the road ahead is still long and arduous. » Read more

Starting a business is always a bit of a gamble. But investing in a start-up is practically a guessing game.

“A lot of venture capitalists will tell you that for early stage investment they don't have any real way of knowing which businesses will succeed,” said Marc Dangeard, head of Entrepreneur Commons. “They might invest in thirty businesses of the same type for the one that will thrive.”

Faced with the difficulties of venture capitalism and start-up funding, Dangeard decided it was time to “take the ego out” of venture capital. » Read more

Last Friday, I was in Washington, D.C., for Tech@State’s Open Source Conference . Tech@State is an inspiring step by the State Department, connecting technologists to targeted goals of the U.S. diplomacy and development agenda via networking events as part of Secretary Clinton's 21 ^st  Century Statecraft initiative . » Read more

Earlier this week, Fast Company posted an article by Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen (thanks to Gunnar Hellekson for sending it my way) that may be of interest to folks seeing success with their open source and open innovation efforts.

The article is entitled "User-Led Innovation Can't Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and IKEA" and here's how it starts: » Read more