Wikipedia

I vividly remember the time when my early opinions about open source software were built around questions that made natural (and perfect) sense to me at that point in my life, like: "Why would someone sell a software product for free?" and "Why should anyone participate in a project that does not reap financial rewards?" These formed the basis of my rationale. » Read more

Mirror mirror on the wall, what's the most important open source project of them all? » Read more

Micheal Tiemann, Vice President of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat, moderated our October 2011 Open Your World Forum webcast with Clay Shirky. Tiemann and Shirky explored how the principles of open source are being applied to further advance our collective cognitive surplus. » Read more

Today Clay Shirky joined us for a webcast on how open source takes advantage of the "cognitive surplus"—the way we use our free time more constructively for a greater cause. » Read more

What does it take to find a cure for Alzheimer’s? Can we spare returning soldiers from post-traumatic stress disorder?

The moon shot is on collaboration and sharing. And just as in the moon race, the challenge is far too great for a single group to undertake it alone.
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SXSW Interactive gets started this week, and there are a lot of sessions on the agenda with topics related to the open source way. Music collaboration, open government, Creative Commons... nearly every time slot has at least one session I want to tell opensource.com readers about. Below is my "open agenda" for the week with a quick summary based on the abstracts available. I know there are things I'm missing--feel free to leave comments with sessions you think should be on the list or places I should check out. » Read more

I’m always looking for interesting new communities to highlight here on opensource.com. Over the past year, I’ve covered everything from Wikipedia to OpenIDEO to The White House and am, frankly, overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of new community-building efforts going on out there.

Seems like every day I get an email or see something on Twitter or Facebook about a new community that sounds interesting and innovative. I’ve found some amazing people and visionary ideas. I hope to continue to highlight the best of these new communities here on the business channel. » 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