Links
April 14, 2007 12:40 am gnomeSome interesting stuff I’ve read recently:
- Ari Jaaksi on collaborating on free software:
I’ve noticed that companies are seting up different forums and clubs to standardize/promote/develop Linux/open source based technologies for mobile/consumer/embedded devices. I have my doubts… I do not fully understand how they plan to work. I’d go directly to places like the kernel.org or to GNOME to get things agreed, aligned, and -the most of all- developed. These are the communities that do the actual work and I’m not sure how these additional forums add value.
- An oldish article from Stormy Peters on free software and patents:
I’m starting to wonder if we in the open-source community need a grass-roots effort to address patent and license issues… [the] effective and realistic means to protect the health of the open-source development model and community is to take a page from the corporate playbook.
April 18th, 2007 at 9:57 am
I can understand Ari’s comments. But I think there is room for many types of open-source communities:
1) Harvest existing open-source software like Linux, where a few key individuals previously set in motion a great product and a great project model for the rest of us to use – and maybe use a corporate web site to manage the “harvesting” process,
2) Contribute more open-source software to an already great product, like Linux, that only gets better as more contribute – thanks to the founding individuals, their project management methods, and the accepted web portals that act as their “watering holes”,
3) Or be the new visionary with open-source project management methods that the rest of us can follow while delivering an entirely new open-source solution…
Recently I discovered one of the early (first?) open-source community projects from 1981 that was successfully deployed on top of a closed operating system for a mobile embedded device. Perhaps your readers would be interested in learning about the similarities and differences demonstrated by these 100 engineers during their 3 year open-source community development project:
http://www.embeddedcomponents.com/blogs/2007/04/community-software-development-for-embedded-devices/