The Potential of Collaborative Communities

Today technology is directly related to all those electronic devices from a Smart Phone to a Super Computing Cluster, consolidating digital trends such as artificial intelligence, smart cities, the internet of things, computing in the cloud and robotics as the near future of global technological development.

It is important to take a look at the origin of all those electronic devices which are directly related to digital development over the years; undoubtedly highlighting the first modern computers that already had an integral structure managed by the first Unix operating systems and that gave rise to the evolution of one of the most important components of technological evolution, such as computer equipment.

Although the first computers were created by corporations that strategically protected their developments with a patent that restricted open access to all knowledge derived from said projects, the generation of the first ideas based on the Open Source model must also be located. as the Unix Operating System that supported the first modern computers and that to date continues to be one of the most secure, robust, stable computing platforms used for critical information systems for governments, banks and large companies.

Derived from these Systems, the Linux Operating System is created from a totally academic environment, the first version of an operating system based on Unix that championed the philosophy of Free Software as a plan to promote the consolidation of collaborative ecosystems of work and development in teams. multidisciplinary, to date their development is promoted by communities of developers from all over the world who work under the vision of open knowledge as well as collaborative work.

With the launch of Linux, a new working modality was generated through collaborative tools that allowed access to the source code developed in its beginnings by its creator, Linus Torvalds, allowing anyone with internet access, with sufficient technical knowledge and skills software development on technologies such as C Programming Language; They could correct possible failures, integration of new functionalities, expansion of their increasingly general portability and all this seeking to generate versions that are increasingly stable, secure and with optimal user experiences.

In this way, one of the first Collaborative Communities focused on the development of technological projects was born; In addition to the generation of a new idiosyncrasy with a philosophy of global teamwork, it is important to highlight that the most efficient technologies to consolidate this type of ecosystems are undoubtedly those conceived as open source solutions and free software that, although those Operating Systems Unix have always been open source and have not fully promoted their creation under Free Software models.

It should be noted the great benefit generated by the creation and global development of Linux beyond the technical, as a pillar of a new collaborative work ecosystem and which has given rise to a large number of global communities that adopt this modality to promote the development of technological solutions even currently strengthened by important corporations such as Google, Intel, Amazon, IBM, Bosch, just to mention a few of many; In this way, the most outstanding companies at an international level base their technological innovation strategies through collaborative work communities and even using FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) technologies as a technological base.

Currently the most avant-garde technologies and on which global trend digital solutions are developed are consolidated under a philosophy of collaboration communities in addition to adopting FOSS technologies as its technological base due to its maturity, security, robustness, quality and efficiency.

Just as the development of the Linux Kernel is led by the Linux Foundation to regulate and manage its efficient and orderly development; Other leading instances in technological development have been born with the entire FOSS philosophy, such as the following:

• Gnome Foundation. A foundation supported by a community of more than 300 developers from around the world who are integrated for the evolution of one of the most used graphical interfaces in Linux systems.

• Apache Software Foundation. Leaders in the development of servers that support 80% of internet traffic with solutions such as the Apache HTTP server as the most widely used worldwide.

Undoubtedly one of the born leaders in the development of cutting-edge technologies is Google with a huge and fantastic strategy that is supported by transversal communities such as Google Open Source and Google Cloud Developers with specialized tools that in turn consolidate specialized communities in each tools like Tensorflow, Dataflow, Kubernetes, Go Lang, Flutter and Dart; also with alliances such as Apache Software Foundation to create a highly specialized Suite in Artificial Intelligence such as Apache Beam.

In our Country, for almost 10 years, the Free Software Laboratory Community has been consolidating an extraordinary collaboration ecosystem that, in its proper dimension, adopts the strategies of the large global communities to promote technological development towards a digital transformation based on talent generational of the great academic community that strengthens the Laboratory.

Welcome to my Blog!

As Technologies and FOSS appasionate, as Gnome Foundation Member, as founder of the Open Source Lab, DEDICA Foundation Chairman, Open Source Innovation Labs Community and the FOSS Community of Latin America it’s an amazing pleasure to launch this blog.

You will found a lot of update and news around Free and Open Source Software Technologies: amazing events around world, great new technologies and the newest tendences of FOSS Technologies.

Manuel Haro