Open Source Subnet: An independent Open Source community

Today's Top Pick

Open Source Subnet welcomes Joe Brockmeier

Google Subnet is pleased to welcome well-known open source advocate Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier to the community! For his first post, he writes, "Shortly after the company announced that it was mothballing the Wave platform, Google is now pushing 'Wave in a Box,' as an open source second try for the dead platform." Can the problems with Wave be solved by sharing the source code now?

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Open Source Exposed
Oracle Gobbles Up Open Source by Stephen Spector'
I have been thinking about the different ways that Oracle and Microsoft have chosen to compete against the open source community and its many projects. Microsoft has obviously taken the heads on direct competition route with some “improper” monopolistic tendencies while Oracle seems to have chosen another strategy; just buy them up. Over the past few years Oracle has purchased some of the leading open source projects or companies that were directly competitive to their core... 3

Open Source Fact and Fiction
Even Bill and Ted Had To Grow Up, So Does Open Source by Alan Shimel
Matthew Aslett over on the 451 Chaos Theory blog responded to my post about Open Source 4.0 not ushering in a golden new age of open source. I said the whole open source 4.0 thing sounded like something out of the flower power 60's. Aslett responded that actually it was more like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, party on dudes. Regardless of which of these you think it sounds like, the result is the same. Sooner or later you have to grow up and face reality and that includes putting food... 2

Logical Expression
What Apple has in common with successful open source projects by Eric Gries
Matt Asay hit on a fundamental - and often overlooked - point in his GigaOm post the other day: Apple is able to conquer markets by ignoring the concept of the faceless, generic "market" and instead concentrating on winning the hearts and minds of individual users.He also notes that this is one of the main failings of enterprise software today -the focus on winning the nonexistent heart of the "market," while disregarding the people who collectively ARE the heart of the marketIt's an... 2

Open Source Fact and Fiction
Linux: A Double Edged Sword for Open Source by Alan Shimel
Quick, name the most successful open source project of all time. You probably didn't hesitate a second did you? For better and sometimes for worse, Linux is the poster child for the open source movement. And why shouldn't it be. You can't argue with the enormous success and impact it has had on the world. It is truly one of the wonders of the tech world. But that success can sometimes cast a long shadow on other open source projects and how people perceive open source should... 11

Open Minded
Open Source: No one is working for free by Stephen Walli
People continue to wonder how to make money in the free and open source software world. It’s dressed up in discussions of how one makes money when you give away the software for free, or why developers are working for free. It can likewise lead to a management backlash of not contributing to FOSS projects because some think their developers are working on FOSS instead of their own work. Here’s a different way to think about it. Everyone is familiar with the idea of a normal "bell curve"... 3

Open Source Fact and Fiction
Open Source Cloud APIs Vie For Dominance by Alan Shimel
With Cloud Computing being the biggest thing on the technology horizon, there is a huge race shaping up over which API will allow clouds to talk to each other. Like many other sectors in tech, the open source community has several hats in this ring, any one of which could wind up the winner. This much is sure, one of the biggest inhibitors to wider cloud adoption is a lack of standards from one cloud provider to another. So a unifying standard that all cloud providers follow is seen as a...

Open Source Exposed
Are Web Browsers Going the Way of the Dinosaur? by Stephen Spector'
In the August issue of Wired Magazine, there is an interesting article “The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet” which looks at the issue of no longer needing a web browser to interact on the Internet. The main point of the article is that users of the Internet are moving away from the so-called wild west of the Web for the “simpler, sleeker services that just work.” For example, the massive growth of Facebook and applications found on mobile devices and tablets are independent of any web... 11

Pragmatic open source
Have we reached a tipping point for cloud-based VoIP? by Amy Vernon
Some have said that the future of open source is in the middle, and the explosion of cloud-based telephony would seem to bear that out. OnSIP, Twilio, CloudVox, FreeSwitch, are all telephony platforms that have been making a splash and gaining popularity, and they're built firmly on open source.The reasons are legion; but for OnSIP, the two most important are what's most important to their customers: price and control. OnSIP, run by the New York-based Junction Networks, is a hosted business...

Source Seeker
Burning Man is the proving point for Earth friendly, open source Linux-based cell tower by Julie Bort
This has got to be one of the coolest -- ehem, I mean hottest -- open source projects around. It is a solar/wind powered, Linux/VoIP based cell phone network, that works with any GSM phone and costs pennies on the dollar to install and operate. And it's being tested right now at Burning Man. To summarize: "The technology starts with the "they-said-it-couldn't-be-done" open source software, OpenBTS. OpenBTS is built on Linux, distributed via the AGPLv3 license and when used with a... 15

Open Source Fact and Fiction
The Dawn Of The Age of Open Source 4.0 by Alan Shimel
When the moon is in the Seventh House And Jupiter aligns with Mars Then peace will guide the planets And love will steer the stars This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius Age of Aquarius Aquarius! Aquarius! Harmony and understanding Sympathy and trust abounding No more falsehoods or derisions Golden living dreams of visions Mystic crystal revelation And the mind's true liberation Aquarius! Aquarius! Much like the 5th Dimension tried to herald a... 10