My first months at Acquia
,----[ Quote ]
| Approximately 25% of my time is spent running engineering and directing
| product development. The latter includes specifying the product, defining
| what our engineers will work on, ensuring that we're on track, and making
| sure that we have the best technology. I also enjoy talking to other projects
| and companies to create options for both Acquia and the Drupal community.
|
| In my role as CTO, I don't think I've contributed a single line of code to
| Acquia's upcoming products. I expected this, but I find it surprising
| nonetheless. Instead I'm often sidetracked into marketing, human resources,
| and customer service related activities. It is interesting and refreshing to
| be on both the technical side and the business side of things. I like it a
| lot.
`----
http://buytaert.net/my-first-months-at-acquia#comment-4248
Another Free software success story:
Joomla! and the latest trends in the open source revolution
,----[ Quote ]
| In a statement they said:"We will talk about the latest trends in the
| open-source revolution that has liberated online software from the
| proprietorial designs of companies like Microsoft and made feature-rich Web
| sites affordable for all businesses, not-for-profit groups and individuals."
`----
http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=A416D271-17A4-0F78-3161096AC39AA8E2
And another:
BitNami.org Makes Wordpress, Drupal, and Joomla! Easy to Install on Solaris
,----[ Quote ]
| BitNami Stacks for Solaris include Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla! and MediaWiki.
| SAMPStack, an easy to install distribution of Apache, MySQL and PHP for
| Solaris, is also available from BitNami.org. Each Stack is released as open
| source under the terms of the Apache 2.0 License, allowing users to download
| and use the Stacks free of charge.
`----
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/05/prweb907854.htm
Proprietary CMSs hardly stand a chance of surviving in a clouds era.
Recent:
Programming languages and "lock-in"
,----[ Quote ]
| In other words, while both systems theoretically give me the power to “modify
| and improve” the software to satisfy my needs, only Plone practically gives
| me that power (because I have the skill to make use of it). Even if I knew
| PHP as well as I know Python, I might decide to use Plone because of a
| preference for the object model, libraries, or ease-of-maintenance of Python.
| These are matters of taste: another developer might just as readily prefer
| PHP on exactly the same grounds.
|
| In this way, each program attracts its own “developer culture” of programmers
| who are familiar with and/or prefer a particular set of programming language,
| libraries, and development tools.
|
| None of these distinctions is particularly meaningful to a true “end user”,
| who doesn’t care how the software works internally. And yet, they are
| important. Because many “users” are not pure end users. In fact, in deploying
| a CMS-based website, it’s very likely that you plan to do some development.
`----
http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/programming_language_lock_in
WordPress is Open Source
,----[ Quote ]
| Six Apart has recently decided that the best way to win back customers
| fleeing their platforms is to target WordPress, which is a new strategy they
| call competing. (What have they been doing the past 7 years?) A good example
| is this exchange between a commenter on Valleywag and Byrne Reese, the lead
| developer of Movable Type:
|
| Sundown: “@anildash: what part of Wordpress is not open source?”
|
| byrnereese: “@Sunnduwn - I think that is a question better asked of
| Automattic. Anil, and certainly not Six Apart, has never been briefed, nor
| has anyone for that matter been presented with an accounting of what is open
| and closed source at Automattic.”
|
| Okay, here’s some accounting:
|
| WordPress is 100% open source, GPL.
|
| All plugins in the official directory are GPL or compatible, 100% open
| source.
|
| bbPress is 100% GPL.
|
| WordPress MU is 100% open source, GPL, and if you wanted you could take it
| and build your own hosted platform like WordPress.com, like edublogs.org has
| with over 100,000 blogs.
|
| There is more GPL stuff on the way, as well. :)
|
| Could you build Typepad or Vox with Movable Type? Probably not, especially
| since people with more than a few blogs or posts say it grinds to a halt, as
| Metblogs found before they switched to WordPress.
`----
http://ma.tt/2008/03/wordpress-is-open-source/
How The GPL Can Save Your Ass
,----[ Quote ]
| If you are the multi-billion dollar IT industry you stick you head in the
| sand and just keep making cars. It is after all, not your problem. That seems
| to be the attitude of almost every company with a vested interest in the
| computing market. There was a recent announcement indicating Intel and
| Microsoft have put up $10 million to fund research in parallel software. Hah!
| I'm going to laugh harder this time HAH, HAH! Ever here the phase pissing in
| the ocean, well this is more like throwing a match into the sun. We need
| more -- much more.
|
| [...]
|
| Second, the entire in industry must co-operate and be involved. We need
| everyone working on this problem. The best minds in high performance
| computing have been at it for quite a while and it is time to turn up the
| volume. Fantasies of telling your R&D guys to get on it are not enough.
| Trying to corral your Intellectual Property (IP) with trade secrets and
| patents is wishful thinking. The rocket scientists (and plenty of other smart
| people) have been working on this issue for a long time. You don't have the
| time to waste trying to expand your IP fiefdom. Instead start thinking about
| what happens when the next generation of products is of absolutely no
| interest to your customers.
|
| Third we need to respond quickly. There is no time for IP agreements,
| posturing, and NIH ego trips (Not Invented Here). We need leaders to
| recognize the scope and magnitude of this challenge and act. Before too long,
| it will not be unreasonable to have four or even eight cores in a desktop. A
| workstation or server may have double this amount. It would sure be nice if
| my software could effectively use all these cores.
|
| [...]
|
| Using the GPL will immediately remove issues that would normally choke such
| an important undertaking. First, the any IP barriers get pushed aside and
| everyone can cooperate openly
`----
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/5379
|
|
