How do you get a new free software project off the ground? It’s all about community.
I answer reader questions about free software issues here, and an interesting question came up recently from a reader thinking of releasing code as free software. How do you get a project off the ground? How do you build interest and nurture a community?
The grassroots efforts of system administrators have brought Linux and other free software into the mainstream. To be an effective advocate for free software at work, you need to speak the language of management and convince them from their point of view. This article discusses how to present your case, why your audience makes all the difference, how to hook them with proof of cost savings, and reveals two secret weapons for your quest to promote free software.
Heartbeat, a free software project, has crashed the price barrier for Linux high-availablity. Redundancy has never been so affordable, thanks in part to the efforts of Alan Robertson, project lead. I caught up with Alan to find out more about the history of the project, and future plans.
MW: How did the Heartbeat project get started?
Web Performance, Inc. has published a performance report comparing tests of Apache Tomcat on Windows and Linux, with interesting results. The report found that Linux was able to handle about 32% more users than Windows on identical hardware with identical test conditions.
What I love about this report is the level of detail they provide about their methodology and the data. They provide all the information needed to duplicate their results. From the press release:
I mean Microsoft Internet Explorer, of course.
Scanit, an internet security company, has reported that in browser vulnerability tests, Microsoft's Internet Explorer was unsafe 358 days out of 365. On the other hand, the Mozilla family of browsers together were left exposed for only 56 days out of the year. The company monitors known vulnerabilities and security patch availability, and reports the number of days each browser is exposed to risk. Read the report for more...
Universal Network Objects (UNO) is an interface-based component model that is part of OpenOffice.org. UNO allows for interoperability among different programming languages, object models, processes, and machine architectures. UNO works over local networks or the internet.
Kay Ramme is the UDK project owner and Sun Senior Technical Architect for OOo and StarOffice. I recently asked Kay to tell us about new efforts to modularize the OpenOffice.org office suite and to make its component model available as an independent entity.
A friend of mine is a core developer on a free software project that most people would consider one of the top ten in overall importance, especially in terms of getting mainstream users migrated to free software overall. He’s a known expert on this project, and very knowledgeable about free software in general, from both technical and business standpoints. I won’t say who it is, but he has plenty of publications to back up his expert status.
He’s getting frustrated with the free software world.
In a recent issue of the newsletter “The Linux Executive Report from IBM”, Ubuntu is discussed in an article titled “Moving Beyond Red Hat and Novell SUSE”.
From the newsletter:
Oracle is expected today to announce a free (yes, free) limited version of its database called Oracle 10g Express Edition.
This is clearly a reaction to pressure from the open source databases MySQL and PostgreSQL. It shows that free software is good for IT purchasers even if they don't use it. Downward price pressure is a natural side effect of the commoditization of software that has occurred as the free software phenomenon gives us a freer market.
I recently spoke with Bruce Snyder of the Geronimo project about this open source Java app server under the Apache Software Foundation.
My favorite quote from Bruce:
“I have a saying I've used for years that I think sums it up: With open source, we come for the code, but we stay for the people!”
See the full interview here...
Geronimo, the open source Java application server sponsored by the Apache Software Foundation, has been picking up steam lately. Hard core developers are experimenting with it as a potential replacement for proprietary application servers like IBM Websphere.
(Editor’s note: In this article, the term “open source” is used rather than “free software”. In this case, they are intended to be synonymous.)
We’ve come a long way in the promotion of open source software. Gone are the days of trying to convince IT directors that Linux is a viable operating system. Most organizations are running Linux on a server somewhere today, and it’s generally considered mainstream for a host of uses.
Dave Mohyla is the president and founder of dtidata.com, a hard drive recovery facility based in Tampa, Florida.
TM: Where are you based? What does your company do?
DTI Data recovery is based in South Pasadena, Florida which is a suburb of Tampa. We have been here for over 10 years. We operate a bio-metrically secured class 100 clean room where we perform hard drive recovery on all types of hard disks, from laptop hard drives to multi drive RAID systems.
Since the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).
Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Thawte, the first Certification Authority to sell public SSL certificates. After selling Thawte to Verisign, Mark moved on to training as an astronaut in Russia and visiting space. Once he got back he founded Ubuntu, the leading GNU/Linux distribution. He agreed on releasing a quick interview to Free Software Magazine.
I read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.
If you’ve ever spent hours at work doing mailings, cursed your printer for printing outside the lines on your labels, or moaned “There has got to be a better way to do this,” here’s the solution you’ve been looking for. Working smarter, not harder! Worldlabel.com, a manufacture of labels offers Open Office / Libre Office labels templates for downloading in ODF format which will save you time, effort, and (if you want) make really cool-looking labels
A little while ago, while talking in the #drupal mailing list, I showed my latest creation to one of the core developers there. His reaction was "Wow, I am always surprised what people use Drupal for". His surprise is somehow justified: I did create a site for a bunch of entertainers in Perth, a company set to use Drupal to take over the world with Entertainers.Biz.
Update: since writing this article, I have updated the system so that the whole booking process happens online. I will update the article accordingly!
More and more people are discovering free software. Many people only do so after weeks, or even months, of using it. I wonder, for example, how many Firefox users actually know how free Firefox really is—many of them realise that you can get it for free, but find it hard to believe that anybody can modify it and even redistribute it legally.
When the discovery is made, the first instinct is to ask: why do they do it? Programming is hard work. Even though most (if not all) programmers are driven by their higher-than-normal IQs and their amazing passion for solving problems, it’s still hard to understand why so many of them would donate so much of their time to creating something that they can’t really show off to anybody but their colleagues or geek friends.
Sure, anybody can buy laptops, and just program. No need to get a full-on lab or spend thousands of dollars in equipment. But... is that the full story?
