Technology
What is open source?
Why the idealistic promise of collaborative software often falls short of its potential.
open source
Software development
Engine attribution
This site is (right now) powered by the WordPress open source blogging engine. If you hit "view source" in your browser, somewhere near the top, this is what you'll see: <meta name="generator" content="WordPress x.x.x" /> (Where x.
Web
Why I think Marissa Mayer should buy Automattic
PandoDaily reports that Yahoo! has sold half its stake in Alibaba for $4.5 billion. Their take is that Yahoo! needs one or two big products to turn the company around, and that Marissa Mayer should look to successful large acquisitions like PayPal and YouTube. I agree. And I can&
Web
The open web is dead. Get over it and do something.
Yesterday, I joined the Post-PC era by upgrading my iPad to iOS 5. Yes, the upgrade process wiped all of my applications and data, but once I'd put everything back together again, the result was a faster, more streamlined device that works much better than it did with
Software development
Does open source exclude high-context cultures?
Something to think about for anyone starting any online community: [...] So if you start a project and send email to a bunch of folks and ask them to just jump in and contribute, which group do you think will get going more quickly? The low context culture folks. Interesting comments,
General
"What it means to be a school is now up for grabs."
Education, for me, is still the most exciting field that open source is opening up. It's a vital part of any civilized society, and so it seems right that the software that helps participants teach and learn should be open. I have no qualms about charging private institutions
Politics
Open source politics?
Today's debate between Republican Presidential hopefuls underlined how broken the current accepted political systems are. Real change, real hope, is very hard to find. I shared the following thought in a few places: What might an Internet-informed political framework look like? How would it interact with legacy parties
Software development
Bonita: a PHP template manager with lofty ambitions
I'm fed up of using the same PHP template pattern over and over in my web apps, so I decided to write it from scratch and iterate on some core ideas. And then open source it under an Apache 2.0 license. The result is Bonita: a simple
General
Open source needs designers
It's been a slow progression. First, I moved from Eclipse, for years my Integrated Development Environment of choice, to NetBeans, which I've been using for the last year or so. It's faster, leaner, and less prone to bringing down my computer for no readily
General
Why you should not build an open source startup
Teambox's post about why you should build an open source startup is doing the rounds right now. It's a great piece, but I thought I'd reply with a few reasons why you might want to think long and hard about it: * Free (as in
General
Openness wins
Dan Lyons, writing in Newsweek, doesn’t think the introduction of the iPhone on Verizon will stop Android’s momentum: Apple's phone would have snuffed out the Android a year ago, but now Google’s device has become an unstoppable juggernaut. […] “Android is a global phenomenon,” [Fred Wilson]
General
Making money with open source
If you’re going to do something, do it well I’ve been thinking a lot lately about open source business models. The project I’m most often associated with, Elgg, developed a business some two years after the project itself was founded. Now that I’m considering a new