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_ blog.openboxsoftware.com » Blog Archive » Open Source: Challenges and Opportunities

The open source movement continues to gather momentum as more and more people not only become aware of it, but also begin to use software developed from it in their everyday lives.

For me the defining “moment” for something like this is when it becomes a nature part of what is available “out there” and gets used without a great deal of pre-thought. An example of this is the internet or e-mail or Instant Messaging – how many times to you actually think about it before you use it now days?

Malcolm makes a great case for the co-existance of proprietary and open source software. As someone who runs a Microsoft shop, I think this is something he thinks about a lot - managing cost for profit is always the most important thing a busines owner has to take into account, and I can imagine the dilemma between open source and closed source has come up more than a few times.

Something to consider, is that although a shop is biased with their technology of choice in one way, that doesn’t mean it’s the only way - very often it is the client that determines what technology stack to use, and these days with so much legacy stuff floating around, there is little you can do with it, unless the client is totally keen on out with the old and in with the new. Even then, most enterprise clients just can’t afford the downtime; while the vendors just can’t afford to have both sets of skills.

open source, closed source, microsoft, bill gates, software development

Old Google hardware on archive.org: Old Google Hardware

Suddenly my setup at home for my webapp doesn’t feel so bad

Hat tip: Andrew Bayley

google

_ Adobe Acrobat Standard

Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard software is the simple way to create and share more secure and reliable Adobe PDF documents. Generate Adobe PDF files that accurately represent the original document, and take advantage of robust tools for sharing information and commenting on electronic files.

I think that sometimes the majors forget what it’s like to be a lowly customer, as if no-one in their oranisation ever buys anything online…

So here I am, taking a look at buying Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard, ‘cos I need to create PDF docs (promise), on the Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Standard web page, and I can’t see or find the price anywhere… Really.

I don’t care how good it is, or how many people find it useful - I just want to know how much it will cost me, before I waste any more time looking for the price…

Anyone agree, or am I being pedantic?

_ [Webkitchen London] Peter Nixey: Bush’s cruel karma

Certainly the New Orleans Engineering Corps who, only two months ago, lost 44% of their funding as Bush redirected $71m to Iraq anticipated such an event. The local newspapers of course were all too aware of what their fate might be as well as many other news networks including American RadioWorks.

Very good piece by Peter - makes you think

24Meg Broadband now on offer by Be, in case you need a pipe that fat

You registered your interest in Be – our pilot has started!
At last, the awesome power of Be’s 24 meg broadband is available. Our main website has just gone live and we are busily connecting those that are in our area.

Go to www.BeThere.co.uk and see if you are eligible to order as part of the pilot programme and to be among the very first in the UK to experience the Internet the way it’s meant to be: unlimited, unchallenged and unleashed. For pilot orders placed before the 18th September, 2005, service is just £20/month for life.

We are working fiendishly hard to expand our service areas to meet the overwhelming demand for Be, so please spread the word. Friends and family can use our handy phone number and postcode check on the website to see if our ludicrously fast broadband is in their area.

We look forward to your joining us.

With best regards,
Dana
On behalf of the Be Team.

Dana R Pressman
Managing Director
Be Unlimited

broadband

Andrew told me about AllofMP3 (http://allofmp3.com) late last week, and he’s how downloading some tracks to try it out. We’ve just had a discussion about it at lunch which was pretty interesting as well.

Seems their model allows you to download music at a small cost (you pay for credit in advance then work your way out of credit), where they pass on a percentage to the artists and take a percentage themselves. If you want to read better review try the top two Google (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=allofmp3+review) results.

2 Things are important here:
1) They’re based in Russia, so their copyright laws are different. This is probably a good thing for the consumer in this case.
2) You download in MP3 format, which means you can do what you like with the track; unlike iTunes or any of the MSFT equivalents, where you are locked into a player and/or device ‘cos of the file format…

I haven’t used it yet, but probably will if Andrew reports back positively.

Gotta love the disruptive business models coming out to play…

_ A brief history of simplicity

There were a series of beta copies of their distribution and alas, my inquisitive side got the better of me and I installed it on a Powerbook; itself, not a simple system get Linux onto. It worked. There was no fuss, there were no problems. As I used the system, GNOME (which I had switched to some time back, see this weblog entry for the meat about why) seemed to integrate seamlessly with everything before me. Everything looked alike, my devices were detected, and things simply felt, simple.

Interesting article on Ubuntu and where the Open Source community is going. I also hope it achieves every opportunity it promises…

_ CSC: Leading Edge Forum 2004 Report, Open Source: Open for Business, Part 1

The lure of open source software is that it is free%u2014anyone can use it or modify it without license fees, and no vendor can lock users in for fixes and enhancements. Open source has spawned a worldwide development community that improves and fixes the software, often much faster than in the proprietary vendor world. The disruptive nature of open source software makes it the focus of the 2004 CSC Leading Edge Forum report, Open Source: Open for Business.

Picking up from the previous post, most people I speak to about Open Source software either have no idea what it is, or have a flippant or negative approach to it, especially people that have grown up in the Microsoft camp (yes guys, most of you do .

This feature on CSC’s site puts things in perspective, and as such I think it’s quite a good primer for what the current state of play is. Recommended for people who want to understand the business benefits / impact of Open Source Software (OSS).