The Open Source Advocate

This past week I have been repeatedly surprized by the progress of web applications. For me, the first amazing web application was Google Maps, which was launched in February, 2005. As I double-clicked to re-center the map, I remember thinking "How do they do that in a web-browser?!?!" In less than a year, hundreds of websites have sprung up using similar technology. In case you haven't seen most of these (like me), here is a list of best web applications in each category - Web 2.0 Awards. There are some new buzz words associated with this Web 2.0 technology. AJAX is a fairly common word now, which stands for A synchronous J avaScript A nd X ML. Another term I am hearing is " mashup ", which is a page that combines content from multiple websites. For example, Zillow is a mashup of real-estate valuations database and Google Maps, and PropSmart is a mashup of a real-estate listings database and Google Maps. Let me know if you have any favorite websites tha

This was a discussion on a local LUG mailing list... That sounds like it would bore me to tears. If, as a newbie, I had thought it necessary to know the philosophy of an Operating System before **using** it, I'm sure I'd be plugging away on a Mac right now I think it's FAR more important for a newbie to have a good experience with their first 'steps' with linux than it is for them to know why Linus Torvalds chose to write Linux instead of using one of the existing alternatives. I agree very much with this point. I recently attended a presentation on open source software. For the first hour, the speaker described the philosophy of open source, including a detailed description of the GPL license. By the time he finished talking about these subjects, about a third of the audience had walked out. To new users, open source should be about USING the software. It is not about the details of how it works, or why it is going to revolutionize the software industry.

First post! (I never understood why that achievement is so compelling for some people.) I want to get something down in writing so that I can get over the pressure of an empty blog. I'm not going to write a full introduction of what this blog is about, I will save that for a later time. Instead, I will share with you some thoughts I have had over the past few days. To start with, I want to consider the impact of commercial entities purchasing open source projects. (Most recently, Oracle's purchase of Innobase) Will this have a good, bad or neutral effect on the development of the open source projects? Can the GPL protect these projects, and will this be tested in the near future? I will post more on this in the near future. Secondly, I have been thinking about drafting a strategic plan for the open source movement. I will start by analyzing the purpose of open source software. I need to review my management concepts so that I can do this at least half-way correct. If you hav