Editorial

An Inconvenient Truth: Free Up Market Forces to Tackle Climate Change

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 11:36:00 EST

Heavy handed Government Legislation will not lead to a healthier planet. Companies, and indeed consumers, must be given both the choice and the chance to adopt a ‘green’ model that suits their needs and that they can personally engage with on an emotional and fiscal level. It was former Presidential Candidate and founder of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) Ross Perot who famously said “The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.” A quote which may strike resonance with the world’s politicians as they continue to wrestle with the major challenge of setting a global green agenda whilst battling tough economic conditions. President Obama’s second term inaugural speech certainly won plaudits for his determination to tackle climate change, his powerful statements deliberately pitched to be emotive on a global stage, whilst reassuring an American nation still reeling from the effects of hurricane Sandy.

ODF Turns Five

Fri, 07 May 2010 10:15:00 EDT

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as an industry standard. On May 1, 2005, ODF (OpenDocument v1.0 specification) was approved as an OASIS Standard, marking the beginning of a campaign for document freedom that many people probably didn't expect would be so durable, or so significant. After all, who really cares about document formats, right? ODF was created on the principles that interoperability and innovation were paramount, and that these are based on open standards. Not coincidentally, ODF's creation coincided with the growing support of open ICT architectures, which grew from the Web model where the standardization of HTML, an open, royalty-free standard, enabled the Web to be an open platform that enabled much innovation on top of it. The key was interoperability, or the ability of multiple parties to communicate electronically, without the need to all run the same application software or operating system. Also critical to the development of ODF was the introduction of OpenOffice.org, the open source office suite that first implemented the format, and the rise of XML as a widely supported foundational standard for describing structured data.

From Linux World to EOS - A Futurist Reminisces

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:00:00 EST

It is with some sadness that I am writing my last editorial for Enterprise Open Source Magazine. As the founding editor-in-chief of this magazine and a past contributor to its predecessor, I am going to miss it. However, all things must end and this chapter of my writing career, I am happy to say, ends on a high note.

Open Source, Part of a Bigger Trend

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:30:00 EDT

During my career I have had the privilege and the misfortune to be involved with quite a few nascent businesses. Some have been small, with no more than five or ten employees. To this day they still have that many or less. Others grew from 50 employees to over 10,000 in a very short time. In every case there was a technology component involved in my job.

Do You Grok Open Source?

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:30:00 EDT

Open source owes its success to a large group of people who have a shared set of values about which they feel strongly. Mainstream society probably lacks any real understanding of the things that matter to them in the world of open source. It's ironic that the term came from a fictitious Martian language. Most people not in the know look at devoted open source developers as if they hailed from the red planet.

The Linux Desktop Marches On

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:30:00 EDT

There was a time when you couldn't shut me up about the Linux desktop. I was a fanatic. In 2000, I made the switch to a full-time virus-free Linux desktop and weeks of crash-free computing. I was a zealot. However, I did suffer from a few of the alternative operating systems shortcomings. My preferred desktop vendor deemed my Linux laptop1 unsupported, so if I ever had a problem, I had to boot into Windows to receive assistance. When someone sent me a macro-laden spreadsheet, I was forced to run Excel within a virtualized Windows instance2 to read the document as intended. Finally, when it came to wireless, I suffered a multitude of connection problems. While I loved the speed, the stability, and the security, it lacked convenience.

How to Acquire an Open Source Software Company 2.0

Tue, 15 May 2007 17:30:00 EDT

These days, executives realize that there are 'new school' ways of acquiring a company with a software asset. For all of the immeasurable benefits it has brought to the development community, open source technology has added a complex variable to relevant parties calculating the M&A equation. Open source code, the general reuse of open source and proprietary software components in software development, have further complicated the process of acquiring a software asset.

Editorial — Welcome to Opensville

Fri, 04 May 2007 07:45:00 EDT

I had originally written an editorial for this month's issue titled, 'Is Commercialization Killing Open Source?' Then I read William Hurley's blog (http://talk.bmc.com/blogs/blog-whurley/whurley/opensville). William or as his friends call him, 'whurley,' is the chief architect of open source strategy at BMC. He gets to the heart of an issue that is being brought to light as a greater number of businesses adopt open source business models: 'As a greater commercial influence exerts itself in the open source community, will these companies run roughshod on those early pioneers who have demonstrated the effectiveness of the open source model?'

EOS Editorial — When Open Is Really 'Open'

Thu, 29 Mar 2007 18:15:00 EDT

Of late there has been a lot of buzz around what constitutes open source software. Industry leaders and pundits alike have weighed in on the 'openness' of certain software and companies' business models. The generally recognized test for open source software is the Open Source Definition drafted by Bruce Perens and endorsed by the Open Source Initiative, the non-profit organization that shepherds open source licenses and gives an industry-recognized stamp of approval for these licenses.

EOS Editorial — The Parable of the Innovator and the Purple Cow

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:00:00 EST

Blogs are a great platform for people to espouse their passions (not unlike editorials). They are different than traditional news outlets because they may be objective, opinionated, and even wrong. Interestingly enough, each of these behaviors is frequently rewarded equally.

EOS Editorial — The End of an Era

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:00:00 EST

The other day I was driving down the highway when I passed an American classic, a 1965 Ford Mustang. As I waxed nostalgic, I realized that there will never be another era in history where we will appreciate automobiles like those produced in the 1950s and 1960s. No matter what their merits, I don't foresee automobile aficionados 50 years from now tooling around in a Toyota Prius, Honda minivan, or any of today's plastic-covered modes of transit.

EOS Editorial — Linux Everywhere

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 10:45:00 EST

This has been an exciting month for proponents of the Linux server. Two of the world's largest software companies have started to provide Linux support and services. As you probably already know, on October 25, Oracle announced that they would be selling their own derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux called Unbreakable Linux. This was huge news. Then, in an even more shocking announcement, Microsoft stated on November 2 that they would be collaborating with Novell for better Windows and Linux interoperability and would even be giving away coupons for SuSE Linux Enterprise collaboration and support. And deeper into the rabbit hole we go...

EOS Editorial — The Three OS Monty

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:00:00 EST

Let me preface this discussion with the disclaimer that I am not the typical desktop user. I am technical; I am mobile and travel frequently; I support and use software that runs on multiple operating systems; and I am an incessant tinkerer. Now that we got that out of the way, let me share the benefits of the day-to-day travels from Linux to Windows and sometimes Mac OS. For years I lived in a world dominated by a single operating system, only occasionally challenged by Apple. Now a new chapter is being written.

EOS Editorial — Net Neutrality

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 16:00:00 EDT

First, Internet access will be the core telecom service of the future. Not only will essentially everyone in the developed world be connected to the Internet, but more and more applications will migrate to the Internet. In our homes we will use a variety of devices which communicate via the Internet. We will use telephone-like devices to have voice conversations over the Internet. We will use one-way and two-way video devices that communicate through the Internet. We will use many different web-capable and email-capable devices. And certainly we will use important new Internet applications that we cannot yet imagine.

EOS Editorial —The Times They Are a Changing

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:00:00 EDT

In the 1964 Bob Dylan song The Time's They are A-Changin' it says, 'Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown, And accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you is worth savin' then you better start swimmin' Or you'll sink like a stone. For the times they are a-changin.'