Monthly Archive for September, 2010

LibreOffice and the Importance to be called a Community

LibreOffice is born, and if it is true that every end is a new begin is too early to tell if this is a good or a bad thing.
Let’s start by looking at the foundations of this brand new Document Foundation.

The Steering committe, created by cooptation by eminent contributors and project lang mantainers, has already made some choices, and until now the ‘community’ behind OpenOffice.org had no chance to join the debate.

The FAQ page itself doesn’t say much about the governance model, while a number of open source thought leaders have been welcoming the news.

How many vendors beyond Novell will eventually join the foundation and put their money (time) where their mouthes are?

Ultimately an open source community is made of developers and users, and also the latter play an important role, especially for end-users applications.

How will users take to these changes?

Upcoming Open Source Webinars: Francois Marier, OpenLogic, T3

Mobile Apps and Open Source Compliance: What You Need to Know - This OpenLogic webinar will discuss the key issues associated with mobile apps, app stores, and open source compliance.
Wednesday October 20, 2010, 11:00am Pacific Continue reading ‘Upcoming Open Source Webinars: Francois Marier, OpenLogic, T3′

More about the OpenOffice.org Hackfest

Few days ago I shortly mentioned the OpenOffice.org Hackfest, and today I asked my friend Florian Effenberger - OpenOffice.org Marketing Project Lead - to tell us more about the event, to be held on the 6-7 of November at the Attraktor in Hamburg. Continue reading ‘More about the OpenOffice.org Hackfest’

OWF Open Source Barometer 2010 is coming…

Next week at the Open World Forum on the 30 September will take place the “Open Analysts summit: The 2010 barometer of Open Source“, a session bringing together leading open source analysts Matthew Aslett, Jeffrey Hammond and Mathieu Poujol.

To promote the event I created my first animoto video, feedback and suggestions are welcome!

The event is by invitation only, but you can request an invitation when registering to attend the Open World Forum.

Upcoming Open Source Webibernars: BlackDuck, OTRS, Red Hat

Platform as a Service: Beyond the Hype, Towards Practical Solutions for the Cloud - Randy Heffner, Vice President, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research will cut through the hype surrounding Cloud computing with practical advice. Registrants will get a copy of the report “Top Priority For Cloud Planning: Integrate Cloud Computing Into Existing Architecture Strategies“.
Tuesday, September 21 2010, 10:00 am EDT

Continue reading ‘Upcoming Open Source Webibernars: BlackDuck, OTRS, Red Hat’

Google and Microsoft Open Source Project Hosting Policies

Fabrizio Capobianco - Funambol CEO and AGPL’s prophet and forerunner - with his recent blog entry pointed me to Chris Di Bona’s article about Google’s decision to tolerate the AGPL, and I took the chance to make a writeup about how Google and Microsoft differ in their open source software hosting facilities.

Continue reading ‘Google and Microsoft Open Source Project Hosting Policies’

OpenOffice.org: Braille Extension, Macro Programming Book, Hackfest

odt2braille brings Braille to OpenOffice.org - The EU funded AEGIS project - which formerly helped deliver odt2daisy which allows for the creation of DAISY3 format digital audiobooks from OpenOffice -  supported the development of odt2braille, an extension which allows users to translate documents into Braille formats.

Continue reading ‘OpenOffice.org: Braille Extension, Macro Programming Book, Hackfest’

Open Source Licensing made easy for Italian Public Administrations

Sep ’10
27
2:30 pm

Open source licensing compliance will be at the center of the next conference of the “Focus Group Open Source” series, an initiative  sponsored by IBM Italy to promote open source among Italian public administrations. (disclosure: IBM Italy is a client).

Marco Ciurcina, lawyer and Vice-President of the Italian association devoted to the promotion of free software (Assoli), will introduce the legal aspects of free software and open source licensing. Sebastiano Lomuscio, Consip, will give a speech around open source licenses and public administrations, while Carlo Vaccari will close the round-table talking about how ISTAT found its way to the EUPL.

A question and answer session and a public discussion will follow the round table.

Upcoming Open Source Webinars: Opsview, SIPA, SOPERA

Webinar Series: Opsview Enterprise and Service Providers - Join your peers for some quality time with Opsview staff and Arthur de Pauw, Operations Manager at Thales Austria, to hear how they are using Opsview Enterprise to ensure service availability and reliability.
Thursday 23 September 2010, 11:00 EST

Continue reading ‘Upcoming Open Source Webinars: Opsview, SIPA, SOPERA’

SOS Open Source: Code Quality Tools, Sonar

During the devSonar logoelopment of SOS Open Source we analyzed over 60 tools to evalute open source software, and among them we came across Sonar. Sonar is a company-led project sponsored by SonarSource, one of the five winners of the Open Innovation Award held last year at the Open World Forum in Paris.

In my last year’s note on SonarSource I succintly wrote: “Solid product, promising line of development, they just need more public attention.” SonarSource was my second best after Kaltura, and I still think they deserve more attention.

More about Sonar evaluation at SOS Open Source.


About the Editor

Roberto Galoppini on Open Source Software
Roberto has over 20 years experience in the computer industry, and has spent the last 10 years working in the intersection of open source software and business development. Roberto has taken an active interest in different open source projects and organizations, he also served on some advisory boards, and helped large IT vendors, open source vendors and customers to design and deploy their open source strategies. He works at SourceForge, and opinions expressed here don't necessarily represent employer's positions, strategies, or opinion.