Roberto Galoppini's
Commercial Open Source Software

Funambol - the Mobile Open Source company - few months ago started looking for a community manager, as I learned from Fabrizio Capobianco while he was in Rome to join the VentureCamp.

A couple of days later I got a phone call from my friend and fellow blogger Stefano Maffulli, asking me for Fabrizio’s email. Below the full story.

Roberto’s blog has been a kind of a Monster: a good daily read but also a way to extend the reach of a social network. When I pitched my CV to Fabrizio (Funambol’s CEO) I learned that the selection process had been going on for a while already and other candidates were being evaluated. Nonetheless I was invited to speak with Hal Steger, Funambol’s VP Marketing: I liked his attitude and he liked my multidisciplinary background (architecture, technology and the upcoming MBA). Funambol has a balanced mix of the good hacker’s culture I love and the necessary strength on financial and marketing management, something that I want to learn (and have been missing in my past work experiences).

It wasn’t a long shot after all. It will be fun to work with Funambol’s growing community and the company.

Architect Stefano Maffulli at work by Stefano Maffulli

I am glad that the time I spent sometimes collecting open positions within open source firms and jobs was of some help. Few months ago I also started to display a widget on each job posted by considerati, that I happened to get in touch with via openbusiness, but unfortunately such distributed job site had a limited success.

Stefano, are you already thinking of how to get off the best from programs like Code Sniper and Phone Sniper?

We have some ideas on what has to be improved to help Funambol’s community but we are also open to suggestions. For example, our software is in many places and it’s not easy for newcomers to find what they are looking for. I’m interested in hearing experiences of Funambol’s users with the software, the mailing lists, the repository and the company: they can come to me and I’ll help if at all possible.

Funambol’s architecture of participation welcomes small contributions, allowing individuals to more easily participate, I am looking forward to ask Stefano how is he doing in six months from now.

For the time being I wish him and Funambol all the best!

Read Stefano Maffulli’s full profile on Linkedin.

First Pics of Bug Labs Open-Source Hardware - TechCrunch on a new open source hardware platform, by Bug Labs. Glyn Moody while thinking open source hardware is an oxymoron, enjoys the modular approach of Bug Labs platform.

Junior Telesales - Ismael Ghalimi of the office 2.0 fame invites junior to join Intalio.

Where the data does live? - John Dowdell (adobe) and Kevin Marks (google) argue about the real meaning of the Open Social Initiative (read Marc Andreessen’s post about it). If I got it right it’s a programming model, not the ultimate answer to the bill of right for users of the social web.

Linux Fundamentalism -  Harry J Foxwell answers a Jon ‘Maddog’ Hall’s rant against OpenSolaris.  I look at the OpenSolaris with great interest: Solaris’s commercial partnerships make a difference. OpenOffice.org should learn from OpenSolaris.

US Government Adopting Open Source by Degrees -  A Computerworld article, reported by Steve Holden, shows that a survey by the Federal Open Source Alliance indicates that more than half the US government’s agencies are making use of open source software.

FireGPG Version 0.4.4 - Version 0.4.4 has been just released. encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of text in any web page using GnuPG and your favorite browser.

The Mobile Open Source company Funambol, and Alfresco, the Open Source alternative for Enterprise Content Management, are both currently looking for a community manager.

Alfresco at the present stage has a Community Relations open position, while Funambol has to fill the Funambol Community Manager role.

Our Community Manager by JJay

Apparently there are no many open positions like that, looking at opensourcexperts or similar sites I didn’t find any. Despite uncommon, I think it is really wise from both of them trying to empower their communities. I think also that the Funambol community and Alfresco’s one are quite different.

Talking with Fabrizio Capobianco - Funambol CEO - while in Rome to join the VentureCamp, I happened to know about the Code Sniper and Phone Sniper programs. Besides those programs, Funambol’s architecture of participation welcomes small contributions, allowing individuals to more easily participate.
I didn’t get a chance yet to speak with Matt Asay about Alfresco’s practical approach to collaboration, but reading the two job descriptions I see a difference. Alfresco is looking for a marketing-oriented role, reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, while Funambol’s position seems more technical.

Will you take the challenge?

Technorati Tags: Open Source Jobs, Job offer, Alfresco, Funambol, MattAsay, FabrizioCapobianco, Community Manager

VON Europe Autumn - a European event where people from all over the world talked about where IP communications is going in Europe - today guested the “Open Source VoIP” conference.

The conference “Open Source VoIP, sustainability of OS project in the business sector” was aimed at discovering how open source VoIP applications are doing in the ICT market.
Jon ‘Maddog’ Hall, President of the Linux International association, opened the conference talking about “Telephone, Free Software and Emerging Economies“, introducing the audience to the Free Software and raising some important questions about emerging economies.

Jon Hall Maddog by Pizel y Dixel

Alfonso Fuggetta spoke about Open Source business models. He raised interesting issues related to false myths, like the software commoditization. He eventually ended saying that proprietary and open source firms are offering basically the same services, despite Jon and I were giving him evidence of the opposite.

Greg Vance - Digium Sales Manager - brought the discussion on a practical ground talking about “Asterisk: an OS project that has become mainstream. What’s new“, telling us about the product and the company, included the new CEO and other open positions. I asked him about Digium’s revenue and I learned that 85% of their incomes gets from hardware, than training, services and double-licensing do the rest.

The co-founder of the OpenSer project Bogdan-Andrei Iancu, who magicly appeared from nowhere when was his turn, talked about “The OpenSer: from Universities to industrial applications”. It amazed me to know how spread is the usage of the OpenSer, especially by universities but not limited to them.

Diego Gosmar gave a speech entitled “Beyond the Asterisk World..what’s around“, giving a good picture of the Asterisk ecosystem, made by many local small firms delivering basic services (installation, configuration, etc). We agreed that there is a need for a better organized ecosystem, going beyond the Asterisk partnership program, may be through marketplaces or productizing services.

A Questions&Answers session was held at the very end of the conference, resulting in questions about GPL licensing. As a matter of fact, the public is getting more and more conscious about open source applications and pose practical questions.

Technorati Tags: Commercial Open Source, Open Source SIP, Open Source PBX, Asterisk, OpenSer , JonHallMaddog, AlfonsoFuggetta, Bogdan-Andrei Iancu, RobertoGaloppini

XWiki, a French company aimed to bring open source wiki to the enterprise who recently won a prize for its XWiki Watch, is looking for a VP Marketing Manager.

now hiring, by Zach Klein

XWiki has an open position for a VP Marketing Manager based in Paris, France. Company’s objective is to complete their team with a experienced Software/Web marketing specialist, with an understanding of the Open Source industry.

XWiki looks for you, a person able to:

• challenge them from the user standpoint,
• leverage your usage experience of collaborative and web 2.0 tools,
• bring your experience with international markets,
• grow with the company, with entrepreneurial spirit.

Ludovic Dubost, XWiki CEO, said:

We aim to extend our reach beyond of France where we have build our customer base towards Europe and the USA where we have already clients (Curriki in the US) and many open source users. Our objective is to build parternships and offer our services in these markets.

Want to apply?

About XWiki.

XWiki is an open source Company building XWiki, the open source second generation Wiki providing a collaborative web application developement platform on top of the Wiki concept. XWiki sells support services, trainings, consulting as well as packaged products built on top of the platform (XE, XEM, XWiki Watch, Chronopolys, Nearbee, etc). XWiki innovates with research projects like XWiki Concerto and Nepomuk.

Technorati Tags: XWiki, Xwiki Watch, Open Source Hires, Business models