Open Source Conversations
IT Conversations publishes a number of shows that deal with free and open source software. We've created this channel as a way of helping people interested in open source software find talks, discussions, presentations, and interviews about that topic.
Silona Bonewald wishes that every government website would offer stable permalinks for all published documents. In this conversation with host Jon Udell, she describes her proposal for making that wish come true.
For those who thought Microsoft had become a sleeping giant resting on the laurels of its popular Office franchise, Stephen Elop has news for you. In this frank discussion with Tim O'Reilly, Elop discusses Microsoft's intention to embrace interoperability and apply the results to its business model.
One drawback of most maps is that they only show two dimensions. In this program from Where 2.0, Brandon Martin-Anderson discusses examples of maps which attempt to depict events in three or four dimensions.
"Code against the eBay and PayPal APIs; make money," is Mark Carges' message to developers. About eight years ago eBay realized that there was a huge business potential in providing an economic opportunity for developers to leverage their API. Today, there are 85,000 developers that code against the eBay developer API and make money; some of them make lots of it. Last year alone, the sellers on eBay sold $60 billion worth of goods worldwide, and developers who provided real value to these sellers made a cut.
Cloud computing can be a powerful tool in academic research but the costs associated with commercial implementations and the established hardware available at most universities has left a gap in the development of solutions for academic environments. Join Rich Wolski, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbra, as he discusses the challenges involved with building an open source project that gets scientists' heads into the (computing) cloud.
In the conversation with Tim O'Reilly at the 2008 O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Monty Widenius and Brian Aker discuss the integration of MySQL into Sun Microsystems. Some of the biggest surprises have come from watching the ways that MySQL's open source culture has spread throughout Sun's workforce, and into their projects.
Even without deep technical knowledge or a fat Rolodex, you can be a community superhero. In this talk from the 2009 MySQL Conference, Sheeri Cabral, the 2007-2008 MySQL Advocate of the Year, shares some pointers on things anyone can do to help the technology and community of your favorite open source project.
The Open Invention Network is a collaborative enterprise formed to promote Linux, and protect the open source community from the threats of patent assertion and litigation. Keith Bergelt's job as the CEO is to ensure that the edges of this network are not intruded upon, and that the self-regulatory nature of open source has an opportunity to spread beyond Linux and the 300 plus programs that exist today.
Scott Ruthfield describes Jiffy, a new open source performance measurement tool for measuring true client-side performance of web sites. Ruthfield identifies the components of website performance problems and the decision process that led WhitePages.com to develop their own solution. Jiffy's goals, components, and a sample implementation provide a thorough introduction to the toolkit.
If you're looking for a Linux initiative that is truly open source, where you can download the source, contribute without censorship, and drive the project, check out Moblin.org. The Moblin project was conceived in order to drive innovation on the new breed of Internet-enabled mobile devices, to foster community participation, and to avoid locking into a proprietary platform. Dirk Hohndel, the helmsman, woos open source developers to take this platform to its next level by participating in the community.