Open source

Overheard: Microsoft disagrees with GPL…again

“With open source software, there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with.” Bill Gates as quoted in Bill Gates on Pharmaceuticals: The System Isn’t Working

I have to admit, I am a big Bill Gates fan. Richard Stallman, on the other hand, is definitely not a Bill Gates fan. It’s seems like I read and read and read about Microsoft and open source, but I still can’t hear what MS is saying because I can’t get past the politics and the gigantic personalities of these two men.  I wish they’d both stop blowing smoke.

Quiz: Name that logo!

	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?
	Whose logo is it?

Overheard: The beekeeper model and open source software

The customers don’t want to deal with the bees. A single bee or even a swarm of bees cannot directly meet the needs of any of the Bee Keeper’s customers. It is the work of the Bee Keeper that turns the efforts of the bees into products that the customers desire. The honey in the jar is the same honey that was in the hive, but the customers will only pay for it in the jar. Likewise the commercial customers don’t want to deal with open source. They want ‘whole product’. James Dixon, The Beekeeper Model

James Dixon compares the open source community to bees and a company like Red Hat as the bee keeper. Great analogy.

The beekeeper creates an environment that is attractive for bees: accommodation and a natural, food-rich habitat. The bees do what they do naturally and make honeycombs. The beekeeper sells the honey and bees-wax to his customers and uses the money to grow his bee farm.

Perl

Perl is an open source cross-platform programming language licensed under its Artistic License, or the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Overheard: Drupal is like a giant bin of free Lego blocks for building a Web site

If you are unfamiliar with Drupal, just imagine it as a giant bin of free Lego-style building blocks for creating any type of web site. Its modular system and underlying application framework can allow rapid deployment of incredibly feature-rich sites. All you need to do is imagine what you want to build and start putting together the pieces. Jeff Robbins, How Drupal will save the world

Open Office

Open Office is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project.

OpenBSD

OpenBSD is a Unix-like open source operating system, known for its emphasis on security.

Mozilla

Mozilla is a free open source software project that maintains the Mozilla Firefox browser and Mozilla Thunderbird email application, as well as other open source software.

Moodle

Moodle is a free, open source software package course management system (CMS).

Java

Java is a programming language expressly designed for use in the distributed environment of the Internet. It was designed to have the “look and feel” of the C++ language, but it is simpler to use than C++.