Open Source

Free as in beer, free as in speech -- either way, open is good

The culture of open data

I'm kicking myself because I've been taking far too narrow an interpretation of "an open source approach". I've been focused on getting people to release data. That's the data analogue of tossing code over the wall, and we know it takes more than a tarball on an FTP server to get the benefits of open source. The same is true of data.

Open source discourages laziness (because everyone can see the corners you've cut), it can get bugs fixed or at least identified much faster (many eyes), it promotes collaboration, and it's a great training ground for skills development. I see no reason why open data shouldn't bring the same opportunities to data projects.

And a lot of data projects need these things.

I've been saying for a while that open data is a sort of new frontier. Open source is relatively wide spread and there is a general low hum of understanding about it in many places. For me, I sum it up by saying to people that they need to understand that their "code is worthless".

The next step is coming to understand about open data, and why we should care. Why we should convince people that their "data is worthless".

Windows Phone 7 vs. Android /via @gruber

The big three mobile platforms right now are iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android. (Feel free to add Nokia as a fourth.) I think Windows Phone 7 is most competitive with Android, because that’s the one with the same business model: licensing the OS to OEM hardware makers. They’re even competing for attention from the very same hardware makers, especially HTC.

Drupal core maintainers

There should be, for any given issue, at least one person besides the core maintainers that has it come up in a custom search they have bookmarked and check regularly. It doesn't matter as much whether that's grouped by module or subsystem or whatever, just that everything has that level of attention. (Which also makes those people the go-to person for the core maintainers, too.)

Putting stuff out in the world is so weird /via @heyrocker

This always amazes me. Putting stuff out in the world is so weird. You put it out there, and I see people have it installed in the usage stats, but I barely hear anything. My queue is reasonably dead. Who are these people? What are they doing? I have no idea. I mostly just assume its people who tried it to play with it and forgot to disable it when they were done.

Welcoming AND recognizing expertise into the #Drupal community /via @TheRealCrell

[Aaron Seigo, leading KDE developer] latest article is one that is of particular interest to the Drupal community, I believe, because as a large, minimally-structured, Open Source development community we face many of the same challenges that other such projects do, such as KDE. In particular, the challenge of who to listen to.

Letters.app is the new open source OS X email client /via @brentsimmons

Letters (or Letters.app, for the suffixophiliacs in the audience) is the name of the email client that was kicked off in my Email init post.

Building a "pro" email client for OS X /via @brentsimmons cc @davidascher

I’ve been joking for years that I’m going to write an email client and charge $500 for it — an email client that actually meets the needs of developers and professionals who rely on email, folks who type for a living.

Nevertheless, we need that email client. The only way to get there is via open source: there might be enough interest and energy in the community to make it happen.

The first rule of coding for #Drupal is don't code /via @yelvington

I can code, and in fact have a couple of modules I've released on drupal.org, but I'm not a programmer and expect to outsource some parts of the project. As I worked, I was struck by how quickly Drupal has evolved as a "no coding" platform. Things that seemed just out of reach a year ago are now point/click/configure. It's been said (by Dries? I can't find the reference) that Drupal isn't finished until it can wash your socks. Sock-washing is still in that hard 5% layer, but a lot of what you need to do is already done for you.

Speaking: ACCT Canada 2009 Conference

I am speaking at the ACCT Canada 2009 Conference on November 10th. The Alliance for Commercialization of Canadian Technologies is the "national advocate for the value created by academic technology transfer and commercialization". The short form of that mouthful is that they primarily represent the tech transfer offices of universities. In university lingo, this is often done by the University Industry Liason Office (UILO). Yes, acronyms are fun :P

As part of my role at Bootup, I'll be first participating in the "Innovation Clusters, Incubators and Accelerators" panel. We'll be getting on a call to discuss the format and talking points for the panel tomorrow, but I expect I'm going to be the private industry / capitalist viewpoint. This is a free form panel discussion, so it should be interesting to see where it goes.