News

Why Now Is A Great Time To Consider A Career In Open Source Hardware

Twenty years or so ago, almost no one even knew what open source hardware was, let alone planned a career around it. In 2000, for example, out of the more than 2 million academic papers published that year in the entire world, only seven articles even mentioned "open source hardware" at all. When I first wrote Open-Source Lab, I'd collected every example (only a few dozen) and could easily keep up and read every open hardware article that got published to post them on a wiki. I am happy to report that is no longer physically possible. There have already been over 1,500 articles that discuss "open source hardware" this year, and I am sure many more will be out by year's end. Open source hardware is now a field of its own, with a few journals dedicated to it specifically (for example, HardwareX and the Journal of Open Hardware). In a wide range of fields, dozens of traditional journals now routinely cover the latest open hardware developments.

Open Source Recognized As A Key Economic Pillar In European Union Study

A September 2021 study on the economic impact of open source software and hardware concluded that open source technologies injected EUR 65-95 billion into the European economy. This study is timely given the current rollout of the European Union's EUR 750 billion recovery investment, which has allotted 20% for digital transformation. Growing political efforts to understand and quantify the importance of open source in realizing EU digital sovereignty accentuate the study's significance. The European Union sponsored the study, which was written by Fraunhofer ISI and OpenForum Europe.

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Aligning with the Standards Development Community: The New Cycle for Standards Version Advancement Process

As part of ONC’s ongoing charge to coordinate across federal and industry stakeholders, we determined it was necessary to adjust our Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP) timeline. Although it may seem like this process has been around for a while, it’s still brand new and we’ve been looking at ways to optimize how the process aligns with other standards development work in the community. The changes we’ve made will help ensure timely publication of implementation specifications central to our cadence for new versions of USCDI.

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How to Use Content Marketing To Promote Open Source Projects

Both startups and more established firms are increasingly turning to content marketing as a way of reaching prospective customers. However, corporate marketers often consider the open source software (OSS) community a challenge to reach. This article features ways your technology and content marketing teams can work together to target and reach the community around an OSS project your organization supports.

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Going To Market With An Open Source Product

Many people with a long career in engineering, including me, have had misconceptions about sales and marketing. As an engineering community, we've viewed it as things like ordering swag, naming things, running ad campaigns, and creating white papers. There's a joke in the marketing community about how engineers are always willing to provide their "opinions" on marketing decisions without fully comprehending the discipline, but marketers rarely—like never—make suggestions on code improvements. To work together, engineers and marketers must share a common definition.

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Europe Pledges Support For Open Source Government Solutions

It was thus fitting that Estonia, the current EU presidency, brought together Ministers from 32 countries (under the umbrellas of the EU and European Free Trade Association) to adopt the Tallinn Declaration on E-Government, creating a renewed political dynamism coupled with legal tools to accelerate the implementation of a range of existing EU policy instruments (e.g., the e-Government Action Plan and ISA² program). Perhaps the most significant development for open source supporters is the explicit recognition of open source software (OSS) as a key driver towards achieving ambitious governmental digitisation goals by 2020.

How Disagreement Creates Unity In Open Source

Many people consider disagreement polarizing and uncomfortable, but it doesn't have to be. The open source way calls for sharing ideas and diverse perspectives, which means that differences of opinion are not only inevitable; they're encouraged. Through my journey, I have found that open leaders nurture environments where productive disagreements can be a unifying, rather than divisive, force.

Upgrading the PULSE Emergency Response Tool to a Community Edition

Seven years ago the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) began work on the Patient Unified Lookup System for Emergencies (PULSE). PULSE is an effort to create national resilience by improving first responder access to patient electronic health information they need to provide services and ensure public health during disasters, including public health emergencies. Recently, ONC launched a new, code-only technical solution called PULSE-Community Edition (PULSE Community) that builds on the original PULSE code. PULSE Community enables first responders and other response personnel (e.g., epidemiologists, emergency medical services, and health care volunteers) to securely access vital health information they need during emergencies and disasters from connected health care organizations.

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Why European Nonprofit Organizations Are Choosing Open Source Software

With tech and data safety awareness rising, open source software is becoming a go-to option for organizations of all classes more than ever. Nonprofit organizations are particularly vulnerable on the financial side while at the same time dealing with vital social and environmental issues. This article observes the adoption of open source collaboration technologies in nonprofit organizations by using Nextcloud and ONLYOFFICE as examples.

Moving ahead on Information Sharing

The ONC Cures Act Final Rule went into effect on April 5, 2021 and as a result we have seen an increase in both the quantity and complexity of questions regarding the regulations. We’re eager to help the industry successfully implement these new requirements...To that end, we offer a variety of resources and channels to address industry questions. These include ongoing public meetings, meetings with stakeholders, and online materials – including videos, fact sheets, and FAQs. However, to adjust to the growing need for information, and to respond to feedback that we could be more forthcoming and clearer in our responses to questions, we are launching a number of additional channels for education and communication...