free and open source software (FOSS)
See the following -
Building An Open Source Hardware Movement
Last Saturday’s celebration of this year’s Software Freedom Day in UP Diliman was a rewarding experience both for its organizers and the students and enthusiasts that braved the rain and floods to participate... Read More »
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Open Source Under The Lens Of An Intellectual Property Lawyer
Have you ever wondered what, from a business perspective, the world of sharing, free, and open source looks like to a lawyer? Challenging! Chaotic? Creative... Read More »
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18 Ways To Differentiate Open Source Products From Upstream Suppliers
Successful open source products must be able to charge a cost that is sufficient to pay for the defrayed upstream open source contributions (development costs) and the downstream productization costs (vendor costs). Stated another way, products can only charge a sufficient price if they create value that can only be captured by customers paying for them. That might sound harsh, but it's a reality for all products. There's a saying in product management: Pray to pay doesn't work. With that said, don't be too worried. There are ethical ways to capture value.
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2011: Top Ten FOSS Legal Developments
This year, 2011, was one of the most active years in legal developments in FOSS. This activity reflects the increase in FOSS use: Laura Wurster of Gartner, noted in the Harvard Business Review blog that open source has hit a “strategic tipping point” this year with companies increasingly focused on using “open source” software for competitive rather than cost reasons.
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4 Reasons Companies Say Yes to Open Source
...When companies think of open source, these days they think "business agility," a quality they increasingly value above all others in the fast-changing marketplace. Read More »
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5 Initiatives That Pushed the Free Software Envelope in Europe in 2016
The public sector tends to lag—some would say drag—behind the private sector when it comes to adopting new technologies. This is also true when it comes to adopting free software: Although companies widely see free technologies as a boon, government organizations often are still locked into proprietary software and work with closed standards. That said, some countries are making progress moving toward open source technologies...
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5 Myths Busted: Using Open Source in Higher Education
Have you ever heard someone say, "It's impossible to do X with Linux"? Me too. This is the story of how I busted the myths about open source in my own head and used Linux to finish my PhD in fine arts. Many people think non-technical students can't use Linux, and they make a lot of assumptions about people who use it in their advanced degree programs. They scoff and reply with something along the lines of, "Well, of course; those people do 'computer stuff,' but in my [lofty, important, unique area] it's just not possible." Well, it is possible, and I'm proof...
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5 Q’s for Nnenna Nwakanma, Africa Regional Coordinator for the World Wide Web Foundation
Right now, the community of civil society, media, and academia using open data is still growing in Africa. Governments are still not sharing enough open data. And while more and more freedom of information laws are being passed, citizen inquiries are not always responded to in practice. We don’t have clear open data champions.But I’m hopeful this will change because in spite of the challenges a number of excellent projects have shown us what’s possible. For example, the Africa Data ConsensusAfrica Open Data Conference, and the growing network of open street mapping across the continent.
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5 top Linux and open source stories in 2013
Linux has long ruled some areas of computing such as supercomputing. But in 2013, Linux and the open source method of developing software started to quietly dominate all aspects of computing, from cars to the cloud, and end-user computing, thanks in part to Android and Chrome OS. Read More »
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5 Ways to Invigorate Education with Raspberry Pi
Recently I was invited to talk to a group of eighth grade students about the Raspberry Pi. Of the 15 students and three teachers there, only a few had heard of the Raspberry Pi. None had ever held one in their hand, nor did they know how to set one up or even where to look for information to do so. I spent 40 minutes talking to them and inviting them to explore the Raspberry Pi and the wealth of high-quality, open source software that comes with it. They were energized and eager to learn more...I think something needs to be done, so I am inviting fellow open source advocates to join me in making minor investments in their communities to move the ball forward.
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8 Linux Predictions for 2016
Looking ahead to 2016, I see big things for ChromeOS, Android, and even Microsoft in the Linux world. As 2015 comes to a close, the time has arrived to make predictions for what will happen in the Linux (and broader Free and Open Source Software) world in the year ahead. Will all of my predictions actually come true in 2016? Who knows? But I’m making them anyway!...
A Breakdown Of FOSS For Students And Researchers In Academia
This article provides an overview of free and open source software (FOSS) that may be of use to students and researchers in academia, based on my own experience in psychology studies. I use Ubuntu Linux, which is a FOSS operating system, but the software discussed in this article is multi-platform; in other words, it will also run on Apple Mac OSX or Microsoft Windows. There is so much FOSS available that this article only scratches the surface, but hopefully it will give some initial pointers to readers with an academic background but no previous experience of FOSS...
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Analyze, Collaborate, and Share Research with Open Source Tools
The most powerful free and open source (FOSS) statistics program, though, is R. Originally a FOSS version of the statistics language S, R has shown explosive growth over the last few years, with some 7,000 add-on packages available to handle nearly any statistical requirement and an increasing number of books, courses, and blogs (e.g. R-bloggers) focusing on practical usage. Some websites concentrate specifically on how to use R for psychological research—an example is William Revelle's Personality Project, which also offers an R package called psych, a toolbox for personality, psychometrics, and experimental psychology...
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Black Duck Announces Open Source “Rookies of the Year”
Black Duck...today announced the eighth annual Open Source Rookies of the Year, recognizing the top new open source projects initiated in 2015. The selected projects show how diverse and ambitious open source software development has become. From communications to healthcare and beyond, they offer innovative solutions to a range of consumer- and enterprise-grade problems. The 2015 Rookies class reflects three industry trends shaping the future of open source software...
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Bruno Lowagie
Bruno Lowagie is the original developer of iText, an open source PDF library first released in 2000. He's also the author of the “iText in Action” books, published by Manning Publications. Together with his wife, he founded iText Group (2008), a company with subsidiaries in the US (2009), Belgium (2011), and Singapore (2015). The couple grew the business from start-up to exit. Bruno left iText Group in 2018, and focuses on helping start-ups with technical founders as a business angel ever since. In 2021, he wrote a book about his journey as an open source developer and entrepreneur: “Entreprenerd: Building a Multi-Million-Dollar Business with Open Source Software.”