Editor's Blog | Eric Knorr » InfoWorld's Open Source party

March 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)

InfoWorld's Open Source party

TAGS: open source

This week we celebrate InfoWorld's premier annual event: the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC). The theme -- putting open source to work -- highlights how quickly the open source software industry has matured. Those of you lucky enough to attend OSBC will be treated to keynote addresses from an array of luminaries, among them CBS Interactive’s VP of Advanced Technologies, Steven Pearson, and Redhat CEO Jim Whitehurst. Even Microsoft will give a keynote, in the person of Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel.

To get the ball rolling for OSBC, InfoWorld recruited 11 open source thought leaders to create Roundtable: the state of open source. You'll recognize some familiar names: Matt Asay, vice president of business development for Alfresco (and developer of the OSBC agenda); Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google; and veteran Bruce Perens, creator of the Open Source Definition and co-founder of the Open Source Initiative. All 11 members have in common a passionate dedication to open source.

After presiding over this community discussion, Senior Editor Jason Snyder found himself in a philosophical mood: "Open source, more than any other computing movement, is a reflection of the personalities committed to both the technology and the community," he said. "Ambitious, defiant, incisive, and hell-bent on shaking up the status quo; that would be one way to describe open source after listening to these 11 guys speak their minds."

Did I mention this was open source week? A few days ago Contributing Editor Neil McAllister downloaded the new beta version of Ubuntu 8.04, one the desktop OS's LTS (long-term support) releases. In addition to a new Linux kernel, you get Active Directory integration and a bundled beta version of Firefox 3. Plus, a new installation option called Wubi enables Windows users to install Ubuntu as if it were a Windows application -- and even uninstall it using Add/Remove Programs.

And finally, don't forget to check out the Test Center's review of WSO2 Mashup Server, an open source environment for building, deploying, and administering composite applications. Reviewer Steven Núñez gives a thumbs up to the product, which is built on WSO2's open source Web Services Application Server and picks JavaScript as the language of choice for creating services. The story behind this Sri Lankan open source company is interesting in itself, as I discovered a few years ago.

We'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. Meanwhile, it's all open source all the time.

Posted by Eric Knorr on March 24, 2008 09:30 AM

RATE THIS ARTICLE: