Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Making open source software (outercurve.org)

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: Outercurve Foundation technical director Stephen Walli has posted a how-to guide, which is written for organizations that are thinking about making FOSS software either by contributing patches to existing products or starting a new project (from new or existing code). This is important, because many organizations are 'takers' of FOSS and do not contribute back into the commons. There's also the potential for a business benefit from starting a project. Topics range from picking a license to project management, the responsibilities of a project founder, and community management.

Submission + - How to build a better developer community (outercurve.org)

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon (of GitHub fame) and the OuterCurve Foundation have shared a blog postwith suggestions including how to choose an open source license, why governance processes should be simple, how to establish codes of conduct, why a community helps software evolve, and how to structure a project to provide an easy on ramp to participate. The overarching theme of the post is that the dynamic aspects of software development are lost if a project doesn’t fully embrace open source; communities don’t just automatically form around a license. A added benefit is that companies that consume open source can contribute back to the commons and gain from collaborative development.
Education

Submission + - Hello iPad; goodbye textbooks (and PCs) (dzone.com) 1

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: There's a technology shift happening in educations: PCs and paper are on the way out. iPads/tablets are helping kids with special needs and disabilities to learn, and are being incorporated into grade school classroom learning. College students are using them to save money on textbooks.
Microsoft

Submission + - 'Midori' concepts materialize in .NET (sdtimes.com)

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: Concepts outlined in Microsoft's internal "Midori" OS documents are materializing in .NET, according to an SD Times report. Midori is a new operating system project that is designed for distributed concurrency. Microsoft has assigned some of its allstar programmers to the project, while recruiting others. It is also working on other projects to replace Windows that make the OS act more like a hypervisor.
Microsoft

Submission + - The Strange Story of Microsoft Bob (technologizer.com) 1

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: Microsoft Bob--still synonymous in the tech industry with "embarrassing flop"--shipped fifteen years ago this week, on March 31st, 1995. When the Windows interface featuring animated cartoon helpers was announced it was hyped to the heavens and briefly accepted as a breakthrough that showed where software was going. Instead, dismal reviews and poor sales killed it after only a year on the market. At Technologizer, we're marking the anniversary with a complete look at how it came to be and why it failed so resoundingly--and how Microsoft tried again with Office's "Clippy" and other attempts to revive the basic idea.
Microsoft

Submission + - The future of Windows (technologizer.com)

Submitted by harrymcc
harrymcc writes: What can Microsoft do to keep Windows relevant in the years to come? Over at Technologizer, we asked that question of 28 pundits, technologists, and former Microsoft employees, including ex-Microsoft evangelist Robert Scoble, reporters Kara Swisher and Mary-Jo Foley, the editors of PCWorld and PCMag, analysts Tim Bajarin and Rob Enderle, writers for everything from USA Today to VentureBeat, the original author of Microsoft Word, and many more.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Open Source Czar steps down (ostatic.com) 1

Submitted by ruphus13
ruphus13 writes: Microsoft Open Source Czar, Sam Ramji, is leaving the company and heading back to the valley to work with a Cloud Computing startup. He has joined the CodePlex Foundation as their 'interim' chair, and continues to be very involved in the world of OSS, but let's hope he is not leaving because Microsoft is doing an about-face on its purported love for Open Source, and the initiatives Ramji championed. From the article, "Ramji, whose tenure at Microsoft has been widely followed by and influential toward the open source community, has confirmed that he is leaving the company at the end of September, for a new position in Silicon Valley. He remains the current Interim President of the CodePlex Foundation, though, and told us more about his plans for it and the foundation's future. "I will be leaving Microsoft at the end of September for a similar position at a cloud infrastructure startup in Silicon Valley," Ramji said. He started with Microsoft in early 2008, and has been behind many of the company's open source-related initiatives since then. As Interim President of the CodePlex Foundation, Ramji stresses that the foundation, Microsoft itself, and the CodePlex hosting site are three different, though related things. The initial funding for the foundation comes from Microsoft, for the foundation's first year.""
Programming

Submission + - Alan Turing gets an apology from Prime Minister

Submitted by
99luftballon
99luftballon writes: "The British government has officially apologised for the treatment of Alan Turing in the post war era. An online petition got more than enough signatures to force an official statement and Prime Minister Gordon Brown has issued a lengthy apology. "Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him." "So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Greg Kroah-Hartman decries lapsed Microsoft contri (sdtimes.com) 1

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: Microsoft's developers were missing in action after the company donated GPL-licensed drivers to the Linux kernel community in July, leaving significant work to the Linux community, according to Linux driver project lead and Novell fellow Greg Kroah-Hartman. The company rekindled its involvement after Kroah-Hartman published a status report this week. Kroah-Hartman said that other companies were also laggards in Linux development, and that Microsoft's lack of involvement was nothing out of the ordinary.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft: We were going to use GPL anyway (sdtimes.com) 1

Submitted by dp619
dp619 writes: Microsoft's announcement that it had contributed drivers to Linux caused a kerfuffle with the open source community earlier this week after it was alleged that Microsoft only did so after being informed that it was in violation of the General Public License (GPL). Today, Microsoft's Sam Ramji, senior director of platform strategy, told SD Times that the company had preexisting plans to use GPL for the drivers, but did not address the charge that Microsoft had violated the GPL.

Slashdot Top Deals

"Luke, I'm yer father, eh. Come over to the dark side, you hoser." -- Dave Thomas, "Strange Brew"

Close