Open Source Posts

Ever asked yourself any of the following questions about Open Source:

• What are the main differences between an open source solution compared to a closed source solution?
• If I’m a user of a an open source solution, should I contribute back to the open source community in any way?
• What are the common advantages and disadvantages of implementing an open source solution?

You can find out more about the entire ecosystem of Open Source from this great slide created by 55thinking.com

My comments about the slide: Continue Reading »
Great slide about the ecosystem of Open Source

We have all heard about open source software. Whenever an organization has a tight budget and can’t afford to spend much investing on proprietory software, the management would opt for free open source software.

There are a few reasons why open source software is preferred by some organizations:

• Freedom and ability to enhance and customize the software provided the same copyright is maintained.
• Low in cost. No such thing as Client Access Licenses fees. The only thing you spend on is the hardware to host the software plus a programmer’s time to enhance and install the software.
• Usually no payment is required by the developers when an upgrade to the software is released.

If your organization is considering to go open source, the following are five (5) good and proven web based office productivity software to implement. Continue Reading »
Top 5 office productivity open source software

Having data in multiple datasources can really be inconvenient at times. Imagine having all employee information in a sql server database while their payroll information is residing in an Oracle database. If you wondering if there is a simpler way to combine and integrate data from these two different types of database, the answer is yes! The best part, it’s low in cost and open source.

Apatar is an open source data integration tool capable of challenging some of the bigger players out there like Microsoft Biztalk and Oracle Business Intelligence 10G. With Apatar you can integrate your information between on-premise or on-demand data sources and applications. Meaning, data and information from the web can now be easily mashed up with internal data via this open source data integration tool. There is also an interface which allows you to migrate, synchronize, replicate and map data without the need for coding.

The key features of Apatar includes:

Some featured Apatar users include:

• Infosys
• Autodesk
• Arizona State University
• Alcatel-Lucent
• Credit Suisse

Without doubt Apatar is emerging as one of the highly reliable and trusted software utilized by large organizations to integrate and transform data and information. Give it a try today!

Are you one of the many developers that produce code which can be freely downloaded and shared by the public? If you’re one of the many generous and smart programmers who wouldn’t mind sharing your work with others, the open source community would like to encourage you to continue on with your magnificent effort. Let us all keep open source alive for our next generation to continue utilizing.

An important aspect of releasing free software to the public is the copyright. If you’re trying to release your hard worked software to the public with the GNU General Public License, do you really understand the different types of FOSS license which you can apply to fully protect your codes, effort and idea?

The Software Freedom Law Center has recently release a legal guide entitled A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects.

On this comprehensive article, you will find out more about:

• Common Copyright Questions
• Common Organizational Issues
• Patent Defenses for FOSS Developers
• Common Trademark Issues

I would strongly recommend anyone out there who’s actively involved in Open Source Software to read and attempt to understand this legal guide. For the developers, you can understand the rights you hold for releasing software. For those who use Open Source Software, it’s good to understand the sort of license the software holds so that one does not violate any rules when utilizing the software. If someone thinks that he/she can easily add customization and resell an open source software, it’s good to think twice.

The Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects is available in HTML, PDF and Postscript versions.

It’s copyright statement declares that it is copyrighted by the SFLC but that, “Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire document is permitted in any medium; however, this notice must be preserved on all copies.”