Lacey Thoms

The latest technology buzz, after the Internet, telecom, and mobile, is cloud computing. Hype or not, in various names and forms, cloud computing providers - platforms and applications alike - are counting on more than $40 billion in revenue in 2011 alone, growing to more than $241 billion in 2020, according to a recent report on "Sizing the Cloud" by Forrester Research. Open Source Software in the Clouds Most software applications today incorporate some open source software directly or indirectly (dynamically linked). Developer's resourcefulness, code reuse, and efficiencies of development make open source an attractive option for all technology organizations. Cloud applications are no exception and many applications deployed in clouds are either entirely open source (think OpenStack or OpenERP Server), or have a significant amount of open source in them. According ... (more)

Leveraging Open Source and Avoiding Risks in Small Tech Companies

Today's software development is geared more towards building upon previous work and less about reinventing content from scratch. Resourceful software development organizations and developers use a combination of previously created code, commercial software, open source software, and their own creative content to produce the desired software product or functionality. Outsourced code can also be used, which can contain any of the above combination of software. There are many good reasons for using off-the-shelf and especially open source software, with the greatest being its abili... (more)

What Developers Need to Know About Open Source Vulnerability Management

As a resourceful developer, you're not writing code from scratch anymore. You probably have access to a vast amount of code you wrote at previous jobs, and a lot of your development probably relies at least in some part around third party or open source software. Every savvy developer knows their way around Sourceforge, Codeplex, or GitHub, and with access to readily available code that frees you up to tackle real challenges, there really is no downside to open source code. Sure, you're probably aware that many open source projects have license obligations tied to them. And lice... (more)

Governments Waltzing on OSS, Trusting Your Search Engine for Privacy, GPL Houses and Apache Cars

…all this and more in this week’s compendium of open source news!   Two Steps Forward, One Step Back Sounds like a Strauss Waltz? Almost. After 10 years the city of Munich’s love affair with open source may be coming to an end.  Despite saving $16 million by using the custom Linux distribution LiMux, the city is considering switching back to Windows due to user complaints.  Read more about the motives surrounding the discussion at Network World.    Governments on GitHub Governments across the globe have long been dabbling with open source software.  Use of Open Source products like... (more)

The Basics of Open Source Software By @Protecode | @CloudExpo [#Cloud]

With many organizations incorporating open source code into their software, business managers should have a basic understanding of what open source is all about. After all, Gartner and Accenture report open source adoption rates nearing 100% so it’s likely that your development team is already incorporating open source code into their projects. So, what is open source? When a developer chooses to make his or her project open source, it gives third party developers the right to tinker and innovate with it. Check out this comprehensive video for an in depth explanation. Developers ... (more)