Tag: Evergreen
-
IT standards and open source (repeat)
An old debate has recently been rearing its ugly head: the value of standards in IT and the role of open source. In my view, it is really very simple. There are two types of standards, and they determine the role that open source can play. Examples of type 2 standards are the file formats…
-
Should you learn to code?
The U.S. president Barack Obama wants to learn programming and so does former New York City major Michael Bloomberg. Germany’s chancelor Angela Merkel does not, but reports tell us that her cell phone connection was spied on by the U.S.A. As long as it doesn’t turn out to specifically have been Barrack Obama’s code which…
-
The smartphone market upset
Slide 10 (below) of Mary Meeker’s 2014 Code presentation shows that it took only eight years for U.S. corporations to almost completely take over the smartphone (operating systems) market. The label “made in the U.S.A.” is misleading, as open source powers most of this software. However, this slide shows who is in control, and open…
-
System efficiency vs. fragility
I just listened to Padmasree Warrior on a Commonwealth Club podcast. Ms Warrior is the chief strategy officer at Cisco. The podcast contains lots of interesting insights and projections (as well as some incorrect statements, specifically that Google was the first search engine company and capitalized on a first-mover advantage). With Cisco being about all…
-
Assumption about longevity and its consequences
If you have run into me recently, I may have bugged you with the following question: Given the rapid pace of development in medical technology, I expect my generation to live to 100 years of age. A child being born today may live to the age of 250 years of age. Under this assumption, what…
-
The business of open source user foundations (consortia)
I held a talk on open source user foundations today, at the OpenUp Camp in Nuremberg. The slides are available as a PDF or on slideshare, embedded below: A small anecdote on the side In preparation of the talk, I looked for academic publications on the Kuali Foundation. I found only one, but I couldn’t…