workshop trends in open source tech 1 20 10
DESCRIPTION
Presented at the Pittsburgh Technology Council on January 20, 2010.TRANSCRIPT
NuRelm, Inc.
Trends In OpenSource Technologies
How to put the latest Web trends to work for your business
NuRelm E-Business Software
NuRelm, NuContent and Osmosis are trademarks ofNuRelm, Inc. © 2010 NuRelm, Inc. All Rights Reserved
What We’ll Cover
Agenda:• Introductions• Background• Applications
• Criteria• On the Desktop• On the Server• For the Developer• Online Collaboration, CRM, Training,
Commerce
Who We Are
NuRelm's niche is providing user-driven, interactive websites that are easily editable by non-technical marketing department staff or small business owners.
What We Do
Online Training• Web-based training delivery
• Online course development
Content Management• Web content management software
• Hosting and Web development services
• Integration of open source CMSes
Online Marketing• Analysis of existing online marketing
• Ongoing marketing services
Web Development/Advanced Web Apps• Professional Web site design
• Development of sites in an array of languages
Why we’re presenting this
• Provide real value• Present topics that NuRelm understands,
but NOT imply that we are the only choice
• Create useful discussions and relationships among attendees
• Work with managers and business owners to help them use the Web to grow their businesses and boost sales.
Every company chooses how to build a relationship with their community. We prefer to do so in ways that :
Who are you?
Quick introduction and statement about what you’d like to get out of the presentation.
Part I: Background
What is OS?
(just kidding)
What is OS:A Slightly Better Explanation
How traditional software is developed (slightly simplified)
What is OS:A Slightly Better Explanation
How open source software used to be developed and sometimes still is (not simplified much as you might think)
What is OS:A Slightly Better Explanation
Nowadays, things are getting confusing.
OS Origins
From XKCD (self described as “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”)
OS Origins:A Slightly Better Explanation
Prehistoric times
50’s and 60’s
Late 60’s and 70’s
Auto manufactures share patents after defeating Selden
Most software built by academics and corp researchers
Software bundled w hardware, early software industry emerges, AT&T gives Unix to researchers
Late 70’s, early 80’s
The age of software license fees at the same time Usenet connects developers. SPICE, TeX, X Windows developed.
80’s Richard Stallman launches GNU Project and FSF, GNU General Public License emerges
90’s Linux, FreeBSD, and more. Eric Raymond (Cathedral and the Bazaar) leads rebranding of free software movement to “open source”, many follow, but Stallman and FSF is mad.
Eric Raymond says keep your money, just don’t touch his keyboard
Richard Stallman hates your dirty money making schemes
OS Licenses
GPL BSD
MIT
LGPLMPL
Part II: Applications
Criteria
How should we evaluate applications?
• Features
• Community
• Costs
• Reliability vs nature of task
• Primary supporter
• License compatibility
Part II: ApplicationsOn the Desktop
On the Desktop:Firefox
This is one you already know, but let’s use it as an example …
On the Desktop:FirefoxHow does it stack up?
• Features. Nice basic functionality, huge library of extensions.
• Community. Big community working on base code, huge community contributing extensions and themes.
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Stable and getting better.
• Primary supporter. Mozilla Corporation, owned by Mozilla Foundation
• License. Tri-license: GPL / LGPL / MPL
• Projects to Watch: Chrome and IE
On the Desktop:OpenOffice
A pretty darn good replacement for MS Office Suite.
On the Desktop:OpenOffice
How does it stack up?
• Features. Well respected, used by many.
• Community. Frequent updates, large collection of user-contributed extensions.
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Sun Microsystems.Q for audience: Why?
• License. LGPL
On the Desktop:PDFCreator
Adobe PDF is expensive. PDFCreator is free.
On the Desktop:PDFCreator
How does it stack up?
• Features. Does a good job creating PDFs.
• Community. Two primary developers on sourceforge.net
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Two random guys.
• License. GPL
On the Desktop:CamStudio
Nice, free screencasting software.
On the Desktop:PDFCreator
How does it stack up?
• Features. Easy to use, exports to AVI or Flash, works well.
• Community. Seeking developers, weird history … RenderSoft -> eHelp -> Macromedia -> Adobe.
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Handful of developers, seeking more.
• License. GPL.
On the Desktop:Electric Sheep
Just wanted to throw one totally useless but pleasing app in …
On the Desktop:Electric Sheep
How does it stack up?
• Features. *Really* cool screen savers created with genetic algorithms across huge distributed computing farm of other sleeping computers.
• Community. Dunno.
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Pretty pictures, reliability unknown.
• Primary supporter. Dunno.
• License. GPL
Part II: ApplicationsOn the Server
Is this what they mean by “mobile web server”?
On the Server:Apache
King of the World Wide Web.
• Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server software in use.
• As of September 2009 Apache served over 54.48% of all websites and over 66% of the million busiest.
• In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site milestone.
On the Server:Apache
How does it stack up?
• Features. Huge list of modular features.
• Community. In development since 1995, now with Apache Software Foundation
• Reliability. Stable and getting better.
• Primary supporter. Apache Software Foundation.
• License. Apache License (not a copyleft, allows proprietary reuse)
On the Server:Apache Tomcat
Java servlet container used by E*Trade, WalMart, The Weather Channel
On the Server:Apache Tomcat
How does it stack up?
• Features. Implements latest servlet and JSP specs, and it’s fast.
• Community. Constant development for 10 years.
• Costs. None.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Apache Software Foundation.
• License. Apache License
On the Server:CentOS Linux
Please don’t pay for server software. Linux is better.
On the Server:CentOS Linux
How does it stack up?
• Features. Anything you want a server to do, Linux will do it.
• Community. Absolutely humungous community.
• Costs. System admins need to understand Unix-like Oses.
• Reliability. Very stable.
• Primary supporter. Various.
• License compatibility. GPL and other.
Part II: ApplicationsFor the Developer
For the Developer:A Short List
Our favorites …
• NetBeans
• VirtualBox
• PHP w Zend Framework
• Java w JavaServer Faces
• jQuery
• Notepad++
Part II: ApplicationsCollaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
Ecommerce: Magento
Getting good reviews and becoming very popular.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
Magento
How does it stack up?
• Features. Wide range of ecommerce features, careful of community vs enterprise editions.
• Community. Unknown.
• Costs. Certain features require non-OS enterprise version.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Varien Inc.
• License. Not immediately clear … OSL?
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
WordPress
Best blogging software available?
• First released in May 2003
• As of September 2009, it is being used by 202 million websites worldwide.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
WordPress
How does it stack up?
• Features. User-friendly workflow, a rich plugin architecture, nice templating system, lots more.
• Community. Huge community contributing plugins and themes, lots of updates to base code.
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary. Handful of developers.
• License. GPL.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
Dadamail
A nice bulk mailer and list manager. Just got better with latest version.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
Dadamail
How does it stack up?
• Features. Closed-loop opt-in subscriptions, nice list manager, new profile handling function.
• Community. Looks like one primary developer, but he keeps making updates.
• Costs. Free unless you want the manual for $44 (which you don’t need).
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Justin Simoni
• License. GPL.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
Moodle (wins by default?)
I sort of hate Moodle, but the world of OS online training system does not have a lot of good choices, and it can be forced to bend to your will.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
Moodle
How does it stack up?
• Features. Does a lot, although some of what it does is not graceful.
• Community. One primary developer, lots of registered sites (over 45,000).
• Costs. Don’t seem to be hidden costs.
• Reliability. Stable.
• Primary supporter. Martin Dougiamas
• License. GPL.
Collaboration, CRM, Training, Commerce:
And a Couple More …
• vTiger: Web-based customer relationship management.
• DimDim: OS collaboration.
