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News: Interview, "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself"

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  1. Interview, "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself" (6 messages)

    • Posted by: Mark Kofman
    • Posted on: September 20 2007 10:12 EDT
    Without any significant Open Source experience, Mark Kofman and Anton Litvinenko quit well-paid jobs to create a community for Java developers participating in Open Source. They are glad to mentor inexperienced contributors who later will show the way of SourceKibitzer development. What else can we expect from these guys? In this interview Mark and Anton share their opinions about Open Source and User-Programmed Service model they pioneer.
    Why did you decide to open the SourceKibitzer and choose a User-Programmed Service (U-PS) model for it? Anton: It seemed a natural way to go. When you promote OSS, it looks quite strange if you're not open yourself. But there was a second and perhaps even stronger argument: we need our community to help us to get presentation of achievements right. About the U-PS model: it is basically an Open Source adapted to the development of a software as a service (SaaS). The source code is open, infrastructure is built in order to support participation, but the software itself is deployed as a service. Mark: We also heard more and more from our users that SourceKibitzer could serve as a social network for Java developers. We believe that communities should be built by its members. And we really wanted a broader community to set the horizons of the SourceKibitzer future. That is why we came out with User-Programmed Service. It is similar to the Wikipedia model, where any user can contribute to articles, or Digg allowing users to add news and vote for them. But we think that U-PS is one step forward as users really get the tools to direct the growth of the service they use, not only the content. I would also suggest to read our "User-Programmed Service = SaaS+Open Source" blog post. It is an attempt to clarify some most frequently asked questions about this model.
    Read the full interview: "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself".
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  2. Another similar project[ Go to top ]

    worth looking at http://www.ohloh.net
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  3. Re: Interview, "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself"[ Go to top ]

    "User-Programmed Service" with combination of social networking model is really interesting idea. I guess we can see it in general purpose soc-networks as well like facebook that has I think thousands of user-submitted facebook applications. Digg goes the same direction as well... Ohloh looks more polished with similar idea (in Russian though word "ohloh" means literally "dumb ass" :-) so there could be some confusion). Keep up a good work guys, Nikita Ivanov. GridGain - Grid Computing Made Simple
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  4. Re: Interview, "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself"[ Go to top ]

    I wonder if they are confusing OSS with FSF a bit -- I don't think any serious OSS contributor (or fanboy) believes money is evil to OSS--otherwise they wouldn't license it as OSS, they would license it as GPL or something else. Open source is just a different business model that drives awareness and transparency. And we're not just talking about the JBoss example of selling services around an OSS product. IBM and Oracle make a lot of their money on OSS projects (next Websphere is built on Geronimo). Without wanting to sound harsh, I think the interviewees are doing a bit of a FUD sales job here. Though I appreciate that they quit high-paying jobs to do so ;) Dhanji.
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  5. Re: Interview, "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself"[ Go to top ]

    I wonder if they are confusing OSS with FSF a bit -- I don't think any serious OSS contributor (or fanboy) believes money is evil to OSS--otherwise they wouldn't license it as OSS, they would license it as GPL or something else.
    Don't think I get you here. GPL is Open Source licence.
    Open source is just a different business model that drives awareness and transparency. And we're not just talking about the JBoss example of selling services around an OSS product.

    IBM and Oracle make a lot of their money on OSS projects (next Websphere is built on Geronimo).
    I am sure, that viewing Open Source as business model is not the most common in the community. I don't say I don't agree. I just don't think Open Source is a business for everybody. On my opinion, problem starts if you do contribution and somebody else earns money from it. Imagine the case: You contribute to Spring Framework, but you are not part of Interface21. Interface21 gets investments and grows the company, but you are left out of the "cash". Woudn't you be jelouos ;)?
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  6. Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself[ Go to top ]

    Idealists usually don't care about marketing. That's what makes them that way in the first place. Nothing wrong with money as long as the quality of products don't suffer. ---- The Skin dude
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  7. Re: Interview, "Open Source Contributors, Brand Yourself"[ Go to top ]

    Nice update Brazzers and also Real Ex Girlfriends at Mikes Apartment. Free Lady Sonia too.
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