Open Source Initiative

In July I was honored to be appointed Visiting Scholar at SILS, the School of Information and Library Science and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The Information and Library Science community and the Open Source community share many common passions, especially the belief that sharing knowledge is important and good work. And increasingly I see a shared fate for both communities...

In a followup to a previous blog posting, I read in today's headlines that NASA has corrected their position and decided to disclose research that they had planned to destroy—a victory for transparency and for public safety.

The news report I read was from CNN.

Last month I visited Beijing and Hong Kong on a trip through Asia. It seems that everybody visiting China—Beijing in particular—comes back saying "you just cannot imagine...". I stayed at the Kerry Centre Hotel near the Red Hat Beijing office, and as I walked across the street for my morning cup of coffee, I saw the CCTV building. I was litterally dumbfounded. I got my coffee, walked back to my room in disbelief, called my wife, Amy, 12 timezones away and said "you just cannot imagine..."

EWeek's Jason Brooks has one (print) page to dispel 10 myths about Open Source. He does an excellent job!

I am a proud user of Blender, the free open source 3d content creation suite, but not yet a proud artist. That will take time, practice, and a lot more digital paint on my brushes before all is said and done. Nevertheless, I am on my way.

CNN just reported that NASA is refusing to disclose air safety data. The topic paragraph summarizes the facts of the report:

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

What does this have to do with Open Source software?

If Al Gore can win the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing the findings of the scientific community to the political forefront, perhaps Richard Stallman should be next in line for his early and tireless advocacy against Software Patents. And the sooner, the better.

I submitted this to slashdot, and put it on my open source blog.

I am the son of an anchorman. I am a First Amendment guy. In a statement after Diana's death, I said the only thing worse than out-of-control photographers with no sense of conscience would be trying to restrict them. You can't restrict freedom of speech or the press, even if it is miserable.
— George Clooney quoted in TIME