The Open Source Initiative has served as the key steward of open source software since its formation in 1998. In September 2021, the Open Source Initiative board hired Stefano Maffulli as its first Executive Director. I recently interviewed Stefano to learn more about him and his vision for the Open Source Initiative.
Feature Articles
Interview with Stefano Maffulli First Executive Director of the Open Source Initiative
By Jim Hall | December 17, 2021
What is open core?
By Scott McCarty | November 23, 2021
What is open core? Is a project open core, or is a business open core? That's debatable. Like open source, some view it as a development model, others view it as a business model. As a product manager, I view it more in the context of value creation and value capture...With open core, at least some of the code is proprietary. With proprietary code, a company hires engineers, solves business problems, and charges for that software. For the proprietary portion of the code base, there is no community-based engineering, so there's no process by which a community member can profit by participating. With proprietary code, a dollar invested in engineering is a dollar returned in code. Unlike open source, a proprietary development process can't return more value than the engineering team contributes...
Open Source Powers The United Nations' Sustainability Goals
By Joshua Pearce | December 9, 2021
Although the United Nations (UN) has previously spoken well of open source development, several recent events show the UN taking definitive actions to introduce the entire world to the open source way. In July, the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) adopted a draft resolution introduced by the representative of Pakistan titled Open source technologies for sustainable development. ECOSOC noted the availability of open source technologies that can contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The council invited the Secretary-General to “develop specific proposals on ways to better leverage open source technologies for sustainable development based on inputs from interested Member States and other stakeholders.”
Why Now Is A Great Time To Consider A Career In Open Source Hardware
By Joshua Pearce | November 13, 2021
Twenty years or so ago, almost no one even knew what open source hardware was, let alone planned a career around it. In 2000, for example, out of the more than 2 million academic papers published that year in the entire world, only seven articles even mentioned "open source hardware" at all. When I first wrote Open-Source Lab, I'd collected every example (only a few dozen) and could easily keep up and read every open hardware article that got published to post them on a wiki. I am happy to report that is no longer physically possible. There have already been over 1,500 articles that discuss "open source hardware" this year, and I am sure many more will be out by year's end. Open source hardware is now a field of its own, with a few journals dedicated to it specifically (for example, HardwareX and the Journal of Open Hardware). In a wide range of fields, dozens of traditional journals now routinely cover the latest open hardware developments.
Open Source Recognized As A Key Economic Pillar In European Union Study
By James Lovegrove | October 28, 2021
A September 2021 study on the economic impact of open source software and hardware concluded that open source technologies injected EUR 65-95 billion into the European economy. This study is timely given the current rollout of the European Union's EUR 750 billion recovery investment, which has allotted 20% for digital transformation. Growing political efforts to understand and quantify the importance of open source in realizing EU digital sovereignty accentuate the study's significance. The European Union sponsored the study, which was written by Fraunhofer ISI and OpenForum Europe.
Aligning with the Standards Development Community: The New Cycle for Standards Version Advancement Process
By Avinash Shanbhag, and Jeff Smith | October 15, 2021
As part of ONC’s ongoing charge to coordinate across federal and industry stakeholders, we determined it was necessary to adjust our Standards Version Advancement Process (SVAP) timeline. Although it may seem like this process has been around for a while, it’s still brand new and we’ve been looking at ways to optimize how the process aligns with other standards development work in the community. The changes we’ve made will help ensure timely publication of implementation specifications central to our cadence for new versions of USCDI.
How to Use Content Marketing To Promote Open Source Projects
By Will Kelly | October 15, 2021
Both startups and more established firms are increasingly turning to content marketing as a way of reaching prospective customers. However, corporate marketers often consider the open source software (OSS) community a challenge to reach. This article features ways your technology and content marketing teams can work together to target and reach the community around an OSS project your organization supports.
Going To Market With An Open Source Product
By Scott McCarty | October 13, 2021
Many people with a long career in engineering, including me, have had misconceptions about sales and marketing. As an engineering community, we've viewed it as things like ordering swag, naming things, running ad campaigns, and creating white papers. There's a joke in the marketing community about how engineers are always willing to provide their "opinions" on marketing decisions without fully comprehending the discipline, but marketers rarely—like never—make suggestions on code improvements. To work together, engineers and marketers must share a common definition.
How Disagreement Creates Unity In Open Source
By Kate Carcia | October 9, 2021
Many people consider disagreement polarizing and uncomfortable, but it doesn't have to be. The open source way calls for sharing ideas and diverse perspectives, which means that differences of opinion are not only inevitable; they're encouraged. Through my journey, I have found that open leaders nurture environments where productive disagreements can be a unifying, rather than divisive, force.
Upgrading the PULSE Emergency Response Tool to a Community Edition
By Rachel Abbey | September 27, 2021
Seven years ago the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) began work on the Patient Unified Lookup System for Emergencies (PULSE). PULSE is an effort to create national resilience by improving first responder access to patient electronic health information they need to provide services and ensure public health during disasters, including public health emergencies. Recently, ONC launched a new, code-only technical solution called PULSE-Community Edition (PULSE Community) that builds on the original PULSE code. PULSE Community enables first responders and other response personnel (e.g., epidemiologists, emergency medical services, and health care volunteers) to securely access vital health information they need during emergencies and disasters from connected health care organizations.
Why European Nonprofit Organizations Are Choosing Open Source Software
By Michael Korotaev | September 27, 2021
With tech and data safety awareness rising, open source software is becoming a go-to option for organizations of all classes more than ever. Nonprofit organizations are particularly vulnerable on the financial side while at the same time dealing with vital social and environmental issues. This article observes the adoption of open source collaboration technologies in nonprofit organizations by using Nextcloud and ONLYOFFICE as examples.
The Importance of High Quality Data for Artificial Intelligence Reliability
By Lindsay Westervelt | December 8, 2021
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic right now in medical practice. Though there are many reasons why AI solutions have become so popular, one of the biggest reasons is that AI has the potential to reduce clinical burnout and fatigue by improving Clinical Decision Support in electronic health record (EHR) systems. To understand how this can be achieved, we must first understand what AI is and how it works...For Healthcare, AI and Machine Learning algorithms must rely on copious amounts of granular, high-quality data.
Moving ahead on Information Sharing
By Micky Tripathi | September 16, 2021
The ONC Cures Act Final Rule went into effect on April 5, 2021 and as a result we have seen an increase in both the quantity and complexity of questions regarding the regulations. We’re eager to help the industry successfully implement these new requirements...To that end, we offer a variety of resources and channels to address industry questions. These include ongoing public meetings, meetings with stakeholders, and online materials – including videos, fact sheets, and FAQs. However, to adjust to the growing need for information, and to respond to feedback that we could be more forthcoming and clearer in our responses to questions, we are launching a number of additional channels for education and communication...
Managing The Open Source Product Roadmap
By Scott McCarty | September 14, 2021
Customers, as well as the sales and marketing teams who talk to them, love a roadmap. It gives them a sense of what is realistic and what is not. The roadmap is also at the heart of a product. Maintaining an up-to-date product roadmap keeps the product team focused on the customer and aligned around delivering what they need. The roadmap communicates both the strategic direction for a product and the company's perspective on problem solving.
Infrastructure And Resilience --- The New Pride And Prejudice
By Curtis Bartell | September 13, 2021
I was going about my normal business the other day when an article from the Associated Press written by Matthew Daly And Hope Yen, and titled "Lawmakers: Ida damage shows need for infrastructure upgrades" landed in my inbox. I’m one of those weird people that sees “lawmakers” and “infrastructure” in a sentence, and am drawn to it with amused interest. Usually, I am interested academically…a lot of other times as a pure masochist…and still more often than not, like this time, with snarky anticipation. “Oh, what joyous, twisted misinformation do we have here?” The article summarizes quite aptly (kudos to Mr. Daly and Ms. Yen) the rationale applied for the monstrous, record-smashing infrastructure bills being batted about the House and Senate.
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