Open-Source- Friend or Foe?

Imagine in twenty years time when a young child asks their parents (if parents still exist) what the world was like when they were a kid. With the exponential growth of technology it would be safe to say that a lot would have changed. The increase in access to information due to the Internet has cultivated communities of produser who are constantly consuming, manipulating and interacting with different medium to create evolving breeds of content. Open-source is one of the birth children that these online communities have created and as the name suggests it gives users access to the source code of applications which in turn grants the freedom to manipulate, improve and contribute to the application. This advance in software creation has come up against great opposition by many of the high profile software corporations whose market position has been threaten by the open-source culture. The question must then come down to the user; should we embrace this new model of software creation and the community that supports it or should we oppose it and remain subjective to large software entities?

So why should users support and use open-source software? Put simply the answer is customisation and contribution. Each individual user requires software that they use to satisfy a specific purpose in relation to their needs. Commercially produced software, although efforts have been made, does not give the user complete control over the functionality of the software. An example of this is Sugar CRM versus Microsoft’s Outlook CRM. Sugar CRM is an open-source Customer Relations Management application that allows the user to customise every aspect their operations regarding sales, marketing and communication. Unlike the Microsoft CRM that is restricted to functioning with Microsoft Outlook, Sugar CRM allows the user to customise the entire interface and functionality to suit the user’s specific needs. The great thing about the produser community is that once a user has modified the source code they make this information available to other users.

Naturally the open-source community has come up against great opposition by large corporate software entities like Microsoft. This is understandable considering Microsoft’s multi billion dollar enterprise would be put at risk if open-source became readily available and utilised for personal, corporate and government use. Microsoft has been actively lobbing against laws that will encourage the use of open-source software in the public sector in Europe. There have also been recent cases of open source developers coming under fire with software patient law suits being files against them. One individual that action was taken against was Bob Jacobsen, who was the developer of JMRI model-railroad control software. Michael A. Katzer and his company KAM claim that Bob, without permission, distributed their software and have demanded he pay for each copy that he issued for free.

I personally feel that the open-source community is not only providing valuable software but is challenging the basis of software creation and use. This produser model is vital in transferring the power from the supplier of software to the users which is only made possible by open-source’s high-performance collaboration and community building model.

Social Networking: A Fluid Community

Before I begin this blog I have to admit- I am not a social networking addict. It is not that I do not have a Facebook, mySpace or one of the hundreds of other social networking sites (SNS) pages or that I am against the idea of these communities, I simply cannot bring my self to waste my precious time creating a beautiful profile for one account, only to find out that no body uses that particular SNS anymore. This dilemma has brought my attention to the elasticity of social networking communities and the constant migration to SNS’s that better accommodate there members needs.

The reason for this migration can be put to two main factors. Firstly the growth of the Internet and technology in the past 8 years has made creating new profiles on SNS easy. Between 2000-2008 the worlds Internet usage has increase by almost 300% this massive growth combined with faster more reliable Internet connections has made it possible for SNS to flourish. To date, there are well over 300 major SNS in which users can become a member of with as little information as user name, email and password. This ease of access has led to the users switching from SNS that do not provide them with what they want to SNS that have the features and services that meet their needs. The second reason for this migration is the teething problems associated with SNS as a industry. SNS have only really taken off in the past five years and issues such as privacy and security have kept the evolution of SNS in a constant state of change. Due to user feedback and public forums new competition in the SNS industry are designing their products to their users specifications enticing online communities to switch to their SNS.

An example of this mass migration is the uprising of Facebook and the demise of mySpace. Only a couple of years ago mySpace was regarded as ‘the’ social networking site for online
communities around the globe, however, only a few years down the track Facebook looks to be gaining popularity with online communities.
The question may then arise, how a site as big as mySpace can be threaten by extinction in such a short period of time. The answer is simple, online communities are moving to new SNS because of easy access to join to a better SNS that offers better facilities, functionality and services to its users.

If you thought that the story ended at the next SNS heavily weight Facebook, then think again. The migratory pattern continues with new comer Moli experiencing massive growth over the past few months. It has heard the cries online communities regarding privacy and the access structure of information and has introduced a SNS that separates social, business and family profiles allowing the user to choose who has access to what personal information.

Personally, I regard this migration as a necessary step in the evolution of SNS as it creates a shift toward sites that satisfy the needs of online communities and the interaction between its members. Perhaps one day there will be a universal SNS in which I can safely put my time and effort into that won’t become, as Clay Shirky describes, Yet Another Social Networking Site (YASNS).

Introduction

hi my name is tomtily

i am a motivated individual with the vigour and zeal for coping with life and its many challenges and brilliance