OSU, Bus Project and POSSE Join Forces!
OSU, Bus Project and POSSE members w/ Tux and the Bus
© David Pool
Jon Perr writes "They say that politics makes strange bedfellows and this weekend was certainly no exception. On Friday, progressive activists, software developers and Oregon State University's Open Source Lab (OSUOSL) joined forces to highlight the growing open source software movement and Oregon's increasingly prominent role in it.
The Bus Project and the Portland Open Source Software Entrepreneurs (POSSE) partnered to lead the pilgrimage to the OSU lab in Corvallis. For the activists of the Bus, the trip was an introduction to the three mantras of open source in Oregon: good jobs, good government and good software. POSSE, a group of developers and enthusiasts bringing open source solutions to private, public and non-profit sector clients, brought the subject matter expertise.
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OSU's Scott Kveton shows off the server farm at OSU
© David Pool
Alex and Brandon - Firefox Interns at OSU
© David Pool
First a little background. As I wrote last month ("Open for Business"), Oregon is at the forefront of a global open source software industry. (Even the Oregonian has taken notice, calling Oregon's open source efforts "world-class.") Linus Torvalds and the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global organization driving the direction of the open source Linux operating system, are based in Beaverton. The city of Beaverton, home to open source heavyweights IBM and Intel, has shown its determination to attract open source entrepreneurs, start-ups and jobs with its investment in the Open Technology Business Center. And Oregon's universities are playing a high-profile role in the open source community as well, not just at OSU's Open Source Labs, but also with the growing curriculum at Portland State. It's no wonder that Governor Kulongoski named OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen and OVP Venture Partners' Dave Chen the chairmen of the new Oregon Innovation Council.
The visitors from Portland were welcomed by Representative Phil Barnhart and OSL's associate director Scott Kveton. Barnhart, who represents central Lane and Linn counties, led the ultimately unsuccessful fight for HB 2892 in 2003, legislation which would have required state agencies to consider (though not mandate) open source software in their software procurement processes.
Kveton and his team of staff and students then went on to demonstrate why Oregon State is becoming such a high profile player within the open source industry. (OSL is hosting the upcoming Government Open Source conference - GOSCON - in Portland on October 13 and 14.) The show and tell started with OSL's impressive hosting facility, featuring the servers, racks and bandwidth that house software from many of the leading open source community projects in the world. Every day, hundreds of thousands of users worldwide download the Firefox web browser, the Gentoo and Debian Linux operating systems, the OpenOffice desktop suite, the Apache web server and many other critical pieces of software.
More important than the staggering hardware on display at OSU, though, was the team behind it. OSL developers highlighted custom software development being led by the lab, projects and tools used throughout the open source community. As part of the tour, two third-year students and leaders of OSU's Linux User Group described their recent internships at NASA and the Mozilla Foundation, coveted spots for open source developers.
By the end of the day, political junkies and technology junkies had a meeting of the minds. POSSE's David Pool, the creator of Portland's News4Neighbors, described how the collaborative open source development model, which invites from contributions from anyone and provides software source code access to all, is speeding the efficient, low-cost creation of software that can be used and modified by businesses, consumers, universities, non-profits and governments. As it turns out, that same model of community participation and shared benefit is a fitting one for the grassroots mobilization ("open source politics") of the Bus Project. As the Bus Project's Jefferson Smith put it:
"Progressives should be aggressively looking for chances to be high-road business visionaries. Oregon's leadership in open source can create a cluster of jobs, while also democratizing information and building on our tradition as an incubator of new ideas. By trumpeting open source, we can do well and also do good."
(For more on that meeting of the minds, listen to Scott Kveton and Jefferson Smith on Friday's Thom Hartmann show on KPOJ AM 620.)
Jon Perr
Jon Perr is a software marketing consultant based in Portland, Oregon. Jon has long been active in Democratic politics and public policy as an organizer and advisor in California and Massachusetts. His past roles include field staffer for Gary Hart for President (1984), organizer of Silicon Valley tech executives backing President Clinton's call for national education standards (1997), recruiter of tech executives for Al Gore for President (2000), and co-coordinator of MassTech for Robert Reich (2002). He is also a member of the Democratic Leadership Council and New Democrat Network. Most recently, Jon returned to his consulting practice following his role as vice president of marketing for Boston-based Ximian. Jon also blogs at http://perrspectives.com"
Alex and Brandon (Score:1, Informative)
Oh Please.... (Score:0, Troll)
Puh-lease. Bad partnership, because I now blanket write-off the whole thing. Guh. That's like telling me Dick Cheney has now partnered with OBT...
Re:Oh Please.... (Score:3, Informative)
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Re:Oh Please.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't personally agree with HB 2892 from 2003. Open Source doesn't need help from the legislature, the upcoming GOSCON conference shows that the state sees the benefits of Linux and open source and they're moving towards it. I want to see the administrative side of the government push to adopt open source because we need better governement - which runs on software they can modify and adapt to their needs.
The proprietary system's been OK, it's gotten us so far. But after a time, all you're paying for is virus protection and forced upgrades. We need our governement to be able to actively choose what they are doing with software, not just coughing up cash every time the rug gets pulled out from under them. Linux has been on a continuous improvement process for 15 years. It's rock solid and runs 70% of the Internet(s). Do you think Jefferson is so stupid as to not be able to realize it's a raw deal to have to move everything over to Microsoft's new Vista operating system next year? To get to pay for the same functionality all over again and then pay to report bugs for the next year.
You just don't have to be a tech person to know that Microsoft is giving us all the Longhorn and telling us that it's a brave new Vista instead. Ouch.
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intel's location (Score:2, Informative)
Re:intel's location (Score:0)
I know you're shooting for correctness, but some nits just don't need picking.
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Re:intel's location (Score:2, Informative)
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