OSS Development Anyone

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Permalink Reply by Dustin Sparks on February 7, 2008 at 11:33pm

I've dabbled into a few open source packages, helping out with sections here and there.

For example, there is an open source 3D Package for Actionscript 3 called Papervision 3D. I wrote a section that enabled orbiting/rotation around arbitrary axis.

I've also extended packages like Mootools and Scriptaculous for Javascript enabling different animation sequences.

I also created an open source project mapping natural selection using Flash. However, this project is long dead.

Anyhow, I have some experience with it, and using CVS and SVN repositories for checking in and out code.

I've never approached any with a business idea. I do like the way the Papervision guys do it, they provide the software free, but make their money off of training events around the world.

I'd definitely be interested in talking about new ones, throwing some ideas around.

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Permalink Reply by Ed Ventura on March 6, 2008 at 9:47pm

Yep, I've been using open source software for designing web sites for over a year now. My favorite CMS is Joomla. And I've been starting to use GIMP more and more over photoshop. With the steep price tag of Adobe CS3 now, something like GIMP is really nice.

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Permalink Reply by John Uhri on March 8, 2008 at 11:25am

GIMP's UI is horrible, but it is what I use as well.

As an alternative to Illustrator, you may want to check out Inkscape. It's pretty powerful and I use it more than GIMP.

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Permalink Reply by P.J. Hinton on March 7, 2008 at 9:15pm

I've worked for two companies that rely heavily on OSS over the past few years, and both of them have done well with it. One is an ISV that develops a technical application that runs on a lot of different architectures. The build system and much of the core development takes place on Linux machines. The other is a developing a Software as a Service (SaaS) application that uses the LAMP stack.

Running on OSS isn't as daunting a proposition as it might have been ten years ago, but it's certainly not for everyone. The software licensing prices are very cheap, but skilled people are needed to set up the software properly and keep it running smoothly. That skill set is hard to find in Indy, and given that the businesses around here tend to be change averse, people with those skills tend to move away to places like the Bay Area or the Pacific Northwest.

For those new to OSS and thinking about adopting one or more packages, I would encourage a gentle path. First consider what your needs are. Then, look at what's out there. If there's more than one tool or application available, compare features to ensure that your choice won't fall short. Also look at how actively the project is being developed and maintained. Some projects have a lively development community, while others are moribund.

Weigh what resources are out there for support. For example, are you planning to teach yourself, or will you be purchasing support? If you're going it alone, how comfortable are you about turning to informal support forums like IRC, newsgroups, or mailing lists? For some this is a tough cultural gap to bridge, but it can be done if you keep an open mind.

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Permalink Reply by Edward Seufert on March 8, 2008 at 8:34pm

Some good podcasts that I have listened to

for linux newbie or general stuff -- Linux Reality, Floss weekly(twit.tv)
for security stuff -- pauldotcom.com, security weekly(twit.tv), silver bullet security
for entrepreneurship -- edcorner.stanford.edu
for biotech -- futures in biotech (twit.tv)

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Permalink Reply by Edward Seufert on March 8, 2008 at 9:04pm

Hello all
I am working on a network/server monitoring system that has metric(snmp) polling, trouble ticketing system, syslog, availability, paging, incident and problem management tracking.... all very integrated and highly scalable. I have been working in this area for about 10 years and I have found only poor solutions like CA, openview, concord, ciscoworks..... So about a year ago I set out working on this an I have a few of the pieces working in production environments and my users are loving it. So I am excited but overwhelmed at the same time. I originally wrote most of it in perl/CGI on solaris and it is okay but I am now moving it to LAMP(fedora8) and Javascript using ajax to handle my large data issues to be more manageable page selects. It has been a real adventure learning so many languages. I am writing all the libraries from scratch so I can understand security and write in security checks.

If any of you are interested in working on any component or want to join up and build something that we can use in consulting let me know.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Harris on May 16, 2008 at 10:31am

I'm building a high-end game development framework on top of Python and Pygame (itself a wrapper to SDL)

It makes game programming accessible to beginning coders, and is part of my desire to motivate math and science with game development.

I've released it as part of a book, but I'm in the process of releasing GameEngine under a GPL license with the hopes of including it on the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project.

I'd be interested in anybody else's experience with sourceforge and the whole GPL business, as I'm a bit nervous, to be honest.

I've added various components (joystick drivers for flightgear, a database management layer for PHP, and a machine language simulator) but none have been terribly large projects.

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Permalink Reply by Edward Seufert on May 16, 2008 at 8:30pm

Hi Andy

If you are interested come join the indianapolis php meetup group on meetup.com. We meet once a month in broadripple and talk about php, mysql and show off our programs that we are writing.. We have a gent coming next month to talk about posgresql database I think.

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Permalink Reply by Andy Harris on May 19, 2008 at 11:23am

Cool! I just joined. If you're ever looking for a guest speaker, I'm no expert, but I'm currently working on the third edition of my PHP book, so I can preview some of the coming features of PHP6 / MySQL 5. I'll try to get to the June meeting if I'm in town.

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Permalink Reply by Edward Seufert on May 20, 2008 at 5:39pm

There is only about 4 of us that show up regularly but that is okay smaller groups are easier to share ideas. I think the June meeting someone is talking about posgresql but I would like to know the differences between it an mysql.

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Permalink Reply by debra townsend on March 13, 2009 at 7:15pm

I am a hardcore joomla junkie!!!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Edward Seufert on March 14, 2009 at 10:04am

Cool

You should check out floss weekly podcast on twit.tv

I think there is a local joomla user group in indy. But have not had time to attend. The leader sometimes comes to our php user group in broadripple.

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