http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/

What is your preferred Open Source platform and why?

Most of our work is done with the opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM, for which my company Open Source Strategies Inc. is the lead developer. Since this is a Java-based system, we work extensively with the Apache open source projects, including Tomcat and Geronimo, as well as with open source databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. Our goal is to use these open source technologies to create business applications that are both low cost and flexible.

What other/upcoming Open Source technologies are you excited about?

We are really excited about the upcoming version 3.0 release of the Apache Geronimo project, which will be give us a Java application server built around the OSGI component framework. This fits very nicely with our own architectural vision for building more modular and more flexible business software.

We are also really excited about the many open source mobile application development frameworks that are starting to emerge. We just implemented a mobile e-commerce site using the JQuery Mobile open source framework and were very pleased with how it allowed us to build a user-friendly mobile site very easily, using just HTML markups.

What Open Source platforms do you see as having the most importance potential in the coming 12-18 months?

Some portions of the open source landscape, such as operating systems, databases, and application servers, are already fairly established, and the dominant projects will remain so. In newer areas such as mobile frameworks, however, we are seeing a lot of exciting innovation and activity. In addition to JQuery Mobile, which we used, there are many other interesting mobile projects such as Sencha and Dojo Mobile, and I think this is where you will see the most important growth potential for open source as well.

How do you think Open Source is affecting SMBs?

The key effect of open source on SMB’s is that it has accelerated the migration of software to the cloud. Long before the term “cloud computing” even existed, hosting providers were offering open source software — the LAMP stack of Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl — on inexpensive monthly subscriptions “in the cloud.” Today, most of the cloud-based solutions, such as email and collaboration software, are running on some form of open source software. This has had a very quiet and practically invisible effect of offering low-cost and easy-to-use software to SMB’s.

How do you think Open Source is affecting enterprise level companies?

Open source software is affecting enterprises in three ways. First, there are some enterprises that have used open source to reduce the cost of their technology infrastructure. For example, they are using Linux or Apache as inexpensive operating systems or web servers which could be run on commodity hardware. Second, there are some enterprises whose entire business model is built around open source software. Many of these companies only started in the “web era,” and yet have been able to grow to enormous size by building off open source software to create entire new business models quickly and inexpensively. Finally, many of the enterprises which are starting to adopt cloud or SAAS-based solutions are implicitly adopting open source software, as those solutions are often powered by open source.

What do you make of Microsoft’s recent efforts in interoperability and to embrace the Open Source community?

I think it is both a logical and a positive development. In reality, open source developers and Microsoft really need each other. Microsoft remains a dominant player in the desktop and with businesses, neither of which are going away, and Microsoft is making major investments in the cloud as well. Open source developers need to reach all those Microsoft users, or we risk being irrelevant.

But Microsoft also needs open source — allowing open source developers to build on top of Microsoft technologies will create more applications around the Microsoft platforms, which would make them more valuable to users and therefore increase the value of thpse platforms. Open source could also attract more talent to Microsoft technologies. When today’s kids get started programming, they’re probably working with HTML and Javascript instead of .NET, and they’re probably going to look for open source libraries and tools. Microsoft needs to be in the open source space to get their attention and be relevant to them.

How did you first get involved in Open Source development?

Like many open source developers, I got involved because I “needed it myself.” My wife and I started an online retail company, Gracious Style, in 1999. At the time, there weren’t many out of the box e-commerce solutions, so I put together a homemade one using Perl and added to it. This eventually led me to try to create an integrated solution for all aspects of our business, including e-commerce, inventory and warehouse management, purchasing and supply chain management, CRM, and even accounting. The end result was the opentaps Open Source ERP + CRM system, which we created with a number of open source projects.

What makes you passionate about Open Source technology?

The most exciting thing about open source is innovation. New ideas and projects are constantly bubbling up, and with open source you get a chance to work on some of the latest technologies and the people who create them.

Well, hello world,

I’m new to the MWNW team and just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Keith and I’m a gadget geek who has a thing for creative stuff and an inclination towards all things open. After spending eight good years in Waterloo, Ontario, I had been exposed to Microsoft (and the other Waterloo company) on numerous occasions. And although a large group of my friends have worked with these tech giants, I have never really been interested in working with these firms – until now.

When I was young(er), these companies offered great opportunities, but at the same time, there was a certain air of closed-ness (if I may) about them. The platforms were closed, the companies seemed distant, and for me, the environments were not welcoming.

And perhaps that is why I use so many non-Microsoft products, including my iPhone 4S, Motorola Xoom, PS3, Macbook Air, Logitech G15, Adobe FrameMaker, Chrome, Gmail, Joomla, Dropbox, and OSX – all of which have MS equivalents. It is as if I purposely chose to not use anything Microsoft related.

And it wasn’t until I was in my first Microsoft interview, when I had learned that the company, it’s products, and most importantly (to me), it’s people are open. Being a Microsoft user for over 20 years (I miss my autoexec.bat), I’ve come to realize that the company has changed.

No longer is it a stuffy environment. We, as users, can truly see that the company is taking openness to heart. Case in point – did you know that to contact a Microsoft expert (and I mean a REAL expert), all you need to do is tweet, email, phone, or buy them a drink? I highly recommend the latter. It is refreshing to see that we can reach out and contact gurus like Fred Harper (for all things mobile) and Jon Rozenblit (the King of Azure). I have already added them to my speed dial.

And that’s when I realized – I do use many Microsoft products, I just stopped thinking about them: my desktop runs Windows 7, I have a couple of Xbox 360s (for multi-multi player!), I can’t live without Office, and I’m dying to get my hands on the Lumia 900.

So, now that I’m on my second week at MSFT, I’m quite pleased to report that I’m liking the digs. The people are bright, friendly, and welcoming. The environment is relaxed yet there is an air of urgency to everything. And most importantly, the food is good (and drinks are free!). Of course, I’m also on my honeymoon phase and the company still has that new job smell – so I’ll report on this regularly to see how my opinion changes through time.

More about me: I’m from Toronto, love to eat, live for gaming, am a huge sports fan, play poker whenever I can find some chips and a chair, love, love, love to meet new people, throw awesome parties, and am a certified admirer of all things tech. You can expect to hear from me regularly on just about everything. Around here, people know me as “the new Julia”. Julia has gone onto bigger and better things – motherhood!

So, please do say HI! I look forward to getting to know you better and to learn some new things. But first, I better find me that MSFT manual.

Make Web Not War isn’t a user group, but it certainly a community of passionate people that like technology. As we cannot cover everything that happens in Canada, we try our best to share with you the awesome next events or meetup that will occur in your city. Because this blog is there for you, if you are an user group’s organizer, I would like to help you share your events. If you have a meetup that you want to share with other developers in community, send me an e-mail at fredh@microsoft.com with a blog post making the promotion of it. I will be more than happy to post it online and share it on our other online channels like our Twitter account and Facebook page. It will be a great way for you to reach more people and find new user.

It’s not the only thing I would like to do for you. I will start a list of user groups in Canada for developers. I know some of them, but for sure, not all. If you want your user group to be listed in this page, send me an e-mail with these details: user group name, city, website, technology the user group cover, Twitter account (if you have one) and Facebook’s page (if you have one). It will be a great resource for developers who want to find a user group near home and visibility opportunity for you.

Creative Commons image http://www.flickr.com/photos/perfected/348699072/sizes/z/in/photostream/

What is your preferred Open Source platform and why?

I wish it was possible to be platform independent. Unfortunately, there will always be an operating system and a set of tools one enjoy working with, the most. In my case, it is Windows both on my workstations as well as servers for my job as .NET Architect. In terms of open source application platform, I use Dropthings (http://dropthings.googlecode.com) for most of my applications and WordPress for personal blogging.

Dropthings, is a personalizable widget powered web portal framework that can be used to build ASP.NET Web 2.0 websites as well as Enterprise Dashboards. It is a scalable and proven portal framework that is capable of demonstrating high-performance even with millions of users. Flexible layout and easily cloneable widgets make it a powerful, ajaxified rich UI platform for smaller and quicker prototypes to as large as Enterprise-class web portals. Internationalization, almost 100% test coverage, adequate documentation and tutorials make it an excellent choice for businesses. It is being successfully used by Canada Broder Protection, Microsoft UK, British Telecom, Intel and many others.

Some of the technologies that this open source framework uses are ASP.NET, Windows Communication Foundation, Entity Framework and Silverlight. It also takes advantage of a number of open source technologies for itself such as jQuery, xUnit, WatiN, AspectF and Moq.

What other/upcoming Open Source technologies are you excited about?

NuGet, a Visual Studio extension and its Gallery takes much like after Ruby Gems. Executing simple commands from Visual Studio, open source tools and libraries are discoverable and readily available in your application to use. NHibernate (http://nuget.org/packages/NHibernate), ELMAH (http://nuget.org/packages/elmah), Prism (http://nuget.org/packages/Prism), DotNetOpenAuth (http://nuget.org/packages/DotNetOpenAuth), jQuery (http://nuget.org/packages/jQuery), Modernizr (http://nuget.org/packages/Modernizr), knockoutjs (http://nuget.org/packages/knockoutjs), Ninject (http://nuget.org/packages/Ninject), xUnit (http://nuget.org/packages/xunit), Moq (http://nuget.org/packages/Moq) to name a few of some of the most popular packages from over 4000 of them that can be utilized to start building professional-grade softwares in minutes.

Speaking of package delivery, a great open source software distribution model Microsoft launched around three years ago that I use regularly is Web Platform Installer (Web PI). It has a directory of hundreds of open source softwares such as WordPress, Drupal, Orchard, from which user can pick and choose to install. Web PI automatically resolves dependent components, setups the project ready for run and delivers updates on availability. This free and tiny tool also includes IIS7, WebMatrix, Visual Studio 2010 Web Developer Express, Expression Studio 4 Web Professional, SQL Server Express, PHP, MySQL and many others. WebMatrix is an amazing piece of free development environment that helps web developers build and customize web apps based on PHP, Python and many others.

Because I am a Microsoft MVP award winner, I got an opportunity to attend MVP Summit 2010 in Redmond where we were demonstrated Orchard, another fairly new, community-driven, Microsoft-supported, Enterprise-ready great open source content management platform built on top of ASP.NET. It has a very deep integration of developer-written code called modules. It is also powered by a rich theme and module galleries to get started right out of the box.

What Open Source platforms do you see as having the most importance potential in the coming 12-18 months?

NodeJs (http://nodejs.org/) is revolutionizing server-side event driven concurrent programming paradigm. With its active package development community (http://npmjs.org/) and the power and simplicity of JavaScript, it may quickly gain as much momentum as jQuery managed to achieve in web application development. Speaking of jQuery, very interesting time is ahead for the Windows Phone developers with jQuery Mobile’s (http://jquerymobile.com/) first-class support for the platform. It is not hard to expect that this friendship will span across different form-factors, such as Windows 8 based PCs as well as tablets. Being the host of 6-hour long weekly workshop on “Building Windows Phone Apps” at the local Microsoft office, I am also very excited about PhoneGap’s (http://phonegap.com/) effort to support Windows Phone as its first-class citizen as well, because many of my attendees come from other backgrounds, especially from Web. Backed with a completely brand new approach to mobile operating system, HTML5 adoption and a very strong market prediction of Windows Phone platform, it clearly indicates that the friendships with these client libraries will continue to grow and go a long way.

Again, speaking of Windows Phone, Windows Azure platform releases various open source toolkits that ease and accelerate Windows Phone (http://watwp.codeplex.com/), Social Games (http://watgames.codeplex.com/), and rich client (http://watwindows8.codeplex.com/) development. Even more of such toolkits and frameworks we can expect to see released in near future in order to maintain the integrity of the software development ecosystem that Microsoft offers, because they are a heavily developer focused company. In addition, their cloud support for NodeJs and hosting apps written in almost any language not only opens up a new world of possibility, but also beautifully goes in line with Microsoft’s love and commitment to open source recent years, and mine alike.

In a nutshell, I am looking forward to innovations in all 3-tiers: Cloud, Server-side, and the Client (CSC), because the software development world is now more hybrid than ever before!

How do you think Open Source is affecting SMBs?

A simple enough reason to consider open source for Small and Medium-sized businesses is cost savings. SMBs usually start out with small investments, so lower up-front cost is the most lucrative reasons of all. Especially, when they are in startup mode, not generating revenues anytime soon, every penny counts. On the other hand, they may be in doubt with reliability and fear of lack of support of open source solutions. It often seems a potential risk to them particularly when there is no IT support in such small sized teams. However, automated tests, code coverage and load test results often help as convincing metrics to gain confidence on a piece of software that a group of people may have written in a highly distributed manner. If it is not a software intensive business, it may be wiser to decide based on projection of maintenance cost of the chosen open source solution in the long run, because there may not be developers in the team who can help reduce such costs if need be. Then again, open source offers you lower cost for experimentation.

How do you think Open Source is affecting enterprise level companies?

Enterprises choose open source for very different reasons than SMBs. Usually they have a lot of money, but very little frame of Time-to-Market to catch up or compete on time. Because time is one of the absolute critical factors to the success of the business, building is not always an option. Build vs. Buy is always a troubling decision, but the success with buying an open source license and tailoring it to the business needs often depends on the same software metrics that I have mentioned for the SMBs. Despite that fact, open source solutions are often used in the R&D departments before Enterprises actually go ahead and integrate into their existing solutions, so that they can reduce risks associating with adopting an alien piece of software into their currently running solution.
On the other hand, many proven open source solutions these days come with dedicated and professional support. They often collaborate with the Enterprises during development and rescue from disasters – from my experience it is no worse than calling the offshore center and crying out for help, rather often better. Additionally, many companies who have started out as open source, but taken their businesses seriously are as capable of delivering high quality software as just about any commercial company, and sometimes even better!
In the end, calculating ROI of open source is not always easy, but Enterprises can obviously take the freedom of it and make changes where applicable and see if it fits in their businesses, before they must purchase commercial licenses where applicable.

What do you make of Microsoft’s recent efforts in interoperability and to embrace the Open Source community?

Philosophically speaking, the world is neither completely black nor white. No matter how hard both try not to acknowledge the existence of each other, they remain strong in their positions and continue to signup people in their respective camps with their own charms and beauties. When both start to exchange each other’s strengths, it gets a new color called grey – a new partnership based on mutually inclusive benefits to achieve even more which was not possible otherwise. The bridge Microsoft has taken initiative of building between these two worlds does not only let us enjoy best of both, but also drives away the not-so-cool exclusionism we have been exercising in one way or the other over the past decades. In my opinion, with Interoperability, Microsoft has successfully caused to instill a brand new attitude towards software construction and consumption model which will definitely start to convince people in both camps to go hand in hand and build even greater softwares for a better and even more open world.

With new APIs, standards, tools, translators, converters, plugins, extensions, and ways of connectivity Microsoft is trying every possible way to treat open source community as the first-class citizen across the Cloud, Web Servers, Database and Windows ecosystem overall. I highly appreciate this initiative, although I must admit that Microsoft has a lot to achieve in this sector, however it’s better late than never.

How did you first get involved in Open Source development?

Back in 2004, I built a record management system project in Qt on Redhat Linux as a class project of “Object Oriented Programming – 2” course and I made its source available for no reason. That was my first going public with my code. Later that year, I also opened source to Planet Source Code (http://planet-source-code.com), later to Java.net Projects (http://java.net/projects/) of another class project that allows user to control a PC remotely and access its contents built on Java NIO technology. The responses and enquiries that I have received after that from many universities and educational institutes across the world including but not limited to those from Canada, UK, Italy, Pakistan, India, Malaysia, I started to realize the potential of open source and it opened the doors of my mind. Just so it is relevant, I must admit here that I still receive their feedbacks and request for support.

Since then I have been still working on Open Source development (http://tanzimsaqib.com/about/).

What makes you passionate about Open Source technology?

First of all, I like open source, because I can makes changes to those softwares according to however I like as well as fix bugs by myself without raising tickets or contacting support often times. Secondly, working with Open Source gives you the true sense of community. People across the globe get to know each other on a common ground, share perspectives, address issues, discuss potential resolutions, provide feedbacks, and offer support sometimes. Additionally, an open source project usually starts out to address a real life problem.

The Microsoft Cloud, Windows Azure™, is the place to be and you’re invited to the party. Everyone means everyone – all developers. Now that you know you’re invited, here are the what, when, where, and how you need to know to make sure that you don’t miss it.

WHAT

Without getting too deep into the technical details (that can go on for pages…there’s a lot of good stuff to talk about) or the marketing lingo, Windows Azure is a platform that allows you to focus on building and maintaining your applications as opposed to their infrastructure. It does that by providing resources and services, managed by Microsoft, against which you can program. You make the services do what you need them to do for your applications and have Microsoft take care of making sure that they work,that they’re always up and available,and that they have enough capacity for you to be able to scale your applications up or down based on your needs, as well as those of your users.

The best part – even though it is a Microsoft-based platform, you can use various different technologies, languages, tools, etc. to build your solutions.

We understand that there are many different technologies that developers may want to use to build applications in the cloud. Developers want to use the tools that best fit their experience, skills, and application requirements, and our goal is to enable that choice.

- Gianugo Rabellino, Senior Director, Open Source Communities at Microsoft.

That’s why this party invitation goes out to all developers. Back in the day, the Microsoft parties were for Microsoft developers. In other words, a platform from Microsoft meant that it was really only built to support Microsoft-based technologies. With Windows Azure, things are different, with support for .NET, SQL and Node.js, Java, PHP, MongoDB, Hadoop, Solr, and Memcached, and others.

So what does all of this mean? It means that you, as a developer, can build applications on Windows Azure using the languages, frameworks, and tools you already know, but now have access to scalable infrastructure that can meet your application’s exact requirements. For this party, you don’t have to go buy a new wardrobe or have to take etiquette classes. Come as you are and be who you are.

WHEN

Right now. Why wait for something to happen, requiring you to reactively change how you build and deploy your applications? Though that something can be a good thing (increased business) or a bad thing (not enough capacity to handle the increased business), you’re still going to be reacting. Think proactively.

IF you’re currently thinking or designing your next application THEN

You have a green field in front of you. It’s the perfect opportunity to try something new, something different.

IF you’ve already started building THEN

There’s still time. It’s a lot easier to make decisions and changes now than when your application is completed and in production.

OR IF you have existing applications that you’re thinking of taking to the next level THEN

Again, now is the time.

WHERE

Where do you need to go?

• windowsazure.com where you’ll get valuable information about the platform, videos that show you how to use the platform in your applications, and a scenarios tourthat brings all of the concepts described in the rest of the site down to real world examples, with the benefits of each of platform components explained as they relate to the scenario discussed.
• This blog and the Canadian Developer Connectionwhere you’ll get the latest news, resources, and help from members of the Microsoft Canada team.
• Canadian Developer Connection on LinkedIn where you can connect with 3500+ Canadian developers, IT architects, and community experts who are working with various development technologies. Ask questions, get opinions, and make the right decisions. Everyone in the group is there to help each other.

HOW

To join this party, you don’t need complicated driving directions.

1. Test out the waters – Before jumping in with both feet into the room, if you’re like most, you’re going to want to go step by step and get a feel for the room, the people, the opportunities, etc. Luckily, this party has a free trial and gives you free tools.
2. Give it a go! – By the time you’re done “testing the waters”, you will have deployed your application to Windows Azure. The only thing you’ll have left to do is announce that you’re there by simply and proudly yelling “I’m here!” and then enjoy the benefits immediately.

Doesn’t sound too difficult, does it? See you there.

 http://www.theopenforce.com/

What is your preferred Open Source platform and why?

For many people the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PhP) was the the ultimate deployment platform. And we use a lot of that technology, as well as a lot of Ruby on Rails, at Zendesk. But one of the things that is often surprising to people on the fringes of open source is how popular Windows is. At MySQL, about half of our downloads were for the Windows version. And of course, Windows is a great development platform with a lot of excellent tools, both commercial and open source. Most of today’s popular web companies are all built on open source technology. Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo, Skype, they’ve all deployed and contributed to the open source software community.

What other/upcoming Open Source technologies are you excited about?

I’m always keen to see innovation in programming languages and application frameworks as innovations there tend to help improve the overall quality of applications. Ruby on Rails has become incredibly popular in the last five years. It’s really become the de facto for a lot of new cloud based application development. I also think the Scala programming language and Lift framework are pretty interesting. There’s so much pain and suffering in Java programming, I’m hoping that these languages will put an end to Java as we know it! Java started out as a great idea, but it just got bogged down with too much complexity.
A little higher up the stack, there’s a lot of innovation taking place in Big Data with technologies around Hadoop, Cassandra, the R programming language for statistics, Kettle for ETL etc. When you’re dealing with Petabytes of data, there’s really no affordable solution other than open source. Even Microsoft has shown its support for Hadoop. It’s hard to say if any of the so-called NoSQL technologies will carve out a market as large as there’s been for SQL, but it’s great to see people try new approaches to these problems.

What Open Source platforms do you see as having the most important potential in the coming 12-18 months?

I think the next 18 months will be huge for Big Data and Hadoop in particular. The need to analyze large volumes of data will only become more important in 2012 and beyond. It’s great to see companies like CloudEra, Pentaho and Datameer addressing these problems. I think we’re entering into a renaissance of data analytics where the tools become much more adept at dealing with very large volumes of data. There’s also some fascinating technology for hybrid cloud platforms with Eucalyptus, OpenStack etc. There’s still a need to make these technologies easier and that’s when we’ll see Big Data go mainstream.

How do you think Open Source is affecting SMBs?

I think most SMBs are relatively unaware of open source. But even for those who aren’t familiar with open source, there are benefits. A lot of great companies have built cloud-based applications using open source technology and it’s made software and Software as a Service much more affordable. Companies don’t have to budget their first $10 million on buying a bunch of expensive servers and Oracle software anymore to get up and running. They can go with AWS or Azure and open source infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of traditional on-premise solutions. SMBs benefit when they use these applications, even if they’re unaware of it.

How do you think Open Source is affecting enterprise level companies?

I think open source has become a de facto standard for Enterprise infrastructure software. Whether it’s Linux, MySQL, JBoss, open source is in there. That’s been a great thing for Enterprise IT organizations. It’s enabled them to more easily scale their operations at a lower cost. And most cloud infrastructure has open source at the heart of it. So I think open source is very well positioned for the future.

What do you make of Microsoft’s recent efforts in interoperability and to embrace the Open Source community?

I think it’s great that Microsoft is more supportive of open source. It’s been a long time coming, but Microsoft has made a series of steps going back several years. As a platform company, Microsoft was always supportive of open source applications and system software running on Windows. But sometimes the applications groups got a little defensive. That’s understandable. I remember when MySQL first started using the Windows installer technology, I think that created some heartburn in the SQL Server team. But in the end, it’s all about giving people the broadest range of choices on the platform. For Microsoft to not support open source would be like not supporting the cloud. It’s not possible for technology to thrive in isolation. So Microsoft’s approach to co-existence is good.

How did you first get involved in Open Source development?

Early in my career I worked at Borland and helped create some very popular programming environments like Delphi and JBuilder. Later on I was in several successful Enterprise middleware companies. I saw a lot of very expensive CRM and ERP systems get put in place where companies spent millions and never got a great return on their investment. Just think of all the money that got spent on expensive Siebel implementations. It was money down the drain for most organizations. To me, that indicated a fundamental problem with the software industry. There were two important trends that came out of that: open source and cloud computing. I think both put the buyer much more in the driver’s seat. The economics of open source and cloud SaaS applications are much better than traditional expensive on-premise software. And as much impact as open source software has had in the last ten years, I think cloud is just getting started.

What makes you passionate about Open Source technology?

Every now and then there’s a massive platform shift in the industry. I see the cloud as the next big shift in computing, on par with the introduction of the PC or the web. Cloud based applications represent the consumerization of IT — delivering Web 2.0 quality for enterprise applications. And all of it’s being fueled by open source infrastructure. The next generation of enterprise software companies like Salesforce.com, Zendesk or Workday couldn’t be built without the underlying open source software. To me that’s pretty exciting.

Jeff ( @geerlingguy ) currently works for flockNote, an online communication company based in Texas, and collaborates on many projects outside of his work for flockNote. He contributes code to some open source mobile development tools for iOS and Android, and contributes code, documentation, and support to Drupal, and dabbles in many small projects for various needs. Jeff currently lives in St. Louis, MO, and has worked on hundreds of websites and online applications since 1997, when he bought his first Mac.

http://www.opensourcecatholic.com/

What is your preferred Open Source platform and why?
I use and contribute to Drupal, a web content management framework written in PHP that (normally) uses PHP, MySQL, and Apache, but can be run on Microsoft servers, Linux, Mac, etc.
I love the Drupal development community, and I have grown quite a bit in my understanding of programming, project management, and team-based development through my involvement in the Drupal community. Since using Drupal has given me many benefits when building most websites I build (not to mention time saved over using other platforms), I am compelled to contribute back a portion of my time (mostly during free hours outside of paid work) to help make Drupal better.
Drupal is extremely flexible, and continually improves at the pace of the web; for this reason, I can often incorporate snazzy new features in new and existing projects with minimal effort.

What other/upcoming Open Source technologies are you excited about?
I’m always looking for new projects that I can try out and help with. I’m most excited about trying to learn more of some of the platforms and languages upon which the web and web standards are built, so I can start working more towards advancing the web forward even further. While not specifically Open Source, standards like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript libraries like jQuery, CoffeeScript, and Node.js are frequent diversions.

What Open Source platforms do you see as having the most importance potential in the coming 12-18 months?
Almost anything based on using HTTP and other online transfer protocols is important right now, and will be for at least the next few years. Even more so for those platforms that are focusing on mobile technology (app development, mobile media delivery systems, and mobile-friendly CMSes). I’m excited about Drupal, WordPress, and some other great CMSes that are already working to be the best solutions for mobile websites and services.

How do you think Open Source is affecting SMBs?
In the past year or two, a lot more SMBs have been inquiring about moving from proprietary, in-house systems, to ‘the cloud’ and to Open Source solutions—especially for public-facing services. A lot of times, they want to integrate their existing database systems, CRM solutions, etc., with websites and other online properties, and that’s where Open Source Software is becoming the go-to solution.

How do you think Open Source is affecting enterprise level companies?
Many enterprise companies are looking for cost-effective ways they can make their operations more streamlined, and many times, there are Open Source solutions to their problems. One area in particular that I see becoming more prominent is the deployment of an OSS solution where there were many different proprietary products being used in the past, with many interfaces that didn’t work so well together.
Because of the modular nature of many Open Source systems, it is easy to add them into enterprise environments and get them working with different sets of data and different applications—many times the majority of the work is already done for the company in the form of contributed plugins, modules, and drivers!

What do you make of Microsoft’s recent efforts in interoperability and to embrace the Open Source community?
Microsoft is a much different company than I remember from my earlier years developing for the web. ‘Standards’ used to be supported, but not very well. Microsoft software used to be very tough to incorporate in any environment that wasn’t Microsoft-only. Nowadays, there are many components in the Microsoft ecosystem that are easier to work with. Microsoft has also been making strides into OSS communities like Drupal’s by extending a hand to the OSS community, in the form of resources, more conformity to open standards, and presence at major conferences and events.

How did you first get involved in Open Source development?
Through my web development, I’ve been immersed in OSS development for many years; I’ve used many Open Source CMSes including Mambo, Joomla, WordPress, Drupal, and DotNetNuke. Since about 2005, I’ve almost exclusively worked with open source software in my web development work, and had begun contributing back. But even before then, I had benefitted from, and appreciated, many great Open Source projects.

What makes you passionate about Open Source technology?
I’ve benefited from hundreds of OSS projects like ffmpeg, Adium, Handbrake, and countless libraries for Mac and Linux systems. I don’t think I can ever repay all the development communities from which I directly benefit in my daily work. I do what I can to contribute back; sometimes I support a project with a monetary donation, sometimes I contribute code, code reviews, or documentation. I like the fact that a group of like-minded people can get together and make great software (and hardware!) that helps make the world a better place, without any hope for profitability!
I do it for the love of the code, for fun, for kudos from fellow developers, and to making my own life easier.

If you say yes to one of those questions, I have good news for you: Confoo is doing another HTML5 training this year. The ConFoo HTML5 training session will be the ideal place to learn about these technologies during two full days. The web converges towards HTML5 for Web application, Website and now, mobile application too. It is critical to know what are the advantages, the actual limitations and the possibilities offered by this technology.

The training will be held on February 27-28 at the Hilton Montreal Bonaventure hotel by expert of the industry. Note that the training will be in French, but the trainers understands English. The numbers of seats are limited to 16, so hurry up. For more information and register for the training, go to the Confoo website http://confoo.ca/en/2012/session/html5 .

See you there and be ready for an awesome training!

1. technology x is way better than y
2. only real programmers use x
3. x is much better because it has feature z that y does not

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THAT

So one day when I thought I would educate folks with my brilliance, I proclaimed one of the items above. Assured of my myself, I assumed that everyone would just accept the facts I had laid out as an undeniable proof that x was better than y. Turns out I was wrong.

THE MISTAKE

Luckily a mentor of mine added to the conversation that depending on the problem, y may be a better alternative. Afterwards I spoke with him about the conversation and he helped me realize my mistake.

TYRANNY OF THE OR

I had fallen prey to what Jim Collins in his book Built to Last called “Tyranny of the OR”. My mentor described it as a “belief that there is only one perfect answer, approach or technique.” It MUST be x or y, it cannot possibly be x AND y!

Since having been interested in Design (no, not just making things pretty but wholistic Design), I have learned that I never asked the question:

“What are you attempting to do or solve?”

This is one of the symptoms you see of fanboism. It makes you think that there can only be one answer when you never really asked the right question.

WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

I think it is time that we stop thinking of the tech world in terms of OR, but try to be inclusive and make sure we are asking the right questions.

Have you seen examples of Tyranny of the OR? Is it a bigger issue in tech than in other industries? Do florists argue that sunflowers are much better than tulips in flower arrangements? If so, let me know in the comments!

Sometimes you hear about a cool new HTML5 feature and you want to explore it, but you don’t want to go through the hassle of building and deploying a web page to do it. This is when I love JSFiddle. It’s a sandbox for web development!

Let’s start with something really simple.

Go to jsfiddle and in the HTML pane type

<h1>Hello World</h1>

Then hit the Run button

Now you can see how your web page would look with that HTML in the Result pane!

Then maybe you want to try out some CSS3 features, so you add a little CSS to the CSS pane, maybe the border radius for creating rounded rectangles

If you want to try a little javaScript you can add that to the javaScript pane so you can even try out HTML5 features like Canvas!

When you are done you can  share your code with others! Cool tools make it easier to explore!