[ad_1] We get a lot of rain in the Pacific Northwest, especially in the winter. But temperatures are also pretty mild, which gives us plenty of opportunity to get outside. Once we’re outside—provided that we’re paying attention—we can see and hear much of nature’s subtle beauty that is too easy to miss while running errands…

[ad_1] Web APIs have become ubiquitous in the industry, but many organizations are struggling to create platforms that are attractive and engaging to developers. Creating an API that developers want to use is not a simple task—it requires mindful planning and implementation, as well as some careful thinking about communication with the client developers. Additionally,…

[ad_1] If there is one area in which open source has never suffered it is a lack of events. From your big professional conferences right down to your friendly, local meetups, there is just something so delightfully fun about getting together in person to share ideas, learn from each other, and have fun. One of…

[ad_1] After over a decade of ownership of the product, Google announced just a few weeks ago that they will be closing the shutters for good on Picasa, a cross-platform photo viewer and organizer with basic editing capabilities. In the official announcement, Google has set March 15 as the end of support for the desktop…

[ad_1] Last month, D Ruth Bavousett wrote about creating sheet music with the Lilypond “music engraving program,” and it got me thinking about MuseScore—which she also mentioned in the article, but in passing—and what a powerful tool it is for musical notation. Therefore, in an a continuation of an unofficial musical notation series, I present…

[ad_1] “It’s important to recognize that informal leaders do emerge. And in less structured, less hierarchical organizations, they are a key part of the overall management system.” —Jim Whitehurst, The Open Organization When considering just how an open organization functions, one must think about governance structures that allow for decentralized leadership and decision making. The…

[ad_1] For years, the benefits of open source code development have been self-evident to the software development community: Transparency leads to collaboration, and collaboration leads to better and more secure code. The scientific community is just starting to understand these benefits. The growing open science movement is using these same lessons to make the scientific…

[ad_1] Collaborating on scholarly research projects can sometimes become complicated and disorganized. For example, using Flickr for sharing and commenting on images while communicating via email and editing documents together in Google Docs works, but it places information about the research in way too many places. Built on Drupal, the Getty Research Institute’s Getty Scholars’…

[ad_1] I saw Moriel Schottlender give a talk about this topic at linux.conf.au 2016 in Geelong last month and asked her to submit an article about it. When you watch her talk video and read her article, you’ll see why I couldn’t take proper notes to write about the talk, so I’m glad she contributed…

[ad_1] This is Part 2 in a two-part series about when selling a site means selling a community. Read When selling a site means selling a community. The SourceForge and Slashdot communities have had a much bumpier ride than the opendesktop.org communities over the years. I won’t go into detail about the ownership changes, but…