Happy Anniversary to Open Source! W00t!! Bruce Perens has just published "State of Open Source Message: A New Decade For Open Source."

The concept of open source has also hit the mainstream of the library world (although there have been many long-time proponents in the oss4lib, web4lib, code4lib communities!) with vendors like LibLime on the exhibits floor and talks about Drupal, Koha, Evergreen, VuFind etc and at ALA's 2008 midwinter conference. You owe it to yourselves, your libraries and your communities to find out about open source!

On February 9, 1998, I published the Open Source Definition and the public announcement of the Open Source Initiative that Eric Raymond and I were starting. This was the first time that the general public heard what Open Source was about. Friday, February 8 is the last day of Decade Zero of Open Source. Saturday, February 9 is the anniversary of Open Source and the start of Decade One. It's a computer scientist thing. We always start counting from zero :-) ...

...Most Open Source today is software being produced by its users, for its users ... By participating in Open Source development, users distribute the cost and risk of the development of enabling technology and infrastructure for their businesses. Their profit centers are not tied to software sales, but to some other business. To find them, look to the communities rather than the companies.