Efforts to increase the adoption of open-source software are being derailed by the efforts of a "loud minority" within the community who have made personal attacks on individuals who have expressed doubts about the software, according to one of the open-source movement's main advocates.

Is Oracle starting to show its true feelings for open source software? It's taken a few months but the effects of Oracle buying Sun Microsystems are starting to become obvious. And among them are a series of blows for open source software.

The open-source development model can can be powerful and incredibly beneficial for any software development project. Yet, even most open-source projects do not follow this style of development. Today, I want to talk a bit about why this is the case, and what can be done to set your project on the right path to enjoy the advantages of the open-source development process.

In reading through IDC's excellent report, "2007 Industry Adoption of Open Source Software, Part 2: Project Adoption," analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing observation in open-source software adoption. He apparently believes it is a weakness of the current open-source landscape, but I believe it is a strength. The observation? That IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies.

A non-profit open source project with high-profile backers has released beta code for an open source Flash media player, with a media server in the wings. Open Media Now's Gnash player runs standalone or as a plugin, and may run better than Flash on constrained devices.

Following Elephants Dream and Peach (to be released in April), both open-source movies sponsored by Blender, Blender, an open-source 3D modeling application, and CrystalSpace, another open-source project relating to 3D graphics, are starting out a new project - a 3D open-source professional game.

Three months after the previous update, the Songbird project has released version 1.8.0 of its open source media player, adding support for USB mass storage device class (also known as USB MSC or UMS) on Mac OS X systems and a number of new devices

Social media and open source are natural allies. This post explains how to use social media tools to promote your open source project.

North-by-South is a network of open source developers from all over the Americas. We work with companies to ramp up any software project--starting from scratch or helping with your existing website or application, specializing in open source solutions and rapid timetables.