most recent 30 from http://fossfaq.com 2010-03-10T17:58:29Z http://fossfaq.com/feeds http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf http://fossfaq.com/questions/5/what-is-the-asp-loophole sogrady 2009-10-14T21:45:13Z 2010-03-06T03:25:01Z

<p>What does the "ASP loophole" refer to?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/59/how-do-people-handle-open-source-version-management Chris Bird 2009-10-29T19:16:52Z 2010-03-04T19:25:10Z

<p>We have several projects using a particular open source set of tools. When the project starts, the developers tend to go to the appropriate forge and download the current version of the tool. This leads us to a rather difficult deployment and support conundrum.The deeper the tool is in the software stack, the more troublesome this can be. For example with an open source ESB, attempting to run multiple versions in production can be problematic. Especially if they each have to be available on a specific server (for whatever reason).</p> <p>In cases where we use not-free, not-open-source software (e.g. the DBMS), we are careful about ensuring that we use the ihouse sopported version. For FOSS not sure what to do.</p> <p>We have considered having a private mirror where the acceptable version is mirrored and "encouraging" people to downoad from that. This approach has not been entirely satisfactory. What ideas does anyone else have?</p> <p>Thanks</p> <p>Chris</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/9/what-is-license-proliferation sogrady 2009-10-20T03:55:02Z 2010-03-04T18:25:30Z

<p>Every so often - in <a href="http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2008/05/standing-against-license-proliferation.html" rel="nofollow">conjunction with Google Code</a>, for example - someone brings up the topic of "license proliferation." What does that mean? </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/26/what-are-the-best-licensing-choices-for-cloud-providers-sdks-and-software Coté 2009-10-23T14:46:42Z 2010-03-04T18:25:30Z

<p>I talk with many cloud providers (be it any of the three asses, IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS) who're developing SDKs or tool-kits for developers to use to build on-top of their clouds/platforms. What are considerations for the licensing of these SDKs, and, thus, the best license choices? Do they even "need" to be open source?</p> <p>Examples here would be Force.com, Google AppEngine, Intuit's Partner Program, ZoHo, and so on.</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/19/is-there-a-good-open-source-alternative-to-microsoft-office Tom Raftery 2009-10-20T16:07:27Z 2010-03-04T16:25:14Z

<p>I try to get people to use open source software and with the likes of Firefox, it is a no-brainer, however, apart from browsers, the software people mostly use is Microsoft Office.</p> <p>OpenOffice still has a ways to go in terms of ui.</p> <p>Is there anything else I can recommend?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/3/what-does-reciprocal-mean-with-respect-to-open-source-licensing sogrady 2009-10-14T21:29:16Z 2010-03-04T16:25:14Z

<p>We're asked this one a lot: when we talk about the GPL, we generally talk about the "reciprocal" provisions of the license - what does that mean?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/54/yourownforge-or-sourceforge ragavan 2009-10-29T04:48:50Z 2010-03-02T04:23:51Z

<p>If you work for a corporation looking to release open source code, would you host these projects on a public forge (sourceforge, google code, launchpad etc) or would you create your own? If the latter, what are some good software options for hosting your own forge?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/15/why-would-you-choose-the-apache-license Dion Almaer 2009-10-20T05:47:30Z 2010-02-26T20:24:34Z

<p>Companies such as Google favor the Apache License (<a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/" rel="nofollow">http://www.apache.org/licenses/</a>) for a lot of their use cases.</p> <p>Why would you choose Apache versus GPL style? And, why would you choose Apache versus MIT?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/117/how-do-you-convince-an-entreprenur-to-go-opensource Colin Charles 2009-12-09T04:22:32Z 2009-12-10T21:01:59Z

<p>Yes, you're thinking - why should we convince anyone to go opensource, its the better, cheaper alternative, and all savvy entrepreneurs would use it. But the landscape (here, anyway) is a little different.</p> <p>Scenario: entrepreneurs are given grant money, to develop their product within a span of 12-months. Part of this package also includes Microsoft's BizSpark - 3 years free licenses for all needs, and you only pay on the 4th year (assuming you survive). They don't force BizSpark down anyone though - its just an option that is available. Its clearly easier to get Microsoft-trained developers - the market is gleaming with people that know .NET.</p> <p>To the entrepreneur, go-to-market faster, can definitely be useful. Say, "use Rails, and you can have a prototype out in a few months", and it should make their eyes go wide open. But hiring good Rails talent can be more difficult (esp. with the tiny amount of grant money).</p> <p>But the old adage that TCO is lower, or use it because its free, doesn't hold any longer. Entrepreneurs goal: go-to-market fast, survive, make money, profit!</p> <p>So, how would you convince the entrepreneur to choose opensource, considering she's got all this weighing in on her?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/92/open-source-project-management-options drose 2009-11-03T21:48:34Z 2009-12-04T21:08:31Z

<p>Hi - </p> <p>I work for a management consulting / strategy firm and we are interested in finding an open source solution that can help us manage multiple client engagements.</p> <p>We would ideally like to be able to provide each of our clients with web access to view the defined strategies we have laid out for them, the assigned tactics and personal needed to execute the strategies and some way of regularly tracking progress.</p> <p>Please let me know if anyone has suggestions for open source solutions / companies that might be a fit for our needs.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>David </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/21/are-there-any-good-open-source-video-editing-applications Tom Raftery 2009-10-20T17:30:51Z 2009-12-02T14:16:02Z

<p>I use the very basic iMovie to edit files from my video camera and from Skype video recordings.</p> <p>iMovie is fine for my needs in terms of functionality (well, I'd like more audio control) but if there was a decent open-source alternative, I'd certainly look into it.</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/96/whats-the-open-source-alternative-to-apple-time-machine sogrady 2009-11-09T15:30:25Z 2009-11-30T11:31:40Z

<p>There are obviously a wide variety of FOSS tools that handle various server backup tasks - we use Zmanda's ZRM package for our MySQL production database workloads, for example - but what do you use to backup your desktop? </p> <p>Basic <a href="http://rsync.samba.org/" rel="nofollow">rsync</a>? <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeVault" rel="nofollow">TimeVault</a>? <a href="http://flyback-project.org/" rel="nofollow">FlyBack</a>? <a href="http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/" rel="nofollow">BackupPC</a>? Something really cool that I've never heard of? </p> <p>Let me know, because I need a new fix. </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/69/where-is-the-best-place-for-me-to-go-to-see-a-listing-of-available-open-source-so Sara Dornsife 2009-10-30T18:56:51Z 2009-11-26T13:09:23Z

<p>Looking for a comprehensive list of all of the open source software available from any source.</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/103/foss-routers-vendor-project-list ctirpak 2009-11-13T17:48:18Z 2009-11-16T18:47:08Z

<p>I'm on a bit of a network related track recently. So this question goes somewhat hand in hand with my previous question about FOSS Load Balancing (<a href="http://fossfaq.com/questions/89/list-of-foss-load-balancing-software" rel="nofollow">http://fossfaq.com/questions/89/list-of-foss-load-balancing-software</a>)</p> <p>I have found two open source router offerings that are aimed directly at Cisco, Juniper, etc.</p> <ol> <li><a href="http://www.vyatta.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.vyatta.com/</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.xorp.org" rel="nofollow">http://www.xorp.org</a></li> </ol> <p>There other but they seem to mostly aimed at the home or SOHO router market - i.e. the Linksys/Netgear style routers you tend to use at home or a small business.</p> <p>Does anyone know of any others?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/89/list-of-foss-load-balancing-software ctirpak 2009-11-03T06:35:51Z 2009-11-05T04:29:50Z

<p>Does anyone have or know of a reasonably current list or review/comparison of FOSS load balancing software? Preferably that are capable of doing more than just HTTP traffic. I am currently looking to be able to do load balancing and disaster recovery. i.e I have a primary site that needs to perform load balancing intra-site and a DR site that needs to be activated by the global load balancer and then have load balancing intra-site when it gets activated. I am aware of products like Cisco CSS (not FOSS) and Zues (again if I am not mistaken, not FOSS). I have all sorts of services and protocols like LDAP, ssh, http, dns, etc that all need to be handled - preferably by one product.</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/93/deploying-a-django-opensource-application-with-dependencies Matt Katz 2009-11-04T02:25:37Z 2009-11-04T02:25:37Z

<p>I'm working with a friend on a web application we'd like to distribute and we're working in Django.</p> <p>I'd like to make sure deployment is as easy as possible for potential users. It seems that Django uses shared installed libraries alot and I'd like for folks to just need to download our latest version, unzip, edit a config file or two and get started, like wordpress etc.</p> <p>I'm used to the ruby on rails style deployment where you pistonize your gems and plugins into a vendor directory and that's all you need to rely on. </p> <p>What's the analogous django way to deploy an application with all of the dependencies bundled? I'd prefer not to have to use something like easy_install to pull down dependencies after install.</p> <p><a href="http://stackoverflow.com/questions/527510/how-to-deploy-a-python-application-with-libraries-as-source-with-no-further-depen" rel="nofollow">This Python Stack Overflow Answer</a> seems like it is on the right track, but is there a django specific way to go? Is this a solved problem?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/78/is-open-source-more-or-less-secure-than-proprietary-alternatives sogrady 2009-10-30T21:40:27Z 2009-11-03T18:18:48Z

<p>I'm not posting this, in case there's any question, to encourage a philosophical debate on the subject: I'll leave that other sites and blogs. </p> <p>I'm asking, rather, because it's a question that we get with some frequency. Worst case, it would be useful to have a placeholder for metrics, studies and the like which attempt to answer the question - either way - with data rather than opinion. Best case, we'll have an answer we can all point to in future. </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/7/whats-the-most-popular-open-source-license sogrady 2009-10-14T21:57:34Z 2009-11-02T15:08:20Z

<p>What is the most popular open source license employed by projects today?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/57/what-are-each-open-source-foundations-respective-positions-on-copyright-assignme sogrady 2009-10-29T17:37:43Z 2009-10-31T10:49:49Z

<p>When the CodePlex foundation was newly launched, one of its most interesting decisions was the copyright assignment policy. In essence, CodePlex requires that members either assign or jointly hold copyright to its assets with the foundation. If you're interested, I've got more on that <a href="http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2009/09/11/codeplex/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. </p> <p>I'd be interested in hearing more - from Microsoft as well as other foundations like Apache, Eclipse, Mozilla, et al - about their respective positions on copyright assignment, and their reasoning for it. </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/27/what-does-linking-mean-in-the-conext-of-an-ip-connection Bill de hÓra 2009-10-23T21:28:46Z 2009-10-30T23:30:12Z

<p>I understand the concept of linking into a FOSS client library, but does linking extend to IP connections made from your client software into an open source server, such as databases? Or put another, way, can you deploy a FOSS stack and not invoke the link clauses in licenses by connecting to the stack over IP?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/52/what-does-it-mean-to-fork-an-open-source-project James Dixon 2009-10-29T00:19:09Z 2009-10-30T18:47:27Z

<p>In various blogs and forums I hear people referring to 'forking a project'. What does this mean? </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/11/whos-using-the-apgl sogrady 2009-10-20T04:16:06Z 2009-10-30T08:40:20Z

<p>Mårten Mickos <a href="http://twitter.com/martenmickos/status/4708809749" rel="nofollow">mentioned</a> the other day that he's seeing "more open source companies starting to use the Affero GPL 3 license."</p> <p>Which projects are using the AGPL?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/1/what-the-hell-is-foss-faq sogrady 2009-10-13T18:07:41Z 2009-10-29T21:37:22Z

<p>What is FOSS FAQ? What's the intended purpose of the site? </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/16/why-should-my-company-participate-in-an-open-source-community Ian Skerrett 2009-10-20T13:16:52Z 2009-10-28T23:54:11Z

<p>I want to convince my boss to allow to participate in an open source community. How can I convince him?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/13/what-is-copyleft sogrady 2009-10-20T04:28:52Z 2009-10-28T22:31:36Z

<p>What is "copyleft," and which licenses can be considered copyleft? </p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/23/how-do-i-choose-a-license-for-my-project Josh Berkus 2009-10-22T19:47:26Z 2009-10-28T19:01:08Z

<p>The Open Source Initiative has over four dozen open source licenses available. Which one should I use for my software? How do I choose?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/33/where-can-i-find-a-list-of-open-source-licenses ctirpak 2009-10-27T16:08:39Z 2009-10-28T18:38:59Z

<p>Is there a comprehensive list of open source licenses?</p>

http://fossfaq.com/questions/34/apache-1-3-vs-apache-2-x ctirpak 2009-10-27T16:12:06Z 2009-10-28T18:10:00Z

<p>Other than in a deployment where I have to match an existing Apache 1.3 web server when would I want to use the legacy 1.3 server?</p>