There’s very big news in the open source world today, as O’Reilly has launched Sourcexchange, a service which will allow companies to submit software projects for bidding by open source developers. The winning bidder will write the code, some independent group will “peer review” the code, and then the developers will be paid the amount of the bid. The catch is that the code has to be released under an open source license after the project is complete. This could be an incredibly interesting development in the computer industry. Andrew Leonard has the story over at Salon.
The Microserfs working on contract have won in court again in their ongoing quest to get real benefits from Microsoft. It’s probably a good thing for the industry that the courts are realizing the way that contractors are abused. Obviously, some people prefer to work on contract, but keeping someone who’d like to work for a company full time on contract for years is pretty unfair.
Steve Ballmer is spewing more crap about Microsoft releasing some of Windows as “open source” software. This is exactly what’s wrong with the term “open source” in the first place. Even if Microsoft lets people read the source code to their software, customers won’t be free to use it as they wish.
There’s a new Perl magazine out on the ’net … Perlmonth.