[Originally published on the Open Source Small Business blog, in January 2008.]

I’ve seen a lot of code in various languages. As a technical writer, I used to write documentation for programmers teaching them how to use a particular interface or system. I’ve been involved with traditional software development projects at large software companies and startups. And I’ve done my share of actual programming of web applications.

So here's what I think happened. A bunch of attorneys got really ticked about their computers crashing all the time.

I just gave a presentation on Hacking Business Models and Open Source Business.
For those interested, here's my slide deck...
Cheers,
John
 

As the dust begins to settle across the tech industry from the recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems by rival Oracle, a number of projects in the Open Source community, including Drupal, will have major strategic decisions to make that could deeply impact their future success.

John Locke was an in-studio guest of Chris and Bryan on the Linux Action Show, Season 10 Episode 2. The conversation centered on how to make an open source business, and went for nearly an hour and a half.

Check out the video recording below.

For audio, go to Jupiter Broadcasting to download the episode.

I consider myself a pretty tech savvy kid, you may even call me a mid-term adopter of all things tech. But there is one project that has offended me more over the past few months that has finally pushed me to post a blog against it.

Ksenia asks, how difficult is it to move all our stuff from Media Temple to SliceHost? I want to be able to make changes on site any time myself.

We have a fundamental problem with the structure of public companies in our business economy. For too long, public companies have been held accountable to one single standard: its stock price.

So one of my biggest issues with using Open Source technologies here at Freelock comes with perhaps the easiest task most business people do on a day to day basis, and that is using a piece of office productivity software and sharing it with someone else.

We get a lot of questions about how to fight spam. For the most part, it's too late when it reaches your email program--but on the mail server, there are several tactics we employ to minimize what reaches your inbox.