If you want to customize an open source tool, it may be simply a matter of handing it off to your IT department or hiring outside help. But what to do after you have a customized version of your software available?

The Open Source Ecosystem

The way that most proponents of open source tools hope you’ll move forward from that point is by sharing the customizations and changes your team has made and making them available for other users of that particular piece of software. Within your organization, there may be some arguments against doing just that. Some are legitimate: stripping out any information that would allow your competitors to learn about how you work from your customized software might be impractical, making it harder to protect your organization’s confidential information. Others may see the changes you made as proprietary, and that offering them for free is a waste of company resources.

Making those customizations available, however, can help you improve upon your chosen tool. The more users and developers are working on a given open source project, the less likely it is that development will stop — making it a useful investment for any organization relying on open source software.

The Core Developer Question

You could simply release your changes and customizations to the community that creates a particular tool, or you could take an active role in developing the tool in question, providing resources and help. There are certainly some benefits in taking a leadership role. You can help guide the development of your software, making it possible to implement key features that you may want. But taking a leadership role does take resources and time that you might otherwise dedicate elsewhere. It’s likely a question that only members of your organization can decide.

Of course, it’s very easy to get involved with most open source projects. The typical open source community can always use a few extra hands or a few extra dollars. If you make it clear that you’re interested in getting involved for the long haul, such communities will always find a way to bring you in and make use of whatever you can provide them with. It’s just a matter of deciding to get involved.

Does your organization actively support the open source projects it uses?

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Adium, the open-source multi-protocol instant messaging client for Mac OS X, which is well-liked by a number of our writers, has been updated to version 1.4. I’ve been using it in beta for what seems like an eternity, but the delay in its release is hardly surprising, given the huge number of new features included in the new version.

In addition to support for pretty much every instant messaging system on the planet, including IRC (which I don’t use) and several protocols I’d never heard of, Adium now supports one or more Twitter accounts. Twitter integration is interesting, as when a new tweet from someone you’re following is added, a popup window appears, just as if you’d gotten a new IM. Frankly, I follow enough people that I find the constant popups annoying. But if you have enough screen room, or are using Spaces, you could leave the window open all of the time.

I find Adium’s implementation of Facebook Chat to be very helpful, especially since it allows me to review past conversations through Adium’s chat transcripts; something that I don’t believe can be done through Facebook’s own system.

Adium’s real strength is its integration with Mac OS X, including the Address Book. It continues to support Growl notifications, and an extensive list of themes and add-ons, so you can customize the program in lots of ways.

Adium has also improved its group chat function, which is very useful since I find it to be an excellent tool for collaborating with my colleagues, including those who use Pidgin or other IM clients on their PCs.

Let us know what you think of the new Adium below.

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Setting web2Project Apart

Beyond being open source, web2Project is a robust project management tool that started life as a fork of dotProject in 2007. At that time, the dotProject team announced plans to rewrite the tool from the ground up. But several of the people who had worked on dotProject weren’t sure that starting over would be the best option. Keith Casey, now the lead developer of web2project, was among them, and had some key questions: “What happens to the thousands of installations and tens of thousands of users currently out there? And that’s not an exaggeration. I knew of three organizations using dotProject with more than 500 users each. All are on web2project now.”

Since then, web2Project has continued to grow. Casey describes the tool in two different ways. “For the project managers in the group, it’s closer to the PMBOK school of thought as opposed to the to-do list style of Basecamp. It has hours, rollup/dynamic tasks, dependencies, simple Risk Management, and even imports from Microsoft Project. For the geeks, it’s a PHP and MySQL-based system, fully compatible with both Apache and IIS out of the box. It integrates nicely with LDAP; publishes iCalendar for Thunderbird, Gmail, Outlook, and others; and implements a straightforward MVC model that allows custom module development.”

The web-based tool can handle projects with large teams, going beyond many of the web applications that are currently out there.

Why Open Source?

The benefit of using an open-source tool can be easily demonstrated with web2Project: There are many modules available, but writing your own is not out of the question for someone with experience working with PHP. The Module Builder Guide provides guidance for creating new modules and the web2Project leadership has ensured that the core system has built-in functions to make module writing easy and fast.

With web2Project, you also have the option of getting involved with the community and looking for help with the features your organization particularly needs. Casey notes, “I think the biggest benefit [of open-source products] is the ability to participate in the product development. If Microsoft Project only fits 60 percent of your needs now, it will support 60 percent today, tomorrow, or a month from now. Even if web2project only fits 50 percent of your needs now, tomorrow it could be 55 percent and next month 60 percent. The opportunity to give feedback and see ideas become features is unique and empowering.”

The Future of web2Project

Web2Project is dedicated to regular updates. There are already plans in place for some specific future features, according to Casey. “The big feature we’re missing is financials. Web2project collects the individual pieces of data but we don’t put it into a coherent picture that would be meaningful to a project manager. Towards that goal, we’re actively recruiting project managers and soliciting feedback, but we need more.”

Let us know what you think of web2project in the comments.

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My full-time corporate gig is as a community manager for an open-source developer community. The community mainly comprises no-nonsense, no-frills people who love some old school tools. The fancy graphical environments in the latest and greatest collaboration web apps just get in the way of power user developers who know every trick in the book to get the most out of tools like IRC and mailing lists. Keep in mind that open source communities tend to have people — from corporate developers to passionate enthusiasts — collaborating across the globe in every time zone to develop software that we use every day. They know a thing or two about collaboration, and they use the tools that work. I had stepped away from hardcore developer communities for a couple of years when I was consulting, and in coming back to these established tools, I’m rediscovering why they are so useful for collaboration.

IRC / Group Chat

The best thing about IRC or Group Chat is that you can set up a place for your team or your project where people can drop in and out to ask questions or just have conversations with other people working on similar projects. It’s kind of like the water cooler, if you want to get even more old school, where people gather to talk about both work and social topics. Because it’s real-time chat, you can get quick feedback even when you don’t know exactly who to talk to because you are reaching out to a group of people with similar interests or similar jobs.

Lately, we’ve also been holding quite a few scheduled meetings in IRC, and it is a great way to get a lot accomplished very quickly. By scheduling it, you make sure that you have the right people available and anyone can participate as long as they can get some type of internet connection. We also make the logs available, and we use MeetBot to capture minutes of the meeting. This allows people to miss the meeting, but still see a full, unfiltered record of the meeting in the logs along with a summary of the meeting from MeetBot if they just want the highlights.

Mailing Lists

By mailing lists I mean both traditional mailing lists, like LISTSERV, or more recent additions like Google Groups. The fact that I love mailing lists is a bit odd, since I hate email. Part of what I love about mailing lists is the control that you have over how you receive the information. Most lists allow you to get every email immediately, or in a daily digest depending on how you prefer to interact with the list, and many of them allow you to turn the email off entirely when you go out on vacation. That way, your email doesn’t pile up, but you can skim through the online archives when you get back to catch up on the big news. Regular email just doesn’t have that flexibility.

The reality is that everyone uses email, and mailing lists are a great way to collaborate with a group of people without accidentally leaving anyone out of the loop. It’s too easy to forget to copy every person on the team when communicating with a group of people. The online archives are also a great way for new members to learn about the project and get a sense for the history of the group, and it gives you a place where you can always look back at the conversations when you forget some important detail.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the new tools, too. I get a tremendous amount of value out of tools like Twitter and the newer collaboration suites that have social networking and plenty of bells and whistles built-in. However, sometimes you just need something quick and cheap that just works. Just because a technology is old doesn’t mean it can’t rock.

What are your favorite “old school” collaboration tools?

In a way, the name isn’t entirely fair. Forums created through the service have plenty of features, including:

• The ability to control how public the forum is.
• The ability to assign users to several different roles. Each role can be assigned a different level of access, and can even be allowed to invite a certain number of others to join the forum if desired.
• Email notifications of posting activity.
• The ability for users to participate in private conversations.
• Basic spam filtering, through limiting the number of posts and length of comments.
• User profiles and avatars.
• Search capability.
• A customizable URL, like your_name.vanillaforums.com.

What the hosted version of Vanilla doesn’t have, at least right now (the current release is 1.1.8, but version 2 is in beta).

• Themes. If you want a look other than the standard blue-and-white design, you’ll need to host the package yourself (see below).
• Documentation. The hosted version has zero help, although the service does use tool tips and panes with helpful hints like “Here’s some stuff you might want to do.” But I found using the site to be pretty simple.
• Clarity on pricing and features. I’m not sure what storage and activity limitations may be placed on the free hosted version. The web site does mention a premium service, although I couldn’t find anywhere that lists features and prices.

The Vanilla open-source software package for forums is also available, if you want to host a forum yourself. It’s set up so that you can add CSS-based themes, or create them yourself. There is, by the way, considerable documentation for this version, including a wiki and (guess what?) a discussion forum.

All in all, Vanilla Forums is a surprisingly robust alternative to other discussion forum options, and may appeal to those who don’t want to deal with hosting a discussion forum, or who don’t want the hassles of managing something like phpBB.

Have you used Vanilla Forums? What do you use for discussion forums?

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Open source blogger Matt Asay captures a big part of why VLC Media Player may be the best player on the planet:

“One of the amazing things about VLC is that it can play anything that you’ve ever even thought about playing. That random media format that one site in Ecuador requires–VLC likely plays it, while Windows Media, Apple QuickTime, etc. likely will not. This is, in part, a natural result of VLC’s open source heritage.”

Because a global community of users iteratively improves VLC Media Player, it can handle many obscure video file formats. I almost never trip VLC up by throwing a new type of file at it.

It’s also true that because of the widespread open-source community that contributes to VLC Media Player, and all the plug-ins that extend it, it’s easy to miss many of the under-the-hood features it has. You can use it to broadcast your own video and audio content; you can use it as a video transcoder for converting video file formats,;you can listen to and manage podcasts with it, rip DVDs, watch DVDs and much more.

I addressed how to get up to speed on many of the non-obvious nice features that VLC has in this post on OStatic.  There, you’ll find tips and tricks on doing logos and effects for videos, instructions on how to broadcast your own media, and a free online guide that takes you from installation to advanced tasks in a visual tour. These can be particularly helpful for an open-source application, because good documentation is often a weak point in the open source arena.

I also previously covered the new portable version of VLC Media Player here. This is a lightweight version of the application that you can use to view and work with video and audio anywhere, perhaps toting it on a USB flash drive or a netbook.

If you haven’t used VLC Media Player, and especially if you’ve stayed tied to default media tools such as Windows Media Player, give it a trial run. The price is right, and you may agree with me that VLC is outstanding.

Share your VLC Media Player tips in the comments.

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But as Paisano wrote recently, current conditions won’t last forever. Many sites will eventually become fee-based; others will shut down when their funding runs out, or when their owners decide to move in a different direction.

So when I evaluate a product that I’d like to incorporate into my company’s workflow — especially a product that will be visible to clients — I try to consider the product’s feature set, along with the issues raised in Judi’s 2007 WWD post. I also ask the following questions:

• Is the product open? Like a lot of people, I prefer open source projects. But I will consider proprietary systems if I am comfortable with how my data is stored and backed up, and whether the product allows me to do my own backups.
• Does it use standard formats that are easy to import and export? If the product will interface with my existing data, I need to evaluate how much work it will be to prepare the data for use by the new product.
• Can I host the product or software myself? Because my company does web hosting, we have easy access to web servers, bandwidth and backup systems. Therefore, I tend to prefer software that we can host ourselves. Maintaining a web server isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, although most of the major hosting companies make it really easy, as long as you’re willing to keep up with security patches and so on.
• If I can’t host the software myself, how reliable and robust are the product’s servers? Of course, even major services (like Gmail) have occasional outages. Here in Seattle, a fire caused a significant outage for many web sites just a couple of weeks ago. So I need to decide how my company will deal with such outages if we adopt the software.
• How will using this product affect my bottom line? Managing any new product requires investing time and resources to install, set up, maintain and troubleshoot. Proprietary services are priced many different ways, and may require an up-front cost, plus continued license fees or service contracts. And while open source products don’t require license fees, many open source software companies offer service contracts. I need to decide whether I want to invest in such a contract, or whether I think I can rely on the user community. Whether open source or not, it’s always a good idea to look at the complexity and maturity of the product, how likely it is to need support, and how active the user base is.
• What is my exit strategy should the product no longer be available? I need to decide how I will get my data, and plan for alternatives, if the product goes away.
• How likely is it that the service provider will be available in the long run? This one’s tricky, since as a small businessperson, I’m hardly in a position to see, much less analyze, the business plans and financial statements of every producer I consider. But there is a fair amount of public information available, so I need to do what due diligence I can.

It’s never possible to plan for every contingency. I had to scramble to replace my Sunrocket VoIP service when that company ceased operation, and I still have some SyQuest backup disk cartridges somewhere for which no players are now available. But with a little common sense, it’s possible to avoid putting all of our technological eggs in one basket and becoming too dependent on any one service.

How do you evaluate what new services to include in your workflow?

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In a post over on OStatic, “Open Source Skills As a Job Seeker’s Key Differentiator,” I provided the following chart showing percentage growth data from Indeed.com for jobs related to various content management systems:

As you can see, the growth in demand for people skilled in open-source CMS platforms, in particular Drupal and Joomla, is huge. Part of the reason these particular platforms are ushering in more jobs for tech workers is that many publishers are switching to free, open-source content management systems from expensive proprietary ones. (In this post over at OStatic, I discussed that shift, and how the first major online publication in the UK is now running completely on Drupal.)

The fact that PHP is a hot ticket in the development world is just one of many more examples where open source skillsets can be very valuable in the tech work arena. In a column for ComputerworldUK, noted open source pundit Glyn Moody points out that Google’s recently announced Chrome OS could usher in many jobs in open source, especially for Linux-savvy folks who can support the new operating system. Moody also cites data showing that Linux-related job opportunities have fallen at a much slower rate than other types of tech jobs in the down economy.

What’s really going on here? Many people think of open source as a non-mainstream, highly technical and specialized field. That is rapidly changing, though. In fact, it has already changed. It used to be that many open source components were built by developers for other developers, and weren’t fully realized platforms with application ecosystems orbiting around them. Now, promising open-source platforms are flourishing, and bringing jobs with them.

Google has not one but two open-source operating systems: Android and Chrome OS. Apache remains hugely popular among web servers. Red Hat is a successful public company posting strong financial results with its business model of services and support for open-source software. Startups such as Cloudera and Eucalyptus Systems are emulating that model for other open-source software offerings. Firefox is taking away market share from Internet Explorer every month. The list goes on and on.

It’s always been a truism that being a specialist can help you stand out from other job seekers. Now, increasingly — and even in one of the most depressing job environments in recent history — open source skills represent a way for tech job hopefuls to seek out new opportunities.

Have open source skills helped you get a job?

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Look for organizations that you can work with online. Many non-profit organizations have some volunteers working only through the Internet. The United Nations has a database of online opportunities for which you can apply. NABUUR is another online volunteering platform that connects local communities with online volunteers. For both sites, you can choose from a variety of tasks, including research, translation, writing, design and much more.

Just remember that if you’re going to work with an organization on a specific project, such as redesigning its web site or setting up an online marketing campaign, treat them as you would your regular clients. Have a contract ready, make a list of deliverables, and define the project scope so that everything is clear to both parties. Also, be aware of the disadvantages that can come with working on projects for free.

Offer your help to non-profit web sites. If you have an erratic schedule and can’t make specific time commitments to an organization, you can turn to web sites that are looking for volunteers. If you’re a programmer, you can help fix bugs on an open-source application. For book lovers, proofreading for Project Gutenberg and reading for Librivox are good options.

If you prefer to work independently, you can use message boards and social networks to answer tech questions for free, or even upload tutorial videos to share your expertise.

Use social media to promote causes you care about. Most web workers are usually very active on social media sites and have blogs. You can easily use these tools to direct your contacts to the causes and issues you care about. Through this you can help raise awareness, find new donors, or encourage other people to volunteer.

Participate in online movements. There are several cause-oriented online activities that you can participate in, such as Blog Action Day , Stand Up or Train for Humanity.

If you’re interested in doing volunteer web work, here are some additional resources that can help:

• Myths About Online Volunteering from Coyote Communications.
• Virtual Volunteering Resources from ServiceLeader.org
• Volunteer Match allows you to search for organizations you can work with.

Cause-oriented web work can be very fulfilling, both emotionally and professionally. Go on, get involved!

Have you ever considered online volunteering? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

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This new level of openness and willingness to interoperate with other software stressed Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, is more than either cosmetics or bowing to EU legal pressure. “This is a very important shift in how each and every engineer at the company views what their mission is and what their job is,” said Ozzie. “This is an important announcement for the engineers at Microsoft, for our partners, our competitors and our customers.”

Microsoft will be releasing today at MSDN.com over 30,000 pages of API and communication protocol developer information on its major products: Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Exchange Server 2007; with more info coming by June on Windows Vista (including the .NET Framework), Office 2007 and Office SharePoint 2007. Also, the company says it will be launching an “Open Source Interoperability Initiative. To promote and enable more interoperability between commercial and community-based open source technologies and Microsoft products, this initiative will provide resources, facilities and events, including labs, plug fests, technical content and opportunities for ongoing cooperative development.”

Further, according to the statement: “Microsoft is providing a covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols. These developers will be able to use the documentation for free to develop products. Companies that engage in commercial distribution of these protocol implementations will be able to obtain a patent license from Microsoft, as will enterprises that obtain these implementations from a distributor that does not have such a patent license.”

During the conference call, Ballmer could not resist adding that commercial use patent licenses would be “readily available for the right fee”, but the promise not to sue non-commercial open source developers who tap Microsoft’s API is a marked departure from previous lawsuits and threats.

“Ignore the puffy press release, which makes it seem less substantial than it really is,” said respected industry observer, Joel Spolsky. “The bottom line is that they released a TON of useful documentation today will be very helpful for people trying to interoperate with Microsoft’s products… this should only help Microsoft in the long run. It’s a surprise that they didn’t do it sooner.”

European Union regulators fined €497 million Microsoft in 2004 citing its unwillingness at that time to adequately license and document the communication protocols used by its server products, voice skepticism today, noting they have seen four similar pronouncements from the company.

When Ballmer was asked by a reporter on the conference call since (in Ballmer’s words) this new move toward openness was critical, why wasn’t taken sooner, he replied, “Well, these steps are being taken on our own. There were certainly things we did to get into compliance with the European (Union) Commission’s decision and the consent decree here in the United States. But these principles are being taken on our own accord, and do reflect the reality of our unique legal situation, but also quite frankly what we see as the new opportunities and risks in the more connected world.

“The world we grew up in was primarily a world of individual machines with people writing programs, with the greatest value add coming frankly on the machines that ran our products. In the more connected world… what will be one of the greatest value adds will be in some senses what people do on the other end of the wire. And opening up, particularly for our high volume products The combination of the new environment, the new opportunities it presents for our customers, for developers to add value around our products – there are risks that come with it, but on balance its consistent with what we will be doing anyway from a legal perspective and is pro-customer and frankly net net should be in the long run a good thing for our shareholders.”

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