Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Bossies 2013: The Best of Open Source Software Awards





InfoWorld – What do a McLaren Supercar, a refrigerator, a camera, a washing machine, and a cellphone have to do with open source? They’re
all examples of how a good pile of code can take on a new life when it’s set free with an open source license.


The same forces are turned loose in every corner of business computing, from application development and big data analytics
to the software that runs our desktops, data centers, and clouds. This year’s edition of our annual Best of Open Source Software
Awards rounds up more than 120 top projects in seven categories:


When the Android developers started releasing their operating system in 2007, they just wanted to colonize the world of mobile
phones. The iPhone was incredibly popular, and attracting any attention was a challenge. Choosing an open source license was
an easy path to partnerships with the phone manufacturers around the world. After all, giving people something free is an
easy way to make friends.


In 2013, something unexpected happened: The camera engineers noticed the explosion of creative new software apps for taking
photographs with mobile phones. Someone asked, “What if we put Android on our camera?” Now Android cameras with better lenses
can leverage the fertile software ecosystem of Android apps.


This is the way that open source software is supposed to work. Developers share, and software proliferates. Is it any surprise
that the folks at Samsung are now making an Android refrigerator? Or an Android clothes washer? Or an Android watch? Or that McLaren, the maker of overjuiced cars, wants the radio in its
car to run Android? Will there be Android in our doorbells, our cats, and our sofas? Only time and the programmers know. The
source code is out there and anyone can install it.


As in years past, this year’s collection of Bossie Award winners celebrates this tradition of sharing and cross-fertilization.
The open source software ecosystem continues to flourish and grow as old projects continue to snowball while new projects
emerge to tackle new needs.


The most successful projects, like Android, are finding new homes in unexpected places, and there seem to be more unexpected
places than ever.(( Throughout the Web and the enterprise, open source is less and less the exception and more and more the
rule. It’s in the server stacks, it’s on the desktop, and it’s a big, big part of the mobile ecology.


The server stack is growing increasingly open. Much of the software for maintaining our collection of servers is now largely
open source thanks to the proliferation of Linux, but the operating system is just the beginning. Almost everything built on top of — or below — the operating system is
also available as an open source package.




Netflash



Bossies 2013: The Best of Open Source Software Awards
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