Development by Davis: “Kansas City explores open government, civic life, and innovation” plus 3 more

Kansas City explores open government, civic life, and innovation
See the Steam client running on Linux; likely available by the end of the year
Teaching open source: Team operating principles that can be used on any project
Oracle v. Google shows the folly of U.S. software patent law

Kansas City explores open government, civic life, and innovation

Posted: 25 Apr 2012 07:00 AM PDT

The exploration of open government and civic participation in Kansas City has already begun. This weekend, a new chapter begins. A chapter that will include open source, open data, citizen engagement, a Bike Walk hackathon, and more. In fact, it might materialize into several chapters that could start with rapid-fire lighting talks and end with dueling mayors who are innovating beyond borders. And what would a CityCamp be without an unconference? That's a whole chapter by itself.

Meet Jase Wilson, a civic entrepreneur and CEO of Luminopolis. He's one of the main organizers for CityCamp Kansas City. Before I headed out to Kansas City this weekend, I wanted to know more about the event and the open government movement in the Kansas City metro area. Here's my interview with Jase Wilson.

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See the Steam client running on Linux; likely available by the end of the year

Posted: 25 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT

One of the most popular posts we've ever had on opensource.com was "Steam for Linux confirmed." Unfortunately it was last year's April Fool's Day joke. But check today's date--April Fool's is almost a month ago now, and this time you can actually see pictures.

Phoronix's Michael Larabel has long stood that the Steam client would eventually be released for Linux, while many others considered it somewhere between a persistent rumor and a dream.

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Teaching open source: Team operating principles that can be used on any project

Posted: 25 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Team operating principles: the open source way

Matt Jadud and Mel Chua have been friends of opensource.com from the beginning. Together with others they "are working on (the) Craft of Electronics, a curriculum for college-level electronics in a craft-first (and theory-sometime-later) format, through learning from, participating in, and contributing to the open hardware movement."

In efforts to explain what it means to operate in the "open source way," Matt wrote a set of guidelines for their team. We thought he was on to something so we've taken the liberty (with Matt's blessing, of course) to build on what he started. We think they make fine tips for anyone contemplating a project the open source way.

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Oracle v. Google shows the folly of U.S. software patent law

Posted: 24 Apr 2012 10:00 AM PDT

Oracle v. Google has all the ingredients of an epic, high-stakes courtroom battle: a damages claim of up to $1 billion over the use of Java in the popular Android operating system, testimony by both Larrys (CEOs Page and Ellison) in the first week alone, and, of course, the disposition of some interesting legal issues, not the least of them whether APIs can be copyrighted.

But, more than all of that, the case serves as an important teaching moment, illustrating much of what doesn't work in our patent system.