Because wikipedia is open source, I can modify anything I want. But what happens if someone deletes, adds bad content, modifies useful content ? What does wikipedia do to prevent that ?
The last question is available for any other open source software: linux, php etc. How do they know which contribution is useful and which is harmful ?
Thank you.
Trolltech ASAis a Norwegian company with its headquarters in Oslo, Norway, that is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange. The company was founded in 1994, by Eirik Chambe-Eng and Haavard Nord (although they had actually begun writing Qt in 1991).
Trolltech’s principal product is Qt (pronounced "cute"), a multi-platform framework for developing applications – originally GUI applications only, but since version 4, also suitable for use in developing console-based programs and server applications. As well as cross-platform functions for developing GUIs, Qt includes a wide variety of other useful functions, also cross-platform, such as functionss for multi-threading, database access, XML parsing, file manipulation, internationalization, etc.
The Qt framework has been used to develop a wide variety of applications. These include KDE, a popular desktop environment (in fact Trolltech employs several KDE developers), as well as the Opera web browser, Skype, Google Earth, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and OPIE (Open Palmtop Integrated Environment). Qt itself is written in an extended version of the C++ programming language (a special preprocessor is used to add features to standard C++), but the toolkit can in fact be accessed from a variety of programming languages including Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Pascal, C#, and Java, as well as C++.
In 2001, Trolltech introduced Qtopia, a version of Qt adapted for applications on devices running an embedded version of Linux, such as mobile phones, PDAs and other consumer devices. In 2004, a version of Qtopia for smart phones, called Qtopia Phone Edition, was introduced. Qtopia Phone Edition has been subsequently used by Trolltech themselves in their own brand smart phone, named "Greenphone", which they began selling in 2006.
Author: Sunil Tanna
First published at http://www.osgram.com/news_companies_trolltech.php
Discover the latest Open Source and Linux news at http://www.osgram.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sunil_Tanna
This is a very interesting article that discusses the use of Open Source software and how each particular software was chosen to fulfill the needs of the company as they are starting their business.
As we started the project of our web site, we knew that the proprietary software costs would be too high for our financial resources. Our only option then was to make use of Open Source Code softwares.
However, within the Open Source Code there are lots of softwares to choose from, and its up to the system analyst/programmer to pick the ones that best suit the project goals.
In our case, we picked Linux as our operating system. However we faced a big question: Which Linux distribution ? There are dozens of linux distributions, each one with specific advantages, sometimes with or without paid services.
We chose linux Slackware because we thought that it would suit better our needs, in terms of stability and reliability. Slackware is a conservative distribution, meaning that it only offers in its distribution package kernel versions and third party libraries, once its been proved to be stable and reliable. As a result, Slackware is one the most stable Linux operating system on the market. If the user wishes the most recent Linux kernel and libraries, we recommend to look for a different distribution.
Another reason for us picking Slackware, was because of its text interface, which at the beginning may become a bit difficult, in the long run however it offers a better understanding of the Linux environment. This way most of Slackware configurations are done thru text scripts.
Once it was set the operating system, we picked Apache as our web server. Apache is one of the most popular web server in the internet. For server programming language, we chose PHP. Also, a very popular programming language. Our experience with Apache/PHP proves that this setup is very reliable, working extremely well in our production environment. For workstation programming language, we chose javascript, which besides of having a simple syntax, it offers lots of resources.
Apache web server is really a complete web server. Also, it can become very complex with many configuration setups.
For our database, we picked Postgresql. This database has been made available to the public for more than 15 years, and besides of being well debugged, it offers so many resources that it has become one of the best database options from Open Source Code softwares. Extremely reliable, Postgresql has reported cases where there have been databases in production with over 4 terabytes. Besides all of that, Postresql is not the most popular Open Source Code database. A matter of marketing ? Probably.
As for the programming language PHP, we had to use an object oriented application structure. There are many PHP application structures being offered with Open Source Code license. Object oriented application is very important, because it makes programming very easy and scalable up to the point where the system may grow without many problems. Also, it helps to keep PHP code separated from HTML, with the help of some specific libraries, such as Smarty. We make use of Smarty library and we believe that it is a very important resource, which can even make web pages faster thru the use of its cache functions.
Also a very important set of libraries worth mentioning for PHP systems, is the PEAR libraries. In PEAR web site, among the many libraries being offered, there are the database interface DB and the MAIL_QUEUE, which sends emails thru the use of database.
As we came to the end of our project, we had to use some sort of real time database replication. For that we chose the DRBD and Heartbeat libraries. The use of database replication is very important and should not be postponed. Just after 3 months our system got into production, our server hard disk became bad. Thru the use of DRBD/Heartbeat we were able to put the system back into production within seconds, without loosing any data. DRBD/Heartbeat replication is done thru the use of a lan network between the server and slave nodes.
Our project also makes use of ImageMagick (enlarge and reduce images), Iptables (firewall), Tsearch2(text search in portgresql) and Mon (linux monitoring tasks).
Also a very important library worth mentioning is the pseudo APC compiler for PHP. Speed is always a critical factor for internet sites.
Our web site is already in production and based upon our experience we can say that the Open Source Code softwares we picked, proved to be extremely reliable and stable. Open Source Code softwares can certainly be an excellent option for developing web sites.
This article is under GNU FDL license and can be distributed without any previous authorization from the author. However the authors name and all the URLs (links) mentioned in the article and biography must be kept.
Dan Ariely devotes a whole chapter to “free” in his most excellent book Predictably Irrational, and since deploying open source software is not without cost (in either time, money or both) it can be misleading.
Is All Open Source Software Really Free?
When software developers and architects select open source software over commercial alternatives, there is often a premise that because the software is free, (as in beer vs. speech) there is zero cost associated with the choice.
Reassuring End Users Of Open Source
Furthering the adoption of open source software (OSS) is often seen as a natural, contagious progression as more developers and users share with others about the success of their projects. But how can an open source project even hope to compete with proprietary commercial products with massive marketing budgets and staff?
What are the benefits of using Open Source software?
There are many standard open source software packages that can increase productivity in any office environment.
Open Source programs may be developed, improved and maintained by a community of programmers, but its programs can be useful to computer users of all levels. There are thousands of Open Source programs you can use to do just about anything on your computer. Here are a handful that you might find indispensable.
Create a blog. WordPress is an Open Source application that can be used to design and publish a blog. If you have any programming skill, you can create an entire website, including static and blog pages, using WordPress.
Go online. There are several Open Source web browsers available for Mac and PC, including Mozilla Firefox and Camino. Mozilla Firefox is considered by many to be one of the top browsers in the world.
Use your computer. There are many Open Source operating systems available, but Linux is one of the most widely known. It’s supported by many proprietary computing companies including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, IBM, and Novell.
Write documents. OpenDocument, NeoOffice, AbiWord, and Bean are all Open Source word processing programs.
Run Windows software on a Mac. The Q Emulator program will allow Mac users to run Windows software on their computers. The program can be slow for some models, however.
This list only scratches the surface of how computer users at all levels can use Open Source programs. Open Source programming makes effective, well-designed software open and available to everyone who wants to use it, share it, or improve upon it.
About the author: C.Smith works for www.on365.co.uk the UK-based server management and data centre management Company. For more info on server rooms visit www.on365.co.uk/Server-Room-Solutions.aspx.
| By Chris Smith Published: 10/24/2008 |
Where Open Source and Government Meet
The Obama administration recently excited the world of open source software by choosing to launch recovery.gov on Drupal. Their choice of a free, open source platform over any proprietary system is as hopeful and promising as the wave of the future.
Why should someone have to have a background in computer science to get value out of open source software? Of course projects like the Linux kernel, which is used by millions, have relatively few people contributing back.
Essential Open Source Resources
It discusses Piwik (open source web analytics software with useful plug-ins from the community), Kompozer (a very popular web development environment, especially for CSS fans), and OpenX (a free, open source ad server for monetizing