The short version of this story is that Linus Torvalds simply liked penguins. When Linux users began to mention the need for a logo. Mr. Torvalds suggested the penguin.
This website has an email to the Linux community from 1996 outlining his vision for how the penguin should look. To sum up what Mr. Torvalds was looking for, he wanted the penguin to look satisfied, as though he had just stuffed himself on a meal of herring.
But again, you may ask, why a penguin? Well. Mr. Torvalds explained that as well. He has always adored penguins, and he wanted to separate Linux from the corporate OS. He thought the best way to represent an open source OS was with something goofy and fun.
Mr. Torvalds also felt the penguin was very universal, very much like his OS. Tux can be dressed up, posed, and altered to fit the individual user's needs.
Open Source For America
Open Source For America is an organization dedicated to promoting the use of open source technology to the federal government. The first point that jumped out at me was the idea of test driving before you buy. I had never thought of that being and advantage of open source, but I have personally witnessed several situations where companies have spent large sums of money on technology that didn't fill their exact need. If they had utilized an open source option, they could have tried it before they sunk money into.
As a taxpayer, that really hits home. When I reflect on the money that was spent by a small business on failed technology, it is $20 or $30k. That is a big hit for a small business. The federal government may spend millions or more on software that didn't fill the role it was intended to fill. With an open source model, the software can be tested before purchased, and in many cases, modified if it needs to be in order to fill a need.
In reading some of the case studies, I was again moved as a taxpayer. Open source software for earthquake tracking near brilliant. Earthquakes affect so many people all over the world, why not let those folks volunteer their time on development rather than spend tax dollar on just a few developers of proprietary systems.
As a former military person, the case study about the NSA and SELinux also hit home. Our national security is in all of our best interest to protect. It makes sense to allow thousands of developers to search for and fix security holes in our infrastructure, rather than a few select folks. Especially in an ever changing electronic world. A piece of technology that is said to have no holes today may be cracked tomorrow. The more developers working on the patch, the faster it will get fixed.
In short, this website opened my eyes to all sorts of new advantages and usages for open source technology.
As a taxpayer, that really hits home. When I reflect on the money that was spent by a small business on failed technology, it is $20 or $30k. That is a big hit for a small business. The federal government may spend millions or more on software that didn't fill the role it was intended to fill. With an open source model, the software can be tested before purchased, and in many cases, modified if it needs to be in order to fill a need.
In reading some of the case studies, I was again moved as a taxpayer. Open source software for earthquake tracking near brilliant. Earthquakes affect so many people all over the world, why not let those folks volunteer their time on development rather than spend tax dollar on just a few developers of proprietary systems.
As a former military person, the case study about the NSA and SELinux also hit home. Our national security is in all of our best interest to protect. It makes sense to allow thousands of developers to search for and fix security holes in our infrastructure, rather than a few select folks. Especially in an ever changing electronic world. A piece of technology that is said to have no holes today may be cracked tomorrow. The more developers working on the patch, the faster it will get fixed.
In short, this website opened my eyes to all sorts of new advantages and usages for open source technology.
Samba
Samba is Linux based file and print server. The rather interesting thing about Samba is that it is interoperable with Windows systems; meaning a Windows client can access the server as if it were accessing a Windows server. This interoperability is achieved by the use of the TCP/IP protocol stack. This is the same protocol stack that computer use to communicate over the Internet.
Newer releases of Samba now include active directory. Active directory allows network administrators to make global changes to the network by making those changes only on the server. Changes such as permissions and updates can be pushed out to clients in this fashion saving the network administrator significant amounts of time.
Businesses can use Samba to allow users to share files, thereby reducing network traffic because users don't need to email or ftp those files to each other.
Samba is release under the GNU public license and is free and open source.
Newer releases of Samba now include active directory. Active directory allows network administrators to make global changes to the network by making those changes only on the server. Changes such as permissions and updates can be pushed out to clients in this fashion saving the network administrator significant amounts of time.
Businesses can use Samba to allow users to share files, thereby reducing network traffic because users don't need to email or ftp those files to each other.
Samba is release under the GNU public license and is free and open source.