Today I'm staying at the Austin, Texas, home of Hank Jones -- also known as Henry W. Jones III -- proprietor of Intersect Technology Consulting. Hank is an intellectual property (IP) attorney specializing in Open Source technology. Last Friday, June 24, Hank was a featured speaker at the State Bar of Texas Intellectual Property Law Section's annual meeting and continuing education program. Hank talked about "Commercial Open Source."

Hank is on vacation now and is not here for me to record his video. Maybe when he gets back to work, he can take a week on IAOCblog and talk with us about Open Source? The ramifications of open source technology are enormous and germane to online communicators. The concept of Open Source in general is to freely give access to all sources used in the development of a product and, in many cases, to give up all claims of ownership or copyright. In software, the Linux operating system is an example of Open Source. The source code for Linux is free, and many of the programs that have been designed to run on Linux are also free.

As Hank points out, though, Open Source concepts are not limited to software. They include such things as manufacturing processes, formulas, and even publishing. Wikipedia is an example of Open Source publishing -- an encyclopedia that is free and open to everyone. No one owns it, and anyone can alter or augment it any time they choose.

One of the main advantages of Open Source technology is speed: moving to market faster, and improving products faster, thanks to the transparency of their creation. Open Source leads to such things as customer-designed products. In a sense, blogging has really given us Open Source news. Anyone can be a reporter at any time, and they can also help correct other reporters quickly and publicly online.

To get an annotated list of recommended reading concerning the open source movement, send e-mail to Hank Jones (memphishank@aol.com ) and ask for the Open Source reading list.

From Austin, Texas, I Remain,

STEVE O'KEEFE