Mark R. Hinkle

The Software Freedom Conservancy has a plan to help all non-profit organizations (NPOs) by creating an Open Source and Free Software accounting system usable by non-technical bookkeepers, accountants, and non-profit managers. You can help them do it by donating now. To keep their books and produce annual government filings, most NPOs rely on proprietary software, paying expensive licensing fees. This is fundamentally at cross purposes with their underlying missions of charity, equality, democracy, and sharing. You can help Conservancy fix this problem by donating now. They seek to raise $75,000 to employ a developer for one year to make substantial progress on this project. Sounds like a good deal. Technorati Tags: accounting, Open Source, software freedom conservancy ... (more)

The Linux Foundation’s Collaboration – OpenDaylight Project – Open Source SDN

Today the Linux Foundation announced their newest collaborative project, the Open Daylight Project. “Daylight” is an open source project formed by industry leaders and others under the Linux Foundation with the mutual goal of furthering the adoption and innovation of Software Defined Networking (SDN) through the creation of a common vendor supported framework. OpenDaylight unites technology industry leaders to establish the largest SDN open source project to date, with the goal of a common and open SDN platform for developers to utilize, contribute to and build commercial produ... (more)

CloudStack Collab 2013 – Open Source Cloud Conference

This June 23-25 the CloudStack Community is holding their second open source cloud computing users conference in Santa Clara, CA. The conference is also your opportunity to share ideas, discuss plans for Apache CloudStack, and conduct workshops and sprints. There will be a hacker space where you can put ideas into practice assisted by members of the CloudStack development team. Here are some videos of last years conference featuring speakers from Apache CloudStack, Citrix Enstratius, RedMonk, Basho, Nicira, Disney, Jenkins, Jclouds, Hortonworks, Sunguard, Xen and many, many more.... (more)

LinuxFest NW Presentation – Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Open Source Cloud

This weekend I was at LinuxFest Northwest in Bellingham, Wa. I had the opportunity to see a lot of interesting talks. Here’s the talk I gave LinuxFest NW 2013: Hitchhiker’s Guide to Open Source Cloud Computing . Abstract: Imagine it’s eight o’clock on a Thursday morning and you awake to see a bulldozer out your window ready to plow over your data center. Normally you may wish to consult the Encyclopedia Galáctica to discern the best course of action but your copy is likely out of date. And while the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (HHGTTG) is a wholly remarkable book it does... (more)

Is Linux Desktop-Ready Yet...or Not?

Mark R. Hinkle: "Linux is ready for the desktop" In my view, Linux on the desktop is a viable operating system. It offers many features that are more innovative than commercial solutions. Virtual consoles, secure remote access solutions, true multi-tasking, and the ability to use robust journaling file systems all come to mind. Despite these advanced features, I have also noticed some parallels between Linux and some earlier versions of Windows. Let’s term these similarities as “growing pains.” I do feel that there are many cases today where Linux is an inadequate solution, speci... (more)