After nearly half a dozen years my local library has finally give their site a make over! While it doesn’t valid its much easier to find thing and the catalogue search is blazing fast as compared to before. And WiFi hotspot in the library, all you need is your library card, this is big thing for me. All steps in the right direction which is to provide access to information to all.
Matt Asay posed two question about the future of open source in this posting. The first is basically what happens to open source if the world moves to computing clouds (as opposed to servers), the second is regarding open source commodifying enterprise software and what’s next.
Cloud computing, I don’t think this change anything and if anything it’ll help open source. Think about, a server for dollars a day that can be setup and replicated near instantly. At some point people will be selling server images for the varies computing clouds that will have everything ready to go, just upload, press the “start” button and select a few configuration options and instant server. This is already available in the virtual machine market, just check out the Virtual Appliance Marketplace at VMWare.
Some food for thought, not so long ago people where writing and openly sharing software, drivers, etc when main frames were the only computers around.
Update: case in pointPostgres is now available for Amazons cloud
Wired ran this article about a damaged sea floor cable that distributed Internet services and telecommunications in parts of the Middle east. Which brings a question to my mind, how “protected” are these cables? What’s stopping a speed boat loaded with explosives from ramming into the on-shore point of one of these cables? Or a barge loaded with depth charge type explosives from being sunk directly over a sea floor cable? While in North America with have huge pipes with multiple redundant trunks running from east to west, north to south, connecting continents and land masses is another matter. Satellites help, but don’t share the brunt of the load like fiber does.
UpdateSeem all it still not well in India and mid-east CUT UNDERSEA INTERNET CABLES SLOW INDIA’S CONNECTIVITY. This article talks about call center’s being shut down and phone bandwidth is limited.