The nerds get their turn - comment

What attracted me to writing this article was the popularity of this topic amongst my fellow KCB201er’s. I noticed, whilst searching through my del.icio.us network, that a number of other users had addressed the concept of open source software. After reading through a number of these blogs and posting comments to those that most interested me, i detected several irregularities in the content of several blogs, the way references were being interpreted but most importantly how the information was being used.

One of these users went under the blog, ‘Online Discussion Journal and Peer Review’. This fellow user was Mark Peter Allen, and just like many of the other bloggers had utilised the Open Source Initiative website. In particular Allen had used this website to support his definition of open source software, in particular the criteria distribution terms software must meet to be considered Open Source. What i found interesting about the way in which Allen had used the information was that he had not referenced the site, rather cut and paste a large chunk of the home page directly onto his blog. Outside of this, he had also stated the Open Source Software was the same as Collaborative Software.

Now as i did not know much about this field and was certainly no expert, i was not able to discredit him directly on his comments. Regardless of this, i knew that what he was suggesting was not accurate, and when i compared his comment on Open Source, to those made b other users, i found this to be true.

All of these introductory stimuli led me to compile my own blog on Open Source Software, focusing particularly on its definition and origins. I thought this was important as i later posted a comment on Allen’s blog, referring him to mine for additional information and understanding on Open Source software and its relationship to collaborative software.

The resulting blog, ‘The nerds get their turn’, considered what Open Source Software was, how it could be defined, as well as its defining features, before moving on to how it has grown throughout our society.

As many of these pieces of information had been addressed in all of the other blogs i had read on Open Source i felt it was important to provide some additional piece of information that would differentiate my blog from theirs. This differentiation came in the form of a related blog, ‘Is it really the death of Closed Media’.

At the end of my blog, i made reference to this blog, suggesting that as the greatest minds shift towards supporting open source media... nerds who contribute to the growth and development of open source media are indirectly contributing to the death of traditional media (Is it really the death of Closed Media?).

I could have improved this blog by including some wider references, or scholarly support, as i relied heavily on course content. However, the research i did include provided adequate support for the points i was making.