Friday 29 February 2008

Open Source and corporate services

The scope of Exetreme covers both open source/co-operatives and proprietary software/large organisations. It is worth exploring whether both can be developed in the same timescale. Currently Adobe, Google and other software companies are attempting to work with an approach to social networking and open source. Some co-operatives are large organisations and the use of blogs and wikis is now spreading.

This week Adobe launched version one of AIR - the Adobe Integrated Runtime. The intention is to offer applications both online and on the desktop. Flash is central to the interface design. Previous approaches based on printed pages or similar design such as PDF can be compared and evaluated. Change could be quite slow but AIR is a significant event.

Some aspects of AIR are open source. See Wired blog for interview with Kevin Lynch. See also link through Acrobat Services for a view that software may become free for most users. Lynch mentions video editing online as a current example. Google already offers Docs and other applications as a free service though there is a paid option for larger scale and reliability. Google supports open source to some extent through links with Firefox and other projects.

So Exetreme can try to work in at least two modes. Open source is a starting point both as an environment for collaboration and a provider of much software. Companies such as Google and Adobe are a level of option before reaching Microsoft and others where there may be a requirement for some sites or organisations.

Recently I found Scribd for document hosting which appears to be free at the moment but can show Google ads. For those opposed to adverts there is usually an option not to include them. But advertising is an issue for people in co-ops and others. Scribd is one example of how to use Flash to extend the use of documents. Others will appear including Adobe Share, currently in beta.

For organisations working with print as well as online it may turn out that open source can now cope with a high proportion of requirements. Scribus can produce PDF to meet standards such as PDF/X. The Job Definition Format (JDF) is intended to fully describe requirements for a print job but so far the capability bof desktop software such as Acrobat has not been well explained. The open source developers interested in XML may be more effective in showing what is possible through a more integrated workflow.

Some pages were started while checking out links etc. Google Sites now possible but I still work through Docs and Groups. InXpress is registered so there is a site (InXpress started as Internet Express, the first internet cafe in Exeter). There is a version of Acrobat Connect called Brio on Adobe Labs. Limited to three people at a time. Let me know if you want to try it. Also We+ found through comments on news. There is a free version if storage stays low. Again, something to test.