FOSS has many challenges. One of these is the balancing act of fostering an active community, encouraging discussion and mutual sharing of knowledge against the requests for free tech support. But there’s overlap between the two. In fact, most community discussions are around problems with the software or questions about its installation / usage. So, what makes a community discussion different than free tech support (FTS)? It’s a binary classification problem and I think a weighted score helps differentiate one […]

Of all the feedback I get about WebODM, few people complain about the speed of the software. In fact, the software is often praised for its speed of processing compared to other alternatives. I care about speed and memory efficiency, a lot. I will go out of my way to avoid bloat and I write software accordingly. But this is not driven by some obsession to keep things lean. Instead, it is a self-imposed constraint dictated by my choice of […]

At the risk of sounding like an old man, the internet has changed a lot. Not all changes have been positive. Before starting a conversation about what is disappointing about the modern internet, we should list some of the things I do not miss about the old internet: What I do miss about the old internet: The modern internet has evolved and there’s no turning back. With that evolution we now have: But we also have: The points above share […]

I recently finished writing the first edition of OpenDroneMap: The Missing Guide. I thought I’d write a blog post about the overall experience in the hope that it will be useful to other want-to-be writers. First of all, if you are a software developer and you are thinking of writing a book about a project you’re involved with, don’t do it for the money; the amount of work required to write a book is huge compared to the monetary returns. […]

Free and open source software is creating a lot of value. Maintainers however are often capturing no value from their work, rarely out of choice and often times because those individuals and companies that could contribute and fund the development of a project choose not to. And you can’t fault them. People need to ditch donations/crowdsourcing/patronization models and start selling something instead. Read the slides from my recent presentation at FOSS4G-NA: Please Sell Something – FOSS Funding for the Next […]