About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, bitbucket, del.icio.us, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, TextMate, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 95840 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

"Open Source" spreading, blurring

I'm seeing lots of links to this CNN story about the CIA learning to use publicly accessible information sources. I have one comment, not about the news, but about the language:

Mary Margaret Graham, an aide to Negroponte, told reporters better use of open source information should lead to more effective use of clandestine intelligence gathering as well.

(Emphasis mine.)

The term "open source" is being used here -- not just by the reporter but, as far as I can tell from the context of the article, by the Federal government -- as a synonym for "publicly accessible." Not the same thing, of course.

So the good news is that the term "open source" seems to be seeping into the mainstream lexicon; it's a recognizable buzzword. The bad news is that, at least in this relatively high-profile example, the people using it don't understand what it means!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005
media + open source