Open Source and Career Opportunities

"or within the open source group of a traditional software company". (Yeah, Matt's advice is snappier). Here's why I suggest the addition: Take a look at SocialText which I found on Holistic understanding of commercial open source software". If you're in a division at IBM, Oracle or Sun that is leveraging the value of open source, you'll get this experience. It doesn't hurt to with source on evenings or weekends. Next, the following Elias Torres. Elias is an IBMer (whom I've never met, but know of because I use his Firefox extension) who worked on Apache Roller open source project and on the team using Roller within Ventura (a commercial IBM product). His experience balancing the needs of the community with the needs of his employer are going to be a valuable asset for Elias I'm sure.

"This is my first IBM product experience and it has been a very positive one so far, but we can talk about that later. The experience of taking something built by the community and making it a product has been incredibly rewarding but brings with it a great sense of responsibility. We are very serious about Roller and are committed to giving back as much as we can."

Lastly, I can speak from personal experience with trying to get a product (Apache Geronimo) out the door at IBM. Being the WAS CE product manager was the best job I've had at IBM. Even though IBM had a lot of experience with open source at the time, a lot of what we did with WAS CE was new territory. Using an open source business model of paid support around a free product was completely new. To say we had some internal angst from other groups at IBM would be an understatement. But the angst wasn't because we were trying an open source business model. It was because we were doing something that wasn't business as usual. We got through these challenges with some help from executives that gorked the value of WAS CE to the Comments Tag: Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl Bookmark Murdok: I am taking a semi-break from IBM life as I return to finish a PhD in Industrial Engineering. I've held roles in market intelligence, strategy and product management. I'm ex-product manager of IBM WAS Community Edition, and

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