- Dan Sinker, Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership
- Jose Zamora, Knight Foundation
Panelists:
- Al Shaw, ProPublica
- Jacqui Cox, NY Times
- Brian Boyer, Chicago Tribune
Session live-stream; hashtags: ##ONA11 #knightmozilla
Knight-Mozilla Presents: Open Source in the Newsroom
Join Knight-Mozilla’s Dan Sinker for an hour long discussion about the impact of open source code in newsrooms and what’s compelling a growing number of news apps developers to share their code back out with the community in the form of open-source projects.
Dan Sinker believes “it’s through collaboration, openness, and ‘showing your work’ that we’ll see real innovation in journalism.”
The discussion will feature guests from three “open-source committing, news-apps building, fire-breathing powerhouses”: Brian Boyer, from the Chicago Tribune’s News Apps team; Al Shaw, news apps developer for ProPublica, and Jacqui Cox, from the Interactive News Technologies team at the New York Times.
In the past year, their teams have produced these outstanding projects:
- Fech by the New York Times, a Ruby Gem which allows for easy querying against the Federal Election Commission’s database of political action committee’s expenditures, donors, and more.
- Timeline Setter by ProPublica, a great tool (another Ruby Gem, actually) that lets a programmer or journalist build a great interactive timeline. (Timeline Setter was used to great effect recently in MinnPost’s timeline of coverage of Michelle Bachmann)
- Englewood, and a host of other mapping tools, built by the Chicago Tribune, that eases the creation of dot-density maps that use census data, seen here in this map of same-sex partners in the Chicago Area.
Session Updates (18)
@Colin_Jones
Colin_JonesHere’s the blog post from the Chicago Tribune News Apps Team that @DanSinker just referenced. http://t.co/uATimLqo#ONA11 #knightmozilla
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Photo by Ryan Sholin
@ryansholin
Ryan SholinObvious, but worth noting: None of the #opensource panelists work with their site’s core CMS. #ONA11
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- Both free as in speech and free as in beer – Al Shaw
- Code that I can actually change and modify; I can see the code behind the app. I also mean the open-source community. – Jacqui Cox
- There’s a spirit to the community; I’m a former closed-source developer who has become an open-source developer. – Brian Boyer
@Colin_Jones
Colin_Jones.@bryanboyer on trying to convince the newsroom of open source: “We’re broke. This is something that we need.” #ona11 #knightmozilla
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Question from Dan Sinker: How do you sell open source software to the newsroom, and get past politics, legacy, etc.?
Brian Boyer: Open source is free as in speech, but it’s also free as in beer. Comparing costs against the proprietary approaches is often favorable.
Jacqui Cox: It’s possible to make improvements to open source software and keep up with the pace of technological innovation.
Al Shaw: You can often email open source developers directly with the changes you want made, and submit a patch (or the code for the change) if the developer likes the idea.
via Phillip Smith
@jeremybowers
Jeremy Bowers@brianboyer‘s closed v. open software support analogy reminds me of http://t.co/BZTERrfh, a great read for news devs. #onaopen#ONA11
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@lisawilliams
Lisa Williams.@ashaw ‘s “Trippy,” an app to give you *just enough* to read on your morning commute: http://t.co/vPdXGGpM#ONA11 #knightmozilla
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The dirty secret of open source: when you release code, people will fix it for you. If projects are good, they will gain a life of their own. We reblog / release code because teaching makes you smarter.
— Brian Boyer, Chicago Tribune News Apps Team
We all get better software when we’re not competing.
- Al Shaw, on why he contributes to open source.
Check out the News Apps Blog.
@jenleereeves
Jen Lee ReevesOh. This is cool: backbone.js: http://t.co/ubGIb2EZ#onaopen
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First question from the audience was a thank you to all of the panelists for the open source code they’ve contributed. Open source inspires this type of community.
@maxcutler
Max CutlerWatching and enjoying the #ona11 #onaopen livestream. Curious though why everyone seems to be willing to cede the core CMS to vendors?
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Integrating Open Source Into the Newsroom
Journalists shouldn’t be afraid to say “open source” in the newsroom. According to Mozilla Foundation’s Dan Sinker, you’re reporters are already using open-source software.
