LAMP at digg.com

Owen Byrne was the primary technical decision maker at Digg for most of its period of explosive growth from inception to the Series A financing. Last Tuesday December 2, Owen presented "What I learned about LAMP Development at Digg" at the inaugural meeting of the Ottawa LAMP Meetup Group.

The origins of Digg are also described in Sarah Lacy's recent book, Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0, but Owen's account provided a fresh first-hand perspective with the candid insights of a seasoned engineer deeply connected with the "nuts and bolts" of the programming and infrastructure at Digg, and the open source software applications that power the World Wide Web.

Owen is currently the Senior Manager of TravelPod Labs in Ottawa Canada, host of the December Ottawa LAMP Meetup. Some photos from the event are posted at the TravelPod Travel Blog.

Upcoming December Issue

The theme for the December issue is "Enabling Innovation" and it should be ready to publish some time this weekend. Here's a sneak peak at the authors and their articles:

Leslie Hawthorn from Google's Open Source Programs Office examines the origins of Google's Summer of Code program, how students benefit by participating, and how Google views this investment in the F/LOSS community and its potential to improve the overall progression of Computer Science as a discipline.

Tom Scheinfeldt from George Mason University introduces Omeka, an open source next generation web publishing platform for academic work which is based upon a set of commonly recognized web and metadata standards.

David Wiley from Brigham Young University describes how Flat World Knowledge is leveraging principles of openness to bring textbooks back into reach of all students, creating significant social value in a manner that will sustain itself over the long-term.

Steven Muegge from Carleton University and Chukwuemeka Afigbo from SW Global present a for-profit private sector company that creates high-impact value at universities and governments in developing countries through an innovative business model anchored around service subscriptions, open source software, and open content.

Fred Dixon from Blindside Networks and Jill Woodley from Volunteer Ottawa share the experiences of a unique community/university partnership to bring accessible technology to a non-profit community.

John Weigelt from Microsoft Canada discusses the role service oriented architecture and interoperability can play in keeping an organization innovative and competitive. He also discusses Microsoft's interoperability principles, its commitment to its open source community, and the benefits of embracing openness as part of an organization's business strategy.

Michael Grove from CollabWorks introduces the Open Innovation 2.0 model and its ability to transform companies even during down times.

Video of November TOC

Video Telephony has created a video for the November issue's Table of Contents. The video (in flv format) is available from this link of the OSBR's Multimedia page.