Our resident community manager Joe “Zonker” Brockmeier has started his new blog at ZDNet, Community, Incorporated. His stated goal: bridging the gap between external communities and the corporate parent, especially (but not limited to) companies working with or sponsoring (or both) open source projects.
The “business of open source” is seen by many as oxymoronic (or is that just plain 'moronic'?), yet open source software is expected to be a nearly $6 billion business by 2011, according to IDC. And while corporate customers have wholeheartedly adopted open source and the open source model, there is still often a gulf separating the community that drives open source developments and the many companies that sponsor those projects.
Zonker's well positioned to tackle this problem: he is the community manager for openSUSE, the community Linux distribution sponsored by Novell. Prior to joining Novell, Joe worked as a technology journalist primarily covering the Linux and FOSS beat, and wrote for a number of publications, such as Linux Magazine, Linux.com, Sys Admin, UnixReview.com, IBM developerWorks, Linux Weekly News, Enterprise Linux Magazine, and ZDNet.
