Nowadays, if you have a question in mind, what would you do? Google it? Check Wikipedia? Either these ways are the most common method we use for searching an answer. However, what if the question is more complex that you can barely find a relevant answer by google or Wikipedia? There is a new choice you should try – Quora. It is basically a Q & A website which provides a platform for people can ask questions in variety areas. As guideline gave by Quora:

Quora works by having the community ask and answer questions.
When you want to know more about something, Quora delivers you answers and content from people who share your interests and people who have first-hand knowledge — like real doctors, economists, screenwriters, police officers, and military veterans.

You need to sign in by email or facebook/google account before start using website, then choose topics interested you. After several step about personal information, you can start ask a question or answer a question from other people, or just check discussions from topic interested you. You can also follow people in Quora, but that will cost you credits, an important element which will be explained in the next paragraph. The recommendation agent works vigorously at Quora by active and passive content filtering and collaborative filtering. By the topic you select in the beginning, Quora displays relevant contents on your homepage and by the questions you are viewing, it shows relevant or similar questions on the ride-down side of screen.

However, how to evaluate quality of answers to the question or the question itself? Continue reading Quora: New way for Answers & Questions →

In 2011, LibreOffice was voted one of the best open-source software. An open-source software has the particularity to have “its source code made available and licensed with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose” (Andrew, 2008). In simpler words, it’s a software that anyone (with the right knowledge) can change, use, copy, improve and share.

LibreOffice, the homonimic non-profit organization, made a sustainable business plan out of this main product. They even exhibit a growth that most multinational corporation would envy.  But how could a firm make a business out of a product that is free and on which the firm accepts to give up the control?

LibreOffice generates its revenue through mainly through donations.  These donations are either directly cash or either materials.  These donations come from enthusiastic users or from “strategic Advisory Board Members”, understand a long list of firms that have some interests in seeing a free competitor challenge Microsoft’s Office quasi-monopolistic position on this market.  Although the number of employees and there wages are still undisclosed, these donations are sufficiently large to allow the company to run and to hire some in-house developers.  The next straightforward question is now: why would so many people and firms pay give so much?  What do they get from it?

Continue reading LibreOffice: The Document Foundation →