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General Motors Embraces Open Source for New Community Site

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the let-em-have-it dept.

An anonymous reader writes "GM has introduced a new website called GMnext. The site utilizes Wordpress and launching in spring a Wiki allowing General Motors to get better feedback on topics such as energy, design and technology from the community. The interesting part is the executives at GM are participating in the collaborative website. 'We're starting our second century at a time of fundamental change in the auto industry,' said GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner. 'We'll use GMnext to introduce some of our ideas for addressing critical issues concerning energy, the environment and globalization. In the process, we also hope to spark a broader, global discussion on these important topics.'"

5 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. Orginizational Participation is Key by milsoRgen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I like the idea but I don't see it going very far or very long. GM isn't really going to support any negative few points, maybe if you're really careful with your wording. But I see censorship being the issue short term and actual GM participation being the long term question. That being said, I would love to see something like this from an organization like Consumer Reports.

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
  2. Re:Pffffft. by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Informative

    GM was not an all-Microsoft shop when I worked there. Most of the engineering servers were running some form of UNIX -- either HP-UX or Solaris. They served to a mix of Windows and UNIX clients -- UNIX clients via NFS and Windows clients via CIFS9000 (yeah, yeah, I know. CIFS9000 == Samba. Tell them that.)

    The file and app servers actually used high-availability clustering -- commercial stuff, not open source.

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    My blog
  3. WTF? by sxeraverx · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Saying using Wordpress is embracing open source is like saying using the LAMP stack for a webserver is embracing open source. In that sense, almost ever company out there has embraced open source by now. But we know that to not be the case.

  4. Re:Ugly .NET site with Wordpress knee-jerked in it by corsec67 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not even slashdot passes that test
    Looks like some unencoded ampersands and style attributes.

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  5. Open source Volt! by dusanv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How about open sourcing the Volt? And standardizing its batteries (to spur innovation for replacements down the line)? And delivering it before 2010? That'd be something to get excited about...