Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reilly at the PayPal X Innovate in 2009.
Born	(1954-06-06) June 6, 1954 (age 58) Cork, Ireland
Alma mater	Harvard College
Occupation	Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media
Website
tim.oreilly.com

Tim O'Reilly (born June 6, 1954) is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) and a supporter of the free software and open source movements.^[1]

Life and career

Born in County Cork, Ireland,^[2] O'Reilly moved to California with his family six weeks after he was born.^{[citation needed]}

O'Reilly was initially interested in literature upon entering college, yet after graduating from Harvard College in 1975 with a B.A. cum laude in Classics, he became involved in the field of computer user manuals. He defines his company not as a book or online publisher, nor as a conference producer (though the company does all three), but as a technology transfer company, "changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators."^[3] O'Reilly serves on the boards of directors of two companies, CollabNet and MySQL AB, and served on the board of Macromedia until its 2005 merger with Adobe Systems. He also serves on the board of directors for the public-service organization Code for America. In February 2012 he joined the UC Berkeley School of Information Advisory Board.^[4]

Thoughts and Activism

Software Patents

In 1996, O'Reilly fought against a 10-Connection Limit on TCP/IP NT Workstations, writing a letter to the United States Department of Justice, Bill Gates, and CNN, concerned that the Internet is still in its infancy, and that limitations could cripple the technology before it ever has a chance to reach its full potential.^[5]

In 2001, O'Reilly was involved in a dispute with Amazon.com, leading a protest against Amazon's one-click patent and, specifically, Amazon's assertion of that patent against rival Barnes and Noble. The protest ended with O'Reilly and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos visiting Washington D.C. to lobby for patent reform.

Open Source Software

O'Reilly compartmentalizes open software into three long-term trends: 1) The commoditization of software, 2) Network-enabled collaboration, 3) Software customization; what he terms the "three Cs".^[1] O'Reilly concedes that software commoditization has been driven by standards, but that software itself is no longer the primary focus of value in the computer industry. O'Reilly sees the role of open source as being indisputable with the development of the Internet, pointing to the widely used TCP/IP protocol, sendmail, Apache, Perl, GNU/Linux and other open source platforms. In his article "Open Source Paradigm Shift",^[1] O'Reilly describes his concern about the current trends leading towards new sources of lock-in that we do not understand.^[6]

Internet Operating System

O'Reilly envisions the Internet Operating System^[7] as consisting of various sub systems, such as media, payment, speech recognition, location, and identity. He uses the analogy of the biome of the human body, having more bacterial than human cells, but depending upon millions of other organisms, each pursuing their own interest, but nevertheless weaving a co-operative web. O'Reilly praises Facebook for their willingness to open up their platform with concepts like the Facebook Platform Open Graph Protocol.^[8]

Global Brain

O'Reilly believes that the Internet will develop into a Global brain, an intelligent network of people and machines that will function as a nervous system for the planet Earth.^[9] This will happen among others by ever more frequent and efficient use of technologies such as social media or the Internet of things. He has recently been giving a series of lectures on the topic of the global brain.

See also

• Infoware
• Web 2.0
• O'Reilly Media
• Make
• Foo Camp

References

External links

• tim.oreilly.com O'Reilly's home page and archive
• "Tech guru Tim O'Reilly challenges next generation to get serious" - Los Angeles Times
• FUTURIST magazine interview with O'Reilly, Re: Future of Publishing
• The Software Paradigm Shift Audio of O'Reilly's 2003 interview with IT Conversations
• NerdTV Interview (video, audio, and transcript available) - 29 September 2005
• Tim O'Reilly interview - O'Reilly on Linux PC Pro interview covering Linux, Java and books
• The Trend Spotter Wired Magazine profile - October 2005, "Tim O'Reilly built an empire on computer manuals and conferences that make sense of new technologies. Along the way he became the guru of the participation age."
• Tim O'Reilly on social media video, November 2007
• Tim on Twitter
• Nine questions on the state and the future of web2.0 video, November 2008
• 7 minutes of Tim O'Reilly at Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin video
• Tim O'Reilly talks about Govt 2.0 at Aspen Ideas Festival, July 2009 video
• Tim O'Reilly on FLOSS Weekly