A New Province of Open Source

Manitoba is going open source. And vice versa.

The Manitoba Media Centre is a new "Open Source Entertainment Engineering, Innovation, and Production Research Facility" in Winnipeg, capitalized by a $20 million investment from the Provincial Government of Manitoba and Linux Media Arts -- a Los Angeles-based media production company. The Centre grows out of a trade mission effort between Manitoba and California.

The Manitoba Media Centre will work on development of multimedia applications for film, television and the Internet. It will also concentrate on the needs of educational institutions and developing economies.

Michael Collins, CEO of Linux Media Arts, says "Our goal is to leverage the $20 Million into at least a $100 Million endowment within eighteen months to two years through consulting, product development contracts, and sponsorships." For Linux specifically, he intends to approach development "from the perspective of what is important to multi-media users. In other words, tool and applications and kernel changes which will improve the media experience. The various distros and the companies who support them do not have this market specifically in mind. Its mainly a support issue. How best can we support the multitudes of users worldwide building systems and products for this $1 trillion dollar market? We think there is room for more."

Find out more at ManitobaMediaCentre.org.

- Doc Searls