Neil Young Uses JIRA: The LincVolt Project

Although I rarely re-blog Atlassian news, I can’t help myself this time. This deserves more exposure. Why? Three compelling reasons:

1. The LincVolt project is the coolest clean technology car project. Its mission is to get a 1959 Lincoln Continental to try to break a 100 mile-per-gallon barrier. This car weighs 2.5 tons. I would be satisfied just sitting in a ’59 Lincoln, let alone getting 100 mpg. This is simply a fantastic, ambitious project using a gorgeous battleship of a car.

2. The car runs Atlassian JIRA, our bug and issue tracker, right on the console. Yes, folks, you can create your issues and track them while you drive. The geographically-dispersed development team relies on JIRA to track their project.

3. Neil Young owns the car and uses JIRA. This is a personal project of Neil’s to inspire people by creating a clean automobile propulsion technology. I am flabbergasted the guy uses JIRA. I am a long-time fan, I have been to several of his Bridge School concerts and I’m practically a neighbor of Neil’s, but the fact that he is using JIRA is awesome.

Check this video out of the LincVolt project…

One last reason I love this project: it trumps my wife’s Toyota Prius, which I think she would leave me for. Prius owners are so smug, but this car is THE BOMB.

I have been known to play “Pink Cadillac” but now in homage to Neil, I need to write a tune about a wicked-cool ’59 Lincoln.

Second Life Open Source Project Selects JIRA

Although I leave Atlassian product announcements to our news blog, I can’t help myself this time. Besides, I just sat through the Greatest Self-Promoter in the World, Steve Jobs today giving his Macworld address. Okay, this isn’t an iPhone, people, but I would suggest Second Life is pretty cool.

Linden Lab announced yesterday that their popular virtual world Second Life will join the open source software community. The Viewer application – a freely-downloadable program used to access and interact with the game world – is now available for third-party developers.

Atlassian is excited to have Linden Lab select Atlassian JIRA for bug and issue tracking for this project. No surprise actually as Linden Lab CEO, Philip Rosedale, reported in a case study published last year, “Now, on your first day of work at Linden Lab you’re given your login, your JIRA login, and your first task, which is to log into JIRA.” The full case study is here.

Our wiki Confluence often hogs the cooler news, but interestingly, Linden Lab’s use of JIRA internally for managing all aspects of their business — not just software projects — is the most innovative use of any Atlassian product by any customer IMHO.