451group on SWiK

Founder leaves open source vendor

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:02:33 -0700

Still no official news on the rumour that Monty Widenius has left Sun, but Dave Rosenberg confirmed over the weekend that he is leaving MuleSource, the open source ESB vendor he founded in 2006 with Ross Mason, creator of the Mule project.

“After two and a half years I’ve decided to transition out of my operating role at MuleSource and will be devoting my full time efforts to a new company I have been working on,” he wrote on Friday. “I initiated a CEO search in June and we expect to have a new person in place by the end of the year at the latest.

“I started the search because I felt like a more ‘professional’ CEO would be able to take the company to the next level–basically I felt like the opportunity was bigger than me and wanted to grow faster. Now that all the pieces are coming together I feel like I can step out cleanly, setting the stage for continued growth,” he added.

On the recent CAOS podcast we discussed Doug Levin’s departure from Black Duck and noted that it would not be surprising to see a number of open source CEOs shifting seats in the forthcoming months as the vendors they have created look to transition to the next stage.

As well as Levin, EnterpriseDB’s founder Andy Astor recently made way for Ed Boyajian, previously vice president and general manager, North American sales at Red Hat.

The only thing about Rosenberg’s announcement that does seem a little strange is the timing, given that the search for a new CEO has been underway for some time but has yet to be completed.

As for his new job, he notes that “the new company will be in stealth mode for a little while, but if you read my blog consistently you should be able to glean some clues.” He certainly has been writing a lot about online video games.

Has MySQL founder and CTO resigned from Sun?

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:10:07 -0700

Valleywag reports that Monty Widenius has quit Sun. The Pythian Group reckons its true. Kaj Arno’s non-denial denial would appear to confirm it despite his protestations otherwise.

“Technically there is no resignation letter. However, I spoke to Monty yesterday, and yes, resignation is an option he considers,” writes Kaj before expanding on some of the reasons that Monty might consider leaving Sun and how the MySQL project would continue without him (or without him as an employee at any rate).

He concludes: “In summary, I can neither confirm nor deny the rumour. But I hope my posting has shed some light on the situation.”

If the rumour is true then as Kaj says it would be a big loss the MySQL development team, but it would seem likely that Monty would continue to be involved in the project.

It would probably be a bigger loss for Sun, and highlights one of the problems that arises when big vendors pay big money for ~~open source~~ smaller vendors and much of that cash goes into the pockets of the founders/key developers of the target (see also Red Hat/JBoss).

We’ll wait for confirmation before commenting further on the potential implications.

Red Hat?s Spacewalk floats over to PostgreSQL

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 09:57:41 -0700

I finally got around to reading this update from Red Hat about Spacewalk, the open source version of Red Hat Network Satellite, launched in June.

Other than the progress in attracting participants and patches, the interesting news is that PostgreSQL support is being added after being demanded by the community. The roadmap confirms that work on support for PostgreSQL is scheduled to begin in mid-October.

The Path to PostgreSQL page, meanwhile, indicates that the idea will enable Red Hat to decrease or remove Spacewalk’s dependency on Oracle.

Oracle is likely to remain an option, while it has been suggested that the Oracle-specific code could be extracted and maintained at Red Hat, which would also make some commercial sense in terms of driving subscription adoption.

Of course database migrations are a complex and costly project to undertake, so the addition of PostgreSQL support could also provide an interesting insight into what it takes to migrate from Oracle to PostgreSQL. All the nitty gritty details are available here.

Sometimes a developer community isn?t the answer

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:13:10 -0700

I was in San Francisco at the tail-end of last week and was fortunate to have some time to meet up with Josh Berkus, a member of the PostgreSQL core team and, until recently, a Sun employee.

Our conversation covered a lot of ground, including his reasons for leaving Sun (he didn’t go into detail but suffice to say he’s working a business idea), the future of the database market (more choice, more horizontal scaling, more use of specialist databases), the future of PostgreSQL (as a development platform), the level or authorization afforded to the Drizzle project, and the future of Sun.

I won’t go into the latter now, but the threads are there to be joined together.

We finished up our conversation talking about the attempts of one particular vendor (not Sun) to build a community of developers around its recently open sourced product. Given Josh’s involvement in the PostgreSQL community and the recent assertion that open source is “all about community” some may be surprised to find that Josh was arguing against the company putting its effort into building a developer community.

Why? It comes down to the strengths and weaknesses of a certain project. For those that are developed in the open like Linux and PostgreSQL, the developer community is vital. For those that are mainly developed by the employees of a vendor, it is less important.

Some may point out that vendors that fail to exploit the community development model fully are failing to enjoy the full benefits of open source and are keeping their development and marketing costs higher than necessary. Josh argued that idea that development costs are always lower for open source projects is a fallacy and that, depending on the vendor, the benefits do not always outweigh the costs.

He argued that for the vendor in question it would be doubtful whether an expansion of the developer community would contribute meaningful benefits and greater commercial adoption and that it might actually distract the company’s attention away from serving its core customer base.

The company would be better served, he believed, in targeting ISVs and SIs and on growing its partner community, encouraging them to take advantage of the availability of the code to increase their expertise in, and the overall quality of, the product.

Maybe the vendor in question is the exception, but it was interesting to hear someone who is so involved in a community project arguing against attempting to build a development community for the sake of placating the criticism of rivals.

Overall the message to vendors is that what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for all. That and the fact that ‘community’ does not always have to mean ‘developer community’. Vendors should play to their strengths rather than following the crowd.

451 CAOS Links - 2008.07.30

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 19:06:31 -0700

Kickfire and 10gen obtain new rounds of funding. BusyBox developers drop lawsuit against Supermicro. OpenLogic and EnterpriseDB release open source survey findings. (and more)

Kickfire Raises $20 Million in Series B Financing, Kickfire (Press Release)

10gen, New Cloud Computing Firm, Closes $1.5m Series A, 10gen (Press Release)

BusyBox Developers and Supermicro Agree to End GPL Lawsuit, Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) (Press Release)

OpenLogic Releases Survey on Enterprise Open Source Support, OpenLogic (Press Release)

Open Source Database Survey Shows Strong PostgreSQL Adoption in Enterprises, EnterpriseDB (Press Release)

SourceForge.net Announces 2008 Community Choice Awards Winners, SourceForge (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems Unveils Enterprise LAMP Stack for Solaris and Linux, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.7 Released Today, Red Hat (Press Release)

Launchpad 2.0 Radically Improves Collaboration for Open Source Projects, Canonical (Press Release)

Jaspersoft Unveils New Community Platform at the O?Reilly Open Source Conference (OSCON), Jaspersoft (Press Release)

CherryPal to Launch Two-watt PC using Freescale Processor based on Power Architecture Technology, CherryPal (Press Release)

SnapLogic Announces SugarCRM Solution Pack, SnapLogic (Press Release)

Open Source Collaboration Project, ICEcore, Becomes Kablink and Adds Unique Workflow Functionality to Improve Teaming, Novell (Press Release)

Signature Devices, Inc. Launches Open Source Video Game Development Engine, Signature Devices (Press Release)

Kineo Open Source Acquires Open Source Testing, Kineo (Press Release)

Black Duck Software Adds C/C++ Open Source Software to Koders.com Code Search Engine, Black Duck Software (Press Release)

WSO2 Mashup Server 1.5 adds rich data services and expanded security, WSO2 (Press Release)

Openbravo releases new version 2.40 of leading ERP solution, Openbravo (Press Release)

Keynote Presentations Announced For Mobile Linux Conference At LinuxWorld, IDG World Expo (Press Release)

Grid.org Launches Open HPC Management Interoperability Project, Univa UD (Press Release)

Essentia Launches New Flagship Product for Open Source Communities, Essentia (Press Release)

MindTouch Announces MindTouch Deki “Kilen Woods” Release, MindTouch (Press Release)

Actuate Initiates Open Source Advisory Board, Actuate (Press Release)

Kineo Open Source Acquires Open Source Testing, Kineo Open Source (Press Release)

Red Hat’s new CEO aims Linux at the cloud, News.com, Stephen Shankland (Article)

2008 SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards (video), Linux.com, Robin Miller (Article)

LinuxWorld 2008 features cloud, virtualization topics, SearchEnterpriseLinux.com, Pam Derringer (Article)

history.forward(), Port 25, Sam Ramji (Blog)

Announcing the Open Web Foundation, Open Web Foundation, Eran Hammer-Lahav (Blog)

Economic clustering and Free Software release coordination, Here Be Dragon, Mark Shuttleworth (Blog)

Red Hat: How to Settle a Patent Lawsuit for an Open Source Community, Law & Life: Silicon Valley, Mark Radcliffe (Blog)

My new project: OpenRemote, Maison Felury, Marc Fleury (Blog)

Holistic Role, SunMink, Simon Phipps (Blog)

Wordpress 2.6 downloaded 345,000 times in ten days, Ars Technica - #open.ended, Dave Moyer (Blog)

When Is Open Source Not That Open Source?, DevXtra Edtiros’ Blog, Glen Kunene (Blog)

What Microsoft can do for Open Source, OSI Board Blog, Michael Tiemann (Blog)

OSCON in 37 Minutes, O’Reilly Radar, Nat Torkington (Blog)

Google Android and Symbian to merge?, CNET - The Open Road, Matt Asay (Blog)

On open source and piracy

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 07:51:18 -0700

Dana Blankenhorn asks whether open source is hurt by piracy, prompted by comments made by Louis Suarez-Potts, Sun’s community manager for OpenOffice.org at OSCON.

Dana is unconvinced that open source supporters should necessarily be doing anything about piracy, noting that “There is no direct financial loss to Open Office when someone has a pirated copy of Microsoft Office. To the extent that BSA enforcement actions cause fear in the market, that just benefits open source, so why join it?”

He also notes that “On the other hand if we helped Oracle enforce its license terms we might accelerate the move to MySQL and Ingres.”

However, one need only remember these comments from last year made by the president of Microsoft’s business division, Jeff Raikes, to understand why piracy is bad for open source:

“Our number one goal is that we want people to use our product. If they’re going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else. And that’s because we understand that in the long run the fundamental asset is the install base of people who are using our products.

What you hope to do is over time you hope to convert them to licensing the software, legally licensing it, so on, and so forth,” he added, neatly - and presumably accidentally - describing the method by which commercial open source vendors benefit by making their core code available free of charge.

So it’s always a delicate balance, because what you want to do is you want to push towards getting legal licensing, but you don’t want to push so hard that you lose the asset that’s most fundamental in the business.”

Additionally on our recent virtual tour of Europe we saw how piracy was seen as a barrier to further adoption of open source in countries like Greece and Romania.

Supported by government, open source can be used as a tool defeat piracy. Louis explained, ComputerWorld reports that: “By cracking down on software piracy, nations around the globe are starting to see that they can help themselves dramatically by encouraging innovation and creativity — as well as job growth and richer economies — through open-source development.”

An example of this is Russia, where Microsoft’s bungled attempt to crack down on software piracy resulted in a decision by the government to reduce piracy and encourage local business by encouraging the use of open source software.

On open source and cloud computing

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:50:40 -0700

Last week I wrote about whether Google’s potential acquisitions might be stifled by its focus on its own infrastructure software projects but noted that by releasing App Engine the company was encouraging a wider ecosystem of applications based on its platform.

What I didn’t discuss at the time was the potential risk of application vendors finding themselves locked-in to the App Engine platform. Of course Amazon also has this issue, the potential impact of which was revealed this weekend.

It is with this in mind that it was interesting to see the debut of 10gen, a new open source cloud computing start-up founded by Doubleclick veterans and backed by Union Square Ventures.

Over at The 451 Group’s Cloud Cover blog, Vishy Venugopalan has the details:

“10gen offers an open source stack consisting of an app server and object database; developers can write apps in server-side Javascript or Ruby (experimental) and host it on their own computing clouds,” he writes.

“It?s also striking that many platform-as-a-service companies deviate from the standard Web server-app server-relational DB trio, of which the LAMP stack is an example. Google App Engine uses BigTable for its storage whereas 10gen wrote its own MongoDB database.”

10gen also has it own application server and file system, and the whole lot is available under open source licenses.

Of course 10gen isn’t the only open source cloud enabler/provider. There’s also Enomalism and Joyent among others that boast their ability to reduce vendor lock-in. Then there’s the likes of Eucalyptus, Puppet, Hypertable, Hbase, and Hadoop.

While Amazon and Google have first mover advantage when it comes to the cloud, could concerns over lock-in and portability mean that open standards and open source are the long-term platform for cloud computing?

One in, one out for Sun?s PostgreSQL team

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 04:55:47 -0700

Ever since Sun acquired MySQL the rumours have been rife that Josh Berkus, PostgreSQL core team member and Sun’s PostgreSQL lead, would soon be heading out the door.

Josh has now confirmed that he is indeed leaving Sun, but before the doomsayers start writing of Sun’s PostgreSQL support business completely, Josh also notes that Peter Eisentraut is joining the team as PostgreSQL software engineer. Peter has also confirmed his new role.

From the MySQL team, Kaj Arno does the hellos and goodbyes. Losing Josh is significant for Sun’s role in the PostgreSQL community but the quick appointment of Peter indicates that PostgreSQL still has a role to play at the company.

I certainly think there is room for both PostgreSQL and MySQL (and indeed JavaDB) at Sun, although I have been somewhat surprised that the company hasn’t yet come out and made a case for working with both databases and explaining their respective strengths and weaknesses. The details are there if you want to find them, but you have to be prepared to do a bit of digging.

Could Google be stymied by a lack of openness?

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:51:19 -0700

It seems almost churlish to wonder whether Google could be even more successful than it already is with a different strategy, but the company’s approach to open source and open development has come into focus in recent weeks.

On last week’s podcast we discussed whether the company should see the AGPL as more of an opportunity than a threat following Jay’s post about the company releasing more code under open source licenses.

Nik Cubrilovic over at TechCrunch, meanwhile, has written an interesting article about Google’s acquisition strategy and whether its apparent insistence that acquired companies migrate to its technology platform (C++, Java and Python/MapReduce/Big Table/Google FS) causes the acquired projects to stagnate.

“One of the first main challenges for a company that has been acquired by Google is adopting the proprietary technology stack used within the company. Google does use Linux and open source, but their core technologies are all internal to the company,” states Nik.

“Because of the difference in technology, it can take a company anywhere from a year to three or more years to move over to the Google infrastructure and architecture,” he adds while detailing how the likes of JotSpot, Blogger, Dodgeball, GrandCentral and MeasureMap have lost ground during the move.

As he notes this issue isn’t unique to Google (it’s one of many problems associated Microsoft’s pursuit of Yahoo) but the widespread use of .NET and the Win32 API make it less of a problem for Microsoft in most cases. Meanwhile a significant number of the companies Google is targeting will be based on the likes of MySQL, Apache, Python, and PHP.

In concluding his article, Nik states: “The solutions for Google are either to adopt a more open stack in parallel to what they currently use, or to open source their internal technologies (as Facebook and Yahoo! are doing) in the hope that they will spread and gain adoption from more developers.”

However, Google has been open with the concepts behind technologies such as MapReduce and Big Table, if not the code, and the release of App Engine should help create a new generation of projects that are much easier to integrate into Google’s portfolio. It could be that the problem is a matter of the platform’s maturity and ubiquity, rather than its openness.

Then again, the company’s attitude towards openness related to the development of Android has also come in for some stick this week. Could it be that the company is about to find out that there is no such thing as being half-open?

451 CAOS Links - 2008.07.01

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 02:51:41 -0700

Progress acquires IONA. Red Hat announces quarterly earnings. Optaros raises new round of funding. (and more)

Progress Software Corporation to Acquire IONA Technologies, Progess Software / IONA Technologies (Press Release)

Red Hat Reports First Quarter Results, Red Hat (Press Release)

Optaros Closes $12 Million in Series C Financing Co-Led by .406 Ventures & Globespan Capital Partners, Optaros (Press Release)

Sourcefire, Inc. Responds to Barracuda Networks Letter, Sourcefire (Press Release)

Linux Phone Standards (LiPS) Forum Joins Forces with LiMo, LiPS Forum / LiMo Foundation (Press Release)

Microsoft Takes Additional Steps in Implementing Interoperability Principles, Microsoft (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems Releases New GlassFish and MySQL Offering To Provide Customers With Unlimited Deployments of Enterprise Class Application Server and Database Software, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Oracle Updates Entire Family of Oracle Berkeley DB Embeddable Databases, Oracle (Press Release)

Openmoko Signs Five Distributors for Freerunner Open Source Mobile Phone, Openmoko (Press Release)

MuleSource Releases Mule Galaxy Enterprise, MuleSource (Press Release)

NETGEAR Launches Open Source Wireless-G Router Enabling Linux Developers and Enthusiasts to Create Firmware for Specialized Applications, NETGEAR (Press Release)

Zenoss Expands IT Management Solution for Managed Service Providers, Zenoss (Press Release)

Actuate First to Provide Support for Eclipse BIRT 2.3, Actuate (Press Release)

Latest Open-Xchange Public Beta Gives Customers a Free Preview to Business-Class Groupware, Open-Xchange (Press Release)

Open Source Community Wins at Ingres Code Sprint, Ingres (Press Release)

Coming Battle Over Open Source Phones, Forbes.com, Elizabeth Woyke (Article)

Linux experiences ‘prolific’ growth, says Linux Foundation’s Zemlin, SearchEnterpriseLinux.com, Pam Derringer (Article)

Nvidia Reiterates Position on Closed Source Driver, OSnews, Thom Holwerda (Article)

Red Hat CEO: Oracle/BEA Deal Is Helping Us, Internet News, Sean Michael Kerner (Article)

The State of Open Mobile OSes, TechCrunch, John Biggs (Blog)

When is an open-source project ready?, Practical Technology, Stephen j. Vaughan-Nichols (Blog)

Nokia?s Open Source Response: The Symbian Q&A, RedMonk - tecosystems, Stephen O’Grady (Blog)

451 CAOS Links - 2008.06.20

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:58:56 -0700

Neocleus obtains new round of funding. Novell releases OpenSUSE 11. Red Hat acquires open source identity code from Identyx. (and more)

Neocleus Raises Over $11M in Series B Financing, Neocleus (Press Release)
openSUSE Project Announces Availability of openSUSE 11.0, Novell (Press Release)

Red Hat Delivers on Linux Automation with Identity Management and Open Source Systems Management Solutions, Red Hat (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems Releases New Version of Open Source Database Platform for Carrier Grade Telecommunications Environments, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Jaspersoft v3 Marks Major Milestone for Commercial Open Source Business Intelligence, Jaspersoft (Press Release)

Black Duck Software Marks the One-Year Anniversary of GPLv3 with an Examination of Trends in Use, Black Duck Software (Press Release)

Subversion 1.5 now available through CollabNet-Sponsored Subversion Open Source Community, CollabNet (Press Release)

Zenoss Scales Open Source Network & Systems Monitoring Solution to Address Needs of Large Enterprise IT Environments, Zenoss (Press Release)

Ingres Joins Red Hat Exchange, Red Hat (Press Release)

SourceLabs Extends Self-Support Technology To Xen Virtualization Software, SourceLabs (Press Release)

IONA Reduces Compliance Complexity For Financial Messaging Data Services, IONA Technologies (Press Release)

Registration Now Open: The Linux Plumbers Conference, Linux Foundation (Press Release)

Red Hat chief: We are hard to do business with, ZDNet UK, Andrew Donoghue (Article)

Over 8 million ? way to go!, The Mozilla Blog, Mary Colvig (Blog)

Nokia: Open source developers should play by our rules, InfoWorld - Fatal Exception, Neil McAllister (Blog)

Open source tour of Europe: France

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:17:01 -0700

To coincide with EURO 2008, I’m embarking on a virtual European tour, taking a quick look at open source policies and deployment projects in the 16 nations that are competing in the tournament.

One of the potential favourites for EURO 2008 was always going to be eliminated from the group stages given France, Italy and The Netherlands were all drawn in Group C and it was France that made an early exit following a 2-0 defeat to the Italians last night.

France must also be considered one of the favourites to be crowned EURO 2008 Open Source champion given the number of open source-related policies, projects and vendors. It would almost be easier to list the departments of the French government that have not adopted open source.

Key policies:
As long ago as 2001 the French Agency for Information and Communication Technologies in the Administration announced that it was promoting the use of open standards and open-source software in e-government applications. The following year it published a guide designed to help public sector entities choosing and using free and open source software.

In 2002 the Commissariat Général du Plan, a report analyzing the French software industry was published and recommended that public agencies promote the development of free software platforms and open standards.

More recently, in April 2007 the Ministry of Defense announced that it would prefer open source software for both acquired and internally-developed software projects.

Meanwhile the Practical Guide to the use of Open Source software by public authorities was published in late 2007, while in May this year the Ministry of Education agreed a four-year 60% discount with Mandriva for the adoption of Linux by all teachers and staff (estimated at 1.5 million employees) at France’s 250 schools and universities.

Somewhat extraordinarily given the amount of deployment projects listed below, it was recommended in January that France should increase its use of open source software and consider tax benefits to stimulate open source development. The recommendations were made by an economic commission set up by France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Key projects:
There are almost too many to mention, and the following is just a taster. The Ministry of Equipment and Transport migrated 1,500 Windows NT Servers to what was then Mandrakelinux in 2004. Meanwhile the Ministry of Defense contracted five suppliers to create a secure Linux variant, the Family Allowance Agency migrated to Red Hat and JOnAS, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs adopted an open source web application deployment and development platform.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries migrated 500 Windows NT servers to Mandriva in 2005, followed by a further 400 servers starting in 2007. The Tax Ministry (PDF) adopted the JBoss Application Server as part of its COPERNIC project to overhaul of the IT system that underpins the French tax system.

In 2006 the Directorate General for the Modernisation of the State approved the adoption of OpenOffice for 400,000 central administration desktops as part of a move to support the Open Document Format.

The Ministry of Education migrated 2,500 servers across its 30 local education authorities to Red Hat Enterprise Linux last year, while the Culture and Communication Ministry migrated from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org.

This year the gendarmerie announced plans to migrate up to 70,00 workstations to Ubuntu running Firefox and OpenOffice.org, while Ubuntu was also chosen for adoption by French MPs as part of the migration of the National Assembly from Windows to Linux.

Open source has also been adopted by local authorities including Arles, Grand Nancy, Lille, Val d?Oise, Marseille, Brest, Grenoble, Lyon, Rennes, and Marseille again.

Adoption of open source is also strong in the private sector. Examples include the adoption of MySQL by retailers Franprix and Leader Price to manage the data in their supply chain and product distribution platforms.

Another comes from Agence France-Presse, which has adopted Nuxeo?s open source content management system, as have SNCF, La Poste, and Gaz de France, among others. Meanwhile Airbus created its own open source development tools for building mission critical systems based on Eclipse, and Peugeot Citroen moved to SUSE Linux for up to up to 20,000 desktops.

Key vendors:
France has a host of open source vendors, of which the most famous is probably Linux vendor Mandriva. Former Mandriva founder Gaël Duval is having another crack at the open source desktop with Ulteo, while other French open source vendors include content management vendor Nuxeo, data integration firm Talend, and services firm Linagora. Also worth a mention is the OW2 Consortium, a non-profit open source middleware consortium formed by the merger of ObjectWeb and Orientware. Although its headquarters is actually in Belgium, its roots and its administration home is in Paris.

And another thing:
France even has its own family free software license. CeCILL was released in July 2004 and is designed to be compatible with both the GNU GPL and French law. It has been approved by the Free Sofware Foundation. CeCILL was followed by CeCILL-B, which is a BSD-style license, and CeCILL-C, which is more comparable wit the LGPL.

As always we welcome your input. If you have examples of open source adoption in France that we’ve overlooked, please leave a comment below. For more stops on the European tour, see this post.

Open source tour of Europe: Czech Republic

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:18:02 -0700

To coincide with EURO 2008, I’m embarking on a virtual European tour, taking a quick look at open source policies and deployment projects in the 16 nations that are competing in the tournament.

The Czech Republic team was just three minutes away from qualifying for the knockout stages of EURO 2008 on Sunday before Turkey managed to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win. Publicly available information on Czech open source deployment projects suggests that the country has had rather more luck when it comes to open source.

Key projects:
There was early success in 2003/4 when the Vysocina Region deployed two open source-based projects: e-PUSA, the electronic portal of the regional self-governments and KEVIS, the regional registration and information system.

The e-PUSA backoffice portal links Czech regional and local governments to facilitate data sharing and was expanded in 2005 to connect to the then Ministry of Informatics, and the Ministry of Interior (which later subsumed part of the Ministry of Informatics).

KEVIS, meanwhile, is a regional registration and information system based on Apache, PHP, and MySQL. Software consulting firm Marbes was involved in both projects.

2004 also saw the migration of Czech Post to Linux for 4,000 servers at 3,400 post offices across the country, as well as at 12,000 client terminals used by 20,000 employees. Novell?s SUSE Linux got the nod for both server and desktop roll-outs. Other deployment projects include long-term adoption in Ostrava.

Key policies:
Following these projects the then Informatics Minister decided to encourage the use of open source and helped form the OSS Alliance to provide technical analysis, recommendations, cases studies and support services to schools and public administrations.

A survey of open source usage followed, as well as the Open Government 2006 conference and training courses for students in Linux, Mozilla and Thunderbird. Since then, however, news of open source projects has run dry.

As was pointed out in the comments below, Liberix is a Czech non-profit organization set up to support the development, documentation, translation, and distribution of free and open source software.

Additionally, as noted by Kyo in the comments, the Czech Republic recently signed two strategic agreements with Microsoft for software licensing and a proposed security partnership that are designed to save the government CZK 700 million ($42m). Those may well have an impact on future open source deployments.

And another thing:
Red Hat invested 1.3m euros in opening a development centre in Brno in the Czech Republic in 2007. As I pointed out at the time, based on my limited experience of Brno if extraordinarily cheap lager, good food, bizarre desserts, strange tequila shot combinations, friendly locals and a warm welcome is what Red Hat had in mind, then it chose the right place.

As always we welcome your input. If you have examples of open source adoption in the Czech Republic that we’ve overlooked, please leave a comment below. For more stops on the European tour, see this post.

Open source DB2? I don?t think so.

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:16:15 -0700

ZDNet and its sister sites ran an interesting story yesterday indicating that IBM might be preparing to release its DB2 database under an open source license. If true, it would be a fascinating turn of events that would have a significant impact on the database industry. Unfortunately, it’s not.

I was immediately suspicious when reading the initial story. For a start it quotes a UK IBM executive: IBM’s UK director of information management software, Chris Livesey. With all due respect to him, if IBM was even hinting at open sourcing DB2, it would surely be rolling out the big guns.

Additionally, I’ve had briefings in the last couple of weeks with both IBM’s data management and open source executives, neither of whom thought to mention open sourcing DB2. That didn’t rule it out entirely of course.

Then there was what Livesey was actually quoted as saying:

“We have a light version of the product offered for free, which is a step towards exposing our core [DB2] technology. Looking at IBM’s heritage in contributing to the open-source market, we’ve been particularly keen to lead that market. Open source is an interesting space as a whole. As the future unfolds and the economics become clearer, there’s going to be more commitment to open source by everybody. We’ve made good steps towards that.”

To me it just smacked of theorizing, while ZDNet’s opening gambit “IBM is positive about the possibility of bringing out its DB2 database-management software under an open-source licence” is similarly speculative.

Then of course there is the issue of why IBM would open source DB2. Where is the business driver? Despite solid competition from Oracle and Microsoft, the company is doing pretty well with DB2 as it stands, thanks very much, and open source databases have had minimal impact on the established vendors.

Also, while the company has open sourced some proprietary products in the past, the company is not open sourcing everything it has a la Sun, and prefers where possible to sponsor, or build on top of, existing projects.

The interesting thing about IBM when it comes to speculation is that it genuinely doesn’t comment on it. Unlike some companies that drip-feed a response or hide their real response behind a platitude, you generally know where you are with IBM and “IBM does not comment on speculation”.

It takes a pretty special bit of speculation to get IBM to diverge from this mantra. In this context, IBM’s statement is about as unequivocal as it gets: “IBM has no plans to open source DB2″.

Open source tour of Europe: Turkey

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:17:20 -0700

To coincide with EURO 2008, I’m embarking on a virtual European tour, taking a quick look at open source policies and deployment projects in the 16 nations that are competing in the tournament.

Turkey kept its hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages of EURO 2008 alive with a last-minute victory over hosts Switzerland last night and now faces a winner-takes-all final group game against the Czech Republic on Sunday.

When it comes to open source software adoption, details of public and private deployments are thin on the ground, and we are indebted to Erkan Tekman, Pardus project manager, for contributing his insight into open source adoption in Turkey (see below).

Pardus is Turkey?s own Linux distribution developed by Turkey’s National Institute of Electronics and Cryptology (UEKAE), an affiliate of the Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK).

The Pardus project has contributed open source-specific efforts to the government Action Plans for e-conversion, including the preparation of an evaluation and migration guides, and is also working on migration pilots, and on creating a proof of concepts for open source use in public administrations.

Meanwhile, there is a wealth of information about community-level open source involvement. If you were wondering what the attitude of Turkish hackers is towards free and open source software, and how that compares to the attitude of hackers within the European Union, you are in luck. This MIT report (PDF) tells you everything you need to know. Additionally, if you?re interested in which projects are responsible for the localization of open source projects into Turkish, look no further than this report (also PDF).

Key projects:
There are sporadic examples of Turkish open source projects. In August 2007 Turkey’s Military Recruitment Division, which is part of the Ministry of Defense, announced that it was switching to Pardus Linux on all of its 4,500 desktops and more than five hundred servers.

Pardus is also being used by Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council as part of its digital television archive and analysis project.

Meanwhile CentOS is used along with Apache and MySQL to power Yerelnet, a web site designed to encourage collaboration between local governments. Other early adepter success stories include Manisa Health Directorate, Petrol-Is, and Neziroglu Motors, all of which are using Pardus Linux.

While there are few examples of Turkish open source deployments to date there is reason to believe that may will be more in the future thanks to the fact that the Ministry of Education is teaching students to use and understand open source software as well as Windows as part of the IT curriculum.

The view from the ground:
“TUBITAK has given a great kickstart to open source in Turkey, by housing Pardus project for the last three plus years. Now that Pardus is out of its infancy, expect to hear much more from this corner of the world. We are heading to a more widespread adoption in Turkey and are ready for global competition as well…”
Erkan Tekman, project manager, Pardus.
(With thanks to Erkan for his contribution to this post).

As always we welcome your input. If you have examples of open source adoption in Turkey that we’ve overlooked, please leave a comment below. For more stops on the European tour, see this post.

Open source in the enterprise: a CIO.com blogathon

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:07:09 -0700

I’m very pleased to say that I’ve been invited to join CIO.com’s first Executives Online discussion panel, Open Source in the Enterprise, this week. As the starter post explains, the event is a virtual round table discussion bringing together a number of open source executives, and me, to discuss the enterprise adoption of open source software between today and Friday June 6.

It promises to be an interesting discussion, and CIO.com has been good enough to give us some starting discussions points with its survey of attitudes towards open source in the CIO community. I’ll be posting more details here as the discussion evolves.

The panel includes:

Mike Milinkovich, Executive Director of the Eclipse Foundation

Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier, Novell SUSE Evangelist

Bernard Golden, CIO blogger about open source issues

SugarCRM’s CIO, Lila Tretikov

SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson

Fabrizio Capobianco, the CEO of Funambo

Dominic Sartorio, president of the Open Solutions Alliance

Brian Gentile, president and CEO of JasperSoft

Bob Zurek, CTO at EnterpriseDB

WaveMaker CEO Chris Keene

Marten Mickos, the former CEO of MySQL and now the head of Sun’s database group

Jon Ferraiolo, leader of the OpenAJAX Alliance

Ira Heffan, legal counsel for TopCoder

Ron Gula, developer of Dragon IDS and the CEO of Tenable Network Security

Bob Sutor, the vice president of Standards and Open Source at IBM

Wikipedia’s Doman Mituzas

CIO.com’s Esther Schindler

and me

451 CAOS Links - 2008.05.27

Wed, 28 May 2008 01:15:31 -0700

SourceForge announces quarterly earnings. Linux server growth strong, says analyst firm. Talend adds support for MaxDB. (and more)

SourceForge Reports Third Quarter Fiscal 2008 Results, SourceForge (Press Release)

Worldwide Server Market Shows Resiliency with Solid First Quarter Results, According to IDC, IDC (Press Release)

Talend Announces Data Integration for MaxDB, Talend (Press Release)

How everyone wins with open source software, Linux.com, Lisa Hoover (Article)

How open source is losing the charity battle, ZDNet Australia, Angus Kidman (Article)

Open Source, Open Strategy: The SpringSource Manifesto, SpringSource Team Blog, Rod Johnson (Blog)

Subscription vs. license: When do you take your profit?, CNET - The Open Road, Matt Asay (Blog)

SCO Updates its “Legal Update” Page, Groklaw, Pamela Jones (Blog)

Trouble in paradise?

Thu, 15 May 2008 09:22:15 -0700

Maybe it’s a coincidence but this week has seen evidence of tension between commercial open source vendors and elements of the open source user community. Matt Asay stirred up something of a hornet’s nest with his post questioning how open source vendors can find ways of encouraging users to contribute either code of cash in return for free software.

The question itself might be innocuous but Matt’s use of the term “free-riders” prompted a couple of angry responses. Storm in a tea-cup stuff really.

Meanwhile, in a unrelated post, Savio Rodrigues was wondering “is the community hurting the OSS business model?” The answer to that might well be “it depends which OSS business model you’re talking about” but nevertheless Savio’s point is that community reaction to MySQL’s commercial plans may have undermined not MySQL’s business model and development plans.

“This will help proprietary vendors maintain the feature/function gap vs. OSS vendors. Recall that for the majority of single-vendor backed OSS products, there is virtually no cost savings vs. developing closed-source software. To close the feature/function gap, OSS vendors need faster revenue growth to fund this development expense,” he writes.

“The OSS vendor community needs leaders who will stand up to ‘the community’ and make the tough business decisions needed to ensure that OSS isn?t relegated to a small revenue slice of the software industry pie.”

In the light of the reaction to his post, Matt Asay responds to this suggestion: “Most days I’d find this simply wrong, but reading the responses to a harmless suggestion that people should contribute more to open-source projects…it makes you wonder.”

I have previously observed a growing animosity of some sectors of the open source software user community towards commercial software vendors and activities. Where once the commercial success of an open source vendor was to be celebrated, increasingly it seems it is treated by some as a reason for caution and doubt.

I may be wrong, but there appears to me to be a strengthening commitment in some quarters to the ideals of the Free Software Foundation in rejection of the commercial opportunities provided by the Open Source Initiative.

What do people think? Coincidence, or are strange things afoot at the Circle K?

Could investor short-termism undermine open source?

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:15:26 -0700

When we write about investors on this blog we are normally referring to angel and VC investors and the funding they provide to open source start-ups. There is a small, but growing, list of VCs that clearly understand the open source development and distribution models and the long-term profit potential of open source software vendors.

Can the same be said of individual and institutional investors buying and selling shares in publicly traded software companies? Not according to the analysis of Oliver Alexy, a research assistant and doctoral candidate at the Technische Universität München TUM Business School in Munich, Germany.

Oliver has analyzed the impact that releasing software under open source licenses has on a company’s share price. Details have been published this week in the Wall Street Journal and suggest that there may well be a positive reaction to open source moves from shareholders, but only if they see an opportunity for short-term gain.

“Companies saw their stock price rise if they met one crucial condition: explaining how they expected their open strategy to bring in short-term revenue. Companies that clearly communicated a short-term revenue model saw an average stock-price increase of 1.6%. Companies that didn’t saw an average decline of 1.6%,” he writes.

As Matt Asay points out, “this betrays a woefully naive view of open source by the market.” It could also be damaging to open source software in the long-term.

Take Sun’s open source conversion as an example. It is a long-term bet that by making its software freely available, Sun increases the chances of it being adopted. While there are some users that will never pay for support, Sun is casting a wider net in an attempt to seed adoption of its commercial server, storage and software support services and/or block adoption of rival technologies.

It will take some time for this strategy to play out, and in the meantime the company has to deal with the impact of issues such as under-performing legacy products and regional slowdowns. Any investors expecting the $1bn spent on MySQL to quickly, or even partially, make up for a 10% YoY decline in US revenue is likely to be disappointed.

This is not to criticize either Sun’s overall strategy of the acquisition of MySQL. In many ways it does not matter whether Sun’s strategy is sound or not, however. What matters is whether Sun’s investors have the patience to wait for long-term returns. If Oliver Alexy’s analysis is correct, they will be the exceptions rather than the rule if they do.

See also Oliver Alexy’s paper, “Putting a value on openness: the effect of product source code releases on the market value of firms”. (PDF)

451 CAOS Links - 2008.05.06

Tue, 06 May 2008 20:11:35 -0700

Black Duck acquires Koders. Univa UD obtains new round of funding. Sun and others announce quarterly results. (and more)

Black Duck Software Acquires Software Code Search Leader Koders, Black Duck Software (Press Release)

Univa UD Receives Series B Financing, Univa UD (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems Reports Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2008 Results, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

IONA Reports First Quarter 2008 Results, IONA Technologies (Press Release)

Sourcefire Announces 2008 First Quarter Results, Sourcefire (Press Release)

Actuate Reports First Quarter 2008 Financial Results, Actuate (Press Release)

Aras Accelerates Global Momentum with Record Sales and Key Milestones, Aras (Press Release)

Adobe and Industry Leaders Establish Open Screen Project, Adobe Systems (Press Release)

SpringSource Redefines Application Server Market, SpringSource (Press Release)

Live from CommunityOne, Sun Introduces OpenSolaris - Free, Open, Easy-to-Integrate With World-Class Support and Unique Features to Fuel Innovation, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Open Source Java Technology Debuts In GNU/Linux Distributions, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems and NetBeans Community Extend Reach to Scripting Community with Launch of NetBeans IDE Early Access for PHP, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Neocleus Unveils Virtualization Strategy that Redefines Endpoints for Distributed Enterprises, Neocleus (Press Release)

Novell to Expand Linux Management Solutions, Novell (Press Release)

EnterpriseDB Launches Blade Partner Program, EnterpriseDB (Press Release)

One Laptop per Child Appoints Chuck Kane as President and Chief Operation Officer, One Laptop per Child (OLPC) (Press Release)

Fonality Launches Open Source Telephony Ecosystem, Fonality (Press Release)

Xandros Debuts Heterogeneous Systems Center Capabilities at Microsoft Management Summit, Xandros (Press Release)

Likewise Software Now Supports Oracle Enterprise Linux, Likewise Software (Press Release)

OpenLogic Certified Library Now Includes 400 Certified Open Source Packages, Adds Open Source Comparisons, OpenLogic (Press Release)

Pentaho Extends the Benefits of Open Source BI to More Markets and Application Types, Pentaho (Press Release)

Pentaho Announces Validation on Complete Sun Microsystems Infrastructure Stack, Pentaho (Press Release)

Red Hat Launches JBoss Operations Network 2.0 to Enhance Enterprise Middleware Manageability, Red Hat (Press Release)

Continuent Announces New uni/cluster 2008 for PostgreSQL and EnterpriseDB, Continuent (Press Release)

SugarCRM Delivers Enhanced Enterprise Reporting and Wireless Features, SugarCRM (Press Release)

Untangle OEMs Kaspersky Lab’s Market-Leading Anti-Virus Software, Untangle (Press Release)

rSmart Launches rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5, The rSmart Group (Press Release)

JasperSoft and Unisys Extend Their Alliance Into a Full Reseller Relationship, JasperSoft / Unisys (Press Release)

Ingres and MuleSource Announce Strategic Technology Partnership, Ingres / MuleSource (Press Release)

Britney Spears Beats Out Paris Hilton in Open Source Code Popularity (Although Neither Holds Candle to Satan), Krugle (Press Release)

Big Money and Open Source May Not Compute, InternetNews, Andy Patrizio (Article)

Red Hat CEO: Opportunity Lies in Emerging Markets, Linux Insider, Frank Norton (Article)

Debian: We’re not looking for commercial fortune, ZDNet UK, Adrian Bridgwater (Article)

Open source diva Danese Cooper (video), Linux.com, Robin Miller (Article)

OpenSolaris finally available for download, Network World, John Fontana (Article)

Sun Microsystems 3Q loss stuns Wall Street, MercuryNews, Jordan Robertson (Article)

Mini Review: Open Source in Harvard Business Review, Linux Journal, James Gray (Article)

Our Q3, Sun Microsystems - Jonathan’s Blog, Jonathan Schwartz (Blog)

Managing Towards Open, Microsoft - Port 25, Sam Ramji (Blog)

Open Source Big Dog: Red Hat or Sun?, The Tao of Open Source…Community…Business, Shaun Connolly (Blog)

Oracle: ‘We just don?t care’ about Sun-MySQL Merger, ZDNet - Linux and Open Source, Paula Rooney (Blog)

Hans Reiser Guilty of First Degree Murder, Wired - Threat Level, David Kravets (Blog)

Subversion’s Future?, iBanjo, Ben Collins-Sussman (Blog)

Interop : Open Source Panel Heckled and Walked Out On, InternetNews, Sean Michael Kerner (Blog)

Why you hate the GPL and why I love it, CNET - The Open Road, Matt Asay (Blog)

Black Duck’s Excellent Acquisition–A Community, Linux Today, Mark Hinkle (Blog)

Barry Klawans is at Hyperic, Hyperic Blog, Stacey Schneider (Blog)

451 CAOS Links - 2008.04.22

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:17:40 -0700

Microsoft and Novell extend collaboration to China. IDC sees open source growing in importance with end users. rPath to use SUSE Linux for appliances. (and more)

Microsoft and Novell Extend Reach of Interoperability Collaboration to China, Microsoft / Novell (Press Release)

Open Source Software Grows in Importance to End-User Organizations Providing Rising Services Opportunity for Quality Assurance and Testing, IDC Survey Reveals, IDC (Press Release)

rPath to OEM SUSE Linux Enterprise Server from Novell for Appliances, rPath (Press Release)

Latest Server Release Expands Ubuntu Enterprise Profile, Canonical (Press Release)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Delivers Dramatic Virtualization Performance with HP Server and AMD Processor Technologies, Red Hat (Press Release)

Zenoss Closes Record Quarter with Over 100 Enterprise Customers, Opens New Development Center in Austin, Texas, Zenoss (Press Release)

AlterPoint Expands into Europe with Open Network Management Initiative, AlterPoint (Press Release)

Terracotta Adds Rich Visualization to Leading Java Clustering Solution, Terracotta (Press Release)

OSA Announces New Board Members to Guide Consortium Push Toward Interoperability, Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) (Press Release)

Fedora goes to a community-dominated board, LWN.net, Paul Frields (Article)

Mercury News interview: Fitting MySQL into Sun’s orbit, San Jose Mercury News, Brandon Bailey (Article)

Ask RedMonk: Open Source Indemnification - the Q&A, RedMonk - Tecosystems, Stephen O’Grady (Blog)

Did Canonical Just Get Punked by Red Hat and Novell?, Linux Today Blog, Brian Proffitt (Blog)

Has MySQL Forgotten All It Learnt?, Computerworld UK, Glyn Moody (Blog)

Does Open Source Participation Open Career Opportunities?, Marketing at Eclipse, Ian Skerrett (Blog)

Wired Asks the Wrong Question about Open Source, CIO - The Open Source, Bernard Golden (Blog)

451 CAOS Links - 2008.04.18

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:16:13 -0700

Standish Group says open source costs vendors $60 billion. OpenLogic launches Open Source Census. Novell annnounces SUSE Appliance program. (and more)

“Free Open Source Software Is Costing Vendors $60 Billion,” New Standish Group International Study Finds, The Standish Group International (Press Release)

Global Open Source Census Launches to Count Enterprise Use of Open Source Software, OpenLogic (Press Release)

Novell Announces SUSE Appliance Program, Novell (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems Introduces MySQL Workbench, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Truviso Contributes PostgreSQL Enhancements to Open Source Community, Truviso (Press Release)

MindTouch Reports Outstanding Growth, Increased Momentum in the Social Enterprise Marketplace, MindTouch (Press Release)

Compiere Releases Open Source ERP Solution Upgrade, Compiere (Press Release)

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Keynote Addresses Announced, IDG World Expo (Press Release)

IBM WebSphere sMash Brings SugarCRM to WebSphere Users, SugarCRM (Press Release)

SugarCRM Manages SaaS Offering with Zenoss, Zenoss (Press Release)

ERP5 Express Revolutionizes On Demand Software with Free and Unlimited ERP, Nexedi (Press Release)

Sourcefire Announces New EMEA Channel Program, Sourcefire (Press Release)

Openbravo launches new Global Partner Program, Openbravo (Press Release)

WSO2 Expands Management Team, WSO2 (Press Release)

CNR.com Releases Beta CNR Client For Ubuntu 8.04, Linspire (Press Release)

ICEfaces 1.7 is Now Available!, ICEsoft Technologies (Press Release)

MySQL users frustrated as Sun limits new features for paying customers, Computerworld UK, Eric Lai (Article)

Ray Ozzie talks open source, mesh, IDG News Service, Nancy Gohring (Article)

Open mobile OS efforts abound, Network World, Joanie Wexler (Article)

New Debian leader aims for better communication, iTWire, Sam Varghese (Article)

Red Hat scraps plans for Linux PCs, iTnews, Mitchell Bingemann (Article)

We Don’t Use Software That Costs Money Here, Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood (Blog)

The Power of Community, Hyperic Blog, Stacey Schneider (Blog)

Open source pioneer Levanta goes out of business?, Enterprise Linux Log, Mark Gallagher (Blog)

What?s Going On With Red Hat Desktop Systems? An Update Red Hat News (Blog)

Dear Marten, Poo-tee-weet, Lukas Kahwe Smith (Blog)

Jealousy? Novell, Red Hat, and the Linux Desktop, Practical Technology, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (Blog)

The Open Source Census is LIVE!, OpenLogic Blog, Kim Weins (Blog)

Open-source code base doubles every year, CNET - The Open Road, Matt Asay (Blog)

451 CAOS Links - 2008.04.15

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:16:21 -0700

Marketcetera obtains funding. Microsoft posts additional protocol docs. Sun announces MySQL 5.1. (and more)

Marketcetera Closes $4 Million Series A Financing Led by Shasta Ventures, Marketcetera (Press Release)

Microsoft Publicly Posts Additional Protocol Documentation, Microsoft (Press Release)

Sun Microsystems Announces MySQL 5.1, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Sun Celebrates Third-Party MySQL Storage Engines, Sun Microsystems (Press Release)

Compiere Releases Open Source ERP Solution Upgrade, Compiere (Press Release)

Dimdim Frees Up Web Meetings, Dimdim (Press Release)

Oracle Subsidiary Innobase OY Releases InnoDB Plug-in for MySQL 5.1, Oracle (Press Release)

Continuent Announces New uni/cluster 2008 for MySQL, Continuent (Press Release)

Eclipse Expands Open Source Technologies for Embedded and Mobile Developers, Eclipse Foundation (Press Release)

Kickfire Announces First High-Performance Appliance for MySQL, Kickfire (Press Release)

AlterPoint Opens 2008 with Record Results, AlterPoint (Press Release)

Alfresco Closes Landmark Financial Year 2007, Alfresco Software (Press Release)

WaveMaker Adds Informix Founder to Board of Directors, WaveMaker (Press Release)

Open Kernel Labs Showcases Milestones on One-Year Anniversary, Open Kernel Labs (Press Release)

Appcelerator Integrates Rich Internet Application Platform with Google App Engine, Appcelerator (Press Release)

CollabNet Strengthens Management Team with Key Additions, CollabNet (Press Release)

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Announces Results of 2008 Board Election, OSI (Press Release)

Yahoo Refugee Tim Cadogan Lands at OpenX As CEO, TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld (Article)

Open Source Census Launches, CIO Magazine, Chris Kanaracus (Article)

Linux Ecosystem Revenue to Near $50 Billion by 2011, LinuxInsider, Walaika Haskins (Article)

ISO calls for end to OOXML ‘personal attacks’, ZDNet.co.uk, David Meyer (Article)

2008 Server OS Reliability Survey, Institute for Advanced Professional Studies, Laura DiDio (Article)

SitePen: Passing the Open-Source Torch, eWeek, Darryl Taft (Article)

The Linux Foundation and the future of Linux, Linux.com, Joe Barr (Article)

Fresh blood - the new fight for open source, Reg Developer, Gavin Clarke (Article)

Open Source Decade: 10 years after the Free Software Summit, Ars Technica, Federico Biancuzzi (Article)

Should Microsoft buy RHT?, Maison Fleury, Marc Fleury (Blog)

Why I’m okay that Google Code doesn’t support AGPL, InfoWorld Open Sources, Savio Rodrigues (Blog)

A funny thing happened on the way to ApacheCon, Microsoft - Port 25, Garrett Serack (Blog)

My kid hates Linux, ZDNet Education, Christopher Dawson (Blog)

The 451 Group Visits Microsoft, Boycott Novell, Roy Schestowitz (Blog)

10 things to consider when choosing a Linux distribution, TechRepublic - 10 Things, Jack Wallen (Blog)

Burning the Boats!, TheOpenForce.com, Zack Urlocker (Blog)

451 CAOS Theory " Ohloh opens code, and privacy debate

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 15:05:22 -0800

transparency can bite both ways, as the 451 crew notes re: the Ohloh announcement