Think you hit this right on the head. I’ve spent the last half year or so looking at this question of what is Open Source. Given the 57 flavors that exist, it’s often difficult for executives to get their arms around it. At the end of the day, I’m approaching this now more from a benefits view instead of a taxonomy view. I don’t think the discussion will ever be finalized, which is why I don’t think a taxonomy view is helpful. Actually, my last post was on this very topic if you want to check out my site. Would enjoy the opportunity to discuss at some point.

Hi Raven,

Thanks for stopping by and speaking with us at JBoss World. We appreciate your interest and agree that navigating the open source landscape today can be somewhat confusing. Rob is correct, it’s a benefits discussion versus taxonomy at this point. We’re not simply leveraging the open source moniker, but feel we’ve truly built an innovative product. Open source alone today is simply not enough of a differentiator to ensure your success. Open source for us is a way of allowing the community to advance the development of our offerings in a way that meets their needs best (i.e., new plugins, etc.) Additionally, we contribute both monetarily and resource-wise to other open source projects (Rico, Ruby on Rails, Gruff) not directly associated with FiveRuns.

Thanks again for your interest.

Steven Smith
CEO, FiveRuns

Interesting thread, Raven. As you know, we’re another one that walks this line. OpenMFG goes to great pains to say that our ERP solution is “powered by open source software,” notably PostgreSQL and Qt. We’ve open-sourced our report writer, OpenRPT, which also ships as part of the ERP product. And we’ve got a hybrid development/distribution model, in which customers and partners get full source code, and we bring enhancements back into the main supported product.

But it ain’t OSI-certified Open Source. Which we try to make clear.

Cheers,
Ned

From an analytical point of view, I think labelling a company an “open source company” or not is an exercise in futility which can only spread more confusion than light.

From using some open source components in an otherwise closed offering, to publishing the totality of the offering under the GPL, what we have is an array of business and development models, all of which depend to a varying extent on open source technologies or methodologies. It is, in other words a multidimensional set of sliding scales.

To attempt to divide into ‘open source’ and ‘not open source’ companies, is in my opinion daft and we should try to dissuade people from even asking the question. It’s about as useful as asking someone to listen to a series of symphonies and divide their pitch into ‘high’ or ‘low’.

That’s not to say that I’m anti-taxonomy, I’m all for them - taxonomies are great at clarifying issues and thinking. But “clarifying” should not equate to “oversimplifying”.

Over 6,500 service professionals worldwide are involved in the implementation and support of Linux and open source projects.

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I think the open source is at very critical stage of development now a days.

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Hi Rob. Thanks for the note. I just read your blog post, “Objects in the mirror may appear more Open Sourced than they actually are”, linked from your name here. You raised some great points on this topic. I’d love to have a taxonomy re: levels of open sourceness, but I this may be a futile process. It’s not on my short-term list, and I don’t really have an interest in calling out those that abuse the title.

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