Companies that sell and support open source software have been acting like garage bands lately, changing names in significant numbers as the year draws to a close. One theme of all the new nomenclature: association with open source.

The first example is Centeris, which recently changed its name to to LikeWise Software. The new name is based on its LikeWise software for Active Directory integration of Windows, Linux, Unix and Mac, which has exceeded expectations. The company has also open sourced its software with LikeWise Open using the GPLv3 license, an interesting and wise choice that makes sense given the company’s work with the Samba file and print server project, also a user of GPLv3.

A second name change, Interface21 switching to SpringSource, reinforces the desire and benefit of association with open source, particularly a widely used, successful project such as the Spring Java development framework. In announcing the move last month, Spring creator Rod Johnson said the newly-named company expected to widen its audience with a name that naturally matched the open source application software project. Of course, there have been other name changes.

While it is less of a move to an open source project or brand, CentricCRM’s change to Concursive comes as open source applications for businesses are proliferating. The newly-named Concursive is set on broadening its appeal along with open source software that has grown in features and capability.

Another move is less involved with open source, SWsoft’s announcement to change names to Parallels. Still, this reinforces the idea that the value and the brand recognition are in the products. Increasingly, it seems, those products are open source.