Comments on: How open is your open source vendor?

By: 451 CAOS Theory » What the OSD doesn’t say about open source

451 CAOS Theory » What the OSD doesn’t say about open source — Wed, 13 May 2009 21:46:10 +0000

[...] have covered this ground before, but a debate ensued on Twitter that outgrew 140 characters. Hence this quick [...]

By: 451 CAOS Theory » Define “open source vendor”

451 CAOS Theory » Define “open source vendor” — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 23:05:45 +0000

[...] as previously noted, the OSD only defines the license used to distribute the software, not the method used to develop [...]

By: 451 CAOS Theory » Judging open source business models

451 CAOS Theory » Judging open source business models — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:39:09 +0000

[...] blogs resurrect a discussion that I previously mentioned here about whether the industry needs an open source definition for business and development [...]

By: 451 CAOS Theory » Is social responsibility the key to corporate contributions?

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 12:07:10 +0000

[...] on the grounds of social responsibility. This in turn calls to mind Milking the GNU’s suggestion of an “Equitable Open Source” index by which to judge vendors on their patent policy, business [...]

By: 451 CAOS Theory » Customers versus users: a distinction

451 CAOS Theory » Customers versus users: a distinction — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:42:37 +0000

[...] of open source vendors and realized I had failed to be as clear as I could have been in my original post on the [...]

By: (Commercial) Open Source Armageddon | Boldly Open

(Commercial) Open Source Armageddon | Boldly Open — Tue, 20 May 2008 22:18:56 +0000

[...] out there to shut up, so I urge you to have a look at the whole stir about organic Open Source, vendor openness, the role of communities and, generally speaking, Open Source sustainability as a [...]

By: Boycott Novell » Links 20/05/2008: More GNU/Linux Servers, Handhelds, Points of Sale

Tue, 20 May 2008 06:30:05 +0000

[...] How open is your open source vendor? If vendors are not proactive about writing and publishing declarative statements about their open source involvement, they may find that community users start judging them on the community’s terms. From Milking the GNU comes the suggestion that a new independent organization could be formed to judge vendors that claim to be open source on a number of criteria, such as patent policy, business model and development model. [...]

By: James Dixon

James Dixon — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:06:10 +0000

I agree the biggest issue here is transparency. If commercial open source organizations are proactive in communicating what is happening and why and providing the community a way to voice their opinions many problems can be avoided.

A contract or charter and a clearly defined contribution process could make it clear where the community stands. This would be of benefit for many open source projects as some of them are also hard to contribute to.

James Dixon, Chief Geek, Pentaho

By: Mark R. Hinkle

Mark R. Hinkle — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:13:10 +0000

I am always confused a little bit by the spotlight put on companies that base their business around open source. If there is a project that is sponsored by a company that has a commercial offering it seems that the spotlight keeps being put on their business practices and not the software.

If the software adheres to the open source definition than there shouldn’t be a differentiator. If the organization provides support and services for open source software then they are an open source vendor and acts within the terms of the license than that should be good enough.

I am often struck by the importance placed upon the company especially when the community of users is empowered. Should they become unhappy they can easily fork the project at any time. If the companies don’t act responsibly that community can and will rise up against it. That’s the check and balance system that is in place and generally accepted.

Disclosure: I am the VP of Community at Zenoss

By: tecosystems » When is Open Open? And When is Open Closed?

tecosystems » When is Open Open? And When is Open Closed? — Mon, 19 May 2008 16:39:41 +0000

[...] analyst colleague Matthew Aslett from the 451 Group suggests that the idea of measuring projects considered open by the OSI definition according to a second set [...]

By: Chris Marino

Chris Marino — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:36:07 +0000

Matt, Tony Wasserman of CMU published an interesting study into this area last May http://tinyurl.com/6hjb8b.

It goes into the various dimensions of ‘open’ and analyzes several prominent projects.

More here: http://blog.snaplogic.org/?p=32

By: Open Social How To » How open is your open source vendor?

Open Social How To » How open is your open source vendor? — Mon, 19 May 2008 12:42:20 +0000

[...] Original post by [Technorati] Tag results for open social [...]