SpringSource acquires Hyperic. What is the point of community? Nagios forks. And more.

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SpringSource acquires Hyperic
So at least one of the acquisition rumors from OSBC turned out to be true. SpringSource announced that it has acquired Hyperic for an undisclosed fee, combining SpringSource’s Java development and middleware expertise with Hyperic’s web application and infrastructure management software. SpringSource CEO Rod Johnson outlined the benefits in a blog post as did Hyperic CEO, Javier Soltero, while the companies also provided a handy FAQ. # Bob Bickel provided some historical context.

What is the point of community?
Matt Asay has been challenging some assumptions about open source of late, with the latest being the importance of “community”. Matt argued that “community” is perhaps the most overhyped word in software and that “community is mostly made up of onlookers” who will not contribute to the development of a project.

The response was swift and vociferous with Tarus Balog arguing that “the fact that marketing people can’t squeeze value out of community doesn’t mean that communities don’t have value” and Carlo Daffara pointing out that his research indicated that “under the correct conditions communities of contributors provide a non-trivial benefit to the vendor”.

That “under the correct conditions disclaimer” is important, as is the perspective that the value of community will be different for every vendor depending on the nature of the community and the project involved. This is a point Matt actually raised himself but got lost amid sweeping statements on both sides: “there’s value there, yes, but it’s not what most people think it is.”

The best of the rest
# WSO2 launched Data Services 2.0, now based on the WSO2 Carbon service-oriented architecture (SOA) framework.

# Talend launched version 3.1 of Talend Open Studio and Talend Integration Suite.

# Engine Yard previewed its new Rails in the Cloud service at RailsConf.

# Sparxent announced that it is to acquire open source data integration Company, XAware.

# Glyn Moody reported on the Icinga fork of Nagios Why fork? The Icinga team provided an answer.

# OK Labs and Citrix partnered to deliver mobile access to enterprise and desktop applications.

# Groklaw: U.S. Trustee Moves to Convert SCO Bankruptcy to Chapter 7.

# James Dixon: 12 Ways To Contribute To Open Source.

# Savio Rodrigues: Why do vendors select the GPL license?

# WaveMaker announced version 5.0 of its WaveMaker development platform.

# Six Steps to Building an Open Source Cloud Company, by Enomaly founder and chief technologist Reuven Cohen.

# Robert X. Cringely on Bigtable, HBase, new architectures, Oracle and Sun.

# Economic free software perspectives: a summary white paper on FOSS business strategies, by Carlo Daffara.

# Bob Sutor: So you want to be an open source contributor?

# Dirk Riehle: The Commercial Open Source Business Model.

# The year of the Linux desktop! Net Application reported that GNU/Linux broke 1% share.

# London Olympics says no to open source. Confusing statements from 2012 CIO Gerry Pennell, as reported by eWeek.