When open source goes bad. Is open source a success or failure? And more.

UPDATED 8/01/09 – It appears there has already been progress in addressing some of the issues raised among CentOS developers. A visit to the project’s home page provides explanation, as well as the original plea from developers. There’s been some disharmony and disruption in the developer community of CentOS, the freely available clone of the [...]

Last week I took part in Red Hat’s Open Source Cloud Computing Forum and discussed our view on how open source and cloud computing can complement each other. I was therefore interested to read the views of Stephen O’Grady and Matt Asay on the same issue this week, and was pleased to see they were [...]

I’ve just posted details of a new database engine project launched by Ingres over at The 451 Group’s Too Much Information blog. The project isn’t open source yet, but the intention is to create a new open source storage engine for the Ingres Database that will better enable it to be positioned as a platform [...]

Intuit launches open source project. SFLC on Microsoft GPL violation accusations.

Topics for this podcast: * The Myth of Open Source License Proliferation * Microsoft contributes Linux kernel drivers under GPLv2 * Linux and open source loom large in cloud computing iTunes or direct download (29:45, 6.9 MB)

Reaction to Microsoft’s Linux code. Open Source for America. And more.

Earlier this week Microsoft announced that it was contributing driver code to the Linux kernel under the GPLv2, and we published a CAOS Theory Q&A to discuss the implications. It has subsequently become clear that there were two important questions that were not answered by our Q&A: Q. Is this a donation, or an obligation? [...]

Not content to leave all of the open source software in government lobbying and debate to the UK or Europe, the Yanks have finally gotten around to organizing their own open source software body for promoting FOSS in the U.S. government: enter Open Source for America. This is good to see, and while the breadth [...]

Last year I speculated about the growing tension between commercial open source vendors and elements of the open source user community, wondering whether it was a sign that FOSS was heading for a previously predicted identity crisis. Glyn Moody reminds us that there has always been a divide between purists and pragmatists, and that actually [...]

Earlier this week Google announced that to commemorate the 40 year anniversary of the moon landing, the Apollo 11 Command Module code (Comanche054) and Lunar Module code (Luminary099) have been transcribed from scanned images to run on yaAGC (an open source AGC emulator) and that the source code was now available for developers to study [...]

Microsoft contributes to Linux. Acquia raises $8m. And more.

UPDATED – I’ve added a link to the actual Webinar, which is available here. We recently announced publication of our latest long-form CAOS report, The Myth of Open Source License Proliferation. Now it’s time for the Webinar covering our twelfth CAOS long report, Tuesday, July 21 at 10am PT, to delve into some of the [...]

Microsoft has announced that it is to contribute code to the Linux kernel development effort under the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2. What on earth does it all mean? Here’s our take on the situation. With thanks to Jay Lyman for his contribution to the following: Q. This is a joke, right? A. Not [...]

Sun shareholders approve Oracle deal. The un/importance of the GPL. And more.

Microsoft’s latest intellectual property (IP) licensing agreement is once again raising eyebrows among Linux and open source software fans, prompting some to wonder what Microsoft may be doing with regard to Linux and open source software. However, let us consider how possible, or perhaps even whether possible, it would be for Microsoft to bring licensing [...]

In our recent long-form report, CAOS 12 – The Myth of Open Source License Proliferation Jay Lyman made the case that the abundance and variety of open source licenses, rather than being a hindrance for open source adoption, had actually helped open source software and the vendors that choose it by providing “flexibility, effective development [...]

Next Wednesday The 451 Group will be taking part in Red Hat’s Open Source Cloud Computing Forum, the line-up for which has been finalized this week. Starting at 9.30am ET the event is designed to is to foster discussion across a broad range of technical topics related to cloud computing, including: virtualization, security, management, open [...]

Funding for Aptana and Jolicloud. Ingres targets MySQL. Trent Reznor on Open Core (sort of). And more.

Google Chrome OS. Jaspersoft Unlimited. RMS on Microsoft’s Mono promise. And more.