This time last year, I was researching and writing our CAOS report, ‘Mobility Matters.’ At the time, we indicated that open source software was prevalent across all layers of the mobile software stack. We viewed Linux and its various mobile forms — Android, Moblin, Ubuntu Netbook Remix and others — as a weapon that OEMs [...]

Winning and losing with open source. Paranoid Android. And more.

Matt Asay set the cat amongst the pigeons late last week with his post declaring that “Free software has lost. Open source has won. We’re all the better for it.” There have been a number of responses picking apart Matt’s claim, of which I would recommend Glyn Moody’s. To my mind, there is actually a [...]

Red Hat revenue climbs again. The GPL is enforceable in France. And more.

I attended the first LinuxCon this week and saw firsthand evidence of a growing, thriving Linux community. Notice I did not call it the Linux kernel community nor Linux development community since it’s much more than the kernel that is key to the fate and progress of Linux, with an increasing role for users as [...]

EMC’s Chuck Hollis has called Oracle out on its non-support for VMware, accusing the company of attempting to lock VMware out of Oracle accounts and lock customers in to the Oracle stack. He may have a point, but I’m somewhat surprised that this issue has raised its head now. We noted when Oracle launched Oracle [...]

Oracle is keeping MySQL. Yahoo is selling Zimbra. Linus is feeling bloated. And more.

I recently read an interesting Associated Press article regarding the top brands based on their dollar value. The article was about an overall loss of brand luster, but heh, these brands are still worth $1.15 trillion together. What was one thing that at least eight of these brands and their backing organizations have in common? [...]

Topics for this podcast: *Microsoft founds CodePlex Foundation, losing Sam Ramji *Software patents at the center of MS, OIN maneuvering *Eucalyptus Systems releases hybrid cloud product *Oracle-Sun Microsystems and the potential fate of MySQL iTunes or direct download (26:40, 6.1 MB)

Citrix joins the Linux Foundation. BonitaSoft raises $3m. And more.

(Or: Not open source business models) A year ago this week I completed work on our Open Source is Not a Business Model report. The report and its findings have been very much in my mind this week however, as I presented some of the findings to an event organised by Intellect in London yesterday, [...]

After reading the latest update on Linux kernel development, highlighted by 451 Group colleague Dan Kusnetzky, I have a few observations to share. First off, to answer Dan’s question, ‘Are you surprised?,’ I don’t think there were any real surprises. We see a list of the companies that are most aggressively and persistently pushing Linux [...]

Reaction to the CodePlex Foundation. GroundWork launches MonitoringForge.org. And more.

Before I even start this post I am going to repeat our view that Oracle is well aware that it has little to gain from killing off MySQL and that we expect MySQL to become the scale-out database for non-transactional web applications and to compete with SQL Server in departmental deployments. That said there has [...]

Following the release of our report, ‘The Myth of Open Source License Proliferation’ and during research for it, we heard and sensed a feeling that open source software licenses had evolved to become a generally well-accepted piece of the the enterprise IT and IP market. However, we also heard from numerous vendors, developers and other [...]

CodePlex, patents and Linux code. An interesting few days for Microsoft open source. Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca “Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.” CodePlex, CodePlex, CodePlex! Microsoft launched the CodePlex Foundation to facilitate open source contributions, and confirmed the departure of Sam Ramji. Patents, [...]

Interesting news today from Microsoft, which has created the CodePlex Foundation, and independent legal entity designed to facilitate contributions to open source projects, both from Microsoft and other software vendors and users. The other big news in this announcement is that Sam Ramji, Microsoft’s senior director of platform strategy and for many people the face [...]

Reaction to EC’s Oracle-Sun delay. OIN to acquire ex-Microsoft patents. And more.

An interesting story in today’s Wall Street Journal states that the Open Invention Network is “nearing an agreement to acquire 22 patents that Microsoft sold to another organization earlier this year” that could be used to protect Linux from patent attacks. If true it won’t be the first time the OIN has acquired patents in [...]

Matt Asay has written an interesting post speculating that Oracle might use the delay caused by the European Commission investigation into its acquisition of Sun to drive the price down. Sounds reasonable enough to me. In it, Matt makes a couple of statements, one I agree with: “Oracle… likely will prove to be a better [...]