Simon Phipps has begun a conversation designed ultimately “to devise some sort of a Software Freedom Definition which articulates a holistic vision of software freedom against which businesses can be benchmarked.” To put it another way, this is an attempt to create a definition of “open source vendor”. We have discussed this issue before, and [...]

Despite some pragmatism and optimism, the overall sentiment on desktop Linux at LinuxCon was, frankly, pretty dismal. The good news is there were not half as many Macs at this event compared to usual tech gatherings. But seriously, there continue to be signs of life and even light in desktop Linux, whatever the hell ‘desktop’ [...]

UPDATE – The OSI’s status was in early 2010 restored to “Active”, per the California State website – UPDATE The ability of the Open Source Initiative to steward the Open Source Definition and police the use of the term open source as it relates to software is in doubt following the confirmation that the corporate [...]

Patents. M&A. Adoption. Business strategies. And more.

Although I hesitate to write another post about business models, Open-Core and open source, it was clear from the recent Open World Forum and Open Source Think Tank in Paris that the issue of how to make money from open source software is still of considerable concern to vendors. Open Source Think Tank attendees were [...]

Since we’ve been getting philosophical on the war between open source and proprietary software, free software and open source, etc., I thought I might as well weigh in with my perspective. First, I wanted to address the matter of open core, the term that refers to a software business strategy based on proprietary pieces and [...]

Venture capital funding for open source vendors fell 31% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year, as was to be expected in the ongoing economic climate, but was up compared to the previous quarter. According to our preliminary figures, there were 13 announced funding deals in the third quarter of 2009 [...]

At the Open World Forum event in Paris this morning I presented a quick overview of the state of free and open source software in 2009 and a look at the trends shaping FOSS into the next decade. The presentation was just 10 minutes rather than the 20 I had originally understood it to be, [...]