451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
Industry giants show some give on openness
Jay Lyman, September 13, 2010 @ 6:05 pm ETApple got lots of attention when it opened up a bit recently — allowing third-party tools to develop applications for its devices and disclosing its App Store guidelines publicly, a move that we and many others applaud.
While it got less attention, Google also opened up a bit more by allowing all OSI-approved open source licenses, including the AGPL on its Google Code, a move that was also met with cheers from some. This comes as a welcome change from Google, which had previously resisted the AGPL.
We believe both moves were facilitated most by these respective smartphone, software and IT industry giants’ efforts to better address their partners and users. We also think it is further evidence of the pressure of openness, brought about largely because of free and open source software and its growth across enterprise, cloud computing and mobile markets. We described this pressure previously when we talked about Apple, Google and even others leaving opportunity for more open alternatives. Just as we have discussed how open source software is playing a role in the latest debates and discussions about openness in the cloud, we believe that free and open source software and its ideals of transparency and openness are also playing a role in mobile software and devices.
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