Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker | January 2008

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January 2008

January 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)

InformationWeek is reporting a deal between French automaker Renault and Microsoft:

"Under the arrangement, Microsoft will provide Renault with 1,000 "certificates" for Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise server product. The deal also includes a controversial "IP assurance" provision under which Microsoft pledges not to sue customers who use Linux distributed by its partner Novell."

I've asked this before, but why should a customer care about IP assurance? IP indemnification is a vendor issue, just like ensuring environmental rules or workplace safety regulations are being adhered to. It's a disgrace that vendors have made indemnification a customer concern.

"Last year, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer implied that users of Linux distributions from vendors other than those with which it has patent deals -- the list also includes Xandros and Linspire -- could be hearing from the company. "We've spent a lot of money licensing patents," Ballmer said."

For all the positive moves that Microsoft has made towards OSS, silly statements like this must drive Sam Ramji & team to pull out their hair.

You know, I'd actually love to see Microsoft sue a customer because of IP issues. Exactly how much would they sue for to offset the millions of dollars worth of negative publicity and brand destruction?

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 31, 2008 07:05 PM

January 31, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Hyperic 3.2 update

Hyperic has announced a new major version of their HQ monitoring system that adds plenty of new capabilities. HQ enables companies with a web infrastructure to monitor all the various components of the stack, whether open source, closed or a mix. For example, HQ can monitor Windows, IIS, MySQL, and JBoss. Or whatever combination you have in your environment.

The latest release also enables users to incorporate existing Nagios scripts and now uses MySQL as the back end database. The combination of HQ and MySQL has been used to track 1.5 million metrics per minute with plenty of headroom for growth. Hyperic HQ is open source and you can download it and test it out yourself to see if it helps your web operations team.

Hyperic is used by a growing number of sophisticated Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 web-based applications including CNet, eHarmony, Net-a-porter and others.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 31, 2008 09:11 AM

January 30, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Proprietary open source

Proprietary Open Source Proprietary Open Source Proprietary Open Source Proprietary Open Source...there, Marc said it, so I can also ;-)

Matt will say:

"OK. "Words, words, words," as Hamlet might say. I'm not worried about the nomenclature here."

Interesting, just nomenclature eh? Imagine this situation:

1. I buy a license for RHEL
2. I find a bug or want a new feature
3. Lucky for me, I have the source code to RHEL
4. I also have the technical skills to pay the billz<
5. I fix the bug and add that new feature to my copy of RHEL
6. I no longer have RHEL, I have RHEL*

Can I get support for RHEL* from Red Hat? A candy bar to readers who answer, "nope, you're out of luck, Red Hat won't support you on anything other than RHEL (i.e. RHEL* != RHEL)".

I don't know about every commercial OSS product out there, but the above situation holds for more OSS products than you'd think. And you'd be surprised to find several leading OSS vendors whose Proprietary Open Source products are Proprietary and closed source (so you'd be stuck at #2 above). Don't take my word for it. If you're interested spend a few minutes checking out the product pages of the most popular commercial OSS vendors.

Look, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Proprietary Open Source model. I have stressed the value of products and tried to explain that support minimizes the value of the product itself.

If support is the item of value that OSS vendors deliver why gate access to OSS/OSS-based products? Why have higher-value features in the gated products? Why offer these higher-value products under a proprietary license? (Note, not all OSS vendors utilize all 3 of these tactics...some do, some use only 1 or 2 of these tactics to encourage customers to pay for value).

There is nothing wrong for OSS vendors to expect that customers receiving value pay for the value received. The best way to convince these customers to "pay for value" is through a Proprietary Open Source product.

Let me repeat, there is nothing wrong with Proprietary Open Source. I just wish more OSS vendors and OSS proponents were more transparent about the business model that works, and the resulting customer impact.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 30, 2008 07:16 PM

January 29, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Two more acquisitions

It's only Tuesday and there have been two more acquisitions in the open source market. While these aren't huge deals on the scale of JBoss or MySQL, they do signify ongoing consolidation in the market.

-Nokia acquires Trolltech
-SpringSource acquires Covalent

Both these acquisitions seem to make sense from a perspective of customers, users, and the companies on both sides. It's also interesting that these two recent deals show both the adoption of open source technology by a non-open source company and the combination of two open source companies to build a larger open source entity.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 29, 2008 02:36 PM

January 29, 2008 | Comments: (0)

SpringSource buys Covalent

Just hours before my meeting with Rod to "get an update on what SpringSource has been up to", they go and pull the trigger on this...the nerve of these OSS upstarts! ;-)

InfoWorld reports:

"Through the acquisition, SpringSource plans to offer a single source of products and services to develop and run enterprise applications using the Spring Portfolio and Apache projects. The Spring Portfolio of applications has been downloaded more than 4 million times, according to SpringSource.
Covalent, meanwhile, has staff members actively involved in Apache software projects and has a lead developer working on Apache Tomcat, said Mark Brewer, CEO of Covalent. He will become vice president and general manager of SpringSource's Covalent business unit.

SpringSource said enterprises are increasingly opting for Spring, Tomcat, and open source over bloated, complex legacy Java platforms. These legacy platforms include Java servers from such companies as BEA Systems, Oracle, and even open source proponent JBoss, according to Brewer."

And in keeping with Neelan's vision of Interface21 (the name of SpringSource at the time) driving $1 billion in revenue, Rod states:

"We don't need to look to a large incumbent as an exit strategy"

Good luck gents!

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 29, 2008 07:41 AM

January 28, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Nokia to acquire Trolltech to accelerate software strategy

I couldn't resist using the title from the press release.

Mathew Aslett has a nice summary of Nokia's acquisition of Trolltech for about $153M USD. The deal appears to be for ~4x 2007 estimated revenues of ~$40M USD.

Trolltech offers Qt for high-performance, cross-platform application development and Qtopia for mobile Linux devices. Trolltech utilize a dual license model. According to the download page, you can download their products under the GPL if "I'm Developing Open Source Software" or a proprietary commercial version if "I'm Developing Commercial Software". It appears that the commercial versions have more capabilities than the OSS versions. Interestingly enough Trolltech does not offer support around the OSS versions. They are running a true "product-based" business model.

Interesting to see Nokia go down this route vs. Android. I guess Google couldn't really expect Nokia to run and hide at the sight of Android. The #2 & #3 handset providers behind Nokia, Samsung and Motorola, are members of the open handset alliance, which is behind Android.

Let's see if Nokia open sources the 'commercial' versions of Qt and Qtopia in order to compete vs. Android. And if so, will ISVs jump for joy considering the risk of having to pick sides in the handset platform battle?

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 28, 2008 01:50 PM

January 28, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Spirit of the marathon

This post is mostly off topic, but I do no know there are quite a few runners in the open source world. We have a modest-sized running club at MySQL with many marathoners, and there's also guys like Marc Fleury, Matt Asay who have also run marathons. (The SugarCRM guys seem to be avid cyclists, and once in a while I ride with them in the hills around Cupertino, but for me it's not the same thrill as running a marathon. Call me weird.)

At any rate, I went to see the movie "Spirit of the Marathon" the other night. It's an award-winning documentary that follows half a dozen marathoners in their quest to accomplish the Chicago Marathon. For any runner, or anyone who hangs out with runners, it's a jewel of a film. It perfectly captures the obsessive nature of battling the Marathon Monster. Whether it's the pre-sunrise runs, the solo 20-milers or the sea of strewn paper cups on the course, it's all there. (Ok, in good taste they did not focus on port-a-potties, a wise choice in my view.)

The interesting thing is that no matter how accomplished a runner you are, the marathon remains a significant challenge. Even when the elite runners line up, it is not a given that they will finish the race. They go through the same suffering and pain the rest of us do. It takes training, faith and guts to finish a marathon. It's a good metaphor for just about anything in life.

The moving is playing an encore performance in 250 select theaters on February 21.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 28, 2008 07:23 AM

January 25, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Upcoming open source conferences (updated)

Here are a few upcoming open source conferences worth paying attention to:

- SugarCRM Developers Conference, Feb 6-8, San Jose, CA

- PHP Quebec, March 12-14, Montreal, Canada

- EclipseCon, March 17-20, Santa Clara, CA

- OSBC, March 25-26, San Francisco, CA

- ApacheCon Europe, April 7-11, Amsterdam, NL

- MySQL Conference & Expo, April 14-17, Santa Clara, CA

We'll have MySQLers at most if not all of these events. If you're thinking of hitting your boss up for a conference registration and travel, look for the early registration deadlines. You can easily save a few hundred bucks by registering early.

They're all good, depending on what you're looking for. OSBC is the best business focused open source conference, but keep in mind managers (and lawyers) outnumber developers. If you're looking for hardcore developer info, PHP Quebec, ApacheCon or the MySQL Conference are great. And for those looking for more specialized info, SugarCon and EclipseCon are good choices.

Ok, and what have I missed from around the world?

Update:Here are some additional conferences mentioned in the comments

-OpenIsland, Feb 1, Belfast, Ireland

- JBossWorld, Feb 13-15, Orlando, FL

- FOSDEM, Feb 23-24, Brussels, Belgium

- MuleCon, April 1-2, San Francisco, CA

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 25, 2008 08:22 AM

January 24, 2008 | Comments: (0)

LoopFuse launches, and so does Microsoft

Many of you likely missed Microsoft's earnings announcement. Considering all the news about LoopFuse, "a JBoss alumni-led startup" today, who could blame you?

Since Roy Russo (whose life goal appears to be making fun of Canadians and my business school education) and Matt Asay are involved, I had to blog this news. Also, one of the co-founders of Eloqua, the Toronto-based company that LoopFuse appears to be going up against, dated a friend of mine, so this competition is of even more interest.

InfoWorld writes:

"The product, called LoopFuse OneView, includes tools for e-mail marketing, Web analytics, managing campaigns and scoring and prioritizing leads, among other things. The new release, version 3.0, will add lead management and lead nurturing tools, a spokesman said. The software is released under the GNU General Public License."

My favorite quote:

"While our proprietary competitors tread water, and ask you to empty your wallets for 8+ year-old brittle-ware, we're busy innovating, innovating, and innovating, by applying open source principles and methodologies to every facet of our products and business," LoopFuse said in its blog last year."

Best of luck gents.

In related news (since I'm sure LoopFuse wants to grow into a Microsoft Killer one day...which software firm doesn't?)....Microsoft just topped their quarterly revenue record by $2B.

""Revenue of over $16 billion this quarter exceeds our previous record by $2 billion," said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "We are extremely pleased by the broad based strength of our business performance and field execution. Throughout the first half of our fiscal year, all of our businesses met or beat our expectations.""

Oracle, IBM and Microsoft all reported impressive software revenues lately. OSS vendor revenues have been going through the roof also. Strange eh? Well, not if you believe that OSS and Commercial software will (happily) co-exist and grow in conjunction, as I do.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 24, 2008 03:03 PM

January 23, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Compete solely on price? No thanks.

A while ago Roy Russo had made a comment to the effect: "OSS needs to stop competing on price". Regardless what you read about him on the Interweb, I say, he's a smart guy! ;-)

I've never really looked at the price of Windows vs. RHEL or Ubuntu. The simple answer is that CentOS/Fedora (near RHEL replacements) and Ubuntu are free without commercial support, so end of discussion.

But, if you want commercial support and consider a typical Windows replacement cycle (~5 years), it seems that Windows is actually cheaper than purchasing RHEL+support or support for Ubuntu.

I'm quite happy to see this. Price isn't a long term differentiator. Easier to use, faster, more secure, more reliable, etc. can be long term differentiators....price, not so much.

Take a look:

Here's what I did:

The current Vista Ultimate price is $399, the upgrade price is $199. I used $399 in year 1 and $199 in year 6. This assumes you buy Vista today, run it for 5 years and then upgrade to the next version of Windows in year 6. You can pay $59/incident for commercial support from Microsoft. I assumed one would need no more than 2 support calls a year (I haven't ever called MSFT in 20+ years for support). BTW, apparently you get 2 installation related support incidents for free with a Windows license. {Update} Mr. Russo pointed out that I missed the cost of an Advanced Support Incident. If you assume that a customer has 2 of these in a 6 year term, and when they do, the incremental cost is only $200, then Windows is still cheaper by ~$30 (ignoring discounts, hardware costs, other software costs, etc).

The current Ubuntu support price from Canonical for 9x5 phone support is $250. I could have used $900 for the 24x7 support, but that seemed excessive.

The current RHEL "Workstation with Standard Subscription" price for 12x5 phone support is $299.

Note that Canonical and Red Hat offer unlimited incidents, while I only assumed 2 incidents per year with Microsoft. This may be a bad assumption. But seriously, I can't remember anyone I know actually calling Microsoft for OS support.

This 'analysis' is not a statement about total cost of ownership. It's just simple math, and I thought you may find it interesting. OSS doesn't have to compete on price...let's move past that myth.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 23, 2008 05:00 PM

January 23, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Save XP?

I stumbled across a "Save XP" petition that InfoWorld is hosting:

"Microsoft will end OEM and shrink-wrapped sales of Windows XP on June 30, 2008, forcing users to shift to Vista.
....

Millions of us have grown comfortable with XP and don't see a need to change to Vista. It's like having a comfortable apartment that you've enjoyed coming home to for years, only to get an eviction notice. The thought of moving to a new place -- even with the stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, and maple cabinets (or is cherry in this year?) -- just doesn't sit right. Maybe it'll be more modern, but it will also cost more and likely not be as good a fit. And you don't have any other reason to move."

More than 57,000 have signed it. Will you??? ;-)

Maybe more folks would sign a petition titled: "Save XP, Kill Vista" ?

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 23, 2008 10:57 AM

January 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Gartner on Sun's acquisition of MySQL

There's been a lot of positive coverage of Sun's acquisition of MySQL last week (with one or two odd-ball conspiracy stories). To me the most significant element is that Sun has long recognized the disruptive nature of open source and is now leveraging that power as part of their overall strategy.

Obviously, that's not new news. Sun has been doing this for several years with OpenSolaris, GlassFish, NetBeans, open sourcing Java, etc. The fact that both companies have bet on open source is key to the ongoing success of MySQL. I don't think MySQL would have ever sold to a company that was not "open-source compatible". What would be the point?

In some ways Gartner's analysis of the acquisition is among the most insightful. It's a strong vote of confidence since it speaks not just to the open source community but to mainstream IT:

The MySQL purchase immediately casts Sun in the role of a major open-source database management system vendor with heterogeneous operating system solutions....
MySQL's largest user base resides on Linux, with the next largest user base residing on Windows. This will enable Sun to:

- Attract more Linux and Windows users as Sun customers
- Position itself more heterogeneously and shift its focus from primarily supporting Solaris-based (SAMP) systems to offering more inclusive support for Linux-based (LAMP) systems
- Demonstrate its willingness to support a stack on other operating systems in addition to Solaris
- Exploit more market and revenue-generating opportunities by reaching large MySQL users (for example, Facebook and YouTube), who do not overlap with the Solaris installed base

It's not a long report, but its well worth reading. As I've said before, Sun's move is a big vote of confidence not only in MySQL but in Open Source in general.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 22, 2008 03:17 PM

January 22, 2008 | Comments: (0)

MacGyver and generalizations about software

A reader commented that MySQL isn't "enterprise ready", to which another reader wrote:

"I hate it when snobby DBAs or managers scoff at MySQL as if it isn't ready to play with the big boys. Google called, they'd like to loan you a clue."

Valid point. But, I'm fairly certain that Google engineers could run a highly scalable computing system (whatever that is) using nothing more than OS/2, a paper clip, duct tape and maple syrup. I am not bashing MySQL in any way (I'm a happy user). I am however suggesting that the skills level inside an average IT shop are different than skills you'll find at Google. And yet, we all use things that Google, Amazon, etc. are doing as 'proof' that other customers should follow suit. In many cases it's valid advice that ignores two things: the skills and legacy code/apps/infrastructure at the company.

Many developers have deep skills with alternative products, and for better or worse, are more productive with said products than a new OSS product. (Somewhat related...I'm always surprised that EnterpriseDB hasn't been more successful vs. Oracle, considering EnterpriseDB's goal to ensure compatibility with Oracle.)

The Google's of the world didn't have 'legacy' to deal with in their Greenfield environments. The overwhelmingly majority of customers aren't as fortunate. So, maybe the legacy 'stuff' running ends up being more important (from a CYA standpoint) than taking a risk by deploying 'something new'? And hey, let's not kid ourselves into thinking that customers, in their ever ending bid to cut costs, are happily paying enterprise software license fees without receiving value from these products.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 22, 2008 02:30 PM

January 21, 2008 | Comments: (0)

More on Sun's acquisition of MySQL

I thought I'd get a chance to do some more blogging on Sun's acquisition of MySQL last week, but I was focused internally at our company meeting, spending time with employees and working on our objectives for 2008.

Needless to say it was a fun, but exhausting week. We'd been working with Sun on the deal for several weeks, but only a handful of people knew about it. So there were about 400 very surprised employees Wednesday morning when we announced the news. It's a lot of information to digest and we wanted to make sure everyone got answers to their questions. The company meeting had been planned for 6 months, but we threw the team a curve when we asked them to accomodate some special speakers.

First of all we had Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz beamed in via satelite. (And maybe some folks thought Marten was just kidding until that point.) Then we had Rich Green on stage in person to talk about Sun's Software division. Jonathan and Rich did a great job helping people to understand Sun's culture. It's different from Sun in the 90's. Sun has become much more cross-platform, supporting Linux and Windows alongside Solaris, as well as Intel and Opteron processors in addition to Sparc. And Sun open sourced Java as well as Open Solaris.

I've blogged about some of those items in the past, but these were massive "whoda thunk it" changes at Sun in the last few years. It's a testament to Jonathan's vision as an open systems company. Their bet on open source is significant and I think that was ultimately what helped many employees understand the strength of this acquisition. It confirms Sun's position as the #1 open source vendor in the industry. And it means we can continue to take MySQL to the next level without having to worry about compromising the right long term decisions in order to make good quarterly decisions as a small company doing an IPO. Of course, financials still matter, but now its in the context of a much larger and more stable revenue stream.

Overall, I think the news was well received by our customers, partners, employees and shareholders. I received positive emails from many of our partners including folks at Alfresco, Zimbra, Zend, Hyperic, Mulesource, Intel, AMD, Red Hat and many others. I was particularly impressed with a nice email from Ken Jacobs of Oracle saying he looked forward to continuing to work with us as before. Ken is a class act.

In fitting with the MySQL culture, we ended our Wednesday morning announcements with a toast: Sun and MySQL execs singing the traditional swedish drinking song Helan Går along with shots of chilled vodka for everyone in the room.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 21, 2008 08:05 AM

January 20, 2008 | Comments: (0)

MySQL Co. not big enough for some customers?

Jonathan has a nice post with additional explanations on the MySQL deal, seeing as one or two folks have questioned it. (Note that the second link is for your amusement via Sun's Simon Phipps blog).

Jonathan writes:

"Where are the revenue synergies?
The more interesting question is "where aren't the synergies?" Wherever MySQL is deployed, whether the user is paying for software support or not, a server will be purchased, along with a storage device, networking infrastructure - and over time, support services on high value open platforms. Last I checked, we have products in almost all those categories.

In addition, the single biggest impediment to MySQL's growth wasn't the feature set of their technology - which is perfectly married to planetary scale in the on-line/web world. The biggest impediment was that some traditional enterprises wanted a Fortune 500 vendor ("someone in a Gartner magic quadrant") to provide enterprise support. Good news, we can augment MySQL's great service team with an extraordinary set of service professionals across the planet - and provide global mission critical support to the biggest businesses on earth."

I can understand the part about synergies for Sun. But I'm confused that Sun, and/or MySQL believe that the major impediment to MySQL growth was that MySQL wasn't a big enough vendor to offer enterprise support.

Huh? I guess Red Hat didn't get that memo. Could something other than vendor size be relevant to a customer's willingness to pay for enterprise support once an OSS product gets as ubiquitous as MySQL?

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 20, 2008 09:27 PM

January 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)

More thoughts on Sun and MySQL

First off, kudos to Sun for valuing MySQL at this price. The deal represents ~36% of Sun's Cash & Cash Equivalents (of $2.7B) on hand at the end of their last quarter (Sept. 2007). But considering how cheap debt is these days, Sun could probably fund a portion of the deal through cheap debt.

A reader commented on BEA and MySQL being founded in the same year, but BEA being sold for 8x more than MySQL. True, but BEA has ~$1.5B in revenue versus ~$60M for MySQL. When you take revenue into account, MySQL secured 3x more in acquisition price for every dollar of revenue than did BEA. OSS vendors must be sleeping with dollar signs in their eyes tonight....

Alex Fletcher has a few thoughts on the deal. I found this one most interesting:

"MySQL should help to stimulate the relevance of Sun's tooling and Enterprise Application Infrastructure. Look no further than Oracle for an example of leveraging market share in the database market to cross-sell middleware."

Ahh, if only that were true Alex ;-) Oracle has had a really strong position in the DB market for decades, but next to no position in middleware market outside of DBs, (since DBs are a part of the middleware market). This all changed when Oracle got serious about applications. Also, let's not forget that customers only buy into cross-sell situations if the product being cross-sold is something the customer would have considered. So, I don't think you can compare Oracle's strategy/results with Sun's prospects.

Prediction of why Sun bought MySQL: Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's a MySQL db on a Sun cloud. (This idea comes from Cote).

The fact that Amazon has been so successful with EC2/S3 should be keeping Sun (and IBM) execs up at night. The Cloud computing opportunity is Sun and IBM's to lose. By acquiring MySQL, Sun gets access to arguably the database of choice for cloud deployments. I'll be watching with interest to see if Sun invests in MySQL capabilities that are optimized for cloud/virtualized environments.

Thoughts?

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 16, 2008 08:35 PM

January 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)

MySQL and BEA acquisitions

As Zack reported, Sun is buying MySQL for ~$800M plus $200M in options. Interestingly, the MySQL acquisition represents 8% of Sun's current market cap (~$13 Bil). While I'm happy for the MySQL team, my views on Sun's OSS "strategy" are mixed at best. Let's hope Marten and team can help Sun realize that there is value in software...good software, not the stuff that was 5th in class, and remains so after open sourcing it.

Oracle also announced it will acquire BEA for $8.5 Bil, a higher price than Larry rejected a little while back. The deal also represents 8% of Oracle's current market cap (~$109 bil).

The software industry continues to consolidate. Next question...When will Oracle buy Sun? ;-)

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 16, 2008 07:39 AM

January 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Sun shines on LAMP

This morning we announced that Sun Microsystems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire MySQL. Having spent the last four plus years working on making MySQL into a strong independent company, this is a bit of a change of strategy, but from my perspective it's all for the good.

It's no secret that MySQL was planning to go public in the very near future. In fact, many folks have been preparing for us to operate as a publicly held company. And in some respects, what's changing here is that we will bypass our own IPO to be part of an already successful and much larger public company.

What's exciting about this is that we have the potential to further accelerate the adoption of MySQL. Sun is already a multi-billion dollar company and has an amazing breadth of product line including plenty of open source products, like OpenSolaris, NetBeans, GlassFish, OpenOffice and more. Being part of Sun will give MySQL more resources for everything from development, support, services, sales and marketing. That means we can better serve our community and customers worldwide.

In the meetings I've had with Sun execs I've been impressed with how similar the culture is to MySQL. It's a technology-driven company that has recently staked its growth on open source. And with this acquisition, Sun not only cements its position as the number one open source company, its also a game-changing move in the tech sector. I think this is a vote of confidence not only in MySQL but in open source in general.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Software EVP Rich Green get full credit for turning Sun into a multi-platform company with a core focus on open source. These have been big changes at Sun in recent years. It's good to see Sun is in great shape once again. Sun understands the power of community and how that enables them to have a larger footprint in the industry. And many of Sun's partners are also MySQL partners including AMD, Dell, IBM, Intel, Red Hat, Microsoft and Oracle. So MySQL will continue to support all the existing platforms, languages and partners. We're not going to forget about our users and partners who helped create such a large community. We are committed to a broad range of platforms and languages, whether it's Windows, Linux, Mac OS/X, I5/OS, PHP, Ruby, C#, VB.Net and many others.

While some folks might see this move as a competitive move against Oracle, I don't think that's the case. MySQL has never attempted to compete head-on against the big DBMS companies. Instead, we've focused on our appeal to Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Telco and Softare-as-a-Service or on-demand companies. In many cases, MySQL co-exists with traditional database offerings. For example, the Independent Oracle Users GroupIOUG reported that a third of their members have MySQL in production along with Oracle. And I don't expect that situation to change.

In the past few weeks I've had the opportunity to spend time with many folks over at Sun ranging from top execs to distinguished engineers and marketing managers. All of them talk the talk and walk the walk. They understand open source. They understand innovation. They understand communities. And they understand what MySQL brings to the table. They are a straightforward bunch; no game playing. And their commitment to open source is as deep as any I've seen. For Sun it's not a religious issue, but it is part of an overall strategy to change the world. What could be better?

Oh, yeah. Best of all, I still have the same boss, Marten Mickos. Marten will continue to run MySQL inside of Sun. The founders and management team are on board. I'm personally excited about being a part of Sun and helping to take MySQL and open source to the next level.

Let me know what questions you have and I will post some follow up items later in the week.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 16, 2008 05:40 AM

January 15, 2008 | Comments: (0)

What happens if Detroit becomes more like Silicon Valley?

Software has become a bigger part of just about every major industry, whether it's media, publishing, distribution and even the staid old auto industry. While I think that's generally a good thing, it does mean that some of the foibles of software development are bleeding into other areas.

While I'm a big fan of innovations that get us more fuel efficient cars, I can't help but wonder what happens when new projects apply the sometimes naive methods of project management to a product that will ultimately be cruising down highway 280 at 85 miles per hour. (Or at least 15 miles per hour on highway 101 during rush hour.) Will my Microsoft Windows powered car suddenly put up a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death)?

And consider what's been going on at Tesla Motors recently. Their 100% electric Tesla roadster sportscar now appears to be about a year late and they've sacked the CEO and several top execs. While the Tesla roadster is built on a modified Lotus Elise chassis, it's basically an all-new everything else, from the use of 6,800 laptop batteries to a new high-tech transmission, the latest source of delays. So it's like building a new application on a new operating system with a new language and a new app server using developers who've never built something like this before.

It will be a stunning car when it finally ships, going 0-60 in 4 seconds and an equivalent cost of 135 miles per gallon (e.g. less than 2 cents per mile.) That assumes you don't mind ponying up $100K to be a beta tester, er customer. Personally, I think I'll pass and wait until version 2.0.

Still it's interesting to see the industry get more competitive in the area of fuel efficiency by using more advanced technology. The Toyota Prius has already become one of the best selling new cars in recent years having sold more than a million cars so far. Chevy has come up with their Volt concept car. And newcomer Fisker Automotive has a luxury hybrid in the works.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 15, 2008 07:19 AM

January 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Fleury and Rodrigues: separated at birth?

Come on, you have to admit, the resemblance is uncanny. I'm obviously kidding. I'm much better looking. His sizable bank account and ability to keep a beat probably balances the score though ;-)

Marc gave me a heads up on his recent post, in which he comments on Matt's post. If you don't already subscribe to Marc's blog, I'd suggest you read his post today. Here are some key points that reinforce my OSS views of late.

Matt said:

"...It may mean that Benchmark knows something that the rest of the industry seems determined to ignore: services-based businesses may well be the future of the software industry. "

Marc responded:

"FALSE: the future of the software industry (as a whole) is services. I always enjoy it when in debate people mention the case of VMWare to evangelical OSS zealots. Here is a company that is creating vasts amount of technological innovation and money with a classic licensing model of software. When asked why they didn't go OSS, the CEO responded "why would I do that?" .... What? my ideology is not perfect? the good old model is still kicking arse? by orders of magnitude in terms of technology and, it goes without saying, financial value creation?..."

"The proprietary model is alive and kicking. The existence of OSS models DO NOT negate the proprietary models. GET OVER IT, both models will co-exist and thrive sometimes at the expense of each other, sometimes independently of each other. It is not a zero-sum gain, there is value being created in both."

"In fact, witness the RUSH of OSS companies to emulate the proprietary licensing models to monetize their bases. The VC's may have invested in service based companies but they are all becoming product license companies...The proprietary licensing model is still top dog and the OSS guys are falling all over themselves to emulate it. BTW, on this topic, I find that Savio Rodrigues, the "community blogger" from IBM is a more enlightened read. Maybe because he is from IBM and they literally wrote the book over the past 50 years?"

I respect Marc's willingness to speak/write with his unique sense of candor about OSS business. Whether you agree or disagree with Marc, be happy that his ($300 Mil of) OSS credibility forces us to rethink the OSS business model, if only for a few seconds. Marc's willingness to evolve his thinking around OSS and, gasp, learn a thing or two from the commercial vendors is refreshing. It's a good thing for us commercial vendors that he's retired... ;-)

All truths are challenged over time. It may well be time to challenge the belief that OSS growth will come at the expense of commercial software. As Marc so eloquently put it, there is value being created in both the OSS and proprietary markets. One plus one could actually equal two and a half. Take that Ramy (my accounting prof)!

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 14, 2008 07:58 PM

January 14, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Linus says Linux isn't a single community

In a recent podcast interview Linus Torvalds discussed with Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation the notion of "community." (A full text transcript is also available.)

Bottom line, there is no single community. Rather there are many different communities. And if you want to be a part of it, you have to engage. Good advice!

Jim Zemlin: So, let’s talk a little bit about community, then, from this aspect of trust and I’d like to start by asking you a question about the term community itself. People throw the term community – you know, “Don’t do that. It will upset the ‘community’” or “The ‘community’ doesn’t accept this particular practice.’ What – how do you define community? I mean, what is the way you look at that?

Linus Torvalds: I actually – I try to avoid using the word community because it’s misleading in so many ways. It’s misleading in the sense there is no one community; it’s everybody tends to have their own issues that they care about and they may – may or may not have anything to do with another person who’s ostensibly in the same community.

...

And the other thing is, community tends to also be – become a – not just to see it as one entity, but you also see people as being inside and outside and that used to be especially – I think most companies have slowly started to learn, but it used to be a huge issues where companies kind of were talking about “How do we interact with the community?”

And there the community ended up being some external entity when the real answer always ends up being you don’t interact with the community, you just act as a member of this non-existent community. You really – you don’t interact with it, you are part of it.”

For organizations looking to involve themselves in the open source development process, it is therefore important that they stop thinking about the community as something that needs to be dealt with, and start thinking about the development process as something they need to engage with.

Kudos to Matthew Anslett over at The451Group for his coverage and analysis of the interview.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 14, 2008 06:01 AM

January 10, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Coverity investigating open source security

Coverity Inc, a long time expert in code analysis, has announced their work with the US government Department of Homeland Security to indentify security and quality issues in 11 popular open source projects: Amanda, NTP, OpenPAM, OpenVPN, Overdose, Perl, PHP,
Postfix, Python, Samba, and TCL.

Coverity has been doing a mix of static and dynamic code analysis in the open source world for quite some time and I've always been impressed with what they've found. In particular, they did an extensive evaluation of the LAMP stack and MySQL a few years back which helped us identify some security risks which we were able to fix immediately. They've done a lot of great work helping open source companies and projects find code vulnerabilities and improve them. They've a pretty exhaustive set of reports available on their web site that describe the work they've done evaluating and helping to improve open source software.

As Coverity has noted, open source software is typically more secure and of higher quality than its closed source bretheren. Now whether that's because of more eye-balls, a bigger community of testers or more care taken by the original developers, who knows. (I've long felt that compilers hide many sins. Knowing your code is going to be public helps ensure there's nothing embarassing in the code.)

As with any kind of code analysis, there are sometimes false-positives, but that's a small price to pay for ensuring improvements in quality and security. If your development team hasn't tried Coverity in recent years, it's worth looking into.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 10, 2008 11:00 AM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

JBoss Developer Studio: a product or subscription?

By now you've likely read my views on OSS 1 & 2.

Here's something you may find interesting. Red Hat released JBoss Developer Studio in early December 2007.

InfoWorld reported:

"While JBoss Developer Studio is available for a $99 subscription, support for the platform costs extra. Support agreements start at $3,500 a year. But users get access to all Red Hat and JBoss software through these agreements, Che (Red Hat product marketing manager) said."

Huh?! So, if support for JBoss Developer Studio is extra, what exactly is in the $99 SUBSCRIPTION? For that answer, let's head to a blog by JBoss developer Max Andersen:

A reader (Andres Testi) asks Max:

"Where is the free edition?"

Max replies:

"There is no free edition, but there is the JBoss Tools which are the JBoss.rg developed plugins and I'll be back later this week with details about JBoss Tools 2 GA."

Another reader (Eriks) asks:

"What are differences between free and 99$ version?"

Max replies:

"The free version does not provide: * An installer * Eclipse and Web Tools preconfigured * JBoss EAP preconfigured * JBoss AS and JBoss Seam preconfigured * 3rd party plugins bundled and configured * Access to RHEL and Red Hat Network * Access to the supported software"

Lastly, a reader (Sakuraba) asks:

"If all of that stuff is not-preconfigured in the free version, is the free version usable at all?
What features wont work out of the box because of the free version not being configured correctly?

(I appreciate you effort and the fact thatRed Hat wants to earn money with this hard work, but I am interested nevertheless.)"

Max replies:

"Sakuraba - I don't know how to explain it otherwise than what I did above. There are no functional limitations in the open source version; its just a matter about what is prebundled and preconfigured which you can do yourself for free or get from JBDS which additionally provides you access to the software that JBoss/Red Hat supports commercially."

Okay, so we finally have an answer to what the $99 SUBSCRIPTION provides.

Since support isn't included in the $99, you simply get a working product and you get updates to this working product as piece parts are updated. Sound like anything you've heard of before? If you said "a regular software product with the support removed" you're bang on. The fact that Red Hat calls this a subscription is a shame. They are selling a product... bits and bytes. Calling this a subscription continues the "OSS obvious truth" that selling proprietary/gated access OSS products is for less pure OSS vendors.

BTW, if you try to purchase JBoss Developer Studio, you may notice the "(development use only)" text under the product name. Interesting that Red Hat, the beacon for openness and user freedom would (gasp!) limit user freedom by limiting the production use of the offering. I am not calling this out to throw eggs at Red Hat. I am calling this out for the OSS purists who hold Red Hat on a pedestal. If I were a Red Hat shareholder I would be perfectly okay with this move.

Anywho, maybe Red Hat is trying something with JBoss Developer Studio that they'll implement in other products? When news gets out about Red Hat selling gated/proprietary OSS/OSS-based products, it may become more acceptable to do so. I believe this will be good for the OSS vendor ecosystem.

I guess time will tell.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 8, 2008 02:10 PM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Red Hat takes aim against Oracle, Microsoft

Looks like new Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst is wasting no time in taking aim against rivals Oracle and Microsoft, according to recent interviews in the Associated Press.

"Here, we are the attacker. If you listen to all the squealing that Microsoft and Oracle do about us, clearly they're worried about us."

Hmmm... I guess this is the week for fighting words!

There's also a good interview with Whitehurst by Stephen Shankland over at CNet.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 8, 2008 07:44 AM

January 08, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Clearing up my views on OSS: 2 of 2

See post 1 of 2 here.

Recently Shaun Connolly wrote:

"I admit I have traded barbs with Savio in the past. I still like my "Open Source Community and Barack Obama" blog that got him off his uninformed rants of JBoss not being "open source" enough.
Savio appears to be stuck in a 3 month rut yet again...it's the same old flawed analysis rehashed and restated in slightly different contexts. Comparing apples and oranges."

As I mentioned in my previous post explaining my views on OSS, I stopped caring about whether JBoss was "truly open source". I will freely admit that Shaun's post helped me realize that I was being too much of a purist, without considering that JBoss was helping all OSS vendors with its success. I hope that I can repay the favor to Shaun with this post ;-)

Shaun thinks that my distinction between selling a support subscription and selling products is pointless. Matt has argued as much, and believes that there is no reason to sell proprietary (OSS or OSS-based) products alongside freely available OSS products.

Here's why I disagree.

Shaun and Matt reiterate the dogma that the OSS business model is better than sliced bread. It is, to a point. However, in the software market, selling products drives more revenue than selling support. We've trained IT buyers to value software support and maintenance at ~15% of the initial price of the software product. Why do OSS proponents ignore this point?

What if Red Hat, JBoss, MySQL, SugarCRM, MuleSource, Hyperic, Alfresco and Zend all woke up tomorrow and told the market they are going to offer great OSS products and proprietary/gated access to other (OSS or OSS-based) products. The reason for doing so, as these vendors would explain, is to capture a higher percentage of revenue from the user base who is receiving a lot of value from OSS today. The additional revenue would be used to fund further product development, both for the OSS product and for the proprietary/gated access product. The extra revenue would be invested in growing the company, thereby expanding the reach of OSS in general. Now, OSS purists would claim that these vendors are trampling on the true vision of OSS. But, wouldn't the average user benefit from better products that reached a wider user base?

Yes, some of the above mentioned OSS vendors already sell products under the guise of a service. By doing so, these vendors minimize the value of the product itself. Worse, they make it next to impossible for an OSS startup to follow a business model other than one that will severely limit their revenue size in the future (i.e. selling support subscriptions). They make it taboo to sell products, because, you know, "a real OSS vendor wouldn't need to stoop to doing that". OSS proponents tend to err on the side of purity when the markets that we (well, you, I work for a commercial vendor) participate in are based in pragmatic reality. As I realized when I questioned whether JBoss was "truly open", it doesn't matter as much as whether a large number of users benefit and the vendor is open 'enough'.

I am aware of one well known OSS vendor who will be announcing a gated access product in addition to their lineup of 'pure' OSS products. MySQL has gone down this path with MySQL Workbench. I cheer for them and other vendors wise enough to learn from commercial vendors and brave enough to act in the face of OSS purity.

You can disagree with my argument for selling proprietary OSS products (heck, I could be wrong!). But I ask that you do so after considering the historical success of selling software products versus the predicted success of selling support, the latter of which is to represent 1.8% of the 2011 software market.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 8, 2008 05:34 AM

January 07, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Clearing up my views on OSS: 1 of 2

Recently, John Jackson wrote:

"After reading your posts for the last ~1 year, I am wondering why you are on an open source forum. It seems to me that you don't understand the point that comparing the newer model of open source software (technical and business models) to the models of the proprietary companies is not the be-all-end-all of the comparisons. Specifically the revenues and profit margins of the two models. They are different, and will be different."

John, I completely agree with you that OSS is different. But one of two things happen to a successful OSS vendor. They get purchased or IPO. For simplicity sake, let's assume that the acquiring vendor is a public company. Once we begin to add public investors into the fold, I believe that focusing on "OSS is different" is a losing business strategy. Investors don't really care about different. They care about revenue, profit, share growth and dividends. OSS proponents can ignore investors and Wall St. if they wish, but I'd suggest against it. Individual investors and Wall St. make it possible for public OSS vendors to access capital that may be necessary to fund the vendor's growth. (Cheap) Capital allows (OSS) vendors to make acquisitions, build out a larger WW sales force, develop new products, etc. [Heresy_On] The value of development effort received by an OSS vendor, around a single-vendor-controlled OSS project, is much lower than you've been led to believe. Building (OSS) products is expensive [Heresy_Off]. I think we can agree that most leading OSS vendor would be much better off if they had more capital at their disposal.

If we put aside the dogma of "OSS is different, so don't compare it" and realize that at some point, it WILL be compared, could we as a community make it easier for OSS vendors to succeed in the market? Recognizing that OSS vendors will be compared to commercial vendors might lead some of us to get past the OSS purity debate (as I did with whether JBoss was open enough - see my next post). It may lead some of us to accept a leading OSS vendor giving away 90% of its products and offering gated access to 10% of its products. But you can't get to this conclusion if you always end the discussion at "OSS is different, duh".

I would rather see an OSS vendor valued at $20B with 90% OSS products and 10% gated access products vs. that same vendor valued at $250M with 100% OSS products. I am pragmatic. Not everyone will share these views about OSS being used to generate revenue from products that may not be completely open. I'm not suggesting that others have to change their views on OSS purity. I am putting forward a view that says, mostly open and big (i.e. Google) does more good for the largest set of users, than fully open and small.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

PPS: I have been a little tardy on replying to comments here at InfoWorld. I apologize. I am in the middle of an executive mba while working full-time....which may explain my capitalist views here ;-) I do appreciate your comments and read them all. Please keep telling me when you think I'm off base! I will try harder to reply.

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 7, 2008 03:06 PM

January 06, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Intel/OLPC split

Looks like the co-operation between Intel and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative has come to a grinding halt with Intel's decision to quit the OLPC board. The OLPC is an open source software based laptop targeted at emerging markets with a price of around $200. The OLPC initiative was developed by Nicholas Negroponte, founding director of MIT's media lab, and maintained quite a high profile in recent years despite the fact that the PCs are over budget and have fallen short of the original forecast.

Tensions between Intel and the OLPC trace back to OLPC's decision to use AMD processors. Intel had launched their own educational laptop targeted to developing nations called the ClassMate PC. It looks like both sides agreed to bury the hatchet when Intel joined the OLPC board in July 2007, but even then, the agreement required "mutual non-disparagement" agreements. Not usually a good sign of a working partnership.

Now it's come to a nasty end with Intel and OLPC parting ways and quite a bit of public acrimony. In a Fortune magazine interview with David Kirkpatrick Negroponte likened Intel to McDonalds trying to compete with World Food Program. He also called Intel's commitment to OLPC as half-hearted, saying they never lived up to their commitments. Them's fighting words. This seems like a major gaffe on Intel's part.

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 6, 2008 08:02 AM

January 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Yes, OSS does innovate

Some of you may have seen this article in Discover Magazine by Jaron Lanier. I find it difficult to argue when someone challenges "OSS obvious truths" because doing so takes some degree of professional courage. Jaron writes:

"Twenty-five years later, that concern seems to have been justified. Open wisdom-of-crowds software movements have become influential, but they haven’t promoted the kind of radical creativity I love most in computer science. If anything, they’ve been hindrances. Some of the youngest, brightest minds have been trapped in a 1970s intellectual framework because they are hypnotized into accepting old software designs as if they were facts of nature. Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique, shinier than the original, perhaps, but still defined by it.
Before you write me that angry e-mail, please know I’m not anti–open source. I frequently argue for it in various specific projects. But a politically correct dogma holds that open source is automatically the best path to creativity and innovation, and that claim is not borne out by the facts.

Why are so many of the more sophisticated examples of code in the online world—like the page-rank algorithms in the top search engines or like Adobe’s Flash—the results of proprietary development? Why did the adored iPhone come out of what many regard as the most closed, tyrannically managed software-development shop on Earth? An honest empiricist must conclude that while the open approach has been able to create lovely, polished copies, it hasn’t been so good at creating notable originals. Even though the open-source movement has a stinging countercultural rhetoric, it has in practice been a conservative force."

The fact that many "sophisticated examples of code in the online world" are of the commercial software kind, and not OSS, is simply because the vendor felt they could grow and be profitable without open sourcing the product. In some "innovative products" such as Joost or Skype, the open/closed nature of the underlying software is of little concern to the users. In other cases, such as RIM's enterprise software, users may prefer a more open product, like Funambol, but are willing to trade openness for a product that just works.

When a vendor has a truly innovative product, they do whatever they can to increase their return on investment. In most cases, this means that the source code isn't released. The conclusion is not that OSS projects don't innovate. Rather, that projects that are truly innovative are developed by vendors whose benefactors (VCs or Wall St.) want the biggest bang for their investment. Ipso facto, closed source is usually the path taken in these situations. This has nothing to do with the type of innovation that OSS can deliver....

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 2, 2008 03:12 PM

January 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)

2008 Prediction: cash is still king

My accounting prof liked to say that "cash is king". I believe him, and in 2008, I predict that cash (i.e. revenue and profit) will begin to matter a lot more to OSS vendors and their VCs/investors. I don't buy the "OSS is different, so don't compare us using metrics that commercial vendors are compared with" line of thinking. I'll expand on this in the next few posts. I will also reply to 3 comments on a recent post.

Bill Miller wrote:

"But to have adopted "just use the commercial software business model from day 1" would never have provided the opportunity to have a business at all.
The assumption that they "...would have paid to get your product..." is a bad one. A lot (most even) of these user would not have paid for it and would never have used it at all."

Bill, you are 100% correct, because of OSS awareness and preference, a commercial software business model from day 1 is not going to work in the majority of software markets these days. I agree that OSS lets a vendor reach a lot of users who would never have used your product. However, I do not think OSS is very successful at converting this set of users into paying customers. This has more to do with human nature than goodness or badness of OSS.

Let's imagine that there are 3 users:

[a] Would have paid for a comparable product, and will pay for support
[b] Would have paid for a comparable product, but will not pay for support
[c] Would not have paid for a comparable product

In a Support Subscription business model, you will have 3 users, but only 1 paying customer. Is that good? Absolutely, you are trying to break into the mature and consolidated software market, so a large number of users are a good thing.

The problem is that user [b] was already looking for a similar product when he found the OSS product 1. If not for OSS product 1, he would have been stuck with a commercial product, or an alternative OSS product 2. Now you and I can argue what percent of [b] users can be convinced to pay for support. I suggest it is a very low figure. The problem is you've given the user something of great value for free (i.e. the product), and now you're asking him to pay for something of much less value (i.e. the support). Before someone says "see, Savio doesn't understand the high quality support that OSS vendors deliver". I get it, but do you pay a premium for a BMW or Mercedes for the customer care when you take your car into the shop, or for the actual product? We are all trained to value products to a higher degree than the services that go around these products. I don't want to minimize the ancillary services, but only to point out that we are trained to value products more. In software land, we've trained buyers to value support at approximately 15% of the value of the initial software cost. Also, [Heresy_On] OSS products of high quality provide little incentive to purchase support [Heresy_Off]. With all this in mind, how can we expect a large portion of users like user [b] to pay for the milk when we've given him the cow for free? (or something like that)

This is why I believe that OSS businesses of the future will employ the model that MySQL did with Workbench from day 1.x (likely not day 1 as it would kill the hopes of a community around the product).

This is a long winded way of saying: OSS businesses of the future will have to offer products to paying customers that are different than what is available for free. Emphasis on products. OSS proponents will have to leave "religious definitions" of what is and isn't OSS at the door. OSS vendors, investors, and users will be better off.

PS: I should state: "The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions."

Posted by Savio Rodrigues on January 2, 2008 12:55 PM

January 02, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Urlocker: My top 10 stories of 2007

Following up on the most underreported stories of the year, I thought I'd pick a few select blog entries as my top 10 stories of the year. (Or actually of the last six months of my blogging here at InfoWorld.) That's not to say these are the best or most significant stories in the blogosphere, but they struck me as significant stories and in most cases got a lot of response from readers.

-Open Source Hardware
-Oracle Gets Big
-Amazon Kindle: Kool or Krap?
-Jim Starkey on Relational Databases
-Better Software Through Small Teams
-Transformation at Red Hat?
-Nokia N810 Tablet with Keyboard
-Eating your own dogfood
-Product Management
-Apple's iPod Touch

Ok, and a bonus, my vacation column of The Automatic Software Pundit.

Still, that left out a few favorites about Gartner's view on open source, Fake Larry Ellison, O'Reilly Radar at Oscon, my trip to China etc. But these are my picks.

If you were hoping for a more comprehensive wrap up of open source in 2007, I highly recommend Matt Asay's 2 story posting on his blog at CNet. I don't think you can find a more complete listing of significant events during the year. Not to mention Arsenal football matches. What a year!

Posted by Zack Urlocker on January 2, 2008 12:15 PM

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