Commercial Open Source Software

Bill Hilf at OSCON 2007 announced that they were going to submit shared source licenses to OSI for the approval process, and today Microsoft got official open source blessing from OSI (via ars technica).

Although OSI validation of Microsoft’s licenses is a very big win for Microsoft and the open-source software community, this victory is overshadowed by Microsoft’s aggressive attitude towards open-source software. Certain vocal factions of the OSS community will express extreme distrust for Microsoft’s open-source licenses, which will make it difficult for the company to build a bridge with the broader OSS community. Microsoft’s unsubstantiated patent threats and blatantly dishonest studies don’t help the situation.

Game of Life by Demirtunc

While Stefano Maffulli is not optimistic about it, on the contrary I still believe that as far as Microsoft’s partners will be progressively embracing open source, Microsoft will eventually turn this into a long term strategy. As a matter of fact Microsoft’s business is mostly about infrastructural software, and they might take advantage of the pervasive capillarity of Microsoft’s partners (750.000) to foster collaborative development over their proprietary technologies.

Technorati Tags: Open Source Strategies, Commercial Open Source, Microsoft, StefanoMaffulli, FSFE

Large enterprises embracing Open Source software need to to put some structure around their use, and they need tools - like search engines such as google code search, koders and krugle - to locate and manage these resource.

Krugle Open Source Search, a search engine managing 2.6 billion lines of code, 600 repositories and over 100,000 projects, allows web users to search for open-source code on the Internet.

Finding a needle by Marion A’s photos

Also Internal open source teams, responsible for keep a collection of things used internally, need to make them available for others in the organization, and here comes a need for internal code search engines, like Krugle Enterprise Edition.

I asked Laura Merling, VP, Marketing and Business Development of Krugle, to tell us more about this area.

As the number of languages increase, the number of development “platforms” increase, and the amount of code increases in the enterprise (and the public arena). There are these large “development silos” of products and tools that have been created by developers, and search driven development is an emerging need.

Is the Enterprise Edition easy to sell?

We have been brought in by senior developers, dev managers and architects the pain they have is things like impact analysis: I am changing this code, who else is referencing it?
We have not had to encounter the CIO yet. The great part is that typically the people that bring us in have already written use cases they want it for and have already sold it up as needed. Most of them have a budget to some level, our target is mid-level management.

Are you wondering to invite users to produce use cases, may be giving prizes?

Absolutely - we did this last summer and got great responses - we really want use cases for the enterprise!

How the company was conceived?

Ken Krugler was working on the Chandler project with Mitch Kapor and was looking for code to some stuff he figured the code had to be out there somewhere. So he began “searching” for it he used regular search engines, went to repositories and nobody had anything that would help him find. What he already knew was out there so he decided to fix the problem and build a code search engine.

As he started talk to other developers, there was a strong desire to not only have it to find open source code, but their own stuff in the enterprise. Imagine how much code a 20 year financial services firm or how much code a telco might have!

Besides the Enterprise arena, Krugle DevNetwork powers also SourceForge.net, Yahoo! Developer Network, developerworks and now Amazon Web Services Developer Connection. So may be you are already using it and you didn’t know..

Technorati Tags: Krugle, Source Code Search, Amazon, Yahoo, SourceForge, LauraMerling, KenKrugle, MitchKapor

Richard Stallman’s article “Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software“ has now been eported and commented by Robin Good.

Apparently my opinions didn’t convince Robin, that says:

In reality, as Stallman points out very clearly in the essay here below, open-source advocates have long stopped promoting the fundamental issues of freedom that are the roots of the Free Software movement in favour of peddling a more commercial and pragmatical approach which looks more at issues like costs, reliability, security, innovation, and at the ability to have access and modify the source code of any software.

As an outsider viewer, I think he is right.

So I took my chance to better explain my thoughts, I report here my comment on his blog:

I didn’t really want to counter attack Richard Stallman’s attack on open-source. I was trying to say is that also open source advocates are contributing to software freedom. It is a matter of perspective: while Richard takes care of users’ freedom, (some) open source firms also take care of software freedom.

I disagree with Richard when he points out that open-source advocates have long stopped promoting the fundamental issues of freedom. He infers from the behavior of some of them a general statement. A the some extent I might say that “free software” is not consistent term because half of “free software” google-alerts are just about freeware and other no Free Software items.

What I believe is important to say here is that a commercial and pragmatical approach can also take into great consideration software freedom. The importance of share and more to keep sharing-alike software (copyleft) for open source firms is synergic with free software advocacy, as it insist on the same values (but for a different reason).

Are all firms interested in Open Source willing to stress the importance of software freedom? Of course not, some of them don’t care, while some end up licensing their products with proprietary licenses.

Open Source firms (may be) are created equal, but some are more equal than others.. let’s keep them as Free Software’s good friends, as they are.

As usual, comments and opinions are welcome.

Free Software, RichardStallman, Commercial Open Source, Freedom , RobinGood

The ‘Warrior’ within Jonathan Schwartz - interesting article on Schwartz life, via James Governor
Tips: Firefox and OpenOffice document handling - easy instructions to see ODF document within your favourite browser

Patent infringments Lawsuit Filed Against Novell& Red Hat - Jeremy keeps us updated on the patent infringment issue. Read also Luis Villa’s post.

OSS Venture Capital and M&A - Savio Rodrigues wonders about the Open Source market

Rails - Open Source Communities are not created equal, learn more at Michael Korziasky blog about how Rails 2.0 is managed at the present stage.

Dr Watson: who wrote Linux? - Dave Shields wrote an hilarious post I would recommend you to read if you look for some fun today.

Lack of license fee draws UK firms to open source - Is Open Source gaining traction in UK?

Mobile Firefox Announced -  Mike Schroepfer announced that Mobile Firefox is coming in a big way.

My 4Q 2007 livre.nl contribution - A great post of Alex Fletcher on OpenOffice.

The Conference on Interoperable European Electronic Identities - organised by the Porvoo Group - will take place on the 18th and 19th of October in Grosseto.

One of the main topics of the conference will be the issues of eID interoperability in which the city of Grosseto has been particularly active.

Poorvo Group logo

I write this personal note after a journey of well more than three years in the land of electronic IDs (eIDs). It was a journey guided by ideal of simple and pragmatic solutions, helped and often even made possible by consistently engaging various communities who brought objectives in reach that would otherwise have been hopelessly beyond my resources, and evidently of open source both in use and in development.

The Porvoo 12 meeting represents a culmination point of this journey, some kind of arrival, and therefore this note.

More than three years ago I changed my hat by entering a local public administration—the Comune di Grosseto—and by diving into a completely unknown field of identity management with smartcards, access control, and all the rest. My task being to guide the administration to find a good and sustainable (thus open source) solution for identity management with the Italian eID card(s). And the environment was definitely challenging with a lot of information close to impossible to come by, initially no one to talk to, and being in a position of utter unimportance since eIDs are done by national governments, not local administrations.

Continue reading ‘Open Source Identity Management: 12th Poorvo Group meeting, 18-19 October, Grosseto (Italy)’

The Mobile Open Source company Funambol, and Alfresco, the Open Source alternative for Enterprise Content Management, are both currently looking for a community manager.

Alfresco at the present stage has a Community Relations open position, while Funambol has to fill the Funambol Community Manager role.

Our Community Manager by JJay

Apparently there are no many open positions like that, looking at opensourcexperts or similar sites I didn’t find any. Despite uncommon, I think it is really wise from both of them trying to empower their communities. I think also that the Funambol community and Alfresco’s one are quite different.

Talking with Fabrizio Capobianco - Funambol CEO - while in Rome to join the VentureCamp, I happened to know about the Code Sniper and Phone Sniper programs. Besides those programs, Funambol’s architecture of participation welcomes small contributions, allowing individuals to more easily participate.
I didn’t get a chance yet to speak with Matt Asay about Alfresco’s practical approach to collaboration, but reading the two job descriptions I see a difference. Alfresco is looking for a marketing-oriented role, reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer, while Funambol’s position seems more technical.

Will you take the challenge?

Technorati Tags: Open Source Jobs, Job offer, Alfresco, Funambol, MattAsay, FabrizioCapobianco, Community Manager

Richard Stallman recently wrote a long article entitled “Why “Open Source” misses the point of Free Software“, explaining why free software enthusiasts have to say “free software” rather than “open source“.

Every Free Software activist knows very well this issue, and I did abide by the importance to stand for freedom for years when I was supporting the FSFE Italian chapter’s activities. Recognizing the importance of freedom and stand for it, doesn’t imply the need to not talk about open source, though. Here comes the reason of this post, let’s start with Richard’s words:

These freedoms [the four ones] are vitally important. They are essential, not just for the individual users’ sake, but because they promote social solidarity—that is, sharing and cooperation.

I think it is really important to stress the ultimate goal of free software, just as he clearly pointed out here: sharing and cooperation. Richard dislikes Lakhani and Wolf’s findings on the motivation of free software developers, because apparently only a fraction of them are motivated by the view that software should be free. In his opinion it happens because they surveyed the developers on a site that does not stress the importance of freedom. While I don’t know if he is right or not saying it, I think a better understanding of why firms cooperate on open source projects is important.
An Italian research based upon 146 firms analyzed the role played by different classes of motivations (social, economic and technological) in determining the involvement of different groups of agents in Open Source activities. Here the conclusions:

We find significant differences between the set of motivations of individuals and those of firms. In particular, firms emphasize economic and technological reasons for entering and contributing to Open Source and do not subscribe to many social motivations that are, by contrast, typical of individual programmers. While one might expect these differences, it is interesting to observe that the more pragmatic motivational profiles of firms are accepted in the Free Software community, provided firms comply with the rules of the community.

So individual developers’ and firms’ motivations are inherently different in nature. Reading the variety of the answers comes out that the highest–ranking incentive for using Open Source software seems to be promoting innovation and emancipation from the price and licence policies of large software companies.

Sequential Innovation is the reason to share and cooperate, as seen also in a study conducted on the linux-embedded vertical market, showing that averagely 53% of code is revealed. Participation to a technological club has beneficial effects on firms’ business, because they share risks and costs.

Collaboration is an emerging pattern, and firms approaching software production in terms of sharing and cooperation are Free Software’s good friend. Commercial Open Source, as far as based on participation and fostering communities, is aimed at promoting just the same idea of freedom, no less.

Happy hacking, share and share-alike!

Technorati Tags: Free Software, RichardStallman, Commercial Open Source, Freedom

Today had been held in Rome the sixth edition of the Cocoon getTogether 2007, an event exclusively dedicated to Apache Cocoon.

The GetTogether included the all-collaborative hackathon two days long, as well as nice social activities around Rome and surroundings.

I enjoyed just the very beginning of the programme. I had the chance to listen to the introduction given by my friend Gianugo and Arje Cahn, but also practical case histories thank to Francesco Chicchiriccò.

My best compliments to Semeru for the organization, and to Gianugo that actually was a great host, over night as well!

Technorati Tags: Cocoon, Cocoon GetTogether, GianugoRabellino

Next saturday in Rome will be held the VentureCamp is a BarCamp dedicated to Venture Capital.

People from around the world will share experiences and needs, either from VCs or entrepreneurs perspectives. If you want to know more about Venture Capitals and Start-ups, or if you wish to tell your story join us at the John Cabot University, in Via della Lungara 233 in the very center of Rome.

Richard C. Boly from the U.S. Embassy in Rome - Programme Manager of Partnership for growth - and Jaqueline Maggi from the John Cabot University are among organizers, as Fabio Scriptavolant Masetti who originally asked me to join months ago.

Among Venture Capitalists, Arturo Artom from Your Truman Show, Luigi Amati from META Group, Giacomo Marini from Noventi.

Among high tech enterprises, besides the candidates to become “gazelles”, I am happy to see that Fabrizio Capobianco from Funambol will join the event, and also old friends like Marco Rossi from Movenda on behalf of the First Generation Network.

Media coverage seems also pretty good, Alessio Jacona for Blogs4biz, Amanda Lorenzani for blognation Italy, Livia Iacolare for Intruders TV and Leo Sorge for Più Blog just to name some of them.

Last but not least, I see also many friends are coming over, among them Andrea Gumina, Nexttlab CEO (Andrea, take a moment to correct your URI), Nicola Mattina, Tara Kelly, Luca Sartoni, Antonio Pavolini, and Roldano De Persio.

Technorati Tags: Startup, Venture Capital, Barcamp, AmandaLorenzani, NicolaMattina, FabioMasetti, MarcoRossi, FabrizioCapobianco, Movenda, Funambol