Commercial Open Source Software

The Open Source World Conference, taking place in Malaga (Spain), from October 20 to 22, is one of the most important FLOSS event in Europe.

The aim of the Conference is to demonstrate that free and open source software is a consolidated reality worth investing in, and not just a powerful, solid and safe solution.  

Malaga in my open source heart by Trébol AzulI have been just informed that the paper I coauthored with Flavia Marzano entitled “The importance of being called an open standard: standards compliance and the role of European public administrations” has been accepted by the Open Source World Conference Technical Committee.As I mentioned before today IT vendors are not asked to prove that their software products are meeting open standards‘ specifications. Since there is no organization that assess standards compliance, citizens have just to rely on implementors’ statements of compliance. We believe that T this issue need to be openly addressed, and Public Administrations can play an important role.

Technorati Tags: OSWC, Open Source Conference, Malaga, open standards

ERP software is at the core of a business’ operations, from stock management to accounting, from efficiency measurement to activity planning.

Few other applications could be more crucial to a company’s continued operations. So it’s not a surprise that ERP is the subject of a Profoss event. It fits perfectly Profoss‘ goal to inform professional ICT people of the possibility to use Free and Open Source Software in the most critical operations of a company.

ERP by xcode

And Free and Open Source Software clearly has demonstrated its ability to stand in critical environments: from space exploration to SME.

This central position of ERP software often makes it a challenge to deploy it: it is a complex project that needs the commitment of multiple teams in a company. Proprietary ERP solutions are available but the software itself often makes it difficult to deploy (some even say it’s done on purpose). And these deployment costs come on top of the hefty license costs. Moreover, lots of companies don’t need the whole range of features brought by these ERP solutions, and would be served well by choosing simpler solution better fitting their needs.

Luckily, there are viable Free and Open Source solutions available. The hardest part might be to identify the best solution. And that’s where Profoss wants to help you. We’ll bring specialist of the field to share their experience and help you decide what’s the best solution for you. We’ll even have a talk titled ‘How to choose my Open Source ERP system’!

As this subject is very broad, the event will be split in two sessions: one on 18 November focusing on the ERP applications themselves, and on session on 2 December focusing on peripheral applications and integrating ERP systems in your current infrastructure.

No speaker has been officially announced, but you may expect to have leading figures from at least OpenERP, Adempiere, OpenBravo and Compiere.To stay up to date with the advancement of the event organisation, you can subscribe to the Profoss Newsletter or the Profoss Feed.

This event will take place in Brussels, but we’re looking to possibly organise it in other locations throughout Europe. If you want to see such a Profoss event take place near you, be sure to contact us!

About Profoss.
Profoss is in the process of being established as an Belgian non-profit association, with the goal to provide independent and objective information on the use of Free and Open Source technologies in professional environments.

Technorati Tags: Open Source ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning, Profoss, Open Source Conference, Adempiere, Compiere OpenBravo, OpenERP, open source applications

OpenLogic, an open source provider offering software and services for open source governance, conducted a study based on the answers to the questionnaire of 123 enterprise open source users. Only 38 percent of respondents - included systems and application architects, IT executives and managers and developers - said they were satisfied with the support they received from a commercial open source organization.

No open source satisfaction by a-peril

OpenLogic’s research found that enterprise users of open source software have been accustomed to getting their support directly from the open source community or from their own internal support resources. However, a majority of respondents from larger enterprises saw having a support vendor as important. Additionally, although the most common support resources used were internal resources and open source mailing lists, a significant minority of respondents use commercial open source vendors. Still, many respondents also felt that open source support was harder to obtain.

When comparing open source support to support for traditional, non-open source software, the vast majority of respondents reported that open source support was of equal or better quality. Support issues for open source were more frequently about configuration, integration and performance than about software defects.

Despite the small size of the survey, and also keeping in mind that more than 50% of respondents are big enterprises (more than 1.000 employees), the study reflects qualitative trends in open source usage, as far as OpenLogic reports. I asked Kim Weins, Senior VP of Marketing at OpenLogic, another feedback.

Do you think the low satisfaction maybe related to the size of the customer?

I looked at the data from the survey and divided it into 3 groups by company size (250 employees or less, between 250 and 1000 employees, more than 1000 employees). When comparing these groups, the middle group (250-1000 employees) was most satisfied with Commercial OSS vendors (78% were satisfied or extremely satisfied), the smaller companies (< 250 employees) were next most satisfied (37% were satisfied or extremely satisfied), and the largest companies (>1000 employees) were least satisfied (32% were satisfied or extremely satisfied).

Smaller companies might have lower expectations in terms of integration issues, probably the toughest one to address, and the more likely to meet in a complex environment. Commercial open source vendors are asked to sell more and more valuable OSS support, providing customers with a service level going beyond what they can get for “free” (as in beer) from communities and internal resources. In this respect it is no surprise that the time it takes to resolve an issue takes longer for commercial OSS vendors than internal resources or community mailing lists.

Among the other findings of the survey apparently software defects is not the top priority, while users need more often of help with configuration, integration or performance issues. Hybrid here is a keyword, and commercial open source vendors need to cope with proprietary solutions and custom-coded software.

Last but not least, how do you see players like OpenLogic fitting into this picture?

There are several key areas that OpenLogic focuses on to ensure our customers are extremely satisfied.

• Speed and quality of resolution. Companies want issues resolved quickly and accurately.
• No fingerpointing. Companies need help when their issues span multiple components or applications in a mixed source environment.
• Flexibility. When working in a production environment, companies do not always want to move to the latest version to get a fix. They often want help in patching their existing version to avoid migrating to a new version.

Flexibility seems a promising factor, and I would be glad to hear some feedback from OpenLogic’s customers.

Technorati Tags: OpenLogic, open source governance, open source survey

Olliance Group and InitMarketing, the Open Source Marketing company, will co-lead a workshop on Building an Effective Commercial Open Source Strategy at OSIM, on the 19th of September in Berlin.

Building Balance by mr.Mark

Today open source is being leveraged by hundreds of vendors to varying degrees of success with more entering the arena every day.This workshop will address the core elements of building and implementing an effective open source strategy.Attendees will learn how to identify open source opportunities and challenges, understand resource issues and come away with an idea of how to determine if their existing or planned open source strategies will help them meet their business objectives.Among the open source topics to be addressed are: mapping open source into your business model, licensing, marketing, building a sustainable community and partnering.The workshop will be conducted through a series of presentations and business case examples with a focus on industry best practices.

Basically I will cover topic ranging from open source governance, included open source licensing, to managing open source communities, analyzing pros and cons of choices like building your own or tapping into an existing one.
I will also speak about open source business models, giving also details about open source franchising and open source network marketing.

Talking about open source marketing I will tell you about what’s special about it, how to position an open source product and company, and how to develop a strong open source brand.

Andrew Aitken Stephen Walli and Sandro Groganz will help me to prepare materials for the different sessions.

See you there!

Post Scrittum:  I got some spare discounted pass to attend this event, feel free to contact me directly by email if you are interested.

Technorati Tags: OSIM, OSIM Berlin, Open Source Workshop, InitMarketing, Olliance Group, StephenWalli, SandroGroganz, Business models, Open Source Marketing, Commercial Open Source

Sourceforge 2008 community awards‘ nominations this year were open to all open source projects, even to projects not enlisted within SourceForge.net repository. The SourceForge.net community’s members massively vote for OpenOffice.org, who actually won three different award categories (Best Project, Best Project for Enterprises, Best Project for Educators).

I agree with Matt Asay, saying that he doesn’t see OpenOffice.org fitting the Best Project for Enterprises, at least until enterprises will start using it significantly, something we are still missing to see for a number of reasons. My suggestion indeed was to vote for it in the “Most Likely to Change the World” category, eventually won by Linux.

Technorati Tags: SourceForge, Community Awards, OpenOffice.org, openoffice

Yesterday at OSCON Sam Ramji, Senior Director of Platform Strategy at Microsoft, talked about Microsoft’s steps on the open source road, explaining how Microsoft is going to contribute to open source development and communities.

Signs of Change by apesara

Funding the Apache Software Foundation Microsoft keeps implementing its open source strategy, clarifying legal concerns on the OSP and eventually supplying the necessary rights for Apache POI project.

I have been engaged to build bridges between Microsoft and open source companies, like Sourcesense. I am glad that my friend Gianugo Rabellino, Sourcesense’s CEO and well known member of the Apache Software Foundation, proved that the myth “Microsoft won’t raise any interest among OSS developers” is false.

Andrew C. Oliver, OSI’s member and Apache POI founder, reported that Microsoft acted in good faith and purpose addressing his concerns regards to patents and OOXML, going even a step further adding the binary formats to the list.

Microsoft’s decision to define an open source strategy did not happen overnight, and it will take time to see it effectively implemented. While I agree with Andrew writing that open source communities have to work cautiously with large corporation - and I will keep advising PLIO to do so - I see Microsoft making important progress in the right direction.

Kudos to Sam and his group to build a stronger relationship with the ASF.

Technorati Tags: Open Source Microsoft, Apache Foundation, ASF, POI, AndrewOliver, GianugoRabellino, SourceSense, PLIO, OSCON 2008

Dana Blankenhorn today reports about Louis Suarez-Potts - Community Manager and Chair of the Community Council for OpenOffice.org - claiming that “piracy hurts open source”.

Piracy, the marketing name chosen by the Business Software Alliance to describe copyright infringement, is defined by the BSA as follows:

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers. What a lot of people don’t realize or don’t think about is that when you purchase software, you are actually purchasing a license to use it, not the actual software. That license is what tells you how many times you can install the software, so it’s important to read it. If you make more copies of the software than the license permits, you are pirating.

Reading the piracy definition I understood that Open Source Piracy actually really hurts open source. Don’t get me wrong, you can hardly make more copies than the allowed number with open source, of course. Still you might distribute copyrighted open source software irrespectful of the license.

Google-O’Reilly Open Source Awards this year assigned the Defender of Rights award to Harald Welte, founder of the GPL violations projects, a sign that GPL enforcement work is receiving recognition. Well Done.

Open source products need protection too. All open source projects, either if they are developed by a community or a company, whatever open source license they choose.

BSA Members having important open source activity in place could ask BSA to help with that.

Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel and Microsoft, what do you think my friend?

Open Source Piracy? No thanks! by mrs.reed

Technorati Tags: OSCON2008, Open Source Piracy, Commercial Open Source, software piracy, BSA, GPL violations, HaraldWelte, Open Source Awards

Where will the mobile open source battle will be waged? - Jay Lyman attended the Open Mobile Exchange. I just stepped by, but I am definitely among them thinking that the mobile Linux will be hot this year.

Re-jigged Intel mobile Linux stack dumps Ubuntu -   Dirk Hohndel wants input on directions Moblin.  Canonical’s forthcoming Ubuntu MID edition is built around Moblin. Mark Shuttleworth beyond dreaming is exploring many areas, as he explained answering my question about Ubuntu’s break-even point. At the end of the day without VC backing around he can play his game as he likes.

Surprise! Open source is growing fast, report concludes - open source grew 55% a year reports Bernard Golden, CEO of Navica (the report is available for a fee at O’Reilly Web site).

Thoughts on the open source database market - Alex Fletcher on Forrester’s open source DBMS report. Read also EnterpriseDB survey results.

OSCON, Pt. 2.1: A Few Words With Mark Shuttleworth - Mark at OSCON.

Open source mash-up: Zimbra + SugarCRM, Loopfuse + Acquia -  Matt on open source integrations.

After the dispute about European definition of open standards happened after the release of the new version of the European Interoperability Framework, recently has been available the draft document on the basis of which the final EIF v2.0 will be elaborated.

A summary of reactions - to be sent at eifv2@ec.europa.eu by 22 September 2008 at the latest- will be published on the IDABC website and will constitute another input into the EIF elaboration.

Read the full article.