Open Source: year in review, opinions

2006 was a great year for Open Source, no doubt.

For eweek Open Source got big-time, because of:

  • Oracle announcement of offering support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux to address lack of “true enterprise support for Linux”, as Ellison himself said.
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  • Microsoft and Novell announcement of collaboration agreements, including patent protection.The two companies agreed to disagree on that point, lacking of good communication.
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  • Sun Microsystems finally decided to release Java.
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CNET put GPLv3 debate on top of its list, but JBoss acquisition by Red Hat, Microsoft sponsorship of an open-source project to develop a converter between Open Office XML and OpenDocument file formats and French parliament dumpling Windows for Linux were on the list too.
Last but not least I’d recommend Matt Asay reflections on 2006, detailed and not too personal.