Sun’s open source strategy overshadowed by legacy businesses – (via google alert) Larry Dignan is skeptical about the possibility that open source will turbo charge the rest of Sun’s businesses.
Managing Toward Open – Sam Ramji writes about how the interrelationship between Microsoft and open source is changing. Matthew Aslett commented Microsoft’s move to jump into cross-platform system management.
Last June the former Italian Minister of Reform and Innovations in Public Administration, Luigi Nicolais, announced the creation of the second Italian Open Source Commission, and last week the commission coordinated by professor Angelo Raffaele Meo released a first draft of the report (Italian).
The Neapolitean coffee is finished. Any more coffee? Valpopando (LYJR)
The commission, composed of sixteen members and supported by the National Center for Information Technology in Public Administration and the Department of Innovation, would have probably needed more time to define procurement policies for IT Public procurement of open source software.
Will also the next Italian government take good care of open source?
Provided that the first Open Source Commission (http://www.cnipa.gov.it/site/_files/dm_021031.pdf) was established by the previous Minister of Innovation and Technologies, Mr. Stanca, and provided that Mr. Stanca will probably be the new Minister, I can guess that he will “play†some more on that issue!
Let’s hope.
Savio Rodrigues reported that Black Duck Software, an intellectual property management firm delivering services to identify risks and vulnerabilities in an enterprise’s open-source code, acquired Koders, a free on-line search engine for open source software.
Interesting times by Zesmerelda
Today I asked Doug Levin, BlackDuck CEO, some feedback:
Black Duck acquired Koders, Inc. because we have broadened our offerings and now help companies find, approve, validate and manage open source components in their software development environment. Koders.com and Koders technology will play a key role in Black Duck’s future as a code search engine tightly integrated into future versions of our products, especially Code Center.
BlackDuck is willing to tap deeper into the market of open source library/directory. Savio commented the acquisition:
The Koders acquisition makes sense because more and more developers are developing by reusing code from external code repositories like Koders. Being able to tap into this source of code (pun intended) will help improve Black Duck’s code scanning capabilities. As a result, this acquisition will improve the level of information (and protection) that companies using OSS have at their disposal, whether the source being leveraged is from a traditional OSS project or an online code repository such as Koders.
Just like OpenLogic also BlackDuck is taking advantage of the absence of a Corporate actor to develop new services, not based on code production. Open Source Governance it’s an (open) issue, and I think we are seeing just the top of the iceberg at the present time.
We are going to live in interesting times, no doubt.
As the industry matures I’m sure you will see business combinations which are interesting and make sense, and others which are vexing. Clearly, the combination of MySQL and SUN makes sense for customers and the companies. At Black Duck, we knew that the Koders fit with Black Duck made sense on many levels including with respect to vision, operationally, technology and go-to-market factors, and other considerations as well.
Hi Doug, while I am still wondering if Sun-MySql merger makes business sense, I totally agree with you that we are definitely going to see more business combinations.
About Black Duck acquisition I believe you’re right, and I am open to report more about it in six months from now, keep in touch!
OpenLogic, an open source provider offering software and services for open source governance, announced that OpenLogic Certified Library surpassed 400 certified open source packages available. In addition, OpenLogic broadened functionality of OLEX adding a Comparison Matrix service.
An Open road.. by informaplc
Very few open source projects are managed by a specific corporate actor marketing its products, tracking the production process, partnering with other vendors, offering indemnification protection and a fair software warranty. Players like OpenLogic are taking advantage of the absence of a Corporate actor to develop new services, not based on code production (while participating to open source communities).
I asked Kim Weins, Senior VP of Marketing, how did come out the idea of the comparison matrix?
The reason we are coming out with the comparison matrix is that we have heard from customers that it is often difficult to figure out which open source package is best for a given situation. Since there is often limited documentation and marketing materials (except for the relatively few open source projects backed by commercial vendors), companies often pick open source based on reputation or by having developers do in depth research on open source package. The comparison matrix is a starting point that will help companies select the right package or set of packages to evaluate based on their particular need.
The cost of free, namely the cost associated with open source software selection, is the reason behind OpenLogic’s decision to build such resources. OpenLogic started covering Application Servers, Databases and Web Application Frameworks three categories.
Kim, how did you choose the first three categories?
We’ve started with Application Servers, Databases and Web Application Frameworks because they are some of the open source projects used most frequently by enterprises. We will be adding more areas going forward.
I see a sea of opportunities here. Magic Quadrants are just beginning to cover also open source products, but many categories like open source network management probably need similar attention.
Few months ago Matt Asay argued that OpenLogic’s success could have been achieved at the expense of the projects that made it possible, Kim replied on the subject explaining how OpenLogic gives back. As a matter of fact open source software is a proper free market, where appropriating returns from commons is challenging.
Kim, which is OpenLogic strategy about partnerships?
We partner with vertical players whenever possible. For most open source projects in our library, there is no commercial vendor. For the handful where there is a commercial vendor, we prefer to partner with them.
It makes perfect sense, and I am looking forward to report future steps in this direction.
The second edition of the Italian Conference on Free Software will be held in Trento from the 16th to the 18th of May.
The ConfSL 2008 has multiple working sessions, addressing different point of view about Free Software (Open Session, Academical Session, a brokerage event and a mapping party).
1. Open Session
Dedicated to the widest audience, it aims to disseminate basic concepts around Free Software, with a special accent on well (and less) known aspects about its practical usage.2. Academic Session
The primary scientific goal is to catch the state of art of Free Software; seminars and workshops will afford to give an all-around survey about it in a multi-disciplinary fashion.3. Open Source 2008 – brokerage event
It is a partner event of ConfSL (managed by Trentino Sviluppo) member of European IRC (Innovation Relay Centre) network. It will be held friday afternoon and it will offer specific opportunites to exchange and transfer knowledge, know-how and experiences between Enterprises, Technology Providers, Associations, and Public Administrations. The main goal is to create concrete partnership opportunities, both commercial and technological, between participants.
My speech on standards conformance has been accepted, and I am glad to join the event both to talk about the importance to prove that software products are meeting open standards‘ specifications and to do some networking. See you there!
The SEMIC.EU event, scheduled for June 17, 2008 in Brussels, will feature the official launch of the SEMIC.EU website.
In November 2007, the Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe (SEMIC.EU) opened its virtual doors to the public and can now be accessed through the new website http://www.semic.eu.
The SEMIC.EU project aims to build a European platform for interoperability assets and services available to the public sector and its stakeholders in Europe, focusing on semantic – ie. content -interoperability.The communication platform will facilitate the creation of expert communities, and will provide a public web repository on semantic interoperability issues.
Some month’s news on the IDABC Open Source Observatory:
FR: Marseille to switch to OpenOffice
DE: Hospital cuts costs with Open Source
EU: Europarlement testing Ubuntu, OpenOffice and Firefox
NL: Use of Open Source software requires no European IT tenders
The OpenOffice.org Italian Association is proud to announce another record: the Italian release of the world’s leading free and open source productivity suite has experienced a surge in demand for its last version, OpenOffice.org 2.4.
OpenOffice.org experienced more than 16,900 downloads per day over the last 23 days, for a total of more than 370.000 downloads!
Davide Dozza, PLIO’s president commented the result:
While we were working on our april foul, downloads were running furiously, doubling the 2.3 rate, and quadrupling last year’s downloads. Likely the availability of new Italian linguistic tools, along with the support for PDF/A, are bringing more and more people to try OpenOffice.org, and learn about free software value.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the debate about the best open source business model is still open. We are done with licenses, finally. However, the question on how we make (more) money, while keeping our open source soul clean, is still there. And it might not go away soon…
Latest debate: MySQL alleged idea of having non-open source components in its Enterprise Edition. Whooo, scary…
Marten and Zack might have made a marketing mistake: leaking the news out at the end of their conference, where they did not talk about it, was probably not done on purpose… In particular, just after the Sun acquisition, with all eyes focused on how opensourcey they still are.
Nevertheless, this move is clearly into the right direction.
Read the full post, I will comment later Fabrizio‘s post.
Few days ago I joined the first “Mind the Bridge” workshop, a program aimed at helping tomorrow’s Italian entrepreneurs.
I really enjoyed joining the event, organized by 1GN, Partnership4Growth and BAIA Italia. Luigi Orsi Carbone speech on how to write a business model was a good start, while what Italian VCs had to say was pretty depressing.
On the other hand it was a great pleasure to listen to Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, his talk was the exact combination of inspiration and festivity that every entrepreneur must first seek in herself.
It was also interesting to listen to participants’ speeches, but I had little chance to pose deeper questions to PassPack‘s proponents Francesco Sullo and Tara Kelly, while I spent the whole evening with Stefano Grini, JabberOut‘s proponent.
Italian VCs look too hard to court, offer very little money compared to their US counterpart, and last but not least ask really too much in terms of shares and obligations.
Do you have a brilliant idea? Get in touch with Richard Boly here in Rome, or take a plane and ask Fabrizio Capobianco to show you the way.
Indeed, we didn’t manage to chat at all (neither over lunch, nor after the presentation). Would have liked to though. What’s the next event in Rome you’ll be at?
Hi Tara,
let’s give it a try soon. I am going to chair an event on the 14th of May at ForumPA, but I guess we can manage to meet up earlier for a coffee or so. Skype me.
I want to take the opportunity here to clarify my stance and how I managed to form my analysis of Microsoft Open Source Strategy.
A Change of Perception by jpaul
What has ignited this desire of mine to clarify these issues was the publication on my blog of the post Microsoft and OSS: another battle brewingâ€, unfortunately published without my editorial approval, and without my ability to review the contents before publication. After reading the article and having personally talked with the contributing editor, Carlo Daffara,I realized he was expressing some concerns about the clarity of my position relative to Microsoft and open source. Let me try to make it clearer.
I have been consulting with Microsoft on different subjects over the last two years.
The first time I happened to work with Microsoft was back in June 2006. I took part to the Microsoft’s Linux&Open Source Briefing partner program as open source expert. Techstream, a training firm engaged by Microsoft to deliver worldwide such program, found me over the internet, and eventually hired me after a couple of job interviews.
When I visited Microsoft’s offices in Milan the first time, I barely knew there was an open source group at Microsoft. During the briefing we spoke at large about open source business and production models, and I was surprised by their interest in the subject.
At the same time it was interesting for myself to see how Microsoft was differentiating itself from open source, as was enlightening to meet Microsoft’s VARs and ISVs partners joining the event.
As a matter of fact some of them were already using open source technologies, and were posing precise and accurate questions about Microsoft’s strategy in this respect.
Since then I got used to openly and publicly discuss with Microsoft people about our different views, and I eventually ended to consult with them in 2007.
At that point I was contracted to help them find ways to cooperate with theFOSS world on interoperability, licensing schemas and possibly joint initiatives.
Understanding how delicate it is to be an open source advocate and to consult to Microsoft, I also took a decision to avoid potential conflicts of interest within the OpenOffice.org Italian Association (PLIO). As I had been asked from Microsoft to create open source OpenXML tools for developers, I refrained from taking any position about the OpenXML vote within PLIO, which was directly involved within the JTC1 committee working on DIS29500. Not only. When I concluded my collaboration with Microsoft I thought wiser to keep myself out of the OpenXML vote discussion.
Getting back to Microsoft’s open source strategy, I invited Pierpaolo Boccadamo, head of Microsoft’s Platform Strategy in Italy, at the Commercial Open Source Conference I organized in June last year. I was happy to invite him because for the very first time Microsoft was going to really speak about open source here in Italy, while also announcing the opening of its second open source lab in Italy.
I was also part of Microsoft’s Italy work towards an open source compatible strategy. I have had the chance to talk to Sam Ramji and to many others like Robert Duffner and Bryan Kirschner, with whom I eventually developed my own idea on the Microsoft open-source strategy.
1.The FOSS vs proprietary software dichotomy. The historical dichotomy is (slowly) disappearing, just because customers are demanding it. CIOs at Open Source Think Tank, essays from the Open Source Alliances and other sources are telling us about the importance to learn to live in a hybrid world. Microsoft is giving up with the anachronistic idea to keep customers using only proprietary software, at the same extent the idea to fully migrate to open source is of little meaning too. Researches on the transformation of open sourceare confirming that also the distinction between open source and proprietary vendors is reducing now.
OSS 2.0 blurs the distinction between open source and proprietary software. Key open source players such as Red Hat and Novell’s SUSE Linux business unit position their Linux distributions to be more similar to a proprietary model. Traditional proprietary companies, such as HP, IBM and Microsoft, move more towards open source. Nevertheless, in the OSS 2.0 model, these companies must still satisfy certain criteria in relation to acceptable community values (a significant challenge for OSS 2.0). Large commercial organizations are not always well perceived within the open source community. Companies such as IBM, Sun, and HP support open source initiatives, but their support for patents is clearly at odds with the open source philosophy. Also, the quintessential patron of open source, Red Hat, could struggle in future as its policies increasingly conflict with community spirit and values. Use of subscription agreements and effective customer lock-ins through confidential service bulletins are close to the boundary of acceptable community values.
2. Open Source Governance? We do not need it. Open source analystsdescribe the goal to define a trusted library of open source software and components a daunting task. Horizontal vendors offering open source support on certified repositories of open source technology are not yet enabling enterprises to manage open source like a portfolio. Besides that, companies acquiring open source software – often without any procurement process involved (downloading it) – are not happy to spend money on open source governance, as reported by Michael Goulde, senior analyst at Forrester:
The paradox is a lot of companies are getting into open source to reduce their costs. They’re not excited to spend money to manage it.
3. For Microsoft (and its partners) everything is a PC. Actually Microsoft was the PC company, and that’s why Microsoft developed effective programs to enable its partners to scale their growth. Microsoft progressively became a platform provider, a crucial hub in the IT ecosystem. Marco Iansiti in his Information Technology Ecosystem Health and Performance explains clearly the role of platform providers.
Platform providers perform a critical role in an ecosystem – they deliver consistent and reliable components that make application providers more productive. The tools and building blocks they provide to ecosystem members make it easier to create powerful applications that in turn benefit end-users. In doing so, platform providers can act as “Keystones†to their ecosystems.
Linux enthusiasts might not like Microsoft’s server market share, but they can hardly ignore it. Both Windows and Linux are complemented by extensive tool sets used by millions of developers, and Microsoft with the Most Valuable Professional program is keeping to foster its communities. Tools, indeed, are just part of the general picture, a picture in which Microsoft creates a lot of value for its ecosystem.
4. Microsoft won’t raise any interest among OSS developers.This argument is not supported by any research. On the contrary both Lakhani and Wolf and Bonaccorsi findings on motivations to contribute returned a different feedback. The former research indicates that only a tiny fractions of respondents would never participate in a closed source project, while the latter shows that firms emphasize economic and technological reasons for contributing to Open Source and do not subscribe to many social motivations.
5. Microsoft IP “broken bridges” will keep Microsoft (and its partners) out of open source business. There are still some obstacles to be addressed before Microsoft can work at with open source in all of its forms, but many open source vendors could already take advantage of the business opportunity. At the end of the day open source firms need, just like any other software firm, to sell preferably products, otherwise subscriptions or services (the very last option). As a matter of fact companies like Zimbra sell proprietary Enterprise editions using Microsoft APIs, and this don’t make them look less open source than others. It is definitely true that Microsoft’s IP policy affects “downstream” developers, as rightly Matt Asay points out. Microsoft, in this respect, has still to work hard to balance communities’ and company’s interests, and I am looking forward to comment Microsoft’s future steps in this direction.
Microsoft, just like any other major IT vendors, understands that open source is a very important part of the IT environment today, but differently from any other, it has a huge partner channel, lots of developers skilled on its platforms, and a strong economic incentive in being a platform player.
Notwithstanding Microsoft choice not to give away its core platforms, Microsoft could play a very important role bringing under its umbrella open source firms. Co-marketing partnerships appear to be appealing from both sides. Microsoft can greatly help to reduce uncertainty, delivering WAMP stacks and similar supported off-the-shelf open source solutions based on Microsoft’s platforms. Microsoft’s customers could eventually reduce the cost of open source software selection, a price many are not happy to pay.
Fostering its own communities, even with specific programs, today Microsoft is providing causes for effects, answering another frequent question about the availability of open source developers and architects.
Where other see just a monopoly, I see our (open source) potential. The other day talking with Stacey Schneider I asked her a feedback on Hyperic experience with Microsoft, below the full transcript.
From Hyperic’s perspective, Microsoft has been great at recognizing what a great partner Hyperic can be. Their Open Source Labs have performed tests and run Hyperic – delivering writeups and podcasts on their opinions of the software (positive!) to their communities. Their partner organization has recently awarded Hyperic a free consulting engagement (they paid for it) designed to review Hyperic’s overall business plan and help us navigate the Microsoft organization in the best way to maximize our participation in go to market activities. They have even gone so far as to become a customer – using Hyperic for management for some technology they acquired that is not yet moved over to .NET. They recognize our cross-platform abilities, and our overall scalability and usability.
As a company, Microsoft is still figuring out many of its approaches and participation in the open source world. Some we may not all agree with in their first stages, however as a partner and a vendor to Microsoft, we have seen constant attention to our space, and have seen recognition that they need to work with mixed environments and mixed vendors nicely. That said, if you are an all windows shop – they are quick to point out you probably want to use their solution which is built just for windows and designed to optimize that experience. We’re fine with that – we think the mixed market is much bigger.
My open source world is pretty hybrid, what about yours?
Roberto, thank you for the insight, very interesting. Actually I have seen a lot of changes in Microsoft attitude in the last year, which conducted to a rather successful negotiation in the implementation of the measures imposed by the Commission and upheld by the Court of Justice.
As I publicly reckoned during the last meeting in Geneva on Open Standards, directly to Microsoft executives, they sometimes went beyond their obligation (in other fields they are still quite behind, but a long journey starts with a small first step). I am direct witness of potential developments.
So much that I have written an essay urging Microsoft to take the lead on Free Software, as you can read in my blog: Is Microsoft to Lead the Free Software Crusade?. I think it is a variation on the same tune.
Roberto, keek up the good work!
Thank you very much for your feedback Carlo!
I suspect our vision of the future is not welcomed by many free software advocates, and as usual only time could tell.
For the time being I’ll do my best to keep myself equally critical of proprietary and open source myths, speaking on the merits and pitfalls that Microsoft’s strategy has for open source firms and developers.
Roberto Galoppini and 
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