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  • Roberto Galoppini 2:08 pm on January 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , DougLevin, FLOSSBazaar, FLOSSology, , , , StevenGrandchamp,   

    Open Source Tools: HP launches FOSSology and FOSSBazaar 

    HP just announced the availability of FOSSology, an open source tool that can be used to track and monitor the use of Open Source software within an organization. The main functionality made available at the moment is license detection, more features will be added in the next future.

    At the Linux Meets Business conference held yesterday in Germany Christine Martino – Vice President Open Source and Linux Organization at HP – introduced also FOSSBazaar, a community platform to discuss best practices related to the governance of FOSS.

    I had the chance to learn more about HP open source plans just last week, when Martin Mychlmayr invited me to talk with him, Phil Robb – Engineering Section Manager in the Open Source and Linux Organization at HP - and Bernard Marclay, FOSS Marketing Manager at HP.

    HP wants to demonstrate its experience with FOSS Governance obtained in over 7 years for internal purposes, and it will be offering services related to FOSS Governance at large (e.g. defining open source policies, supporting the adoption process with its consulting division, etc).

    As a matter of fact they are partnering with many actors. Doug Levin – Black Duck software CEO – made some public statements welcoming FOSSology’s introduction. Steven Grandchamp - OpenLogic CEO – asked to comment the announcement told me:

    As a Strategic Sponsor of FOSSBazaar, OpenLogic is working with others to provide information and tools that help enterprises understand the issues around open source governance.  Sharing our open source expertise, along with tools like OpenLogic’s OSS Discovery (which produces an inventory of open source being used) and HP’s FOSSology (which uncovers licenses in open source), will help enterprises leverage the significant financial benefits of open source software.

    Also Stormy Peters is blogging on the matter, and others will come. While having dinner with HP people honestly I couldn’t come out with a firm’s name that they didn’t contact yet. We also spoke about the business side of the initiative, I will soon write on the matter.

    The man behind the FOSSBazar community. 

    Martin, a known Debian developer and fellow researcher, is the man behind the FOSSBazar community. He is the FOSSBazaar Community Manager, and he will be working with partners to define content, help members to conduct valuable and interesting discussions and debates, and he will be joining conferences all over the world to promote the FOSSBazaar community.

    I wish him all the best of luck!

    About Martin Michlmayr. 
    Martin Michlmayr has been involved in various free and open source software projects for well over 10 years. He acted as the leader of the Debian project for two years. In this role, he performed important organizational and coordination tasks within Debian. Martin works for HP as an Open Source Community Expert and acts as the community manager of FOSSBazaar. Martin holds Master degrees in Philosophy, Psychology and Software Engineering, and earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge.

     

    • Egor Grebnev 1:46 pm on January 28, 2008 Permalink

      You are doing a great job telling about the people who stand behind the projects, and not just the project themselves. Such information makes a very valuable supplement to the official websites and news articles as it makes everything much more ‘realistic’ and understandable.

      Having received your kind permission to translate some of your postings into Russian for INFO-FOSS.ru, we will be republishing this one in the international expert opinion section that we’re about to set up.

      I have a more general request, though. As you know, I am currently a member of two teams: ALT Linux, which is the largest Free Software development company in Russia and INFO-FOSS.ru, which is an information project on Free Software and Open Standards targeted primarily at government public.

      Both organisations are in need of cooperation with the international research community. As a member of ALT Linux, I would be happy to collaborate and share our experience on Free Software acquisition management in government contracts that we have gained in a series of research projects for the Ministry of Economy. As a member of INFO-FOSS.ru, I am interested in making the project part of the international research community and consequently move from borrowing information mostly from European publications to being involved in its production. There has been a number of FOSS-related developments in Russia recently, and I believe that such cooperation could become mutually beneficial.

      I will highly appreciate any help from you side as even partial implementation of these wishes will be a major step forward!

    • Roberto Galoppini 11:19 pm on January 28, 2008 Permalink

      Egor,

      I am glad and honored to be published on INFO-FOSS.ru, please link to the original for comments and suggestions.

      You might share your ALT Linux experiences with open source acquisition by public administrations with an international audience. If you wish so my blog is always open to your contributions, and you might get the attention of potential EC partners and eventually get info-foss.ru involved with FP7 and beyond.

    • Carlo Daffara 12:24 pm on January 29, 2008 Permalink

      Dear Egor,
      I share with Roberto the wish to help in strengthening the ties between Russia and Europe on FOSS technologies and approaches. I would be happy to help in bridging the work done in the past (in the COSPA, SPIRIT, OpenTTT and FLOSSMETRICS projects) if it may be helpful, and learning from you and your experiences.
      I am working on the new revision of our EU guide to OSS, and any addition and resource will be welcome.

    • Egor Grebnev 2:16 pm on January 29, 2008 Permalink

      Dear Carlo,

      Thanks for your message! Yes, sharing your experience on these projects will be very helpful. There is not a little information gathered already, and I often feel myself in need of someone to guide me through.

      I believe that it is the appropriate moment to make a summary of our achievements in an English presentation. Meanwhile, I will try to contact you via email.

  • Roberto Galoppini 9:23 am on January 24, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Björn Lundell, , Cédric Thomas, Diego Lo Giudice, , Jean-Noel de Galzain, , , Open Source Strategies, Open Source Sweden, QualiPSo, , Wallix   

    Open Source Acquisitions: Sun, MySQL Merger. Open Source Sinergy? 

    While Sun Microsystems was buying MySQL for $1 billion, Rome was guesting the international conference “Boosting innovation and growth by fostering Open Source Software trust and quality”, organized by the EC funded project QualiPSo.

    Having the conference among its key themes defining business models to facilitate the use of OSS in the industry, the “Business models and strategies” session – run on the 17th of January, one day after the acquisition – was definitely the right place to ask forum speakers about the deal.

    I asked the panelists an opinion about the largest open source software deal ever, and Björn Lundell, chairman of the Open Source Sweden, an industrial Swedish Open Source Association, congratulated with Mårten Mickos, expressing a positive opinion on the deal for the open source market. Basically the first round of impressions was spent to congratulate with the hero of the day. At that point I posed a specific question about the distribution channel, asking them how the merge operation could affect it.

    Cédric Thomas, CEO of the OW2 Consortium, said that every small firm, open or not, at a certain point has to find its way to the market, and probably it was great time for MySQL to get sales and financial backing to better deploy its value. On the same line of thought was also Jean-Noel de Galzain, CEO of Wallix.

    I was quite disappointed by the fact that none was mentioning how the Sun’s distribution channel is organized by now, and I asked the Forrester’s analyst to tell something about how Sun’s open source business model could change.

    Diego Lo Giudice, Principal Consultant at Forrester, said that he couldn’t anticipate Sun’s press releases on the subject, but talking about business models he stated that it’s all about making money, and a check of 1 billion it’s a lot of money!

    Talking about open source business models many people and also analysts mention only specific aspects, like licensing, paying little attention on how pieces of the business fit (or not) together. The result is that the company’s strategy, or how a specific firm differentiates itself and deals with the competition, is not effectively described, neither understood.

    Last week during the Sun Partner Advantage Executive Summit, organized to share with top partners Sun’s vision for growth, Jonathan Schwartz early morning on the 16th of January sent a physical letter to all partners:

    Good morning! It is my extreme pleasure to start your day with some truly exciting news.

    Earlier this morning, Sun made a strategic mode designed to provide myriad opportunities for partners and the market at large. We announced our intention to acquire MySQL AB, one of the world’s fastest-growing and most popular databases. [..]

    Sun and its partners soon will enjoy unprecedented access to a massive new set of customers. In short, the MySQL database is deployed across every major operating system, hardware platform, geography, industry and application type, and we are committed to working with you to help it gain even greater relevance in the marketplace.

    What’s more, we think our operational, sales and financial backing, along with our global services strength, will enhance MySQL’s value proposition to customers by giving them peace of mind to deploy it at scale enterprise — on whichever platforms they so choose.

    Anil Gadre later discussed the news with partners, and I would have liked to attend to. While it is pretty clear that Sun is consolidating its position as the largest open source contributor, it is still unclear how Sun’s partners will eventually take advantage of a new set of customers in the database arena. Looking at how MySQL is doing business now, and who and how add value to the ‘M’ in LAMP all over the world, I see many unanswered questions on the table.

    Open Source Franchising or not, Sun has to work a lot with its channel to make this move worth well more than the price paid.

     

    • Carlo Daffara 10:11 am on January 25, 2008 Permalink

      There is a strong difference in selling approach between Sun and MySQL. While Sun traditionally leverages its hardware business to provide complete service packages (hw+sw+support), MySQL traditionally leverages its strong developers community to monetize mission critical deployments from the bottom. I suspect that Sun may have bought MySQL mainly to prevent competitors reaching it first (and potentially killing it in the process); this way the advantage of a lower price per database deployed can continue to be converted into preserved hardware margins. The idea that MySQL can be converted into a “grid database” in a way similar to Amazon’s SimpleDB is not convincing, and may make sense only if Sun intend to relaunch its grid initiative (at lower prices) offering the supported MySQL, OpenSolaris and apache in preconfigured means.

    • Roberto Galoppini 12:05 pm on January 25, 2008 Permalink

      I agree with you Carlo, there is a huge difference between the two distribution channels. Sun’s channel today is delivering products plus standardized support services, while MySQL’s ecosystem deploy web applications tailored on specific users’ needs. As a result I see little chance for cross-selling opportunities, consider that MySQL runs on a lot of platform, as also Jonathan Schwartz highlighted.

      About the grid-database it could possibly happen and make sense, but it is not going to help partners anyway.

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:48 am on January 23, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Italian Politicians, , , Minister for Reform and Innovation, Open Source Government, , SME   

    Italian Government: IDABC cites the Open Letter asking Clarifications about Open Source Funds 

    IDABC – a Community programme managed by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Informatics – among open source news cited our open letter to the Italian Minister for Reform and Innovation.

    IT: Ministry asked to clarify spending on Open Source

    Italian Open Source developers are asking the Ministry for Reform and Innovation to clarify how it spent 10 million euro earmarked for Open Source projects last year.

    A public letter was sent last week, requesting the ministry to list on which projects the money was spent.

    Read the full article.

    I am looking forward to see reactions from the ministry, even if over these hours open source can not to be a priority for the Italian government.

    IDABC, what it does.

    IDABC issues recommendations, develops solutions and provides services that enable national and European administrations to communicate electronically while offering modern public services to businesses and citizens in Europe.
    The programme also provides financing to projects addressing European policy requirements, thus improving cooperation between administrations across Europe.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 7:20 pm on January 21, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: europe greens, fair use, fiorellocortiana, media industry, sharing culture   

    Sharing Culture: I Wouldn’t Steal Campaign 

    My friend and supporter of free software movement and movements against software patents Fiorello Cortiana forwarded me a link to the “I wouldn’t steal campaign“.

    Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that [downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting]. That’s simply not true – making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing.

    The media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area – lobbying to adapt laws to criminalize sharing, turning consumers into criminals. They argue that their laws are necessary to [support artists], but in reality all they’re protecting is their own profits.

    The Greens in Europe and worldwide has been opposing these laws. We believe that consumers are willing to pay if offered good quality at a fair price. We also believe that sharing is expanding culture – not killing it.

    To protest against the faulty propaganda from the industry, we made our own film. The difference is – you can choose whether you want to watch this one.

    (Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

    Please help to spread the word.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 7:46 pm on January 16, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , open business, , , , oss,   

    Open Source Jobs: Funambol got an Italian Community Manager, Stefano Maffulli! 

    Funambol – the Mobile Open Source company – few months ago started looking for a community manager, as I learned from Fabrizio Capobianco while he was in Rome to join the VentureCamp.

    A couple of days later I got a phone call from my friend and fellow blogger Stefano Maffulli, asking me for Fabrizio’s email. Below the full story.

    Roberto’s blog has been a kind of a Monster: a good daily read but also a way to extend the reach of a social network. When I pitched my CV to Fabrizio (Funambol’s CEO) I learned that the selection process had been going on for a while already and other candidates were being evaluated. Nonetheless I was invited to speak with Hal Steger, Funambol’s VP Marketing: I liked his attitude and he liked my multidisciplinary background (architecture, technology and the upcoming MBA). Funambol has a balanced mix of the good hacker’s culture I love and the necessary strength on financial and marketing management, something that I want to learn (and have been missing in my past work experiences).

    It wasn’t a long shot after all. It will be fun to work with Funambol’s growing community and the company.

    Stefano MaffulliArchitect Stefano Maffulli at work by Stefano Maffulli

    I am glad that the time I spent sometimes collecting open positions within open source firms and jobs was of some help. Few months ago I also started to display a widget on each job posted by considerati, that I happened to get in touch with via openbusiness, but unfortunately such distributed job site had a limited success.

    Stefano, are you already thinking of how to get off the best from programs like Code Sniper and Phone Sniper?

    We have some ideas on what has to be improved to help Funambol’s community but we are also open to suggestions. For example, our software is in many places and it’s not easy for newcomers to find what they are looking for. I’m interested in hearing experiences of Funambol’s users with the software, the mailing lists, the repository and the company: they can come to me and I’ll help if at all possible.

    Funambol’s architecture of participation welcomes small contributions, allowing individuals to more easily participate, I am looking forward to ask Stefano how is he doing in six months from now.

    For the time being I wish him and Funambol all the best!

    Read Stefano Maffulli‘s full profile on Linkedin.

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 7:44 pm on January 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Standards, Open Source Funds, Open Source Mobile: my conversations, actions and conferences 12-01-2008 

    Ten challenges and priorities for free and open source in 2008 – Bob Sutor (via Raven Zachary) set his priorities. In my opinion both IBM and Microsoft are not addressing the real issue behind open standards: we urge to establish a certification body, on duty to certify standards compliance.

    Italian Open Source funds: the open letter – My buddy Flavia Marzano posted on our letter to the Minister for the Innovation in the Public Administration Luigi Nicolais, maybe I’ll get a chance to give him the letter at the QualiPSo conference, in Rome.

    The Implication of Microsoft’s Open Source like Strategy for Software Developers -  Next March on the 12th I’ll give a speech at OSIM USA – The World’s Largest Forum for Mobile Linux and Open Source – talking of Microsoft’s strategy and vision on open source. Stay tuned!

    Technorati Tags: Open Source Funds, Italian politicians, oss, open business, OSIM, Microsoft, IBM, BobSutor, RavenZachary, QualiPSo, egovernment

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 2:46 pm on January 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    European eGovernment: IDABC and beyond, 12-13 February in Brdo (Slovenia) 

    Halfway into the IDABC programme, the European Commission is organising the IDABC mid-term Conference, on 12-13 February in Brdo, Slovenia together with the Slovenian Presidency of the European Union.

    The purpose of the event is to demonstrate the achievements of the IDABC programme so far and to introduce a vision for a possible future follow-on programme.

    If you are interested in attending the mid-term IDABC conference, but you are not a member of the IDABC expert group, please fill in a call for expression of interest.

    The call will close today.

    More information on the IDABC mid-term conference is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/conference2008

    Technorati Tags: IDABC, Europe eGovernment, Slovenia

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 11:25 am on January 9, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Italian Government: Open Letter to the Italian Minister for Technology Innovation 

    Despite the Italian Budget law considered open source as a favorable factor in assigning funds to sustain innovation by local public administrations, informed voices say funds for 2007 are vanished.

    Talking with my friend and open source advocate Flavia Marzano we decided to write an open letter to the Italian Minister for Technology Innovation Luigi Nicolais, and we asked associations, CIOs in the public sectors and professors to sign the letter.

    Punto Informatico, one of the most important Italian IT online magazine, today reported the letter, and I am looking forward to know all the (open source) truth!

    Below the original text (Italian). Fellow bloggers, spread the word as you did before!

    (More …)

     

    • Cri 6:07 pm on January 11, 2008 Permalink

      Someone could go to Rome on January 16th and ask the question directly to Mr. Nicolais during the QualiPSo Conference 2008

    • Roberto Galoppini 10:32 pm on January 11, 2008 Permalink

      I am going to the QualiPSo conference, if our Minister will pop up I’ll do my best to pose him the question, whereas organizers will allow me to do so.

    • Flavia 11:27 am on January 12, 2008 Permalink

      You could bring the letter printed and leave it directly in his hands.
      🙂

    • Roberto Galoppini 7:06 pm on January 16, 2008 Permalink

      As twittered earlier unfortunately I spent all the morning at the hospital today. Did Flavia or anyone else at the conference asked the Minister about OS funds, by any chance?

  • Roberto Galoppini 9:53 am on January 8, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Commercial Open Source: Commercial and Open Source are still not antonyms 

    Over the last few days I have just been reading my news alerts on commercial open source and I found out that someone still thinks it sounds like a contradiction in terms, others question about how open is commercial open source, while there is who argues that OSS vendors have to sell products, not subscriptions.

    While it is still unclear if and at which extent a software developer can change the world, the “blue ocean” of Open Source innovations got larger and larger in 2007, proving open source to be a formidable tool to put in place viable business strategies. Customer innovation has still a very important role, as it still matters cooperation and collaboration among open source firms, maybe also in the form of vendors’ consolidation.

    Is Bill Hilf right saying that with proprietary software you buy a guarantee, and you can eventually sue someone if something goes wrong? CIOs working within small to medium enterprises are probably more interested in software that works than in buying this “ecosystem of accountability”. Need to know more about what open source can do for you? Read the Open Source Guide for SMEs.

    What is an open source firm is still an open issue apparently: Jeff Gould is among them who do not consider the Split OSS/commercial approach open enough. I am looking forward to join Andrew Aitken at the Open Source Think Tank 2008 on February 7-9 in Napa Valley, and share with him and others some opinions also on the “false positive” phenomenon.

    Savio Rodrigues got more critical on some open source business approaches, writing:

    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). [..]

    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.

    VCs do like millions of downloads, but we all know that one customer every thousand users might be a viable strategy for MySql and very few others. Despite it is questionable if support has or not less value than the product itself, we know it is true that selling the right to use assets is more profitable than selling ownership of assets. In this respect Savio, emphasizing the importance of the product, is definitely raising an interesting issue. Soon more on these subjects.

    I wish you all a great year, and invite you to take a moment to watch this Blue Man Group video: our planet is the only one we can live on, take good care of it, either if you love or hate open source.
    (Either JavaScript is not active or you are using an old version of Adobe Flash Player. Please install the newest Flash Player.)

    Technorati Tags: commercial open source, oss, open business, Open Source Think Tank, AndrewAitken, JeffGould, SavioRodrigues, MySql, BMG, Blue Man Group, BillHilf

     

    • andrew aitken 7:16 am on January 9, 2008 Permalink

      Well, there’s certainly a lot of content in this posting, but I want to just address one portion, that of Savio’s comments you highlite. I think CIOs would disagree with the statement that support is of much less value than a product. Without some form of support most CIOs will not be willing to deploy a piece of software. And CIOs are willing to pay for quite a bit of piece of mind which is what support buys. We heard that loud and clear from CIOs interviewed at last year’s Think Tank. It will be interesting to see if they feel the same way this year. But, just because CIOs are willing to pay for support, doesn’t mean they are willing to pay for it only from the developer of the open source solution itself. One of the benefits of open source is choice. They may be willing to go elsewhere if they feel they can get as high a level of support. This brings up a couple of other points, a business with a high services revenue component traditionally doesn’t scale to meet the required returns for most investors, and in order to be successful today, growing a large and competent channel is critical. How much of the services is a vendor going to keep and how much are they going to give to their channel to motivate them? So,again, I disagree with Savio’s point, but it is a very complex issue.

    • Roberto Galoppini 12:47 pm on January 10, 2008 Permalink

      Hi Andrew, happy to see you joining the conversation.

      I think CIOs would disagree with the statement that support is of much less value than a product. Without some form of support most CIOs will not be willing to deploy a piece of software. And CIOs are willing to pay for quite a bit of piece of mind which is what support buys. We heard that loud and clear from CIOs interviewed at last year’s Think Tank.

      I suspected it and I was just waiting for customers feedback like the ones you reported. What about the size of those enterprises?

      But, just because CIOs are willing to pay for support, doesn’t mean they are willing to pay for it only from the developer of the open source solution itself.

      Appropriating returns from the commons is not an easy task, but it is also true that well established open source firms likeRed Red Hat don’t seem too worried by copy cat versions. Yet another complex and interesting issue here, am I right?

      [..] a business with a high services revenue component traditionally doesn’t scale to meet the required returns for most investors, and in order to be successful today, growing a large and competent channel is critical. How much of the services is a vendor going to keep and how much are they going to give to their channel to motivate them?

      Well, I definitely agree with you Andrew, the channel is critical and few open source firms found their way, here Open Source Franchising I am sure can play an important role. Do you agree?

    • andrew aitken 6:06 pm on January 10, 2008 Permalink

      Well lets address the Redhat comment. Redhat certainly does a good job and as long as the overall adoption of Linux continues positively worldwide, they are safe. But, we’re hearing from some very large customers that as their dependency upon Redhat grows, and consequently their cost, they are beginning to figure out exactly where their break even is between adding more REL subscriptions and hiring a sys admin, or training up one of their own. Additionally, as more lower and free versions of Linux gain in functionality, usability and supportability, we’re hearing that enterprises are concentrating new REL subscriptions around high-volume and mission critical work loads while using the other Linux’s for other functions. Virtualization is a huge trend, and we’re seeing tremendous interest, but it’s still a bit early for many large scale deployments.

    • Roberto Galoppini 12:01 am on January 12, 2008 Permalink

      Retain customers is not trivial, as soon as they get technologically autonomous, but as you stated there is a trade-off.

      Besides economical considerations, I believe that another factor is the need for customization. When a customer need its own flavor of a commercial Linux distribution, whatever is the reason, it is time to consider to go on its foot. Flexibility matters. Right?

  • Roberto Galoppini 11:44 am on December 31, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Italian Government: Others question Italian Politicians on Open Source Funds 

    Few days ago I reported that funds allocated by the Italian budget law to foster innovation by Italian local public administrations through open source software are vanished.

    A couple of day later my blog peer and friend Stefano Maffulli launched a campaign (see the logo below), asking other bloggers to join us. Up to now Debianizzati, Geekplace, PlanetGnome Italia, Stefano Canepa, Dario and OS Revolution.

    campaign logoWhat about the 10 millions euro? by Stefano Maffulli

    I invite Italian bloggers – and among them Antonella Beccaria, Paolo Didone, Nicola Mattina, Dario Salvelli, Luca Sartoni and Italo Vignoli – to join the campaign and ask Italian politicians to tell us all the (open source) truth!

    I really wish you all a great year!

    Technorati Tags: , , , , , ,

     

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