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  • Roberto Galoppini 4:01 pm on November 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Apache, , Apache Way, , CollabNet, , JustinErenkratnz, , open source development   

    Apache Incubator: Extraordinary Made Ordinary, the Subversion case 

    Few days ago Subversion has been submitted to the Apache Incubator, a move praised by many as the natural fit for both projects, both for technical reasons (Apache projects use Subversion, Subversion relies on many Apache projects) and a shared vision about IP (same license) and community governance (same voting process).

    Bill Portelli, Collabnet CEO, and Justin Erenkrantz,  Apache Software Foundation President, answered few questions aimed at better  understanding if and at which extent this is a win-win move. Let’s start from the corporate side.

    (More …)

     
    • Josef Assad 5:23 pm on November 26, 2009 Permalink

      I don’t think svn’s failure to attract developers has anything to do with what umbrella it’s under, Tigris or Apache. It’s more the fact that the world has moved on to distributed SCM.

      Reading the answers, it seems like they expect enterprise customers to bring the innovation to the codebase. While I have trouble imagining what innovation could compete with distributed without actually BEING distributed, that – if genuine – will be more interesting to watch than any change of umbrella organisation.

    • Roberto Galoppini 10:00 am on November 28, 2009 Permalink

      Hi Josef,

      I might agree about the general tendency towards distributed Software Configuration Systems, especially among open source communities.

      So said, today ASF and many other organizations are happy with Subversion, and they might join the development team.

      Time will tell, one year from now I’ll check it out.

  • Roberto Galoppini 5:13 pm on November 19, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Apache, DavidNüscheler, , ,   

    About Open Source Value Creation and Consumption 

    The relationship between open source communities and vendors keeps being a topic of debate these days. Simon Phipps at the South Tyrol Free Software Conference gave a talk about his “software freedom scorecard“, a method to indicate the approach vendors take to promote software freedom as part of their business strategies.

    Matt Asay says we have to get used to companies separating their open-source efforts from their revenue models. We may be talking of  “fauxpen source” vendors in this case – as originally named by Taurus Balog –  but it doesn’t necessarily cut open development out of the equation.

    I want to make my point by having a look at how differently two companies have been building a business strategy around Apache projects. (More …)

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 4:24 pm on August 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Apache, , David Nüscheler, DavidWheeler, DirkRiehle, EricBarroca, , StephaneCroisier   

    All Open Source Software is Commercial 

    Eric Barroca after reading Dirk Riehle‘s slides about “The Commercial Open Source Business Model” wrote an inspiring blog post, receiving a number of interesting feedback from the business open source folk.

    Let me start by recommending Dirk’s presentation, it really worths reading, but beware of his definition of  “commercial open source”:

    Commercial open source software projects are open source software projects that are owned by a single firm that derives a direct and significant revenue stream from the software.

    (More …)

     
    • Dirk Riehle 4:38 pm on August 21, 2009 Permalink

      Thanks for continuing the discussion! Just a short note on the term “commercial open source”. As far as I understand, it was coined by SugarCRM to distinguish Sugar from say GIMP or other open source software that had no primary profit motive in mind.

      I’m actually not saying that the only commercial open source out there follows the single-vendor open source model. Acquia is a good example of a commercial company that is based on community software, so is TWiki. RedHat is commercial for sure too.

      Because of this possible confusion that you are also pointing out, I have been moving away from “commercial open source” to “single-vendor open source”. From today’s perspective, SugarCRM overreached when coining this term.

    • jrep 5:14 pm on August 21, 2009 Permalink

      Including multiply-sponsored projects in “commercial open source” is a good thing, I won’t argue with you there. But I’m still not convinced that “all” open-source work is “commercial.” There are loads of projects on Tigris.Org, SourceForge.Net, github, and all the other community sites that have no sponsorship at all.

    • Roberto Galoppini 8:36 pm on August 21, 2009 Permalink

      @Dirk thank you to rejoin this conversation!

      I believe you’re right, SugarCRM was probably at the forefront with naming it commercial open source, but I am not sure they want to exclude open source vendors like Acquia or Sonatype.

      I appreciate your decision to move away from “commercial open source” to “single-vendor open source”, really.

      @jrep I am following the definition of commercial reported by David Wheeler in his paper:

      Commercial means either (a) “oriented to profit-making”, or more generally (b) “of, pertaining to, or suitable for commerce”, where commerce means “intercourse, dealings, the buying and selling of commodities, or trade” So we’re talking about something (a) oriented toward profit, or at least (b) something pertaining to public trade or dealings.

      I must agree with David saying that “when we include the second meaning (which some people forget), nearly all FLOSS programs are commercial”.

    • Alain 3:37 pm on August 22, 2009 Permalink

      Roberto,

      At least the open source supporters are doing their coming out (thanks to Eric!)

      Your analysis is perfectly correct (as well as Dirk’s one), but I’d like to moderate it on one single point :
      I think that there is some open source initiatives that are not commercials!
      Some open source initiatives, driven by (non profit) foundations (FSF, Mozilla, Apache…), are mainly motivated by altruism, openness and sharing (as well as by the ego of some of the contributors). Indeed, within thoose foundations, they are not equal : some are using licenses (GPL to name it) with very strong constraints about commercial use : the code developed from a GPL-licensed source code must be given back to the community with the same license!!

      This is really the original (and in some way utopian) vision of Richard Stallman.

      This is why I mostly agree with you. I even think that everything else is commercial (and marketing tactic)….

      By the way, I’ve just read an awesome post from Vishal Vasu (http://www.vishalvasu.com/general/open-source-versus-open-standards/) that reminds us (from a user perspective) that, what is important, is that your software needs to support (useful) open standards!

      Regards

    • Roberto Galoppini 3:32 pm on August 23, 2009 Permalink

      Hi Alain,

      I know you are right saying that some – maybe even many – open source initiatives are mainly motivated by altruism, openness and sharing. Those motivations do not prevent commercial activities around those projects.

      Via twitter I was pointing you to Mitchell’s blog post about Mozilla’s sustainability (courtesy of the WayBack machine) because it is a great example of the so-called second meaning of “commercial” (see my previous comment).

      About GPL strictness I’m not so sure, not in a web world at least, but I didn’t cover (yet) licensing and open source commerce.

      Last but not least, I totally agree with you and Vishal, I am struggling to make open standards compliance more relevant here in Europe, the next ODF Plugfest will be a step in this direction.

    • Juju 5:40 pm on January 4, 2010 Permalink

      I found an interesting appliance factory that makes an open source project as simple as an iphone application and automatically packages it as a business ready appliance.

      See http://www.usharesoft.com

    • Roberto Galoppini 7:29 pm on April 11, 2010 Permalink

      Eric as anticipated I wrote an entry about UShareSoft.

  • Roberto Galoppini 3:17 pm on July 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Apache, , ApacheCon, JustinErenkrantz, , oscon09, Rogue Wave, SanderStriker, SpamAssassin, stdcxx   

    Contributing to Apache Open Source Projects 

    Justin ErenkrantzApache Software Foundation board member as well as President of the foundation – today at OSCON 2009 will talk about “Putting It All Together: Contributing to Open Source Projects“, or how an individual developer can contribute constructively to an (Apache) open source project.

    Yesterday I had an skype conversation with Justin and Sander Striker, an Apache contributor, and I asked them more about Apache and the Apache Incubator, the entry path into the Apache software foundation for projects wishing to get under the Apache umbrella.

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  • Roberto Galoppini 12:13 pm on April 23, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Apache, DavidEJones, OFBiz, Open Source ETL, OpenSolaris   

    Apache ERP OFBiz, Open Source Data Warehousing, Open High Availability Cluster: Open Source links, 23-04-2009 

    Released Apache OFBiz latest version – The Apache Foundation announced the newest release of Apache Open For Business (OFBiz). “As an ASF Project, no single company owns and markets the software exclusively,” explained David E. Jones, original OFBiz co-creator and Chair of the OFBiz Project Management Committee.

    (More …)

     
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