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Open Source Weblog: October 2006 Archives
When is a fork not a fork? When it’s a distribution.
October 31, 2006
Some further (tangential) reading following Oracle’s Enterprise Linux move (and I promise to write about something else soon).
Gartner has spoken, Linux Format and Ultramookie have taken a first look at Oracle Enterprise Linux and aren’t impressed, while Drupal developer, Dries Buytaert, has an interesting post on forking open source projects that is well worth a read.
97% of Red Hat customers would remain loyal
October 27, 2006
You’ve probably seen mention of CIO Insight Vendor Value survey since Oracle announced plans to undercut Red Hat and criticized the support it provides its customers with. As Matt Asay mentions here, Kevin Carmony here, and Dave Dargo here, Red Hat ranked number one for vendor value two years running, while Oracle placed 39 in 2005, down from 28 in 2004.
Taking a look at the research I came across a couple more statistics that will make happy reading for the shareholders that bought rather than sold Red Hat shares on Thursday.
Is Unbreakable Linux fundamentally flawed?
October 26, 2006
Having had the chance to sleep on Oracle's Unbreakable Linux announcement I woke up with a nagging feeling that all was not right with the plan. There are a number of potential problems I could see with it, while there was a bigger issue - one that I could not quite put my finger on - as to why this would not work.
Fortunately Red Hat has responded to the list of potential problems far more articulately than I could first thing in the morning. According to Red Hat, the Unbreakable plan will fork the RHEL code base and cause customers hardware and software certification problems.
Today's the day for Oracle Linux
October 25, 2006
If Oracle CEO Larry Ellison doesn't introduce Oracle Linux during his keynote speech at Oracle OpenWorld today it could make it the most disappointing presentation since Sun and Google's non-announcement.
Rumours of Oracle's entry into the Linux distribution market have been rife since Ellison suggested its potential in an interview with the FT. Investment firm Jefferies and Co recently stoked the fires prompting a Red Hat share slump.
The rumor mill now indicates that Ellison will make the announcement during his keynote at 1pm Pacific time, although reports also indicate that the announcement has the potential to fail to live up to expectations. Is Oracle simply going to rehash its existing Unbreakable Linux story?
The CRAFTy way to assess open source value
October 23, 2006
Ingres's Tom Berquist is one of the few CFO bloggers I've come across and in a recent posting has come up with a new way of expressing the business value provided by open source software. One could argue that the last thing the IT industry needs is another acronym, but I believe Tom is on to something with CRAFT.
Off topic: Sun fails to box clever with humanitarian claims
October 20, 2006
I've only just got round to reading the details of Sun's Project Blackbox data centre-in-a-container idea. While it is an interesting concept, the suggestion that it could be the solution to powering humanitarian relief efforts is disingenuous, not to say condescending.
What does Sun's OpenOffice.org support mean for StarOffice?
October 19, 2006
As noted by Simon Phipps, Sun is now offering support and services for the OpenOffice.org productivity suite.
It is an interesting twist given that Sun donated the code behind its StarOffice software to start the OpenOffice.org project in the first place, and seems to make sense. OpenOffice.org users who want the support of a major vendor can now get it, and Sun gets a new revenue stream.
However, it does raise some questions about the long-term future of StarOffice.
MySQL splits in two
October 18, 2006
The flipside of MySQL's new Enterprise release is the Community offering targeted at individual developers. Kaj Arno, MySQL's VP of community relations, has posted a great blog explaining the need for two versions, and why the split has happened now.
Why would anyone invest in open source? Part two
October 17, 2006
Back in June the answer to this question was 'why not' based on the discussion of three VCs assembled at the OSBC event in London, this time the answer appears to be: because it is going to be massively successful.
I paraphrase, but that is essentially one of the answers in this interesting Q&A with Richard Gorman of Bay Partners.
How jittery are Red Hat shareholders?
October 16, 2006
Red Hat's share price dropped over 7% on Friday after Jefferies and Co lowered its share price target amid fears that Oracle is about to enter the Linux distribution market.
Surprise, surprise. Microsoft declines to answer Goldfarb questions
October 11, 2006
Microsoft has politely declined to respond to a request for it to answer a number of questions arising from the declaration of Larry Goldfarb that the company offered to guarantee BayStar's 2003 investment in SCO.
"Thanks for your questions but our position is that we're declining to comment further," came the response. Unfortunately CBR does not have the influence of a US District Court subpoena, or a query from the US Department of Justice's antitrust division.
Which isn't to say that the answers to our questions won't eventually materialise.
The Goldfarb declaration - some questions for Microsoft
October 10, 2006
The declaration by BayStar managing general partner, Larry Goldfarb, this week that Microsoft offered to guarantee BayStar's $20m investment in SCO Group provides the strongest suggestion yet that Microsoft was clandestinely backing SCO's legal case.
"Microsoft wished to promote SCO and its pending lawsuit about IBM and the Linux operating system. But Microsoft did not want to be seen as attacking IBM or Linux. For that reason, Microsoft wanted to further its interest through independent investors like BayStar," stated Goldfarb.
The declaration goes on to state that Microsoft's then senior vice president of corporate development and strategy, Richard Emerson, offered to "backstop or guarantee in some way, BayStar's investment" and raises many questions about Microsoft's involvement that its statement in response fails to answer.
If $50m won’t get you a look at SCO’s evidence, what will?
Following the revelation yesterday that Microsoft offered to guarantee BayStar Capital’s investment in SCO Group in 2003 comes the full declaration of BayStar managing general partner, Larry Goldfarb.
It won’t make for comfortable reading for either Microsoft or SCO. On the Microsoft side comes the revelation that Goldfarb spoke to no fewer than three Microsoft employees before deciding to invest in SCO, scotching any theories that Microsoft's then senior vice president of corporate development and strategy, Richard Emerson, was working alone.
On the SCO side comes the news that SCO refused to share its evidence with Goldfarb, despite the fact that he was heading up a $50m investment in the company that was effectively keeping it and its legal claims alive.
Massachusetts loses another CIO as France proposes ODF adoption
October 05, 2006
If I may misquote Oscar Wilde: "To lose one CIO may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness."
Massachusetts has lost its second chief information officer in a year. Following the resignation of Peter Quinn in January amid controversy around the state's decision to adopt the OpenDocument Format, his replacement Louis Gutierrez has now tendered his resignation.
Fonality acquires Asterisk community
October 04, 2006
Some interesting news today from the open source PBX world where Fonality, which offers systems based on the Asterisk PBX has acquired trixbox, an Asterisk community, in a move that will position it to compete with Digium, the original creator and primary developer of Asterisk.
Some added spice comes from the fact that trixbox, formerly Asterisk@home was formed by Asterisk contributors who were unhappy with the "double waiver" agreement that they sign their Asterisk code to not only the Asterisk community, but also Digium.
How to name an open source start-up
October 03, 2006
Take the name of the project, add the word 'Source' on the end, and that's it. Easy.
Well, maybe not, but it seemed that way yesterday as I had conversations with both SpikeSource and MuleSource and then read this announcement from XenSource.
While SpikeSource and MuleSource are in very different areas of the IT market the one thing they have in common (apart from their name structure) is that they rely on open source software. My conversations with the CEOs of both companies yesterday revealed how important open source can be in enabling new business opportunities.
Sun forms OpenSparc advisory board
October 02, 2006
Sun Microsystems has formed a new advisory board for its OpenSparc processor project. My ComputerWire colleague Timothy Prickett Morgan has the details, but for non-subscribers, here's the salient points.
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