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Open Source Weblog: August 2007 Archives
When the standards are this low, no one wins
August 31, 2007
This Sunday, September 2, is the deadline for votes from 150 or so national bodies on whether the ECMA standard based on Microsoft Office Open XML formats should be approved by ISO. The result will likely not be known until Monday – and there will likely be no clear winner – but if one side or the other does win out it will be a hollow victory.
CBR has not reported on the machinations involved in the individual country votes, but we have been watching from the sidelines, and it's safe to say the view has not been a pretty one.
The approvals process has been one of the most petty, underhand, deceitful, and childish events I have had the misfortune to witness during ten years in the technology industry. Whatever the outcome there is little to be proud of.
Darl McBride is appealing
August 30, 2007
(Insert your own punchline here).
The CEO of SCO Group, Darl McBride, has finally raised his head above the parapet following Judge Kimball's ruling that Novell owns the Unix System V copyrights, and he says the company is likely to appeal. In fact, the company has filed with the court to expedite the appeals process.
SugarCRM progresses towards IPO
August 29, 2007
SugarCRM’s CEO John Roberts has been doing the rounds as part of the company’s beta release of Sugar 5.0, outlining the company’s financial progress to date as it heads towards an eventual IPO.
According to Reuters, the company expects revenue to double to $15m this year, and it was cash flow positive in its most recent quarter.
These are both signs that the company could follow MySQL towards an open source IPO. That is precisely what the company is intending to do, according to Roberts.
Unisys adds JasperSoft to open source portfolio
August 28, 2007
I previously noted Unisys's plan to rapidly expand its open source services and consulting business. Today the company announced an expansion of its offerings thanks to an alliance with JasperSoft.
Microsoft’s free software license and Bill Gates’ facial hair
August 24, 2007
(or “Why I shouldn’t be allowed to use Photoshop”)
I see the fuss over Microsoft’s attempt to get two licenses approved by the OSI has blown up again while I was away thanks to Google’s Chris Di Bona asking whether Microsoft will also change its business practices.
I won’t go over the arguments again – some of the interesting points are here, here, and here.
What I will say is this: When Microsoft first announced the Ms-PL and Ms-CL licenses in October 2005, Free Software Foundation Europe president, Georg Greve, noted that “of the five licenses published, our cursory first analysis suggests that two of them indeed fulfill the Free Software Definition."
No one suggested that Bill Gates had to grow a Richard Stallman-style beard in order for the licenses to fulfill that definition, so why the insistence that the company has to go out of its way for OSI approval?
Free open source legal training
Matt Asay sent me details of free legal/licensing training being put on next week by Jason Haislmaier, a partner with Holme Roberts & Owen, which sounds interesting and comes recommended by Matt.
The training itself is free, and apparently there will even be a UK dial-in number, which is a rarity and should help keep the call costs down as well.
Actuate's open source intelligence
I'm just catching up on the news after a few days off being a parent and the first thing worth mentioning is this excellent Q&A my colleague Madan Sheina did with Actuate CEO Pete Cittadini on the BIRT project and the impact of open source on Actuate's business model.
Here's a taster:
What is the truth about Sun and SCO?
August 20, 2007
Following Judge Kimball's declaration that the Unix System V copyrights belonged to Novell, Steven Vaughan-Nichols speculated about what the decision might mean for Sun, which updated its Unix license to System 5 Release 5 in February 2003.
Some Sun employees, including Patrick Finch, and Simon Phipps seem to have taken exception to the way the question was asked, with Phipps describing Vaughan Nichols as "running fast and loose with the truth in pursuit of an opportunity to smear Sun."
That comment would be forgivable if were obvious what the truth is. I asked Sun a week ago to comment on the implications (if any) of Judge Kimball's ruling for Sun, but the company hasn't been able to come up with a response, which suggests it's not a straightforward as Finch and Phipps would have us believe.
If this is true SCO’s execs are in BIG trouble
August 17, 2007
Via Matt Asay comes the new blog of retiring red Hat general counsel Mark Webbink who has some interesting thoughts on IBM, Canonical, and Novell/SCO so far.
The other post includes this piece of information:
“If you go back to the press conferences that SCO repeatedly called back in 2003 and 2004, they never began those press conferences by making the standard disclaimers cautioning investors to take what they were saying with a grain of salt. As a consequence, investors had every right to take what Darl McBride and Chris Sontag were saying in public back then as the gospel truth.”
Sourcefire acquires ClamAV
Now that's what I call an open source acquisition. Intrusion detection and prevention firm Sourcefire has snapped up the ClamAV, the gateway anti-virus project.
The acquisition boosts Sourcefire's unified threat management story with the addition of anti-virus and malware protection capabilities and sees Sourcefire acquire all aspects of the ClamAV project.
What the XenSource deal says about open source
August 16, 2007
Very little, in my opinion.
While Matt Asay sees the deal as "a big win for open source... mostly because it pegs the value of an open source company quite high" I'm not sure that's true in this case.
I've got to agree with Raven Zachary over at The 451 Group when he writes that "It wasn’t open source that provided the 150x multiplier."
XenSource to spin off Xen project
August 15, 2007
In case you hadn't noticed, Citrix today announced its intention to acquire XenSource for $500m, a huge amount given XenSource's revenue currently stands at "a few million dollars" according to Citrix’s chief financial officer, David Henshall.
It's a significant announcement, and all the details are here, but there are a couple of interesting open source implications:
1. the companies appear to be planning to spin-off the Xen project
2. XenSource isn't that interested in Linux anymore.
MuleSource adds its name to CPAL supporters list
August 14, 2007
Open source integration software vendor MuleSource has announced that it is moving to the new OSI-approved CPAL license, abandoning its own Mozilla Plus Attribution-based MuleSource Public License.
Did SCO ever truly believe it had the Unix copyrights?
August 13, 2007
Anyone who has been following SCO’s legal claims against Linux may remember the name Mike Anderer. He’s the SCO consultant that emailed SCO's vice president and general manager of SCOsource, Chris Sontag, revealing a connection between Microsoft and the $50m invested in SCO by BayStar Capital in October 2003.
Judge Kimball’s recent decision that Novell is the rightful owner of the Unix copyrightsindicates that Anderer was also involved in assessing the strength of SCO’s intellectual property claims.
According to the Judge’s memorandum, there is some doubt as to whether SCO ever truly believed it was the owner of those copyrights, with another email from Anderer, this time to SCO’s CEO, Darl McBride, once again giving the game away.
For sale: SCO "Got Unix in Your Linux?" T-shirt
August 11, 2007
This is your chance to own a unique piece of Linux memorabilia.
11 out of 20 ain’t bad
August 10, 2007
Last Friday I published a number of predictions about the forthcoming news at LinuxWorld. I should say that this is the first time I can remember I wasn’t pre-briefed on anything from LinuxWorld, although some predictions were more obvious than others. How did I do? Read on to find out.
JasperSoft closes D round
August 09, 2007
I noted back in June that open source BI vendor JasperSoft was on its way to closing a Series D funding round.
The deal is done, and the company has announced a new investor into the bargain: SAP Ventures.
Now that's what I call a technical problem
OFF TOPIC - I received this email this morning:
"We have been experiencing some extensive technical problems with our running mailbox over the last two weeks, we are sorry for any incontinence caused if you have been attempting to contact us via e-mail."
You'll hopefully be pleased to know I wasn't affected.
Today's LinuxWorld headlines
August 08, 2007
The news keeps on coming from LinuxWorld with Novell and IBM weighing in with a number of announcements and Oracle attempting to prove its open source credentials. Here's our pick of the bunch:
Eroding the meaning of “open source”, IBM-style
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the meaning of “open source” being eroded thanks to the likes of Centric CRM and Microsoft with a feeling that Microsoft is out to “corrupt the meaning and value of ‘Open Source’.”
I recently argued that Microsoft should be given the benefit of the doubt while Matt Asay has argued against discrimination.
After all, when it comes to eroding the meaning of ‘open source’, one need look no further than the apparent protector of all things Linux, IBM. As yesterday’s announcement from LinuxWorld shows, the company is more than happy to stretch the meaning of ‘open source’.
More headlines from LinuxWorld
August 07, 2007
More headlines today than you can shake a stick at, including Google patent protection, some 'momentum' for Oracle Unbreakable Linux, new direction for EnterpriseDB, and the OSA's interoperability prototype.
Linspire has a new president and CEO
Still no direct response from Linspire regarding the reported resignation of Kevin Carmony, although the company has confirmed the accuracy of the report and appointed a new president and CEO.
Today's top stories
August 06, 2007
It's been a busy day for stories coming out of LinuxWorld, although nothing earth-shattering so far. Read on for details of upgrades for JasperSoft and MySQL, SpikeSource, and Black Duck, not to mention the growth of the LiMO Foundation. Oh yeah, and Linspire's CEO has reportedly resigned.
Some LinuxWorld predictions
August 03, 2007
It's that time of the year again. Here's next week's news, so you won't miss anything:
- Ron Hovsepian will talk up the benefits of Novell's Microsoft deal.
- Dell will not announce new Linux PCs but loads of people will blog about them anyway.
- IBM will announce something related to its Big Green project.
- HP will announce something that seems quite interesting at first glance, but actually isn't. Like a security certification.
- Loads of people will talk about virtualization.
- And patents.
- A few start-ups will announce funding deals.
- Something about Ubuntu.
- A lot about Ubuntu.
- A social networking site will announce an open source project.
- A major open source vendor will announce it is moving to the GPLv3.
- Another new open source industry consortium will be formed.
- A major proprietary software vendor will announce an open source push.
- Oracle will announce that Unbreakable Linux has been really succesful, actually.
- Red Hat will say it hasn't.
- Someone will say "the year of the Linux desktop". They may well be referring to 2005.
- Open source will be declared "mainstream", "over", "here to stay" and "dead".
Probably.
xTuple becomes second CPAL licensee
August 02, 2007
I already mentioned this in an update to the original story, but I think it's worth highlighting that xTuple, the company formerly known as OpenMFG, has adopted the recently OSI-approved CPAL license for its new PostBooks software.
Microsoft rewrites history in Massachusetts
The other day I advocated giving Microsoft the benefit of the doubt with regards to its attutude to open source, with the proviso that even with that benefit the company’s actions would still sometimes inevitably be seen in a bad light.
The fact is that sometimes giving the company the benefit of the doubt is *really* hard work. Take the reaction of Doug Mahugh, Microsoft Office Open XML technical evangelist, to the news that Massachusetts has finalized its Enterprise Technical Reference Model 4.0 with the inclusion of Office Open XML alongside the OpenDocument Format.
Your Linux is... awkward
August 01, 2007
If you feel like watching four of Novell's "open source thought leaders" look really quite awkward, follow this link to Novell's new Linux promotion site and just let the Flash run for a while.
To be fair some are more comfortable than others, but it is no surprise to see that Nat Friedman, open source CTO, finds it impossible to stand still for any longer than about five seconds.
You'll also find a bunch of SUSE-related blogs, white papers, videos and podcasts.
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