As we sit on the cusp of Q2 2008, we are far enough along in the year to see that we are indeed traveling in the right direction as an industry, as a community and as an organization. The question is no longer "What is open source?" nor is it "Am I using open source?" it is now, "How can I best manage my open source?" It has moved from its past as backroom Voodoo programming to become common place. The significant shift in both understanding and use can best be described as the "next generation of open source" - more prevalent, more robust, more secure.
One of the most oft asked questions in 2007 had to be, "What are the barriers to open source adoption?" It was asked by analysts, lawyers, IT Managers, security executives, developers, potential customers, and industry veterans. I know we asked it several times ourselves. There are many definitions of the word "adoption", and as you'd probably guess most have to do with the parent-child relationship. Even in that context though, there is still an aspect of the definition that fits.
New Year’s Greetings from all of us at Palamida!
2007 was certainly a busy year for open source. From the release of the GPLv3 to the slew of Busybox lawsuits , open source enjoyed mainstream coverage like never before. The elevated profile propelled it from the online developer communities to daily posts in popular tech blogs. Almost overnight legal, business and security folks that normally didn’t know, or weren’t involved with how much open source they were using became concerned with its affect on their organizations. That said, the biggest trend we saw last year was awareness.
Martin LaMonica's article, "Linux defenders go after more alleged GPL3 offenders," marks the line drawn in the sand between, "What the heck is open source?" and "We better not be using any GPL3!"
While I can't intelligently comment on whether the content of the GPL is good or bad, oppressive or otherwise, I will say that these lawsuits are proof positive that the purported "FUD" surrounding the importance of open source license audits is in fact, real.
Matt Asay wrote a very compelling blog last week regarding open source use in the Federal Government. From my standpoint, the content of the blog served as much more than a topic of discussion it was a call to action for the open source community.
Every so often I think about how fortunate we are as a company to be part of such a dynamic and thriving open source community. Our physical location is fantastic and even better, our "back yard" boasts some of the most innovative open source organizations in the nation. Less than a block to the right is Jaspersoft , around the corner is Groundwork Open Source and a bit further up are Hyperic and Mulesource among others. The area is a hot bed of activity and enables us to keep our finger on the pulse of what's happening in open source evolution.
In an October 9, 2007 article on Vnunet regarding GPL v3 conversions, the author refers to Black Duck's CEO in the piece and writes, '[He]suggested that most projects that have converted to using GPLv3 so far are the smaller ones.'
Stephen Shankland recently wrote an interesting blog regarding the GPL/Monsoon lawsuit. In the piece, he quotes James Harvey, an attorney with Hunton & Williams, as saying, "There still appear to be flaming examples of either indifference to or outright disregard for the GPL. I think those flaming examples will increasingly be called to order by somebody, whethe SFLC , a copyright holder or someone else in the open-source ecosystem."
On September 25, 2007 Dana Blankenhorn wrote a blog in which he examined whether or not code audits are necessary. The inferences made throughout the blog invited a thoughtful and serious response.
Dana states, ‘With the FUD train having left the Linux OS station, vendors are now focusing on Linux applications, warning that careful, expensive auditing and licensing is necessary before you deploy anything.’
Japan is synonymous with technological innovation. Pushing the boundaries of product design, they continually look to do more – features, functionality, processing power – in less space for less money. To this end, the next frontier of large scale software development may well be in the palm of your hand. The explosion of the amount of software powering DVD recorders, GPS systems, mobile phones, and similar devices is truly amazing. Fundamental to these goals is the use of open source code, most often embedded within the chipsets internal to these products.
