Planet Profoss

SourceForge’s Platform Becomes Apache Allura™!

2014-04-01T12:19:54+00:00

I am excited to share the news, Apache Allura just became an Apache Top-Level project! It has been both an honor and pleasure to work with the Apache community and a personal thrill to see my dream finally turning into reality.

I still remember our first internal discussions about submitting Allura to the Apache Incubator, over two years ago. The great work we did to draft our proposal – thanks Rich Bowen – and the exceptional level of support from our former CEO, Jeff Drobick.

I wish to thank again the whole SourceForge engineering team, without them it wouldn’t have been possible to graduate. I wish also to say thank to our General Manager Gaurav Kuchhal that made the graduation a goal for all of us, and last but not least all our great mentors, and among them in a special way Jim Jagielski and Rich Bowen.

Read more at SourceForge and Apache blog.

Open Source for Real! Rome, 2/26/2014

2014-02-25T21:17:59+00:00

See you tomorrow at the Open Source for Real! event, the first SUSE international event dedicated to the discovery of the SUSE open source ecosystem, including database (EnterpriseDB), middleware ( WSO2) and enterprise CMDB applications (CMDBuild).

An Opportunity for Open Source Entrepreneurs

2013-12-13T18:12:05+00:00

If you are a startupper and a fan of the role of open source in startup development, it is your time to get a feedback on your pitch from noted Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper. Thanks to the editors at Dice News, Draper will sit down with three startup founders on Jan. 23, 2014, at his Draper University in San Mateo. Read more at SourceForge blog.

Going to the Open World Forum

2013-10-02T14:01:36+00:00

Look forward to catch up with new and old friend from the European Open Source scene later this week at the OWF, in Paris. In case you missed from the 3rd to the 5th of October political representatives, decision-makers and experts will meet to debate on the technological, economical and social impacts that the Free and Open-Source technologies bring to market.

I’ll give a speech on the 4th at the Community Summit – Open Source Innovation Stories.

See you there!

Finally SOS Open Source Goes Open Source!

2013-09-17T12:26:41+00:00

I am happy to inform my readers that finally SOS Open Source will soon be released in open source!

This has been a long due move and I am glad the actual SOS Open Source team is now working on updating and polishing the code before releasing it.

OSS4B, International Open Source Business Conference, Prato (Italy), 19-20 September 2013

2013-09-12T15:02:42+00:00

The first edition of the Open Source Software for Business Conference will be held next week in Prato (Italy), on 19-20 September 2013. I’ll be giving a talk on Open Source Sustainability, sharing some findings from an upcoming report of the PROSE project. See you there!

Apache OpenOffice Templates New Site

2013-08-22T13:52:10+00:00

The new Apache OpenOffice Templates is now live, and it incorporates many of new features formerly made available at the Apache OpenOffice Extensions. Read more at the SourceForge blog.

Apache OpenOffice Extensions New Site Goes Live!

2013-07-23T12:28:03+00:00

In parallel with the launch of the new Apache OpenOffice 4.0 release SourceForge has released the new Apache OpenOffice Extensions website.

Apache OpenOffice Extensions is a web 2.0ish style, with an updated look&feel reflecting the AOO 4 new look and amazing new features, like the autocomplete functionality, see below.

Open Business Models

2013-07-10T20:27:59+00:00

When I started writing this I wrote "Last week Opscode came" obviously now that is "A couple of months ago Opscode came with a bunch of announcements ... one of them being that they are also going to support the Open Source Chef .. rather than only their own platform.

I'd love to see more companies formally do this .. Over the past couple of years I've had numerous situations where organizations where happy to pay for support to an commercial backer of Open Source software... but they were not interested in , software updates, fancy dashboards , unneeded features.

Let alone being limited by some of the features of the Enterprise product (what do you mean there's no vlan support in Xen ? We've been using that for ages (anno 2008)

Even right now I`m talking with a customer that is interested in getting commercial support for an open source project but he feels that by choosing the Enterprise version of the
software he will be limiting his options...

We've had this kind of situations with MySQL, Xen, Knowledgetree and others ..

The sad story is that with the growth of Open Source adoption, lots of companies are finding their commercial talents in the pool of people that used to work for the proprietary vendors, the kind of sales people that don't get Open Source (aside from some exceptions) and are still trying to hardsell a product based on specsheets and feature roadmaps, where most quality open source software are build by people to solve problems , hence those new sales people keep doing their old job selling products while not listening to their actual customer needs.

I've seen this escalate up to the point where people that are willing to support the Open Source project by paying a vendor for support don't do so because it's not the right form for them eventually leading to even less revenue for the said vendor.

Yes I know that supporting a multitude of distributions , libary combinations and architectures is a complex thing to do, and a lot of the proprietary vendors ruined the market by inventing something like certified platforms on which they
supported their software.

But if you as an open source software company are really interested in improving your product why wouldn't you take money from a customer that wants to pay for bugs to be fixed or features to be implemented in your product.
You've already realized that the software industry is different from 10 years ago and that Open Source is here to stay .. yet you are still thinking in the sales model with products and specsheets of that era.

Using broken development frameworks , or why we don't use Zurmo

2013-07-10T20:08:58+00:00

People often wonder why DBA's used to hate developers, and with DBA's also the System Engineers,
(note that I just expanded devops by adding dba's to the picture..)

So let me tell you a story ..

A couple of weeks ago one of our customers wanted to start experimenting with a new type of CRM. A gamified CRM.
Zurmo ...

So we set this thing up in a dev environment and started playing with it , while at first it looks nice ..
the application actually felt pretty slow.. however given that is a low resource development environment we looked no further.

Yet the next step is that we run into missing features, such as the fact that every contact you create by default is
set to private .. which really isn't productive for a CRM system where you want to be able to follow up on different
customer and share information.

So we tried figuring out what the database changes to do this in bulk would mean, surely it had to be a flag on the contact record .
Wrong, Zurmo uses an ORM for their database connectivity ...so their data model wasn't really trivial.

So we decided to look at the MySQL log file to figure out what db changes happened when updating the record
Yes there's better approaches but this one learned us a lot ..
The procedure I followed was pointing my browser to the page where I wanted to switch the checkbox,
log on to the mysql box, set global logging on . Clicked the checkbox and stopped global logging.

This gave me a log file with all the database actions required to make that one single change.
I had to cross check a number of times ... the file created by this short and small action was.
about 70K

Puzzled you start looking at the queries ...
The query list was full with "SELECT * FROM " stanza's ..
70K whopping K of queries that make your hair turn grey ...

I figured I'd file a bug .. but I couldn't find no bugtracker for Zurmo, only a forum (and forums are the most broken form of communication imvho) , yet the developers responded on Twitter.

The feedback wasn't really satisfying so we quickly decided that supporting this application was not something we would like to do..
and abandonned it..

The real question is who needs a Gamified CRM anyhow...

PS. So while finishing up this article on a late evening this week I might not have put in clear enough that the generated logfile was 70Kb .. I fear some people misunderstood that it generated 70.000 queries. Obviously a huge difference. But still the log file shouldn't have been bigger han 1Kb There should have been 2-3 queries max (https://github.com/KrisBuytaert/snippets/tree/master/zurmo)

But imvho if the size of the queries you are generating is bigger than the page you are generating you are most often doing it wrong.

Open World Forum 2013: Call for Participation

2013-06-26T12:40:52+00:00

The Open World Forum EXPERIMENT organization comitee is calling Makers and Doers, students and schools, artists and designers, associations and companies,and hackers to participate in the project (read the CFP).

To take part to EXPERIMENT : complete and send the form before the 30th of june to experiment@openworldforum.org.

Printing with Ubuntu and Why Microsoft Will Never Be Obsoleted

2013-05-30T13:50:29+00:00

Recently my Olivetti Olibook S1300 – a gift of Salvo Mizzi, of the Working Capital fame – died. I decided it was great time to face the experience of making my Acer Aspire one printing. While below you’ll find a detailed report about my journey to make possible to print via Linux with a Canon LBP 810, first I wish to share my thoughts about what all this means.

Plug&Play maybe a frustrating experience if something goes wrong for some reason, since most of the times you have little chances to fix an issue if that arise. On the contrary with Linux you’re given the unique opportunity to be in full control of your destiny, and you can litterally build your own future (no pun intended).

As you can easily figure out yourself – or if you don’t have the time just go on and read my painful experience to make it print – freedom really come at a price here. Note that the problem is not that by bad luck my old Canon printer for some weird reason doesn’t come with Linux drivers. To be honest the LBP810 doesn’t even come with Mac drivers.

The Windows network effect is a fact, and the Microsoft industrial processes associated with making Windows the ubiquitous desktop is also a fact. All OEMs play by te market rules, and they make sure their products are compatible with all the Windows flavours. Unless the market will observe Linux desktop crossing the chasm, we won’t see any YoLD. Period.

So said, go on and read if you want to know how to configure your Acer Aspire to make it print on a LBP810.

As usual everything started by googling a bit around. It might come as a little surprise that Ubuntu forums and blogs that are definitely the best available resources for resolving similar issues.

Using Canon LBP-810 (LBP-1120) in Ubuntu is a must read, and it almost says it all. While the author did a great job, in the meantime Ubuntu released a couple of major versions, and some commands simply don’t work. Let me add also that there are better resources if you need to install Canon drivers, and I would recommend to follow them first, especially the “Configuring Canon services” section.

Now go back to the Using Canon blog post, and follow all the instructions religiously. If some commands are not available and you’ve already restarted CUPS try to install them by using the appropriate old repos. If you find problems associating printer and driver follow the link and read it, and if it prints slowly… well, that’s the way it is!

In case you wonder, with Linpus I couldn’t find a way to make it work. To me Linpus is the worst of both words and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, unless you just use your netbook for browsing. While I’m not a fan of Acer Aspire powered by Windows systems, I must admit it would have taken less than 3 hours to make it print!

The OpenStack Tipping Point – new report

2013-04-15T22:51:16+00:00

Since its start in the summer of 2010, the OpenStack open source cloud computing project has been the subject of a lot of hype. Today, the technology, backers and use of OpenStack are giving substance to all of that sizzle and skepticism is giving way to service provider and enterprise use cases across the globe. OpenStack is still relatively immature and still requires a high degree of technical aptitude to deploy, but its community continues to grow in both providers and users, both of which are focused on making the software easier to deploy, manage and scale.

*Coming of age
The OpenStack project itself is not even three years old, but thanks to maturing technology, growing membership and the OpenStack Foundation formed last year, OpenStack has matured to the point it is getting attention from large service provider and enterprise users, including companies in telecommunications, retail and research. Large supporters of OpenStack such as Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM and Rackspace are using OpenStack internally and also in new cloud offerings. We also see vitality in the number of startups and smaller players bringing OpenStack to the market, including Cloudscaling, eNovance, Mirantis, Morphlabs, Nebula and Piston Cloud Computing. We’ve also seen large vendors make acquisitions of key OpenStack players, such as Red Hat’s acquisition of scale-out storage specialist Gluster for $136m in October 2011, VMware’s acquisition of open source networking player Nicira for $1.26 billion in July 2012 and Oracle’s acquisition of cloud management vendor Nimbula in March 2013. We have no doubt as the OpenStack technology and market matures, it will present additional acquirers and targets along the way.

The fact that there were already open source cloud computing options in the market when OpenStack was established helped contribute to a discussion of open source software, open standards and open clouds. We expect OpenStack and other open source cloud options, such as CloudStack, Eucalyptus, Joyent and OpenNebula, will continue to co-exist in the market and will all benefit from the increased credibility they all bring to open source cloud computing. Just as different Linux distributions and different open source hypervisors have helped drive one another in the industry, we are likely to see open clouds do the same thing.

*Components mature, emerge
In addition to its foundation and growing support among vendors and implementors, OpenStack is also gaining traction because the technology of the open source project is maturing and advancing. The main OpenStack components for compute (Nova), networking (Quantum) and storage (Swift) are becoming more credible for enterprises and service providers beyond bleeding edge users. Where there are some of the biggest gaps in OpenStack, such as dashboard/UI, identity services, orchestration or metering, additional components and sub-projects are emerging. While OpenStack continues to require a good degree of technical aptitude to deploy, the OpenStack community seems to be scatching the right itches for broader enterprise and service provider use.

OpenStack users have also indicated that although the OpenStack technology may be lacking in certain features and functionality, they appreciate the ability to be part of the community that solves issues and having more control of their own IT destiny.

*OpenStack Drivers
OpenStack is being driven largely by the growing number of enterprise and service provider organizations that want to put more of their operations and offerings in the cloud. Many companies are seeking the scalability and elasticity of public clouds, but desire more control and want private clouds, where OpenStack is finding some traction. this is particularly true for continuous integration and continuous deployment or devops implementations that combine application development and IT operations for greater efficiency and speed. We are seeing two types of adoption of devops: more proactive efforts that center on speed and iteration and more reactive effors that focus on providing IT resources to developers, productivity and business units so they do not go outside the organization for public cloud, free or low-cost options, also known as ‘shadow IT.’

Other OpenStack drivers parallel the advantages we’ve seen for open source software: cost savings, flexibility and avoiding vendor lock-in. OpenStack users have also indicated it has been helpful to be able to access OpenStack source code and customize it for integration with existing infrastructure and systems. We’ve also heard from some OpenStack implementors that their developers and engineers prefer open source tools and frameworks that give more flexibility.

*OpenStack Hurdles
Despite the size and number of OpenStack supporters and vendors, the open source cloud computing software still represents a technical challenge for many organizations. Baseline features and functionality, such as metering and billing, are just now taking shape in OpenStack and while issues are being rapidly addressed, the software is not ready out of the box by an means.

Another challenge with the project and its use among more enterprises and service providers is the fact that OpenStack talent is in short supply. This is one of the biggest challenges of deploying OpenStack and while users may seek third-party help, their options are somewhat limited. This facet of OpenStack is quickly changing with more training and certification efforts in the works as well as a new OpenStack Operations Guide that was published last month.

We at 451 Research have also fielded more inquiries and questions on OpenStack. In response, we’ve published an extensive report on OpenStack available to 451 Research subscribers here .

Play it Again SOS Open Source!

2013-04-03T14:51:32+00:00

When I’ve joined SourceForge my only concern was to abandon the SOS Open Source ship. While at a technical level I was still able to keep enhancing SOS Open Source tools, I had to give up all related business activities.

I’m happy and honoured to say that I have finally found a person who will take care of SOS Open Source business development.

A New Benefit For Slashdot Logged-In Readers

2013-04-01T16:09:41+00:00

We appreciate all the support we’ve gotten over the years from Slashdot’s logged-in users. They take part actively in discussions, and in exchange for their active interest in the site, we like to give a few perks over and above what our beloved anonymous readers get. But we never want to deprive anonymous readers of the actual features of the site — whether you’re a logged-in account holder, anonymous, a subscriber, or have a username but are browsing anonymously at any given moment, Slashdot has always been freely available to read for anyone with a browser and an uncensored Internet connection. It’s a balance we try to maintain, too, Sure, we’d like you to login, and we think it has some worthwhile benefits (like tracking comment responses, building karma, and using the Zoo system to keep track of your friends and foes), but we’ll never force you to. Today, we’re building on this approach, by introducing a feature that benefits every logged-in user, but still leaves the page free to read for all. We’ll be phasing in over the next few days a button that logged-in users and subscribers can click to decrypt the text of each Slashdot posting with the trivial transform known as Rot13.

Only our name is changed

2013-03-18T15:24:48+00:00

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned before that SourceForge has been acquired by Dice Holdings back in Septmeber 2012. As a result the name of our parent company has been changed in Slashdot Media. As you could easily guess the name comes from the heritage of Slashdot, one of the three Geeknet media properties bought by Dice (namely FreeCode, Slashdot and SourceForge).

So said, SourceForge is still dedicated to being the most trusted source for Open Source, and will continue to provide free hosting for your Open Source project, and you’re welcome either if you need the full set of tools or just a way to distribute your program.

If you didn’t check it out yet, take a moment to look at our brand new Enterprise directory (beta).

If you want to know more about our new corporate entity, you can read all about it at slashdotmedia new website.

SourceForge Enterprise Directory Makes ITDMs’ Lives Easier

2013-03-08T16:16:19+00:00

SourceForge just launched a new Enterprise Directory, a sub-section focused specifically on Enterprise projects. These are the projects that are geared specifically for use within a company, ranging from office suites to ECM, backup software and more.

Either enterprise-grade projects developed at SourceForge or at other forges would benefit from being enlisted in the new directory, now enriched with a resource center containing useful information about partners, add-ons, books and upcoming events.

Over 40 million unique visitors per month come to SourceForge looking for open source software, and enterprise-grade products is a big part of it. The Enterprise directory is just aimed at making IT Decision Makers’ lives easier, by gathering projects’ relevant information in one single page.

Hope you’ll enjoy, stay tuned!

Automation, devops drive open source deeper in the enterprise

2013-03-07T19:19:06+00:00

Server provisioning and configuration management and automation are the latest examples of where the tech industry is being driven, largely by open source software. The leading open source server and IT infrastructure automation frameworks, Opscode Chef and Puppet Labs’ Puppet, sit on the leading edge of significant trends under way in enterprise IT — particularly disruption from cloud computing and devops, where application development and IT operations come together for faster, smoother delivery of software and services.

I’ve discussed the importance of open source software in cloud computing and in trends such as devops and polyglot programming. Consistently across all of these trends and the technologies that go with them, there are prominent roles for Chef and Puppet.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

Setting Italian Priority to Open Source for Public Administration: The Working Group Has Been Established

2013-03-06T15:10:37+00:00

I have just received an email from the Agency for Digital Italy answering my self-candidature to join the working group aimed at defining the technical and economical assessment criteria for open source procurement.

Apparently they received an high number of requests, and my resume wasn’t good enough, says Francesco Grasso, Coordinator of the working group and sci-fi writer.

Your chance to define the “state of MySQL”

2013-01-23T15:50:07+00:00

We are very honoured to have been asked to give a “state of the MySQL” keynote presentation at the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo in April.

While this will not be in any way an official “state of the dolphin” presentation, I think it is fitting given the expansion of the MySQL ecosystem that the Percona Live event includes an independent perspective on the state of MySQL. The full title of the presentation – MySQL, YourSQL, NoSQL, NewSQL – the state of the MySQL ecosystem – reflects that.

We want to present an independent perspective on the health of the MySQL ecosystem in 2013, drawing on our research and analysis, as well as the views of the participants in that ecosystem.

You have a chance to directly influence the content of the presentation by taking part in our 2013 Database survey.

The aim of this survey is to identify trends in database usage, as well as changing attitudes to MySQL following its acquisition by Oracle, and the competitive dynamic between MySQL and other databases, including NoSQL and NewSQL technologies, as well as MariaDB, Percona Server and other MySQL variants.

There are just 15 questions to answer, spread over five pages, and the entire survey should take less than ten minutes to complete.

All individual responses are of course confidential. The results will be published as part of a major research report due during Q2.

The full report will be available to 451 Research clients, while the results of the survey will also be made freely available via the keynote presentation.

Thanks in advance for your participation. We’re looking forward to analyzing and presenting the results. Once again, you can find the the survey at http://bit.ly/451db13

Company-led Projects: Liferay

2013-01-17T16:01:07+00:00

Having been writing about commercial open source for years, I finally decided to start a new blog category at SourceForge blog to cover the business side of open source. I’ll be posting on SourceForge blog interviews to people who can tell us stories about how they combine open source and business at SourceForge blog, and I’ll comment on them here.

Bryan Cheung, Liferay’s cofounder and actual CEO, while sharing his experience about how Liferay grew its project into a product provided me with additional information.

During the call we have been surfacing the ratio of the number of Liferay users over the number of Liferay customers. Having precise and accurate numbers, especially for the number of users, maybe tricky, so Bryan told me Liferay customers/users ratio is between 1/250 and 1/400.

While other open source vendors showed different ratios, the general take is that the more users the better. I remember talking to Matt Asay about the importance of investing in PR.

Among other take aways from the call I’d definitely mention the following.

1. At some point you need a product manager able to integrate customers’ needs into product’s features.

2. The importance of moving to a plug-in architecture, enabling third-parties to add features,

3. Long maintenance matters in the enterprise market,

4. Both Product and Customer development are key to your success,

5. Channel partners and marketplaces are a must unless you want to build a lifestyle company.

Take your time to read the full interview.

Our 2013 Database survey is now live

2013-01-10T17:00:36+00:00

451 Research’s 2013 Database survey is now live at http://bit.ly/451db13 investigating the current use of database technologies, including MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL, as well as traditional relation and non-relational databases.

There are just 15 questions to answer, spread over five pages, and the entire survey should take less than ten minutes to complete.

All individual responses are of course confidential. The results will be published as part of a major research report due during Q2.

The full report will be available to 451 Research clients, while the results of the survey will also be made freely available via a
presentation at the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo in April.

Last year’s results have been viewed nearly 55,000 times on SlideShare so we are hoping for a good response to this year’s survey.

One of the most interesting aspects of a 2012 survey results was the extent to which MySQL users were testing and adopting PostgreSQL. Will that trend continue or accelerate in 2013? And what of the adoption of cloud-based database services such as Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL?

Are the new breed of NewSQL vendors having any impact on the relational database incumbents such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM? And how is SAP HANA adoption driving interest in other in-memory databases such as VoltDB and MemSQL?

We will also be interested to see how well NoSQL databases fair in this year’s survey results. Last year MongoDB was the most popular, followed by Apache Cassandra/DataStax and Redis. Are these now making a bigger impact on the wider market, and what of Basho’s Riak, CouchDB, Neo4j, Couchbase et al?

Additionally, we have been tracking attitudes to Oracle’s ownership of MySQL since the deal to acquire Sun was announced. Have MySQL users’ attitudes towards Oracle improved or declined in the last 12 months, and what impact will the formation of the MariaDB Foundation have on MariaDB adoption?

We’re looking forward to analyzing the results and providing answers to these and other questions. Please help us to get the most representative result set by taking part in the survey at http://bit.ly/451db13

Open source ushers mobile OS changes

2013-01-09T18:28:29+00:00

The year is starting out with what may turn out to be significant changes in the mobile operating system market, with open source software playing a significant role just as it has in enterprise software, virtualization and cloud computing.

With fading heavyweights and interesting new challengers, there are changes afoot in the mobile OS market, but we must first acknowledge the market today is still mainly a duopoly of Apple with iOS and Samsung with Android.

However, if we look back five years, we see how dramatically the mobile OS landscape has changed. Given the pace of today’s device and application development and support, as well as users from consumers to the enterprise, we can expect similarly dramatic changes in the coming months and years.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

PROSE Survey Deadline Extended

2013-01-07T19:34:57+00:00

The PROSE survey - whose goal is to ascertain the requirements of a hosted source forge for EC ICT projects - has been EXTENDED until 11/01/2013, we’d welcome especially FP7 projects’ members to take the time to answer all our questions.

For more information visit the PROSE blog.

Thank you for your collaboration!

Happy New Year Apache OpenOffice!

2013-01-01T16:53:58+00:00

In 2012 Apache OpenOffice ™ become an Apache top level project, and 30,687,795 downloads of Apache OpenOffice were served via SourceForge.

I look forward to further collaborate with OpenOffice, the Apache Software Foundation and all open source projects making everyday easier living open source!

On the rise and fall of the GNU GPL

2012-12-19T17:41:45+00:00

Back in 2011 we caused something of a stir, to say the least, when we covered the trend towards permissive licensing at the expense of reciprocal copyleft licenses.

Since some people were dubious of Black Duck’s statistics, to put it mildly, we also validated our initial findings, at Bradley M Kuhn’s suggestion, using a selection of data from FLOSSmole, which confirmed the rate of decline in the proportion of projects using the GPL family of licenses between October 2008 and May 2011.

Returning to Black Duck’s figures, we later projected that if the rate of decline continued the GPL family of licenses (including the LGPL and AGPL) would account for only 50% of all open source software by September 2012.

As 2012 draws to a close it seems like a good time to revisit that projection and check the latest statistics.

I will preface this with an admission that yes, we know these figures only provide a very limited perspective on the open source projects in question. A more rounded study would look at other aspects such as how many lines of code a project has, how often it is downloaded, its popularity in terms of number of users or developers, how often the project is being updated, how many of the developers are employed by a single vendor, and what proportion of the codebase is contributed by developers other than the core committers. Since that would involve checking all these for more than 300,000 projects I’m going to pass on that.

Additionally, while all that is true, it does not mean that there is no value in examining the proportion of projects using a certain license. I am more interested in what the data does tell us, than what it doesn’t.

Data sources:
We analysed two distinct data sources for our previous analysis: Black Duck’s license data and a selection of data collected by FLOSSmole. Specifically we chose data from Rubyforge, Freecode (fka Freshmeat), ObjectWeb and the Free Software Foundation because those were the only sets for which historical (October 2008) data was available in mid 2011. For this update we have to use FLOSSmole’s data from September 2012 since the November 2012 dataset for the Free Software Foundation is incomplete. It is not possible to get a picture of GPLv2 traction using this FLOSSmole data since the majority of projects on Freecode are labelled “GPL” with no version number. In addition, for this update we have also looked at FLOSSmole data from Google Code, comparing datasets for November 2011 and November 2012. to get a sense of the trends on a newer project hosting site.

Black Duck’s data
According to Black Duck’s data the proportion of projects using the GNU GPL family of licenses declined from 70% in June 2008 to 53.24% today. The first thing to note therefore is that the rate of decline seen a year ago did not continue, and that the GNU GPL family of licenses continues to account for more than 50% of all open source software. The rate of the decline of the GNU GPLv2 has actually accelerated over the past year, however, and its usage is now almost the same as the combination of permissive licenses (I went with MIT/Apache/BSD/Ms-PL, you can argue about that last one if you like, but I’ve got to stick with it for consistency) at around 32%.

FLOSSmole’s data
Also in the interests of consistency I should clarify that we made a slight error in our previous calculations relating to the data from FLOSSmole. When we looked at the FLOSSmole data in June 2011 we reported a decline from 70.77% in October 2008 to 59.31% in May 2011. In calculating the data for this update I identified an error and that the figure should have been 62.8% in 2011. So less of a decline, but a decline nonetheless. The figures show that despite the total number of projects increasing from 54,000 in 2011 to 57,069 in September 2012, the proportion of projects using the GNU GPL family of licenses has remained steady at 62.8%. However, the proportion of projects using permissive licenses has grown, from 10.9% in 2008 to 13.4% in 2011 and 13.7% in September 2012.

Google Code data
The data from Google Code involves a much larger data set: 237,810 projects in 2011 and 300,465 in 2012. It also presents something problem since one of the choices on Google Code is dual-licensing using the Artistic License/GPL. Including these projects in the GNU GPL family count we see that the proportion of projects hosted on Google Code using the GNU GPL family of licenses declines from 54.7% in November 2011 to 52.7% in November 2011. Interestingly though the proportion of projects using permissive licenses also fell, from 38% in 2011 to 37.1% today. As a side note, the use of “other open source licenses” grew from 2.0% in 2011 to 4.3% in 2012.

What does it all mean? You can read as much or as little into the statistics as you wish. Since I am fed up with being accused of being a shill for providing analysis of the numbers I won’t bother to do so on this occasion – you are perfectly free to figure it out for yourselves.

Here’s everything in a single chart:

PROSE Survey about Forges Requirements

2012-12-19T14:05:28+00:00

As I mentioned earlier on this blog, with my SourceForge hat I’m working on two different EU-funded projects, called MARKOS and PROSE. PROSE - whose aim is to promote Open Source in European Projects through an open source project platform, training on legal and business aspects and through dissemination events - is now running an online survey for Forge Platform Requirements.

Since the goal of the survey is to ascertain the requirements of a hosted source forge for EC ICT projects, we’d welcome especially FP7 projects’ members to take the time to answer all our questions.

All individual responses will be treated as confidential however we plan to use a summary of results in future presentations to the community. So, please fill out the PROSE online survey and contribute the improvement of FLOSS adoption in European projects.

For more information on the survey visit the prose BLOG http://ict-prose.eu/blog

Thank you for you collaboration!

Setting Italian Priority to Open Source for Public Administration: Your Time to Rule!

2012-12-18T13:54:01+00:00

I have been commenting few times the evolution of the Italian “Code for a Digital Administration” - Codice dell Amministrazione Digitale (CAD) in Italian - either on this blog or when interviewed by journalists, and to date nothing has really happened.

The last major change to the law occured this summer, and at least in theory it has been reinforced the obligation to consider open source solutions, as Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz has noticed in his article about the news:

Only when a technical and economical analysis demonstrates that it is not possible to obtain at a lower price an open source solution or to reuse a solution developed internally, then it is allowed to purchase a proprietary licence of use.

The good news is that the new-born Agency for Digital Italy has just put out a call inviting interested parties to join a working group aimed at defining the technical and economical assessment criteria.

People interested in joining the working group have to submit an application by sending a certified email to pareri@pec.digitpa.gov.it.

CouchDB – sink or swim?

2012-12-17T17:31:06+00:00

CouchDB – up a creek without a paddle? Image source: bobbyfeind on Flickr

Almost a year ago Apache CouchDB creator Damien Katz announced that he would no longer be contributing to the CouchDB document database project he had created, choosing instead to focus on the development of Couchbase Server 2.0, which united CouchDB with Membase Server.

While the abandonment of an open source project by the person that created it is by no means unprecedented it is still unusual enough to warrant a look at what has happened to CouchDB in the year that followed.

Surviving or thriving?

The first point to make is that the survival of CouchDB following Katz’s departure was never in doubt, thanks to the fact that it is an Apache Foundation project. One of the benefits of the foundation model is that it doesn’t depend on a dominant developer or vendor to keep a project moving forward.

Although it briefly appeared that Cloudant would fulfil the role of the major corporate backer of CouchDB with its BigCouch clustered CouchDB technology after Couchbase discontinued its own CouchDB distribution, the company instead refocused its attention on its CouchDB- and BigCouch-based managed service.

While developers from both Couchbase and Cloudant continue to develop to the project Apache CouchDB doesn’t have a lead corporate backer, nor does it need one. According to factoids gathered by Ohloh, there were 30 contributors to the Apache CouchDB project in the past 12 months, up from 18 in the prior 12 months, and placing CouchDB in the top 2% of all project teams on Ohloh.

The question is not whether CouchDB is surviving, however, but whether it is thriving. That increase in contributor count would suggest so, but that’s by no means the full story. In contrast, the number of commits per month has declined in the past 12 months, representing, as Ohloh describes it, “a substantial decrease in development activity”. As the related chart illustrates, in fact, activity has pretty much flatlined since the beginning of the year.

Source: Ohloh

This should not be altogether surprising since the latest release went GA in April.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson on behalf of the Apache CouchDB PMC stated:

“Despite an unsettled start to the year, the CouchDB project and the
surrounding community continue to grow and evolve, with the release of
1.2.0 earlier this year, and the forthcoming 1.3.0, currently being
prepared for release. 1.3.0 includes in the last year alone, over 221
commits on the just the master branch, comprising 167 files changed,
5745 insertions, 2248 deletions — solid progress for a project with
22,000 lines of code total.”

Additionally, while the start of that flatline coincides with Katz’s departure from the project, it is not clear that the two are actually related. Ohloh figures indicate that Katz hadn’t actually committed code to the project since August 2010 and is only the eighth all-time most active committer to the project.

It is clear that there is still a lot of activity ongoing in the Apache CouchDB community, with the PMC citing rcouch, bigcouch, PouchDB, TouchDB frameworks for both iOS and Android, a Mac OS X binary installation, and
GeoCouch.

The PMC spokesperson added:

“Structurally, the project has added both committers and grown the
project management committe, and has been having regular meetings
through the last 2 months to improve communication within the team,
and help steer the community. A roadmap has been put together, and
Ubuntu-style time-scheduled releases are planned for 2013 to keep the
good oil flowing.”

However, in assessing the health of Apache CouchDB, we must look at adoption trends, as well as project activity.

Waving or drowning?

Searching mailing list archives using MarkMail indicates that there has been a decline in the number of messages to the developer, user, commits mailing lists in the past 12 months, although with increased activity on the latter since July.

Additionally, figures from Indeed.com suggest that job activity related to CouchDB saw a sharp decline in the early months of the year, although also a recovery in recent months.

couchdb Job Trends

Couchdb jobs

However, that activity is perhaps best viewed in the context of a comparison with another major NoSQL project – MongoDB for instance – which reveals that CouchDB job postings have more or less level-off since the start of the year.

couchdb, mongodb Job Trends

Couchdb jobs – Mongodb jobs

We have also been tracking the traction of NoSQL projects via searches of LinkedIn member profiles. The latest figures, due to be published later this week, show that mentions of CouchDB in LinkedIn member profiles grew over 139% between December 2011 and today.

That sounds good, but again must be viewed in the context of the rest of the NoSQL ecosystem. The statistics show that mentions of a selection of other major NoSQL databases grew significantly faster in the same period.

So what are we to make of all the evidence. Clearly the Apache CouchDB project will survive, and the lack of updates in 2012 is not a major concern, although the level of interest in the project is not growing as fast as other NoSQL technologies. My personal gut feel is that Apache CouchDB has the potential to become the PostgreSQL of the NoSQL generation: a solid, mature projects with a large community of developers and ecosystem of associated vendors that is often over-shadowed by more commercially-oriented alternatives but has a loyal and committed user-base.

Key to this comparison bearing up on longterm scrutiny will be the ability of the Apache CouchDB project to increase and maintain the level of development so that the Lines of code chart, above, better resembles that of PostgreSQL, below:

The comparison with PostgreSQL is also apt given the departure from the project of its creator. While many people do know the origins of the PostgreSQL project given that the original project leader is one of the most famous database experts in the world, I am sure a lot of PostgreSQL users wouldn’t know or care whether the project’s creator continued to be involved. Similarly, Katz’s departure from Apache CouchDB, while undoubtedly a short-term challenge, appears not to have had a significant impact on the project’s ongoing development.

Linux predictions for 2013

2012-12-14T01:51:26+00:00

As 2012 draws to an end, it’s an opportune time to look ahead and consider what we can expect in the Linux OS community and market for 2013. So here are my top five Linux predictions for the coming year:

1. Continued Cloud Dominance and Influence

As we consider a number of key trends in enterprise software and systems, it’s clear how critical cloud computing is to the industry. The strong connection between Linux and cloud computing will continue to fuel Linux throughout 2013 with public clouds, private clouds, IaaS, PaaS and SaaS all contributing to broader and greater use of Linux.

Linux makes sense for cloud computing because of availability, scalability, cost, flexibility, clustering, performance and other advantages. The latest example of Linux vitality in the cloud is the OpenStack project, which continues to grow and evolve in the enterprise.

OpenStack also represents the latest Linux battleground, with Red Hat, SUSE and Canonical all vying to support enterprise deployments. Linux is a big part of cloud computing — not only technically, but also culturally, and in conversations between vendors and customers.

We see Linux, open source and openness having an impact on discussions of “open clouds,” highlighting the wider impact of Linux on the cloud. We plan to delve deeper into this topic as we consider Linux in the cloud with a 451 Research report in 2013.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

SOS Open Source will be back!

2012-12-10T12:58:23+00:00

Over the last year and a half I have been happily busy with my new job at SourceForge, as a result I had little time to keep analyzing open source projects and write reports.

I am glad to share the news that the MARKOS project - the MARKetplace for Open Source project partially funded by the EU - will give me the opportunity to finally productize some of the SOS Open Source features and ideas.

The Art of the Community (Update)

2012-12-06T17:28:19+00:00

Jono Bacon of the Ubuntu fame has just published a blog post about the second edition of the art of the community, and if you missed to read the first edition I warmly recommend you to get the chance to read the brand new second edition.

Rise of Polyglot report is out

2012-12-06T16:44:39+00:00

We recently wrote about a disruptive trend we are following along with cloud computing, devops and open source software in the enterprise. Our 451 Research subscribers also got a preview of our findings in a recent spotlight report.

Polyglot programming is the use of many different languages, frameworks, services, databases and other pieces for individual applications. The trend takes today’s developers and IT shops beyond .NET and Java to node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, Spring and further still to Erlang, Scala, Haskell and others. Also in the mix are widely used API Web services, such as JSON, REST and SOAP, which are increasingly significant to building applications, as well as developer and user communities. There is also polyglot disruption present at the database layer with MySQL still being popular, but with ample use of the growing number of alternatives (NoSQL, PostgreSQL, NewSQL, etc.), including virtual and cloud-based services. Don’t forget today’s applications will likely pull in effective user-interface technologies such as Javascript, XML and HTML5, whether for internal enterprise, Web, mobile, consumer or converged audiences.

Although there is added pain in programming with multiple languages, benefits such as scalability, interoperability and concurrency increasingly necessitate it for optimal efficiency and quality.

Now we are pleased to present our latest special report, ‘The Rise of Polyglot Programming.’ The report investigates the drivers, disruption, challenges and opportunities from the trend. We also present market sizing and growth implications for polyglot programming, drawing on data and analysis from our Market Monitor service to show how polyglot programming will be part of a growing opportunity worth more than $35bn by 2015.

About Domain Redemption Fees

2012-12-05T13:36:26+00:00

ICANN about 10 years ago shared a proposal for a redemption grace period for deleted domains, in order to simplify the management of unintentional domain deletions. As a result the Redemption period rules for all .biz, .com, .info, .name, .net and .org domains. So far, so good.

Unfortunately many registrars are now billing outrageous domain redemption fees, nearly 200 Euros in my case.

History of the Term FLOSS

2012-11-27T15:09:36+00:00

Few days ago I happened to re-read an excellent article written by Jesus Gonzalez-Barahona about the history of the FLOSS term.

I recommend you to read it all if you’re curious about that.

Open Forges Summit 2012: Presentations and Take-aways

2012-11-20T15:49:45+00:00

The Open World Forum is the best place to meet and talk about the present and the future of open source forges, as seen back in 2010 at the first Open Forges Summit, and again in 2011 to talk about interoperability among forges.

As Track Chair of the Open Forges Summit 2012 I’ve been in the position to invite few international speakers to bring their opinions and views, and we actually put together an amazing gathering of people sharing the same passion, read below to know more about it.

Before introducing all the speakers I briefly mentioned SourceForge’s open source strategy regarding Allura (coverage), the fully open source platform backing SourceForge, now incubated at the Apache Software Foundation. Doing so we didn’t give away our ‘crown jewels’, we just strengthen our position by welcoming others to innovate, yet giving our communities more control over of their projects.

Ross Gardler - Apache Software Foundation board member, OpenDirective Founder and one of Allura’s mentors - shared with the audience his understanding about what forges are and what are they aimed for. In his own words:

Building open source software is about social interaction and the good governance of those interactions. It is not about providing better forge tools and it is certainly not about trying to make forges full of tools that encourage a community to fracture rather than collaborate. In my opinion the focus should be on people not tools.

His speech was really enlightening, and I very much appreciated his positive feedback about the first step the Apache Allura podling is moving at the ASF. Ross pointed us also to a project called simal focused on harvesting data about projects (using DOAP) and making it available to query. Described as follows:

No stats, no tools, no magic hammers, just pointers to resources and people and their social graphs within project communities.

Last but not least after his talk we spent some time discussing about forge, and among audience’s input it worth to mention Karl Fogel’s book on “Producing Open Source” and “Open Advice” Edited by Lydia Pintscher.

About Harvesting External Innovation at SourceForge

2012-11-15T14:44:07+00:00

Last year on behalf of SourceForge I joined the ADMS Software Working Group, an EU initiative aimed at describing software artifacts developed by or for public administrations to increase its sharing and reuse potential.

In order to help the project we contributed our Trove categorization system to classify projects under a Creative Commons license, so that it could be used and expanded.

About Advising Bitergia with My SourceForge Hat

2012-11-14T15:57:27+00:00

I’m lucky enough to be able to do the job I love.

As part of my job I dedicate almost 20% of my time to projects related to the SourceForge core business, and this includes advising few open-source-related companies. Among them a special place goes to Bitergia, a company focused in the area of software development analytics.

Let me tell you first more about how I came across this company.

Before joining SourceForge I have run my own consultancy for about 2 years helping medium-to-large companies to find and select open source software. Among the many tools I have been using to such a job, a special place goes to Libresoft tools.

Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona about one year ago contacted me to ask me to advice Bitergia, in his own words:

We contacted Roberto to help us because we had been following him for years, and know about his competence in business models related to free/open source software, and also about his interest in software development analytics.

And I was really happy to be able to advice the spin-off of the Libresoft research group with my SourceForge hat.

About Bitergia. The company came to life when some of the researchers at LibreSoft realized how useful some of their research results are for companies and other parties interested in better understanding FOSS development projects and communities.

Bitergia is now using and producing FOSS tools to retrieve data from software development repositories (source code management systems such as Subversion or git, ticket tracking systems such as Bugzilla, Jira or those of Allura, Launchpad, GitHub or Google Code, mailing lists, etc.), analyze it according to the needs of its customers, and later visualize the results.

Bitergia offers automated analysis of many aspects of FOSS projects (including the maintenance of analytics dashboards for designated projects), support for external use of their tools for FOSS analytics (including custom development and maintenance), and detailed consulting on how a company can benefit from the use of analytics to better understand FOSS projects, to continuously track the development parameters more interesting to them, or to identify the kind of analysis and studies that can help them to answer the questions they may have about FOSS projects.

Bitergia is also involved in the integration of software analytics tools and dashboards with other systems, such as software development forges or business analytics tools, and offers services and consulting in those domains.

Some examples and previews of the analysis the company is producing can be found at their blog. Among them you might find interesting to look at the analysis on OpenStack or Liferay, and get the gist of what are they doing.

What you can’t miss is their very recent analysis of our own Allura platform, now incubated at the Apache Software Foundation. It’s all good to see the SourceForge and the Bitergia teams to jointly work under the Apache umbrella, and I’m glad that Alvaro del Castillo - one of the Bitergia developers - has been recently invited to become a committer and a PMC member.

Congrats to the Bitergia team for the great work!

#monitoringlove hackfest

2012-11-13T20:54:24+00:00

The age of #monitoringsucks is over, we're now transitioning into a #monitoringlove period.

That however doesn't mean al the work is done, we still need to do a lot of work and a lot of people are working on a lot of stuff.

Therefore like last year we are opening up our offices again right after Fosdem for a #monitoringlove hackfest

That's right on february 4 and 5 a bunch of people interrested to fix the problem will be meeting , discussing and hacking stuff together in Antwerp. In short a #monitoringlove hackathon

Inuits is opening up their offices for everybody who wants to join the effort Please let us (@KrisBuytaert) know if you want to join us in Antwerp. We'll provide caffeine, wireless, chairs and some snacks.

Please register upfront at : http://monitoringlove2013.eventbrite.com/

Obviously if you can't make it to Antwerp you can join the effort on ##monitoringsucks on Freenode or on Twitter.

The location will be Duboistraat 50 , Antwerp
It is about 10 minutes walk from the Antwerp Central Trainstation
Depending on Traffic Antwerp is about half an hour north of Brussels and there are hotels at walking distance from the venue.

Plenty of parking space is available on the other side of the Park

Read last years report http://www.krisbuytaert.be/blog/we-didnt-fix-it to get an idea of what will happen...

PS. Yes I`m trying to get another event of the ground the days before Fosdem but I`m still awaiting confirmation of the venue ..

ApacheCon Europe: OpenOffice Extensions and Templates

2012-11-06T15:54:16+00:00

Among SourceForge partnerships I have been working on, Apache OpenOffice has a special place in my heart, since before I have been a member of the original OpenOfffice.org community for almost 9 years.

Today I was supposed to be at the ApacheCon Europe, and give the OpenOffice Extensions and Templates talk, focusing on:

how SourceForge re-engineered both Apache OpenOffice Extensions and Templates websites;
how to create a simple Extension/Template;
throw few ideas about how to improve both Extensions and Templates websites.

While I couldn’t attend because I’ve been suffering from a food poisoning for the last days, I am glad my friend and Apache OpenOffice PMC Chair Andrea Pescetti has been kind enough to give the speech on my behalf.

Below the deck used for the presentation, look forward to hear your feedback and suggestions either here or at ooo-dev mailing list.

(Please open the article to see the flash file or player.)

About Blogging Less

2012-10-30T15:33:52+00:00

I have received a few questions asking why I’ve been blogging less frequently, and it is easy to admit I had little time because of my two new jobs, namely my role as SourceForge as its Senior Director of Business Development at SourceForge (US time-zone) and my full-time job as Fatherhood!

Now that Vanessa enjoys so much the Day Care, I’ll do my best to restart my habit of blogging, though.

For my first “post-daycare” blog post I’ll shortly recap what’s happened over the last year at SourceForge.

I joined SourceForge in late September 2011, and I knew I was going to be responsible for helping SourceForge.net to successfully attract and grow large open source projects.

The first collaboration agreement SourceForge made public was the BerliOS-SourceForge partnership, after that Apache OpenOffice turned to SourceForge for hosting and serving Extensions, Templates and AOO binaries.

Beyond collaborating with ecosystems like BerliOS or foundations like the Apache Software Foundation, we engaged also with individual projects as well as with commercial open source vendors.

With my Geeknet heat I have been also advising companies, like Bitergia - the Spanish company born from URJC GSyC/Libresoft group - a startup aimed at providing tools, services and consultancy to analyze FLOSS projects, and to improve the development process.

We eventually submitted our very own Allura platform to the Apache Incubator, and it is great to see how ‘external’ innovation is already taking new forms over there. Students from the University of Milan as well as Bitergia’s developers have already joined the Apache Allura podling, and I’m sure others will soon follow.

Last but not least my desire to be part of European R&D networks and participate in EU developments finally came true, in fact we are now involved in two different EU-funded initiatives, codenamed MARKOS and PROSE (see the brochure).

I think that’s enough to restart the ball rolling, next time I’ll tell you more about what happened at the OWF Open Forge Summit, I can just anticipate that it has been an amazing gathering of people sharing the same passion.

Congrats Apache OpenOffice!

2012-10-18T16:51:38+00:00

Today the Apache Software Foundation announced that Apache OpenOffice ™ is a top level project, and I really wish to congratulate with the Apache OpenOffice Community to have achieved this important milestone.

It has been wonderful to have the rare opportunity to participate to a project both as volunteer and as Geeknet’s employee (now Dice, in case you missed the news).

I’m sure we are just at the start of a new journey!

Open source lives in polyglot programming

2012-10-10T23:54:38+00:00

The prominence and pervasiveness of open source software in cloud computing is something I’ve researched and written about quite a bit. I’ve also discussed how open source software is a key component and catalyst for the devops trend that blends application development and deployment via IT operations. Now I’m seeing the same effect from open source software yet again in a disruptive trend: polyglot programming.

An upcoming report on polyglot programming by 451 Research will more deeply explore these drivers and impacts, including the role of open source software.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

Open Forges Summit 2012: 11th October, Paris (OWF)

2012-10-09T14:21:05+00:00

Oct

11:00 am

Since the rise of Facebook there has been much discussion about people building walled gardens with open source software, but it seems like we’ve almost forgotten that many of us have built open source software behind someone else’s walled garden.

During the 2010 summit we spent a day discussing the so-called data-jail issue. Last year at the OWF we explored a possible solution for the problem based on interoperability between forges.

This year we want to look at how the landscape has changed; which opportunities allow projects to keep full control over their data, and which initiatives the EU is driving to address the issue. Academics, industry players and open forge advocates will illuminate this immersive half-day event. If you care about your project’s freedom, this summit is one you won’t want to miss!

11:00 Introduction: Roberto Galoppini, Track Chair

11:05 A forge is just a tool, but is it the right tool? Ross Gardler, Apache Software Foundation

The law of the instrument states “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” (Maslow, 1966).

Software forges collect project artifacts and provide tools for project management. They do not build software, they do not write or test software, they do not attract users or contributors. Yet it is the people that are important. Without the people there would be no artefacts and thus no forges.

Forges, today, don’t make it easy to discover the individuals and the communities behind the software. We typically find the project through some other means and then navigate to the forge. From there we start to examine the community and the people behind the project. Are forges missing an opportunity here? Can we improve the way people discover the all important people and communities behind the projects?

11:25 Open Forges and Open App Stores: Joining the dots, Scott Wilson, OSS Watch

Although both forges and app stores provide infrastructure for distributing software, they do so with different audiences in mind, and operate under different sets of constraints. App store users want to be able to easily find, evaluate and use software, wherever the code may live; can we do a better job for users than just providing a download link or a link to the project page? There are also some significant barriers between app stores and open source forges that need to be overcome, such as (in)compatibility of open source licenses and app store T&Cs.

There is also rarely a “live” connection between the store and the source repository, for example automatic updating of metadata, features and screenshots. Can we create better links between forges and stores?

Can we also do a better job for users than just providing a download link or a link to the project page? Projects and services such as Apache Cordova, 5Apps and PhoneGap Build show its possible to bridge the gap between open source development processes and app stores for mobile apps - but what about for other kinds of software?

11:45 Stijin Goedertier,ADMS Working Group

In his talk, Stijn will outline the future plans for the AMDS.SW metadata vocabulary (http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/asset/adms_foss/description). ADMS.SW is a metadata vocabulary to describe software making it possible to more easily explore, find, and link software on the Web. The specification maximally reuses existing specifications, such as DOAP, SPDX, ISO 19770-2, ADMS, and the Trove software map. By using ADMS.SW to describe software, publishers increase its discoverability and enable applications to consume software metadata more easily. It allows software publishers to:
- provide unique identifiers to software projects, software releases, and software packages through HTTP URIs and ISO 19770-2 identifying systems;
- keep their own system for documenting and storing software;
- improve indexing and visibility of software;
- describe software in a common way so that it can be seamlessly cross-queried and discovered through a single access point (e.g. Joinup);
- retrieve, compare and potentially link software to one another; and

- identify software to be reused avoiding duplication and expensive development work.

12:05 Olivier Berger & Christian Bayle (FusionForge)

Advances on interoperability of FLOSS forges from the COCLICO projects, which have been implemented in FusionForge and other FLOSS platforms.

12:25 Empowering FLOSS in European Projects, Miguel Ponce de Leon, PROSE eu-funded project

Miguel will share the goals of the EU funded PROSE project, who’s objective is to accelerate the adoption of open source software on EU ICT projects. The presentation will highlight the projects plans to increase the lifetime of the software developed inside European projects and thus maximizing projects’ impacts. The presentation will show the creation and management of a platform for FLOSS project management, the development of a training program on legal and business aspects pertaining to FLOSS adoption and shall provide insight on a dissemination program to promote the adoption of a FLOSS-driven model in EU ICT projects.

12:45 Open Source and Agility , faster innovation for Tuleap forge, Laurent Charles, Enalean, Tuleap Open ALM

Enalean is the provider of Tuleap Open ALM, an open source software forge. Enalean is the only provider to deliver its enterprise software forge entirely under free GPL license. In the same time, main innovations and good practices in software engineering are propulsed by free communities. As an example, just look at SVN, Git or Hudson/Jenkins that are proof their efficiently. Enterprises where software innovation is a key for being competitive know that very well. That’s why they widely deploy free softwares within their development teams. To tailor these softwares to their process and needs, enterprises choose between: asking an IT service company to make specific developments, investing in an on-site-team or waiting for next version of softwares.

To offer them an alternative, Enalean team decided to offer an innovative approach, implementing agile and open source principles.Indeed, gathering the assets of open source and agility faster innovation and new developments for forges. Tuleap customers, mainly worldwide industrial organizations, have quickly understood the gains: more contributions, exchanges, quality developments that really match their needs while staying free and independent.

The discussion will share feedback on customers stories and keys to succeed with a such approach.

13:00 Conclusion

Like FOSS fog, cloud confusion may not matter

2012-09-11T20:42:53+00:00

The general public knows little about the true technology fundamentals of cloud computing, suggests a recent survey commissioned by IT vendor Citrix. Almost a third of the roughly 1,000 U.S. adults polled thought cloud computing was related to weather.

However, the ascendance of Linux and open source software 10 years ago demonstrated that everyday people do not have to understand, appreciate or knowingly participate in a technology in order to leverage it in their lives.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

Open Source Certification , Friend or Foe

2012-08-25T13:53:34+00:00

With 2 of the bigger Open Source projects I care about talking about certifications programs questions pop up again ...

Should we certify ourselves ?

So let me tell you about my experiences in getting Open Source related Certifications ..

Over a decade ago, (2001) when RedHat was still Redhat and not yet Fedora the company I was working for was about to partner with RedHat and needed to get a number of people certified for that.

So I took the challenge, I bored myselve to death during a 4 day RedHat fast track training and set out to do the exam the next day. Obviosly I scored pretty well given my yearlong experience in the subject. Back then I was told that I scored the one but European Record on the exam which was actually held by another collegue (hey Ico) , our CTO however was not amused when I told that I could have scored better but I didn't bother running a chkconfig smb on since I didn't see the use in using windows fileshares in a unix environment (Yes I was young , we're all allowd to make stupid mistakes :))

So I was certified, we were expecting the requests to flow in en masse ... nothing happened... not a single customer request... If I recall correctly we got 2 requests for certified engineers over the course of the following years. One was from a customer that wanted to have us do some junior level sysadmin work on their systems which we didn't care about, we proposed a more junior profile, but they insisted on having someone who was certified, The other one was from a Large institution that wanted certified people for their RedHat support, only to quickly learn that the budget they had planned for this project was about half the rate we usually charged ..

When RedHat introduced their certified Architect program my answer was, sure .. if you bring us the customer that will make the investment worthwhile , guess what..

My second experience with Open Source certification came a couple of years later with MySQL, same story partnering etc, . only this time our trainer had put some focus on a couple of slides during the training (Hi Tobias) and during the exam indeed one of those questions popped up, The correct answer to "What are the core values of MySQL AB" was "We reply to email" , I stood up and left the exam ...
I ranted about this to a number of people including Roland Bouman who back then was just starting on the MySQL (NDBD) Cluster certifciation track and I assisted him in making the book to study for that exam better.
Once again .. pretty much no one asked for MySQL certification in Europe back in those days (2007 ?)

I won't go deeper into discussing the Xen certification I got from Citrix, but it involved correcting slides from the presenters at the first European training.

Based on my experience with these certifications in Belgium/Europe you can see that I`m not a big fan of certifications I have not seen a reason for me to certify yet

I actually think that noone within the Open Source community should be looking for certification, we should be looking for people that are active in the community and that are contributing to projects.
Unlike in the proprietary world where you have to cough up tons of money in order to get a license to play with a tool and learn itl In the open source world with projects such as both Drupal and Puppet, there are absolutely no excuses for Junior people not to engage and prove themselves. they have full access to anything they need, the only thing they need to do is want to get involved.

Sadly this world however is still full of incompetent recruiters, middlemarket agencies that will never understand this and will ask for cerftifications of some kind. My fear is indeed that there will be a group of mediocre but certified developers swarming these growing markets at dumping rates and that the people with the real experience that have been involved in the communities for ages already will be the ones pulling the short straw.

Anyhow ... in just a short couple of years everything will be fine again .. as by then my RHCE will be current again and the incompetent recruiters that need people that are RedHat 7 certified will start calling me by the dozen.

CAOS Theory Podcast 2012.08.17

2012-08-17T19:26:07+00:00

Topics for this podcast:

*Red Hat puts enterprise cred and bet on OpenStack
*LexisNexis touts open source benefits of Hadoop alternative
*Who doesn’t love Hadoop?
*Proprietary vendors siding with open source
*PostgreSQL and its cloud, commercial opportunity
*Our Hosting and Cloud Transormation Summit NA event

iTunes or direct download (32:24, 5.8MB)

OSS support grows among proprietary players

2012-08-15T21:37:47+00:00

VMware continued its embrace of open source software with its recent acquisition of open source and virtual network provider Nicira. The move continued VMware’s aggressive M&A strategy and its effort to transition from proprietary software and virtualization to a broader market and cloud computing, largely through open source software.

With previous open source software acquisitions that have included Rabbit Technologies’ RabbitMQ messaging, Zimbra email and collaboration and SpringSource, VMware seems to have found it paramount to participate and integrate with open source software technology and communities, despite its heritage as a strictly proprietary virtualization vendor.

VMware continues to back and sell mostly proprietary software and products, but its broader engagement of open source also highlights how nearly all vendors in today’s market are, at least to some extent, users or purveyors of open source software. We’ve also seen examples of how the vendors that resist open source are likely to find themselves isolated from vibrant communities if they stick to a closed technology approach.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

Who doesn’t love Hadoop?

2012-08-08T15:04:22+00:00

I tweeted recently that I had received a query from a journalist about whether Hadoop needs to go closed source to be fit for the enterprise.

Now that the resulting report has been published we can see who was behind that suggestion, with Brian Christian, Zettaset chief technology officer, arguing that “The community serves its needs, not the needs of the enterprise.”

The report also includes some, although naturally not all, of the response I provided to this suggestion, and since the report leaves a few misconceptions unanswered I thought I’d publish my more detailed response.

Hadoop is ‘free like a puppy’
Hadoop currently requires a degree of expertise to configure, manage and operate, but that statement is true for any serious data management technology. Apache Hadoop is relatively immature compared to some other established data management technologies, particularly in areas such as high availability, security and manageability. However, the development community is well-aware of its shortcomings and advances in all areas are currently in early access and should be ready for production deployment later this year.

Hadoop does require a degree of expertise to operate, and that expertise is currently at a premium and comes at a cost. However, all the major Hadoop supporters are working to train up a larger pool of Hadoop developers and administrators. Cloudera alone has trained more than 12,000 people to use Hadoop.

Apache Hadoop is a complex combination of data management technologies and is not without its challenges, which have arguably led to some enterprise taking longer to move from development and testing to deployment than they might have initially expected. However, the Hadoop development community is clearly committed to making Hadoop more suitable for enterprise adoption.

Hadoop is ‘driven by enthusiasts’
The idea that the open source community is populated by individual developers with no concern for enterprise requirements is completely bogus. The Apache Software Foundation has a proven history of developing enterprise-grade software projects through a collaborative development process that combines vendors, users and other interested parties.

The biggest contributors to Apache Hadoop include vendors such as Hortonworks, Cloudera, MapR and IBM, all of which have a vested interest in driving greater enterprise adoption, as well as users such as Yahoo, Facebook and eBay, all of which stand to gain from its improved capabilities.

On a broader note, open source development in general has a proven track record of producing enterprise-grade software. You only have to look at the success of Linux to see how rapidly open source software can be adopted by enterprises once it reaches a suitable level of maturity and has the support of commercial vendors. Hadoop is no exception, and is likely to follow in the footsteps of Linux as it matures.

Additionally, we see the open source nature of Hadoop as one of the adoption drivers – as users know that they can avoid vendor lock in and have a choice of providers for their Hadoop training, support and services.

Hadoop may need to be ‘taken out of open source’
There is no reason to believe that a closed source Hadoop would deliver any functionality that could not be developed by the Apache Hadoop community. While a number of vendors offer closed source alternatives for individual components in the Hadoop stack, anyone offering a fully closed source alternative would suffer by not being able to compete with the collaborative development process and competitive commercial ecosystem that the open source development process enables.

In addition it is worth noting that Hadoop, along with other distributed data management projects including many of the NoSQL databases, were initiated by organizations like Google, Amazon and Yahoo in response to the inability of the established data management vendors to fulfil their data management requirements.

The established closed source data management vendors have had plenty of time to develop a ‘better’ Hadoop than Hadoop, and do not lack development resources, but have chosen to collaborate with Hadoop distributors and contribute to Hadoop instead.

A prime example is Microsoft, which in late 2011 abandoned its own Dryad distributed computing project in favour of contributing to Apache Hadoop. This is a sign that Hadoop has already won enough attention to make it difficult for any competing product to gain traction.

While we see vendors offering closed source alternatives for individual components in the Hadoop stack we do not believe that a full closed source alternative would be viable, or desirable from a customer’s perspective. There is no reason to believe that enterprise-grade improvements to Hadoop cannot be delivered by the Apache Hadoop community and the open source development process.

CAOS Theory Podcast 2012.06.22

2012-06-22T22:34:39+00:00

Topics for this podcast:

*Sauce Labs grows with fast Selenium application testing
*MySQL, NoSQL, NewSQL survey results and analysis
*Microsoft’s Linux love leaves out Red Hat
*Hadoop roundup with Cloudera, Hortonworks and VMware
*2012 Future of Open Source Survey highlights

iTunes or direct download (28:28, 5.1MB)

Microsoft hearts Linux, just not Red Hat

2012-06-14T05:05:51+00:00

Just when you thought it couldn’t top itself — having contributed Linux kernel code under the GPL, broadly supported Linux alongside Windows with its systems management and other software, and spun off a new subsidiary dedicated to openness, Microsoft showed yet more Linux and open source love recently, adding an impressive Linux lineup to supported software on its Azure cloud.

However, there’s one major Linux player that’s sort of getting left out of the love-fest. It’s enterprise Linux leader Red Hat and its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which has to sit by while other distributions, including RHEL community clone CentOS and market competitors SUSE and Ubuntu, get first-class treatment in Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

Read the full article at LinuxInsider.

MySQL vs. NoSQL and NewSQL – survey results

2012-05-25T11:04:56+00:00

Back in January we launched a survey of database users to explore the competitive dynamic between MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL databases, and to to discover if MySQL usage is really declining – as had been indicated by the results of a prior survey.

The publication of the associated report took longer than expected, mostly because we expanded its scope to include revenue and growth estimates for the MySQL ecosystem, NoSQL and NewSQL sectors respectively, and with that report now published I am pleased to fulfil our promise to share the survey results.

We seem to be having some random embedding issues so for now the results can be found on SlideShare, adapted from the presentation given at OSBC earlier this week. For greater context, we have also included an explanation of each slide, below:

Slide 2: Provides an overview of the associated report – MySQL vs NoSQL and NewSQL 2011:2015, which is available here.

Slide 3: Explains why we launched the report. We once described as the crown jewel of the open source database world, since its focus on Web-based applications, its lightweight architecture and fast-read capabilities, and its brand differentiated it from all of the established database vendors and made for a potentially complementary acquisition. Today, the competitive situation is very different.

Slide 4: Oracle’s MySQL business faces competition from the rest of the MySQL ecosystem, as illustrated in Slide 5, many of which have emerged following Oracle’s acquisition of Sun/MySQL.

Slide 6: The emergence of these alternatives was triggered, in part, by concern about the future of MySQL. A previous 451 survey,conducted in November 2009, showed that there was real concern about the acquisition, with only 17% of MySQL users believing Oracle should be allowed to acquire MySQL.

Slide 7: The 2009 survey also showed that while 82.1% of respondents were already using MySQL, that figure was expected to drop to 72.3% by 2014. That survey was conducted amid a climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding the future of MySQL, and one of the drivers for our current report was to see if that predicted decline occurred.

Slide 8: To put this in context, we asked the current survey sample (which included 205 database users) about their reaction to the acquisition. While the vast majority of MySQL users reported that they continued to use MySQL where appropriate, 5% indicated that they were more inclined to use MySQL, and 26% said they were less inclined to use MySQL. Not surprisingly the proportion of users less inclined to use MySQL was much higher amongst those abandoning MySQL than those sticking with MySQL.

Slide 9: We also asked respondents to rate Oracle’s ownership of MySQL on a range of very good to very bad. Overall, the balance tipped in favour of a negative perception of Oracle’s track record, while there was naturally a more negative perception of Oracle amongst those abandoning MySQL compared to MySQL mainstays. However, the results showed that the percentage of respondents rating the company’s performance ‘very good’ and ‘very bad’ was actually quite similar for both abandoners and mainstays. While those abandoning MySQL are more likely to have a negative perception of Oracle, it is not necessarily safe to assume that Oracle’s actions and strategy are the cause of the abandonment. Clearly there are other competitive forces at work.

Slide 10: Not least the emergence of NoSQL, as illustrated in Slide 11, and NewSQL, as illustrated in Slide 12.

Slide 13: Based on some very high profile examples of projects migrating from MySQL to NoSQL, there is a common assumption that NoSQL and NewSQL pose a direct, immediate threat to MySQL. We believe the competitive dynamic is more complex.

Slide 14: While 49% of those survey respondents abandoning MySQL planned on retaining or adopting NoSQL databases, only 12.7% said they had actually deployed NoSQL databases as a *direct replacement* for MySQL.

Slide 15: In comparison, there is much greater overlap between NewSQL and MySQL, but of a complementary nature. 33% of respondents retaining MySQL had considered, tested or deployed NewSQL database technologies, while approximately 75% of the NewSQL revenue for 2011 is from vendors that we also consider part of the MySQL ecosystem.

Slide 16: The results of our 2012 survey show that MySQL is currently the most popular database amongst our survey sample, used by 80.5% of respondents today.

Slide 17: However, it’s popularity is again expected to decline to 2014 and 2017. This indicates an accelerated decline in the use of MySQL, compared the findings of our 2009 survey. While that survey was conducted amid a climate of fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding the future of MySQL we are not aware of any specific reason why the 2012 sample, which was self-selecting, should have a disproportionately negative attitude to MySQL or Oracle.

Slide 18: MySQL’s predicted decline of 26.4 percentage points between 2012 and 2017 compares to a predicted decline of just 9.3 percentage points for Microsoft SQL Server, and only 5.9 percentage points for Oracle Database. In comparison, MariaDB, Apache Cassandra and Apache CouchDB are expected to increase in usage by 3.0 percentage points or greater between 2011 and 2017.

Slide 19: Although alternative MySQL distributions including MariaDB, Drizzle and Percona Server are expected to see increased adoption over the next five years, they are not growing at the same rate that MySQL is declining.

Slide 20: So where are those abandoning MySQL going to? Looking specifically at the 55 MySQL users who expect to abandon it by 2017 (which is admittedly a small sample, and therefore not to be considered statistically relevant) we see that PostgreSQL is the most popular database being retained or adopted over the same period, followed by Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MongoDB, and MariaDB.

Slide 21: This only tells part of the story, however. Just because a company is retaining Oracle Database, for example, does not necessarily mean that Oracle Database is being used as a replacement for the abandoned MySQL. We therefore also specifically asked survey respondents which databases they had considered, tested or deployed as a direct replacement for MySQL. The response from the 55 respondents planning to abandon MySQL again saw PostgreSQL, MariaDB and MongoDB as the most popular answers, followed by Apache CouchDB and Apache HBase.

Slide 22: While NoSQL database were well-represented in this list, we saw that anyone considering NoSQL considered multiple NoSQL databases. Per respondent, NoSQL databases were the least considered of all alternatives by existing MySQL users.

Slide 23: The survey results suggest that MongoDB is the most often considered, tested or deployed as a replacement or complement for MySQL, followed by Apache CouchDB, Apache HBase, Apache Cassandra/DataStax, and Redis.

Slide 24: NewSQL technologies that improve the scalability and performance of MySQL scored well, with eight of the top 10 most considered NewSQL technologies being directly complementing MySQL. Of the other two, one (Drizzle) is a derivative of MySQL, and the other (Clustrix) can also be used in a complementary manner as part of a MySQL cluster, although in the long-term is positioned as a direct alternative.

Slide 25: MariaDB is the member of the MySQL ecosystem most often considered, tested or deployed as a replacement or complement for MySQL, followed by Continuent Tungsten, Percona Server, MySQL Cluster, and Amazon RDS.

Slide 26: More than half of all MySQL users had considered, tested or deployed another relational database as a direct replacement, while over 40% had considered, tested or deployed a caching technology to complement MySQL. The memcached caching technology was the most widely-deployed of all the technologies we asked about, followed closely by PostgreSQL, which supported anecdotal evidence that a number of MySQL users are migrating to the other major open source transactional database.

Slide 27: For the record, the survey had 205 respondents. Primary job roles among respondents included: director/manager of IT infrastructure (18.0%); architect/engineer (17.6%); developer/programmer (15.6%); database/systems administrator (14.6%); consultant (14.1%); VP level or above (13.7%); analyst (3.4%); and line-of-business manager (2.9%).

Further survey analysis and perspective on the competitive dynamic between MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL is available in the MySQL vs NoSQL and NewSQL report, which also includes market sizing and growth predictions for the three segments.

451 Research delivers market sizing estimates for NoSQL, NewSQL and MySQL ecosystem

2012-05-23T14:22:18+00:00

NoSQL and NewSQL database technologies pose a long-term competitive threat to MySQL’s position as the default database for Web applications, according to a new report published by 451 Research.

The report, MySQL vs. NoSQL and NewSQL: 2011-2015, examines the competitive dynamic between MySQL and the emerging NoSQL non-relational, and NewSQL relational database technologies.

It concludes that while the current impact of NoSQL and NewSQL database technologies on MySQL is minimal, they pose a long-term competitive threat due to their adoption for new development projects. The report includes market sizing and growth estimates, with the key findings as follows:

• NoSQL software vendors generated revenue* of $20m in 2011. NoSQL software revenue is expected to rapidly grow at a CAGR of 82% to reach $215m by 2015.

• NewSQL software vendors generated revenue* of $12m in 2011 (of which $9m is also considered MySQL ecosystem revenue). NewSQL revenue is also expected to grow rapidly at a CAGR of 75% to reach $112m by 2015 (including $56m in MySQL ecosystem revenue).

• The MySQL support ecosystem generated revenue* of $171m in 2011 (including $9m from NewSQL technologies). MySQL ecosystem revenue is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40% to reach $664m by 2015 (including $56m in NewSQL revenue).

“The MySQL ecosystem is now arguably more healthy and vibrant than it has ever been, with a strong vendor committed to the core product, and a wealth of alternative and complementary products and services on offer to maintain competitive pressure on Oracle,” commented report author Matthew Aslett, research manager, data management and analytics, 451 Research.

“However, the options for MySQL users have never been greater, and there is a significant element of the MySQL user base that is ready and willing to look elsewhere for alternatives,”

As well as revenue and growth estimates, the report also includes a survey of over 200 database administrators, developers, engineers and managers. The survey findings include:

• While the majority of MySQL users continue to use MySQL where appropriate, the use of MySQL is expected to decline from 80.5% of survey respondents today to 62.4% by 2014 and just 54.1% by 2017.

• Despite the emergence of NoSQL and NewSQL database products, the most common direct replacement for MySQL among survey respondents today is PostgreSQL, which is also the focus of a recent burst of commercial activity.

• While 49% of those survey respondents abandoning MySQL planned on retaining or adopting NoSQL databases, only 12.7% of MySQL abandoners said they had actually deployed NoSQL databases as a direct replacement for MySQL.

“While there have been some high profile example of users migrating from MySQL to NoSQL database, the huge size of MySQL installed base means that these projects are comparatively rare,” commented Aslett.

The report describes how NoSQL database technologies are largely being adopted for new projects that require additional scalability, performance, relaxed consistency and agility, while NewSQL database technologies are, at this stage, largely being adopted to improve the performance and scalability of existing databases, particularly MySQL.

“NoSQL and NewSQL have not made a significant impact on the MySQL installed base at this stage but MySQL is no longer the de facto standard for new application development projects,” said Aslett. “As a result, NoSQL and NewSQL pose a significant long-term competitive threat to MySQL’s dominance.”

MySQL vs. NoSQL and NewSQL: 2011-2015 is now available to existing 451 Research subscribers. Non-clients can apply for trial access to 451 Research’s content.

*451 Research’s analysis of MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL revenue is based on a bottom-up analysis of each participating vendor’s current revenue and growth expectations, and includes software license and subscription support revenue only. Revenue line items not included in these figures include hardware associated with the delivery of these services, revenue related to applications deployed on these databases, traditional hosting services, or systems integration performed by the vendors or other third parties.

The revenue estimates do not take into account unpaid usage of open source licensed MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL software, and therefore represent only a fraction of the total addressable market. Based on the above revenue figures and other analysis, 451 Research estimates that the total value of the MySQL ecosystem in terms of ‘displaced’ proprietary software might equate to $1.7bn in 2011, while the NoSQL market had a displaced value of $195.7m and the NewSQL sector a displaced value of $99.4m.

Future of open source survey highlights progress, changes, challenges

2012-05-23T01:41:56+00:00

451 Research was pleased to collaborate on the Future of Open Source Survey 2012 with North Bridge Venture Partners and Black Duck Software. This year’s survey garnered 740 responses from a variety of vendors and non-vendors in the industry. Overall, the survey highlighted some subtle and sometimes dramatic changes in what is driving open source software. It also made clear that while there is still a good degree of education and awareness yet to occur around open source software, there is a large amount of open source code making its way into today’s enterprise, webscale, consumer and other computing environments.

Some of the key findings:

*The survey reinforced the prominence and influence of open source software in the enterprise and in key trends driving it, as we and others have highlighted for some time with reports such as Seeding the Clouds and Mobility Matters. When asked which technology areas would see the most significant open source software community innovation from, respondents ranked ‘cloud’ highest at 40%, then ‘mobile apps’ (19%) and ‘mobile enterprise’ (15%) for a combined 34%, then ‘analytics’ with 10%. These areas are indicative of where we see open source software projects, communities, vendors and consortia continuing to broaden use of open source software.

*The survey asked what are the top barriers to selecting open source software when compared with proprietary alternatives, resulting in unfamiliarity (48%), lack of internal technical skills (47%), lack of vendor support (35%) and legal concerns about licensing (33%) as the top answers. Although this indicates there is still some trepidation and lack of awareness around open source and commercial options for support, other survey responses indicate open source software is still spreading to new industries and customer categories. When asked about the most important trend for open source software over the next two to three years, respondents identified the top choices as: adoption in non-technical segments such as government or healthcare (42%); enterprise adoption (40%) and growth in industry-specific communities (10%).

*The survey also showed there is a heavy volume of new, meaningful code coming out of open source software’s many communities. When asked what share of their deployed code they anticipate will be open source software over the next five years, about one third of survey respondents (32%) reported open source had already reached major deployment at 75% or more of their code. Another one third of respondents (30%) said open source will make up half to 75% or more of its deployed code. About a quarter of respondents (23%) indicated open source would make up 25-50% of their deployed code over the next five years, while 15% of respondents said the open source share of deployed code would be a quarter or less.

*We also saw a high rate of open source participation from the survey. When asked about community engagement with open source and their preferred method, 49% of respondents said consuming code, 36% said reporting patches or fixes, 31% said contributing new features, 28% said initiating new projects, 25% said contributing through partners or industry alliances. We believe this shows a high rate of open source participation beyond using code, which is also a meaningful contribution. This also indicates a greater willingness to get involved with open source projects and to start new projects.

*The survey also highlighted the changing drivers of open source software in the enterprise. When asked what are the top factors that make open source software attractive, respondents identified freedom from vendor lock-in (60%), lower acquisition and maintenance cost (51%), better quality (43%) and access to source code (42%) as the top answers. While we had seen vendor lock-in fade as a factor and cost as paramount two or three years ago, today vendor lock-in has become much more of a factor for customers. We believe this has to do wtih cloud computing and customers’ desire to maintain flexibility as they figure out how to best leverage cloud resources. The survey also showed that cost, which we also equate to time and efficiency, is always a strong factor, with 62% of respondents identifying reduced cost of development and maintenance as the main reason they use open source or initiate projects.

*The survey also reinforced our belief that while open source software lays the groundwork and underlies much of cloud computing, the cloud is also giving back to open source by providing vendors a way to differentiate free downloads from paid, cloud-based services. In fact, it seems support and services subscriptions are a much higher priority for open source software vendors than so-called ‘open core’ models that provide software for free and certain extensions, features or support as paid. When asked which revenue generation strategies are likely to create the most value for open source vendors over the next two years, respondents ranked an annual, repeatable support and service agreement as the top answer (52%). Other open source revenue models, such as ad-hoc services and support (41%), value-add subscription (40%), hosted or cloud software services (38%) all ranked higher than a closed-source license or open core model (12%).

For our full analysis on the results of the 2012 Future of Open Source Survey, see our Spotlight report. The results were also presented this week on a panel at the Open Source Business Conference and that presentation is available at the Open Source Delivers blog.

How to Select Open Source Software and Joomla! - Rome, 4th of June 2012

2012-05-22T11:44:51+00:00

Jun

2:00 pm

The next Focus Group Open Source meeting will focus on how to select open source software and the case for Joomla!

After a walk through topics like Social Media and Open Data, it’s time to get back to our roots. This time to talk about Joomla! we invited Ryan Ozimek, one of the leading world Joomla! experts, former President of Open Source Matters and CEO and founder of PICnet Inc, a company that develops innovative solutions for public and nonprofit organizations around the world.

The event will feature also Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona’s keynote about how to evaluate and select open source software. Barahona is Professor at the University Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid and founder of Bitergia, a startup that specializes in the development of open source projects.

For more information and to sign up for the event, see the Focus Group Open Source blog.

Back to the future of commercial open source

2012-05-21T18:31:29+00:00

It’s been tempting to write a post about open source licensing trends and how they relate to commercial business strategies, given ongoing interest in our previous posts about the relative decline of the GPL.

Every time I start to write a post though I realise that I’d just be repeating myself, most notably The future of commercial open source business strategies from December 2011, but also Control and Community – and the future of commercial open source strategies from late 2010.

You can trace the origins of the theories and research in those posts back to The golden age of open source? in August 2010, and even further to Commercial open source business strategies in 2009 and beyond from early 2009.

That post in particular contains the core elements about why we believed we were at a tipping point with regards to commercial open source strategies, prompting the shift from vendor-led strategies that emphasised control via copyleft licenses, to community-led strategies that emphasised collaboration via permissive licenses.

The one aspect that those posts didn’t cover is what happens after this shift. That is a question that has recently been addressed by Simon Phipps, who predicts that the pendulum will swing to the centre and weak-copyleft licenses and specifically the recently released MPLv2.

While I don’t dispute the logic of that prediction, I can see nothing in the data that we have previously collected and analysed that indicates a shift to weak-copyleft. As you can see, while there was a strong shift from vendors towards non-copyleft licenses from 2007 onwards, we have seen no such shift with regards to weak-copyleft.

Which is not to say that it won’t happen – just that we see no evidence of it right now, and that we would have to see an enormous swing towards weak-copyleft licenses in the next couple of years. It will be interesting to see whether the release of MPLv2 will be the event that triggers that swing.

Mixed signals in IT’s great war over IP

2012-05-10T00:05:30+00:00

Recent news that Microsoft and Barnes & Noble agreed to partner on the Nook e-reader line rather than keep fighting over intellectual property suggests the prospect of more settlement and fewer IP suits in the industry. However, the deal further obscures the blurry IP and patent landscape currently impacting both enterprise IT and consumer technology.

It is good to see settlement — something I’ve been calling for, while also warning against patent and IP aggression. However, this settlment comes from the one conflict in this ongoing war that was actually shedding some light on the matter, rather than further complicating it.

See the full article at TechNewsWorld.

Apache OpenOffice.org 3.4: Download it Now!

2012-05-08T17:52:13+00:00

The Apache OpenOffice.org project announced the availability of OpenOffice.org 3.4, see the new features and improvement in the Release Notes. You might get the gist of some of the new features looking at the Apache OpenOffice SourceForge video, featured also on FeatherCast.

Apache OpenOffice 3.4 main new features:

word processing, spreadsheets, presentation graphics, databases, drawing, and mathematical editing applications support for Windows, Linux (32-bit and 64-bit) and Macintosh operating environments

native language support for English, Arabic, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Galician, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese

improved ODF support, including new ODF 1.2 encryption options and new spreadsheet functions

enhanced pivot table support in Calc

enhanced graphics, including line caps, shear transformations and native support for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)

improvements in performance and quality

Download it now!

More than just a Forge

2012-05-03T14:06:50+00:00

SourceForge just a forge? Not quite, not anymore. SourceForge is investing time and resources to help open source projects to grow, and we do that through numerous ways. Take our recent collaboration with one of the most famous open source projects: the OpenOffice project, now incubated at the Apache Software Foundation.

SourceForge helps the Apache OpenOffice by serving downloads for the Extensions and the Templates sites, as well as the shortly upcoming Apache OpenOffice 3.4 Release.

Read the full article at SourceForge blog.

Version Control by Example, by Eric Sink

2012-04-23T12:33:07+00:00

Over the last few days I have been reading Eric Sink’s “Version Control by Example“, a book providing all relevant, amusing and pragmatic information about both centralized (Subversion) and decentralized version control systems (Git, Mercurial and last but not least Veracity).

I really enjoyed reading it, it explains the nuts and bolts of all these (Distributed) Version Control Systems, in a simple and effective way. It’s worth reading if you’re deep into any of them, and you want to know more about other ones too.