Banking on open source. Open source as a business model. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

Banking on open source
# CIOL.com reported on the benefits of Standard Chartered Bank’s open source-based core banking system.

Open source as a business model
The “open source has failed as a …

I’ve been trying to dig a bit deeper into the European Commission’s investigation of Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems, to look beyond the received wisdom about the EC’s concerns about the deal.

We know they revolve around the open source MySQL database, the European Commission has said that much. But the Statement of Objections weighs in at 155 pages, and even those that have read it admit to being confused by it. Meanwhile some of the most vocal parties in the public debate have vested interests in encouraging opinions for or against the deal.

Without knowing precisely what the European Commission wants to achieve it is impossible to come to any conclusions about the investigation. However, here are a few statements and observations:

…

A number of people have recently raised the issue of the threat that cloud computing poses to the monetization of open source by specialist vendors, including Savio Rodrigues, Matt Asay, and Mike Hogan.

I believe that cloud computing provides an opportunity for open source specialists, but agree that cloud services based on open source code could potentially eat into the business opportunities for open source specialists since the cloud providers have no …

Savio Rodrigues has published a post arguing that cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure pose a threat to the monetization of open source by specialist vendors.

Savio makes a good case based on the recent launch of AWS’s Relational Database Service, based on MySQL, and Microsoft’s support for MySQL and Tomcat on Azure:

“When Amazon decided to offer MySQL via Amazon RDS, they did so without purchasing MySQL support from Sun. I’ve confirmed that Microsoft Azure is supporting MySQL on Azure without paying Sun for a MySQL Enterprise subscription.”

Clearly there is a threat to open source vendors from cloud-based services. Meanwhile I have previous …

Google launches Chromium project, Terracotta acquires Quartz. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

# Google launched the Chromium OS open source project, a prelude to the Chrome OS, while Canonical confirmed that it is contributing to the development of Chrome OS.

# Terracotta …

Larry Augustin confirmed as SugarCRM CEO. Red Hat’s Fedora Project is 12. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

# Larry Augustin was confirmed as full-time CEO of SugarCRM.

# Red Hat, by way of the Fedora Project, announced the launch of Fedora 12.

# Microsoft is to …

Symbian’s future in the balance? All Go for Chrome OS. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

For the latest on Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL via Sun, see Everything you always wanted to know about MySQL but were afraid to ask

Symbian’s future in the balance?
The H reported that Samsung is to abandon Symbian in favour of Windows Mobile, Android and the new Samsung bada OS, while Samsung later denied that …

Since the European Commission announced it was opening an in-depth investigation into the proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems by Oracle with a focus on MySQL there has been no shortage of opinion written about Oracle’s impending ownership of MySQL and its impact on MySQL users and commercial partners, as well as MySQL’s business model, dual licensing and the GPL.

In order to try and bring some order to the conversation, we have brought together some of the most referenced blog posts and news stories in chronological order.

Part one took us from the announcement of the EC’s in-depth investigation up to the eve of the communication of the EC’s Statement of Objections.

Part two, below, takes us from there to the eve of the announcement of Oracle’s concessions. …

Below is a rough draft of the cornerstone slide for a new presentation deck I am putting together to explain the various business strategies for monetizing open source software. The aim is to explain every single existing strategy using the elements on this one slide (although I am yet to test it out).

In our previous discussions about business strategies we have noted that there are four elements that shape a business strategy around open source software: the open source software license; the development strategy; the end user license strategy; and the revenue trigger.

As can be seen from the slide above, I have added a fifth element: copyright control. Copyright was previously considered in our research around business strategies but was seen more as an underlying influence than a distinct strategy element.

I have recently come to the realisation that copyright control is not just a part of each of the four elements, and …

Objectional statements on Oracle-Sun-MySQL. How Google uses Linux. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

Objectional statements
The European Commission communicated its Statement of Objections to Oracle’s proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems to those involved, prompting Oracle to claim the EC has a profound misunderstanding of database competition and open source, the US DoJ to reiterate its position that Oracle’s acquisition of Sun is unlikely to be anticompetitive and an EC spokesperson to explain that concern over …