Last week I presented “From support services to software services – the evolution of open source business strategies” at the OSBC event in San Francisco.

The presentation was effectively a work in progress update on our research into the various strategies employed by technology vendors to generate revenue from open source software.

It included a partial explanation of my theory that those strategies do not exist in isolation, but are steps on an evolutionary process, and also introduced our model for visualizing the core elements of an open source-related business strategy.

I provided a number of examples of how the model could be used to compare the strategies of various open source businesses. …

Marten Mickos joins Eucalyptus. Novell rejects Elliot. Perspectives on OSBC. 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.”

# Mårten Mickos was named CEO of Eucalyptus Systems.

# Novell’s board rejected Elliot’s takeover proposal as inadequate, will review other alternatives.

# North Bridge Venture Partners published the results of its Future of Open Source survey.

# Rob Bearden was appointed executive chairman of the board of Pentaho.

# The Eclipse Foundation …

Updating the MPL. Funding for Lucid and eXo. StatusNet. 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.”

Updating the MPL
# ZDnet reported that the 10-year-old Mozilla Public License will be updated by the end of 2010, while Mitchell Baker explained the process.

Funding for Lucid and eXo
# Lucid Imagination raised $10m in series B funding from Shasta Ventures, Granite Ventures and Walden International.

# eXo Platform raised $6m from Auriga …

Elliot offers $2bn for Novell. OSI refutes IIPA’s view on open source. 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.”

# Novell confirmed a $2bn purchase offer from Elliot Associates. Interesting perspectives on Elliot’s offer for Novell from Linuxquestions, Andy Updegrove, and Matt Asay.

# The OSI categorically rejected the …

Novell’s Q1. The future of OpenSolaris. 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.”

# Novell reported Linux platform revenue of $37.5m in Q1, up 6.4%.

# Internet.com reported that Novell’s Linux business broke even as Microsoft deal revenues fade.

# As the H reported Oracle exec Dan Roberts confirmed that OpenSolaris has a future at Oracle.

# Citrix acquired Paglo, launched GoToManage service.

# StatusNet …

There’s been a fair amount of attention – both positive and negative – on dual licensing in recent weeks. A few days ago Brian Aker wrote: “The fact is, there are few, and growing fewer, opportunities to make money on dual licensing.”

It is a sweeping statement, but one that is worth further consideration, especially since, as Stephen O’Grady noted it is directly contradicted by Gartner’s prediction that: “By 2012, at least 70% of the revenue from commercial OSS will come from vendor-centric projects with dual-license business models.”

Success?

I remember reading this prediction back in December but dismissing it as …

Licensing, community, funding, revenue, business models, patents. 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.”

# The OpenOffice.org Community announced the release of OpenOffice.org 3.2.

# An interview with Michael Tiemann on licensing and community.

# DotNetNuke raised $8m series B funding.

# Microsoft updated its Linux Integrated Components, introducing support for RHEL in Hyper-V.

# An interview with Marten Mickos on …

There was some incredulity expressed yesterday when I suggested that SAP is a great case study on the way in which proprietary companies have engaged with open source.

To be clear, I was not suggesting that SAP is, or should be considered, an open source company, but based on our understanding of SAP’s changing strategy with regards to open source software it represents a good case study on how proprietary companies have learned that it is in their best interests to contribute to open source software projects.

Jay and I had the opportunity yesterday to speak to Claus von Riegen, SAP director of technology standards and open source, and Erwin Tenhumberg, SAP open source program manager. Our formal …

Ken Jacobs departs Oracle. Linus loves his Nexus One. 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.”

# As Matt Asay noted, Ken Jacobs’ departure from Oracle is a significant loss for MySQL.

# Linus Toravlds gave the Nexus One his personal thumbs-up.

# Glyn Moody outlined the H.264 video standards debate.

# Oracle job cuts affect GNOME accessibility work but, as Joe Brockmeier pointed out, the blame lies with everyone.

# SourceForge project administrators …

One of the issues I have with the Free Software approach is that advocates have habit of throwing the baby out with the bathwater when discussing issues that they see as in any way negative to free software.

I was reminded of this while reading Bradley M. Kuhn’s criticism of Mark Shuttleworth’s reported views on copyright assignment.

Having read the original interview with Mark, and then Bradley’s response, it is pretty clear that the two have very different perspectives on copyright assignment: Mark is speaking from the perspective of a commercial business, Bradley form that of a non-profit foundation.

The two entities have very different reasons for enforcing copyright assignment …