Matt Asay spun up a cool video just like Soylent Green, open source software is people.

Technorati Tags: Matt Asay, Open Source, People

The methodologies of Open Source are not owned or guided by any one person. The closest thing we have are the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and support of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The OSI certifies what qualifies as an open source license. They have as of late also been adding the TM to the Open Source logo which is the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for open source software. While the Free Software Foundation maintains the Free Software Definition – to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software.

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Technorati Tags: Bruce Perens, free software, Matt Asay, Open Source, Open Source Initiative, OSI

Today LinuxWorld published a piece I sort of wrote. You see I finished it before the holidays originally titled the Who Matters the Most in Open Source Business. The fine folks at LinuxWorld did take a little bit of editorial license with the story and renamed it 2008’s Top Leaders in Open Source Business.

The list includes Marten Mickos, Andy Astor, John Roberts, Larry Augustin, Jonathan Swartz, The Redmonks (James, Michael, and Stephen), Raven Zachary, whurley, Anthony Gold, and Micahel Tiemann. All of whom I think are doing very important things in open source.

There were a couple of items left out of the piece that I thought were materially important. First, the disclosure. While I gave them the article to LinuxWorld I did include a disclosure on the piece that I think is important. Being a big advocate of the mantra YOYOW (You Own Your Own Words) I thought it important you understand a minimum about whose words they are.

[Disclosure: Mark Hinkle is a technologist and writer interested in open source, social media, and on-line communities. Mark is a former editor in chief of LinuxWorld Magazine and currently serves as the VP of Community at Zenoss Inc. He's had numerous professional and personal dealings with most of the business persons mentioned in this article. He can be reached via his blog -- www.socializedsoftware.com]

In the closing I mentioned that the list was far from exhaustive. Which is why I love Top 10 lists. What is almost as interesting about the list is who others think should be on the list.

This list is far from exhaustive you could make a case for many others including Mike Olson Vice President of Embedded Technologies at Oracle who was the former CEO of open source Sleepycat. Andrew Aiken of the Olliance group who consults to open source start-ups and corporations interested in open source like Microsoft. Andre Boisvert former proprietary tech titan at Oracle and SAS sits on a myriad of open source company board could be considered for the list as could Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth. As with any list eventually a line must be drawn.

Matt Asay suggested a few more:

• Matthew Szulik, Mark Radcliffe, Lonn Johnston, Richard Stallman
• The Money Guys – Peter Fenton, David Skok, Kevin Harvey, Robin Vasan
• The Savvy Analysts and Devoted Journalists – Glyn Moody, Matt Aslett
• OSS CEOS – Dave Rosenberg, Javier Soltero

Which gives me the idea. I think I will do a series of Take 5 articles (Five questions on open source and how are you are involved) with those not on the list and see if can learn something. Stay tuned.

Technorati Tags: LinuxWorld, lists, Matt Asay, Open Source, Top10

Fortune Magazine has published a list of hot IPOs for 2008. What’s notable about the list is that four out of five of the highlighted companies have a significant investment in or are driven by open source related-products and services. 

• MySQL – MySQL is perhaps the best example of pervasive adoption of open source in the enterprise after Linux. After years of giving away millions of copies of software MySQL has built a thriving (and I suspect profitable) business. I had the opportunity to spend a few days with MySQL CEO, Marten Mickos last spring and I have the sense they are a class act from the top down. (Maybe there is a correlation between corporate character and financial success…at least I can hope.)
• Ingres – Since being spun out of Computer Associates (CA) Ingres the database company has gotten new legs. I was surprised to see their revenues were approaching the $100 million mark (per the Fortune article). I also like their management team, Ingres SVP of Engineering, Emma McGrattan is a firecracker and I have had great interactions with many of their other execs. Unlike many open source projects Ingres (the database, not the company) has been around since the 1970s proven itself over the course of decades without an open source community. Should Ingress develop that muscle they should have a rosy future. 
• SugarCRM – I am a SugarCRM user and have used many of the proprietary alternatives (Seibel, Clarify, Salesforce.com, Onyx, etc.) my observation is that Sugar’s got some big enterprise features at a small business price point. They also have a thriving community which is critical for someone who bases their business on open source, it’s what gives them leverage and allows them to rapidly gain adoption, brand awareness, and ultimately financial success. 
• Parallels (formerly SWsoft) – SWsoft was probably best known for their Plesk Control panel used by hosting providers until they acquired Parallels and beat VMware to the virtualization punch on the fast growing Mac OS X desktop. They also launched an open source operating system level virtualization project, OpenVZ in fall of 2005 which has made steady progress. I would be interesting to see if they can be successful running second to VMware by carving out an appropriate niche.  

Matt Aslett from the 451 Group has some additional analysis on the topic. For those of us that are in open source software this is a big deal. What will be an even greater proof point of our model will be their financial success once they trade in an open market. Either way it’s an exciting time for open source software. 

(via Matt Asay)

Technorati Tags: Ingres, IPO, Matt Asay, Matt Aslett, MySQL, Open Source, Parallels, SugarCRM, SWSoft