Mergers and acquisitions made the news again this week which, given the Microsoft-Yahoo bid, is like saying the Biblical flood was an interesting weather event. Best MSFT-YHOO one-liner, again from Kara Swisher of Wall Street Journal’s BoomTown: “And while it’s never over until it’s over, let me just say, for Yahoo, it’s over.”

The deal has open source implications too, such as: what becomes of Zimbra? Some opinions:

• Yahoo! buy would give Microsoft ownership of open source e-mail, projects, code. Ugh. (ZDNet Open Source)
• Microsoft and open source: Welcome to the Borg? (Open Road)
• Microsoft’s open-source strategy: A picture is worth a thousand words (All About Microsoft)
• Microsoft/Yahoo Combo Equals Bad News for Web 2.0, Open Source (Intelligent Enterprise)
• MS-Yow!, not MS-Yahoo! for Open Source (open…)
• YahooSoft Bid Shakes The Start-Ups (Forbes.com)
• Yahoo-Microsoft: Corporate Culture Problem Squared (portfolio.com)

We’ll blog more on the current open source M&A boom next week. But what’s your take? Do you think consolidation among open source projects helps or hinders adoption by enterprise open source users? Post your comments below.

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Today’s Wall Street Journal has a great story on HP’s efforts to shrink the size and cost of their IT infrastucture. “Taming Technology Sprawl” (subscription required) details some of the issues the tech giant faced trying to slim down a tech infrastructure swollen by multiple acquisitions and overlapping IT staffs.

“Since July 2005, the Palo Alto, Calif., firm has been in a project to cut the number of computer programs it uses by more than half, and reduce the number of its data centers — where large computers run programs that support H-P’s businesses — to six from 85.”

The cost is significant. “H-P spent $4.2 billion — about 5% of 2005 revenue — to maintain its IT systems” and aims to drop that to 2% of revenue and shed half of the 19,000 person staff.

A key problem? Too many software programs.

“Abour eight months after launching the overhaul in mid-2005, H-P’s new Chief Information Officer Randy Mott unexpectedly hit a hurdle. According to a February 2006 survey, H-P employees depended on about 6,000 computer programs — nearly double what Mr. Mott had expected. By then, he was months into the project and had allocated money and staff based on earlier assumptions. “I was blindsided,” says Mr. Mott, who formerly worked at Dell Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.”

The story goes on to describe other issues, including how CIO Mott had to battle VPs who were loath to give up their departmental computing resources. But I kept thinking about how difficult it is to really keep track of what software programs are in use within an organization, and how many of those might be open-source or otherwise untraceable through conventional license tracking. Then I spotted a mention of Matt Asay’s News.com blog item on the story behind HP’s FOSSology open-source tools. Asay quotes HP’s Christine Marino, VP of Linux and open source, on the creation of an open source tool for open source governance.

Free and open-source software is everywhere. It’s not just Linux (not that Linux is just one thing, anyway). At HP we’ve been using free and open-source software throughout our company for years as a consumer and contributor of free and open-source software.

Many years ago we realized that we needed some processes around our adoption of open source. We were very clear that we wanted to take advantage of FOSS (free and open-source software) but also that we needed to manage our use of it. Our processes have grown and evolved over the years, and we’ve written software to assist with these processes.

About 18 months ago during our open-source customer councils we talked about the tools that we had built internally and there was almost a rush to the doors, with our customers clamoring for these kinds of tools to help them manage their open-source adoption. So, really, it was our customers asking for our assistance in managing their open-source software that was the impetus for our open-sourcing our framework today.

Martino goes on to say that HP considered creating a proprietary product but chose to stay with open source tools because “there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to FOSS governance.” She does not mention CIO Mott, but I can well believe FOSS tracking tools got a big boost internally when the IT cost reduction project arrived.

All of this makes me wonder if there are open source tools for managing both FOSS and proprietary software governance? Does open source have a role to play in IT mangement of both types? Post your comments on this issue below.

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Everyone says you get more with open source. So here you go — ten CEOs of open source companies offering their views on the enterprise open source outlook for the New Year. Sponsored by the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), the CEOs of member companies responded to four questions about open source issues for 2008. Some sample prognostications:

1. What will trigger increasing adoption of open source in the enterprise in 2008?

“There will be an increasing confluence between the open source and software as a service models. These are the two most powerful trends in software today, and while they’ve traditionally been seen as separate, parallel developments, they are rapidly combining to create the new business model for enterprise software. The combination is not just at the development level — BaaS companies adopting open source technologies to lower the cost of operations and R&D — but more importantly, on the distribution side.” — William A. Soward, CEO, Adaptive Planning

2. What is the biggest challenge for the open source software industry in 2008?

“More lawsuits will be brought against large corporations and technology companies in 2008 as open source advocates step up enforcement of the APL v2, v and other open source licenses.” — Doug Levin, CEO, Black Duck

“Figuring out business models that will produce viable, long term software companies rather than ‘flash in the pan’ ubiquity plays. Merely racing to see who can give the most away to a buyer who will take as much as the can get before paying money will not produce viable software companies.” — Javier Soltero, CEO, Hyperic

3. How big an effect will licensing have on open-source software in 2008?

“Open source licensing will continue to bother enterprise users but the dissemination of best implementation practices including license management will reduce this issue somewhat.” — Michael Grove, CEO, OpenIT Works

“We don’t see much impact here. Customers continue to get educated about the code they use and about open source licensing in general, so FUD will have less of a factor than in the past.” — Kim Polese, CEO, SpikeSource

4. What will be the biggest surprise in open source in 2008?

“During ‘08, the pressures CIOs will face to drive greater business innovation with a fixed (or low growth) IT budget will conspire to challenge every possible traditional software license. The 80% of the IT budget used to maintain existing or legacy systems must become more productive in order to satisfy the business goal of improved innovation.” — Brian Gentile, CEO, JasperSoft

“The biggest surprise in 2008 will be to see Open Source players register three-digit growth rates!” — Bertrand Diard, CEO, Talend

Get the complete list of questions and responses from the Open Solutions Alliance (OSA) site. (PDF)

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The GNU Affero GPL (GAGPL) Version 3 and the companion Affero GPL version 2 licenses released last week provide for public access to source code (modified or not) running on a network server. The current GPLv3 license does not cover this specific scenario, hence the new license version.

To give an example, if you are browsing the latest hosted social media application and it displays the GAGPLv3 license, you should be able to locate and download the source code for the application you are using. You might have to pay a fee — remember the “free” in free software means freedom to copy, not the price — but you will have the source with the modifications to use as you see fit, subject to the other stipulations in the license. As developers adopt this license, will it cause web sites to rethink dependence on open source components?

Palle Pedersen’s blog post “Is AGPL (Affero GPL) the Doom of Google?” has a lengthy analysis of the issue. He notes:

A wide adoption of the AGPL would change a current standard practice for creating a web application, where the developers start with a few pieces of GPL software and then modify the software until it suits their needs. With AGPL software in the mix, a business decision would have to be made on whether to use AGPL software and make source code for modifications and additions available - or to avoid AGPL software and spend more time developing software which can be kept out of the hands of competitors and potential hackers.

Larger companies, e.g. Google and Yahoo, are actually among the best positioned to live in this new world. They can carefully evaluate the trade-offs on a case-by-case basis and can introduce processes to make sure that AGPL code does not sneak into places where it should not be.

It will be interesting to watch the rate at which this new license is adopted. One source for tracking open source license adoption rates is Black Duck Software’s Open Source License Resource Center. Read the Free Software Foundation’s announcement of the new license here.

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South Africa-based open source document management project KnowledgeTree released KnowledgeTree Open Source Edition 3.5 under the OSI-approved GPL v3 license Wednesday, replacing the prior “KnowledgeTree Public License” for this and future versions.

In his in-depth blog post about the license change, KnowledgeTree COO Daniel Chalef explains the thinking behind adopting GPLv3. Some key elements include:

“Firstly, we wanted a license that would be widely accepted by our community and the open source community at large. We did not want to risk the license we were using to be, over time, relegated to the peripheries of the open source world. We wanted to use a license that would have wide acceptance and momentum behind it. What this would mean is that our community would fully understand their rights and obligations around utilizing the software and would not be dissuaded from doing so because they felt they would need to undertake a lengthy and costly legal exercise to determine if they could use our code …

We’ve also matured our thinking, built out our community, learnt a lot more about our business and now believe that a strong copyleft license is more appropriate for us: it is far more friendly to an open source community and far more likely to dissuade commercial use of the code in circumstances where profit is involved.”

I was struck by this forward-looking and common-sense approach. Speaking for the “customer” side, IT managers considering an enterprise-class open source solution for use inside the company firewall find the intricacies of some open source licensing terms can turn a simple product selection decision based on features and cost into a mind-numbing analysis of dense and often ambiguous licensing legalese.

Acknowledging that easily understood terms for using open source applications benefit both the “customer” and the “contributor” communities demonstrates a clear vision of what’s important for the advancement of open source and the success of enterprise projects. Congrats to KnowledgeTree.

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Monday’s big not-really-news was Microsoft’s acceptance of the European Commission’s 2004 antitrust ruling governing sharing of information about workgroup server protocols with third-party developers. Microsoft also agreed to lower the royalty rate for the information. It’s a big concession by Microsoft — but a big ’so what?’ from the enterprise open source community.

InformationWeek’s Open Source blog may have headlined it best: Microsoft Bows To The EU, Open Source Shrugs . The post also gives a good roundup of the issues.

But the best quote may have come in ZDNet’s Open Source blog . Citing no benefit and a change in patent licensing, OpenOffice.org marketing lead John McCreesh said: “the EU has laboured for three years to produce this particular ridiculous mouse.”

In the same ZDNet post, Optaros developer Dave Gynn made a more specific request, noting while the decision opens up internal protocols “we’re not writing code to that level. We need web service APIs, not protocol at the network transport level.”

Will Microsoft ever accept the open source agenda? Stay tuned for the next round.

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Alex Russell, president of the Dojo Foundation and Project Lead of the Dojo project, posted to his blog last week an essay “On Licensing” which is worthy of its Emersonian title.

It’s the kind of explanation I wish everyone thinking about creating an open source project read. He comes at the question of “How do I choose a license for my open source project” from the point of view of real practical hands on experience. The short version:

If your goal is to get your code into the most people’s hands with the least fuss, go BSD/MIT/Apache-ish. If you care about software freedom at the expense of potential users, or if you want to be able to sell your code later without real competition, go (L)GPL-ish. Those are gross oversimplifications of the choices involved, but as we’ll see they largely line up on-side because they imply that you sort of have an idea of who you want your users to be.

OK, so maybe the “at the expense of potential users” is a bit polemic - I might say something like “if you care about software freedom over the abililty to achieve the broadest possible adoption” - but in the context of the article as a whole, Russell is very even handed about the pros and cons of various approaches.

In addition to taking up the question of which license to choose, he walks through the impact of those choices and the different ways in which license-choice has practical impacts on project success (I’ve picked out key phrases from a number of paragraphs below):

First, you’re going to need to consider the cultural impact of licensing. . . . Ensuring that your code can be mixed with other code that you care about is often down to licensing, so look around and see what others are doing before you pick.

Secondly, consider commercial use. Big Open Source companies like IBM and Sun have a strong preference for clean BSD-ish code. . . .

Next, remember that your project isn’t just trying to court new users, it’s also trying (hopefully) to find new developers to pitch in and make it even more awesome. . . .

Lastly, remember that licensing may be a no-op. Even if you throw all the right flags with your licensing, your code may still suck or your UI may be totally unusable. . . .

Finally, Russell also walks through the importance of contributor agreements, the value of foundations, and the potential for dual-licensing.

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Earlier this summer, the folks at Six Apart announced the formation of an open source project around the Movable Type blogging platform (see my post on OpenParenthesis and Sebastian’s on blog.wohlrapp.com).

There’s been a fair amount of anticipation surrounding the project, since Movable Type was an early an important platform for users hosting their own blogs, and it seemed that a GPL’d version of that platform would be a potentially strong competitor to WordPress and Roller for anyone interested in an open source blog platform. (The launch date for the OpenSource version is still said to be Q3 of 2007 - which ought to be quite soon).

Recently, Mark on WordPress (”What a GPL’d Movable Type Means for WordPress“) pointed out a key difference between WordPress and MTOS (and not just that Movable Type is two words while WordPress is just one, though that seems hard enough for me to remember - you’d think the fact that the company name is Six Apart should be enough to remind me).

Although both WordPress and MTOS are/will be released under the GPL (v2 presumably, though Six Apart hasn’t said for certain), Six Apart’s Open Source Contribution Policy will require contributors to assign copyright to Six Apart for anything they contribute, in order to preserve their ability to dual license the application.

(more…)

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Ross Mayfield argues that it is “Time for Web 2.0 to be Unleashed with Open Source.”

According to Ross:

Web 2.0 companies are largely built upon Open Source software. But how many of them do you consider significant contributors to Open Source? In general, there is an open ethic, and communities demand (and reward) it. But somewhere along the way, the focus shifted to APIs and Open Source wasn’t rationalized as part of the business model. Some call them Open APIs or Open Data, but until there is a legal framework adhered to as community standard (word is OSI will work to address this), they are just APIs with unilateral rights. And with the focus on APIs, instead of contributing code back to the projects you leverage, or contributing your own projects, cooperation has been limited (save a handful of great standards efforts like Atom) Business models have also been held back by the gradual evolution of Open Source licensing, until now.

Until, that is, the OSI approved the Common Public Attribution License.

While I’m not convinced personally that this change (availability of an additional license option) will single-handedly bring about a shift such as the one Ross describes, it will undoubtedly make possible additional innovation in the software-as-a-service arena, and hopefully will broaden the set of enterprises who feel comfortable opening (portions of) their codebases.

I’d love to see new social network platforms and applications, for example, take the step of making not only their APIs but their codebases available.

I’m reminded of the contrast (which I’ve blogged about elsewhere) during the O’Reilly Executive Briefing at this year’s OSCON between the Mozilla Firefox extension development platform and the Facebook API: how much richer the context was for Firefox plugin developers, and how controlled and limited the environment is for Facebook API developers.

Mozilla didn’t need the CPAL to enable such openness, but maybe other projects will feel that they can now release code they would otherwise have held private.

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We have done a lot of work over the last weeks. Not only did we make a lot of features work better, we also implemented the promised “OSI certified” indicator that documents whether the used license of a project is following the defined standards by OSI. There might still be some small errors in terms of the allocation of this indicators, but we keep working making it right. We have also upgraded the forum component and redesigned the front page of the directory. Small steps, but hopefully positive for the users. Traffic is increasing constantly and the popularity hitlist is changing - Alfresco made it to second, KnowledgeTree entered the top five. A recent Podcast done by Stephen Walli features the EOS Directory and gives insights from the maker, the community and the analyst perspective.

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