open

The art and science of dual licensing

Stefano Comino and Fabio Manenti have written a useful paper [PDF] on dual licensing in open source. It's a decent resource for helping developers and vendors figure out why, if, and how to dual license their software. (See here for a useful explanation of what dual licensing means, and Heather Meeker's piece is a must read for anyone interested in the legal ramifications of the practice.)

I found myself agreeing with much of the authors' conclusions, but not necessarily the tone or conclusion, because they seem to see dual licensing as a way to drive sales. Of course, it sometimes undoubtedly is - for some time a large percentage of MySQL's, Sleepycat's, db4o's, etc. sales were motivated by a proprietary license waiting to "rescue" the OEM/customer from an open source license.… Read more

OpenID

Category: Browsing

OpenID is a solution for the log-in problem of having multiple identities online. With OpenID, you create one master identity online at a site that you use a lot and tend to remain logged in to--for instance, a social network site or your personal blog. When you need to identify yourself to another new site, you point that site toward your main identity-providing site where you're already logged in. Your main site sends the new site your log-in credentials, so the new site now knows who you are.

In theory, if OpenID was adopted on every Web … Read more

US Department of Defense: We love open source lots and lots

Dave, who was clearly being held back by me over at Open Sources, the Department of Defense's latest Software Tech News, and highlights some interesting factoids (though he fails to read pages 37-38, which focus on Alfresco ;-):

The US Army is the single largest install base for Red Hat Linux Government contractor devIS reports that it "saves its clients a minimum of $100,000 per contract by using OSS." US Government policies mandate that government acquisitions consider OSS approaches.

And now you see why Microsoft and the proprietary rabble-rousers are, well, rousing the rabble. Once open … Read more

Open source demand generation goes 2.0

Today, Loopfuse announced that it has released the 2.0 version of its open source demand generation product. In case you missed David Skok's exceptional OSBC presentation (Detailing lessons learned from JBoss' success, and an upgrade on my own presentation on this same subject). [Note: If you're prompted for a user name/password, try conference/attendee.]

What is demand generation? If you're an open source company, it's your lifeblood. Open source companies grow up and live online. If you're not using a demand generation tool like Loopfuse (or Eloqua - proprietary and pricey but very … Read more

No Microsoft-Ubuntu deal in the works, Canonical CEO says

Anyone expecting a technical and legal partnership between Microsoft and Ubuntu distributor Canonical to follow existing Microsoft-Linux deals will be disappointed--at least for now.

Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth in a blog posting on Saturday said a deal that resembles the pacts that Microsoft has signed with Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire is not on the table.

He said Canonical has declined to talk to Microsoft about any agreement that provides legal protection to Ubuntu users related to "unspecified patents."

"Allegations of 'infringement of unspecified patents' carry no weight whatsoever. We don't think they have any … Read more

Why people write documentation (Andy Oram)

I'm glad Andy went through the bother of doing this survey on why people write free documentation. It's a topic of constant discussion at Alfresco, and I'm sure at most open source projects and companies. It's a difficult proposition to get outside contributors to any project, and particularly a commercial open source project, but to get contributions to documentation...? Much harder, because it provides far fewer immediate benefits to developers (and no one likes writing documentation at the best of times).

So, why do people contribute their time and expertise toward writing free documentation. What's … Read more

Democracy Player: First Look

Democracy Player, set to be renamed Miro with its next release, is an open-source video player that not only works for almost every type of video file out there, it also arranges vidcasts into "channels" to help keep them all organized. The channel guide creates automatic downloads of your favorite Web shows, from Ask a Ninja to National Geographic Wild.

Take a quick tour of Democracy Player with this First Look video.

Happy Fathers Day

There is nothing like fathers day weekend for a little golf. The US Open is on and we can all watch the best players struggle on a golf course that is so tough it makes even Tiger look a little average. All of us arm chair commentators can watch and reflect on how we could shoot 80 or 90 like the pros. Not so soon my friend if you want to feel a little US Open tech this weekend get your putter out and try putting or chipping on the ceramic tile in your kitchen because that is what a … Read more

H&R Block CIO discusses benefits of open source adoption

Marc West, CIO of H&R Block, keynoted this year's Open Source Business Conference, and gave excellent insight into why a multi-billion dollar financial services company has turned to open source to deliver innovation and better service to its customers.

InfoWorld just uploaded all the videos from the event today, which you can access here. Marc's keynote is available below.

Open source legal: Baptism by immersion

Linux.com is reporting on a great new program offered by the Software Freedom Law Center, called the "Open Source Law Immersion Program." It's designed to give practicing attorneys the information they need to successfully grok open source (maybe so that they don't come up with "No open source" clauses in their licenses.

The Software Freedom Law Center is now inviting applications for a resident legal experience designed for practicing lawyers interested in learning more about open source software through direct on-site exposure to SFLC's open source software law practice. Positions are somewhat … Read more