September 11, 2007 4:53 PM PDT

Infoworld's BOSSIE awards demonstrate open source's progress

(Credit: Infoworld)

It's great to see Infoworld recognizing exceptional open-source projects with its BOSSIE awards. Even more significant to me, however, is the fact that it was able to come up with 36 great open-source projects, without a weak one among them.

Projects like OpenBravo, MuleSource, Liferay, ClamAV, and others (yes, Alfresco, too) demonstrate that we have a vibrant and growing open-source community, commercial and otherwise. Five years ago the BOSSIEs would have struggled to find more than a handful of exceptional projects.

Now we have an abundance. This is good for customers and it's good for the software industry. We've needed real competition for some time, competition that focuses vendors on service, not licenses. Open source is leading the way. The BOSSIEs are just a reflection of that.

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay.

Topics:: Industry news

Tags:: open source

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About The Open Road

Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to the Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is general manager of the Americas division and vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.

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