osbc

Is open source enabling next-gen vendor lock-in?

This week's Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco surprised me: I thought the content was, on balance, the best it's ever offered.

In part this stems from a new pragmatism that has settled on the commercial open-source world, where we're increasingly striving to solve customers' business problems, not vendors' business-model problems. It shows up in some of the event's discussions--a few of which are captured in Matt Aslett's excellent OSBC synopsis and in Dries Buytaert's OSBC wrap-up.

North Bridge Venture Partners' Michael Skok came up with one of my favorite lines from the … Read more

Sun CEO sees future of open source in the cloud

If Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is distracted by an alleged Sun takeover by IBM, he didn't show it Wednesday in his Open Source Business Conference keynote speech, which focused on the commercial opportunities that follow in the wake of the world's massive open-source adoption. "Open source is now a given," said Schwartz, "What's interesting is what comes next."

It's an intriguing question to be asked by the CEO of the world's largest open-source company, but one that investors (and IBM?) increasingly demand of Sun. Based on his answers, Sun may well … Read more

Open source in a down economy: The video

SAN FRANCISCO--In case you weren't able to attend the Open Source Business Conference today, or simply arrived too late to hear my opening remarks, I shared this video to illustrate how open source is rising...even as the economy falls.

Enjoy.

OSBC2009 - Welcome Video.

Rumor has Oracle circling Red Hat...again

Every year, spring brings gives us two things: another rendition of the Open Source Business Conference and rumors of Oracle buying Red Hat, plus various other activities related to open-source consolidation.

In years past, OSBC has taken flight with rumors of Zend (false!), JBoss (true!), MySQL (true!), etc. on the block, with Oracle often the proposed buyer.

This year is no different, as Barron's has obliged by printing yet another rumor that Oracle is planning to invade Raleigh, N.C., to take Red Hat captive.

The source of the rumor is Katherine Egbert, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. … Read more

Open Sources Episode 6: Open source in the enterprise

Don't think that Matt Asay and I forgot about our Open Sources podcast series...quite the contrary! We're making an effort to get into a bi-weekly schedule and we're also trying to make the switch to CNet proper rather my rinky-dink server setup.

We're joined on February 26, 2009 for Episode 6 by Neil Erickson, Senior IT Director at a Fortune 500 company. Neil brings some much needed reality to our discussion, reminding us that enterprises are trying to solve problems, not obsess about open versus closed. Neil also calls us the Gwar of open source, … Read more

Reminder: OSBC proposals now being accepted

I posted the OSBC (Open Source Business Conference) Call for Papers a few weeks back, but not very clearly. (I tried too hard to include a picture of Utah snow.) Proposals have been coming in, and I've got the conference agenda 50 to 60 percent full now.

Given all the market turmoil, I'm expanding the conference theme a bit. It had been focused on "Open Sourcing the Enterprise," meaning, finding new ways to turn users of open source into contributors to open source, inspired by Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst. This will continue to be a … Read more

The OSBC curse (or blessing?)

A few weeks ago Steve Pearson (CBS) and Jon Williams (Kaplan Test) keynoted the Open Source Business Conference. In the past week, both have opted to leave their employers to join other companies.

There must have been something in the water at OSBC. :-)

Steve hasn't told me where he's going, but Jon will be joining iVillage as its new CTO. If NBC's iVillage was looking for an open source savvy, innovative and entrepreneurial CTO, it couldn't have done any better.

At any rate, if you want a new job, please ask me about OSBC keynote … Read more

Zorro, underground master of your open source project

I spoke with Gavin Clarke over at The Register about his piece "Fresh blood - the new fight for open source" several times over the last few weeks about how there are a great many corporate developers creating additions and such for open source projects but how it's difficult for them to get the code out of the corporate boundaries and back into the project.

The real challenge facing open source is how to bring in fresh contributors and code contributions to sustain projects and meet users' needs. Without fresh blood, projects progress relatively slowly and are … Read more

OSBC presentations are now online

InfoWorld has posted all of the presentations from the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC). There were some exceptional presentations filled with good information. I'd encourage you to take a look.