Year in review: Grappling with open source

/* /*]]>*/ Year in Review: Open source Grappling with open source The world of open source is moving ever further from its unpaid volunteer roots. The past year saw the $420 million acquisition of JBoss, as well as a Microsoft-Novell deal that tested the legal limits of commercial open source. With the momentum of a freight train, open-source technology spread more widely in the software industry in 2006. Upstart challengers, such as open-source database company MySQL and middleware maker JBoss, grew rapidly over the course of the year, while incumbent vendors dealt with the in different ways. Perhaps the most dramatic events of the year were products and development techniques. The highlight was a to improve interoperability between their respective products. With the ink barely dry, though, the two companies got into a spat over a patent protection arrangement, with claiming that a patent payment between the companies did not indicate any legal liability on the part of Novell or its customers. Legal experts asked whether the deal conforms to Novell's open-source license, while other free-software and open-source adherents panned the legal agreement as unacceptable. Oracle, which had been rumored to be interested in acquiring JBoss, by offering Red Hat customers direct support--at less than half of Red Hat's price. That initiative, along with the Microsoft-Novell deal, turned up the as it sought to expand through its . Oracle made a few other efforts to boost its standing in the open-source world. After buying a , it purchased . It even offered to itself but was rebuffed. IBM, feeling competition from open source, decided to make its , in keeping with moves made by Microsoft and . Meanwhile, Sun Microsystems finally released the of Java, after years of internal debate and requests. The main surprise was the choice of license: the General Public License, which is used with Linux and many other open-source products. The GPL itself is getting an . Early in the year, its authors presented the proposed changes, which included stricter limitations on software patents and . The changes were not universally well-received; most of the gave it poor marks. In the development tools area, open source has become . A number of tools-related initiatives were launched, such as the , which aims to bring Ajax-style development to the open-source tool framework Eclipse. And Adobe Systems announced that it would contribute its for inclusion in future Firefox browsers. --Martin LaMonica 2006 Highlights Free Software Foundation releases the first public discussion draft of the General Public License version 3.January 16, 2006 DB2 Express-C is a free version of IBM's flagship database aimed at winning software developers over to its products. January 30, 2006 Open Ajax is a proposed open-source project to let programmers build Web apps using Eclipse, Ajax toolkits. February 1, 2006 Ending speculation, Linux distributor shells out $350 million for open-source Java company.April 10, 2006 To perk up revenue from open-source software, Novell readies an open-source identity-management package and desktop Linux suite. May 9, 2006 Software maker's stronghold in databases likely to come under threat from open-source competitors, IDC and Gartner predict. May 25, 2006 The software giant will sponsor an open-source project to create a converter between Open Office XML and OpenDocument file formats. July 5, 2006 Company won't assert patents related to 35 Web services specs--a move designed to ease developers' legal concerns.September 13, 2006 Announcement marks the first time a major computing company with Linux ties will compete directly with the Linux seller. October 25, 2006 Former software foes pledge to work together to help Windows world and Linux world interoperate. November 2, 2006 In the largest code handoff since its formation, makers of Firefox will get Adobe's script virtual machine. November 6, 2006 After years of requests and debates, Sun is set to release Java source code under a Linux-friendly license.November 12, 2006 Study by technology services company convinces the National Assembly that the switch will be cost-effective.November 27, 2006 Behind the headlines