The open source software development model clearly represents a profound and
fundamental change from traditional, proprietary development models.
In the proprietary world, a software company invests massive dollars in
development, sales, and marketing. They recoup their investment in license
fees, which have strict provisions regarding redistribution of the product
(you can't), accessing the source code (are you kidding?), and making changes
to the source code (call your lawyer). Open Source Software (OSS) turns each
of these three provisions on their head: distribute it, look at it, customize
it. In so doing, OSS offers a vastly different value proposition to business
users, enabling application and stack customization for every size company -
a benefit that, in the pro... (more)
Last month, BitDefender (www.BitDefender.com) made a couple substantial Linux
product announcements. First, it released version 1.6.2 of its BitDefender
for Samba Linux File Servers product. As part of the new release, the company
released parts of the updated product under an Open Source license. The
specific code now covered under GPL is their antivirus (VFS) engine for
Samba.
Asked w... (more)
What if your desktop applications didn't care what operating system was
running on your computer? If IBM's Workplace group delivers on the vision
they laid out for me in a recent demo of their Workplace Managed Client
(WMC), IT departments will have exactly this degree of freedom in their
desktop OS selection.
Built on the Eclipse project standard, IBM's WMC essentially provides a
deskt... (more)
Let's play word association. I say "Web Hosting." I bet "fat margins" didn't
jump into your head. More likely, you thought of some of the "where are they
nows" of the bubble, like Exodus and PSINet. Let's do another round - I say
"New York City," and I'd wager that "cheap rent" wasn't the first thing you
thought of, either. So it may surprise you to learn that one hosting company
that's ... (more)
Bob Young recently spoke at the TriLUG Linux Users Group in Raleigh, North
Carolina. His talk covered several topics, from why he founded Red Hat, to
his latest online publishing venture, Lulu (www.lulu.com), to the need for
greater public debate about copyright and patent law. In response to a
question from the audience about where he thinks Open Source Software (OSS)
will dominate and ... (more)
Greg Wallace is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Emu Software, Inc. Greg received his MBA and Masters of International Affairs degrees from Columbia University in New York City. He also spent a year as a Rotary Foundation Scholar at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He can be reached at gwallace@Linux.SYS-CON.com
Doug Warren
Bob Snyder
Jacques Durand
Alf Pilgrim
Per Sjofors
Kirsten Lytsen
Data Recovery Services
Colin Armitage
