Comments on: How Consolidation Affects Open Source http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/ Open Source, Open Standards Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:42:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.11 by: Dirk Estievenart http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-790 Fri, 25 Jan 2008 07:51:54 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-790 Sun is the father of Java, right? Sun open-sourced Java, even with the risk of forking, right? I really don't see why Sun would like to kill MySQL. Sun is, IMHO, one of the biggest corporate OS supporters. Sun is the father of Java, right? Sun open-sourced Java, even with the risk of forking, right?
I really don’t see why Sun would like to kill MySQL.
Sun is, IMHO, one of the biggest corporate OS supporters.

]]> by: Mike Robinson http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-789 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 23:06:22 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-789 I don't see that open source projects are particularly vulnerable to being purchased by the corporate sector. MySQL is a special case because it was owned by an existing corporation, it's free software rather than open source software, and the open source community has no influence on its development or future. All that's happened here is that one corporation has sold an asset to another corporation. If a corporation wanted to acquire PostgreSQL, who would have the right to sell PostgreSQL? I don't think there's a particular entity that would put its hand up and say 'I/we have the right to sell PostgreSQL'. On that basis I think this article is idle speculation lacking a serious business context. I don’t see that open source projects are particularly vulnerable to being purchased by the corporate sector.

MySQL is a special case because it was owned by an existing corporation, it’s free software rather than open source software, and the open source community has no influence on its development or future. All that’s happened here is that one corporation has sold an asset to another corporation.

If a corporation wanted to acquire PostgreSQL, who would have the right to sell PostgreSQL? I don’t think there’s a particular entity that would put its hand up and say ‘I/we have the right to sell PostgreSQL’.

On that basis I think this article is idle speculation lacking a serious business context.

]]> by: mdiggory http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-788 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:10:26 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-788 If the Company being purchased actually is maintaining the infrastructure to support the open source aspects of its product-line (SCM, Listservs, bugtracking, etc) then the purchasing company could potentially disrupt and de-rail an entire open source community simply by flipping the off switch. Certainly, there are other copies of the code present in other groups that still adheres to the original licensing terms, but one can't underestimate that many larger OS projects tend to create their own localized/centralized infrastructure. An Open Source community with a serious marketshare could possibly be derailed long enough to give the purchaser an edge in that market. If the Company being purchased actually is maintaining the infrastructure to support the open source aspects of its product-line (SCM, Listservs, bugtracking, etc) then the purchasing company could potentially disrupt and de-rail an entire open source community simply by flipping the off switch. Certainly, there are other copies of the code present in other groups that still adheres to the original licensing terms, but one can’t underestimate that many larger OS projects tend to create their own localized/centralized infrastructure. An Open Source community with a serious marketshare could possibly be derailed long enough to give the purchaser an edge in that market.

]]> by: Andrej Ricnik http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-787 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:05:57 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-787 I think that there's a major difference here. PostgreSQL never started out as company-owned or company-driven, which is a big difference to MySQL. Have a look at this very interesting blog post http://people.planetpostgresql.org/greg/index.php?/authors/1-Greg-Sabino-Mullane on this topic. -- cheers, Andrej I think that there’s a major difference here. PostgreSQL never started out as company-owned or company-driven, which is a big difference to MySQL. Have a look at this very interesting blog post

http://people.planetpostgresql.org/greg/index.php?/authors/1-Greg-Sabino-Mullane

on this topic.

– cheers,
Andrej

]]> by: Vasudev Ram http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-786 Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:34:28 +0000 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4891/#comment-786 Interesting post ... I agree with the points you make. As you say, the open source model does at least give us the option to keep the project alive if it is perceived that it's being mismanaged or killed off. But, at least for more complex projects, the odds of there being people available who are have the needed skills to fork and continue developing it, is somewhat lower, though of course still possible. Just a thought - maybe some progressive and interested companies that get to know about such cases that occur, could sponsor some developers to work on such projects. OpenLogic - www.openlogic.com - is one company that is doing some work to promote open source projects. - Vasudev --------- Vasudev Ram Dancing Bison Enterprises Software consulting and training Biz site: http://www.dancingbison.com Blog (on software innovation): http://jugad.livejournal.com Quick and easy PDF creation toolkit: http://www.dancingbison.com/products.html Interesting post …

I agree with the points you make.

As you say, the open source model does at least give us the option to keep the project alive if it is perceived that it’s being mismanaged or killed off. But, at least for more complex projects, the odds of there being people available who are have the needed skills to fork and continue developing it, is somewhat lower, though of course still possible.

Just a thought - maybe some progressive and interested companies that get to know about such cases that occur, could sponsor some developers to work on such projects. OpenLogic - www.openlogic.com - is one company that is doing some work to promote open source projects.

- Vasudev
———
Vasudev Ram
Dancing Bison Enterprises
Software consulting and training
Biz site: http://www.dancingbison.com
Blog (on software innovation): http://jugad.livejournal.com
Quick and easy PDF creation toolkit: http://www.dancingbison.com/products.html

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