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Dave Rosenberg has picked up the story being spun by The Standish Group that says Open Source software is raising havoc throughout the software market. It is the ultimate in disruptive technology, and while to it is only 6% of estimated trillion dollars IT budgeted annually, it represents a real loss of $60 billion in…

The O’Reilly Open Source Conference is one of the premier events for hackers, executives, users, and industry analysts to share and discuss open source trends, strategies, and perspectives. It has been so successful for so long that Microsoft couldn’t let it continue without becoming a top sponsor, which they have now been for a number…

When you see somebody abusing the term “Open Source”, please tell us. But also tell them. Let them know that they have lost your trust as a business. Let them know that their use is fradulent (misrepresentation with an intent to profit from it). Let them know that they are confusing their customers. Confused customers…

Pamela Jones (aka PJ), the groklaw blogger, asks and answers the question OK. But What Does It Mean? (Jacobsen v. Katzer), saying that It means that while OSI’s handling of a list of approved licenses worked very well for a community made up of FOSS programmers, who are decent folks all on the same page…

On August 13, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued its decision in the Jacobsen v. Katzer case. http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf This case was the first real test of the remedies for breach of open source licenses in US courts (for more background, see http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-open-source-legal-decision-jacobsen.html. Unfortunately, the District Court decision was wrong and wrong…

Let’s say that you want to build the highest building in your {village,town,county,state,country}. Your resources are limited, as they always are. Should you start building from the ground up? Or should you make use of the community foundation that Open Source developers have created? Your choice should be obvious. You may choose to build from…

Open Source is not about freedom, nor is it about licenses. It’s about community. Of course everyone knows about Richard Stallman’s concern about having the freedom to modify all software on his machine. Tim O’Reilly has had a concern for many years that Open Source licenses do not keep software Open Source when it is…

Michael DeHaan has an excellent post entitled “How Open Source Is Your Open Source?”. I dare say it is his best post despite getting in a few (Linux) distro biased comments. He proposes a set of community standards that determine the real health and openness of Open Source. In my opinion, a major problem with…

The Open Source Convention of 2008 has closed its doors. It might not have been right to count our gains and losses during the conference, but it is time and timely, to do so. The first of all lessons was the increasing number of attendance from Africa. The word increasing may look absurd, because it…

Is Microsoft a tiger or a rogue elephant? A tiger has its own agenda, and cannot be diverted from its mission:to kill and eat. An rogue elephant is powerful and intelligent, but they can also be trained. We in the opensource community are not sure of the answer to this question. If Microsoft is a…