When an open source application or platform gains traction in a company, does the I.T. department necessarily drive that? Not always, as Rich Green, Executive VP of Software at Sun Microsystems,  confirmed for us in our interview with him. "We regularly meet with CIOs of large companies who had no idea that their staffs downloaded and deployed MySQL," he told us. "Seeing grassroots adoption of MySQL is one of the most gratifying parts of my job," he added. Early results from a small survey done by OpenLogic appear to support the idea that this often happens because of no formal procedures for tracking open source usage.

Memcached, the open source caching software framework, has been gaining attention from web companies and investors. Gear6 has annnounced details of a new memcached-based product, and Schooner Information Technologies has a set of server appliances, one targeted to MySQL, and one to memcached. Memcached is a tool that's widely used to reduce query times when using databases, through caching, and there was a lot of interest in it at the recent MySQL Conference. In this post on GigaOm, Gary Orenstein analyzes the newfound interest in memcached, and ponders whether it's good or bad for MySQL. 

The financial services market is still a largely uncharted region for open source software. Sure, there are several Exchanges around the globe that use Linux to power their operations, but the minds, the people, and the currency that bring life to the trading floors don't operate solely on a patch of real estate in New York, London or Hong Kong. Marketcetera is one of the first open source software vendors to blaze a trail in this industry, with its open source trading platform catering to buy side and algorithmic trading.

Tackling a new market often necessitates a new way of thinking and looking at problems, but having experienced advisors onboard is still crucial to successfully navigate the unfamiliar territory -- for the insight they give, and the assurance their presence can instill in potential customers. This is only one of the reasons Marketcetera is welcoming Larry Stefonic to its advisory board. Stefonic is no stranger to the software industry, having co-founded the yaSSL project, an open source internet security suite, holding management positions at Centure Software, Raima Corporation and recently serving as the executive vice president of sales at MySQL AB.