OStatic

Gartner analyst Brian Prentice and Zack Urlocker writing for InfoWorld have both posted thoughtful takes on open source's place in the world now that big proprietary software vendors are scooping open source players up. The fact that there are so many members of the 'open source community' ready to sell out ? now that?s interesting, writes Prentice. Well, actually, he adds, it?s interesting only to the extent you still believe the romantic narrative that commonly circulates around Open Source. That story involves bands of fiercely independent geek-heroes. Actually, what's interesting to me is that a lot of people do still believe that kind of thing.

The 451 Group is well-known for its close tracking of venture capital deployments focused on commercial open source companies. On Thursday, May 14th--this week--researchers at The 451 Group are hosting a free webinar from 12:00pm EDT to 1:00pm EDT, focused on the history of venture funding in open source firms between 1997 and 2008. The analysis will focus on trends spanning more than 370 funding deals.

There are quite a few juicy tidbits, updates, and high-profile opinions starting to emerge about the probable IBM acquisition of Sun Microsystems. It turns out that Sun was seeking a buyer and being actively shopped around to tech companies for months before the IBM news, as Intel CEO Paul Otellini has reportedly confirmed. I can tell you that Sun was shopped around the valley and around the world in the last few months, he said, during a Q&A session that was revealed in a regulatory filing, according to TheStreet.com. A lot of companies got calls or visits on buying some or all the assets of the company. Meanwhile, it looks like any news of the acquisition may extend into next week.?