OStatic

Technology companies negotiate a particularly messy obstacle course from the moment of conception -- jumping hurdles associated with venture capital, fending off and holding their own with fierce (and worthy) competitors, constantly changing and innovating products and services to meet the demands of the customer base. Open source companies have an additional complicating factor -- the business model is mysterious to many potential customers, and competitors (fierce, worthy, or otherwise) are often 800 pound gorillas with names and logos recognizable to CTO, CIO and Luddite alike.

Perhaps the silver lining for open source companies forging onward for larger market share is that they realized early on that adaptability is the norm, that weak points can become strengths if they're recognized and effectively addressed as soon as possible -- and that if a single open source company is unable to wrestle a significant percentage of the marketshare from an 800 pound gorilla, two or three 400 pound free software-touting orangutans can make a real impression.

Maybe my take on Open-Xchange's partnership with SugarCRM is more Animal Planet inspired than that of The VAR Guy, but it's very much in agreement. Open-Xchange has made its open source Exchange Server alternative -- and SugarCRM's open source customer relationship software -- infinitely more useful and appealing by facilitating data sharing between social networks, SugarCRM applications and Open-Xchange address books.

In the world of open source, there's a narrative that has predominated since the time that the term open source was coined - that being the need for the underlying platform to be open source. We can tolerate proprietary software on an open platform, such as Linux, much more than we tolerate free software on a closed platform, like Windows.

For all of open source's self-professed pragmatism, there is a noticeable gap between how Linux users are supported and how Windows users are supported. If we are truly as pragmatic as we like to think, perhaps the time has come to close that gap.

There have been an ever increasing number of public organizations and private non-profits -- including medical institutions and educational facilities -- making the move to open source or hybrid open-proprietary software solutions.

Of course there are a number of compelling reasons for this trend beyond the frequently cited savings or escape from vendor lock-in. One of the reasons that the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine chose Bluenog to provide its content management system, web portal and business intelligence software was the flexibility that open source software offered in integrating with its legacy systems and infrastructure.

It seems that we can never quite get away from our industry's version of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Namely, how open source are you? Or, as it is usually expressed: I'm more open source than you. I'm 'the real' open source, whereas you're just badgeware/runtware/freeware/fauxpen source. Sun's Simon Phipps has re-opened this debate by proposing a software freedom scorecard that the OSI can use to gauge the openness of open source participants.

If you read my previous blog entry about open core, you may notice a slight contradiction there. That's because I'm conflicted on this issue. On one hand,I was the guy who pointed out that the major impetus towards open source was economic, and that the trends which made an open source ecosystem possible would only intensify - the pragmatic case, you might say. On the other hand, I also recognize that taking these trends and turning it into a regulated market - which is essentially what the OSI has done - does not happen by accident. It happens because a few stakeholders with a vision of how they wanted the industry to behave formulated a plan and executed it. Their primary question was how can we make free software palatable to mainstream IT? That question is not merely an expression of pragmatic concern. There's an idealist quality to it, too, because many of us wanted a more transparent IT ecosystem that didn't actively screw over customers, with far-reaching ramifications that transcended the immediate benefits.?

For the most part, I agree with Simon's proposal, with some reservations, and I'll explain why.

In a series of recent posts, our own John Mark Walker has been discussing the viability of open source business models and what the term open core really means to the FOSS community. He makes several great points and calls out the increasingly common practice of companies turning open source efforts into a viral marketing play, when it can be so much more.

Given the competitive nature of business, it's probably too much to ask the commercial software development industry to be self-policing and put an end to calling a product open source simply because it uses an OSI-approved license. Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer at Sun Microsystems, thinks it's time to hold vendors' feet to the fire and make them prove themselves to be true supporters of the open source community. He has a plan.

Many of the responses to my previous blog post Open Core or Open Snore? were in agreement, and some were not. As is often the case, the more interesting ones expressed disagreement. Some took issue with my post by pointing out open core companies that might be termed success stories: SugarCRM, Alfresco, Mindtouch. But then, I never wrote that open core cannot be successful, but rather that any success will be limited by nature of the model. Open core effectively places a cap on community development turning open source efforts into a viral marketing play, when it can be so much more.

One critique that did resonate was how much open source dev models actually impacted the bottom line. A company's success is impacted by a myriad of factors, including open source strategy and tactics.Seeing as how some companies will succeed with practically no open source development at all, it's only natural to concede that an open core approach will succed in some markets. However, if I were creating an open source community strategy in a crowded, competitive market, I sure wouldn't want to place an artificial handicap on my community development practices. I'll use 2 case studies to illustrate my point: Red Hat / Fedora and CollabNet / Subversion

While Cisco prepares to reveal the winners in its Developer Contest next week, I got the chance to speak with Team Enhancers about its contest entry.

The Local Advertising Mesh Network, an advertising platform for local ad management, is Rajesh Kotagiri's response to the challenge Cisco put forth in the Developer Contest guidelines -- to use the network as a platform approach and develop an application using Cisco's Linux-based AXP (Application Extension Platform), a service module on its ISR (Integrated Services Routers).

While the ten hopeful finalists in the Cisco Think Inside the Box developer competition await the judges' decision, OStatic has been fortunate enough to speak with a few teams about their submissions. The global contest centered on the network as a platform approach to develop applications using Cisco's Linux-based AXP (Application Extension Platform), a service module on its ISR (Integrated Services Routers).

Today, Roman Skvirsky of Team RSDevs has graciously taken the time to tell OStatic readers a little bit more about his Flash Gateway to Videoconferences application. The Flash Gateway to Videoconferences allows users to connect and join conferences and audio calls to H.323 and SIP phones through a web browser -- requiring no additional software installation beyond the Flash plugin.

I am always tickled when I can write about (and introduce others to) open source applications that solve, quickly and easily, the very real problems that frequently arise when technology manufacturers (or providers) assume that customers use their devices in completely homogenous settings.

So today, it seems, is my lucky day -- today Funambol unleashes version 8 of its nifty open source mobile cloud push and sync software that enables a wide variety of mobile phones (including iPhones, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices) to share and sync information with a number of email clients, POP and IMAP mail servers, PIMs, and social networks. And while it's great to wax poetic about the subtle joy that can be had just by syncing your smartphone that wasn't designed to communicate with another software company's email and calendaring application, I'm fortunate enough to be able to share the experience with ten readers in the form of membership invites.

First, though, the important part: What's new in Funambol v8?

Greetings, OStatic community! I'm pleased as punch to have the privilege of blogging here. So, by way of introducing myself, here's a bit about me and the sorts of things you'll read in my blog posts.?