I was pleasantly surprised to read that Larry Augustin had been named SugarCRM's full-time CEO. This is a vindication of sorts for Larry and his vision of an open source future. After years of attempting to explain just how ubiquitous open source was going to be, he can now take the reigns of a company at a time when most customers and vendors take as a given that a substantial portion of any solution will consist of open source code. This was not always the case, especially when Larry was CEO of VA Linux Systems, at the time the premier vendor for servers running Linux.
To give you an idea of what SugarCRM is getting, Larry is a guy who saw the value in building a center of gravity for open source developerment before most. Perhaps the best example of this was the acquisition of Andover.net by VA Linux Systems. Some of you may remember that Andover.net was the media company that had purchased Slashdot.org and Freshmeat.net. VA was then still gleaming with post-IPO sparkles, which had taken place just two months prior to the Andover acquisition. With the addition of VA's home-grown SourceForge.net, VA was on the verge of establishing a veritable open source developalooza.
