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.

Can commercial software companies and open source foundations successfully advance their software efforts by offering bounties to outside developers? Although Stormy Peters, executive director of the GNOME Foundation, says the GNOME community has had mixed results with bounties and grants, she has an interesting interview up on the topic with Stefano Maffulli,? community manager of mobile open source company Funambol. The interview apparently resulted from Maffuli approaching her about a GNOME-related grant. Maffuli describes bounties and grants as fertile incentives for solid open source software development, and cites a number of specific success stories.

If you're in the process of launching an open source project, a little up-front footwork and howework can help things go smoothly, and even keep you out of trouble. Issues pertaining to licensing, distribution, support options and even branding require thinking ahead if you want your project to flourish, and to stay safe. Fortunately, just as free availability is a mantra for open source products, it is for many helpful resources too. In this post, you'll find our updated collection of good, free resources to pay attention to if you're doing an open source project--or if your organization is deploying open source software.