OStatic

Ross Turk, directory of community at SourceForge, has a notable column up today at InfoWorld, where he considers whether the economic downturn really is good for open source. We've reported on the topic a number of times, and concluded that for the most part, the gloomy times are boosting open source adoption. Survey respondents recently overwhelmingly agreed with that, as seen here. Turk points out that in the difficult economic period seen in 2000 to 2002, open source adoption in enterprises took off, but he points out that this time things may be different. Is he right?

This week, the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) is taking place--March 24th and 25th at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The conference will include much discussion on the future of open source. In preparation, OStatic has been? running a series of guest posts on this theme, featuring thought leaders from top open source projects. We checked in with Dries Buytaert, founder of the Drupal content management system, and co-founder of Acquia. Martin Schneider, director of product marketing for SugarCRM, weighed in on the open cloud, and Novell VP Justin Steinman wrote about open source and mass customization. Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft, also discussed the consumerization of information, and Erik Troan, founder and CTO of rPath weighed in. In this final installment in the series, OStatic is very pleased to offer up a guest post from Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, on what's next for open source. Here it is, below the fold.?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that IBM is currently in talks to purchase Sun Microsystems. The acquisition is not a foregone conclusion, due in part to the very different corporate cultures in the companies. Some believe this tension will ultimately help both companies succeed, if they can just get through the talks.

The acquisition could take place as early as this week, and it is speculated that IBM could pay over $6.5 billion for Sun. Sun's recent financials have been more than a little disappointing, and this purchase would take a toll on IBM's profits in the short term. Business isn't solely about the short term, however, and I can't help but agree with the WSJ, CNet's Matt Asay, and at least a few of those involved in the talks that this acquisition would be a positive one for IBM, Sun, and open source in general.