OStatic

I'm beginning to think the folks at Zenoss never sleep. How else can the popular open source network monitoring software vendor explain all the recent announcements and news they've been making the last few days? Let's start with the contest.

The new Community ZenPack Contest captures the cloud computing craze. Zenoss in the Clouds ZenPack Contest is aimed at users who want to create modules, or ZenPacks, to allow Zenoss to monitor cloud infrastructureand service providers, or deploy cloud-based technologies.

The folks at open source collaboration platform MindTouch conducted a poll recently to get a sense of who open source executives think are the most influential people in the industry. More than 50 execs were polled from Europe and North America and no one was allowed to vote for anyone in their own company. The results were ranked according to the effect each nominee has on the open source industry, and some of the winners may surprise you.

Red Hat commissioned a study released today that takes a fascinating look at which countries use the most open source software. The usual suspects -- the U.S., UK, and China -- made the top of the list and Africa brings a decent show of support to the table, no doubt due, in part, to the efforts of the One Laptop Per Child program. The interactive Open Source Environment Map Red Hat created to display the results is a terrific visual representation of where FOSS is found, and where the community needs to step up its efforts toward the goal of worldwide FOSS adoption.

Whether you think that open source is gaining traction in the U.S. government or losing its foothold depends on which Web site post you read first today. ZDnet's Dana Blankenhorn makes a great case for why the recently formalized arrangement between the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) and the Department of Defense is a huge deal for the advancement of open source at the government level. However, Tod Newcombe, editor of GoV-log: Editor's Video Blog, says government IT executives' enthusiasm over open source is waning.

Who's right?

Recently, Black Duck Software conducted a survey of developers to ascertain what they know about open source software, and how they've used it in their workplaces.

While it's important to keep in mind that the survey consisted of about 50 participants at companies that were vastly different in size (ranging from less than 20 to more than 10,000 employees), and that Black Duck is in the business of servicing managed and secure open source deployments, there are still valid bits of information to take away from the results.

Information Week highlights some of the more interesting statistics the Black Duck surveyors collected. Even if the percentages in this impromptu survey would vary with a larger survey pool, the data is so vastly different it's safe to say there's a disturbing trend: Companies often take a hands off approach to managing open source software.

According to a poll conducted by software security company Palamida, most businesses expect their IT budget to drop in the coming months but less than half plan to use open source software to fill in the gaps. At first glance, that seems like some pretty lousy news and also appears to fly in the face of what we've heard before. Before we panic, let's take a closer look at what these survey results mean.

Joi Ito and the Creative Commons need help getting the word out -- and defined. Creative Commons licenses allow (to varying degrees) the content they apply to to be freely used, distributed, and altered, with varying levels of attribution or certain restrictions on commercial use. One of the gray areas Creative Commons has been grappling with is how exactly one defines non-commercial.

The Creative Commons team asks any one willing to take some time and fill out their questionnaire prior to December 7th. The survey is completely anonymous, and the study is open to the general public.

InfoWorld's survey of IT professionals indicates that open-source usage will continue to grow in the coming years. Why, and what does this mean for open-source developers?