Is Open-Source A Business Model? $500 Million Says It Is, Aug 17, 2007

There has long been a school of thought that says there's no business model for open source -- in fact, that open source is the opposite of a business model. Citrix's acquisition of XenSource, a business that rests on open-source software, is one more piece of evidence to the contrary.

Open source moves at a different speed to commercial software. This has become apparent over the last decade as Linux and its Open Source fellow travelers (Apache, Open Office, MySQL, Firefox et al) gradually established their position in the software world.

Many Linux distributions can run large Web sites, but are you prepared to bet your online business on a free Linux distribution? eWEEK IT expert Stephane Saux, IT director at the San Francisco Chronicle, has some answers.

... a potentially more serious threat still exists, in the form of Microsoft Corp.'s claim earlier this year that Linux and other open-source technologies infringe on 235 of its patents.

When picking a media center solution for your PC, it tends to be a matter of compromise. There are solutions that are visually attractive, solutions that are Free/open source software, solutions that are more complete than others and solutions that integrate well with a desktop environment.

SCO may have lost a major legal battle with Novell, but it refuses to admit that it may have lost its Linux IP war.

A U.K.-based embedded software consultancy says it recently implemented a Linux driver and other software for a marine-based military application involving high-speed, fiber-optic networking. Pebble Bay Consulting Ltd. says it helped U.K.-based defense contractor Kaon implement an "embedded Linux" solution for an unspecified military customer.

Long-time rivals IBM and Sun Microsystems plan to cooperate on some server technologies, a move that could put pressure on Hewlett-Packard.

I'd prefer to find a text editor that's meant to run on Linux. ... readers offered a slew of suggestions for replacement editors. It's taken awhile, but I've finally downloaded, installed, tested and rated nine free applications.

An interview with IBM's Vice President of Open Source and Standards about their Open Source Strategy, the recent pledge of its patents for more than 150 open software standards, his take on the ODF vs. XML issue, and much more in The LXer Interview of Bob Sutor.

 View older news this year: Sep Aug Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan
 View news from other years: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999