15 minutes with Jonathan Schwartz: Java and Linux, Feb 28, 2008

Sun formally completed its acquisition of MySQL on Tuesday. I was fortunate to spend 15 minutes on the phone with Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun, after the press conference.

Dave Rosenberg once wrote that the winner in a given open-source category (ERP, CRM, etc.) takes all. There's no room for second place. The first mover to get critical mass tends to horde the community and media resources.

I wouldn't mind being in a list with companies like Google and Salesforce.com, which is precisely the company Red Hat is keeping in its continued growth trajectory. Forbes just named Red Hat the 11th fastest-growing company in the United States. Red Hat's sales have grown 41 percent over the past five years.

Linux (and principally Red Hat Enterprise Linux) has become the primary production platform for the animation industry, largely due to the engineering efforts of DreamWorks. Behind that effort sits Ed Leonard, chief technology officer at DreamWorks, who has been recognized for his work with an Annie Award for "promoting the Linux open system for animation in animation studios and gaming software development."

I wasn't very nice to Jim Whitehurst, Red Hat's new CEO, when I heard the news that he was replacing Matthew Szulik. My reasoning? Matthew Szulik had done so much for Red Hat and besides, what could a Delta Air Lines COO have to teach about open source?

The Economist makes three technology predictions for 2008, two of which concern web surfing and the third of which concerns everyone, whether they surf the web or not. The Economist's third prediction is that the technology world will open up:

Life has been better for Red Hat. First there was Oracle pitching customers on its own fork of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and now SAP is recommending Novell's SUSE Linux as its preferred platform.

Linux revenue was up 69% (both for the quarter and for the year), to $22 million in the quarter and $77 million for the year. That's nothing to cry about.

I'm not sure who Gartner talks to when it puts together its famous "Hype Cycle" reports, but I'm finding it hard to believe that it talks with enterprises.

It's been at least a week since the last bout of Microsoft FUD hit the wires, so I guess it was time for a new wave. Today's FUD comes from an article Microsoft released on how its security compares with that of Linux. It should come as no surprise that Windows comes off as the Second Coming while Linux is left on the wrong side of Acheron.

It wasn't very long ago that open-source developers struggled to make the market believe that open source was secure, ready for prime-time adoption, etc. Now the debate has shifted to demonstrating just how widespread adoption is and and pointing to case studies of how to get the most from open source.

I think Miguel de Icaza is an exceptional developer. He's also a fantastically effective community leader. And, though he's never displayed his best side to me, personally, I understand that he's a quality person that people like to be around.

Governments should not lock themselves into proprietary software straitjackets unless there is no viable open-source option. Period. Democratic governments have a duty to their citizens to own their IT, and not have private-sector vendors effectively owning mass quantities of citizens' data.

Saugatuck Technology has noted that at most 20% of software sold in 2010 will be open source. Proprietary software rules! Right?

Dan Lyons, the erstwhile Fake Steve Jobs, has told Robin Miller that he doesn't hate Linux, after all.

Alan Cox emailed me this morning to note a presentation he gave way back in 2000 called "Dear Mr Brooks, or: Software engineering in the free software world." It's no surprise to me that my recent blog post (on the topic of optimally sized development teams) was better articulated by Alan many years ago.

It's great to be king (aka "Oracle"), but apparently the peasants are secretly in revolt. According to a survey of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) [PDF], open source adoption is rampant within the rank-and-file of Oracle users...including widespread adoption of MySQL.

As part of my interview with Dean Drako of Barracuda Networks, he mentioned to me some survey work Barracuda has done. Barracuda talked to 228 enterprise customers and asked what advantages open source has over proprietary software, and vice versa.

Interoperability is to Microsoft what prostitution is to a pimp: a great source of control and income.

Novell finally has managed to deliver a good quarter. Not exceptional, but solid.