Trends I'm Watching

General Public License may be revised

Trend: Open-source software continues to adapt to the commercial and legal environment, to the dismay of some large software companies.

IBD summarizes the proposed revisions to the open-source software license that would eliminate some legal challenges and minimize abuses. Excerpts below.

Source: Investor's Business Daily: Open-Source License Key To Nascent Field (subscription required)

Proposed changes to the General Public License would be the first since the Free Software Foundation released version 2 in 1991. The group's founder, Richard Stallman, says he wants to head off new threats to Linux and other free software.

The license is important because it dictates how software can and can't be used. Free software may be free, but that doesn't mean you can use it any which way you like. And indirectly, the license rules shape the development process and affect how popular the software becomes.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds credits much of his software's success to the GPL, which is by far the most popular way to license open-source code.

While free to use, build on and redistribute, open-source software is still under copyright, and comes with strings attached. Those wanting to incorporate the code into their own work for public use must agree to several conditions.

Proposed Changes:

Big Changes for Hardware and Software?

Is this the beginning of the commodization of hardware and software?

Source: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog.

In just the last few weeks, we've seen, particularly on the software side, growing signs of a sea change. As consolidation, commoditization and weakening demand turn traditional packaged software into a rust-belt industry, dominated by a couple of big suppliers looking to milk the installed base, innovation and growth seem to be shifting quickly to the software-as-a-service (SaaS) arena. Pushed by diverse utility upstarts like Google (on the consumer side, so far), Salesforce.com, RightNow Technologies, 37signals and Rearden Commerce, traditional software makers are now jockeying to position themselves as players in the SaaS world.

Software applications are, of course, only one side of the utility model. The other side is the infrastructure - the trillions of dollars worth of hardware and system software that companies today maintain privately, within their proprietary data centers. That, too, is an obsolete model, and the shift to a rationalized, "multi-tenant" utility infrastructure will likely entail even more profound changes than the related shift to software-as-a-service.

via Emergic.org

Open Source Software

Source: Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news.

It's hard to gauge the full breadth of open-source software. In most cases, users are free to download and use the software without contacting the company that made it. Only a fraction of those wind up signing a contract.

But there's ample evidence of open source's growing clout.

Just a few years ago, it was hard to find Linux versions for some of the most popular software applications for business.

Today, executives say more than 750 major business applications run on Linux.

"It's a rare occasion when someone important in the (software) industry decides not to support Linux," said Oracle President Charles Phillips, in a speech at the recent LinuxWorld trade show in San Francisco.

Another sign of open-source growth: Every major hardware vendor sells Linux systems alongside those running Unix and Microsoft Windows.

According to International Data Corp., server vendors sold $4.2 billion worth of hardware running Linux in 2004.

That's small compared to the $18.9 billion worth running Windows and the $17.6 billion running on the various versions of Unix. But for Linux, the total reflected a 44.2% jump, vs. 14.6% for Windows and a 1% drop for Unix.

The Next Wave

Beyond Linux, a new wave of open-source software is gaining traction.

Another Win for Linux

Link: Intel Allows Centrino Branding for Linux Laptops - The WiFi Weblog - wifi.weblogsinc.com.

Citing improvements in the Linux kernel and new laptop power management abilities, Intel will now allow laptop manufacturers to include the Intel Mobile Centrino logo on laptops installed with the OS. Two years ago, Linspire (then Lindows) CEO Michael Robertson blasted Intel for not allowing Linux vendors’ participation in Centrino marketing. The Centrino brand and its $300 million marketing campaign will add a lot of credibility and consumer acceptance of the wireless capabilities of laptops running Linux.

Open Source Databases: The Real Broadband Brain

Open source gets more pervasive every day.

Link: Om Malik on Broadband: MySQL - The Real Broadband Brain.

According to InformationWeek research published in November, open source databases such as MySQL continue to gain significant traction in mainstream corporate applications. Of the hundreds of companies interviewed, 42% of them are already using open source software in their production databases – with another 33% currently considering an open source deployment.