OpenLogic Wants to Count Open-Source Users
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OpenLogic has released a free automated census tool, OSS Discovery, to count business users of open-source software.
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We all have a Mr. Hyde in us. Open source helps to protect the world (and ourselves) from that side.
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Ziff Davis - Microsoft is reaching out further to the open-source community with offers of joint development and testing, but some wonder about the company's sincerity.
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Research: Businesses are going open source, but OS may still be too technical for most users. The open-source operating system Linux may be gaining a lot of ground in the enterprise space, but Windows will
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At this week's LinuxWorld OpenSolutions Summit, experts had advice on what would-be open source users should look for, how to evaluate choices and real-world tales of their own experiences.
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November 6, 2004 â An  Open Source web based Survey tool is playing a key role in keeping track of voting irregularities in todayâs US Presidential Elections. PHPSurveyor (http://phpsurveyor.sourceforge.net), a PHP based online survey tool, is being used to gather data across the United States about all voting irregularities. In the first 10 hours of voting alone, over 13500 incidents had been recorded using the software. The tool was selected by the Verified Voting Foundation as part of their Election Incident Reporting System (http://www.verifiedvoting.org/eirs/) as one of three major system components â all of which are Open Source.    The Advokit tool provides a structure within which campaign leaders can match volunteers to tasks, and manage task completion. The MapServer tool displays clickable maps. PHPSurveyor is used to allow Verified Votingâs thousands of volunteers across the United States to enter voting irregularities and incidents online as the day progresses. Researchers can view the collected data in real time by mining down through a map of the US, viewing incidents at a Nationwide, Statewide, or County level.  PHPSurveyor developer Jason Cleeland said âIâm very excited that my tool is being used for a project of this scale and importance. Itâs an indication both of the success of Open Source as a development strategy, and itâs flexibility in allowing organizations to freely bend an existing project to new uses.â  âWhile PHPSurveyor is generally a tool for simple development and collection of survey responses online, the Verified Voting Foundations âTechWatchâ group of technologists have been able to integrate it with realtime reporting mechanisms that allow legal teams and press across the United States, and the world, to respond immediately to any problems in the Presidential elections as they occur.â  PHPSurveyor was first developed in 2003 by Jason Cleeland in response to his organisationâs need for a better way to run and record surveys. âPaper based surveys were effective, but required a large commitment in terms of staff resourcing,â Mr Cleeland said. âFor a non-profit organisation, finding the time for staff to perform the required data entry was a real problem. Yet at the same time, we had a constant need to run surveys of our members. Writing an online survey tool solved these problems. It eliminated the double-handling of the respondent completing the survey, and a data entry operator transferring that response to computerâ said Mr Cleeland. âInstead, the respondent completes the survey online, and the data is immediately available for review.â  From a relatively basic system, the tool quickly grew a wider feature set. âIt was the release of the software on Sourceforge as an Open Source GPL product that really broadened PHPSurveyors outlookâ said Mr Cleeland. âWithin a matter of weeks some IT developers from a public non-profit TV station in Dallas, Texas had started adding code and providing improvements. And since then, more ideas, suggestions, and improvements have flowed from all over the world on a constant and sometimes overwhelming basis.â  At the time of writing PHPSurveyor had collected over 23500 incident reports on the US Presidential election, with 13500 being entered in the 10 hours since voting commenced. âI expect that by the close of polls there will be around 30 to 35,000 entriesâ Mr Cleeland said, âand that by the time all the paper reports have also been collected the tool will have collected at least 40,000 responses. This is very exciting to watch â to see a tool that was intended to handle around 1000 survey responses, to one that can collect - in a very short time frame â over 40,000 indicates to me the benefits of opening source code to the world.â
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Open source is changing the game by making software free.  About time.
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Users force enlightenment OSCON Sometimes being the open source software leader means distancing yourself from open source claims.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Separate reports from The 451 Group and Evans Data this week confirm what seems obvious: open-source software is impacting commercial software companies and continues to gain adoption worldwide. In a report entitled, "Going Open -- Software Vendors in Transition," The 451 Group found that open-source software is increasingly placing pressure on business models of proprietary software vendors. These companies now are looking to open source as a way to grow distribution, improve customer participation, and respond to competition. The trend of proprietary vendors going "open" has had companies either shifting away from licensing fees as a basis for customer usage or releasing some code via an open-source license. Open source is changing the relationship between software vendors and customers, The 451 Group said. Smaller vendors and startups can more effectively compete for enterprise customers by providing code and a community for ensured long-term viability. While services are often considered the most likely path for software vendors looking to generate revenues from open source, almost half of 31 vendors interacted with for the study indicated the greatest revenue opportunity was in commercial licensing. Meanwhile, Evans Data, in its just-released 2007 Emerging Markets Development Survey, found that developers worldwide are increasingly using open-source code. In a survey covering developers in regions such as Brazil, Russia, Eastern Europe, India, and China, 69 percent of respondents said they are using open-source software, which is up from 59 percent six months ago. The Eclipse open-source platform has had high adoption in countries like India and Brazil. Linux development has increased in many emerging markets as well. In the area of Web development, 36 percent of developers in emerging markets are using AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). The figure was 21 percent six months ago. While open source is growing in popularity in these markets, all is not lost for commercial software. Forty-seven percent of Indian developers expect to be upgrading to Windows Vista as a primary or secondary host operating system next year. In the security area, 87 percent of Chinese respondents experienced at least one security breach at their company in 2006.
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Open source has many good uses.  Beating up one's competitors shouldn't be the primary one.
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The Story: What?s in a name? Back in the days of the Gingrich revolution, the nastiest label you could pin on a politician was ?liberal.? And now that open source has become an essential technology, the quickest way to get a rise out of an open source executive (and to get flamed on dozens of blogs) is to say his or her company is ?commercial.?[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    No matter what you call them, open source companies have been steadily integrating parts of the hated commercial software subscription model into their business. First it was support, and now it is software access. Say it ain?t so, Linus.MySQL, for example, will charge users of its enterprise edition to use the code, not just for support as has been the traditional open source business model. ?We are looking for ways to extend our offerings in a way that can be monetized,? bluntly says Kaj Arno, the company?s VP for community.Chander Kant, founder of the open source storage software company Zmanda, is likewise frank about the need to drive revenue. Speaking of the open source community as a whole, he says, ?We are not a charity. We need to monetize.?Recognizing that charging to use open source software flies in the face of the original open source premise of freely sharable code open to everyone, Arno is quick to note that the paid version of Workbench has code and features not found in the free version ? and that the free version ?is not crippled.? Arno calls the move an experiment, and acknowledges that MySQL needs to move carefully to avoid upsetting the often quick-tempered open source community.Is this a trend? Red Monk analyst Stephen O?Grady says it is: ?Ultimately when you look at a high-profile firm like MySQL embracing it, it?s difficult to conclude anything else.?InfoWorld blogger (and IBM employee) Savio Rodrigues notes another example. In a recent blog post, he looked at changes to JBoss since it was purchased by Red Hat Software and concluded: ?The Fedora/JBoss subscription is just like the software subscription business model that commercial software vendors have been using for decades.?Does that mean a company that adopts the usage-based pricing model isn?t really open-source? That?s an interesting point, since as Zmanda?s Kant acknowledges, ?the litmus test of open source is control of the code.? Open source software delivered through appliances keeps the access ? and thus control ? away from users, he notes. But code binaries distributed as software remain open to their users ? for now, at least.The Bottom Line: Have MySQL and Red Hat run away from the principles of open source? Who cares. The real point is that the open source business model is evolving away from the ?free? model and toward an alternative development approach for commercial software. If you adopted open source due to its cost, you may not save as much as you thought. If you adopted open source for the access to source code or the community-supported development approach that is supposed to result in better software, it?s not yet clear if the greater commercialization will enhance those aspects or drive away the true believers and make open source no different than the old-fashioned commercial offerings.Complete list of 2007 underreported stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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0. Intro 1. New SF.net Mirror 2. August Project of the month: Bochs 3. September Project of the month: Azureus 4. Improved Site Documentation 5. SourceForge.net Subscriptions - Free T-shirt 6. Stats and Top Projects   Dear SourceForge.net User,  Welcome to the September sitewide email. September is typically our busiest month for new traffic on SF.net.  Students are arriving at college and getting on high speed connections.  Open Source developers and consumers of Open Source software are returning from their summer vacations.  If you are back from vacation, it's good to have you back.  If you are new to the site, welcome!  In this sitewide email, I want to update you on three notable things that have occurred regarding our site and our organization since July.  First, our parent company has changed its name.   OSDN (Open Source Development Network) is now OSTG (The Open Source Technology Group). Why the name change?   We realized that our network of sites (which include SourceForge.net, Slashdot.org, Linux.com, Freshmeat, NewsForge.net etc)  caters not only to developers but also to IT professionals.   Our old name didn't reflect this diverse audience. We have changed our name to better reflect who we are.  OSTG currently boasts over 16 million unique individuals (both developers and IT professionals) and over 238 million pageviews per month.  http://www.ostg.com/  Second, we recently received our single largest donation to SourceForge.net.  The Omidyar Network, founded by Pierre Omidyar (founder of EBay) and his wife Pam, gave $400,000 to SourceForge.net. The money is being used to update the User Interface on SF.net and the tools on the site (such as the File Release System, forums and Tracker), as well as improved functionality and statistics on the site.  The SF.net team would like to greatly thank the Omidyar Network for their very generous support.   You can read the press release here: http://www.vasoftware.com/news/press.php/2004/1431.html Omdiyar Network's website can be viewed here: http://www.omidyar.net/  Finally, I want to tell you about a very easy way to get an Apple iPod mini.  IBM is giving away 170 iPods to SF.net project admins.  This is not a drawing.  If your project meets a certain criteria, and you are willing to be a judge of your own project (which I know sounds a bit odd), you receive an iPod.   Normally I don't pitch offers in sitewide emails, but this one is unique enough that I wanted to bring it to your attention.   The only catch is the qualifications.  Your project has to be a 'server-based', not written in a scripting language (or Java) and not already ported to LinuxPPC.   If your project passes the criteria, I highly encourage you to visit the signup page.  If more than 170 projects signup who qualify, IBM will take the top 170 projects based on activity ranking. Deadline is Friday Sept 24th, 2004. http://sourceforge.net/ppc_contest.php  Thank you for using and supporting SourceForge.net.  If you have any questions or issues with SourceForge.net, please feel free to email me directly at pat@sf.net.  Thank you.  Happy coding.  Pat-  Patrick McGovern Director, SourceForge.net email: pat@sf.net   New Mirror --------------------------------------------------------- SF.net serves approximately one million Open Source downloads a day to a worldwide audience.   The combined bandwidth of these downloads is a sustained rate of over one gigibit per second (Gbps). SF.net couldn't provide this throughput without the support of our download partners, who provide hardware and bandwidth to support the site and the Open Source community.  Today, the SF.net team would like to a announce a new partner in Germany: MESH-Solutions.  MESH-Solutions provides IP bandwidth and colocation services at premiere Level3 gateways all over the world. Unlike traditional carriers, MESH-Solutions offers a wide range of additional services, including reboot services, hardware maintenance, remote hands and various consulting services. MESH-Solutions believes in Open Source for multiple reasons: its fast, its reliable and its just "very seckzy".  http://www.mesh-solutions.com/sf/  The SF.net team would like to thank MESH-Solutions for their support and bandwidth.  (A special thank you to Peter Lieven for his help.)   August Project of the Month (POTM): Bochs --------------------------------------------------------- Emulating a CPU in software is quite a trick. A programmer has to fool the operating system, and the software running on top of the operating system, into believing that it is on genuine hardware. This requires meticulously emulating every single instruction and mode that the CPU has to offer, which is immensely complex. SourceForge.net's August 2004 project of the month is Bochs, a x86 emulator (386, 486, Pentium and Pentium Pro). Its emulation is robust enough to allow Linux, Windows 95, and Windows NT to run on top of it. The emulator runs under many hardware platforms and operating systems, including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, so if you want to run Windows under OS X, you can do it! Bochs, pronounced 'box', is one of the top 100 projects on SourceForge.net boasting over a million downloads since its inception on SF.net. The SF.net team is proud to make Bochs, August 2004, project of the month.  Project of the month: http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2004-08.php Home Page: http://bochs.sourceforge.net/ Project Page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/bochs/   September Project of the Month (POTM): Azureus --------------------------------------------------------- SourceForge.net's September 2004 project of the month is Azureus, a powerful Java-based BitTorrent client.  Downloading a file, whether it's a large ISO (CD images), promotional MP3 from your favorite local band, Open Source application, or music video, is one of the most common uses of the Internet. Until recently, download servers that served these files were centralized. If the server was overloaded, offline, or 'Slashdotted', you were out of luck. BitTorrent, another SourceForge.net-hosted project, changed this by providing a way to download files in a decentralized way by leveraging, in a transparent fashion, hundreds of end-user computers. Using this method, the files are almost always available and the transfer speed is generally faster than a centralized solution, particularly with larger files. This project is immensely popular on SF.net. Besides being in our top 5 most active projects (out of 80,000+) it enjoys on average 75,000 downloads a day (Wow!).  Azureus runs under Windows, Linux, OS X, among others and is licensed under the GPL. The SourceForge.net team is proud to make Azureus Project of the Month for Sepember.  Project of the month: http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2004-09.php Home Page: http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ Project Page: https://sourceforge.net/projects/azureus/   SF.net Documentation Improvements --------------------------------------------------------- SourceForge.net staff have started work to significantly improve the Site Documentation of SourceForge.net.  This effort includes new content, rewrites of existing content, and layout improvements.  Our new Site Docs may be seen at: https://sourceforge.net/docs/  Included within our initial roll-out of new documentation is a guide to using the Tracker system, used by most SourceForge.net projects for tracking support issues, bug reports and feature requests.  This guide provides both step-by-step instructions for using the Tracker system, as well as extensive detail on best practices that will be useful for new projects and long-term Tracker users alike.  This guide may be seen at: https://sourceforge.net/docs/E03/  The SourceForge.net team welcomes your feedback regarding our new documentation.  Details on how to provide feedback may be found at: https://sourceforge.net/docs/A00/  As part of our ongoing effort to improve the usability of the site, new documentation will be released each month.  Details of new document releases may be found on our Enhancements page, as seen at: https://sourceforge.net/docs/A03/  We hope that our new documentation offering will help everyone to make better use of the resources we provide and significantly improve site usability.  Thank you,  Jacob Moorman Quality of Service Manager, SourceForge.net   SourceForge.net Subscriptions - Free T-shirt -------------------------------------------- SF.net subscribers receive a full array of exciting features, including priority technical support. We have extended our offer for a free T-shirt (from ThinkGeek.com) when you sign up for an annual SourceForge.net subscription.   Sign up today for a subscription and help support SourceForge.net: http://sourceforge.net/subscription.php   Stats and Top Projects. --------------------------------------------- Number of Projects: 87,673 Number of Registered Users: 920,068  Daily Stats for Sept 17th, 2004  SF.net : 2,233,365 pages served SF.net project web space : 7,193,198 pages served Total Pages: 9,426,563  Open Source Files downloaded in 24 period: 1,014,152 Outgoing Mailing list emails: 1,233,125  ------------------------------------------------ Top 25 Projects:  1. Gaim https://sourceforge.net/projects/gaim Gaim is a GTK2-based instant messenger application. It supports multiple protocols via modules, including AIM, ICQ, Yahoo!, MSN, Jabber, IRC, Napster, Gadu-Gadu and Zephyr. It has many common features found in other clients, as well as many unique features.  2. Azureus - BitTorrent Client https://sourceforge.net/projects/azureus Azureus is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform Java-based BitTorrent client.  3. eGroupWare: Enterprise Collaboration https://sourceforge.net/projects/egroupware eGroupWare is a multi-user, web-based groupware suite developed on a custom set of PHP-based APIs.Currently available modules include: email, address book, calendar, infolog (notes, to-do's, phone calls), content management, forum, bookmarks, wiki.....  4. phpMyAdmin https://sourceforge.net/projects/phpmyadmin phpMyAdmin is a tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the Web. Currently it can create and drop databases, create/drop/alter tables, delete/edit/add fields, execute any SQL statement, manage keys on fields.  5. FCKeditor https://sourceforge.net/projects/fckeditor This HTML editor (DHTML editor), for ASP, ASP.NET, ColdFusion, PHP and JavaScript brings to the web many of the powerful functionalities of known desktop editors like Word. It works with Mozilla, Netscape and IE.  6. OpenWFE https://sourceforge.net/projects/openwfe OpenWFE is an open source java workflow engine.It is a complete Business Process Management suite, with 4 components : an engine, a work list, a web client and a reactor (host for automatic agents).It can also be used behind the scene.  7. WinMerge https://sourceforge.net/projects/winmerge A visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. Useful for determining what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.  8. SugarCRM https://sourceforge.net/projects/sugarcrm Sugar.Sales 1.5 available now!A CRM suite including sales, marketing and customer service. Sugar.Marketing and Sugar.Service coming soon. Easy to use, easy to install.Built on PHP and MySQL.See home page for a demo and more.  9. Compiere ERP + CRM Business Solution https://sourceforge.net/projects/compiere Smart ERP+CRM solution for Small-Medium Enterprises in the global marketplace covering all areas from customer management, supply chain and accounting. For $2-200M revenue companies looking for "brick and click" first tier functionality.  10. AMSN https://sourceforge.net/projects/amsn AMSN (Alvaro\\\\'s Messenger) is a MSN messenger clone for linux/unix/windows/mac. It features multi-language support, file transfers, new graphical interface, emoticons, multiple profiles support, dock icon, sound events, email notification, URL processing.  11. PDFCreator https://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program.Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.  12. MegaMek https://sourceforge.net/projects/megamek MegaMek is a networked Java clone of BattleTech, a turn-based sci-fi boardgame for 2+ players.Fight using giant robots, tanks, and/or infantry on a hex-based map.  13. FileZilla https://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla FileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client for Windows with a lot of features.FileZilla Server is a reliable FTP server.  14. Dev-C++ https://sourceforge.net/projects/dev-cpp Dev-C++ is an full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Win32. It uses GCC, Mingw or Cygwin as compiler and libraries set.  15. WebCalendar https://sourceforge.net/projects/webcalendar WebCalendar is a PHP application used to maintain a calendar for a single user or an intranet group of users.It can also be configured as an event calendar.  16. AWStats https://sourceforge.net/projects/awstats AWStats is a free powerful and featureful server logfile analyzer that shows you all your Web/Mail/FTP statistics including visits, unique visitors, pages, hits, rush hours, os, browsers, search engines, keywords, robots visits, broken links and more...  17. Biet-O-Matic (Bid-O-Matic) https://sourceforge.net/projects/bom Yet another sniper tool :-)BOM ist a tool to watch and bid on auctions.Many features like mail control, autoconnect/disconnect, integrated ODBC- client, Multi-language-support etcfrebayhoodkeywords  18. Firewall Builder https://sourceforge.net/projects/fwbuilder Object-oriented GUI and set of compilers for various firewall platforms. Currently implemented compilers for iptables, ipfilter, OpenBSD pf, ipfw and Cisco PIX  19. HSQL Database Engine https://sourceforge.net/projects/hsqldb HSQLDB is a relational database engine written in Java, with a JDBC driver, supporting a subset of ANSI-92 SQL.It offers a small (about 100k), fast database engine which offers both in memory and disk based tables.This product includes Hypersonic SQL  20. KeePass Password Safe https://sourceforge.net/projects/keepass KeePass is a free, open-source, light-weight and easy-to-use password safe for Windows. You can store your passwords in a highly-encrypted database locked with one master key or key-disk.  21. POPFile - Automatic Email Classification https://sourceforge.net/projects/popfile POPFile is an email classification tool with a Naive Bayes classifier, POP3, SMTP, NNTP proxies and IMAP filter and a web interface.It runs on most platforms and with most email clients.  22. JasperReports https://sourceforge.net/projects/jasperreports Free Java reporting library. XML report templates are used to generate ready to print documents using data from customizable data sources, including JDBC. The output can be delivered to the screen, printer, or stored in PDF, HTML, XLS, CSV and XML format  23. JBoss.org https://sourceforge.net/projects/jboss The JBoss/Server is the leading Open Source, standards-compliant, J2EE based application server implemented in 100% Pure Java  24. ABC [Yet Another Bittorrent Client] https://sourceforge.net/projects/pingpong-abc ABC is an improved client for the Bittorrent which supports queueing system with priority, global and local preference setting for downloading torrent, 3 upload options to do with completed file, with ABC_TWEAK you can adjust status display by yourself.  25. ScummVM https://sourceforge.net/projects/scummvm ScummVM is a cross-platform interpreter for several point-and-click adventure engines. This includes all SCUMM-based adventures by LucasArts, Simon the Sorcerer by AdventureSoft, and Beneath a Steel Sky and Broken Sword 2 by Revolution  ---------------------------------------------------------
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I'm looking for ideas, established practices, do's and don'ts for sponsoring an open source project.  An upfront caveat -- this is not an actual offer. It's totally hypothetical. If I make the offer it will be done in some other more formal way.  The project: I want the OPML Editor to run on Linux. I don't want to hire someone to do this project, rather I want to offer a reward when the project is completed.  The source code is already released under the GPL, in versions for Mac OS X and Windows. Of course Mac OS is a flavor of Unix, but the internal API is quite different, I imagine, from Linux. I'm not looking for elegance, I'm looking for functionality. I don't care how the port is done, just that it be maintainable, and then be released (of course) under the GPL.  Personally, I think the most likely way to get this done quickly is to compile the code under WINE, using the Windows version of the code, and then go back and connect up the Unix system calls, so that all the Unix related verbs work. (Note the OPML Editor is actually a rich programming environment, despite its diminutive name. It's an instance of UserLand Frontier, which goes back to 1988.) To me, it would be worth $10,000 to have the OPML Editor running reliably on Linux, because then all the projects I've built and am building would then automatically run on Linux. Now I'm not saying that the project can be done for that amount of money (it's possible that it can), but I also don't feel I should be the only person funding the project. And maybe it's enough of a prize to incentivize someone or a group to do it. Now, of course, I see problems. Since it's an open source project, how will I know who to give the reward to if the goal is met. It might be the result of the work of a group of people. If so, I think they would have to figure out among themselves how to split the reward. On the other hand, I don't see any movement right now to port the codebase to Linux, so maybe if someone is interested in the project, you should do it on your own, and just present the results. If it works, then it seems you would be entitled to the reward. I seem to remember people proposing groupware systems for creating these kinds of projects, a few years ago. Not sure if they came to fruition, for all I know there could be an eBay for open source programming projects. If you have any information to share on this, please post a comment here, and thanks in advance.
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Open-source collaboration software vendor depends on its partners to compete.
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OCTOBER 18, 2004 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - The biggest challenge for the open-source community is that there are too few open-source developers, according to Michael Tiemann, vice president of open-source affairs at Red Hat Inc.
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Open source vendor OpenLogic is today kicking off a new industry initiative meant to help both users and software companies find out precisely what kinds of open source software is being used -- and who is using it.
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The FOSSology Project monitors the use of free and open-source software within an enterprise.