Is open-source software support better than closed-source software support?
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Open source doesn't necessarily automatically translate into better paid support for customers.  But it does offer a lot more options and aligns customers with vendors more tightly.
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Some are questioning the fit between the two companies from the perspective of open-source tools and APIs.
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Low cost and flexibility are selling points for the open-source VoIP software, but is it right for your shop?
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Among the factors sited: the ability to customize the software and avoid vendor lock-in.
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LONDON -- Open source software proponents received a potential boost from the U.K. government on Thursday with a release of a report citing the well-documented advantages on the server side, but also growing maturity on the desktop front.
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PC Magazine - Opinion: CPUs, like software, have always had bugs. The security implications of this are a relatively new problem, and open-source users may be at a disadvantage.
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Open Source methodology has gained some ground in one of the last places you and I might expect: In the development area of corporations. Consultants are calling environments like Sourceforge Enterprise Edition a Digital Development Environment.
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It seems that the proprietary world is doing just fine in the face of open source.  But for how long?
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Is open source software better than you think? Comment I got some flack recently for daring to suggest (or appearing to) that open source software (OSS) should be "fit for purpose" (here).â¦
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As open source becomes pervasive, software giants like Microsoft, Oracle and Sun are adapting in different ways.
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As companies ramp up open-source deployments, expertise is in high demand and short supply. The costs of developing talent can add up.
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InfoWorld - SANTA CLARA, CALIF. &#8211; Enterprises that in the past may have been leery of open source alternatives to commercial software have opened up to the concept, panelists said here Tuesday at an SDForum conference entitled "Open Source &#8211; Entering the Mainstream.&#8221;
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Open source software is a viable alternative to commercial proprietary software, with potential significant value-for-money benefits for government, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has concluded.
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There is a fascinating article on Groklaw called Searching for Openness in Microsoft's OOXML and Finding Contradictions. One of the most relevant comments in the article is "So, they plan to be the only one in the Linux world that can actually interoperate with Microsoft. How do you think they will achieve that? By sharing? On the contrary, they already market themselves as uniquely interoperable, which means they get to interoperate and you don't, unless you are their paying customer."  There is also the Novell comment, "Only Novell has Microsoftâs endorsement as its partner to drive Linux-Windows interoperability."
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Open source is not always the best software.  When it's not, use something else.  Is this complicated?
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Open Solutions Alliance hopes to make open-source software programs work better together.
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(InfoWorld) - Scott Handy started with IBM in 1983 as a systems engineer and went on to sales, marketing, and strategy positions covering large accounts, channels, small and medium business, and IBM products for Windows NT, Sun Solaris and OS/2 Warp. Now as vice president for Linux and open source he is one of the main public faces articulating IBM's open-source strategy. IDG News Service Senior Writer Elizabeth Montalbano caught up with Handy at the sidelines of the recent LinuxWorld Open Solutions Summit in New York. He talked about how the industry giant manages to support a vast product portfolio for Linux and open-source initiatives. IDGNS: Can you tell us how the internal Linux rollout at IBM is going? Handy: We first started talking about it maybe four years ago. What we learned was that it actually was going to be a problem for our support group, our help desk, to have a different set of software on the Linux side than they did on the Windows side. So it was very important to figure out that we needed to standardize on a single programming model for the two environments and Eclipse came out to be the most robust cross platform environment that we came up with. By rewriting Notes and SameTime I think we've achieved with the Open Client [desktop management software] exactly what we needed. So we really for a while there had to slow down. We were more focused on getting to a common software stack for Windows and Linux than we were on increasing the number of Linux users. And now the big drive within IBM is to get everybody on Open Client. There's less concern about which OS you're on and in fact we're not gonna cap it, we're gonna see what happens with our users. We don't have a target but I expect Linux usage will go up. IBM Research seems to prefer Linux, the China Development Lab prefers Linux, [and] we have whole geographies that seem to have at least a slightly greater inclination for Linux than other areas -- like Brazil, like India. IDGNS: IBM has said it would be even-handed in supporting both Red Hat and Novell equally. What's your status on supporting other distributions? Handy: Overall our Linux distribution strategy is to support two or more Linux distributions. In the very beginning, in 99, we had four, we had TurboLinux and Caldera and Suse and Red Hat. And over time the customer-buying and the business has consolidated -- certainly on the server. Over 90 percent of the servers now ship with Red Hat or Novell Suse. The idea of having a vendor-neutral or dual supplier for customers is very attractive. The "two or more" means that if some other vendor gets significant share in the marketplace, Linux really is open, so we could support an additional one. We'd have additional costs; that would be because we have a pretty big Linux portfolio at this point. We have over 500 software products across DB2, WebSphere, Lotus, Tivoli, and Rational in our software group that support Linux, [and] that we would have to test. [But] our Linux strategy allows us to support an additional distribution so if somebody gets a big share -- which is basically saying our customers start buying and demanding another Linux distribution -- we would do so. And we have done so in certain geographies. We support Asianix in Asia. IDGNS: What is IBM's position on the deal between Novell and Microsoft? Do you think it's a good thing? Do you think Novell has lost some credibility? Handy: Our perspective on the Microsoft Novell deal is it's an interesting deal. Different customers have different perspectives on it. Some customers -- among the class of customers who think that any vendors fighting is a bad thing -- think that this deal between Microsoft and Novell is a good thing. And yes there are some people in the community who see this as partnering with someone who's anti-Linux and that this is a kind of a negative thing. So I think at the end of the day and from everything I've seen -- and I've talked to a lot of customers -- the positives slightly outweigh the negatives. There's some interesting aspects of this thing, especially in their partnership around virtualization that I think could be good for customers. This is a competitive business and Novell's doing this to get competitive advantage. Let it play and see where it's gonna go. Our support for Novell is steadfast and firm and we continue to drive aggressively in the market with them but we also partner aggressively with Red Hat, so really not a lot changed in our overall strategy. IDGNS: Microsoft has called into question IBM's commitment to open-document standards. Handy: The IBM strategy is behind anything really that gets industry traction and ODF has a tremendous amount of industry traction. We have a lot of customers and a lot of governments who are behind this [ODF], and of course vendors. We've done our part; we've announced that Lotus Notes, and the editors that we ship with that, are ODF compliant.