Column: Open is a tale told by an 'idiot'
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Phil Mickelson isn&#039;t the only major champion to blow the U.S. Open. He can only hope he doesn&#039;t end up like the others.
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Sharpen your knowledge of Foolish fundamentals.
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A Fool offers a round of applause for better disclosure.
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Sun Microsystems' purchase earlier this month of open-source database maker MySQL may have been pennywise and pound-foolish, with many observers suggesting that Valley stalwart Sybase was in fact the smarter buy. The logic is compelling -- but won't someone stand up for the cussedly independent?
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You can learn a lot from writing a newspaper column, especially when a reader calls in to say that you're wrong. I've just received a revealing critique that foreshadows a nasty new escalation in the battle over our digital rights.
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Readers find fault with Wired News' review of Microsoft's new operating system. Plus: Links to our most popular blogs.
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The twisted truth is that Alan Shore rather merrily blurs the line between appalling and delightful. And as played with devilish sardonic wit and a scheming twinkle in his eye by James Spader
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Headlines can tell you both more -- and less -- than they intend.
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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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Rumors of a merger make a Foolish investor look brilliant.
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For a public-relations lifer at AT&amp;T Corp., Dick Martin has written a surprisingly interesting, blunt, and dishy account of the crackup of Ma Bell.
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FoTW Inability to follow a story by reason of anger, part 73
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A Fool traces the evolution of the ETF market.
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'Advertising is democracy' "Fire the publicist. Go off message. Let all your employees blab and blog!" fantasised the writer Clive Thompson in a recent Wired magazine cover story.â¦
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Investors may think so, but this Fool disagrees.
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Readers respond with wit, wisdom, and sometimes some venom, to Shortcuts columns.
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A Fool peers in through Wall Street's out door.