Oracle increases MySQL pricing. Jono Bacon wants some respect. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Oracle increased the prices for MySQL and rejigged its editions.

# A good overview of the resulting MySQL pricing hubbub from @tiensoon

# SkySQL named first customers in open letter to Oracle MySQL customers.

# Actuate reported over $5.1m in BIRT-related business for Q3, up 8% YoY.

# Actuate

JCP election results. Funding for Acquia and Continuent. Fedora 14. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# The Java Community Process election results are in.

# Acquia closed an $8.5m series C funding round and announced that it has tripled its customer base in 2010.

# Continuent appointed Robert Hodges CEO and confirmed details of $5m funding from Aura Capital.

# Red Hat announced the

When we published our 2008 report on the impact of open source on the database market the overall conclusion was that adoption had been widespread but shallow.

Since then we’ve seen increased adoption of open source software, as well as the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle. Perhaps the most significant shift in the market since early 2008 has been the explosion in the number of open source database and data management projects, including the various NoSQL data stores, and of course Hadoop and its associated projects.

On Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 11:00 am EST I’ll be joining Robin Schumacher, Director of Product Strategy from EnterpriseDB to present a

This is an updated version of a post that was originally published in July 2009. It has been updated in response to ongoing confusion about open core licensing.

There has been a significant amount of interest in the open core licensing strategy since Andrew Lampitt articulated it and its benefits for combining open source and closed source licensing.

There remains considerable confusion about exactly what the open core licensing strategy is, however, which is strange since the term arrived fully packaged with a specific definition, courtesy of Andrew. Recently I have begun to wonder whether many of the people that use the term open core regularly

Bradley M Kuhn published an interest blog post at the weekend explaining why he believes Canonical is about to go down the open core licensing route and heavily criticising the company for doing so.

My take on the post is that it is the worst kind of Daily Mail-esque fear mongering and innuendo. Not only does Bradley lack any evidence for his claim, the evidence he presents completely undermines his argument and distracts attention from what could be a very important point about copyright assignment.

The premise? Mark Shuttleworth has admitted that he plans to follow the open core licensing strategy with Canonical.

The evidence? Mark praises the strategy Trolltech took of selling proprietary licenses.

The problem? Trolltech did not follow the open core licensing strategy. Neither

The future of the JCP. A new Mozilla CEO. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Mike Milinkovich explained why the Eclipse Foundation will support Oracle’s plans for Java 7, and outlined its concerns about the Java 8 JSR.

# Stephen Colebourne outlined the choices facing Java Community Process executive committee voters: pragmatism or bust, before later proposing a third option: a split in the Java Community Process between core and

Patents! Patents! Patents! Canonical’s perfect 10. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Google responded to Oracle’s claims that its Android OS infringes copyrights and patents related to Java.

# Matt Asay evaluated the various patent claims against Android and its related devices.

# Microsoft licensed smartphone patents from ACCESS Co and a subsidiary of Acacia Research.

# Glyn Moody assessed what Microsoft’s

Microsoft sues Motorola. Oracle says no to LibreOffice. Time to fork Java? And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Microsoft is suing Motorola over alleged Android patent infringements.

# Oracle confirmed to SJVN that it will not be working with the Document Foundation on LibreOffice.

# Sean Michael Kerner reported that Red Hat has settled an alleged patent infringement case with IP firm Acacia Research.

# Greg Luck asked if it

There is much excitement this week (understandably) about the formation of the Document Foundation and the LibreOffice fork of Openoffice.org.

Alan Bell sees correlation with the previous fork of Joomla from Mambo and has illustrated the potential impact that forking a project can have with a Google Trends chart, where Mambo is the blue line, and Joomla is the red line:

A similar chart for Debian (blue) and Ubuntu (red) is also instructive:

Or what about Nagios (blue) and Icinga

Oracle launches Unbreakable Kernel, updates MySQL and Java plans. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca, and daily at Paper.li/caostheory
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Oracle launched its Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel.

# Oracle announced the release candidate of MySQL 5.5.

# Oracle outlined its plans for Java platform. JavaWorld has the details.

# Novell and SAP have collaborated on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications.

# Mozilla

We continue to see more evidence of the themes we discuss in our latest CAOS special report, Seeding the Clouds, which examines the open source software used in cloud computing, the vendors backing open source, the cloud providers using it and the impact on the industry.

First, as usual, we are seeing consistencies between our own research — which indicates open source is a huge part of today’s cloud computing offerings from major providers like Amazon, Google, Rackspace, Terremark and VMware — and that of code analysis and management vendor Black Duck. In its analysis of code that runs the cloud, Black Duck also found a preponderance of open source pieces, in many cases the same projects we profile in our report.

Indeed, open source software is an

The future of open source licensing. OpenSolaris governing board quits. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Glyn Moody asked which open source software licensing is best for the future?

# The OpenSolaris Governing Board has collectively and expectedly resigned.

# OpenBravo has updated its rapid implementation ERP offering for small and mid-sized businesses, Openbravo QuickStart.

# Red Hat has

It seems safe to say that Oracle is currently ahead of Microsoft when it comes to the company with the most contentious relationship with open source. To some extent that is due Oracle’s questionable approach to community, but it must also be noted that Microsoft has managed not to put its foot in it for a while.

In Microsoft 2009 published its first companywide perspective on open source, made its first contributions to the Linux kernel, and created the CodePlex Foundation, an independent entity designed to encourage its developers and other companies to contribute more to open source software projects.

Doubts have remained about Microsoft’s ongoing commitment, however, with the company being labeled opportunistic in its approach to open source, and skepticism persists – particularly in relation to software patents. We have recently published a new

There are many questions that arise out of Oracle’s copyright and patent infringement complaint against Google regarding its use of Java in Android. There are several things that make the suit significant to the entire industry: it centers not just on software copyright, but also software patents (an increasingly and hotly debated issue), the quickly-expanding smartphone market and open source software. The first question is: what is Oracle doing?

Many are speculating that this is simply an effort to further and more effectively monetize Java, a storied program language that has move more toward openness and survived several supposed death sentences as newer languages arrived. Still, with all of the open source parts — GlassFish application server, MySQL database, OpenOffice.org suite — is Java the most significant to Oracle? It may be, but regardless of what

Compliance. Funding. Financial results. Copyright assignment. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

Compliance
# The Linux Foundation launched the Open Compliance Program, including tools, training, and consulting.

Funding
# VentureBeat reported that Joyent has raised $7m in a second round of funding.

# Basho Technologies secured $2m from angel investors in a Series C preferred equity financing.

# StatusNet

Stephen O’Grady and Simon Phipps have both recently published interesting posts on the current state of open source, with Stephen pondering the relative growth of open source and Simon wondering whether the “commercial open source” bubble has burst.

What they are describing, I believe, is the culmination of the trends we predicted at the beginning of 2009 for commercial open source business strategies – specifically the arrival of the fourth stage of commercial open source.

What is the fourth stage of commercial open source? In short: a return to a

One of the issues that has arisen from the ongoing debate about the open core licensing strategy is the continuing confusion about open core compared to the use of open source components in a larger proprietary product – such as IBM’s use of Apache within WebSphere.

To some people there is no difference between the two (since they both result in products that make use of open source but are not open source), however it is clear to me that while the end result might be the same these are very different strategies that involve different approaches to engaging with open source communities/projects.

While open core has a clear definition there is no agreed term or definition for the latter category.

Over the years we have used a variety of

New projects. Old arguments. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

New projects
# Gemini Mobile Technologies released Hibari, a new open source non-relational database for big data.

# Lockheed Martin launched the Eureka Streams open source project for enterprise social networking.

# Sony Pictures Imageworks expanded its open source initiative with the release of OpenColorIO.

Old arguments
# Kirk Wylie discussed the importance of natural split in open core

In the first part of this post I discussed the underlying division that drives the debate about open core, and the futility of arguing about what constitutes an “open source company” without any relevant definition.

Since then Monty Widenius has proposed a definition that would exclude any company that does not produce open source software (including open source support providers) and any company that does not provide access to 100% of its code (which would often exclude Red Hat as it moves to open source acquired code).

In the meantime others have declared that there is no such thing as an open source company and

SugarCRM. Funding for EnterpriseDB and Morphlabs. Even more core. And more

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

Bittersweet
# OStatic asked whether SugarCRM has violated open source principles.

# Larry Augustin clarified SugarCRM’s approach to open source and openness.

# Savio Rodrigues advised anyone considering SugarCRM not to get hung-up on source code availability.

Funding round
# EnterpriseDB has reportedly raised $7.5m of a planned $12m round of funding.

There are signals of continued problems and dysfunction — namely lack of support, organization and communication — in the OpenSolaris community. This follows on a deterioration of the OS leadership and support since Oracle bought Sun Microsystems, including the elimination of OpenSolaris CDs, one of the things that made the open source version of Solaris more like Linux.

We had speculated on the fate of Sun open source software under Oracle and while we acknowledged Oracle’s participation in, contribution and commitment to and opportunity from open source software, we

Funding for Eucalytus and Moodlerooms. SkySQL offers support for MySQL. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Eucalyptus Systems raised $20m in a second round of funding led by New Enterprise Associates.

# Moodlerooms reportedly raised $7.15m in equity funding.

# SkySQL announced its intention to provide support & services for the MySQL ecosystem.

# StatusNet launched the open source StatusNet Desktop Client.

# Rhomobile released Rhodes 2.0 under the MIT

Elephants on parade: Hadoop goes mainstream. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

Elephants on parade
# Cloudera launched v3 of its Distribution for Hadoop and released v1 of Cloudera Enterprise.

# Karmasphere released new Professional and Analyst Editions of its Hadoop development and deployment studio.

# Talend announced that its Integration Suite now offers native support for Hadoop.

# Yahoo announced the beta release of Hadoop with Security

There was another acquisition involving open source software recently when Consona bought Compiere, but what is perhaps most striking about the deal from an open source software perspective is how little it and the Compiere community mattered in the deal.

By most accounts, including that of fellow open source ERP player xTuple CEO Ned Lilly, who offers an interesting and accurate depiction of Compiere’s changes, acknowledge the movement away from community that occurred over the last few years at Compiere. As discussed in our own recent report on the deal, we are also somewhat skeptical over the fate of what is left of Compiere’s open source

What’s missing from WebM? VoltDB launches. The importance of profitability. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Simon Phipps examined what’s missing from WebM, from an open source perspective.

# Mike Stonebraker’s VoltDB officially launched its open source in-memory OLTP database.

# Jim Whitehurst argued that one of Red Hat’s most valuable contributions to open source is its profitability.

# Infobright appointed former Aleri CEO Don DeLoach as its new president and chief

Alfresco launches Activiti project. Funding for NorthScale and Zend. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# Alfresco launched the Apache-licensed Activiti BPM project, led by Tom Baeyens and Joram Barrez.

# NorthScale announced $10m in series B funding, led by the Mayfield Fund, and a new CEO.

# Zend Technologies raised $9m led by Greylock Partners with participation its existing investors.

# Stephen Walli joined the CodePlex Foundation as its technical director.

# Oracle

We’ve long wondered what might happen to all of that open source software from Sun Microsystems now that it’s at Oracle? Obviously, some pieces continue to live at Oracle (Java, Solaris, MySQL), but there are a number of open source projects that Oracle has either neglected to talk about or have been overlooked, particularly as we focused on user reactions, implications and finally approval of Oracle’s acquisition of Sun.

One significant group of open source technologies from Sun is its OpenSSO single

Or: “Don’t be a Cnut.”

Yesterday I had a look at the response of the Joomla! community to the news that Microsoft had signed the Joomla! Contributor Agreement and was contributing code to the content management project.

You probably won’t be surprised to find that some people don’t like the idea. The speed and vehemence of their rejection of Microsoft’s involvement in the project is entirely predictable, but none the less depressing for that.

The usual complaints were rolled out:

you can’t trust Microsoft

when Microsoft contributes a major product to open source, we’ll listen

Microsoft is only doing this to sell more proprietary software

VMware and Salesforce.com launch VMforce. Red Hat provides Cloud Access. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# VMware and Salesforce.com launched VMforce, a platform for developing and deploying Java cloud applications.

# Red Hat Cloud Access enables enterprises to use their Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscription on Amazon Web Services.

# Canonical announced Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Server Edition, Desktop Edition and ISV support.

# Novell

The White House contributes to OSS. Growth for Pentaho and MuleSoft. And more.

Follow 451 CAOS Links live @caostheory on Twitter and Identi.ca
“Tracking the open source news wires, so you don’t have to.”

# The White House released some of the custom code it has developed for whitehouse.gov as open source.

# Pentaho reported 229% bookings growth and 177% Enterprise Edition customer growth in Q2.

# MuleSoft grew bookings by 140% in Q1.

# The beta of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is now available, without Xen.

# OpenCandy