I figure I might as well maintain my status as Resident Inquisitor of Open Source Myths with a discussion on the value of choice. A friend at a Fortune 500 company recently set me to thinking on the problems (and opportunities) that open source affords vis-a-vis choice. (I've opined on open source choice before, in case you're interested.)

I'm very fond of telling enterprises that open source maximizes their choice. I often use one of Larry's graphics to illustrate how much better off they are:

Look at all that choice the CIO now has! She can spend her money in a variety of different ways.

Oddly enough, that can be a problem. In many ways, it's easier to be forced into a decision: if I only have $10 to spend, in some ways I'm glad to have $9.95 in Arsenal tickets staring at me. My choice is made. No need to worry …

I am moderating the panel "Stories from the Front Line : Open Source solutions: Show me the Money" at TIECon tomorrow at 12 Noon featuring these fine fellows:

Richard Gorman, Venture Partner Bay Partners
Michael Olson, Vice President Oracle
Zack Urlocker, Executive Vice President, Products MySQL AB
Peter Yared, Founder and CEO ActiveGrid

Come and say hi and tell me you read this blog post so I know that Matt and aren't just writing to each other.

I received an email back from a good friend about my recent post on open source sales and marketing. He strongly disagrees with my view. I'm going to include some of his comments here, because I think they reveal the depth of his experience and accumulated wisdom. They also point to an optimal way to start an open source company.

He suggested some ways to build an open source business:

1. Fire everyone in sales.

   (Asay: This is difficult for a company like Alfresco, as we don't actually have anyone in sales besides an inside sales person, and he's kicking tail. I'd never consider firing someone who paid for himself in the first month on the job.)

2. Set revenue expectations for the next 12 months to zero.

   (Asay: I think this is …

I was ordering Mother's Day flowers tonight to the tune of Ozzy Osbourne's "Waiting for Darkness." (Don't ask.) I haven't heard it for years, and I started to smirk at the lyrics. Like most song lyrics, they're lame.

Playing with fire
But they're screaming
When they're burned
Out of the sunlight
Hasn't anybody learnedBefore the smirk set in, the head was banging. Great music. In my more lucid moments, I smirk. The rest of the time, I just enjoy.

The myths around open source are much the same. I've heard them so often that I rarely take time to critically evaluate what is being said. Heck, I'm as often as not the one regurgitating them. Open source developers and vendors mime the words, singing along to the catchy tune, because it serves their interests. Anything that smacks of a contrarian opinion is …

At the 2004 Foo Camp, Danese Cooper, a few other FLOSS advocates (forgive me, Foo Camp is a blur and I don’t remember who you were) and myself gave an ad hoc session on the methods and strategies that we each used to advocate FLOSS and to help people working closed environments become more open.

The session was a blast (and well-received), so much so that Danese and I proposed the session for last year’s OSCON. We didn’t make the cut, but I still tried again for this year’s EuroOSCON and, this time, the session was accepted.

The session should be fun to present, but a bit of a bear to write. I have only 45 minutes to try to fit in the most …

I'm on the phone with a WebEx technical support person. Not sure why tech support is necessary for taking my money (I'm just trying to set up a WebEx account for Alfresco - signed up online, gave my credit card number, and have received nothing in return), but whatever.

The thing that frustrates me to no end is that I went from talking with a local, US salesperson to a remote, India-based support person who gave me infinitely less support. He didn't understand the urgency of my requirements, though he tried hard to care. I eventually hung up in desperation and called back to the US sales team, telling them they were not allowed to transfer me outside their building. Result? Successful account setup.

Which got me thinking. I'm not a big fan of outsourcing in any situation - as I feel that support and development is best done as close to the problem one is trying to solve as possible - but in the open source world it seems insane. …

LinuxWorld Magazine (written by Paul Sterne and Nicholas Herring) has an interesting piece on open source venture capital investments. The report focuses on the question: is now the right time to invest in open source? The answer to some is "Of course!!!" But the data might suggest we're in an inflationary period, with smart money waiting for valuations to come down.

From the article:

Starting in the mid '90s, a few brave pioneers like Benchmark invested in an open alternative to proprietary software and made a fortune. By the end of the decade, everyone wanted a piece of the action. A second wave of VCs rushed in at ridiculous valuations and got their clocks cleaned. In 1999 and 2000, over-capitalized, over-valued open source companies burnt through hundreds of millions of dollars. Shame on the dumb money that gives efficient markets a bad name. Then, …

HackFest B: Creating a New SHOW Command by Brian Aker at the MySQL Users Conference

Brian stepped through the steps for those attending to modify and deploy new functionality in the mysql server. Cool. The end result I would consider for an experienced developer as relatively easy (after avoiding the pitfalls).

NOTE: I wasn’t able to complete this successfully during the session, but I’ve posted this, so hopefully the input and review of others can help in overcoming the current issues. See Outstanding Issues throughout my notes.

Our goal: Produce a new command SHOW CONFERENCE;

The following commands were performed on CentOS 4.2. There may be some …

I spoke with Paola Lubet, VP of Marketing at SolidDB to discuss their recent announcements with MySQL. According to Paola, the major roadblock for OSS databases into mission-critical environments is the real time nature of transactional data. SolidDB has been developing real-time databases for the last 14 years with features that go beyond basic storage (as one might perceive OSS databases to offer). This advanced functionality is common to Oracle etc, but not regularly seen in OSS databases. MySQL is the first open source DB that will feature this functionality. Both camps think that this will help MySQL move deeper into enterprises.

A prototype is available for download now.
Beta is July
Production is planned for Q4.

I've been watching the ruminations surrounding Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss with lively interest. Most of the past 5-10 years have been spent wondering how to beat Microsoft. Now, it seems, the struggle is to beat Red Hat...

...and it hasn't even won yet. :-)

It is testament to Red Hat's success that the Financial Times reports that Oracle has considered buying Novell. Stephe rightly points out that Oracle is not a middleware provider, per se, and so should not feel overly threatened by Red Hat's acquisition. Yet it clearly does.

Why? Because there's nothing more terrifying to a closed-source vendor, no matter where it sits in the software stack, than an aggressive, hungry, and successful open source player. Success …