Jose Mourinho is quoted today about how pleased he is that the best striker on this planet - Thierry Henry - turned down two record offers of nearly $90M from Barcelona and Real Madrid to stay with Arsenal. Why would the coach of the world's most competitive team (in the transfer market, anyway) be happy that Arsenal will be stronger next year?

Because competition is good.

Who cares if Chelsea wins if they have no competition? Indeed, Mourinho has bemoaned this fact lately - no one takes him seriously as a coach since he has billions to spend on buying up every good player on the planet.

It's the same in the open source world. First, it's becoming a bit distressing to me that the proprietary players have come up with such anemic rationales for why IT buyers should choose them. Innovation? Open source has that in spades. Or how …

As I discussed earlier in A picture can tell a thousand words, I outlined briefly what the intention of UltimateLAMP was for. Let me spill the beans so to speak.

What is UltimateLAMP?

UltimateLAMP is a fully functional environment allowing you to easily try and evaluate a number of LAMP stack software products without requiring any specific setup or configuration of these products. UltimateLAMP runs as a Virtual Machine with VMware Player (FREE). This demonstration package also enables the recording of all user entered information for later reference, indeed you will find a wealth of information already available within a number of the Product Recommendations starting with the supplied Documentation.

My executive punch line with the “right” buzz words is:

You have heard of all the hype in …

I’m a keen advocate of MySQL. However, while I use it and promote it within my limited IT circles, I often wonder how MySQL can get better traction and exposure, especially within both the industry sectors and physical locations where I am presently.

This presents a dilemma, it’s almost like the term that has been used in Venture Capital, and in the well named book, Crossing the Chasm. I see and believe that MySQL already has good penetration within certain industry sectors, specifically Internet Based, Startup Based, or Small Based segments. However, I’m sure within other commercial sectors, MySQL has either a token exposure or little to no exposure at all, at least in the circles I mix with.

So how can MySQL the product and MySQL AB the company get both better exposure and …

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, …