What is open source? It is a way of developing, distributing, and licensing
software. In the late 1970's and early 1980's, the roots of open source as we
know it today were established.
The pioneers of open source were more interested in building software that
helped them achieve both social and technical goals than in taking advantage
of the business aspects of open source. Today, users, systems vendors, ISVs,
systems integrators, and others are interested in exploiting the business
value of open source.
A number of people and organizations from the mid-1970's to the present have
made contributions to the concept of open source. One of the organizations
that played an important role in contributing to the open source movement was
the Computer Science Research Group (CS... (more)
Linux.SYS-CON.com's senior contributing analyst, Bill Claybrook, spoke with
John Loiacono, executive vice president of Sun Microsystem's Software Group
about his new job, and what he has in store for Sun's Linux strategy.
You replaced Jonathan Schwartz several months ago as Sun's software leader.
Jonathan was very visible. Is this the way you are going to do it?
In my previous job as VP of ... (more)
On Monday, Linus Torvalds announced that software developers making
contributions to Linux would have to “sign their work” and “vouch for
its origin” via a Developer’s Certificate of Origin. Linus claims that
the Developer’s Certification of Origin is needed primarily as a trail of
documentation that makes developers accountable for the code that they write
for Linux. In other words, the... (more)
Ask some end users what Linux Standard Base (LSB) is and most likely they
either won't know anything about it, or know a little bit but not enough to
qualify as understanding what all the buzz around LSB is about. Ask three
ISVs and only one will likely understand the implications of LSB for their
business. And only a very, very few will say that they have started the
process of making s... (more)
Today I read an article by a journalist with quotes by analysts about Linux
and how difficult that it will be to move to Linux from Windows and from UNIX
in some cases. Then there is this book written by someone named Kenneth Brown
based on a study of Linux and its derivation. Mr. Brown says that Linux may
have been derived from UNIX and that some open source types do not respect
others ... (more)