Category Archives: Open Source Software

Has Microsoft really changed its attitude toward open source?

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June 05, 2014, 11:34 AM Microsoft became infamous for its very negative early remarks about open source software. But restructuring at the company may be giving it a more positive attitude toward open source. CNet reports on changes in Microsoft's perceptions and behavior when it comes to open source software.

According to CNet:

But Microsoft's feud with open source has been sputtering for quite some time, and the senior managers who led the anti-open source charge are gone from the scene -- or at least no longer in positions of authority. Open source is now routinely used by corporations around the world, and the company's sniffy put-downs only fed into the perception of Microsoft as out of touch.

Some of that new thinking reflects the change at the top of the corporate pyramid, with Satya Nadella replacing Ballmer as CEO in early February. Since taking over, Nadella has talked up his vision of a Microsoft whose future isn't shackled to its Windows past.

More at CNet

Image credit: Curako's Blog

Okay, I hate to be a Negative Ned here, but I'm firmly in the "trust but verify" camp when it comes to Microsoft and open source. Yes, a new CEO and other changes may be helping Microsoft to adjust to living in an open source world. But change never comes easy or fast in such a large organization, so I think the jury is still out on whether or not Microsoft has really changed for the better when it comes to open source software.

Also, I've never forgotten the company's "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategy that they used in the past to destroy competitive software products. That alone is reason enough to keep a wary eye on Microsoft's involvement with any open source project. Perhaps the company really has changed, but maybe it hasn't. I think it bears watching for at least another few years to see if enduring change has really set in or not.

Android versus Windows ZDNet has an article that covers the top end-user Linux distributions. It notes that Windows still rules the desktop for now, but Android may eventually be the big kahuna among end-user operating systems by the end of this year.

According to ZDNet:

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Has Microsoft really changed its attitude toward open source?

Zimbra Announces Move to OSI-based Licensing for Zimbra Collaboration 8.5 Open Source Edition

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Dallas (PRWEB) June 04, 2014

Zimbra, a global leader in unified collaboration software, announced today that it is making key changes to its open source software licensing. In order to build an even stronger foundation for community-powered innovation, the company is moving to Open Source Initiative (OSI)-approved licenses with its summer release of Zimbra Collaboration 8.5. The Zimbra Collaboration server platform will be licensed under the GNU Public License version 2 and the Zimbra Collaboration web application will be licensed under the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL) version 1.

Today, more than 60,000 community members contribute to the Zimbra Collaboration open source project. With more than one million downloads, the open source edition of Zimbra Collaboration is being used by approximately 600 million people in 135 countries.

By moving to OSI-approved licenses, Zimbra will increase contributions from the open source community that will drive innovation and enhance the quality of its software. Zimbra also looks forward to increased compatibility with other open source projects, so that customers, partners and end users receive greater benefit from integration across the open source software ecosystem.

If there was ever any doubt about Zimbras commitment, todays licensing announcement is more proof that our product strategy is securely tied to the open source community, said Rob Howard, chief technology officer at Zimbra. Leveraging our open source community will help us bring continuous innovation to the inbox, continued Howard.

Members of the open source community will begin to see these licensing changes go into effect in the open source repository with the public beta of Zimbra Collaboration 8.5. The public beta starts today and is open to all participants.

To participate in the public beta of Zimbra Collaboration 8.5 or view the Zimbra open source edition license, visit Zimbra.com today.

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About Zimbra

Zimbra powers collaboration for the way you work. Zimbra connects people and information with unified collaboration software that includes email, calendaring, file sharing, activity streams, social communities and more. With technology designed for social, mobile and the cloud, Zimbra gives individuals the flexibility to work from virtually anywhere, through nearly every computer, tablet and mobile device.

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Zimbra Announces Move to OSI-based Licensing for Zimbra Collaboration 8.5 Open Source Edition

Met Office swaps Oracle for PostgreSQL

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UK weather service, the Met Office, has started swapping Oracle for PostgreSQL in a strategy to deploy more open source technology.

James Tomkins, data services portfolio technical lead at the Met Office, said: "Traditionally we have always used Oracle as our relational database management system. It is quite a difficult monopoly break."

He said the Met Office wanted to reduce its dependency due to the cost of annual support and maintenance, in a broader initiative to embrace open source software across the organisation.

As Computer Weekly has previously reported, the Government Service Design Manual recommends: "Where appropriate, government will procure open source solutions. When used in conjunction with compulsory open standards, open source presents significant opportunities for the design and delivery of interoperable solutions."

The manual also states that proprietary software should only be used to solve "rare problems".

"Problems which are rare, or specific to a domain, may be best answered by using software as a service, or by installing proprietary software. In such cases, take care to mitigate the risk of lock-in to a single supplier by ensuring open standards are available for interfaces," it states.

The migration away from Oracle follows on from the Met Offices open source plans to use Red Hat and PHP scripting in 2012. At the time, Met Office executive head of technology, Graham Mallin, said the Met Office used IBMs AIX proprietary operating system on its supercomputers, but was running Python internally for software, with Red Hat running on its IBM mainframes. It had 500 Red Hat desktop users, alongside 1,300 Windows users.

While MySQL is the most popular open source relational database, the Met Office was cautious over using it because it is owned by Oracle. Tomkins said there were many branches of development in MySQL source code, which would have made managing the code more difficult than if only one version existed. The Met Office selected the open source PostgreSQL relational database instead.

The Met Office considered MySQL as an open source database to replace Oracle. But the team was cautious over using it because it was owned by Oracle and there were quite a lot of branches of development in the MySQL source code. The Met Office selected PostgreSQL instead.

Rather than attempt a big bang approach to replacing Oracle, the Met Office targeted two pilot migration projects.

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Met Office swaps Oracle for PostgreSQL

New handbook to help users migrate from Windows XP to free software

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Thiruvananthapuram, June 2:

The International Centre for Free and Open Source Software has released a handbook for migrating computers from proprietary platforms to free software platforms.

This is meant for government departments, institutions, public sector undertakings, and other organisations intending to migrate to free or open source-based software operating systems.

Earlier this month, the Kerala government had issued an order recommending that Government departments and institutions migrate to free software in view of the withdrawal of support to Windows XP.

The government order stipulates that government and quasi-government institutions migrate to free software-based platforms, unless there are unavoidable reasons to defer the migration.

We would like to support the action initiated by the IT Department in the migration, says Satish Bau, Director of the International Centre.

The handbook, currently in draft form, is for use by any institution that would like to minimise disruption during this transition.

Free software communities here and abroad may suggest improvements so as to make it even more relevant in the true spirit of free/open source software, Satish Babu added.

The handbook provides information on planning and gearing up for the transition, identifying potential problem areas (such as legacy hardware and software), and the recommended steps for making the transition.

It would also require training and capacity building measures for staff which may be arranged using local open software-based institutions in the government and private sectors.

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New handbook to help users migrate from Windows XP to free software

Lunch Power Panel | How Open Source Is Speeding Cloud Innovation

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Cloud Expo New York Early Bird Savings here!

Open source software is powering the most successful public cloud offerings including Amazon and Google. At the same time, other initiatives like OpenStack and CloudFoundry are growing in popularity with a number of vendors actively contributing code.

In this Lunchtime Power Panel at 14th Cloud Expo, Greg O'Connor, President & CEO of AppZero, Cory Isaacson, CEO of CodeFutures Corporation, and John Derrick, CEO of Jelastic, will discuss the future of open source in cloud computing and how customer adoption will be influenced by open clouds.

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Panelist Bios: Greg O'Connor is President & CEO of AppZero. Pioneering the Virtual Application Appliance approach to simplifying application-lifecycle management, he is responsible for translating Appzero's vision into strategic business objectives and financial results. O'Connor has over 25 years of management and technical experience in the computer industry. He was founder and president of Sonic Software, acquired in 2005 by Progress Software (PRGS). There he grew the company from concept to over $40 million in revenue. At Sonic, he evangelized and created the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) product category, which is generally accepted today as the foundation for Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Follow him on Twitter @gregoryjoconnor.

Cory Isaacson is CEO/CTO of CodeFutures Corporation, maker of dbShards, a leading database scalability suite providing a true "shared nothing" architecture for relational databases. He has authored numerous articles in a variety of publications including SOA Magazine, Database Trends and Applications, and recently authored the book Software Pipelines and SOA (Addison Wesley). Cory has more than twenty years' experience with advanced software architectures, and has worked with many of the world's brightest innovators in the field of high-performance computing. In his prior position as president of Rogue Wave Software, he actively led the company back to a position of profitable growth, culminating in a successful acquisition by a leading private equity firm. Cory can be reached at: cory.isaacson@codefutures.com

John Derrick is currently CEO of turnkey cloud provider Jelastic. He has extensive business leadership experience in the private and public cloud, big data, database, and enterprise markets. John focuses on the intersection of these markets, technology and teams to deliver solutions that really work for people. He has delivered product and profit at IBM, Chicory Systems, Conformative Systems, Intel, MIPS, and now Jelastic. Between these companies he has led and advised about 50 different startups and public companies.

A Rock Star Faculty, Top Keynotes, Sessions, and Top Delegates! Cloud Expo 2014 New York, June 10-12, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York, will feature technical sessions from a rock star conference faculty and the leading Cloud industry players in the world.

The growth and success of Cloud Computing will be on display at the upcoming Cloud Expo conference and exhibition in New York City, New York, June 10-12, 2014.

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Lunch Power Panel | How Open Source Is Speeding Cloud Innovation