Posted 01/25/09 at 11:00:00 AM by David Murphy

Enterprise business applications still outnumber all other open-source projects, according to a survey of 380 Linux developers by market research firm Evans Data Corporation.  But open-source is on the move away from traditional enterprise infrastructures and into the Cloud--the concept of data being stored "on the Internet" without a single entity or specific server to call home.  Google's App Engine takes top billing as a Cloud provider, with 28 percent of Cloud-ready developers opting to use this service versus 15 percent for Amazon's Elastic Compute.

That's great and all, but where are open-source developers making their money?  We've got the answer after the jump, but here's a quick hint: It's the exact same way that no-name application and game developers are cashing in on a critical consumer platform.

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Posted 12/07/08 at 11:07:42 AM by Justin Kerr

Respected Open Source advocate, and CEO of Collaborative Software Stuart Cohen warns that the business model behind open source software companies is broken. And that the nature of these businesses will need to evolve in order to survive. In his article he explains how the traditional model in which companies would freely offer software, and make a living off the support is coming to an end. An end which is likely to be accelerated by the economic slowdown. He cautions open source designers to view the software as more of a means to an end.

As part of his argument, he claims the real value of open source software companies will come from those who can find ways to add value with supporting add-ons and applications. He uses Red Hat as an example of a company that adds significant value to the Linux kernel, and couldn’t survive on support alone. “Open-Soure code is generally great code, not requiring much support”. According to Cohen the true power of the open source community will be realized through the spirit of collaboration. “While the open-source business model may be broken, the concepts behind open source will continue to bring new value to customers and strong returns to software company stakeholders”.

So do you think the harsh economic climate will hurt or inspire the open source community? Hit the jump and let us know what you think.

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Posted 10/22/08 at 02:27:07 PM by Andy Salisbury

Coders, start your engines. The long awaited release of the Android source code has come to an end, thanks to the Android Open Source Project. The announcement, which was made just yesterday, hopes to potentially influence the future of mobile devices as a whole. Pretty ambitious!

“Even if you're not planning to ship a mobile device any time soon, Android has a lot to offer,” writes Dave Bort (are they out of license plates in the gift shop?) on Androiod’s blog, “Interested in working on a speech-recognition library? Looking to do some research on virtual machines? Need an out-of-the-box embedded Linux solution? All of these pieces are available, right now, as part of the Android Open Source Project, along with graphics libraries, media codecs, and some of the best development tools I've ever worked with.” He continues to encourage anyone with a great idea for a new feature to simply add it. Given the nature of the open source project, anyone can influence Android.

Some big ups have to go out to Google on this one, making Andrioid perhaps one of the easiest development tools to acquire. Considering it’s free to license and now the entire source code is available to anyone that wants it, perhaps their dream of world domination is only a few developers away.

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