For the current debate over Open Source involves a number of major corporations, is often religious in tone, and is relentlessly political.
The most recent major development came last week when the Open Source Initiative board held its Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, at which it clarified its stance by stating that "license proliferation has become a significant barrier to open-source deployment-approved licenses must meet three new criteria of being a) non-duplicative, b) clear and understandable, and c) reusable." It added that it will adopt "a three-tier system in which licenses are classified as preferred, approved or deprecated."
The OSI's statement does not legally bind anyone to comply with specific guidelines or to behave in any particular way when developing and marketing its own "open source" products. And therein lies either the problem (if one believes in de jure standards and practices) or the opportunity (if one believes in de facto standards and practices).
The realm of SYS-CON Media publications--which embraces Java, Microsoft .Net, and Linux--encompasses much of the debate about Open Source, with advocates from all sides getting their points across in print and online. SYS-CON, as the world's leading i-technology media company, is able to accommodate the diverse points of view inherent in this debate.
And the debate can get fierce. Most industry cognoscenti are well-aware of a lawsuit filed by SCO against IBM regarding what could be viewed as arcane and abstruse pieces of potential intellectual property. This story has been well-reported at www.linuxbusinessweek.com as well as at an oddly-named website purporting to cover aspects of Internet Age law but actually focusing on this case and on the coverage of Linux Business Week!
But this story hardly merits the only place at the table of Open Source debate. Many of the industry's big gorillas are sitting at the adults' table as well, including Microsoft, Intel, and Sun Microsystems.
The latter company has already displeased some members of the Open Source community with its CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License), which is not compatible with at the GNU General Public License, the source of the Open Source movement and foundation upon which Linux was built.
Intel has cautiously moved to remove its Open Source License as an approved OSI open-source approach. And the OSI has deemed that all "asymmetrical, corporate licenses (have) failed. (Our) new policy will discourage them (in the future.)"
On a slightly different tack, Microsoft would also argue that its .NET application development environment provides the best openness and flexibility on the market. Sun would argue the same for J2EE. Yet, in a special to LinuxWorld, developer and writer Steve Michel stated his support of Linux-driven LAMP rather than drinking "the .NET or J2EE Kool-Aid." (see www.linuxworld.com/story/49141.htm)
The fact is, every major hardware and software company had better have its Open Source "golden pitch" ready for eager customers who have tried to abandon proprietary systems (and their anticipated expense over the long haul) for less expensive, "open" systems over the past few years.
