Open Source Not Quite Open Anymore?
I just browsed a list of top ten (10) open source innovators from an EarthWeb Datamation article. The article here seemed pretty strange to me as some of the companies featured do not quite open their innovation.
It’s a contentious time for the open-source community. Microsoft has partnered with Novell, Oracle is angling for Red Hat’s customer base, while Linux is promising to enlarge its influence in the burgeoning market for mobile phones and set-top boxes.
In the past, any open-source discussion centered on Linux, but now that Linux is a mature, stable operating system, the real innovation is happening elsewhere. As Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff notes, what’s most interesting is what happens when the open-source push collides with other technology trends – when it enters the data center, when it drives the virtualization movement, when it changes how software is delivered and monetized, or when it spurs application ecosystems.
However, it should be noted that most of these companies don’t sponsor open source projects directly. In most cases, they only contribute a small fraction of their innovation to open source. I think the definition of open source innovators here maybe pretty loose? Maybe this should be called top ten (10) emerging open source contributors. Emerging because the likes of Transmeta, IBM, HP, RedHat and Oracle are not in the list.
