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Top Ten Open Source Innovators

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the leading-the-pack dept.

42istheanswer writes "Open source is so much more than Linux these days. A lot is happening beyond the popular operating system. Open source models are thriving in CRM (SugarCRM), messaging (Scalix), and systems management (Zenoss). Datamation has identified ten leading commercial open-source innovators and the projects they are working on in their article, Ten Leading Open Source Innovators."

6 of 152 comments (clear)

  1. Innovations? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    SugarCRM, Scalix and Zenoss are hardly innovative. Equivalent technologies have been around on IBM's various mainframe systems for nearly 30 years now! Sure, they didn't have flashy GUIs like they do today, but the core concepts were well-established decades ago.

    The big battle is usually getting those core concepts to a level where they're applicable, especially on the relatively limited 1960s and 1970s hardware. That's the hard work. Tossing on a GUI, and running on systems equivalent in computer power to 250 S/370s isn't much of an innovation.

  2. huh? by rs79 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Open source is so much more than Linux these days"

    Maybe I'm just old and cranky but I find this really annoying given that my own involvement with what is now called Open Source predates Linux by 15 years.

    If it'd said unix I think it would have been more meaningfull. Linux schminux.

    --
    Need Mercedes parts ?
  3. Where's Bram Cohen? by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you're talking leading INNOVATORS, Bram Cohen and BitTorrent are notably absent. BitTorrent is IMO absolutely the most novel and fascinating idea that was released straight to open-source. Their funding also ranks up with the other people mentioned. So why were they omitted?

  4. Talking of top OSS projects... by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...do you guys realise that an open source project received an Academy Award this year? I find it weird that it hasn't been reported much in the geek news outlets.

    --
    Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
  5. Re:Real OSS = Darwin In Action by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Translation: if you're trying to make money off it, it's not Open Source."

    Retranslation: if you try to bastardize the expression "open source" so you can use it as a buzzword atracting people to your old privative bussiness model, then no, to my eyes it's not open source no matter the distribution license of the bare source code.

  6. We don't need no stinking badges! by scarolan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have an installation of SugarCRM "Open Source" on my laptop that I am using for evaluation purposes. I attempted to install a plugin created by a developer, and somehow it modified the code that displays the SugarCRM logo image on every page. All of a sudden, I was completely locked out of the system. I could no longer log in, even to disable the plugin that I had installed. The error message "Please replace the SugarCRM logos" kept popping up every time. So I Googled around a bit and found this article about "Badgeware":

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=867

    Apparently this "feature" was added into the code to try and prevent companies like vTiger from doing exactly what the parent poster said - exercise their rights under the "Sugar Public License". You can't even post the word "vTiger" on their forums without it being censored:

    http://sugarcrm.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20207

    There are lots of companies trying to jump on the open source bandwagon, but not many that actually stick with a "real" open source license like the GPL.