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Top Ten Open Source Innovators
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."
so Some GNUz, IS good gnuz....
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
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.
"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 ?
What do all these stories of open source "innovation" have in common? They all include prominent mention of how much venture money the companies have raised. I can only assume this publication is Straight Out of Silicon Valley (tm).
We recently discovered an open source project that is easily on the leading edge of its industry.
In my opinion there has been a huge gap in open source software covering the employee payroll and time management industry and TimeTrex seems to have stepped up to the plate in a major way.
Our company used to spend over $30,000 a year outsourcing just our payroll to ADP and another $5000-10,0000 a year on time and attendance software. With TimeTrex we were able to consolidate them into one package and eliminate those costs and integration headaches in one fell swoop.
If payroll is a headache at your company, check this project out.
I have been pretty under impressed with SCALIX, which really doesn't do anything that Outlook does. Zimbra I think is breaking new ground, but they really need some serious speed boost to make it competitive with outlook. I do think that if the Zimbra folks get mashups right they will leapfrog Outlook and Exchange, one of the weakest areas out there.
I think people complaining here are missing the fact that Linux has had a bitch of a time breaking into the enterprise messaging market. That market really drives out Linux IT shops, and replaces them with expensive exchange servers. The larger a company grows, the more you have to make the executives happy. And nothing makes executives happy like blackberries, integrated email and calendaring.
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?
http://www.vtiger.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=22
Their original SPL was basically a search and replace of "Mozilla" in the MPL, replacing "Mozilla" with "Sugar"
After another group *gasp* dared exercise their rights provided for in the SPL(MPL), they threatened to sue, pissed and moaned, complained because trademarks were removed (Uh, They HAD to remove trademarks for redistribution of a modifief variant to be compliant with your license!)
Since then SugarCRM has NOT been open source; it has been shared source. Here's why:
You cannot derive a new product from SugarCRM; for all practical purposes, the "license" forbids it.
The license allows you to view and modify the source, and extend to it
If you contribute code to the core project, you give all ownership and credits to SugarCRM. OK, fine, I can buy that you give ownership to them, but you should be able to be credited in your code contribution.
If you ever subscribe to the Pro/Enterprise version of Sugar, you agree to waive your rights to use the "Open Source" edition ever again, and are "forbidden" to take your Pro/Enterprise database and import the data into the "Open Source" edition.
I hardly consider that to be open source, or to be in the spirit of open source.
If you need a CRM, I highly recommend vTiger over SugarCRM.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
...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.
Open Source software tends to work on a very darwinian model. Yes, there are "category killers" (who wants to code up a new text editor?) but for the most part, when a new "category" of open source application start taking off, it generates a lot of interest. You see about a zillion projects form up on Source Forge. Those that are able to actually produce usually get weeded through based on the quality and features. With price being removed as a deciding factor, it becomes all about how good the product is. Those that are good, survive. Those that aren't, don't. Occasionally, the old stand-bys get replaced.
What I see a lot of is companies, like Second Life (gaming company) who will "open source" part of their product, but not all of it, hoping to garner free work from the open source community. Devs are the backbone of the OSS community. With out someone to sling the code, nothing gets done. Most devs are wise to these tactics, since they're not nearly as new as the marketing poohbahs think they are. Not only does it not draw as well as they'd hoped, but it has a serious backlash. Most devs, myself included, view companies who engage in such tactics with suspicion and refuse to work on the projects even if they become fully open source later.
The other business model I've seen a lot is that the product is "open source" but some how you can never get the stuff to install or work properly unless you pay for them to host the application. This *always* ticks me off and I usually let everyone I know who might be looking for a simliar package not to waste their time. I love my Tivo, and I don't mind paying for it so don't take this the wrong way. This is what I've dubbed the "Tivo business model". If any of you ever downloaded the Tivo open source project, thinking that you might be able to get a working Tivo out of the deal, you know what I'm talking about. Yes, you could eventually get it working if you hacked away at it long enough or you can just buy the thing and get on with your life.
IMHO, if you don't have a working project that I can download for free, install on my own hardware, and get working without having to hack the source code in a major way, you're not really an open source project.
2 cents,
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
That list reads more like a pump and dump stock tip email. Who's getting paid here?
Speak truth to power.
They forgot Digium, the Asterisk company. Its hard to imagine a list of open source innovations that doesn't include Asterisk!
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RMS created gcc. Without gcc there would be no LINUX or BSD. Most of the utilities in the article would be impossible without gcc. Who was the original author of gcc? RMS.
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RMS created most of the GNU utilities without which most of GNU lINUX and BSD would be worthless.
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RMS was the first to proclaim the need for a free OS platform. He was the first to
try to make such a platform a practical reality. (GNU).
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RMS created the GPL.
There is no one who has made contributions to the Free software and/or "open source" software communities equal to that of RMS.This includes LINUS.
I realize that RMS can be idealogical, stubborn and hard to deal with, but the fact remains that in spite of this, or perhaps because of it, no one has made as great a contribution.
Do you understand the difference between "open source software" and "free software"?
By your description SugarCRM is not free software but it certainly sounds like it is open source. Likewise, it sounds like SugarCRM is keeping to the spirit of open source but is not keeping to the spirit of free software.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
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.
How hard did you look?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/timetrex/
TFA is total crap. Out of the 10 projects I've heard of 2 (KVM and MontaVista), and I'd hardly call any of them (except maybe KVM) even remotely "innovative". They just happen to be what venture capitalists think is profitable - virtualization and enterprise "management" software. Actually most of them aren't even real products but "platforms" or "frameworks" which can only be described in buzzwords. Quote:
What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway?
The real strength of open source is its technological superiority in some fields (e.g. LAMP, Mozilla, some open source kernels), new approaches in development (the "distributed development" model) and some technological innovations (BitTorrent etc), but definitely not in "enterprise software".