Open Enterprise Interview: Denis Lussier

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Source: Just the Ticket for Librarians

Here's a well-written story about how librarians have undertaken a major open source project with great success:

The system, Evergreen, whose 1.0 release came in November, is an Integrated Library System (ILS): the software that manages, catalogs, and tracks the circulation of library holdings. It's written in C, JavaScript and Perl, is GPLed, runs on Linux with Apache, uses a PostgreSQL database, Jabber for messaging and XUL as client-side software. The system allows easy clustering and is based entirely on open protocols.

Opening Up Open Source

We know it works, and we know why it works, but somebody would like to know exactly how and why it works:

A group of UC Davis researchers has just received a three-year, $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study how open source software such as the Apache Web server is built.

...

The researchers will focus on the Apache Web server, the PostgreSQL database and the Python scripting language. They will collect information from the message boards, bug reports and e-mail discussions to understand how design teams organize themselves and interact.

Am I the only one who finds it slightly ironic that $750,000 is being spent to write some papers about something that is written for nothing? (Via LXer.)

Open Source Enterprise Stack: It's Official

I and several thousand other people have been writing about the open source enterprise stack for a while; now free software's Eminence Rouge has given its benediction:

Red Hat Application Stack is the first fully integrated open source stack. Simplified, delivered, and supported by the open source leader. It includes everything you need to run standards-based Web and enterprise applications. Red Hat Application Stack features Red Hat Enterprise Linux, JBoss Application Server with Tomcat, JBoss Hibernate, and a choice of open source databases: MySQL or PostgreSQL, and Apache Web Server.

Pervasive but not Persuasive

Further proof, if any were needed, that open source business operates under different rules. Here's a letter from CEO of Pervasive, a company set up to "with the goal of helping accelerate the transition from the traditional, high cost database licensing model to the open-source, high-value model", specifically to PostgreSQL. But something funny happened along the way:

While we always knew that PostgreSQL is a solid product with advanced database capabilities and that it has a very real opportunity to shake up the high-end database market, we underestimated the high level of quality support and expertise already available within the PostgreSQL community. In this environment, we found that the opportunity for Pervasive Software to meaningfully increase adoption of PostgreSQL by providing an alternative source for support and services was quite limited.

In other words, the PostgreSQL community can look after itself, thank you very much. Just as can all other flourishing free software projects. Which is why, ultimately, they will prevail, because there are immune to the fads and fashions of the business world. (Via Matthew Aslett.)