IBM reached an open source milestone recently when it recognized the one-millionth download of its WebSphere Application Server Community Edition. Free to download and use, WAS CE provides a flexible foundation for developing Java applications. Technical support is offered through annual subscriptions.

OpenITWorks CEO Michael Grove contends that it is a mistake to think of commercial open source as its own business model. Instead, open source is one of many possible means to an end of making a single software business model successful -- that of selling value to customers through software. Businesses should focus their strategic planning on how to best monetize their value propositions, through open source or something else.

I’ve talked in the past about a number of “open source” business models. There’s the MySQL “dual license” model, where all the software is available under an open license but a proprietary license can be purchased.

Open source is no longer a novelty, even within the largest corporations. Today, 53% of businesses use open-source software, according to a recent CIO.com survey. However, not enough of those businesses are contributing code back to the open-source community, said Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, at the Red Hat Summit.

Open-source software is an increasingly popular software development and distribution model that may spread further in the face of financial constraints in our current economy. With publicly available source code generally offered without charge, it is tempting to look to open source for potentially significant cost savings in this time of need. But not so fast.

"The Free Software Foundation (“Foundation”), founded in October 1985, pioneered a movement of information exchange that initially had significant impact on software development practices, but later also inspired changes in broader fields of great public benefit [...] As an important part of this worldwide free software movement, the Foundation has been both an inspiration for, and a close obs

Open source is changing the way work gets done. Yeah, yeah, what's new? We all know that. But really, free and open source software has changed the software industry in the past but it's really changing things now.

Today I would like to begin a several part series about quality assurance testing and how it can work with open source software and projects. There are several stages to be aware of and many techniques to accomplish a high level of quality and code coverage.

Classifying Open Source production models is not an academic curiosity, as result from recent conversations on how the development model affects at large the software life-cycle and, more important, the business strategy.