Mobile open source player Funambol is certainly giving us plenty to watch these days with its Affero GPL licensing, its use of ad-supported mobile phone access to email and general bet on mobile open source software.

Most open source marketing is easy. You push to convert people who have already downloaded the product.

...occasionally I run into press articles that "round up" a half dozen such marketing misdirections from various marketing departments in one place. The December 1 BusinessWeek article called "Cost-Conscious Companies Turn to Open-Source Software" is such an article. And it's the second such multi-marketing-oriented misdirection article I've seen this week.

The leader of Microsoft’s integration efforts around open source software and its proprietary technologies is expanding his role by adding the title "general manager of Windows server marketing," further indication that Microsoft plans to crank up the volume on its Windows/Linux story.

Open source healthcare is forging forward quickly on the Internet. But, fast developments often produce many failures. But, many medicinal open source projects that have gained success development. This success shows that open source alone is not the solitary factor in development.

Though I have my doubts, PHEV (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles) may be on the same track towards open hardware we are seeing in some computer components and devices. Be warned, however, the effort is grounded in marketing and survival instincts that just might not suffice to become a success.

Pentaho, the commercial open source alternative for business intelligence (BI), today announced that Zack Urlocker, vice president of products in Sun's database group and previous EVP of products for MySQL AB, has joined Pentaho's Board of Directors. He will apply his proven success in a wide range of areas spanning products, marketing, sales, and partners.

One of the discussions we had during the marketing and outreach session is whether the marketing should emphasize "Free" or emphasize the benefits of GNOME.

I wrote recently that the “five ages of vendor-led open source revenue strategies” I’d come up with wasn’t suitable for vendors that build a business around community-led projects.