Red Hat has bowed to pressure and improved the way it describes partner software licenses on the Red Hat Exchange (RHX). The licenses of companies such as SugarCRM, Zimbra and Alfresco used to be buried on the RHX site, requiring interested customers to spend considerable time finding the documentation.

"..RMS’s other mission here is to promote the Free Software Movement. The creator of the GPL...is at pains to correct misunderstandings of what the term free software means and to draw a distinction between it and the open source movement.

What does socialized healthcare mean for open source software's market penetration? Well, let's look at some simple concepts first. What is open source? The idea of things being open source, means that there can be open collaboration, sharing, etc. It also means that anyone can come up with his/her own solution to a problem and implement his/her solution within the community.

Industry analysts are scratching their heads after Microsoft recently decided to join a project measuring how people are using open source software. The Open Source Census is run by OpenLogic, a company that aims to help organisations obtain, use and control open source software -- programs where the underlying code is open to everyone to see and to share ideas on improving it.

Open Tech, an open source partner program organized by Tech Data, has gained a new member. Specifically, KnowledgeTree, an enterprise content management company, has joined Open Tech. The VAR Guy welcomes the news but our resident blogger wonders: Are VARs starting to embrace Open Tech and the rival Open Source Channel Alliance? Here are some clues.

Today I discovered that Red Hat Linux has created a new social networking site call Mugshot. This site is promoted as an “open source” site. I checked the site FAQ to find out that all the software powering Mugshot is, in fact, open source. And indeed it is.

This week, the covers were lifted on North Bridge Venture Partner’s annual Future of Open Source survey. The results present a clear picture where pundits expect open source to make huge inroads as well as where proprietary software is likely to retain dominance. Other interesting insights came up. Here’s what the future of open source looks like.

Hal Steger and Alberto Onetti - both of mobile open-source leader Funambol - discuss open-source marketing in the Enterprise Open Source Journal. Well worth a read, especially for those who persist in believing that open source succeeds in the absence of good marketing. In fact, real commercial success in open source comes as a direct result of savvy marketing.

Linux and other open source applications are finding increasing acceptance in the global marketplace in small and large companies alike. Statistics on the growth of a few open source programs—like Apache, a web server; Linux, an operating system; FreeBSD, an operating system; and PostgreSQL, a database server—show this to be true.