Open Source News Desk

AJAX in the Cloud: Save Your Company a Bundle with Your RIA Strategy!

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:00:00 EDT

Cloud computing has recently grown to encompass hosted database services. The idea behind 'Database as a Service' (DaaS) is to side step the complexity and cost often associated with running your own database. Unfortunately for AJAX programmers, it is not easy to access a DaaS directly from JavaScript. To solve security issues, AJAX apps need to talk to an intermediate server that acts as a proxy between the web cl and the database. This means that the AJAX developer has to develop lots of server-side code that coordinates between the proxy and the database. In addition to requiring precious development cycles, the proxy is a performance bottleneck. In this session we will examine some of the unique challenges faced by AJAX programmers trying to write apps in the DaaS environment. We'll also discuss a new paradigm for DaaS, aimed squarely at AJAX programmers, that shifts the database APIs into the client, and discuss its implication on everything from security to the design of the database query language.

Get "Rich" Quick at AJAXWorld, October 20-22 in San Jose, CA

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:30:00 EDT

What if you could build the user interface prototype in a matter of days or weeks without a single line of server-side code or even a datamodel? What if the business owner could not only play with this prototype, but also provide context specific feedback seamlessly while exploring the prototype? Finally, what if the prototype wasn't a prototype at all, but was the actual user-interface of the final product (zero throwaway code)... even if you haven't decided which server-side technology you want to use (Java, .Net, Ruby, PHP, Python, Perl)?

WSO2 Named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's SOA World Conference & Expo

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Events announced today that the leading global SOA technology provider WSO2 named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's upcoming SOA World Conference & Expo 2008 West, which will take place November 19-21, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel in the heart of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California.

Bluenog Has Rolled Out ICE 4.0

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:00:00 EDT

Bluenog – a nog being a peg that holds a structure together – has rolled out ICE 4.0, or Integrated Collaborative Environment, calling it the industry’s first pre-integrated suite of enterprise content management, RIA portal development environment and business intelligence reportedly suited to non-technical users.

Why Open Source Is Euro-Chic

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 22:00:00 EDT

Larry Augustin recently wrote about the differences between how Europe and the US view the open source software market. His comments came after attending the Olliance Think Tank conference in Paris this week (tough assignment, that). He identified a number of differences between how Europe and the US view open source. For example, he gives the primary European reason for adoption open source as wanting to avoid vendor lock-in, while the primary reason for adopting open source in the US is cost.

Greenplum Combines SQL & MapReduce

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Greenplum, the grandest of the open source-based databases, whose massively parallel shared-nothing architecture supports petabyte data warehousing on cost-effective general-purpose hardware and promises linear scalability on thousands of processors, has pushed out its latest cut, rev 3.2, making it the first commercial database, the company says, to include MapReduce, the parallel computing technique pioneered by Goggle and copied by Yahoo’s Hadoop for analyzing the web.

Upstart Seeks To Overthrow OpenOffice

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 20:30:00 EDT

Softmaker Software GmbH, a German Office wannabe, has taken out after open source darling OpenOffice, saying it’s not good enough to score against Microsoft and proposing its own widgetry as a substitute. The company has just put out a public beta of its Software Office 2008 for Linux, which includes what it calls a Word-compatible word processor, TextMaker, an Excel-compatible spreadsheet, PlanMaker, and a new PowerPoint alternative, Presentations.

Bluenog Introduces Integrated Suite of Enterprise CMS, Portal, and BI Software

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 13:35:00 EDT

Bluenog announced the availability of Bluenog ICE 4.0, the integrated suite of content management (ECM or CMS), portal, and business intelligence (BI) software. Bluenog ICE is an “Integrated Collaborative Environment” that leverages Web 2.0 technologies. The suite’s tight integration eliminates application silos, reduces total cost of ownership, and accelerates application development. Ready integration with third-party software, including other vendors’ ECM, portal, and BI offerings, further reduces cost and increases deployment flexibility. Bluenog ICE is based on open source software, and customers receive the suite’s source code.

MySQL Creator Reportedly Quits

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 12:52:00 EDT

"Should Monty leave MySQL, it would signal the dawn of a new era. Over the last several years, we have developed our engineering team to be independent of single persons - including Monty. Naturally, the value that Monty as a core member has provided has been enormous, but at the same time we have tried to make sure that we have back-ups and stand-ins. We are not done with that work, but we're getting in shape.

From Enterprise to Cloud, Virtualization Today on SYS-CON.TV

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:00:00 EDT

Virtualization has become a critical part of Enterprise IT strategy. Why and how has it become one of the most important change agents in our industry? To answer these questions I had the good fortune recently to be able to speak to a select group of top IT industry executives who joined me in the 4th Floor Reuters TV Studio overlooking Times Square in New York City for a special SYS-CON.TV "Virtualization Power Panel."

Crackpot CBS Blogger Attacks SYS-CON Media and Its Founder Fuat Kircaali

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:30:00 EDT

This man who writes for CBS / CNet / ZDNet sounds like he is out of his mind. Not a single person among SYS-CON's management team has ever heard of his name, had any business relationship with him, or knows who this person is. He was never asked to write for SYS-CON, he was never considered to write for SYS-CON, and he will never write for SYS-CON. Because SYS-CON does not think he is fit to write for the world's leading tech media company, he wants to boycott the company's advertisers? SYS-CON's advertisers are listed and updated on the company's website, which pretty much includes every significant technology player in every segment of today's software technology branches. So Mr. Blankenhorn wants to boycott the entire software industry because SYS-CON offended him? No one at SYS-CON has any idea who he is.

Alfresco Provides First Draft CMIS Implementation via Alfresco Labs

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 16:45:00 EDT

Alfresco Software announced the availability of the first Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification draft implementation. As a contributing member of the draft technical specification, Alfresco is able to offer a draft implementation of CMIS for developers who wish to explore the draft specification.

Black Duck Joins The Linux Foundation

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:40:00 EDT

The Linux Foundation announced that Black Duck Software has joined as a Foundation member. Black Duck provides solutions for software development teams and legal counsel to manage the hybrid software development process, which involves the assembly of internal software, open source software and other third-party code.

Alfresco Selected to Power Acrobat.com Content Services

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:45:00 EDT

Alfresco Software announced that Adobe has implemented Alfresco’s document sharing and collaboration capabilities as part of the file sharing features in Acrobat.com. Adobe chose Alfresco as its content repository for its clustered high-availability, security, and highly capable technical support. By working with Alfresco, Acrobat.com will be able to deliver content services that support millions of documents and terabytes of data.

Cloud Computing Expo - Talend Moves into the Data Clean-Up Biz

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:07:00 EDT

Talend, the open source company with the SaaS data integration software, is now moving into the data clean-up business with a software module that identifies stuff like duplicated records and incorrect street addresses by comparing them against reference data from places like the US Postal Service.

ELASTRA Delivers Cloud Portability With Support for Open Source Eucalyptus Platform

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:44:00 EDT

ELASTRA announced Elastra Cloud Server support for the Eucalyptus platform. ELASTRA’s products are designed for portability across compute clouds and currently provide support for the Amazon EC2 and S3 compute and storage environments. Because Eucalyptus exposes its virtual machines through an EC2-compatible API, ELASTRA’s portability to Eucalyptus was a straightforward addition to its platform offering.

Jitterbit 2.0 Delivers New Enterprise Capabilities, Scalability and Manageability

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:00:00 EDT

Jitterbit has announced the availability of Jitterbit 2.0 Enterprise, which includes new capabilities, scalability and management tools. With this new release, organizations have the ability to solve integration challenges between legacy, enterprise, and on-demand applications and data.

Appeals Court Overturns Injunction-Denying Open Source Ruling

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 06:00:00 EDT

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Wednesday overturned a year-old San Francisco district court decision that deprived the aggrieved plaintiff in a dispute over open source software governed by the Artistic License of the right to sue for copyright infringement and get an injunction against the defendant.

Google’s Now in the Encryption Business

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:11:00 EDT

Google has waded into the encryption business with an open source cross-platform toolkit called Keyczar that’s supposed to make it easier for ISVs to put cryptography in their applications. It says Keyczar supports both encryption and authentication with both symmetric and asymmetric keys as well as Java and Python implementations, promising C++ soon.

Microsoft Continues to Woo Open-Source Developers

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Microsoft is set to launch a developer program aimed at local companies creating applications using the open-source model. Microsoft recently announced it will open an open-source "interoperability" lab in the Asia Pacific.

Grid.org Open Source Community Surpasses 5,000 Software Downloads

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:00:00 EDT

Grid.org, the online community for open-source cluster and grid software, announced that their open source cluster software stack, UniCluster, has exceeded 5,000 downloads by the HPC community. Grid.org, launched in November 2007, was developed to provide a single aggregation point for information and interaction by the community of grid and cluster users, developers and administrators.

O3SIS and Open-Xchange to Deliver Mobile Open Source Collaboration Technology

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Open-Xchange announced an agreement with O3SIS. The companies expect to release in the third quarter software that will enable Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telcos and web hosting companies to offer their customers a mobile extension of the Open-Xchange Hosting Edition.

Open Source News: Aster Data Systems and Pentaho Establish Partnership

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:45:00 EDT

Aster Data Systems announced a strategic partnership with Pentaho that combines product integration, certification, and services. The two companies will also partner on joint sales and marketing efforts. Aster will provide its Aster nCluster analytic database to work in conjunction with Pentaho open source business intelligence (BI) products, to enable customers to collect and analyze large volumes of data for deep analysis and reporting.

XAware Enhances Open Source Data Integration Software

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:45:00 EDT

XAware announced the general availability of XAware 5.1, the open source data integration solution for creating and managing composite data services for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and Software as a Service (SaaS) applications. The product enhancements included in this release have been greatly influenced by the rapidly growing XAware community, which has downloaded more than 150,000 copies of the solution in the five months since its general release. XAware has also been listed as one of the top 100 projects on Sourceforge.net, an Open Source software development web site, hosting more than 100,000 projects and with over 1,000,000 registered users.

Mozy Claims 100% Growth in Six Months

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:24:00 EDT

Mozy, EMC’s online backup property, says it doubled the size of its enterprise and SMB customer base in the first half and now has more than 750,000 users and 20,000 business customers backing up 7.6 billion files to its 10-petabyte storage system.

Mozilla Deploys Pentaho, Vertica

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:55:00 EDT

Having outgrown its homemade log analysis scripts, Mozilla has deployed Pentaho’s commercial open source business intelligence (BI) Data Integration widgetry and Vertica Systems’ high-performance analytic database to analyze large volumes of log file information in a data warehouse and business intelligence system.

Microsoft’s Appeasement Party Strikes Again

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:48:00 EDT

Like Google and Yahoo, Microsoft is now suddenly a platinum sponsor of that open source touchstone, the Apache Software Foundation, and has pledged its $100,000 check. The move was announced Friday at the Open Source Convention in a speech by Microsoft senior director of platform strategy Sam Ramji, who described it as an endorsement of the “Apache Way.”

Alfresco Looks To Oust SharePoint

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 12:17:00 EDT

Alfresco pounced on that SharePoint protocol that the European Commission forced Microsoft to disgorge and turned up Thursday with what it claims is the first fully compatible open source alternative to Microsoft SharePoint, one of the fastest-growing and stickiest products in the Microsoft arsenal.

Open Source - What is the Total Cost of Ownership?

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 09:15:00 EDT

In 2005, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems quipped that open source software was 'free like a puppy is free.' Just as you can pick out a puppy from the pound without paying expensive breeder fees, you can download and use open source software without buying a single license. But puppies become dogs, and dogs need food, toys, training and lots and lots of love. Even with all this attention, there?s no guarantee your cuddly puppy won?t develop a vicious streak. Will you need endless obedience classes and a chain and muzzle to control it? The same goes for open source software. As soon as you introduce open source into your organization, the real costs, commitments and risks become clear.

DeathWish Might Have Been a Better Name

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:00:00 EDT

As predictable as the bet that night will follow day, Apple sued a little widely watched wannabe Mac cloner in Florida called Psystar that's been selling a $399 box called Open Computer for the last few months.

ApacheCon US 2008 to unite Open Source advocates, users and developers in New Orleans

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 16:15:00 EDT

ApacheCon US 2008, the official conference of The Apache Software Foundation (ASF), will hold this year?s event in New Orleans on November 3-7, 2008. ApacheCon brings together users, developers, vendors, and speakers to discuss groundbreaking Open Source practices and issues, with updates of developments from The Apache Software Foundation (ASF). It offers educational presentations, hands-on training sessions, and networking opportunities.

Neelie Takes to the Soapbox

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Europe's antitrust chief Neelie Kroes, who has now taken on the role of open standards evangelist, gave a speech at OpenForum Europe the other day recommending that business and government adopt 'open standards.' 'Open standards' in Neelie's mouth is code for 'open source' or at least 'not Microsoft.'

Likewise Software Named Winner of Red Hat Innovation Award

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 08:15:00 EDT

Likewise Software announced that it has been named as category award-winning finalist in the second annual Red Hat Innovation Awards. Red Hat selected six finalists in the second annual Red Hat Innovation Awards, designed to recognize the outstanding use, innovation and extension of Red Hat solutions by customers, partners and the open source community. One Red Hat Innovator of the Year will be selected from the six finalists during the Red Hat Summit, taking place June 18-20, 2008 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Mass.

Sourcefire's Brand New CEO From Citrix and Barracuda's Acquisition Offer on the Table

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:45:00 EDT

SNORT creator Sourcefire, one of the few publicly owned open source companies, has rejected an unsolicited $7.50-a-share offer, a total of roughly $187.4 million cash, from privately held Barracuda Networks, claiming it undervalues the enterprise security company despite the 13% premium. Sourcefire, worth 18 bucks a share shortly after it went public last March, recently found a new CEO.

EnterpriseDB Recruits New CEO from Red Hat

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:30:00 EDT

EnterpriseDB co-founder and CEO Andy Astor has stepped aside so Ed Boyajian, brought in from Red Hat, can take the four-year-old company to the proverbial next level, they said. Boyajian has been running Red Hat's North American sales under one title or another for the last six years and he's at EnterpriseDB to repeat the experience Red Hat Enterprise Linux has had during that time.

Application Security for Open Source - The New Frontier

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:15:00 EDT

Hybrid applications made up of proprietary, open source and third-party components are the result of today's fast-paced and complex software development landscape. Applications developed within the last five years - whether internal or external - are at least 50% open source software (OSS) and third-party components.

Open-Source Middleware Communities Merge CORBA Component Model Efforts Under PrismTech's OpenFusion CCM

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

PrismTech announced that the two open-source middleware communities are merging their CORBA Component Model (CCM) initiatives, underpinning the company's OpenFusion CCM offering. The Distributed Object Computing (DOC) Group and the OW2 Consortium - with support and contribution from PrismTech - are combining their efforts to advance the development and deployment of CCM technology.

There's Power in a Common Customer View

Thu, 01 May 2008 14:00:00 EDT

Last summer, a group of technical experts from various open source companies came together under the banner of the Open Solutions Alliance, rolled out an enterprise-class application, and demonstrated the power of collaboration with the launch of the Common Customer View project, an interoperability project that integrates data from diverse front-office, back-office, and planning applications.

Nora Denzel Who Ran HP's $1b Software Division Leads Virtualization and Open Source Panel

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:30:00 EST

The Group discussed open source trends in systems management. Panel participants discussed both the benefits and precautions to take when investigating open source management software. Nora Denzel recently retired from Hewlett Packard as the senior vice president and general manager of HP's over one-billion dollar software division. At HP, Denzel led one of the most dramatic turn-arounds in the software industry by reinvigorating HP?s OpenView and OpenCall software product lines through both internal product development and the successful integration of over eight acquisitions. During her tenure as HP?s software chief, software sales more than doubled the bottom line improved by over 72%. She has been named as one of the top 20 'Storage Movers and Shakers' by Storage, Inc. magazine and one of the most powerful people in networking by Network World magazine.

A Shameless Plug for Hippo CMS at Enterprise Open Source Conference

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 12:45:00 EST

In corporate environments, being able to integrate with existing systems is of extreme importance. Due to its nature, the open source development methodology forces software developers to be prepared to interoperate and integrate with whatever is already there. This is a big difference from the more traditional black box software mentality, and a huge benefit for enterprise customers. In this session, Hippo CTO Arjé Cahn will introduce Hippo CMS, an Open Source Enterprise Content Management system, and dive into the details of fitting a CMS into your environment.