Oracle: Eating its Own Open Source Food

The database giant isn't just into Linux and Xen for the money, is it?

Where in the world's largest database vendor does open source fit? At the very heart, according to Wim Coekaerts, Director of Linux Engineering at database giant Oracle.

Coekaerts leads Oracle's Linux and open source support, which includes OracleVM, the open source Xen-based virtualization hypervisor effort.

In an exhaustive interview with InternetNews.com Coekaerts outlined where Oracle is going with its unbreakable Linux distribution, Linux kernel development and virtualization. (Oracle's Linux support stepped up in 2006 when it announced its own support of Linux based on the binaries of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), the number one Linux distributor.)

Coekaerts said the critical thing for Oracle is to actively contribute to the Linux and virtualization communities that serve as the base for Oracle's open source offerings. That doesn't mean he necessarily agrees with what other vendors, in particular Red Hat and XenSource are doing, even though the company works with both of their open source products. The ultimate impact of Oracle's open source effort could well lead to a broader use of Linux and Xen or it could lead to greater fragmentation among the various open source groups supporting the two projects.

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Open source software requires governance, Burton warns

Uncontrolled use of software components can affect IT operations as well as development. - Joe Niski Senior Analyst for Application Platform Strategies, Burton Group

Open source software (OSS) frequently flies under the radar in IT organizations, and if governance is not in place to identify it and manage legal licensing implications, it may crash and burn, Burton Group Inc. warns.

Developers working on SOA and other software projects are making use of OSS components, and IT, QA and legal departments are ignoring the licensing ramifications at their peril, according to a new Burton report.

The growing popularity of the Java Development Kit from Sun Microsystems Inc., and the Eclipse IDE are resulting in a proliferation of OSS components in applications that organizations consider proprietary, according to the report's author, Joe Niski, senior analyst for application platform strategies for Burton. Legal problems arise because, while open source licenses are more liberal than traditional vendor licenses, they are still licenses. Terms and conditions that must be observed, the analyst explains in a 27-page report, "Open Source Management: Who Owns That Software?"

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Best of open source in software development

InfoWorld editors and reviewers award the Best Open Source Software for the enterprise, here's what they say about software developement

The wealth of open source software development goodies is heaven for the developer community, but it's hell on an awards committee. Considering IDEs, debuggers, defect trackers, code coverage tools, unit testers, load testers, and so on, we could have come up with more awards here than the rest of the Bossies combined. Then there were paths that could only lead to trouble. Could we really choose a best language? Or a best development platform? Could we pick Python over Perl, or Rails over Mono?

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