When using a Free or Open Source project in a professional environment, you'd better check you understand and respect the license. But a project can be dependent of other projects, with each using a different license. You also have file-based licenses. Dealing with licenses is one problem that Fossology.org software wants to ease solving. Once installed, you can upload a package to it, and it will analyse the package and give you access to lots of data it found, notably the licenses used in the software. As shown in the demos, it lets you identify the file subject to a specific license, or list all licenses used for files in a specific directory.

The Fossology software is available for download under the GPLv2 license

SugarCRM announced the general availability of Sugar 5.0, the latest of their CRM solution. It boasts new features such as a new Ajax email client, improved Dashboards with new charting capabilities, a new Metadata Driven User Interface, improved Access Control.

Note that the Open Source edition doesn't include all capabilities, as some features are only part of the professional or enterprise editions.

A new on demand offering has been unveiled at the same time.

Although Linux servers deployment growth has slowed, a survey published by Actuate and commented by Matt Asay suggest growth opportunity for Free and Open Source Software in the enterprise is still present, as only a fifth of the respondent considered their organisation highly familiar with Free and Open Source software.

What's interesting is what holds Free and Open Source software back: availability of long-term support; long-term maintenance concerns; and lack of in-house skills.

This survey is essentially focused on the US, but also includes data from UK and Germany.

Openlogic announced the launch of Openlogic Exchange, known as OLEX. It is a location to find Free and Open Source software certified and supported by Openlogic. A datasheet is available for each package (eg Mysql), which gives an overview of the licensing options available and the depencies of the package, proposed for download in source and binay formats for different platforms (eg Mysql) .

The possible audience of OLEX is big corporations, where use of software packages is subject to numerous policies. The same public as for Openlogic Enterprise.

IDC reports that Linux deployment growth has slowed dramatically to the point of reaching negative growth, making it loose market share compared to windows. The interpretation of these numbers are that the easiest migrations from Unix have now been done, and that we are entering a new stage of Linux' presence in the enterprise. Microsoft's vision is that Linux' market share will now stagnate because "Linux is primarily deployed in two workloads—high-performance computing and as Web servers". Another interpretation is that as easier Unix migrations are done, Linux vendors will have to take on Microsoft directly and compete on big ERP, CRM and databases deployments.

A new version of EnterpriseDB Postgres is now available from EnterpriseDB's Postgres Resource Center. This latest release contains a procedural language debugger, enabling users to debug code written in the plpgsql language. It supports step-by-step execution, watching and setting variable values, conditional breakpoints, inspecting the execution stack, all with a GUI for ease of use. The debugger was previously a proprietary component.

The mysql-to-postgresql migration tool, previously only available as a proprietary component of EnterpriseDB Advanced Server, is now released under the Artistic License, approved by the Open Source Initiative.

The Observatoire du Logiciel Libre published its latest report on the Free and Open Source software market in the enterprise, based on training organised for professionals. Although the conclusions cannot be considered as definitive because based on only one company providing trainings, the data unveiled can be used as one indicator of what is currently going on in the market.

The report is in french, but here are the trends comparing the first half of 2007 with the same period in 2006:

• The number of people trained rose 20%. The LAMP stack is still very popular, but the growth of Linux training slowed (+1% only), and the report attributed this to the arrival of Windows Server 2003.
• the trainings delivered become broader, becoming less technical, with for example trainings for SugarCRM and Jaspersoft's reporting solutions.
• Mysql, part of the LAMP stack, keeps growing with 40% more people trained
• Java is still popular, with a progression 66% more people trained
• Postgresql trainings number is stable. Postgresql seems to be used in more established companies and by specialists, relying on its most advanced features like PostGIS.
• the number of trainings delivered about OpenOffice stumbled by 80%. The report mentions that a lot of companies a getting OpenOffice directly, without trainings.

The last point would be worth further investigation: are companies really interestedin OpenOffice without trainings? Or do they have internal experts who deliver training inside the company?

Source: Toolinux

The OSBL's goal is "to provide an open solution that efficiently supports work processes in a business environment. It combines several well-known Open Source Java components in a way that allows for an easy and effective implementation of process-driven web applications.". It is available under the GPL, and offered under a commercial license for proprietary development.

Source: TheServerSide.

Willian Hurley form BMC announced the launch of BMC's developer network and 4 open source projects under a BSD license: adapters for Altiris, CiscoWorks, LANDesk Asset Manager and HP's OpenView AssetCenter to transfer data from data repositories to configuration management systems.