As also mentioned during the first ERP session organised by Profoss, lots of open source companies are still searching their definitive business model. This is again put forth by an article from Stuart Cohen (former CEO of Open Source Development Labs) in BusinessWeek. His point is that support businesses are not sustainable because open source software is of great quality. Quite a big shortcut I think, but it has the benefit to have generated an interesting discussion on slashdot.

It seems (there's been no official announcement) that Sun closed a $10 million Mysql deal. Who said there's no business opportunity with Free and Open Source Software?

Started an open source project from a commercial product is not easy. If the time has passed when open source was seen as the panacea to revive a dying product, the difficulties to reach success still are the same, as is illustrated by Sun's OpenSolaris difficulties building a community of contributors. But is a community of contributors really what Sun wants?

Building a community requires openness of the code, the development process, and the pricipal developers, ie developers from the company initially developing the product. But Sun's certainly not the worst example.

Free/OPen Source software is viable for enterprise usage, but there has to be some caution from both sides to understand the reasoning of the other party. Computerworld has a story giving some reactions and examples with Mysql, JBoss, RedHat.

Matthew Aslett, from The 452 Group, brings a short analysis of the power of the GPL and BSD licenses for software makers. The reasoning is that the fact that BSD allows anyone to add proprietary bits makes it easier for competitors to overtake the main developer of the project. Worth reading if you plan to publish your software under an open source license.