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It seems that open source maven, Matt Asay, along with well-known Microsoft blogger Mary Jo Foley have come to the conclusion that Microsoft doesn't need open source. Asay contends that Microsoft's open source activity has more to do with regulators than best practices and user collaboration.

Microsoft's open-source charade is not about customers. It's about regulators. Until Microsoft can convince U.S. and European regulators that its market power is not as bad as it once was, the company will need to hide behind expressions of openness..

When I think of open source software Microsoft is rarely the first word that comes to mind. Actually it's not even on of the first ten words. However, there are probably more Microsoft Windows users using open source software than on any other operating system. Despite this Microsoft's stance on open source is changing evidenced by recent initiatives into open source software development. Today Aras a provider of product lifecycle management (PLM) software for companies that develop products announced the release if Version 9 of the Aras Innovator® suite. Version 9 delivers the first model-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) for PLM and includes single-instance multi-language capabilities and support for the latest Microsoft platform products; Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Microsoft Windows Server 2008, and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. Aras is the first Microsoft Gold Partner to offer an open source solution.

I met Black Duck CEO, Doug Levin back in October 2003 at the Enterprise Linux Forum in Washington D.C. I instantly liked him. He was just starting Black Duck Software and as a ex-Microsoftie talking about IP assurance I wasn’t convinced about the bright future of his business. However, I enjoyed meeting Doug and wished him the best of luck and went on my way. It wasn’t long before Doug’s venture received funding and support from Red Hat who also invested in the business, a telling sign. Black Duck has grown to be a leading global provider of products and services for accelerating software development through the managed use of open source and third-party code.

I have been trying to digest two unrelated stories from last week. The first was the report by the Standish Group on the $60 Billion dollars open source is purported to be costing the proprietary software industry. The second was Steve Reubel's, "The Web 2.0 World is Skunk Drunk on Its Own Kool-Aid". As I looked introspectively into these stories I wondered how relevant they were. I came to a realization that while the one of the most commonly espoused virtues of open source is more eyeballs generating better code that perhaps one of the least mentioned strengths is their marketing ability. Bear with me as try to explain why.

Last year open source analyst Michael Coté of Redmonk coined the term Little Four to describe four up-and-coming open source management vendors and as a foil to the Big Four of systems management.

In the open source space, the 4 names that come up each time — usually from people I’m talking with even before I say anything — are: Zenoss, Hyperic, GroundWorks, and openQRM.

This week Qlusters/openQRM announced they would no longer be developing their open source project openQRM and leaving it to the community at large.

I am often dismayed by the misappropriation of the term open source. Companies apply the term to products that are free though not open source. It’s a classic marketing maneuver to leverage a brand that already has broad recognition.

Yesterday the long awaited and somewhat delayed WordPress 2.5 was released. Today, I updated my installation today and though I had a few problems the upgrade to the new version was definitely worth it.

This week’s Open Source Business Conference was a strange meeting of Enterprise IT users, venture capitalists, and free software entrepreneurs. The opening keynote was delivered by Red Hat’s freshly minted CEO Jim Whitehurst who gave a very modest speech noting that while Red Hat has been a leading open source company they have not necessarily been an open source leader. Whitehurst’s presentation lacked anything especially insightful or noteworthy and he has the advantage of being the new guy so he’s off the hook for anything that might have happened before he took the job.

The methodologies of Open Source are not owned or guided by any one person. The closest thing we have are the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and support of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The OSI certifies what qualifies as an open source license. They have as of late also been adding the (TM) to the Open Source logo which is the equivalent of the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for open source software. While the Free Software Foundation maintains the Free Software Definition - to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software.

Mandrake Linux Founder now Ulteo Chairman and CTO Gaël Duval today announced a new beta release of the Ulteo Online Desktop a hosted desktop solution built from open source technology.

Asterisk is an open source private branch exchange (PBX) originally created by Mark Spencer of Digium. A PBX, is a type of phone switch, that allows multiple attached telephones to make calls to one another, and to connect to other telephone services including the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Not totally unlike routers that connect multiple computers to a network. As the guest speaker at the Triangle Linux User’s Group (TriLUG) in Raleigh, NC on Thursday Mark recounted how he built the open source Asterisk project and the for-profit company Digium.

About three months ago I was looking for a wiki for a private project and used WikiMatrix to figure out what wiki software best met my needs. My main requirements were that the software was open source, easy-to-use, and there was a free hosted version to play around with. Unfortunately, there were a lot of choices that met these criteria so I slogged through a bunch of options with little luck and even some that fell outside my criteria. After a pretty exhaustive search I came upon Deki Wiki an open source Wiki platform by MindTouch.

If you are a social media hound you probably have aFlock: Open Source Social Media Web Browser Flickr Uploader, a web browser chock full of extensions, maybe a Twitter client like Twhirl, and a slew of other tools for interacting on the web. Maybe it’s time to consolidate all these tools into your web browser. That is where Flock comes in it’s a web browser for the collaborative web.

Drupal recently made a deal with the devils (venture capitalists) by virtue of the a $7 million investment in Acquia. Acquia owns the Drupal brand (or at least legally they do). Drupal lead (and Acquia co-founder) Dries Buytaert and the fine people at Acquia along with their backers are now at the crossroads faced by every vendor who sells free software… How do they supply a return on their investment without recommitting the sins of their proprietary software brethren or alienating Drupal - Open Source CMS the community that so far has driven their success.

This month’s cover story for VAR Business touts the Attack of the Alternatives. The premise is certain companies are gaining or having success in the shadows of the market leaders because they are offering a greater value then the market giants.