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- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 10, 1999
- CONTACT: Sara Winge, 707/829-0515 x285, sara@oreilly.com,
- http://www.oreilly.com
- <P>
- SUMMIT HIGHLIGHTS BUSINESS CASE FOR OPEN SOURCE
- Developers and corporate users agree that Open Source is good for business
- <P>
- Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 16:05:34 -0800 (PST)<BR>
- SEBASTOPOL, CA--Open Source software has reached critical mass. Long
- the favorite software development model of the programming elite, Open
- Source(TM) is now a credible technology option for any business. "Open
- Source is a business decision that makes sense" was the consensus of
- the nearly 50 leading Open Source developers and businesspeople who
- gathered on March 5 for the Second Open Source and Community Licensing
- Summit hosted by O'Reilly & Associates. A list of participants is
- below, and bios of most participants are at
- http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/press/oss_bios.html.
- <P>
- At O'Reilly's first Open Source Summit, in April 1998, participants--
- all major free software developers--adopted the term "Open Source." The
- focus was on spreading the word about the importance and value of
- open-source software beyond the developer community. Since then, the
- spectacular growth of Linux, IBM's incorporation of the Apache Web
- Server into its WebSphere product, and the success of new companies
- based on open-source technology (such as Sendmail, Inc., ActiveState
- Tool Corp. and Scriptics Corp.) have caused the business world to sit
- up and take notice of Open Source.
- <P>
- This year, Summit participants addressed the business and technology
- issues that face the Open Source community as it tackles the challenges
- of success. On the business front, there was a consensus among the
- developers and corporate representatives that use of open-source
- software is strong and growing. Customer demand is driving
- corporations' adoption of Linux and other open-source software. Summit
- participants challenged industry analysts to provide their corporate
- clients with data on the benefits and Total Cost of Ownership of
- open-source solutions.
- <P>
- In the discussion of technical issues, the group took concrete steps
- towards developing a shared vision of best practices for open-source
- development. Discussion centered around the question, "What is the
- science of Open Source development?" Participants agreed that it is
- appropriate and desirable for businesses to handle support issues as
- open-source technologies scale. This is happening already in the Linux
- arena, where the Linux distributors are handling bug tracking. The
- group also debated the merits of tools to support the distributed,
- collaborative development process at the heart of Open Source, such as
- CVS (Code Versioning System) and bug tracking systems. Participants
- committed to working together to promote the benefits of Open Source
- software and support the Open Source developer community.
- <P>
- Host Tim O'Reilly, President and CEO of O'Reilly & Associates, noted,
- "Today was the first time that people from the developer community and
- the corporate world sat down together to hash out how Open Source can
- work for both of them. Before the Summit, we weren't sure how far their
- interests could mesh, but we found a surprising degree of
- compatibility. Open Source has support on both sides of the fence that
- should build the momentum of the last year and increase its use and
- influence."
- <P>
- # # #
- <P>
- Open Source is a trademark of the Open Source Initiative
- <P>
- <P>
- OPEN SOURCE AND COMMUNITY LICENSING SUMMIT ATTENDEES & AFFILIATIONS
- <P>
- * Jeremy Allison, key Samba developer, SGI
- * Eric Allman, creator of sendmail; Sendmail, Inc.
- * Ken Arnold, Jini, Sun Microsystems
- * Larry Augustin, VA Research
- * Fred Baker, IETF
- * Mitchell Baker, Netscape Communications
- * Brian Behlendorf, co-founder of the Apache Group; O'Reilly & Associates
- * Steve Burbeck, IBM
- * Steve Byrne, leader of the Blackdown Java Porting Team (Java-Linux Port)
- * Wayne Caccamo, Hewlett Packard
- * Ken Coar, IBM, Apache Group member
- * David Conrad, Internet Software Consortium
- * L. Peter Deutsch, principal author of Ghostscript; Aladdin
- * David Fair, Intel
- * Roy Fielding, member of the Apache Group
- * John Gilmore, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
- * Dick Hardt, ActiveState
- * Chris Hernberger, Linux Developement Studio
- * Alexandre Julliard, WINE project, Corel
- * Tom Kalil, White House National Economic Council
- * Charles Marker, SGI
- * Kirk McKusick , BSD
- * Larry McVoy, Bitmover
- * Cliff Miller, Pacific Hi Tech
- * Sam Ockman, Penguin Computing
- * Greg Olson, Sendmail, Inc.
- * Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly & Associates
- * John Ousterhout, CEO, Scriptics Corp. and creator of the Tcl language
- * Sameer Parekh, C2Net Software, Inc.; member of the Apache Group
- * Jamshed Patel, Oracle
- * Chris Peterson, Foresight Institute
- * Eric Raymond, Open Source Initiative
- * Chip Salzenberg, Open Source Initiative
- * Ean Schessler, Debian; Software in the Public Interest
- * Janet Smith , Informix
- * Drew Spencer, Caldera
- * Gavriel State, WINE project, Corel
- * Jon Stevens, member of the Java-Apache Project
- * Michael Tiemann, Cygnus Solutions
- * Marc Torres, S.u.S.E.
- * Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux
- * Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python language
- * Larry Wall, creator of the Perl language
- * Tim Wilkenson, Transvirtual Technologies, Inc.
- * Jamie Zawinski, mozilla.org, Netscape Communications
-