Open-Xchange claims 2009 was a banner year; more than 15 million people worldwide are running the open source email system, an 80 percent increase from 2008. The company's secret to success involves SaaS (software as a service) partners. Here's why. "
Read more »SaaS Partners Boost Open-Xchange Open Source Email
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Patents, Protests, Plebiscites, and Protecting your freedom
"When he attended a rally in Munich this month, Richard Stallman took time out of his busy schedule to talk with our News Editor, Britta Wülfing. The conversation covered everything from Software as a Service, to patents, protests, international politics, and protecting your freedom...
Read more »Quote of the Month: RMS Says "Software As a Service" Is Non-free
"'Software as a service' means that you think of a particular server as doing your computing for you. If that's what the server does, you must not use it! If you do your computing on someone else's server, you hand over control of your computing to whoever controls the server.
Read more »The forgotten lesson of the JournalSpace disaster
At look at what else we can learn from the JornalSpace disaster.
Read more »Web apps: the next battleground for FOSS?
Concerned about the increasing popularity of Web applications, Marco Barulli of the Clipperz project has written one of the first detailed suggestions about how free and open source software (FOSS) should respond to the trend. Although neither Barulli nor Clipperz is well-known, his ideas are being listened to by such figures as Richard M.
Read more »Free software vs. software-as-a-service: Is the GPL too weak for the Web?
"Preserving software freedom in the era of Web applications -- You’ve read the GPL’s preamble, you can name the Four Freedoms, and you do your best to keep proprietary bits off our computers. But what’s the future of free software in the era of Flickr, Google Apps, and Facebook? ..."
Read more »AGPLv3 Keeps Open Source Vibrant in Age of SaaS
Software as a service (SaaS) entered the IT landscape in 2000 and has revolutionized the deployment models of many software companies and even entire industries, such as Internet search. It has also becoming an increasingly popular form of consuming applications within enterprises of all shapes, sizes and geographies.
Read more »Will GNU AGPLv3 boost Open Source SaaS support?
Can Software as a Service get some Open Source lovin' now that the Free Software Foundation gets its licensing act together?
Read more »Closing open source loopholes
Say what you want about GPLv3, but the update to the most popular open source software license continues to close loopholes that have been used to avoid sharing source code, patent protection and other freedoms that the authors intended. Still, we have yet to see whether this closes off any appeal of the GPL and even open source in general for vendors, developers and users.
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Second draft of GNU SaaS licence: GNU Affero GPL
"FSF have just published the 2nd draft of the GNU Affero GPL. The GNU Affero GPL will be a modified version of GPLv3. The difference, very roughly, is that it includes a requirement that if the software is used on a public server, users must be able to get the source code..."
Read more »Open source encroaches into business
A recent study carried out by Saugatuk Technologies, Open Source as Disruptive Influence, has found that open source software's (OSS) uptake by business has exceeded previous expectations by analysts. The report indicated further uptake in coming years.
Read more »The Four Freedoms Applied to Software as a Service
The Free Software Foundation has defined Four Freedoms related to software. These freedoms apply to users of software, not necessarily developers. In the view of the FSF, these freedoms are ethical in nature, so much so that they argue that software which violates these freedoms is unethical.
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The GPL and Software as a Service
"...free software license requirements to release source code are all triggered by the act of distribution, and that web applications, which are not actually "distributed," are therefore not bound by these licenses....In other words, software delivered as service is now officially not covered by the GPL..."
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