Osalt is aimed at helping end users to find open source alternatives to well-known proprietary products like Photoshop, Dreamweaver or enterprise products like Bea Weblogic or HP OpenView

While open source business applications are gaining popularity, proprietary products are not yet being elbowed out the sales door. The reason, William Hurley, BMC Software's chief architect of open source strategy, believes is that many business people are more concerned with getting the job done than with who makes the tool.

Open source is rarely taken seriously. It has became a buzzword just like going green. What can open source actually do for your organization? What alternatives are available to replace our proprietary systems while simotaneously lowering costs across the board from license fees, administration, and deployment.

Over the last couple of years a number of different open source business strategies have evolved. According to the 451 Group, it's an evolution that includes the broader adoption and usage of open source overall by both open source and proprietary software vendors.

Are open source developers on the ball about delivering alternatives to cutting-edge proprietary products and services, or do they lag the proprietary innovators? That topic came up at this week's OSCON conference in Portland, and there is a case to be made for the idea that open source developers don't deliver key products in key categories fast enough.

There is a popular notion among open source advocates that open source software will do well in a recession as enterprises seek low cost alternatives. Open source vendor Novell's CEO Ron Hovsepian (NASDAQ: NOVL) might beg to differ.

The Liberal Democrats have hit out at the government's failure to use more open source software, three years after it pledged to avoid 'lock-in' to proprietary systems. The government published a policy document, 'Open Source Software: use within UK government' in 2004, promising to consider open source alongside proprietary products in IT procurements...

"A brand new initiative endorsed by Red Hat and Synnex (a business process services company) is called the Open Source Channel Alliance.

Just how open will the self-described open-source software developer be under its new leadership now that the Shreeves are gone and any legal posturing to preserve the notion that Medsphere is providing both open-source and proprietary software is no longer necessary?