Most software developers have little interest in entrepreneurship, but an open-source software project will survive and thrive only by delivering value into a market (users) with business partners (contributors) and against competitors (other open and closed source software). If you want to run a successful open-source project, it helps if you consider the key questions that apply when defining a commercial business model. I'll expand on Chesbrough's and Rosenbloom's list of 6 themes to demonstrate why.

In August 2003, a little more than three months after the SCO Group had filed a lawsuit against IBM, seeking damages for alleged breach of contract, I had an email exchange with Blake Stowell, who was then the public relations manager of the former company.

Now Ubuntu 7.10 is making it's way to Dell's XPS 1330 laptop and Dell takes the Ubuntu initiative to Spain.

Starting today, customers in Germany, United Kingdom, France and now Spain can purchase Ubuntu Linux 7.10 with built-in DVD playback on the XPS 1330n (in addition to the previously-released Inspiron 530n desktop system. U.S. customer will have to hold on a week or so.)

Dell thanks the Linux community for the support and states that the purchases and the community's commitment is the driving force behind this expansion. Hope more OEM manufacturers join soon and offer true choice beyond Microsoft stranglehold to their business

With 4.0's release, the technology of KDE4 isn't the only thing we find ourselves at the starting line of. As many of you have probably noticed, a theme for our KDE4 promotion campaigns was also unveiled using the slogan "Be Free".

Nortel CIO Steve Bandrowczak, who joined the Canadian telecoms and network equipment vendor last July, said "more and more CIOs are looking at Linux desktop for reasons of TCO" and argued that the technology "is receiving the same level of attention today as when Linux started on servers."

To continue my look at how non-profits and the free software community can engage, I’ve decided to look at some popular free software products and see how well they fit the need of an average charity—namely my employer. I’ll start with OpenOffice.org.

With no vendor support, Elcot's decision to switch platforms was a daunting task but the opportunity to bypass yearly software licensing fees was an irresistible incentive

This could have been a huge week for the open source industry to cash in on the retail industry. Instead it’s a missed opportunity.