At the CeBIT I had the chance to talk to some fantastic folks of direct open embedded systems, a new Latvian company that is producing WLAN devices based on the GNU/Linux distributions like OpenWRT, OpenEmbedded and FlashSYS Linux.

In the video they present their devices and some show cases as well as FlashSYS, their own web based firmware for small router computers.

FlashSYS environment is a cross-operating system clent-server environment that allows developers to use existing web development skills (HTML, JavaScript, Ajax, Flash, SQLite, and Lua) to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications (RIA) for an embedded system with a very small footprint. (http://openrb.com)

Most of the free and open source companies presented their products in hall 5, which was packed with crowds of people. You can get an idea when you hear the background noise in the video. The interest in free and open source technologies is amazing and ever increasing.

Chris Schläger von AMD Advanced Micro Systems spricht mit Stefan Koehler über die Pläne von AMD sein Open Source-Engagement weiter auszubauen. Im letzten Jahr veröffentlichte AMD nach der Übernahme von ati bereits Grafikchip-Dokumentationen. Im Februar stellte AMD die Quelltexte der AMD Performance Library unter die Apache License 2.0 und benannte die Bibliothek in Framewave um. Ende Februar gab die Firma weitere Spezifikationen für Beschleunigungsfunktionen für Chips von Radeon-Karten (R5xx-GPUs, X1000-Serie) frei. Chris Schläger betont im Interview die Wichtigkeit von Open Source für AMD und verspricht weitere Announcements für das Jahr 2008.

Google Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3239776018660541998

Stefan Koehler (Gonicus) spricht mit Johannes Loxen (Geschäftsführer Sernet Göttingen) über das EU-Urteil gegen Microsoft und Auswirkungen der Offenlegung von MS-Windows-Spezifikationen für Samba.

Videolink: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=649115257125887071

Einige Auszüge:

„Samba ist das Produkt mit dem wir am weitesten da Draußen bekannt sind. Wir sind ein Unternehmen für Datensicherheit und Datenschutz ursprünglich. Wir haben uns 1997 gegründet und damals war Samba 5% vom Umsatz. Das war eine Open Source Software auch damals schon, die es gestattet mit Windows Clients an Linuxarbeitsplätze heranzugehen.“

„Samba ist komplett frei unter der GPL, jetzt auch unter der GPL V3 und versucht auch immer möglichst die Funktionalitäten darzustellen, die Windows hat, das heißt, wir sind Wettbewerber von Windows. Die erste Implementierung von Samba ist (aber schon) älter als Windows.“

I conducted a short interview with Andrew Aitken at Open Source Meets Business. Andrew is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Olliance Group, which is advising large companies like IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, major banks and even the US Navy on their Open Source strategy. At the conference he gave a keynote about The state of commercial open source.

Videolink: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1399202456228324192
Camera: Stefan Koehler

Speaking about Open Source Aitken states that „there are a lot of business opportunities. There are not so many viable business models. It is a big difference.“. According to Aitken there are still opportunities in selling software and subscriptions for Open Source companies: „The successful companies today are selling subscription services, such as RedHat, such as MySQL, SugarCRM, Alfresco and others.“ He continues, „...Adaption (of Open Source) is so widespread. Virtually all major corporations in the world are using Open Source. ... And that is what driving the commerce behind it.“

Andrew gives an interesting example how the US Navy set up little supercomputers based on open source technology on their ships in order to process a whole range of sea data, such as water levels, temperatures and so on. Open Source solutions like that could also be used “for tsunami relief and the [control and observation of the] spread of infectious diseases around the world”, Aitken adds.

At end of the interview Aitken offers an insight of what is going in the Asian market in regards to Open Source Software: “The markets are a bit separate. For instance Japan is a very tough market to break into. And in order to do so you really have to have the support of one of the large companies there. And those large companies are just beginning to understand the opportunity that Open Source presents. I would say Asia is probably three years behind North America, and which is behind five years behind Europe. ... Europe is the leader in the adoption of Open Source, not necessarily commercial Open Source, but Europe is clearly the leader in the adoption of Open Source in general.”

Es ist eine oft zitierte Tatsache, dass wissenschaftliche Entwicklungen weit häufiger von den Weltanschauungen und persönlichen Vorlieben der Wissenschaftler abhängen, als dies der Anspruch der Exaktheit, den Akademiker oft für sich beanspruchen, zulassen sollte. Ein Beispiel ist Richard M. Stallmans GNU-Projekt, das mit der Absicht gegründet wurde das Betriebssystem UNIX zu ersetzen.

Bearbeitet von Mario Behling

In April 2004, Jan Muehlig and Jutta Horstmann of relevantive AG set out to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The aim is to set up a project that might support Ethiopian people in connecting to the new possibilities offered by Open Source Software and to make use of them in a sustainable way. This included providing knowledge on open source technologies, initiating a project that might work as a blueprint for similar future projects in Ethiopia or other African countries and last but not least understanding and gathering knowledge on culture specific usage of technology.