One of the fascinating aspects of open source as an industry trend is how complicated it can get, and how quickly. Analysts, enterprises, and vendors alike often refer to “open source” as if it were a single entity, with strict guidelines and rules, but in reality that’s just for conversational convenience.
Open source has generated a wealth of options when it comes to licensing, business models, or participatory mechanisms. This is good in the sense that it gives those wishing to participate in open source the freedom to choose an approach which fits their philosophy, business model, and risk threshold to a T. When options are many, however, choice can be difficult. This is particularly the case when the models for a given industry are not particularly mature.
So it is with RedMonk and the industry analysis market. As I discussed yesterday, we don’t have all the answers yet as far as what our open source efforts will look like, but as for the publications that we contribute back you can expect licenses that are similar to those that govern our blogs.
The first such contribution is the somewhat dated (published in July), but still somewhat relevant (I think) publication on the open source Mono project. You can grab it here [PDF warning] and the license it’s under is here.
We hope you find it interesting, and as always would welcome feedback pro or con. Further, let me assure you that this is just the first (or second, if you count COA [PDF]) in what will be a long string of RedMonk contributions to the community. We’ll be listening to what value you think these contributions have, and will use that input to shape our plans.
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