News2009 Was Another Big Year for Open Source

2009 Was Another Big Year for Open Source

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Open source technology has come a long way in the last decade, and 2009 was another year of big breakthroughs.

Network World’s John Fontana recapped this year’s open source milestones in his story “From the White House to (no kidding) Microsoft, open source shined in ’09.”

“Perhaps the most shocking event,” Fontana said, “was Microsoft’s submission of code for inclusion in the Linux kernel under a GPL license that Microsoft once tagged as a threat to capitalism itself.”

Of course, Microsoft’s soiree into community software development was unintentional. As Fontana notes, it was Microsoft’s improper use of open source software that forced them to release code under the GPL – twice.

Also this year, the White House converted its content management system to the open source Drupal CMS in October. This is a big step in gaining credibility in the marketplace as more governments begin to rely on and contribute to open source technology.

Then there’s the Oracle attempt to purchase Sun for $7.4 billion. If the deal goes through, Oracle could become the largest open source company.

And the Apache project turned 10 this year.

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