Hal Steger

From a commercial open source company's point-of-view, open source is ideally the ultimate in "grass roots" marketing where people learn about the project by word-of-mouth and where they volunteer their time and effort, resulting in a vibrant community that benefits the company in many ways. While this ideal may apply to some open source projects, for the vast majority of open source companies, it is not a case of "build it and they will come." Instead, most open source companies need to understand who comprises their community so they can formulate a viable business model. In particular, they need to understand that communities consist of heterogeneous types of people, with their own interests, motivation, needs, and ability. Open source companies need to identify the groups in their community, decide which ones to focus on, and choose the best way to work with them... (more)

New Opportunities for Web Services Technology

Mention the word "compliance" and it is likely to conjure up images of scandalous performance by companies such as Worldcom, Enron, and Tyco. But beyond corporate governance and government regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, and the National Do Not Call Registry, compliance is creating a new need for technology in less obvious areas. Perhaps the largest of these relates to the rise of outsourcing, whereby companies are moving non-core functions to outside vendors. Along with the rise of outsourcing, there is an attendant increase in the use of service-level agreements (SL... (more)