Thanks to everyone who has already taken part in our survey exploring changing attitudes to MySQL following its acquisition by Oracle and examining the competitive dynamic between MySQL and other database technologies, including NoSQL and NewSQL.

The response has been great and even a quick look at the results makes for interesting reading, particularly in the light of our previous findings which indicated declining MySQL usage.

I am really looking forward to having the opportunity for a deep dive into the results and break out the figures to get a better understanding of the potential impact of alternative MySQL distribution and support providers, as well as NoSQL and NewSQL, on continued usage of MySQL.

The survey results will be made freely available on our blogs, as well as being included in a long format report containing our additional analysis and research related to the MySQL ecosystem and competitive dynamic.

Right now, however, is your last chance to contribute to the survey and get your voice heard. There are just 12 questions to answer, spread over four pages, and the entire survey should take no longer than five minutes to complete. All individual responses are of course confidential.

The survey will close in 24 hours.

If you’re a MySQL user, tell us about your adoption plans by taking our current survey.

Back in late 2009, at the height of the concern about Oracle’s imminent acquisition of Sun Microsystems and MySQL, 451 Research conducted a survey of open source software users to assess their database usage and attitudes towards Oracle.

The results provided an interesting snapshot of the potential implications of the acquisition and the concerns of MySQL users and even, so I am told, became part of the European Commission’s hearing into the proposed acquisition (used by both sides, apparently, which says something about both our independence and the malleability of data).

One of the most interesting aspects concerned the apparently imminent decline in the usage of MySQL. Of the 285 MySQL users in our 2009 survey, only 90.2% still expected to be using it two years later, and only 81.8% in 2014.

Other non-MySQL users expected to adopt the open source database after 2009, but the overall prediction was decline. While 82.1% of our sample of 347 open source users were using MySQL in 2009, only 78.7% expected to be using it in 2011, declining to 72.3% in 2014.

This represented an interesting snapshot of sentiment towards MySQL, but the result also had to be taken with a pinch of salt given the significant level of concern regarding MySQL future at the time the survey was conducted.

The survey also showed that only 17% of MySQL users thought that Oracle should be allowed to keep MySQL, while 14% of MySQL users were less likely to use MySQL if Oracle completed the acquisition.

That is why we are asking similar questions again, in our recently launched MySQL/NoSQL/NewSQL survey.

More than two years later Oracle has demonstrated that it did not have nefarious plans for MySQL. While its stewardship has not been without controversial moments, Oracle has also invested in the MySQL development process and improved the performance of the core product significantly. There are undoubtedly users that have turned away from MySQL because of Oracle but we also hear of others that have adopted the open source database specifically because of Oracle’s backing.

That is why we are now asking MySQL users to again tell us about their database usage, as well as attitudes to MySQL following its acquisition by Oracle. Since the database landscape has changed considerably late 2009, we are now also asking about NoSQL and NewSQL adoption plans.

Is MySQL usage really in decline, or was the dip suggested by our 2009 survey the result of a frenzy of uncertainty and doubt given the imminent acquisition. Will our current survey confirm or contradict that result? If you’re a MySQL user, tell us about your adoption plans by taking our current survey.

Topics for this podcast:

*Hadoop v1.0 and year ahead
*Oracle-Cloudera deal for more Hadoop
*Oracle’s ‘Sun spot’ with Solaris
*Open Source M&A outlook for 2012
*Our new MySQL/NoSQL/NewSQL survey

iTunes or direct download (28:49, 4.9MB)

I’ve just launched a new survey that should be of interest if you are currently using or actively considering MySQL or any of the NoSQL or NewSQL offerings

The aim of the survey is threefold:

- identify trends in database usage over time
- explore changing attitudes to MySQL following its acquisition by Oracle
- examine the competitive dynamic between MySQL and other database technologies, including NoSQL and NewSQL

There are just 12 questions to answer, spread over four pages, and the entire survey should take no longer than five minutes to complete.

All individual responses are of course confidential. The results will be published as part of a major research report due at the end of Q1. Thanks in advance for your participation.

The survey can be found at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MySQLNoSQLNewSQL

Previously, I’ve called out years for non-desktop Linux in 2008, Linux in both the low and high-ends of the market in 2009, ‘hidden’ Linux in 2010 and last year, cloud computing in 2011. For 2012, I see continued growth, prevalence, innovation and impact from Linux, thus leading to a 2012 that is dominated by Linux.

I expect to see nothing but continued strength for Linux and open source in cloud computing in 2012. The cloud continues to be the biggest disruptor and opportunity for Linux providers. 2012 got off to an interesting start with Microsoft’s efforts to support for Linux on Azure, which highlights just how pervasive Linux has become in cloud computing. As detail in our special report on The Changing Linux Landscape, we also expect Linux to continue to be the basis for most offerings in IaaS and particularly PaaS, which is burgeoning across open source languages and frameworks as well as verticals and enterprise customers. Its popularity among enterprise and other developers will also bolster Linux and open source software in 2012.

We can certainly expect to see Linux continue its domination in supercomputing and the Top 500 Supercomputer List, where Linux continues to grow its share above 90% while others, such as Microsoft, Apple and BSD, fall off of the list.

I also expect Linux will grow its presence and impact on the wider, more mainstream server market, where Red Hat and SUSE continue to benefit from Unix migration, particularly from Solaris. Our analysis with survey data from 451 Research division TheInfoPro shows server spending for databases and data warehousing favoring Red Hat with Linux over Oracle with either Linux or Solaris. Out of more than 165 server professionals interviewed by TIP, 67% are planning to spend more with Red Hat on database/data-warehousing, and only 6% plan to spend less. The positive figures for Red Hat mirror negative spending intentions for Oracle, with 55% planning to spend less and only 9% planning to spend more. Spending continues to decline strongly for all of the primary Unix providers in the study, which in addition to Oracle includes IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

We may also see further expansion for Red Hat, which may be eyeing key acquisitions, and other Linux and open source vendors as they continue building their channels and wade more into midmarket and SMB customers.

In smartphones and mobile software, I also expect Linux will do quite well in 2012 with continued Android strength, diminished FUD and possibly an open source boost from a newly-open sourced WebOS. We also see Ubuntu arriving on the mobile and converged device scene, including ‘concept’ appearance at CES.

We’re also likely to see Linux in automobiles, health care and other electronics even more in 2012, though you may never hear Linux or open source. Don’t be fooled though, Linux is expanding its already impressive, wide presence and 2012 looks to be another year of significant gains.

The lack of women involved in open source has unfortunately long been a weakness for open source software and its many, varied communities around the globe. In fact, we found out recently just how significant the problem is, with troubling figures as reported by Valerie Aurora with the Ada Initiative that indicate significantly lower representation of women in open source (2%) compared to the overall IT industry (20%).

Though there are some signs of improvement, with apparent growth in awareness of the issue and thus a more respectful environment, there is still obviously a long way to go before open source can live up to its ideals of transparency, collaboration and openness.

There is also some belief that female participation in open source software and other development and IT work is underestimated by handles, nicknames and identities that might appear male to avoid any sexism. In addition, there is also the fact that while open source software communities are typically true meritocracies, the initial experience for the new developer can be a harsh one, regardless of gender. Still, it is somewhat shameful the representation of women in open source is typically less than what we see in proprietary software and, as alluded to earlier, the rest of IT.

Aurora wisely argues we need more women in open source so that we have more women in startups. We also see other sub-communities of IT and software, such as the new Women Innovate Mobile effort, that similarly aim to involve more women. Given the longstanding nature of this issue, it is disappointing to see open source software and its communities left behind by mobile, other parts of IT and other industries that are more effectively incorporating women and expanding their reach.

The Ada Initiative, named for the first computer programmer who was also a woman, Ada Lovelace, is a nonprofit organization formed to grow female participation in open source software, Wikipedia and open technology in general. In addition to awareness and education, consulting, workshops and other services, the initiative is primarily focused on teaching women skills to help them succeed in open technology and its culture and how men can help. The group is currently raising support as it seeks to boost awareness and help build an open source software world where women are not only more prevalent, but are also more welcome, encouraged and respected for their work, their code and their talents. In order for open source software communities, projects, products and commercial plays to succeed and reach their full potential, the greater open source community and its supporters should be finding ways to incorporate women, wherever they can contribute and improve the effort.

Red Hat revenue hits $290m. New CEOs for Cloudant and Lucid Imagination. And more.

# Red Hat announced Q3 revenue of $290m, up 23%, and net income of $38.2m, compared with $26.0m a year ago.

# Cloudant raised $2.1m in an equity and stock funding and named Derek Schoettle as its new chief executive officer.

# The Apache Software Foundation published an open letter explaining the progress of Apache OpenOffice (Incubating) and reinforcing its position on trademarks and fundraising.

# Lucid Imagination named Paul Doscher CEO.

# The founder of the ownCloud project, Frank Karlitschek, formed a commercial entity, ownCloud Inc, with former SUSE/Novell executive Markus Rex.

# Adobe published the proposal for Flex to become an Apache Incubator project.

# Actuate launched BIRT Performance Analytics.

# Uhuru Software introduced Uhuru .NET Services for Cloud Foundry.

# Palantir released its first open source code with the launch of two projects: Cinch and Sysmon.

# Quest Software introduced Quest One Privilege Manager for Sudo.

# CollabNet announced that Git is now available as a hosted offering on its Codesion cloud development platform.

# The Outercurve Foundation published the results of a survey of software developers about their open source coding habits.

# Basho Technologies introduced an early version of Riaknostic, a diagnostic system for Riak.

The reason we are confident that the comparative decline in the use of the GNU GPL family of licenses and the increasing significance of complementary vendors in relation to funding for open source software-related vendors will continue is due to the analysis of our database of more than 400 open source software-related vendors, past and present.

We previously used the database to analyze the engagement of vendors with open source projects for our Control and Community report, plotting the strategies used by the vendors against the year in which they first began to engage with open source projects to get an approximate view of open source-related strategy changes over time.

For example, we found that the engagement of vendors with projects that used strong copyleft licenses peaked in 2006, while the engagement of vendors with projects using non-copyleft licenses had been rising steadily since 2002.

Analysis of our updated database shows that the the number of new vendors engaging with open source projects in each year has risen steadily in recent years, from 26 in 2008 to 44 in 2011. However, as noted last week, we have also seen a shift towards ‘complementary vendors’ – those that are dependent on open source software to build their products and services, even though those products and services may not themselves be open source.

2010 was the first year in which we saw more complementary vendors engage with open source projects than open source specialist, and that trend accelerated in 2011.

As previously explained, complementary vendors were responsible for over 30% of open source software-related funding raised in 2011, and we should expect that proportion to remain high given that over 57% of the vendors engaging with open source in 2011 were complementary vendors.

We have also seen that complementary vendors are more likely to engage with projects with non-copyleft licenses (38% of complementary vendors have engaged with projects with non-copyleft licenses, compared to 24% that have engaged with projects with strong copyleft licenses).

If we look at all 400+ vendors in our database in terms of open source software license preference, the trend towards new vendors engaging with non-copyleft licenses is clear.

There has been a strong shift from vendors towards non-copyleft licenses in recent years, accelerated in 2011 by the likes of Apache Hadoop and OpenStack in particular. This does not mean that the number of projects using strong copyleft licensing has decreased (although as we previously saw the proportion of projects using the GPL family of licenses has declined).

It is indicative, we believe, of the shift away from specialist open source vendors using vendor-led projects and strong copyleft licenses towards multi-vendor collaborative projects and proprietary implementations of open source code, however.

This trend should not really surprise anyone. For some time we have seen open source becoming part of the fabric of modern software development and licensing strategies, rather than a competitive differentiator. Back in 2009 we predicted the increased importance of business strategies that relied on vendor-led development communities, rather than projects dominated by a single vendor.

We called this “open source 4.0″ and later suggested that it might be considered the golden age of open source, based on our belief that vendors had learned that they stand to gain more from collaborating on open source projects and differentiating at another stage in the software stack than they do from attempting to control open source projects.

Updating the results of our analysis to the end of 2011 and 400+ vendors indicates that, from the perspective of the commercial adoption of open source business strategies at least, we were not far off.

Some might not consider the proliferation of multi-vendor open source communities and proprietary distributions of open source software as the peak of achievement for open source. Each is of course entitled to come to their own conclusions about the implications.

Our perspective, as always, is that open source methodologies present a potentially disruptive, and also valuable, asset that complements the way both vendors and enterprise IT organizations conduct their businesses.

Our analysis indicates, however, that open source methodologies are increasingly being employed by ‘complementary vendors’ with a leaning towards more permissive licensing.

…and it’s totally awesome. For more details of our Total Data report, and how to get it, see our Too Much Information blog.

Topics for this podcast:

*Hadoop roundup
-Cloudera Enterprise Hadoop update
-Hadapt combines Hadoop with db analytics
-Informatica grows its Hadoop work
*HP open sources WebOS
*The GPL fade
*Red Hat acquisition targets

iTunes or direct download (31:41, 5.4MB)

One of the favourite blog topics on CAOS Theory blog over the years has been our quarterly and annual updates on venture capital funding for open source-related businesses, based on our database of over 600 funding deals since January 1997 involving nearly 250 companies, and over $4.8bn.

There are still a few days left for funding deals to be announced in 2011 but it is already clear that 2011 will be a record year. $672.8m has been invested in open source-related vendors in 2011, according to our preliminary figures, an increase of over 48% on 2010, and the highest total amount invested in any year, beating the previous best of $623.6m, raised in 2006.

Following the largest single quarter for funding for open source-related vendors ever in Q3, Q4 was the second largest single quarter for funding for open source-related vendors ever, as $230.4m was invested in companies including Cloudera, Hortonworks, and Rapid7.

As with Q3, however, the list of vendors presents us with something of an existential dilemma, as we see an increasing amount of activity by what we have referred to as ‘complementary vendors’ – those that are dependent on open source software to build their products and services, even though those products and services may not themselves be open source – as opposed to open source specialists.

The list of complementary vendors has grown rapidly in 2011, particularly around projects such as OpenStack and Apache Hadoop. If we examine the figures in more detail we find that over 30% of the funding raised in 2011 was raised by complementary vendors, compared to just 4% in 2006.

In fact, as the chart below indicates, VC funding for specialist open source vendors in 2011 was actually less than that in 2006 and 2008, and only marginally up on 2010, when again just 4% of funding went to complementary vendors.

The low amount of funding for complementary vendors in 2010 shows that the significance of complementary vendors is not growing at a constant rate, although for reasons that will become clear when we publish a follow-up post on the latest trends regarding the engagement of vendors with open source projects, we do expect that the proportion of funding related to complementary vendors is more likely to increase in the future, rather than decline.

This has implications for the ongoing trends related to open source software licensing, as covered yesterday. Examining our database of over 400 open source-related vendors – funded and unfunded, complementary and specialist – indicates that specialist vendors are much more likely to engage with projects using strong copyleft licenses than complementary vendors.

Specifically, our data indicates that 55% of open source specialists have engaged with projects that use strong copyleft licenses, while just 20% have engaged with projects with non-copyleft licenses. In comparison, 38% of complementary vendors have engaged with projects with non-copyleft licenses, compared to 24% that have engaged with projects with strong copyleft licenses.

Will will take a more detailed look at the trends related to the engagement of vendors with open source projects in the concluding part of this series of posts.

Our most popular CAOS blog post of the year, by some margin, was this one, from early June, looking at the trend towards persmissive licensing, and the decline in the usage of the GNU GPL family of licenses.

Prompted by this post by Bruce Byfield, I thought it might be interesting to bring that post up to date with a look at the latest figures.

NB: I am relying on the current set of figures published by Black Duck Software for this post, combined with our previous posts on the topic. I am aware that some people are distrustful of Black Duck’s figures given the lack of transparency on the methodology for collecting them. Since I previously went to a lot of effort to analyze data collected and published by FLOSSmole to find that it confirmed the trend suggested by Black Duck’s figures, I am confident that the trends are an accurate reflection of the situation.

The figures indicate that not only has the usage of the GNU GPL family of licenses (GPL2+3, LGPL2+3, AGPL) continued to decline since June, but that the decline has accelerated. The GPL family now accounts for about 57% of all open source software, compared to 61% in June.

As you can see from the chart below, if the current rate of decline continues, we project that the GPL family of licenses will account for only 50% of all open source software by September 2012.

That is still a significant proportion of course, but would be down from 70% in June 2008. Our projection also suggests that permissive licenses (specifically in this case, MIT/Apache/BSD/Ms-PL) will account for close to 30% of all open source software by September 2012, up from 15% in June 2009 (we don’t have a figure for June 2008 unfortunately).

Of course, there is no guarantee that the current rate of decline will continue – as the chart indicates the rate of decline slowed between June 2009 and June 2011, and it may well do so again. Or it could accelerate further.

Interestingly, however, while the more rapid rate of decline prior to June 2009 was clearly driven by the declining use of the GPLv2 in particular, Black Duck’s data suggests that the usage of the GPL family declined at a faster rate between June 2011 and December 2011 (6.7%) than the usage of the GPLv2 specifically (6.2%).

UPDATE – It is has been rightfully noted that this decline relates to the proportion of all open source software, while the number of projects using the GPL family has increased in real terms. Using Black Duck’s figures we can calculate that in fact the number of projects using the GPL family of licenses grew 15% between June 2009 and December 2011, from 105,822 to 121,928. However, in the same time period the total number of open source projects grew 31% in real terms, while the number of projects using permissive licenses grew 117%. – UPDATE

As indicated in June, we believe there are some wider trends that need to be discussed in relation to license usage, particularly with regards to vendor engagement with open source projects and a decline in the number of vendors engaging with strong copyleft licensed software.

The analysis indicated that the previous dominance of strong copyleft licenses was achieved and maintained to a significant degree due to vendor-led open source projects, and that the ongoing shift away from projects controlled by a single vendor toward community projects was in part driving a shift towards more permissive non-copyleft licenses.

We will update this analysis over the next few days with a look at the latest trends regarding the engagement of vendors with open source projects, and venture funding for open source-related vendors, providing some additional context for the trends related to licensing.

Jive goes public. webOS goes open source. Cloud Foundry goes .NET. And more.

# Jive Software started IPO at $12 a share, closing the day up nearly 30%.

# HP announced that it plans to release webOS under an open source license. Details are thin on the ground, although Fedora is reportedly an inspiration. Joel West’s post pretty much summed up my thoughts.

# Tier 3 announced that it has created Iron Foundry, and open source .NET Framework implementation of Cloud Foundry.

# Xeround raised $9m funding for its MySQL-as-a-service cloud database.

# Microsoft released the Windows Azure SDK for Node.js as open source and made available a preview of the Apache Hadoop on Windows Azure, amongst a slew of other open source-related announcements.

# Red Hat, Canonical, Cisco, IBM, Intel, NetApp, and SUSE created the oVirt project, based around Red Hat’s Enterprise Virtualization technology for managing KVM environments.

# Nuxeo announced the availability of Nuxeo Platform 5.5.

# Joyent launched its SmartMachine Appliance for MongoDB.

Red Hat announced JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform 5.2 and JBoss Operations Network 3.0.

# Novell announced the availability of Novell Open Enterprise Server 11.

# Couchbase claimed thousands of open source deployments and 150 commercial deployments, but has rethought its product line-up for 2012, having “confused the heck” out of potential users in 2011.

# Univention released Univention Corporate Server 3.0.

# SuccessBricks announced that its ClearDB distributed MySQL-based database service is now available through Heroku.

# Ember.js is the new name for the SproutCore 2.0 JavaScript framework.

# HEnrik Ingo examined the recent spate of MySQL authentication plug-ins.

There has been no shortage of reaction to HP’s move to make the Linux-based WebOS open source software. Below, I offer some of my thoughts on the meaning for the different players affected.

*What’s it mean for WebOS?
Moving WebOS to open source was best option for HP. It retains some value in the software depending on its involvement. It is also the best fate for the code, rather then being sold or simmered to its IP and patent value or even used as another weapon in the ongoing mobile software patent wars. Still, the move comes amid huge developer and consumer uncertainty for WebOS. Nevertheless, at least WebOS was already in the market with a compelling products, the Palm the Pre, in the modern smartphone market. WebOS will hopefully have a faster path to open source than Symbian since the former is based on Linux. I still think the greatest opportunity for WebOS may be in serving as an open alternative in the market, particularly after Android has proven to handset makers, wireless carriers, OEMs and others that a Linux-based, open source mobile OS can succeed in the market and provide profit for multiple parties. Furthering this opportunity, WebOS may be even more attractive to these key vendors, channel players and other stakeholders who are tired of the IP and patent stress and expense around Android. Of course, Android was not under patent or IP attack until it was successful in the market and the same may be the case for WebOS, though we think its IP roots and history in touch and smartphone technology are less complex in terms of origin and ownership.

*What’s it mean for competitors?
For Apple, an open source WebOS means more market pressure and open pressure, more competition for developers and a real danger WebOS hooks into the Android ecosystem. WebOS may also be harder to attack from a patent and IP standpoint since it is older and more singular in ownership (Palm and now HP). Other factors include HP’s own formidable patent portfolio and the perception of Apple as a patent aggressor, which would be reinforced if it attacked WebOS the way it has gone after Android.

For Android, it may finally get a dose of its own open medicine, feeling the pressure of another Linux-based, open source mobile OS that is familiar to many developers, compatible with newer smartphone technologies and appealing to handset makers and other key OEMs. However, WebOS is also a validation of Android, which paved the path for mobile Linux and open source to finally break through beyond geeks to reach a mass consumer audience.

As for other proprietary players such as Microsoft and RIM, another open source rival is bad news. It presents another open source option and potentially serious competition on developers, applications, devices, carriers and consumers. An open source WebOS may also make Android, in effect, more open with faster, easier access to code for both Android and WebOS compete. This could make it even harder for these older, proprietary players to get developer or consumer mind share that is already slipping.

*What’s it mean for open source? Really, there is no downside for open source except that it will be viewed as a form of software cemetery if WebOS is not developed or delivered to market. HP’s WebOS move does give open source greater prominence in mobile software. Again, it is a validation of Android, which is Linux-based and open source, and shows that we haven’t seen the last of mobile Linux and open source software in Android.

Funding for BlazeMeter and Digital Reasoning. Red Hat goes unstructured. And more.

# BlazeMeter announced $1.2m in Series A funding and launched the a cloud service for load and performance testing.

# Digital Reasoning announced a second round of funding to help develop its Hadoop-based analytics offering.

# Red Hat announced the availability of Red Hat Storage Software Appliance, based on its recent acquisition of Gluster.

# Red Hat also announced the general availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.2.

# Jaspersoft released Jaspersoft 4.5, delivering drag-and-drop analytics and reporting on Apache Hadoop, NoSQL and analytic databases.

# Jaspersoft also delivered a second-generation native connector to MongoDB.

# CloudBees announced the availability of Jenkins Enterprise by CloudBees providing support and enhanced capabilities for the Jenkins Continuous Integration platform.

# Diaspora* is back in action, and outlined its plans.

# Talend announced that Bi3 Solutions has embedded Talend Integration Suite inside its Software-as-a-Service platform.

# DataStax announced new versions of Apache Cassandra, DataStax Community, and DataStax Enterprise.

# The H reported that Microsoft’s Windows Store agreement has open source exception.

# Black Duck Software announced the release of Export 6.0.

# Antelink launched SourceSquare, a free open source scanning engine.

Data.gov goes open source. GridGain raises $2.5m And more.

# The White House is set to open source Data.gov as open government data platform.

# GridGain closed $2.5m series A funding.

# Digital Reasoning raised an undisclosed series B funding round.

# Contrary to some reports, Google and Mozilla are still negotiating their search and advertising deal.

# Jedox introduced version 3.3 of its BI suite, changing the name of the premium edition from Palo to Jedox.

# MapR announced version 1.2 of the MapR Distribution for Apache Hadoop.

# Xamarin released Mono for Android 4.0.

# Splunk introduced Shep, an open source project that enables two-way Splunk-Hadoop integration.

# HPCC Systems is now providing its Thor Data Refinery Cluster on the Amazon Web Services platform.

# Monty Program previewed some features in forthcoming versions of MariaDB.

# AppDynamics partnered with Datastax to provide application performance management for distributed applications running on Apache Cassandra.

# Gorilla Logic announced the latest version of FoneMonkey for iOS

Talend delivers v5. Zentyal raises series A. The TCO of OSS. And more.

# Talend announced version 5 of its data integration suite, adding business process management capabilities via an OEM relationship with BonitaSoft. Yves De Montcheuil explained the name changes in version 5.

# Zentyal closed a series A venture capital funding of over $1m by Open Ocean Capital.

# The London School of Economics released a report on the total cost of ownership of open source software.

# Couchbase announced the availability of the Couchbase Hadoop Connector, developed in conjunction with Cloudera.

# Rackspace announced the private beta of Rackspace MySQL Cloud Database.

# The debate over the role of open source foundations in the Git era continued, including a follow-up by the instigator, Mikael Rogers, a rallying cry for autonomy from Ceki Gülcü, and Simon Phipps warning about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

# Marco Abis is stepping down as CEO of Sourcesense.

# NGINX usage has grown almost 300% over the last year, according to Netcraft figures discussed by Royal Pingdom.

# The Wireless Innovation Forum announced the formation of the Open Source Framework for Commercial Baseband Software project.

Ubuntu has been taking some criticism and heat for its falling Distrowatch rankings. I don’t doubt that after years of popularity, we’re finally seeing a bit of a return to the desktop Linux world of old when a new distribution shot up every week or month, then faded, then re-appeared … and so on. However, when I consider where Canonical and Ubuntu are heading, I question the significance of desktop OS standing and Distrowach rankings.

First off, I must say that Ubuntu’s slip off the ‘king of the hill’ game on Distrowatch came at the expense of Linux Mint, another polished, user-friendly Linux. It wouldn’t surprise me if some Ubuntu users may be migrating to Mint or other distributions largely out of frustration or dislike of the new Unity interface over the previous primary interface, Gnome. However, I think the move will be worth it in the long run to Ubuntu, as I’ll explain further.

If considering desktop OS, the most important aspect to me as an enterprise software analyst is enterprise desktop, and Ubuntu does well there. I’m sure there are plenty of shops running other flavors of Linux, including Mint, Gentoo, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian and many, many others, but for corporate desktop, the list quickly thins. Nevertheless, this is where Canonical has had some big victories, including the French police. In terms of consumer and user desktop PCs, the category itself is disappearing into converged and touch-capable devices, further distancing us from the ‘distro wars’ of the past.

Still, the server is where the real action and revenue from Linux exist. Here, Ubuntu still faces a role-reversal from most Linux distributions, using desktop and developer popularity to fuel its use as a server OS, which is also helped by free availability and cloud computing. Ubuntu continues to benefit from its early move to cloud computing and its popularity among developers, but also still faces a huge challenge in monetizing use. Significantly, the latest version, Ubuntu 11.10, incorporates support for OpenStack (or Eucalyptus) and VMware Cloud Foundry PaaS. This could be significant given what we’ve seen from this type of integration and bundling in the past. In addition, Ubuntu benefits from being among the select few Linux distribution that exist in both free, community and paid, commercial form. As reported in our special report, ‘The Changing Linux Landscape,’ the existence of an unpaid community cousin can help drive commercial growth for paid, subscription Linux, as we’ve seen happen with free Ubuntu and paid Ubuntu, as well as Fedora and RHEL and OpenSUSE and SLES.

Finally, the explosion of smartphones, tablets and converged devices — many of them running embedded Linux — makes clear there is more opportunity in these newer devices than in the desktop PCs of old. Ubuntu got a good start in netbooks and continues to be among the most advanced netbook operating systems. This should help its move to smartphones, tablets, other mobile devices, TVs and more and this is where the payoff of Unity occurs. Canonical with Ubuntu may have a real advantage as a user-friendly, mobile Linux OS that can be used by OEMs and carriers without the intellectual property stress that has marked Android, which has nonetheless laid the groundwork for mobile Linux in the industry. In the end, the pain of leaving Gnome has been significant, but the promise of where Ubuntu is headed seems worth that pain.

Software foundations in the Git era. New funding for Puppet Labs. And more

# Mikeal Rogers’ post on the Apache Software Foundation’s slow response to the Git era prompted significant discussion, from Mike Milinkovich, Bradley M. Kuhn, Stephen Walli, Stephen O’Grady, Simon Phipps, and the ASF’s Jim Jagielski. Alternative you could just read this tweet.

# Puppet Labs raised $8.5m in series C funding from Cisco, Google Ventures, and VMware as well as Kleiner Perkins, True Ventures, and Radar Partners.

# YaCy, a free distributed search engine was launched.

# Alex Pinchev, Red Hat’s Executive Vice President of Sales, Services & Field Marketing, will be stepping down in January to become the chief executive officer of a data protection software company.

# Tasktop Technologies announced Tasktop Sync 2.0.

# Interesting statistics on Apache Hadoop adoption based on LinkedIn data, from NC State University’s Institute for Advanced Analytics.

Red Hat’s Ceylon makes its debut. Heroku launches PostgreSQL service. And more.

# Red Hat’s Ceylon programming language made its public debut. Mark Little provided some context.

# Heroku announced the launch of Heroku Postgres as a standalone service.

# GitHub co-founder Tom Preston-Werner explained why you should open source (almost) everything.

# Mikeal Rogers discussed the issues behind the Apache Software Foundation’s slow response to the Git era.

# Royal Pingdom explored recent trends in Linux distribution popularity, pondering the rise of Linux Mint and the decline of Ubuntu.

# Canonical is dropping CouchDB from Ubuntu One.

# ActiveState announced that Stackato Micro Cloud will continue to be free of charge for developers to use as their own private Platform-as-a-Service.

# The European Space Agency wants to publish more of its software using open source licences.

# Sourceforge provided some interesting statistics on operating system usage.