How corporate America went open-source

“There was a time when open-source software was the domain of
computer geeks and do-it-yourselfers with more time than money.
But, as Oracle’s legal salvo against Google highlighted last week,
those days are long gone.

“Oracle (ORCL), through its purchase of Sun Microsystems, has
become one of the largest purveyors of open-source software in the
world. Google (GOOG) makes the open-source and increasingly
ubiquitous Android smartphone operating system. Their fight
revolves around Java, a programming language Sun made predominantly
open-source several years ago, but which Oracle’s founder and CEO
Larry Ellison now calls “the single most important software we’ve
ever acquired.”

“Oracle’s legal move lit up the blogosphere, with InfoWorld
writing that “Oracle may ultimately create a chilling effect over
the Java ecosystem and big open source projects throughout the
industry,” while ZDNet opined that Oracle “plans to sue its way to
success.” Google encouraged such views, calling the lawsuit a
“baseless” attack on both Google and “the open-source Java
community” that “works every day to make the Web a better
place.”

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