At this year's OSBC conference, Michael Skok of North Bridge Venture Partners will present the results of the annual Future of Open Source Survey. OpenLogic is proud to be a survey Collaborator, which basically means that we're helping get the word out and encourage participation. This survey offers a great opportunity for you to share your thoughts on the state of open source software and open source business models, the factors driving adoption of open source, and how the market will evolve over the coming years. So if you haven't already done so, take a few minutes to participate in the survey and share your perspective. And if you'd like to check out the results from last year's survey, go here.

Community Linux has become increasingly popular within the enterprise as companies strive to cut costs without compromising on functionality and reliability. Our next webinar, Choosing the Right Community Linux for Your Enterprise, will compare of the leading community Linux distributions, including CentOS, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE. Brad Reeves, Senior Content Engineer at OpenLogic, will discuss which distributions are best suited to different uses within the enterprise as well as how to approach migrations from commercial Linux distributions like Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Other topics to be covered include:

• Community Linux in your datacenter – top server distributions
• Community Linux in your enterprise – top desktop distributions
• Best practices for enterprise involvement in Linux communities
• Options for community Linux support and maintenance help

If you're interested in evaluating community Linux distributions for use in your organization, or if you want to know which options are best suited to particular types of enterprise deployment, be sure to join us on Thursday, January 28 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern / 7:00 GMT. Reserve your spot today!

As budgets and priorities for next year begin to take shape, companies of all sizes are looking to open source software to find ways to stretch software budgets without limiting innovation or productivity. We'll discuss the top strategies for using open source to get more done for less in our next webinar, Top 10 Ways to Stretch Your Budget by Using More Open Source Software in 2010. This webinar will be held on Wednesday, December 9 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern / 7:00 GMT.

In this webinar Kim Weins and Rod Cope will explore the process of enterprise open source software adoption from the perspective of three key stakeholders within the typical organization: developers, architects, and CIOs. We'll examine the unique challenges and goals of each of these roles, giving you tips on:

• How to overcome internal roadblocks to the use of open source
• How to meet the legal requirements of open source
• What are the hottest technology areas for open source that you should consider

Whether you're a developer or architect hoping to get more done with open source or a CIO looking to cut costs, this is one webinar you won't want to miss. Be sure to join us on December 9 and find out how you can make the most with open source in 2010.

As enterprise use of open source software continues to expand, companies are increasingly aware of the importance of open source governance. If you're interested in learning about the essentials required for an effective open source governance process, be sure to sign up for our next webinar, "Ten Key Elements of Effective Open Source Governance in the Enterprise," which will be held on Wednesday, June 17 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern.

In this webinar, Kim Weins of OpenLogic and Greg Olsen of Olliance Group will discuss the ten essential elements for creating and maintaining an effective open source governance program in the enterprise. Topics to be covered include:

• Defining and implementing enterprise open source policies
• Securing support within the organization
• Taking inventory of open source software usage
• Managing requests and approvals for open source
• Ensuring ongoing compliance through auditing and reporting

Space is limited, so reserve your spot today for this informative session.

Wikipedia defines application lifecycle management (ALM) as "the marriage of business management to software engineering made possible by tools that facilitate and integrate requirements management, architecture, coding, testing, tracking, and release management." Source control management (SCM) tools are a key component of the ALM process, and developers today have many good open source options when it comes to selecting SCM tools.

We're hosting a webinar on April 28 in which we'll compare and contrast some of the most popular open source tools for SCM, including Bazaar, CVS, Git, Mercurial, and Subversion. Brad Reeves, Senior Content Engineer at OpenLogic, will examine the features included with popular open source SCM tools and discuss which tools best interface with other commonly used ALM applications.

Other topics covered to be covered this webinar include:

• Which open source SCM tools are best at branching, merging, and tagging
• Client/server vs. single repository SCM tools
• Peer-to-peer vs. distributed system SCM tools
• How the leading open source SCM tools compare to commercial alternatives

Whether you're evaluating open source SCM tools for use in your software engineering process or simply want to stay abreast of new trends, please be sure to join us on Tuesday, April 28 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern.

If you're interested in learning about the features and benefits of the top open source application development frameworks, you won't want to miss our next technical webinar—“A Comparison of Open Source Application Development Frameworks for the Enterprise.” This webinar will be held on Thursday, March 12 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern, and as usual the recording and slides will be available for download after the event.

In this webinar Kelby Zorgdrager, President of DevelopIntelligence, will join us to provide a comparison of key attributes for the leading open source application development frameworks including MyFaces, SEAM, Spring, Struts, and Tapestry. Attendees will also gain insights on how open source frameworks can be leveraged to rapidly build extraordinary web applications.

By attending this webinar you'll learn about:

• Key differences amongst the leading open source application development frameworks
• Other frameworks on the rise, and why they're gaining market share
• Selecting the right open source framework for a development environment
• Creating web applications more productively and elegantly

Whether you're just getting started with open source frameworks or simply want to stay abreast of new trends, please be sure to join us on March 12 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern.

One of the most popular categories of open source software is undoubtedly application servers. JBoss, Geronimo, and Tomcat are practically household names to anyone with even a passing familiarity with open source. But like any software package, every open source application server comes with its own pros and cons. Selecting the right open source application server for your environment requires detailed functional evaluations and important technology decisions on topics like EJB2 compatibility and OSGi. Further complicating the selection process is the recent release of the SpringSource dm Server, which abandons the EJB world altogether.

With this ever-shifting landscape, it's important to stay abreast of the latest developments and ensure that your organization is using the open source application servers that best suit your current and future needs and initiatives. Get a leg up on this important topic by attending our next technical webinar, “A Comparison of Open Source Application Servers for the Enterprise,” which will be held on Thursday, December 11.

Presented by Rod Cope, our CTO and Founder, and Veljko Krunic, our Senior Consultant, this webinar will compare JBoss, Glassfish, Geronimo, Tomcat, and the new SpringSource dm Server. In addition to core features and reliability, Rod and Veljko will discuss:

• EJB3 vs. Spring
• Spring on a dm Server vs. J2EE/JEE server
• OSGi
• EJB 2 compatibility

If you're currently evaluating application servers, plan to begin an evaluation in the near future, or simply want to stay abreast of new trends in open source application servers, please be sure to join us on December 11 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern.

And don't forget — the webinar library on our corporate website offers free downloads of the slides and recordings from all previous OpenLogic webinars, including “A Comparison of Open Source Reporting Tools for the Enterprise” and “A Comparison of Open Source Scripting Languages for the JVM.”

A little over a week ago we launched an updated version of the OpenLogic corporate website. The basic page layout is largely the same, but there are some significant changes to the content, organization, and style.

First and foremost, we refocused the content to better reflect our primary open source solutions—commercial-grade support for open source, open source governance, and open source provisioning. We also updated information on our open source services and OpenLogic Exchange (OLEX), our Software-as-a-Service platform for comprehensive sourcing and governance of open source software in the enterprise. Organizational improvements allow visitors to browse our offerings by solution type or by product name, and our library of webinars and other downloads is now easier to navigate.

From a style standpoint we tried to give the site a softer, more “web 2.0” look and feel without going through a start-from-scratch redesign. We tackled this by rounding off hard edges and adding subtle gradients to sidebars, and we also increased the page width to improve readability and get more content above the fold.

Overall, I'm really pleased with the redesign.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

The economic downturn is having an impact on businesses large and small in every sector of the economy, and everyone is looking to reduce expenses and maximize the value of existing infrastructure. Migrating to open source software is one of the best ways to achieve these goals, so we’re offering a free webinar to help guide enterprises looking to get started with or expand usage of open source: “Navigating the Economic Downturn: Strategies for Cutting Costs with Open Source.” This webinar will be held on Wednesday, October 29 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern. A recording of the webinar as well as the slides will be available for download from the OpenLogic webinar library after the event.

In this webinar we’ll discuss how enterprises can leverage open source solutions to reduce IT expenses and preserve infrastructure investments while accelerating innovation. Topics to be covered include:

• Overview of best practices for bringing open source into the enterprise
• Key areas to consider for migrating from proprietary to open source solutions
• How to project and measure the ROI of migrating to open source

Whether you’re already using open source software or just beginning to evaluate open source alternatives that may be able to help you cut costs, please be sure to join us on October 29 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern.

Our last webinar—"A Comparison of Open Source Reporting Tools for the Enterprise"—drew a huge amount of interest, so we decided to continue the trend with another technical webinar: "A Comparison of Open Source Scripting Languages for the JVM" presented by Rod Cope, CTO and Founder of OpenLogic. This webinar will be held on September 23 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern, and of course the recording and slides will be available for download after the event.

In this webinar Rod will discuss scripting languages for the JVM like Groovy, JRuby, and Jython, which have become popular alternatives to programming languages like Java, C#, and C++ as well as traditional scripting languages like Ruby, Python, Perl, and PHP. Rod will provide a comparison of key attributes for the most popular scripting languages for the JVM, including:

• Which languages are easiest (and hardest) to learn?
• What types of development are best suited to each language?
• How do the top languages compare in terms of ease of use?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of each language?
• Which open source frameworks and other packages work best with each language?

If you're interested in learning a new scripting language to enhance or replace your Java development, or if you want to know which language is best suited to a particular type of development, please be sure to join us on September 23 at 11:00 Pacific / 2:00 Eastern.