Open-source cloud frameworks: A work in progress

Scheier is a veteran technology writer. He can be reached at bob@scheierassociates.com.

Mixed Marriages

Some Commercial Vendors Dabble in Open Source

Open-source software is born when programmers write great software for the love of it, sharing their greatest enhancements freely because they know that others will do the same.

Major software vendors such as VMware and hosting providers such as Rackspace are contributing developer and marketing time to open-source frameworks to drive sales of their other products and services, particularly the 24/7 enterprise-grade support that customers can't always get from the open-source community.