Government open source projects provide big opportunity for OpenLogic

DoD and other government agencies' multiple open source projects would benefit from OpenLogic's streamlined and consistent support process

I read two articles yesterday that lead me to believe OpenLogic's best days are ahead.

First, OpenLogic reported a 41 percent year-to-year increase in 3Q 09 revenue with a 100 percent renewal rate. These are strong results and the renewal rate suggests that clients value OpenLogic's offerings.

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Second, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) CIO issued clarifying guidance regarding open source usage by the DoD. The DoD memo deals with some misconceptions about using open source and goes on to explain that open source software should be considered when it can potentially meet the needs of a given mission. Of note to open source vendors, the DoD paper states:

The use of any software without appropriate maintenance and support presents an information assurance risk. Before approving the use of software (including OSS), system/program managers, and ultimately Designated Approving Authorities (DAAs), must ensure that the plan for software support (e.g., commercial or Government program office support) is adequate for mission need.

The DoD would prefer open source usage to be aligned with "appropriate" maintenance and support. OpenLogic touts its ability to support and maintain 500-plus open source software projects -- seems like a perfect match.

While OpenLogic provides support for 500-plus open source projects, the top five projects that customers sought support for in 3Q09 were JBoss, Apache HTTP Server, Apache Tomcat, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Interestingly, four of these five projects are controlled and driven by well-known open source vendors that offer their own support subscriptions. The fact that customers chose to acquire support from OpenLogic versus going directly to the vendor controlling the project suggests that some customers prefer to consolidate their support contracts and experience. I suspect that the DoD and other government agencies would see the value of a streamlined support process across tens or hundreds of open source projects used by the DoD. However, if the DoD wanted to modify and redistribute an open source project without being required to share their changes, a commercial license from the project's copyright holder would still be required.