Undoubtedly, the biggest news in Open Source for September was the launch of Google's new web browser, Chrome. Chrome, which is Google's version of an open source project called Chromium (demonstrating how closely the two are linked), adds another open source browser to the major players. The other, Firefox, has been long supported by Google and analysis varies as to what this means for Firefox. It does mean that the big kid on the block, Microsoft's Internet Explorer has another major competitor to deal with. It also means that smaller players like Opera and Apple's Safari browser will have to
keep up their grueling pace of innovation.
Buried inside of the Google brouhaha is news about an new built from scratch open source Java virtual machine known as V8. This new VM is supposedly faster and more stable than other VMs currently out there. If true, this spells a leap forward for Javascript.
So far, this can only be a win for the customers.
The second biggest news in Open Source also came from Google. Google's new Android mobile phone operating system debuted with an announcement that it will be available in October from manufacturer HTC. We'll keep an eye on that.
In bad news on the open source front, Thomson Reuters has sued open source Zotero. Zotero, which is an open source competitor to Thomson's End Note product, provides Internet users with a way to save and cite Internet content either for future use or for use where supplying citations is necessary such as journalism and academic research and publishing. Zotero has gained traction as a free Firefox plugin which makes it very convenient for a researcher to store information regarding not only the location of a website, but if desired with an image or other archive of its status when it was viewed which is a huge deal considering the transient nature of the Internet.
The issue is that the latest beta version of Zotero includes the ability to convert information stored in the proprietary format of End Note. Such conversion is generally necessary for programs in order to compete because users don't like to have to manually go back and dig out or convert information to use in a new program. There is nothing against converting another product's files and it is done all over the computing space. In order to make something stick, Thomson claims that their converter was developed by reverse engineering the End Note product, which IS against the license agreement.
So far, analysts don't like the lawsuit's chances, but most open source projects don't have the resources to
go toe to toe with the major players in a courtroom, so the issue here is not so much can Thomson win, but how far does it go. A full-scale trial spells big trouble for most open source projects, while a suit thrown out in the early stages of the process would mark a win.