Open source community preaches coexistence

Open source and commercial applications will coexist in peace, Marten Mickos, chief executive at MySQL, said in a keynote presentation at LinuxWorld, adding that open source will help the IT industry to move more quickly into new markets.

"There is so much that has not yet been created in areas of medicine, research, entertainment and media," said Mickos. "In order to get there we must simplify what we've built so far."

MySQL develops an open source database. Although some in the industry pitch the company against Oracle and IBM's DB2, Mickos has always avoided that comparison. The company instead targets new markets.

Mickos called on the IT industry to adopt open standards instead of picking a fight between open source and proprietary applications.

"We must open up. We must create building blocks so that we can move to the next level, he said, adding that failure to make this transition risked creating problems like the Y2K bug.

While proprietary software serves established markets, open source will focus on under served areas where people traditionally do not use software. Areas where this has happened, according to Mickos, include RSS content syndication, blogs and the internet.

Further more, Mickos expects the open source model to find applications outside software development. Journalism, medicine, politics and research can expect to be affected by a model where people working together across the world start having an impact.

"The whole notion of working together to reach a common good, while still leaving an opportunity for business, can apply to any industry where you have an intangible product," he said.

However, legal experts have suggested that, with the rise of open source software in the enterprise, companies increasingly run the risk of violating either open source or commercial software licences.