In the wake of its merger with Sun Microsystems, Oracle is discontinuing access to Project Kenai, which was developed by Sun as an open source project-hosting site.

Palamida, a vendor that sells software and services around open-source software security and legal compliance, has named 25 open-source projects companies should not hesitate to use.

When big companies release new software, they launch it with lots of hoopla: press tours, technical conferences, free T-shirts. Open-source projects, even the well-known ones, generally release their major new versions with a lot less fanfare. The FOSS (free and open-source software) community is often too busy coding and testing to bother with marketing, even when the new "point release" of the software is really remarkable.

Six-year-old BlueStar Energy Services doesn't have the kind of systems-baggage that saddles many older organizations. Still, the company found itself hindered by the rigidity of its core systems, which constrained its efforts to expand its customer base and offer new services.