Business intelligence solutions provider SRC announced the open source release of their Explorer geocoding technology.

A geocoder is a digital mapping tool that assigns a latitude & longitude coordinates to any geographic content, and SRC hopes that by open sourcing their Explorer technology they can take the focus off the sale of proprietary GIS platform software--which can cost as much as $50,000 to $100,000--and concentrate instead on providing customers high-quality content and custom applications.

Explorer code is available for download now, under the Lesser GPL, an open source license often used for library code.

Explorer is the first open source data and country independent geocoding engine, and it should help position SRC to profit from providing customized BI software solutions as well as subscription data services. The Virtual Terrain Project has a good article about geocoding. Geocoding Addresses. Another good article, GIS Unshackled A Guide to Open-Source Tools is available at Geoplace.com.

You've got to wonder how the thought of an Oracle-branded Linux distribution might be curdling the cream this morning in the executive suites at Microsoft (and other OS vendors). You don't threaten Microsoft's bread-and-butter server customer base lightly; just ask the folks at Netscape.

But according to this article, Will Oracle offer a Linux package? at CNNMoney.com, Larry Ellison is talking about having Oracle distribute and support its own version of Linux.

According to the report, Ellison also said that Oracle looked at Novell, publisher of the popular SUSE Linux distribution, as a potential entry point into the Linux market. Oddly enough, Novell itself acquired SUSE Linux just over two years ago in a major shift for the former leading networking software company.

Apparently, Ellison and Oracle were jolted by last week's announcement of Red Hat's deal to purchase JBoss. If a Linux company like Red Hat, already competing with Microsoft, could branch into the database business, then why shouldn't Oracle jump into the fray?

Hijinx will undoubtedly ensue. Stay tuned!

Red Hat announced that their purchase of JBoss was a done deal.

Mr. Ellison, read it-- Red Hat Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire JBoss--and weep.

The rumor mill had Oracle looking to buy JBoss for $200 million, but back n February JBoss boss Marc Fleury, who said the company was not for sale, was also said to be looking for at least $400 million in any sale. Red Hat's press release spelled out the terms, under which Fleury seems to be likely to get what he wanted:

"Red Hat will acquire JBoss for approximately $350 million in initial consideration, plus approximately $70 million subject to the achievement of certain future performance metrics. The transaction consideration is composed of approximately 40% in cash and 60% in Red Hat common stock. The acquisition is expected to be completed around the end of Red Hat's first fiscal quarter (May 2006), subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approval."

If you haven't read my article, A Virtualization Primer, go read it; if you have, read it again. And then go read these articles about the latest virtualization news.

First off, VMware took the next step in turning their standard for virtualization into the industry standard for virtualization. Monday's announcement, VMware Introduces Open Virtual Machine Disk Format Specification , speaks directly to the need for a strong move toward openness. VMware stated "its virtual machine disk format specification for defining and formatting virtual machine environments is now openly available, downloadable and free of charge. This will enable use by all developers, software vendors and projects and includes open licensing compatible with those operating under open source licenses such as the GPL. In addition, VMware is committed to supporting any other open virtual machine disk formats broadly adopted by customers and working toward converging on open standards in this area."

It's nice to see a company that "gets it". In other news on Monday, Microsoft showed that they don't quite exactly "get it": Market Bulletin: Microsoft Announces New Price, and Availability of Linux Support, for Virtual Server 2005 R2.

The gist of the announcement is that the new price for Virtual Server 2005 R2 is $0.00. In other words, you can download it for free (though the software is still proprietary and still subject to restrictive Microsoft licensing terms). More interesting, though, is news that Microsoft will now officially support nine different Linux distributions! Count 'em: SUSE and Red Hat. That's right, NINE! Five different releases of Red Hat, and four versions of Novell's SUSE Linux.

Further muddying the waters is maneuvering by Microsoft and newcomver XenSource to flank VMware. This article in the Register, Microsoft starts supporting, er, Linux spells out how XenSource, in a move that may prove either brilliant or disastrous, is aligning itself with Microsoft by licensing Microsoft's VHD, or Virtual Hard Disk Image Format Specification. Microsoft hasn't offered VHD to VMware, which may have prompted VMware to actually release their own Virtual Machine Disk Format (VMDK), without licensing restrictions.