Brian Prentice, a research vice president with Gartner’s Emerging Trends and Technologies Group, speculates that it just might be. Google has been actively developing open-source alternatives to leading proprietary products, like Google Wave to compete with Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint. As Prentice indicates, Google has also been publicly advocating passage of the Patent Reform Act of 2009, which might have a lot to do with its open-source strategy.
Open source means different things to different people. It can be a software development methodology, a distribution technique, or a marketing gimmick. Could it also be a way to minimize patent infringement damages?
Google contributes to open source for a variety of reasons, not the least reason being that it recognizes open source is an efficient way to create community around its products. But perhaps Google has this more subtle, and sophisticated, reason as well?
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road,timberland mens shoes, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay.