Time crosstab in Mondrian

The Mondrian/Pentaho community are smarter than I am. Tom Barber wanted a way to display many months on one screen, and Pedro Alves figured out a way to display it as a years x months crosstab.

Being an open source vendor is like being Irish

There's been a lot of flap recently about the definition of an open source vendor.

Just about every piece of software these days will have some fraction that is based on open source code, so every software company is to some degree an open source vendor. And in the process of developing this code, the company's developers will need to participate in the community of those projects, and possibly fix bugs and contribute features.

So, whether you are an open source vendor, or for that matter, open core vendor or free software vendor is a question of degree. That means that everyone gets to argue what level the bar is set, and it all descends into silliness.

It reminds me of the fact that, especially at this time of year, everyone in the United States gets to be Irish.

In contrast, there is a very clear definition for open source software. The beauty of it is that it doesn't matter whether the software is written by an employee of open source vendor, an anarchist student, or Microsoft-loving independent consultant. If it has an open source license, it's open source software. As simple as that.

Pentaho Partner Summit 2009

Are you thinking of incorporating Mondrian, or perhaps the entire Pentaho BI Suite, in your application? The Pentaho Partner Summit, on April 2nd and 3rd in Menlo Park, CA, is a good chance to get an overview of the technology.

The first day will contain an executive overview for vendors thinking of using the technology. Chance to hear myself, Matt Casters (Kettle lead), Zack Urlocker (MySQL VP Marketing and general Open Source luminary) and Richard Daley (Pentaho CEO) hold forth, then a cocktail reception where you get to tell us what you think.

The second day will have in depth training for OEM, reseller, and systems integrator partners who are already building apps using Pentaho technology.

Read the agenda, get details, and register at http://www.pentaho.com/summit09/agenda.php.