Yesterday, I was moderating the Global Open Source and Public Initiatives panel at SDForum's Global Open Source event, one day before OSBC in San Francisco.
I was the moderator of the panel but this didn't stop the audience from asking me what SAP is doing on open source. Since this is also what Ignacio was asking here earlier, let me give a minimalistic summary.
So, SAP has come a long way. The old days are the old days, and they are over. Today, we use open source, we contribute to open source, and we even lead open source.
Our key example is the Eclipse platform. We use the software in our products. Where necessary, we also contribute bug fixes and help and support the community. Finally, we are now leading a new Eclipse component that will make life easier for software developers. (The component is still making its way through the various Eclipse Foundation approval processes, but has already progressed far.)
Basically, we focus on using and contributing to open source where our customers and partners want it. Want to reduce costs through an open source operating system or a database? So we run on Linux and support MySQL. Want better tools and an ecosystem? So we build on Eclipse.
I think we still have to catch-up on many things, but all signs are positive.
