Radio Reg Why let the Oracle/BEA spat die when you can open a hulking can of gasoline and pour fuel over the fire?

Open Season Episode 6 does just that with the help of former JBoss chief Marc Fleury. The now very wealthy software maverick joined me, Matt Asay (Alfresco) and Dave Rosenberg (Mulesource) for a deep look at what's going on with the middleware market, software consolidation and Red Hat.

Of particular note was Red Hat's future. Can the company survive on its own? If so, who does it buy to compete with the big boys? If not, who gets Red Hat first - Oracle or IBM?

The show, as usual, touches on a number of other subjects besides this middleware cruft. There's talk of Microsoft infiltrating the Nigerian government, VMware's take on open source code and the need for some serious open source talent. Take a look at the show notes for all the details.

In addition, I have a couple of things to plug. As always, please buy my book. It's outstanding or something like that. Also, Dave has fired up a new blog and Matt is beavering away on his blog. Last but not least, Maison Fleury blogs here.

And now on with the show.

Open Season - Episode 6

The faithful can grab the Ogg Vorbis file here, and those plagued by low-bandwidth can catch a smaller, crappier quality show here.

You can subscribe to the show on iTunes here or grab the Arse feed here.

Hungry Oracle

• We've hit the bullshit round in BEA's acquisition journey
• Marc reckons that IBM needs to buy Red Hat; I reckon that it ain't going to happen
• Oracle will be the sexiest nun at the convent
• Consolidation not open source is the dominant trend in software
• Marc finds revenue streams sexy
• Red Hat has JBoss indigestion
• The challenge is becoming a multi-product company

Virtual Anger

• VMware's good fortune is pumping up EMC's shares, but at what cost?
• Could IBM pull an EMC and buy Red Hat?
• Marc had a good run at Jboss
• JBoss exes are whack jobs
• Mulesource is hiring big time
• Nigeria ate my Linux distro
• Moongirl makes open source T-shirts

Thanks for your ears. ®

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