2009 - a year for open source clouds?

Open source is pretty much a given in cloud computing, but this year we're going to see more efforts to define the way those clouds are built and used.

According to both Citrix and Red Hat, open source computing rules cloud computing - although if you extend the conversation things look more complex.

For instance, open source licences say you should get the source code, but does that apply if you are merely using, remotely, an application based on that open source code?

Also, as Glyn Moody points out, even if you are using an open source application, your cloud vendor could still lock your data in and extort the usual demands we've seen before (Glyn doesn't give an example though - any thoughts?)

There is a body out there that could help though - the Open Cloud Consortium, which is making standards for interoperability, and transfers, between clouds.

As you'd expect, the group is working with some intriguing ideas (including UDT or UDP-based data transport, which speeds up communications in a cloud by using UDP (and which won a bandwidth challenge at Supercomputing 08).

It's also technology-focussed. “I’m not a marketing guy,” says Robert Grossman, who chairs the Consortium in a Network World article. Grossman also heads the US National Center for Data Mining and the Laboratory for Advanced Computing at the University of Chicago.

I think some basic technology, combined with good thinking about the licensing issues of clouds, could be exactly what we need. We have more than enough cloud marketing experts already.