Five Open Source Technologies for 2012

Next year, if all goes according to plan, Red Hat will become the first open source software company to generate more than US$1 billion a year in revenue. It will be a watershed moment for the open source community, who have long seen their approach of community-based development as a viable, even superior, alternative to traditional notions of how software should be written.

"I think we're seeing a fundamental shift in where innovation happens, going from the labs of a few software companies to these massive open source efforts," said Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat.

Certainly, open source has left the proprietary software world in turmoil over the past few years, as Linux, the Apache Web server, Perl, Apache, Hadoop, OpenOffice, GIMP and dozens of other programs put the pinch on their commercial counterparts. But what are tomorrow's open source heavy hitters? Here are five projects to watch closely in 2012. They may form the basis for new businesses and new industries. Or they may just capture the minds of developers and administrators with some easier, or at least less expensive, way of getting the job done...