The biggest Open Source Software acquisitions ever

Logo Open Source Initiative (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Open Source Software (and more recently, even Open Source Hardware) have become not just rising trends but the de fact standard for true technology innovation.

Here’s a quick summary table showing the top 20 of the biggest Open Source technology acquisitions of all-time (to date):

Also, there have been several instances of Open Source software implementers and licensees being acquired for their innovative application of a particular Open Source technology, here are some of the biggest ones:

YouTube
(October 9, 2006) Online Video destination site YouTube was a long-time user of the JW Media Player by Jeroen Wijering. They reportedly http://www.miracletutorials.com/jw-player-whois-jeroen-wijering/ paid a grand total of $50 to license the player back in 2005, and, were (as just about everyone and their dog knows) acquired by Google for over $1.65 Billion.
SOURCE: http://googlepress.blogspot.ca/2006/10/google-to-acquire-youtube-for-165_09.html

Freebase
(July 16, 2010) Google was at it again, this time with Semantic Web database and data analysis company Metaweb to the tune of roughly $200 million. Their Freebase service used free/open source data from Wikipedia, GeoNames, MusicBrainz and a number of other open source databases and content sources to build its massive “database of things”.
SOURCE: http://readwrite.com/2010/07/16/google_buys_semantic_web_database_metaweb

Face
(June 18, 2012) Image Recognition provider Face implemented and greatly extended the popular OpenCV Image Analysis library and was acquired for approximately $60 million by the obvious company (by name, if not corporate goals) Facebook to help jump-start their “Automatic Photo Tagging” functionality.
SOURCE: http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/18/facebook-scoops-up-face-com-for-100m-to-bolster-its-facial-recognition-tech/

PeepCode
(July 24, 2013) Developer training platform Pluralsight acquired popular Open Source software development training and educational content provider PeepCode.
SOURCE: http://blog.pluralsight.com/pluralsight-expands-into-open-source-with-acquisition-of-peepcode

Markana
(August 13, 2013) Twitter bought an Open Source training company called “Markana”.
SOURCE: https://blog.twitter.com/2013/twitter-university-building-a-world-class-engineering-organization

Countless others:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/can-an-open-source-project-get-acquired-one-just-did/1306

http://www.roguewave.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2013/rogue-wave-acquires-openlogic.aspx

http://sunlightfoundation.com/press/releases/2013/10/29/sunlight-foundation-acquires-opencongress/

http://qt.digia.com/About-Us/News/Digia-to-Acquire-Qt-from-Nokia/

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/03/27/blackboard-buys-moodlerooms-creates-open-source-division

http://data-informed.com/pentaho-acquires-visualization-developer-from-its-open-source-ranks/

http://lavergne.gotdns.org/2007/07/Wikia-Acquires-Grub-Releases-it-Under-Open-Source.html

http://techcrunch.com/2013/09/01/rakuten-viki/

http://www.pardot.com/industry-news/infographic-timeline-social-crm-arms-race/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/red-hat-acquires-fusesource/11367

https://www.gartner.com/doc/768023

http://www.mulesoft.com/mulesoft-acquires-programmableweb

http://insidehpc.com/2012/07/13/intel-acquires-whamcloud/

http://news.cnet.com/Oracle-buys-open-source-database-firm/2100-7344_3-5892632.html

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/03/oracle-nimbula/

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/11/heroku1/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/06/salesforce-buys-web-conferencing-platform-dimdim-for-31-million-in-cash/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/al-gore-backed-videosurf-bought-by-microsoft-for-a-reported-70-million

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/07/microsoft_search_built_on_open_source/

http://www.businessinsider.com/aol-buys-adaptv-for-405-million-2013-8

http://data-informed.com/pentaho-acquires-visualization-developer-from-its-open-source-ranks/

http://blog.cloudera.com/blog/2013/07/myrrix-joins-cloudera-to-bring-big-learning-to-hadoop/

http://venturebeat.com/2011/08/30/facebook-open-source-software/

http://hackeducation.com/2012/03/26/blackboard-moodlerooms-open-washing/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/will-all-the-good-open-source-companies-be-acquired/4648

http://readwrite.com/2012/10/23/looking-for-the-next-1-billion-open-source-company

http://www.informationweek.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-model-open-source-software-after-its-acquired/d/d-id/1071457?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-source_software

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