At the kick-off of OSCON on July 19, Rackspace blew every cloud enthusiast's socks off with the announcement of the OpenStack project to create a completely open source cloud software stack in collaboration with NASA and a couple of dozen other contributors. 

The new project sounded eerily similar to the OW2 Open Source Cloudware Initiative announced in May, so it wasn't much of a surprise when OW2 and OpenStack announced they would work together today, July 22. Hurrah for the power of OSCON to bring like minds together.

Networking vendor Vyatta says it has established a way for companies that provide cloud-computing services to organizations to enjoy the same flexible pricing options they are giving their customers.

Vyatta CEO Kelly Herrell says the company is heralding "the radicalization of the pricing model for service providers" in a blog post on Monday.  He explains that the way service providers acquire the networking infrastructure to support their customers is out of sync with their own business models, since these providers have to pay for costly networking equipment, as well as installation and configuration fees, upfront. Meanwhile, they offer their customers pricing models that are far more attractive, such as monthly fees or even pay-as-you-go options. But, based on those pricing models, it could take years to cover the cost of the networking infrastructure gear that those customers base their businesses on.