This is a great idea, James. Shall I set up a wiki? Seems a good way to go.
Besides enterprise technologists and their providers, this will be useful for analysts too.
I agree with points Alan made in his comment. This business model seems difficult for some people to grasp. Plus, there is some natural uncertainty as to the client experience — whether all research is free, whether there is an expectation for contributing back to the research community as in open source code (as if…).
A guide to the companies comparing their implementations would be a good supplement to the individual explanations in the wild. I still refer people to RedMonk posts like this one for an intro, and lately also to Brenda’s Elemental Links launch, as a good case in point.
Some other people I’d like to tag to contribute to the project would be Dana Gardner, the mwd Neils, and the analyst who sizes the largest analysts and trends buffeting them, Louise Garnett.
There are many other analysts engaged in open source analysis of various sorts in various disciplines — networking, security, etc. If we mandate use of a creative commons license or similar mechanism, then exclusion is simple. Good points for discussion, exploration.
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