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collaborative development companies by dan_bethe · 2002-05-10 12:33 · Score: 0, Offtopic · on How to "Open Source" Custom, Contract Software?

Have any of you guys worked with any of the collaborative development companies such as Collab.net or Asynchrony.com? What was your experience like?

In particular, I'm curious about Asynchrony because it might be effective for a self initiated community project to acquire the use of Asynchrony's sales and marketing arms. But I find what seems to be a contradiction in their terms of service.

Here's an excerpt from Asynchrony's FAQ:

..."there is really nothing to stop someone from downloading an open-source project from somewhere else on the Internet and submitting it. However, our standards for certification will require significant work in documentation, so anyone doing this would really have to be familiar with the project. As long as we continue to distribute the product under the open-source license it is under, there is really no illegality there."

However, here's another excerpt from their Intellectual Property FAQ:

"As stated in the code rights section, we really need to own products to be able to market them effectively. If you are willing to give up ownership in return for 75-90% of the product's net revenue (as well as the resources of the Asynchrony membership to help you improve it), then we can definitely help you."

The second statement appears to be contradictory to the first. I sent an email last night to the CTO of Asynchrony and his response today was that they're still trying to resolve that issue. I can't think of any upstanding and highly marketable open source project in its right might that would reassign copyright ownership to a foreign company just for a sales and marketing service. However, my cursory glance of their web site leads me to believe that their business model and corporate behavior are fully within the spirit and intent of licenses such as the GPL, so maybe we can come up with some ideas for them to solve this dilemma.

Why should a third party need to own the copyright of an open source work (GPL, BSD, etc) in order to effectively market and sell it?

Asynchrony by arnwald · 2002-02-13 21:26 · Score: 1 · on SourceForge Terms of Service Change, Users Unhappy

Maybe you should check out Asynchrony, they host Open Source Projects for free.

I dont know how good/bad their policies are though.

Cheers.

Re:All in the same boat by Zagadka · 2000-04-12 02:29 · Score: 2 · on Jordan Pollack Answers AI And IP Questions

I was disturbed at his belittling of the success of the Free Software movement. I don't think that I agree that people that release their work to the community through the GPL get nothing in return as he claims. He attempts to dismiss what they get as being purely egoboo/recognition, but that sort of recognition translates into employability! It seems as though he doesn't appreciate this.

Employability doing what? Oh wait, I know the answer: writing closed source software.

One of the problems with most open source zealtots is that they don't seem to realize that the closed source software economy is what pays the salaries of the vast majority of open source software developers (like myself).

I would be happy to see a system that was a "happy medium", where source code was available so people could fix bugs, and developers would get paid for the work they do. That system doesn't seem to exist in the real world (though Asynchrony seems to be pretty close). Such a system cannot exist if people expect to be able to get software completely "gratis" though. Somewhere along the line, someone has to pay for the development costs.

This "right" of _possession_ is enforced by the military over the right of life, liberty and happiness. That's what's happening in Chiapas now and in many other places around the world where ordinary, decent, intelligent, hardworking humans are beaten, murdered and raped to keep them producing cheap raw goods for export so that our ordinary decent people will work for less so that the uncivilized and barbarous "middle class" can pontificate about perfect free-markets.

I have to laugh every time I see someone bring up people in third world counries who are "beaten, murdered and raped", as if somehow the abolotion of IP laws will make any difference to those people. Yes, there are serious human rights and poverty problems in the world. Bringing it up in a discussion of open source software is about as relevant as saying "do it for the children" though.

Here's what I'd like: a system where everyone's basic survival needs are met, and beyond that, people are rewarded proportionately to their contribution to society. Does open source help bring us closer to such a world? Nope. The "free market" with IP laws (and enough social programs to give people basic survival needs) is a lot closer than a world with no IP.

Some answers from one of the Asynchrony founders by Wedge+Antilles · 2000-04-09 08:04 · Score: 5 · on Asynchrony: Paid Open Source Hacking?

First of all, I am so pumped to be writing this. I've been waiting for this moment since we started Asynchrony.com in May of last year. (We made Slashdot! Yeah!)

I'm the Chief Technology Officer at Asynchrony, and I wanted to briefly respond to a few of the comments that have been made so far.

We are a software project repository, both for proprietary and open source products. Our idea is that people who create products together over the Internet, (whether they are open source applications, proprietary software programs, or technical manuals) can be compensated fairly for those products and be supported by a marketing department and brand-name that they would not otherwise be able to obtain working on their own.

We don't compensate by lines of code. Our method is this: for each task that is accomplished on the project, "shares" are received. Each "share" represents some percentage of the project. When the project is complete and the resulting product is sold, up to 90% of the net sales of the product is returned to the project team, and that amount is divided based upon the way the shares were allocated during the project. If you received 20% of the shares, you get 20% of the team's portion of the money.

Also, we are not just a bunch of kids. We are a company serious about making money for our members and ourselves. We don't have a big software or hardware company backing us up, which means we have no loyalties except to our members. However, we do have investors who believe in the idea and what it could possibly accomplish. We're also a bunch of geeks at heart, and my chief system engineer (Slashdot name: mercybeat - he's responsible for making me a Slashdot addict) and I are totally pumped about quitting our old corporate jobs and starting an Internet company for developers.

Finally, we think open source can make money. If the core members of an open source project are working on our site, then that essentially makes us the logical place to go to get the latest versions and the best possible support (who better to support an application than the team that created it?). It puts a corporate face and a voice on the phone to large companies who are afraid of the "out of nowhere" aspect of open source, and we think that gives us a competitive advantage over another company who might "steal" the software. Our purpose for hosting open source is not to make money. However, as the white paper points out, the important thing is that IF THERE IS MONEY TO BE MADE, IT WILL BE RETURNED TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING THE PRODUCT. We think this opens up worlds of advantages for everyone.

I invite all of you to look at the documentation available on our site, and see what you think. We love open source...we're running the whole site on massive Linux x86 boxes, and have extensively used open source tools to create the code and provide the supporting utilities (sendmail, CVS, etc.).

Here are some links that explain a bit more about how things work:

You can also write us at support@NOSPAM.asynchrony.com if you have other questions you want answered.

Nate McKie
nate.mckie@NOSPAM.asynchrony.com
CTO, asynchrony.com

P.S. Asynchrony.com was created without the use of Microsoft software... :)