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Open Source, Closed Documentation?
sunset asks: "Recently I was motivated to look at WebGUI which looks like a pretty cool open source project. However I was having trouble making it work with Red Hat 8.0 which includes Apache 2.0. This seems like a reasonable thing to want, as Red Hat 8 has been out since September and Apache 2 has been publicly released for close to a year. Checking the WebGUI community discussion forum, I found that
someone else had already inquired about this. Following the rest of the thread, you learn that the product's vendor considers this information to be proprietary, and that you must pay $50 to join their Support Forum to get the information. It gets better. The associated Membership Agreement for the Support Forum includes the clause 'You shall not to share [sic] the information contained herein with any other party.' So if I join up, I am locked out of sharing valuable information with the open source community about how to install this open source product. In the end I found out what I needed to know without giving up my rights or my hard-earned bucks, but frankly this attitude from the vendor pisses me off. Am I alone in this? What do you think?"
Not a solution for the original poster, obviously, unless they have a lot more time than I do. Still, it could save the next guy's bacon, and discourage what seems to me a rather underhanded letter-not-the-spirit implementation.
I love doing documentation. Too bad I can't program my way out of a batch file.
This is a way that companies are getting around the gpl, lgpl, et al... I am not surprised by this tactic at all. With the economy the way it is, IT spending is at a near all time low. Companies scrambling for survival are going to use any and every dirty trick in the book. A previous post at the right of it. Post a review with the 20% relevant info and dump the rest. Reverse it on them. They use the law to get around issues they don't like or that affect the bottom line (read Cable Companies), so why not us?
Your actions in life will determine your children's future.
You know, charging for support is one thing. I can understand the need to generate revenue by having people pay for service.
This however is a whole other issue. What they have in their license agreement is "You shall not to share the information contained herein with any other party."
Sounds to me that if they help you resolve a technical issue in the forums then you can not share that resolution with any other person. Not on IRC, not with a person in the cube next to you, not in USENET...nowhere!
Except that you paid them for that service. If I'm a contractor and someone pays me to come in and install/troubleshoot/fix software and/or document for them how to do it again, I am certainly going to expect that they will not then release all of my work publicly (and I'll write the contract to that effect).
...
... your version of open source spirit/ethics/morals is different than everyone elses. This person's version is more capitalist, yours is more socialist. Neither is right or wrong.
/.ed so I couldn't check) then nothing is stopping everyone else from grabbing it and starting a separate free support site. Hell, depending on the license you can fork it off and start fixing things, too.
The only difference here is that:
* The support provider is the -author-, so they definitely know their stuff (not always a given).
* The package doesn't get free support from the author beyond bug fixes (which if you look at the number of open source packages out there, is definitely not a unique condition).
It's an Open Source package
If it's covered by one of the standard Open licenses (the site was
I'm not saying I like the methodology, but hey, if everyone dislikes it who is using it, it won't be hard to start a new support forum or develop something else to replace it.
-that's- Open Source spirit (to me).
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
"OK. Give me all your art for free. You must also provide step-by-step instructions on how you created the art."
Go to CGTalk.com. People do that today. They create artwork, then they share their technique with other people so they can learn. It would harm the community if everybody was to say "I'll tell you how I did it, but first go to paypal.com..." It would probably stall to the point that the community dies out.
Free Software is in a similar position. You all want the government to replace proprietary software with the Open Source stuff, but if lack of documentation gets in the way then you're leaving a door open for somebody like Microsoft to come in and do it right.
I don't think this is a matter of obligations like that other guy does, but there is a matter of maintaining intergity. If Open Source is an unprofitable model, then that will forever be a sticky note in the goal of replacing proprietary software.
If that's not your goal, then that's fine. But if you're going to release undocumented software, don't expect a flood of people to come in and start using it. Do expect somebody else to come along and do it better.
"Derp de derp."