Slashdot Mirror
Developers Lose With Proprietary Software
An anonymous reader writes "Appgen looked like a nice cross-platform accounting program independent software developers could use as a base for custom applications, and lots of them paid $2000 or more for the company's development kits. Then Appgen went out of business and left all those developers stranded. They can't even generate license keys, and their support has disappeared. Nobody knows who now owns Appgen's code, so it looks like all those developers and their clients are screwed. This couldn't happen if Appgen was Open Source. There's a strong lesson in this story for those who choose to listen." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
Don't be a Sharecropper.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
sPh
We gave our source to our paying customers when we decided to drop the product and switch directions.
Everyone seemed pleased with the arrangement, even though I doubt they were pleased when they got the gazillion lines of C++ code without support.
And to think my idea of going open source was ridiculed by management 6 months before we flamed out.
Sheesh...
For those looking for insight on this might look here:
http://www.aaxnet.com/product/appgn.html
--------------
10-Oct-03 - the Appgen company has closed - the Appgen product is expected to continue. There are groups currently working on acquiring rights to license the product and this issue should be resolved soon. Nothing is yet resolved about terms, pricing or VAR support.
18-Oct-03 - people are still working to put together a deal, but the process has apparently been stalled a bit by the volume of badmouthing and threats (legal and physical) against those who were involved with the Appgen company. Cooperation would seem to be a much better tactic right now.
You may contact me by email at aax@aaxnet.com and I will keep you updated on whatever I learn about this matter.- or just watch this space
For people with licensing problems with Mybooks purchased directly from Appgen, this temporary solution has been proposed by an Appgen VAR.
continued...
#1 - serious question - how many serious accounting packages are being worked on in the open-source world? It's exactly the kind of software hackers usually denigrate...
:)
#2 - I think this is as much about poor planning (contract negotiations on the part of the developers, defining and/or selling and/or making a "will" for the software on the part of the owners) as it is about IP. And I'll bet somebody knows who owns it, they just haven't settled it yet.
#3 - How many abandoned Open Source apps are there? I mean, sure, you won't have the key problem, but still. The grass may be greener, but it isn't self-mowing, self-watering, and immortal!
Obligatory Criticism from Merovign.
1. Modify an open source software package to fit a niche market
2. Sell installations, manuals, customization service, and support to that market
3. Profit!
Unfortunately I haven't seen many Open Source businesses manage to achieve point 3.
I'm sure everyone can mention a few that have done so (Redhat and Cygwin spring to mind) but there are vastly more that have either fallen by the wayside or are resorting to begging for money (Mandrake?).
Open Source is great, but it too isn't perfect ...
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Er.... the Java programming language is a specification, and an open one at that (IIRC). If Sun went under, IBM still has a kick-ass VM and SDK. And a great IDE in Eclipse, too. If Sun went under, Java would continue unabated; it's a programming language, not a library or modifiable application.
From the article it seems to me that Appgen (which I'm not familiar with) is either an IDE/Library/ProprietaryLanguage, or a full-blown application that developers can modify for their own use. It's a far cry from Java.
"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
-Marilyn Manson
It probably would cause a shake up but with java there are several eggs in different baskets. What would perl do without Larry Wall? They would get over it and move on. Besides Sun is more likely to be an aquisition target than it is to flame out.
In Republican America phones tap you.
"Learning is fun!" - Bender, Futurama. If you know this quote, you know that these people just learned an important lesson.
"Code Escrow"
If I am going to purchase components or make a decision to commit, I make sure that there is some sort of safety-net just in case the company fails. Often this comes in the form of a code escrow service. Every X days, the company ships off a copy of all their code to the service. If the company fails or there is a serious event, the escrow company releases the code.
As a small developer that is a large expense, so for my customers, they already have the contact info for my off-site backup person. If anything happens to me, that person is instructed to freely distribute all source code. It is someone I trust.
Or you could use your attorney.
Off-site backups are a Good Thing(TM), and it only takes one extra small step to ensure that, should you perish, your work isn't left inaccessible. Whether that means a closed-source app or just your notes on an open source project.
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
#1 - serious question - how many serious accounting packages are being worked on in the open-source world? It's exactly the kind of software hackers usually denigrate...
In my analysis, it isn't that open-source developers don't want to work on this sort of thing, it's that there is a certain amount of infrastructure that needs to be in place before projects like this can proceed. Several enterprise-class accounting projects have been started, but few finish; it's because the tools aren't in place yet.
The FOSS community doesn't avoid doing corporate-type projects, as a lot of people claim. FOSS software is written because it is positioned properly to fullfill a need. Until very recently, FOSS was not accepted in the enterprise. Now, as more and more corporations are depending on various FOSS software, you will see many projects targetting medium-to-large corporations.
For instance, look at the relatively-new GNU Enterprise project. This is a major undertaking which has begun by creating the tools required to build an enterprise management infrastructure.
As FOSS software penetrates various markets, you will see many FOSS projects building finance/hr/materials-management/analysis tools. I predict that 2004 will be the year of the enterprise for FOSS (Linux,*BSD,GNU). You'll see prepackaged medical management software, ERP software, etc. By the end of 2005 I believe you will see a complete enterprise management system, from supply chain to finance to HR to payroll.
But maybe I'm just a pollyanna.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Meet gcj, smart guy.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
ugh.. as nice as it would be to say proprietary software is bad, these are the results. That just is not the case.
/. analogy, when I buy a ford car, I have no guarantee that I'll be supported after ford goes out of business.
Proprietary software failed in this case because the people using it (stupidly) paid a lot of money for software that had no contingency plan or guarantee.
To use a popular
When you pay a lot of money for something with no service guarantee of any kind, stuff like this happens. Sure using OSS may have helped with this problem, but OSS has a whole slew of other problems.
If its merely a license key issue, I'm sure these "developers" could get around that. Judging by the number of keygen programs for other software packages that come out the same day a program is released, this is a non-issue.
Yes, the lesson is: don't buy a propriatary app without a 3rd party source-code escrow agreement. That was figured out around 1965.
So, you have a contract that specifies software escrow. And when the company goes bankrupt and you find the source is not in escrow (or not all of the source is in escrow, or there is third-party IP in the escrowed source, or ...):
who are you going to sue?
An escrow agreement is likely to be enforceable right up until the moment you need it.
The difference with open source is that you have the source in hand now and so if the company disappears you don't have to sue a non-existant entity to get the code.
One reportedly paid $10,000 to have Appgen ported to "SCO and UnixWare" in September, only weeks before the company went away.
And now, Appgen dissapeared too!
But this has already been covered once WRT Java, which is precisely the same thing. Java and .NET are both open specifications. There are a couple replacements for each (Java: IBM JDK, gcj; .NET: Mono, DotGnu) so if one of them should drop off the face of the earth there is a free and open source replacement.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Lol, I'd be willing to bet if Sun went under there would be some major difficulties in the industry.
How much money are you willing to lose on that bet?
There are plenty of free or open source and third party sources for Java compilers, JVMs, bytecode compilers, class libraries and related apps.
Sun could disappear tomorrow and Java would continue.
-- Alastair
I am sure there are those in the mega-corp world would see this as an example why you need to use Microsoft,Oracle, etc. because going with a smaller startup company could leave you stranded. Just a thought.
The paradigm where things start and end free just means developers never get paid.
My last job paid for writing and supporting Free Software because that's what the company did (and does -- they're still around, and I understand in better financial shape now than when I left). My current job is at a company that writes proprietary software -- but we use Free Software to do it, so when we need a bugfix or an extension, my present employer, a proprietary software company, still pays me to work on Free Software.
My employer before the last two was a car dealership; they hired me as a contractor to move their base platform to Free Software. Before that I spent some time helping a school district set up some servers running on (you guessed it) Free Software. Same kind of business: They hit a bug or need a feature, I'm the guy to write it. (Not that either of those two *did* hit bugs or missing features, but the capability was one of the things they got when they hired me).
This myth that folks never get paid for working on Free Software is just that -- a myth -- and needs to die.