Slashdot Mirror
Can an Open Source Project Be Acquired?
prostoalex writes "Can an open source project be acquired? ZDNet's Between The Lines says yes, one just did. Software startup JasperSoft acquired Sourceforge-based project JasperReports, which involved acquiring the copyrights and hiring the lead developer for the project." I guess the point he tries to make is that the new corporate overloads can essentially have a free and non-free version of the code, and more or less orphan the free version. The problem of course is that if the non-free version gets good, others will simply fork.
The original source is still available. Another company is just going to continue on their own line and sell it. If you don't like it you can code to the original.
Many other projects have had large corporations buy them up, fork them, and ignore the free version.
But as the article plainly says -- and where the real beauty in open-source lies -- if the free version is good ENOUGH, someone else will come along, pick up the pieces, and continue making a better product out of it.
You're going to have to give some concrete examples of dually licensed projects where the closed one is worse off than the open one.
That's a pretty big claim.
As for open source projects getting bought up, I think that's great for everyone. The open source stuff still remains open and the programmers who worked on the project get some real (read monetary) appreciation for their work.
Taco, please tell me you're not really having trouble wrapping your head around this one, and that you're just pretending to be staggeringly obtuse for the sake of, well, whatever reason you'd want people to think that you're staggeringly obtuse.
If I own a piece of code, I can do whatever the hell I want with it--including sell it to somebody else. It doesn't matter whether or not I've licensed it out under the GPL or other such Open Source license. Unless I surrender it to the public domain, I own that code, and I can license a GPL version, sell a closed version, offer a crippled demo, auction off a signed copy of the source code for a million dollars, and build an extra-shiny-and-nifty-for-my-eyes-only version--or whatever else I'd like to do with it.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Sure, the corp can buy the original copyright (and maybe some important later contributions) but that only gives them the ability to relicence the code.
Practically speaking, they'd have to make substantial improvements/service (ala sendmail) or market to the uninformed before the product would be saleable. And any improvement likely could be added into the free tree.
If Bob writes a program (owns the copyright on 100% of the code) and releases it under the GPL, and then later decides to sell his project to some random guy, he is free to do so, but the people who have the GPL'd version would still have full rights to do with it everything specified under the GPL.
If Bob writes a program, releases it under the GPL, and incorporates contributed code into the project, that's another can of worms. I would think if he wanted to "go private" with the code base at that point he would need to get the permission of everyone who contributed any code, much like Mozilla did. If he couldn't get their permission he would have to rewrite those chunks of code.
Of course, IANAL, but that's what logic would seem to dictate; though logic has little to do with most software licensing schemes...
rooooar
either don't know about or don't talk about
Or don't care about. If you're a user of open source, you're free to continue using the open source version you received before they were acquired. If you're a developer of open source, it's your source to sell or not to sell, depending on how idealistic you are versus how hungry you are.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
But would you begin using a piece of software if you knew it was a dead end? Think about it, the authors will never produce another update for that version and if you want to continue using it you'll either have to hope someone else will come along and fork it (unlikely) or you need to buy the commercial version. Why bother using it in the first place in that case?
"Too much work demanded of too little infrastructure"
:)
sounds like a typical IT department to me
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Having said all that; I really hope it's not a continuing trend.
If own a company and I produce Product A and someone has figured out how to produce a version of Product A that is better than mine; I'm going to buy that company/product. If it happens to be from the Open Source community all the better. Then there are less people to buy off. Unfortunately, this is simply how business operates. It isn't usually a financially sound investment to try and copy an idea without violating copyright laws. It is much easier to just buy said product and try to "reinvent the wheel."
So if Open Source developers are making better products than commercial developers this will be a continuing trend. Especially when it's easier to hire the lead programmer, or buy the rights to their product than to develop your own version.
And if you are a developer using other OSS for your development, you're also secure because OSS licenses cannot be terminated, except by violating them.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Who cares if it's forked into a closed area? There still is the old source to build on!
I think this breaks down somewhat when you consider the importance of the developers. In this particular case, the purchasing company not only got the code, but the lead guy who created and/or managed the code.
The FOSS community would not have a huge problem on it's hands if some company acquired and closed a branch of the Linux kernel, but there would be much wringing of hands if Linus went to the closed branch and stopped managing the free one.
TW
Actually, they don't have to provide the code at all, unless they distributed 3rd party code along with it. You cannot violate a copyright license on your own works; authors don't need a license from themselves to distribute their own works.
Actually all it shows is someone tried. The real sign of whether they've succeeded is whether they're able to lock down the code - if you like, put it in a safe that we can't crack by some kind of "key" which I'd guess would be some loophole in copyright law.
IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer...), but if they succeed, then I expect MSFT and others to be interested because of the legal ramifications. This provides them with a way to destroy open source as they can essentially "buy up" critical parts of the infrastructure, Linux, various shells, etc, from people who are willing to compromise a little in exchange for $10,000,000 (and, yeah, the Slashdot groupthink might mean the vast majority of slashbots think they wouldn't do this, but I assure you, most of us would.)
I remember coding a Java app which, despite its slow speed, got bought up by a company that was interested that I'd have released as open source if it hadn't been. By itself, that tells you that money can count and prevent projects from even being licensed under the GPL. Who knows what would have happened to it had it been open source, perhaps ported to Mono or something so it could run at a decent speed rather than Java's chronic plodding style. Who knows. It reminds me of ESR's "Shut up and show them the code" essay, which I must submit to Slashdot at some point - true, you can defend your morals, but ultimately it's more important to get the code out under any license.
I can imagine what the responses to this will be, "You suck, I'd never sell out my morals", "Software should be freeeee!", plus, "1. Sell software. 2. ????. 3. Profit!", etc. But leaving aside the trolls and the sheeple, I think it's fairly obvious that it's mostly a matter of money. Everyone has their price.
So until we find out what this company intends to do, and see if they really can find a way of invalidating the licenses (so they never applied to begin with), I think I have to say "Move along citizen, nothing to see here".
Time will tell.
Can we moderate an entire story as "Flamebait"?
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
No, he ows the copyright, so he can do with it whatever he wants - including to start a commercial fork.
Others could not do that, but the copyright owner can!
No. One person owns the copyright to the overall body of code. Your contributions are just that... gifts.
Wrong. You might have given them as gifts.
But if you didn't, and you released the code under the GPL, then the other guy must have agreed to your licensing terms in order to use your code. You own the copyright to your own portions of the code unless you transfer it.
If the person who owns the copyright to the rest of the code wants to release a non-GPL'd version, he either needs to get your approval, or he needs to remove your portion.
$8.95/mo web hosting
So, aside from having a permanent record of the "original" creator (which is a cool idea imho), is there an actual difference between selling ALL of the exploitation rights and selling the copyright?
That's part of the Open Source dream, IMHO.
The American Dream(tm) has been a bit perverted of late. It has come to mean getting a Good Job and acquiring lots on money and stuff so that you may hire people to wipe your ass for you.
This isn't The American Dream. The American Dream was becoming independant, unbeholden to anybody, on one's own property no matter how poor one was, because land and independence is the greatest wealth. The mortgage burning party used to be a big deal. It meant you had bought your freedom. Now everyone will take you for a financial idiot if you aren't indebted to the maximum your creditors will allow, simply because you can't acquire the most money and stuff otherwise.
Free software is The American Dream applied to "intellectual property." Its dream is to insure that the code remains independent, no matter how poor.
But you may be right in that the dream of Open Source(tm) is more akin to The American Dream(tm) and that this is the primary division between rms and esr.
The GPL is still squarely aimed at independence, however.
KFG
The problem with your logic is that he isn't bound by the GPL. What the GPL says is that if you don't follow it, you can't distribute the software because you don't have the copyright - but the original author still does.
Relevant quote from the GPL, v2:
You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.
For the original author, something else grants permission to distribute - the copyright. Thus, the GPL is null for the original author.
This is how it should be.
Open source has two benefits: customers of the product have access to the source, and a wider community can read, change, and improve the source. Announcements like the Jasper ones force the community to decide where they stand.
Put another way: if the lead devs decide to move, and get paid for their work, then we find out whether the project was robust or fragile. If the community does not step up to the plate, then they did not care enough.
To me, that is just fine. It makes it clear where we put our time and treasure. Projects that fail for this reason were fragile, depending on the good will of one person.
Scott
--- scott_ellsworth@alumni.hmc.edu Java, Databases, and Software Magic
Well, IANALYet, but both Germany and Austria are bound by international treaties to implement copyright:
a. there's the WIPO Copyright Treaty, to which Germany is a party
b. there's the Berne Convention, to which both Austria and Germany are party
c. there's the European Copyright Directive, for which the deadline of 2002-12-02 has passed, and thus should be implemented in Germany. As for the last one: European Law was determined in the "Van Gend en Loos Case" to have preference over local laws. So where there's a conflict of European copyright law and German copyright law, the German law is considered lower law.
the pun is mightier than the sword
Exactly the same can happen with closed source, except then you don't even have the option of paying someone to keep working on it. Or, consider when MS or Adobe buy a company to get some key technology, or just to remove competition, chances are several product lines are going to be EOLd. How long can Macromedia Freehand last in the same company as Adobe Illustrator? The whole point of Open Source is that software can live forever if anyone wants to use it.
The whole point of it being open source is you don't need the original developer. If someone else cares about it enough, they'll become the new lead developer on the open version. The alternative becomes a pretty silly question: If no one cares, who cares?
If someone develops something cool, and makes it open source, I say good for them. If someone else thinks it's cool enough to buy the copyright and hire them, I'm not going to criticise them for taking the money.
Normally I hate the open source argument that says, don't complain about something you don't like, shut up and code it yourself. But, if you don't like that some developer no longer wants to work on an open version of something he wrote, feel free to work on it yourself. That's why open is cool after all.