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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.
We've always known that an author can remove the license on software they wrote. Of course, that doesn't change YOUR license, and they do still need to provide access to the source if it was under the GPL, specifically, when you got it. However, they're under no obligation to give you updates or changes from future versions of their own code.
So, the corporate buyout angle is a red herring. This is no different from any developer taking their ball and going home.
He's talking about the problem that exists when a company acquires an open source project to close it -- but it can't ever truly be closed now can it.
The problem of course is that if the non-free version gets good, others will simply fork.
That's only the problem for the company that bought it. It's no problem for any of us to take the open source version and de-orphan it. Having a deep pocket benefactor is actually a positive for open source. Look at IBM. They haven't acquired rights to anything yet, but in the future they may start buying up Open Source projects... you never know.
But acquiring an open source project can be a solid benefit for any business. This is good when companies take an open source project and fully fund it. That's part of the Open Source dream, IMHO. Money can still be made on services!
Who cares if it's forked into a closed area? There still is the old source to build on!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
If you are a copyright holder, you've always been able to reassign copyright or relicense your work. This is not earth-shattering news just because it's a FOSS work being relicensed. Relicensing FOSS code is far more common than you'd think.
The good thing here is that the original work is still covered under the TOCs of its original FOSS license, so the original author and others can continue making improvements and otherwise maintain the software.
Otherwise, move along. Nothing to see here.
Ok, so, a company bought up an open source project and put the lead developer on the payroll... How is this an inherently bad thing? Yes, I'm fundamentally pro-OSS, but one of the basic ideas is that it makes for better code. It just seems like the purchasing company in this case is taking a step in that direction by buying up a good project and paying a good developer.
Having said all that; I really hope it's not a continuing trend.
Sometimes the code for an open source project pretty much just disappears. I'd say that makes the open version much worse off than the closed version.
http://dvarchive.sf.net/ or http://www.sf.net/projects/dvarchive/
It was GPL licensed, but the original author changed the license terms and managed to get sourceforge to delete everything that had once been available from the SF page. For a year or more he had claimed that he had lost the sources and was going to upload when the new version worked. Obviously that didn't happen.
I think this happened because the project's primary user base was not open source fans, so very few copies of the source were ever archived elsewhere. Apparently, open source developers were never interested enough to create a fork or even keep a copy of the source while the source was available.
Now the source simply is not available for the current version (3.x), nor even the last versions which were ostensibly GPL'd (2.1 or 3.0). (The license for the current version is not GPL.)
It has happened with other projects, and will undoubtedly continue to happen. It won't happen any time soon with Linux kernels or emacs, but when something isn't incredibly popular, it can and does happen.
My lesson leared from this, is to keep a copy of the source for anything and everything in which I am even a little bit interested. Still get burned sometimes though.
sdb
Take a look at SourceForge. The project was acquired by some company and abandoned.
Another company forked, and brought us GForge, which incorporates SVN and other improvements. Too bad GForge isn't used by the SourceForge site itself.
Food for thought.
Remember that little piece of software called SpamAssassin? And Vipul's Razor?
Both "bought up" by corporations, but the free versions are still very much alive and kicking.
At least these JasperSoft folks have tried to answer the obvious questions and they'd continue with the free version.
IANAL, but I though I'd add to the other poster's comments, just to clarify.
The creator (aka "lead developer") owns the copyright to the software. The GPL does not transfer ownership of the copyright. All it does is license the software for others to use. GPL or no GPL, the copyright stays firmly in the hands of the creator.
The creator, of course, does not need to license the software to himself. That would be silly. So the creator, unlike everyone else, is NOT obligated to abide by the "licensee" terms of the GPL. The creator must still uphold his end of the GPL, which is to ensure that the software AS IT WAS when it was licensed to the licensee remains licensed to the licensee as long as the licensee abides by the terms of the GPL.
However, the creator can re-license NEW versions of the software under any license he chooses.
In theory, I imagine you could create a license which could restrict the creator's rights to license future versions of the software. This would be akin to a "promise" to not license the software EVER under anything but, say, the GPL. The GPL as it stands, however, has no such clause, and I can't imagine that most creators would want to tie their hands in such a way.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
In the US, you can buy the copyright to an artwork, and then vandalize it in any way you like and sell the vandalized copies (the classic example is painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa). In most of Europe, this would infringe the creator's moral rights, and moral rights cannot be sold. The exploitation rights cover the rights to make money from the work in a way that does not damage the integrity of the work.