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Can an Open Source Project Be Acquired?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-just-don't-get-this-one dept.

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.

36 of 336 comments (clear)

  1. Not possible in the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    At least in some large parts of the EU, for example Germany and Austria: You cannot sell the copyright to the work you did or give it away in some other way. It's just not possible. But of course you can sell exploitation rights.

    1. Re:Not possible in the EU by Cow+Jones · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is no such thing as a "copyright" in Germany and Austria. You're probably referring to the "Urheberrecht", which is a very different concept. It can't be registered, it can't be sold, but it can be passed on to your heirs.

      --

      Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari
    2. Re:Not possible in the EU by JoeBuck · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Any European lawyers in the audience can correct me, but here's my understanding of the issue:

      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.

    3. Re:Not possible in the EU by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not true.

      Under US law, several distinct rights exist as part of copyright law:

      - reproduction (the right to make copies)
      - distribution (the right to sell or otherwise distribute copies)
      - adapation (the right to create derivative works)
      - performance and display rights

      The owner can sell or license any of these rights separately. So you can sell a right to copy without selling the right to make modifications (derivative works). Just because someone can sell prints of the Mona Lisa doesn't mean they can create a painting with a moustache on the Mona Lisa and sell prints of that, too.

      Section 106A of the US Copyright Act of 1976 covers rights of attribution and integrity, which are sometimes called "moral rights", and are probably what you are thinking of. In addition to their presence in the Copyright Act of 1976, these rights are also required by the Berne Convention.

      Authors of works of visual art have the rights to:
      - claim authorship of a work
      - prevent use of his name as the author of any work he didn't create
      - prevent use of his name as author in the event of "distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation"
      - prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, etc.
      - prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work

      The next to last right prohibits "vandalizing" a painting in the sense of the original post; the last point covered literally vandalizing it. These rights always belong to the original creator and cannot be transferred, but may be waived.

      The biggest missing piece here is the language that restrictions the rights of attribution and integrity to "works of visual art", as opposed to say written works.

  2. What's the problem by javamann · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. This isn't the first project to have this happen.. by drunkennewfiemidget · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  4. I'm sorry, what? by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:I'm sorry, what? by sylvandb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

    2. Re:I'm sorry, what? by Redfriar · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think if you take a look at the TOra project, you'll see an example of the closed fork doing worse than the open one. TOra stands for Toolkit for Oracle, it is a feature competitor to Quest Software's TOAD toolkit.

      I was thrilled when I found TORa, and when I found the project had a windows port. It's DDL/Data extraction is by far the best feature for my day-to-day work.

      At some point, Quest Software hires the TOra developer, and closes the source on the Windows port. I was still so enamoured with TOra that I pestered the Quest sales staff monthly to find out when it will hit the price sheet, so I can buy the now closed version. I don't think they ever intended to sell a competing product, though.

      So, 9-12 months later, the Windows port is defunct, with Quest claiming that all features of TOra are now available in Toad.

      I wouldn't call this a successful acquisition, unless you count Quest Software (for squishing a competing product) or the original developer of TOra (which, I admit, has to make a living some how). Perhaps you could count Mac and Linux users as winners here, as they still enjoy an open-licensed version, whose developer is now on a steady payroll related to the project.

      Had they kept TOra intact for Windows users, and priced it competitively with TOAD, I would have been happy to be a paying customer.

  5. Yes by kevin_conaway · · Score: 3, Informative

    The author answers his own question in the first sentence of the article (emphasis mine):

    Here's a wrinkle that many devotees of open source either don't know about or don't talk about: Open source projects can get acquired by commercial software companies.

    1. Re:Yes by Qzukk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.
  6. You -Really- Don't Get This? by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    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

    1. Re:You -Really- Don't Get This? by photon317 · · Score: 5, Informative


      There are some subtleties that most people don't realize, however.

      For the sake of example, assume a given project has only a single author. Said author owns the copyright to the code, and distributes it to the public in an unrestricted fashion under the terms of the GPL.

      If a random member of the public wanted to fork/commercialize his code, they are bound by the GPL to keep re-releasing their changes under the GPL. However if the original Author wanted to fork his own work and make a commercial effort out of it, he can do that and make his future contributions proprietary, as the GPL doesn't apply to the Author himself (he didn't license it to himself, he owns the copyright to begin with).

      Therefore, it is entirely possible for an individual author to write and maintain a peice of free software for years, and then fork his own work into a proprietary commercial derivative that nobody has any future rights to the code of except him. What he cannot do, of course, is revoke any code he already published under the GPL. This leaves his user community able to pick up the work from the last GPL version the Author released and continue the effort under the terms of the GPL.

      However, most significant projects have multiple Authors, and all of the Authors would have to agree on this course of action in order to do it. That's why such a thing can't really happen to a body of work like glibc, gcc, or the linux kernel: there are far too many authors with the copyrights in the code all over the place, and you could never get them to all agree to come under one commercial roof together and make a proprietary fork.

      --
      11*43+456^2
    2. Re:You -Really- Don't Get This? by maxwell+demon · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, actually for code in the GNU project (GCC, glibc, etc.), you have to assign copyright to the FSF in order to contribute your code to the official version. Therefore from a copyright perspective, the FSF could actually make any such code proprietary. Of course actually it cannot anyway, because part of the copyright assignment contract is AFAIK that the FSF contracts not to do that, so if they did it anyway, it would be breach of contract (which is unrelated to copyright). Not that I'd suspect the FSF of a desire to do so. ;-)

      --
      The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  7. Nothing wrong with that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Nothing wrong with that by karmatic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

  8. Depends who wrote the code... by Evro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  9. JasperReport announcement text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Open Source Company JasperSoft to Advance JasperReports

    A new company called JasperSoft (http://www.jaspersoft.com) has formed to invest in JasperReports and offer support, services and complimentary commercial products for JasperReports. I will be joining JasperSoft as Founder and Architect for JasperReports. This will allow me to work full-time on JasperReports enhancements, and direct a new team of professional open source developers to accelerate the JasperReports roadmap.

    JasperReports has become more popular than I ever imagined it would. And the community has been demanding a higher level of investment and advancement in JasperReports than I alone can deliver, even working full-time. JasperSoft will help to increase the investment in JasperReports by adding full-time professional open source developers to the project.

    JasperReports will stay open source forever, and its advancement will accelerate with the additional resources now being applied to it. JasperSoft and I are committed to investing in, and building the best open source reporting products available.

    JasperSoft will also offer Support and Services for JasperReports, which a number of JasperReports customers have been requesting. See http://www.jaspersoft.com/services_tech_support.ph p for more information.

    JasperSoft is a new company, headquartered in San Francisco that was formed by a combination of open source and commercial reporting domain experts. We have some of the brightest minds in the world now working on JasperReports. JasperSoft also has a commercial product line, JasperDecisions that will offer complimentary capabilities for advanced functionality to the JasperReports community. The JasperDecisions product line consists of:

    Scope Server: a java server-based operational reporting solution for interactive, self-serve reporting and analytics.

    Scope Designer: a swing-based report designer for Scope Server report development.

    JasperDecisions is currently deployed in over 50 leading corporations and ISV's including IBM, British Telecom, Informatica and the US Department of Defense.

    Today, JasperDecisions is based on its own XML report definition, called RDL (Report Definition Language) and does not support JRXML at this time. However, future versions of Scope Server will have support for JasperReports. For more information on JasperDecisions, see http://www.jaspersoft.com/products_jsps.php

    This is a significant day for JasperReports, which has graduated from an open source project developed and supported by me when I could find time, to an open source product supported by a community of developers around the world, and now backed by a company and a team of professional open source developers who are committed to building the best available open source solution. I hope you will continue to work with me to make JasperReports better than ever.

    Teodor

    1. Re:JasperReport announcement text by hey! · · Score: 4, Informative

      JasperReports will stay open source forever, and its advancement will accelerate with the additional resources now being applied to it.

      Well, then it's a good thing.

      As a JasperReports user, I can say the system is fundamentally sound and well designed, but squirrely to use. The big picture stuff is great, but it needs a major dose of attention to detail (like documentation for example). It also needs a decent set of design tools. Out of a half dozen people working with this product at my work place, I'm the only one able to have consistent success with it.

      There's no reason this product can't take out crystal reports -- it's basically sound and very powerful, it just lacks polish.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  10. No Problem by mfh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:No Problem by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      And what happens when the lead developer only works on the closed version? Realisticly, most open source projects will die off if the core dev(s) stop working on it. The forking idea is a fantasy for anything other than the most important/popular projects like X.org/XFree86.

    2. Re:No Problem by Total_Wimp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

    3. Re:No Problem by kfg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

    4. Re:No Problem by ScottEllsworth · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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
  11. No, the sky is not falling. by dutchd00d · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/message.html:

    JasperReports will stay open source forever

    So it's probably premature to cry wolf.

  12. Author relicenses work! News At 11... by dominator · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  13. I'm not sure this is entirely evil by Noctrnl · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  14. Not very good recommendation by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  15. Re:Hrm, there's a wrinkle here, I think by the_germ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!

  16. This isn't the first time by EvilStein · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  17. Re:GPL not retractable by mindstrm · · Score: 5, Informative

    No.. as the original author of some code, I am not bound by the GPL.. it's MY code, I can do whatever i want with it, including license it to whoever I want under whatever terms I want. The GPL is irrelevant to me.

    The only thing I can't do is revoke the GPL from code I've already released.. you are still free to distribute that code as long as you follow the terms. I myself, however, have no obligations towards you.

  18. Re:Hrm, there's a wrinkle here, I think by slcdb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  19. Re:Copyright Assignment at FSF by k98sven · · Score: 3, Informative

    The FSF describes, generally, how assignment of copyright to the FSF works for GNU projects, but I am having a devil of a time finding a copy of the assignment questionnaire that they mention.

    Yes, that's because the FSF purposefully doesn't have them available online. The reason is that the FSF has several different assignment forms depending on what kind project you are contributing to (e.g. original work or an implemenatation of something else), on what kind of contribution you're making (new original code or old code) and depending on whether your employer (if any) possibly has claims to your work.

    Too many people were filing the wrong forms, and it was wasting time.

    Does anyone know what this thing looks like? Surely it involves more than emailing the maintainer and saying "I assign the copyright of my contribution to the FSF?"

    Yes, they want a paper form, signed and mailed. Typically it'll require you to confirm that all your contributions are your own original work and that your employer does not have claims to your work.
    (This being the form for original contributions where the employer has no claim. If you have an employer who might have a claim they want a different form where the employer waives all claims.)

  20. Article missleading: project not exactly bought! by Arkan · · Score: 3, Informative

    The article author should have checked the relevant URL: http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/message.html

    It says, black on white, that the company "(...)called JasperSoft (http://www.jaspersoft.com) has formed to invest in JasperReports(...)". "Has formed to invest in". Not "has bought the project". The project has spawned a company, that it.

    Again, a wannabee journalist spinning some "news" on the basis that its brainwashed readers won't read the original announcement.

    Could some please teach those guys how to read, and how to report unpartially?

    --
    Arkan

  21. Urheberrecht translated. by infonography · · Score: 5, Informative

    For clarification purposes here is the full text translated In Germany one proceeds from a uniform copyright, with which the protection of the material as well as the economic interests are closely with each other connected (so-called monistische theory). Copyright is therefore explained for in principle untransferable. Copyright is by the copyright law and used patent rights ( copyright law - UrhG) of 1965 regulated, last extends by the law for the regulation of the copyright in the information society of 2003 , which particularly with Multimedia applications is concerned. It belongs to the commercial legal protection and thus to private law .

    --
    Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
  22. I did this two years ago by hpj · · Score: 3, Informative

    I was the main developer and copyright holder to the open source project TOra (Still on sourceforge at tora.sf.net) and it was acquired and I was hired by the company Quest Software.

    One important aspect was that all code (I was carefull about getting copyright to any patches I applied at the time) was owned by me and I was the only person with CVS write access. Otherwise it probably wouldn't have been posible.

    Also, at the time I lived in Sweden (Which is part of the EU) so the talk about this not being posible in the EU is simply not true since I've done it.

    What happened with the purchase was that Quest forked the code and the designs and in some parts the code was used in Quests own projects. The original project is still very much alive and active though.