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Under User Pressure, SugarCRM Adopts GPLv3
StonyandCher writes "SugarCRM is to adopt version 3 of the GNU general public license for the next release of its open-source CRM software after coming under pressure from its user community to move away from its own Sugar Public License. 'We just think it's a great license,' said John Roberts, SugarCRM CEO and co-founder. 'It's more copyleft, more liberal and less restrictive than our current license.' He added that when the beta version of Sugar Community Edition 5.0 ships within two weeks, it will be licensed under GPLv3."
...SugarCRM Adopts GPLv3...
SWEET!
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
The old SugarCRM license had an advertising requirement that required a large advertisement on every page. One of my old customers ended up not using SugarCRM because of this.
Good also to see even wider GPL v3 adoption!
Under User Pressure... We just think it's a great license
which is it?
Ye, since when was "copyleft" a comparative adjective, anyway? I think "We just think it's a great license...more copyleft...less restrictive" was CEO speak for "I haven't read it and I don't understand what a copyright license is (it's something technical). But my people in the know say we've changed ours because there's a new one out with go faster stripes, and my PR people tell me that if I make an announcement about it, it will get the company on /. and help me get a bigger bonus".
BTW, I do support this license move, just commenting on CEOs.
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
SugarCRM has been high on my list of projects claiming to be "open source" when they really weren't (according to the OSI-definition atleast, feel free to flame me that OSI has nothing to do with this). Free Distribution is #1 in the open source definition, and projects like SugarCRM forbid this (for instance for commercial purposes).
If even their own community started complaining, then it's about time to either go open or go proprietary. Projects that hang in-between just muddle the waters.
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I've looked this up and here is the OSI post you're probably thinking of, by their president, Michael Tiemann.
The OSI (who I should make clear I definitely don't support) were not, as you say, complaining because SugarCRM hadn't payed them money but because the old license clearly didn't follow the OSI open source definition, the FSF free software definition, or the Debian Free Software Guidelines (due to various issues including an advertising clause that was worse than the old BSD one).
OSI were also not claiming a legal right to stop this, but, I think, more that the industry and customers should deem it unacceptable (and maybe even, although he doesn't say it, pursuing a case for false advertising).
Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley
[This post is in the public domain (copyright-free) unless otherwise stated]
Sugar CRM Open source is great until you want to use it with Outlook integration. Then their outlook plugin costs you a arm and leg per PC and does not work with the Open source version.
We completely switched to http://www.vtiger.com/ as it's 100% open source including the Outlook and office integration.
Yeah, I would prefer that we dont use Look-out and orfice at work, but teaching sales people slightly different tasks is like having a spike driven through your skull.
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Sheesh, where do people get this nonsense from?? We do NOT get paid to approve licenses!!
But yes, their abuse of our Open Source trademark was the issue. Yes, 'open source' was used before we estableshed a secondary meaning as a trademark; so what?
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Considering that about 235 projects have moved to GPLv3 and we haven't seen that many articles I'd say no, there won't be a story for every switch.
But I'm gald to know we will get an article when a project that used a license that barely qualified as OSS but uses all the latest buzzwords and marketing to look like OSS switches to the GPLv3.
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The GPL license is always a legalese means to a concrete end, as explained in FSF's definition of free software. This definition is what you might consider as the true and only "ideal GPL", of which the specific licenses are mere material expressions:
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
So, whenever someone discover a way around the "spirit" of any of the four freedoms while still complying with the "letter" of the most recent version of the license, a new license is devised to close that hole and keep the spirit intact.In the specific case of GPLv3, what was corrected was the hole that allowed a distributor to work its way around the "for any purpose" sentence in freedom 0. A DRM'ed hardware, the means chosen by the distributor do distribute the software, only allows the end user to use that software for certain purposes. "Certain" is always less than "any", and as such, a clear violation of the "ideal GPL".
To make things even more clear, let's abstract it even more. When we think about "software restrictions", we must always make this question: "restrictions to whom?"
Any piece of software has at least three parties involved: its authors, its distributors, and its end users. Since it's impossible to maximize all of the three, a license will necessarily place different restrictions level on each of the three, maximizing the rights of one while, by definition, reducing those granted to the other two. A typical proprietary license, for instance, maximize the author rights: he can keep the source closed, showing it only to specific persons after they sign extremely restrictive NDAs, all the while being allowed to impose severe distribution conditions to the distributor, and any EULA he wants to the user, up to the extend allowed by law. A BSD license, on the the other hand, maximizes the distributor rights, while minimizing both the author rights (who cannot forbid him from doing whatever he wants with the software) and the end user rights, who can still be subjected to any EULA.
What about the GPL then? Well, the GPL is the license that attempts to maximize the end user rights by restricting both authors rights (to stop redistribution, to restrict who can look and work in the software, from imposing EULAs, etc.) as well as distributors (from imposing EULAs).
So, any time a distributor (the paradigmatic example being Tivo) attempts to impose an indirect EULA to a GPL'ed piece of software, it is in fact violating one of the key elements of what the GPL stands for: end user rights. It's attempting, roughly speaking, to "BSD'ize" GPL. And the GPL will defend itself against this, by closing the hole that allowed it.
The whole point then is: if you, as a distributor, want a software that maximizes your distributor rights while limiting the end user rights, go for a BSD licensed one and never, ever, attempt to make the GPL fit it, because it won't. For the GPL folks the end user always comes first, and you will not be able to avoid them stopping your end-user-limiting business model.
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Seriously though, it is better in terms of the four freedoms, which are from 1989 and thus way predate the GPLv3. I added the "GPLv3ish" as extras in bold:
The first I think most thought was implicit but it was never explicit in GPLv2, and covers both Tivoization and other DRM. Normal patent licenses were covered in GPLv2, but not pseudo-license tricks. So yes, overall better according to the four design goals of the FSF.
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Why should I not want to run modified software on the hardware I've bought?
Why should someone be able to stop me from doing so?
To date I've not seen any good answer to these questions.
Copyright law is a restriction on people's ability to distribute information as they see fit. The GPL, as a copyright license, is also a restriction on people's ability to distribute information as they see fit. The only difference is, usual copyright licenses say "you may not redistribute this information unless you pay us for another copy", while the GPL says "you may not redistribute this information unless you also distribute that other information" (the source, and any additions to it). Both of them are placing obligations on people in regard to the conditions under which they are tentatively permitted to redistribute information.
A truly free license would say simply "you may redistribute this information". That's called putting a work in the public domain: you release any claims on it.
To try (poorly) to cram this into your slavery analogy, the GPL would be like saying "that person still belongs to me, however you can do use him to plow your fields, so long as you plow an equal area yourself". True freedom, analogous to the public domain, would say "that person is free; your interactions with him are none of my business". Of course this whole analogy is busted from the start because a freed slave has rights that freed information does not.
Someone who takes open-sourced code and uses it in a closed-source project it not "locking it up". No one is suddenly prevented from using the open-sourced code. It's still out there, the same as before. Maybe someone has refrained from releasing new code they wrote to incorporate with the open-sourced code, but then, what right do you have to see their code? You might want to say "I won't show you my code unless you agree to show me yours", and that's fine, just like saying "I'll teach you tai-chi if you teach me yoga". It's just a contract to perform a service for someone, namely giving them some information, in exchange for another service. However, you cannot (ethically) say "here is my code; you may not make use of this information I have given you unless you also show me your code", any more than you can say "here is how you do tai-chi; you may not practice tai-chi or any variant of if (i.e. tai-chi + yoga) unless you also also offer to teach anyone you perform it for how to do tai-chi or your variant". In short, if you don't want to share your code unless others are going to share back, contract with them ahead of time to exchange code. But if you're just going to give information away freely (i.e distribute it, not keep it secret), you've got no right to tell the recipients of it how they may or may not make use of it.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
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I love this petty CEO-bashing that we have here on Slashdot. I don't know much about SugarCRM, and I'll admit that there are idiots who run companies (as there are idiots in any profession) but this elitist attitude is one of the things that annoys me most about nerds. Have you ever run your own company? Made it profitable? Done the accounting? Managed a bunch of people with skills that don't overlap much with your own?
I hate to break it to you guys who are living a daydream here, but that stuff is hard to do and it's even harder to do well. There's definitely some pork-barrel price-fixing of CEO salaries at some of the larger, more established companies out there, but under no circumstance should you ever get the idea that CEOs are stupid or that delegating responsibility to others more knowledgeable than you in any field is somehow stupid or worth looking down upon.
Programming a computer is not that difficult. You can pretend it is in front of your layman friends, but this is Slashdot -- we all program computers, or at least 90% of us do, so don't think we're going to take your word for it when you wax lyrical about how you need to be a genius to get it done.
Why is it that expertise -- and let's face it, often as not not even real expertise in the case of the average Slashdot reader -- in one field gives people the attitude that they can mouth off about other people? In the US, one of the most entrepreneur-friendly countries in the entire world, only 38% of business are still around after 6 years (Dun & Bradstreet). This is not because people who start businesses are stupid, it's because running a business is hard. Really hard.
If you ran a company, and you tried to be programmer, lawyer, accountant, financial planner, sales rep, and janitor all at once, you know what would happen? Your company would die. Because, despite what you've been told, law is hard. Accounting is hard. Capital budgeting is hard. Sales -- sales is bust ass. And yes, even cleaning the floors carries a tremendous opportunity cost if your other duties include making the company profitable.
Being able to delegate responsibility -- being able to let someone who really knows what they are doing deal with something you yourself don't understand very well -- is one of the hallmarks of a good manager. And if you think that good managers are common, you obviously haven't worked in a corporate setting for very long. Ever had a PHB who knew nothing about what you were the resident expert at and tried to do your job for you? Tried to micromanage you? Did you ever bitch about that?
Because here you are disparaging a CEO because he doesn't (according to you) know the intricacies of copyright law. Well, odds are you haven't the foggiest idea about copyright law either, since you probably aren't a lawyer, and if you think you do because you read Slashdot, then you are sadly mistaken.
Why don't you go try running a business. Working 90 hour weeks for equity at a start up and not just doing the programming but managing the finances and dealing with the VCs and doing the whole shebang before you come here and mouth off about how CEOs are all morons.
There's a reason these guys get paid so much, even at the mid-cap level, and I hate to disappoint you, it's not because of the good old boys network. It's because they know how to generate wealth, and very few people have that skill. They know how to talk to investors, they know how to delegate responsibility, they know how to run the company. They know how to choose an i-bank when it comes time to IPO. They know how to make it work. And you don't. And I know it may hurt your fragile little Slashdotter whiny-nerd ego to admit it, but there are things other than programming that take real skill. Why, there may even be things harder than programming! Imagine that!
(As an aside, I was in Silicon Valley during the bubble, and I saw first hand what happens when programmers start thinking they can run companies -- 99% of them bite the dust, even with millions of dollars in first phase investment. Why, some of their ideas were even good. Too bad that that's not all it takes to succeed.)