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Sun CEO Says NetApp Lied in Fear of Open Source
Lucas123 writes "In reaction to NetApp's patent infringement lawsuit against Sun, CEO Jonathan Schwartz today said in his blog that NetApp basically lied in its legal filing when it said Sun asked them for licensing fees for use of their ZFS file system technology. In a separate statement, Sun said NetApp's lawsuit is about fear over open-source ZFS technology as a competitive threat. 'The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson'."
Sun's biggest competitor to Solaris when it was a closed-source product was Linux. Sun feared free software. For a while, they played lip service to supporting it, but now that they've come around to GPLing Java, open sourcing Solaris 10, well, they've shown that they are more serious about free/open source software than ever. Of course, Sun continues to sell closed-source, proprietary software, but that's another story.
And we all accuse other people of acting the way we do (or used to).
But anyway, isn't ZFS under a license that can't be used in the Linux kernel, anyway? So it's incompatible with the GPL, not really 'free software'?
My blog
I vaguely remember that NetApp machines run a stripped down version of BSD. So perhaps this is FUD from Sun.
NetApp filers haven't run BSD in years. They now run their own retooled OS called DataOntap.
I don't think it was in the filing, it was in NetApp's CEO's public statement about the filing. In any case, bluster from Jonathan Schwartz is good for riling up the open-source mobs but doesn't make any patent infringement less real.
In response to Schwartz, Netapp CEO Dan Warmenhoven declared that he was not in fact lying. Rather, Schwartz was the one lying, indicating further that Schwartz's pants were on fire. Schwartz angrily denied this with a fuming "nuh uh!" and indicated Warmenhoven was a chicken. Warmenhoven then retorted by comparing himself to rubber and Mr. Schwartz to glue.
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment, where Schwartz will compare his father's fighting ability and overall physical prowess with that of Warmenhoven's father.
Well, like my own position on buying stuff from Amazon or Disney (which means that at present I have spent $0 on them in the last ten years), I think I can successfully live without tech from Sun OR NetApp -- until the current software patent madness comes to an end -- or at least the injunction induced extortion rackets die down.
Which is where Open Source and GPL'd software really starts to make sense, don't you think?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
They hate our freedom!
Typical urban legend. Propagated by a Slashdot troll no less. With Sun pushing up and coming Java projects like Looking Glass, Darkstar, Glassfish, and many others, one would think that people would have figured it out by now. But apparently not.
The real story is that after the introduction of Java, Sun started creating new Solaris components in Java. Unfortunately, they found out at the time that Java wasn't mature enough for what they were doing. So a ban was supposedly implemented on any new Solaris components being written in Java. Which (if the story is even true in the first place) was probably a wise move. I don't know if anyone remembers CDE around here, but having to launch Java just to change the volume was not a good design decision. Sun needed to either make the entire Desktop in Java (in which case most of the performance problems would disappear and the memory hit would be marginalized) or go back to using native components for all the widgets. The idea of a hybrid Desktop just wasn't going to cut it.
As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.
<paul-harvey>And now you know... the rest of the story. Good day!</paul-harvey>
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Sun Microsystems said, "The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors"?! OK, I'm looking around, but I don't see Rod Serling anywhere....
Joking aside, I guess it's a sign of things to come. Sun's dance with open source almost certainly presages the end of the behemoth proprietary software vendors. This makes sense, of course. Typical software that runs typical computers is now a commodity, downloadable for free over the Internet, and modifiable by all comers. The business world must adapt to this change, and re-define the software industry in terms of it, while finding a way to maintain their revenue streams.
Have a look at http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/09/litigoperatio n-.html before jumping into any conclusions.
The new data ONTAP GX is based on FreeBSD.
http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/04/index.html
Otherwise NetApp is just another SCO wanabe.
Although I will admit that the clomping noises those wooden shoes make as they dance CAN get a bit overwhelming...
What's that? You mean those are CLOGGERS? Oh, that's different, nevermind.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
Jonathan is just being smart and practical about Java for internal projects.
Would YOU want to bring YOUR company down with that overly complex and slow garbage? Right. So then, can't blame Jonathan either.
Here is an interesting link...
http://www.netapp.com/go/Sun%20Lawyer%20Email.pdf
Looks like IDG (ComputerWorld, ITWorld, NetworkWorld...) is really hitting Slashdot HARD, either that or they have a deal with Slashdot. Here's a partial list of the shills that regularly show up and have almost 100% article acceptance rates: Lucas123
coondoggie
inkslinger77
narramissic
jcatcw
Looks like they spread out the work over a few shill user accounts, which is to be expected. If it's all OK and everything with the corporate ownership of Slashdot to be played by IDG, I suppose that's their business, but one would hope that they are actually getting PAID for being part of IDG's advertising program. And of course there should be disclosure so that visitors to Slashdot realize they are reading advertisements and not an article submitted by a "real" user...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Would they? How do you figure that one?
Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch. After the damn thing started, it feels pretty fast. To check that, try OmegaT computer aided translation program (http://www.omegat.info/). It is coded in Java and is not slow at all. It even starts reasonably fast, especially with the bundled Java runtime.
That said, I don't like Java on desktop anyway. It just looks and feels foreign everywhere.
NetApp and Sun should jointly back down and call it quits. And fire all their lawyers, or at least give them something useful to do like bring in the coffee.
When a company resorts to legal crap, it's because they're no longer viable on technical merit. And both Sun and NetApp *are* still good technically, so this argument is pointless.
Seriously, fire the lawyers on both your staffs who suggested to litigate, as they are bringing your companies down. And no, I don't care who started it, since you're both at it now.
And then go back to doing good things.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
i.e. the biggest problem with Java is that it doesn't play well with other (native) processes.
"CEO Jonathan Schwartz today said in his blog that NetApp basically lied in its legal filing"
Schwartz claimed that NetApp's claims about what Sun did were wrong -- i.e. inaccurate. He did not say that company reps had "basically lied". That's the submitter's take on what Schwartz said, not a direct quote or even close to it. It's practically putting words into Schwartz's mouth.
Schwartz isn't claiming that NetApp is saying one thing while knowing the truth. There are too many innocent ways people can be wrong to start using a strong word like "lied" (and maybe Schwartz is himself mistaken about the situation anyway).
Astounding idea. That must be why Sun, you know, improved Java. In case you haven't noticed, the Java we use today has everything from gaming services (OpenGL, OpenAL, 2D hardware acceleration, JavaSound, etc.) to nearly every Desktop service you could possibly want (Native L&F with actual hooks into the OS, Cross-platform systray support, Webstart Program Installer w/Program Menu integration, Full Printer APIs, etc.) on top of its already popular "Enterprise" services like Database, Networking, and XML parsing.
Quantum bit already did a superb job addressing this one.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Basically, ZFS is a plagiarism of NetApp's WAFL and technologies NetApp invented back in the early-mid 1990's, applied for patents upon in 1995, and were granted those patents in 1998. The principal architect of ZFS, has even admitted in writing that he used the "copy on write" (or "always write out of place") right out of NetApp's WAFL design.
NetApp developed this concept into a marketable product, jumped thru all the standard legal hoops to protect it for themselves, and was just fine with letting the open source community use their patented technology in ZFS without beating anyone over the head with their patents... until Sun cast the first stone at NetApp, and Sun tried to claim the novel methods that NetApp developed as their own invention. Sound familiar? NetApp had no choice but to defend their patented technology against Sun.
Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch.
Well. You're right about that; as soon as you have a core JVM going and brokering everything you are basically fine.
But way back then, Swing was really slow. I.e., there were not one but two reasons for the perception of Java's slowness: 1) JVM startup, and 2) a VERY slow GUI. There were some issues with I/O as well (not unrelated), that have since been solved with the nio "new io" library.
Even today, Swing is not the fastest thing, it's just that modern computers have caught up. I.e., tis "fast enough".
C//
The hell it is. Ever tried running Accurev? Slow as -fuck-.
First, I don't have anything approaching a 100% acceptance rate. The vast majority of my submissions are rejected, but you'd have to take the time to look at my profile to know what I've submitted. Second, I submit stories from lots of different news sites. Because I edit for Computerworld (and I'm open about my association what that 40-year-old pub -- it's my homepage) doesn't make me some sort of evil shill. I'm proud of my magazine and the reporters here. Why shouldn't I post what I consider the best and most appropriate stories around the web to be read? Who cares where a story comes from if it's good? I have to say, Slashdot is the most democratic news site around. Acceptance is totally based on whether the story is voted up by Slashdot readers through Firehose, unlike a site like Digg.com, which is based on how large a social network you create in order to garner votes.
Yeah, that's what Roland Piquepaille says, too. Bleat all you want, but it's all about pageviews for your employer, baby!
Data ONTAP (dating back to NetApp's first product, which means "before the marketing department came up with the name 'Data ONTAP'") isn't, and never was, a stripped-down version of BSD. It incorporated the BSD networking stack, and some BSD commands, but incorporated them into an OS that ran all processes in the same address space, in kernel mode, using message-passing.
The newer ONTAP GX is based on FreeBSD, as noted by another poster.
Ya... NetApp contributed back to BSD, right? :)))
A lot of NetApp engineers are posting on this subject and defending their company with spreading FUDD.
Since that is the case (and you are right... it IS the case), the smart thing to do would be to stop shoveling his garbageware on the rest of the world.
But you know FOSSies... according to them, everything they touch is made of gold. But if MS makes it... it's T3H 3V1L!!11!!11one!11!!
Open source usage of ZFS is no threat to NetApp as long as Sun persists in making the ZFS license incompatible with Linux.
And given Schwartz's history of lies and misrepresentation related to open source, he really isn't the one to complain about this sort of thing.
Are you suggesting that non-GPL software isn't free? Given the nature of the GPL and it's relative restrictive nature on derivative work, I would venture to say that it is less Free than the CDDL.
An anarchy is also "more free" than a democracy, but people living in an anarchy have less real freedom than in a democracy. By analogy, merely because a license lets the indivdidual do more doesn't mean that its users end up having more freedom as a whole.
But that is really irrelevant in the case of ZFS anyway. Sun picked the CDDL because it's incompatible with the Linux kernel license (something that the Linux kernel developers simply cannot change). Sun may, in fact, republish ZFS under the GPLv3, which would make it free software even by strict standards, but the motivation for the choice for Sun would still be to interfere with the development of free software as a whole.
Not for nothing, but with modern memory management subsystems, it doesn't matter how much memory you allocate to a process, but how big your working set size is. If your JVM uses 250MB to start up, but needs only 25MB to run your webserver, then that is all that is going to be resident in active RAM (eventually).
Startup and paging costs kill you, but you pay the paging cost anyway if you use lots of memory, or you have to *HAVE* lots of memory to avoid it.
A lot of "free software" isn't GPL-compatible,
You're confusing "free software" and "open source software". The FSF defines what free software is because they came up with the term. With very few exceptions, software that isn't GPL compatible also isn't free software, although it may be open source software.
However, the problem with ZFS is more specific: Sun chose the ZFS license deliberately to be incompatible with the Linux kernel and to hurt Linux. In fact, Sun may even license ZFS under the Linux-incompatible GPLv3 license. Sun has also released Java under a GPL license but is cleverly retaining control of the development process, mostly because they didn't like all the other free and open source Java implementations that were emerging and were hoping to put a stop to them that way and retain control.
Sun is skillfully using free software and open source in an attempt to maintain proprietary control. I don't think it will work out in the long run, and I don't think ZFS matters anyway, but arguing, like many people do, about "how free" a piece of software is is useless in isolation.
As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.
I think "confusing" is a rather charitable term for it. Sun proclaims that Java is the future for GUI development, yet they have been incapable of producing a usable Java desktop. What do they do instead? They take a high quality open source desktop that has nothing to do with Java and stick the Java label onto it, thereby creating the false impression that Java is suitable for desktop usage.
Rebranding Gnome as the "Java Desktop System" is a fraud, plain and simple. It's just one example of the kinds of games and abuses Sun engages in with respect to open source.
As much as I tend to agree that they should contribute back to BSD, there is nothing in the license saying they have to. If BSD was worried about that then they should have used GPL. That's what it is for.
I've read both Jonathan Schwartz's and David Hick's blogs, and yes, they both are trying to spin it their way, as would be expected.
However keep in mind that NetApp started this. NetApp saying that Sun started this is incorrect, because that would be equating StorageTek with Sun. And if this were purely a StorageTek issue, then ZFS wouldn't be involved.
So what really happened is NetApp is being damaged or fears being damaged from open source storage platforms, ZFS in particular, and they have decided to sue Sun. NetApp is rightly very concerned about a big backlash from bringing this kind of suit, so they are trying to confuse the issue as much as possible by saying that the fight goes back all the way to StorageTek.
And I really believe Jonathan when he says in his blog that he was blind sided by NetApp on this. David Hitz is trying to paint a picture that Sun wouldn't return the NetApp lawyer's calls so NetApp had no recourse but to get their attention by sueing them. If Dave Hitz really wanted to get some traction on this with Sun, why didn't he call Jonathan himself. Had he done so, David Hitz would have said so in his blog.
Once the community thinks about this, and realizes that if NetApp prevails, and kills ZFS, then the prospects for improvements in open-source file system technology will be greatly set back. I would expect an army of open source volunteers scrutinizing all of NetApp's patent claims, and trying to find prior art. Also a large number of open-source organization Amicus Curiae briefs, should this thing progress.
I just don't think Sun is stupid enough to steal someone else's IP if they believe they didn't believe they had a reasonable chance of defending their actions in court. Time will tell though....
Meanwhile, EMC must be delighted at the prospect of NetApp losing this thing. Bye-bye NetApp. But, they're probably furious though at NetApp for validating the concept that ZFS running on a commodity platform is a competitive storage platform. Because in the long run, EMC's storage business is just as much at risk as is NetApp's.
Actually, NetApp has contributed back to FreeBSD, albeit unofficially. They've done a lot of work in improving its multiprocessor support, for example.
Also, I believe the chief developer of Linux's NFS client is on NetApp's payroll.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's really weird about Sun and the Java (sic) Desktop System, is that when they were developing it (and Solaris 10) they chose to spend valuable development resources implementing Java applets for the JDS instead of just shipping the native ones. For example, the one that made me choke on my coffee was the "Java MP3 Player" that got written, where they could just have shipped something like xmms.
Actually, they did ship xmms, on the Companion CD...
Left Hand meet Right Hand. That's big companies for you.
I just don't think Sun is stupid enough to steal someone else's IP if they believe they didn't believe they had a reasonable chance of defending their actions in court. Time will tell though....
I guess you don't work for Kodak...
I don't know if there was a ban on Java at Sun or not, what I know is that for Solaris9, they replaced the GUI of their Solaris admin tools by Java GUIs which *sucked* hard: lots of spinning wheel, slow as molasse, etc.
Apparently at least for Solaris9 (don't know if this has improved afterwards), even Sun doesn't know how to make good GUI apps in Java!
Is a ranting crybaby who apparently did not seem to be bothered to seek out legally valid intellectual property protection for the technology he claims he invented back in 1989 (whatever *that* was supposed to be). Just because he "doesn't believe in patents" doesn't make the reality of their existence and their impact upon the technology world irrelevant. If someone invents something really useful or novel and doesn't take any effort to legally protect it, and reveals any of it to the public, then that person is a fool. I've searched the net high and low to find whatever this so-called "prior work" he claims to have invented actually is, and I can find absolutely nothing about it, what was it called?,... was it sold as a commercial product? ... was it described/published in an academic paper? What the fuck was it?
Tux2 was announced to the world half a decade after NetApp was actually selling hardware running their system. I saw and laid my hands upon my first NetApp NFS server box in late 1995. Their snapshot filesystem thing was absolutely unheard of before that and my company bought one. Daniel first announced his Tux2 filesystem to the world in 2000. Makes you go "Hmmmmm" doesn't it?
Don't know much about the NFS client for Linux, but most of what I've heard about Linux's NFS server is that it sucks.How about the JAVA Enterprise System Servers, like JAVA Enterprise System Application Server, JAVA Enterprise System Directory, JAVA Enterprise System Calendar Server, JAVA Enterprise System Portal Server, JAVA Enterprise System Messaging Server, JAVA Enterprise System Identity Server and other products.
By the way, none of these really have anything to do with JAVA other than the name.
Makes you wonder about the recent change of the ticker symbol to JAVA and the explanation that it's because they want a name that represents Sun as a whole and not just one product. So of course, JAVA (a single product) as a name makesa far more sense than SUNW (recognized as SUN THE COMPANY). Right?
Talk about dilution of a brand.
Well, I have to use MS-Office, etc. at work. But none of my deployed websites for my customers use Java, and OpenOffice is already OS licensed -- which excludes it from my boycott list. But I won't go to something with ZFS until the patent mess is out of the way.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
This is a stupid argument. If I am a major Enterprise or Service Provider class organization I don't by NetApp or EMC because I can run NFS on some Sun or Open Source platform to run my storage cheaper. I buy it because of the supportability, additional software that integrates into existing application (think database and data centric applications) and for the performance *ONLY* achieved by a hardware platform. It isn't worth anyone's time in a real storage environment to be hunting down matching drive geometry for some white-box disk array a year after installing it. And certainly not worth anyone's time to deal with some FC interop problem.
A lot of NetApp engineers are posting on this subject and defending their company with spreading FUDD.
Thank goodness nobody from Sun would ever think of spreading FUDD!
Sorry, haven't really noticed. Other than a lot of people who haven't even read the entire summary, much less the deposition, most people seem to be trying to keep things rational.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
"The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors"
What a joke, most open source products I can think of are pieces of crap. You guys honestly think a large number of mediocre coders can work together in their free time and create anything that borders decent? The good coders are tired of programming by the time they get home from their jobs.
Sun is still good technically? Did I miss something?
Yes, you did. A whole pile of things.
Niagara 2 is way ahead of the pack, both on performance and also on performance per watt. And despite having a technology lead, Sun have open-sourced their hardware design too, the only CPU manufacturer to do so. That puts them in a class of their own.
You probably don't work with servers, or you'd know that Sun boxes are pretty good. And they're even good at the low end, as in the Sun Fire M2 range.
And of the CPU and server manufacturers, they're the only company with their own very highly regarded operating system, so their technology base is far broader than that of Intel or AMD. And good things come out of their software arm all the time, like Java and Dtrace and ZFS.
So really your comment was entirely without merit.
(PS. NetApp boxes are very good too. This suit is hurting both companies, and is quite unnecessary.)
We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses.
There are many licenses that would have satisfied all of Sun's requirement and still been compatible with the GPLv2. The provisions that make the CDDL incompatible are obscure, technical, and largely useless. Have a look here for an explanation.
No, the only explanation why Sun picked a license with GPLv2 incompatible clauses is because they deliberately wanted to be GPLv2 incompatible.
The FSF maintains a list of GPL incompatible licenses that it considers "free software", CDDL is on that list.
m l#92169688
I didn't say anything to the contrary. I simply pointed out that people shouldn't confuse "free software" with "open source software".
Sun has always preferred the CDDL, it has nothing to do with trying to be incompatible with the Linux kernel. OpenSolaris is CDDL, so it would only make sense for it's flag-ship file system to be CDDL as well.
You're misrepresenting the history. Yes, ZFS is CDDL because OpenSolaris is CDDL. But Sun didn't first pick the CDDL and then used the CDDL out of consistency for ZFS, they picked CDDL for OpenSolaris and ZFS was simply part of that. And there is no reasonable explanation for why Sun picked the CDDL over other licenses other than that they wanted OpenSolaris code as a whole (including ZFS) to be incompatible with Linux. The changes to make the CDDL into a GPLv2 compatible license would be trivial and of no consequence to Sun, but Sun chose to have those clauses in there.
How do you maintain control of the development of a GPL'd work?
The way Sun does it: the JDK is dual licensed, and most customers continue to use Java under a non-GPL license. Sun also maintains control through the TCK and their ownership of many of the documents defining Java.
Why would Sun open-source their TCK if they wanted to stop the development of open source implementations not under their control?
Sun has not open sourced their TCK. Quite to the contrary, they have been trying to use the TCK to maintain control of Java and exclude alternative implementations. This has been a major dispute between Sun and Apache:
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t94330.html
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/m92169688.ht
Now, tell us, are you simply so uninformed that you really believe that Sun has open sourced the TCK, or are you deliberately trying to deceive us?
I'm an Auspex customer from back before NetApp even existed, and buying that (14GB! $200K! ah, the early 90s) was an eighteen month exercise. I'm currently getting my big black NAS fix from Pillar (great company, good box): that was a two year sales cycle from initial approach to final acceptance. In both cases, the vendor is fronting up resource, loan machines and development effort, and the prospect can walk away at any time. Channel willing to do that isn't Apple's forte.
NetApp had all these problems when they started up --- I think the first one we bought had a spares kit and a good luck note, and I bought it very much on the strength all all the ex-Auspex guys (and Guys). But times were different: they had a compelling product, the market was growing explosively, Auspex were busy blowing their feet off with automatic weapons and Sun weren't seriously in storage. Today, a new entrant into NAS has to contend with NetApp, EMC and Sun at tier one, then Pillar, 3Par, BlueArc and all the rest at tier two. Apple's branding is an actual negative in that space, and there's a lot of competition and not a lot of loose margin. Hard.
ian
Yeah, but if ZFS use spreads out, software integration will be a non-issue an performance will be as good, if not better, than proprietary solutions. This will create an open market of companies offering professional support services. NetApp and EMC will lose their upper hand (specially EMC, with that horrible customer support).
Close the world, open the NeXT
Hey dude ZFS IS! Open Sourced. This crap is over Sun open sourcing ZSF. You might want to check too over 25% of your code base in GNU/Linux came from Sun. You shouldn't bad mouth your friends.
This same argument was used 7 years ago about open source routers destroying the commercial router market and it has be proven to be wrong. The same old open source pipe dream that completely misses the point. To enterprise customers the hardware is not expensive in the first place. Meaning no IT department running a bank database with millions of dollars an hour on the line bats one eye at the cost of NetApp or EMC gear. Labor is more expensive for these companies in the long run. And most companies would rather spend time doing what they do rather then have people tinker around a lot with necessary evils. Secondly your arguments are completely without factual support. Having dedicated custom hardware is always a performance advantage to a total software solution. For instance any purpose built storage appliance has the IO operations to the file system backed by NVRAM. ZFS alone cannot ack a write operation until it goes to disk. This will always be slower all else being equal. Furthermore if I want to cluster some NetApp hardware together and share IO operations between them over a cluster interconnect my commodity open source platform will not do the trick. Oh and where is the Fibre Channel and iSCSI interop testing for this commodity gear? Does it even support FC?
So let me get this straight. I am Joe IT Director and I buy Oracle at a quarter million dollars per CPU, run some expensive application on top of that then I going to cheap out and run some SATA drives on ZFS with a non Oracle supported NFS implementation? And in the end expect the OS community to know Oracle internals well enough and build a nice enough management interface for me to make application aware snapshot/recovery running in Oracle. And then 3 years into my purchase of the solutions have some low cost vendor drop a replacement drive off to me via FedEx by the next morning with the same drive geometry and firmware as the one I am replacing it with.
Right...
One of the reasons that my sig states that Open Source isn't the only answer but is often the best one -- and what I have been pointing at in this thread is that to the greatest extent possible I avoid code I can't prove to be untainted, i.e. GPL or fully Open Sourced code that the community has already basically approved of. I think that this is probably the single most overlooked and important part of the OS movement -- many eyes prevent many mistakes -- including for the most part at this point in time, patent-encumbered code.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...