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How To Kill an Open Source Project With New Funding

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the money-still-the-root-of-all-evil dept.

mir42 writes "The OpenSource multimedia authorware project Sophie, formerly hosted by USC Los Angeles, may just have been killed by new funding. The original funding organization, Mellon Foundation, approved a grant to redevelop the four year project from scratch in Java. The grant was awarded to a Bulgarian company based on their proposal, which is simply an exact description, including the UI and the artwork, of the current Sophie. Being an OpenSource project, this isn't strictly illegal, but let's say, not nice and definitely not innovative, coming from a former sub-sub-contractor on the project. Some of the original, now laid-off developers started OpenSophie.org trying to salvage the project. As the current version is still somewhat buggy and slow, it might just be enough to alienate all potential users of Sophie to the point that nobody will even try to use the next version. Have others faced similar situations? How would you deal with a situation like this?"

5 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. I would by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Install linux, problem solved.

  2. So...what school supported it? by m1ss1ontomars2k4 · · Score: 2, Funny

    What on earth is USC Los Angeles? As opposed to another USC? There's only 1, which is in Los Angeles. There's a university that's part of the University of California system called University of California, Los Angeles, or UCLA. That's not USC Los Angeles either. By the way, it's USC that hosted this project.

  3. Re:I don't understand #1 by retchdog · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait, I know how to solve the problem! The original authors should have claimed exclusive copyrights to the source code and distributed only binaries. Maybe they could even file for a patent on some of their methods.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  4. Re:Umm by Duradin · · Score: 2, Funny

    Maybe they wanted Office but in cornflower blue?

    Too bad we didn't get a link to the specs the Bulgarians got. From my poking around it looks more like the bastard child of pdf, (la)TeX and flash *shudder*.

  5. Re:Hang on a sec... How would *i* deal with a by davidsyes · · Score: 2, Funny

    situation like this?

    Why, of course, it would be .... Sophie's Choice... hehehe

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"