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Can You Be Denied the Right To Support OSS?
jerico.dev writes "I am currently selecting a CM tool for a project. Important condition: the software must be OSI compliant. I considered Alfresco, since they call themselves 'open source.' Then I heard from several of Alfresco's partners that they are not allowed to do projects based on Alfresco's GPL edition because their partnership contract denied them the right to do so. They only can support Alfresco's enterprise edition. But Alfresco's VP of business development Matt Asay told me that their enterprise edition is not OSI compliant. Does anyone in the Slashdot crowd have experience with partner contracts of other OSS vendors? Is it normal that Sun, Red Hat, etc. force their partners to decline projects based on their open source editions? It's probably legal to do so, but do you think it is legitimate and fair?"
Legitimate + Fair != Legal
Why do you want an open source customer management system anyway? You clearly want to make money using it, so why are you surprised that the people who are going to help you do so want money too?
It's simple... the writers of the open source system wanted to make money so they made a commerical enterprise varient, then told all of the consultants hanging off of them that if they still wanted access to official support, they'd have to agree to only support the enterprise edition. No law violated for that. Either learn how to run the open version yourself, or pay for enterpise. Your choice.
It's business. Business is war. Everything is legal, until and unless of course it isn't. They only ethical considerations businesses have is to their shareholders and owners to keep profit coming in. And in this case, denying "shelter and comfort" from their enemies, those other evil open source projects, they're protecting those profits.
The better question is; Why are you working for them if you have an ethical objection to this?
This leads to the old rhetoric of -- well, if enough people turned down the job offer they'd be forced to raise the going price to find a software engineer who'd be willing to "sell out", and if there were enough people this price would be so high that it wouldn't be practical to engage in this business practice. Of course, in truth... Most free agents in the system also subscribe to the theory of "I need to eat." A pity... If only ideals were edible we wouldn't have this problem.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That seems to be an unusual arrangement, but it seems to be legitimate too. Partnership arrangements often have various covenants and restrictions.
Maybe you can go with the open version and find/groom a non-partner developer instead?
Thing one; Don't ask for legal advice on slashdot, ask a laywer. I don't really think this should be worth saying, but I think it can even be illegal to give legal advice; which this is not.
Now on with the rampant speculation.
a) If you have your own software you can distribute it under any terms you want. Including "like the GPL but you can't provide commercial support"
b) The partner agreement is probably not related to GPL software distribution so the GPL isn't relevant.
c) they can probably stop doing business with anyone giving support if they want.
d) details likely vary from country to country and so on so a lawyer would need much more detail to help you
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Wow. This is coming from Matt Asay ( http://news.cnet.com/openroad/ ) who writes the OSS blog for Cnet, routinely blasting people for not being open enough, and routinely praising Alfresco for their OSS efforts.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I was at a studio on a support call. Had to work on a Blue-Red stereo image, so I started using GIMP functions to edit the layers when their attorney came out of his office and said I could only use such-and-such studio-licensed custom program or risk contanimating their intellectual property. Apparently they had software made specifically for them to use, from a small PC-repai expert out of his southern CA office. Needless to say, it couldn't accomplish what the GIMP could do, yet wouldn't let me explain. They cut me a check and kicked me out within 30 minutes despite assuring them that GPL licensing doesn't extend to their content and property. They looked at me like I was a liar the whole time. Meanwhile, I think I should just go back to my old gig. Anyone have any similar anti-OSS establishments railroad you like a municipal court?
do you like porn ? Why ask this crowd a question you already know the answer to ?
Fork it and do the work of supporting it yourself.
OSS does not mean you get the right to other companies' support efforts for free.
The GPL allows developers (and other service providers) to sell themselves into slavery. It doesn't allow them to enslave their users, that's all. I'm not sure if the FSF struck the right balance. It's more acute with the GPLv3 because it explicitly mentions that enslaving service providers is perfectly acceptable, and there are areas where user and service provider roles begin to blur (e.g. you may provide service--storage space and electrical power--to your ISP to run the router on your premises, so they don't have to give you source code for the GPL software on the router).
Nonetheless, restricting your contributors in this way isn't something I'd expect from a healthy free software project.
Welcome to contract law. If you sign a contract that says you are not going to do something, you better not do it unless you just want an ass raping.
All the talk out there regarding the "viral" nature of GPL code has confused a lot of otherwise very smart people. What happens is that they miss the dividing line between "the development" and "the use" of the programs.
This seems to be, in my experience, more likely among lawyers than in other groups.
It just proves the old saying the stupidity and hydrogen are the universal elements of the universe.
And, professionally, I'd run from a client like that. They strike me as paranoid enough to end up suing for a trivial reason down the road or cherry-pick advice in a manner that ensures failure of any project you would engage in for them.
The "right to work with OSS" is at the discretion of the copyright holder, and apparently the privilege of Alfresco's enterprise license abnegates the "right" to use the "free" license. It probably only applies to commercial applications anyhow. Alfresco giveth, and Alfresco taketh away. They owe you nothing.
Based on the thread posted, Alfresco cannot call their commercial product OpenSource except in only the vaguest sense of the term. Certainly their Labs product is open source, but the product that they are selling is not opensource/OSI compliant. Unlike RedHat that provides source for all of the software except for a few pieces, it doesn't look as if Alfresco is doing that.
The PR information (comparison between Labs and Enterprise) and front page needs to updated to say that the commercial product is not open source.
Funny how this translates to "In Jail" in Italian.
And can set the terms for use of their software, and provision of their support, as they see fit. They can set terms in their partnership contracts restricting what those partners can do with the software, that would take precedence over the license of the software itself. This does, of course, assume that they themselves hold copyright on all code covered by their commercial license and partnership contracts, or have secured permission from the copyright holders for distribution under these terms.
That said, if you simply download the GPL version and then have nothing to do with them or their partners, you are still free to do anything with it that the GPL normally permits, provided their GPL version does not use an altered GPL.
Can you be denied the right to support OSS? No.
Can you sign away your right to work on a particular project, in a contract where you get something in return? Of course. Why would you expect otherwise?
In addition to that you can always sign your rights away in a contract. If you sign an agreement that you won't compete with a company's commercial product, expect to get sued if you work on an open source project that competes with theirs and they find out about it.
I should point out at this point that I am not a lawyer, but I have had this discussion with a number of them.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There is no such thing as "fairness" when it comes to corporations. This is not a criticism, just an observation. Fairness is a positive yet vague concept that is easily open to interpretation, something corporate legal departments avoid like pro-bono work in the inner-city (zing!). You make your own fairness. Your quickest path to having decisions made your way is to move up to decision maker.
The future ain't what it used to be.
Restrictive contracts and policies are examples of a masculine philosophy that many business leaders erroneourly believe in, the idea that business is a kind of war. Essentially what a company does depends on the philosophy of its leaders, but if the philosophy is wrong then their actions will come to bite them in the end. You can only succeed in business, and life in general, if you have a philosophy which is right. But what's wrong with the philosophy that business is war?
Business is what a person wants it to be, and what they want it to be depends on their personality, which is in turn dependent on their DNA and their life experiences. If they are high on the social dominance orientation then business, for them, is war. If they are low on the social dominance orientation then business, for them, is cooperation or servicing the free market. But whatever they think about business, this does not affect what business actually is. Business is business. Whether people frame it as war or cooperation depends on a person's personality.
A person who is high on the social dominance orientation metric is likely to see business as war, and will seek to use any available means to achieve their purposes. They may believe that the economy is a zero-sum game (ie that no new wealth can ever be created), therefore they will seek to exclude others from gaining any advantage over them. Such people are also likely to be high on Machiavelian intelligence (and mayble also in selfishness and greed). They think that rugged individualism is a better strategy because they perceive the economy as a zero-sum game in which only the most competitive individuals survive.
A person who is low on the social dominance orientation metric is likely to see business as cooperation or collaboration, and will only use means that are acceptable by the business and greater social community. They may believe that the economy is not a zero-sum game (ie that new wealth can be created at any time), therefore they will seek to cooperate with others in a collaborative effort to produce more new wealth by joining forces together. Such people are also likely to be high in agreeableness (and mayble also in empathy and altruism). They think that a communitarian spirit is a better strategy because they perceive the economy as a non-zero-sum game in which only the most creative individuals survive (and, as free and open-source software demonstrates, creativity and wealth-creation is much more easier when people collaborate together).
Thus, what business is, to a person, depends on who a person is, but they should not let their own (mis-)conceptions draw them into making claims about what business is in reality, because this is the line of thinking that destroys science and reason, and the first step in science is to not let one's intellect affect their image about the reality (albeit there are, of course, philosophical objections to the feasibility of this endeavour). Just as a colour is not a colour unless perceived by an eye, but different eyes may perceive the same natural phenomenon as a different colour (eg under conditions as colour blindness), business cannot be something other than business unless people perceive it as such, but what people perceive depends on who they are and how they contextualise and frame the reality.
If you ask me, I have never perceived economy as a zero-sum game, and thus I have never seen business as war. What I see, however, is lots of people who have the wrong ideas about the economy and business and try to make war against other people, including against people who have the correct ideas, and in the process they drive into their war people who never had any intention to participate in their war. It is for this purpose that everyone, no matter how they see business, should be ready to defend themselves during an attack (ie walk calmly while carrying a big stick, doing your own thing and never attacking anyone, but be ready to effectively defend yourself when attacked). But other than that
Not every business cares about what's Legitimate and Fair. The care about contracts and money. If there are contracts in place, which preclude use of this software in it's open source form, then there's not much you can do. However, if you need modification made and do have an enterprise level contract or agreement with the company, you might have mechanisms in the contract to request the changes.
CM != Customer Management. Next time find out what the article is about before posting.
What did English ever do to you to deserve that?
I am currently selecting a CM tool for a project. Important condition: the software must be OSI compliant.
When these questions get posted to Slashdot, I often end up thinking we don't have enough information to respond. Are you the director of this project, or are you a grunt who's been given a task by the boss? Is being "OSI compliant" a condition placed by your employer, or is this just your own little addition based on your personal philosophy?
I know these aren't the questions the poster asked; but having occasionally worked alongside guys who's personal predilections tended to override project directives (and, sometimes, even common sense), I think they are important ones we need to know the answers to. More importantly, I think it's important the poster's co-workers (if there are any) know the answers to these questions, since it's potentially their time he's wasting if he's placing his own personal additions on this piece of the project.
#DeleteChrome
More 17MB red/blue isometric pictures need copying from your iMac to your 486 PC. :-)
The problem here is that there's 3 parties, not two: the person wanting support, the Alfresco partner potentially providing support, and the Alfresco owner. The question is whether the Alfresco partner can be denied the right to provide support to the person wanting it. The answer there is, there isn't an answer. The question is incomplete, it's missing information about what the partner has agreed to. In this case, the partner as part of their partnership agreement signed away their right to support the GPL'd version in return for rights to support the enterprise version they wouldn't have had otherwise. It's not just legal for them to do that, it's entirely reasonable and right for them to be able to do that. It's their business, it's their right to decide that the income from enterprise support is greater than the potential loss from not being able to provide support for the GPL'd version. Someone else may think their decision is dumb, but it's their decision to make.
From the standpoint of the person wanting support, legitimate and fair don't enter into it. They're not a party to the partnership agreement, they're not qualified to decide whether Alfresco is treating it's partners fairly or not. It is, however, rather unusual for open-source companies to deny their partners the right to work on the GPL'd version. RedHat, Sourceforge and the like don't impose any such restrictions that I know of. The most they may do is prohibit partners from making use of any non-GPL'd stuff they have access to in the GPL'd projects. I suspect Alfresco is doing this to try and induce people to use the enterprise version instead of the GPL'd version (if you use the GPL'd version, you lose access to the best sources of support). That'd make me twitchy about using their software.
You can use it, but if you have a question or a problem then you need to pay.
This would seem to suggest that all efforts to make software easier to use will hurt the company's bottom line. I know it's more complex than that--since simpler software then becomes, essentially, less expensive and therefore more popular--but there is still a feedback loop in a direction with which I'm not entirely happy. In a sense it's still an "opposite" of the more traditional (but waning) model of an up-front cost for "the software" with some "free support", in which the incentives are clearer. I'll be curious to see where this goes.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I think its worth pointing out that it doesn't really change the discussion much. CM could be Color Management software for a paint factory.
Go ahead and put Clown Messenger in there and see how much it changes the discussion.
Generally if a software is released under the terms of the GPL, the following freedoms apply. The FSF says:
"Your software shall grant you these freedoms:
* to run for any purpose
* to study and adapt to your needs
* to redistribute, so you can help others
* to release improvements, so everyone benefits."
That's the "free" in free software (contrary to open source).
Also the GPL doesn't allow discrimination; a "3rd party contract" can't change the terms of the GPL.
A company can't restrict the terms of the GPL just because it doesn't fit to their business-model. If they do so, they fail to comply with the GPL. If they want to restrict rights, they shouldn't have chosen the GPL in the first place.
I'd say: Forget about this restriction, it's invalid. You should be contacting the FSF or, specifically, the Freedom Task Force [1] about this case. They're from the european branch of the FSF, but I'm sure they can help you out anyway.
Alex.
[1] http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/ftf.en.html
You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
I don't know who/what Alfresco is, but I think I have a good general case answer.
"I am currently selecting a CM tool for a project. Important condition: the software must be OSI compliant. I considered Alfresco, since they call themselves 'open source.' Then I heard from several of Alfresco's partners that they are not allowed to do projects based on Alfresco's GPL edition because their partnership contract denied them the right to do so. They only can support Alfresco's enterprise edition. But Alfresco's VP of business development Matt Asay told me that their enterprise edition is not OSI compliant. Does anyone in the Slashdot crowd have experience with partner contracts of other OSS vendors? Is it normal that Sun, Red Hat, etc. force their partners to decline projects based on their open source editions? It's probably legal to do so, but do you think it is legitimate and fair?"
Your subject question (Can using open source be denied?) is not the same as your real question (Do you think it's legit and fair?). You've pretty much answered the subject question yourself: yes. To elaborate, the Alfresco partners who do not have the right to develop against the GPL edition are not really being "denied" that right; they voluntarily relinquished it in order to become Alfresco partners and they have a contract that says so. Anytime they want to do so, they can end their relationship with Alfresco and develop against the GPL edition all they want. The fact that they don't do so tends to indicate that they believe it is more profitable to be an Alfresco partner and forego developing for the GPL edition.
Certainly it's legal to do so (IANAL). Is it legitimate? Yes, probably. Is it fair? Yes, probably. I'm a big supporter of the GPL and if I were to release anything I've written to the public, I would do so under the GPL, but the reason I think the Alfresco partner contract is probably legitimate and fair is that Alfresco is basically saying "We'll give you the special access and other things that go with being an Alfresco partner, which will help you make more money. In return, we will ask you to help us make money too, by developing only for the proprietary edition of Alfresco." I don't think that's unreasonable or unfair. Alfresco has released a GPL version of their product, but they do need to make a living, and I don't really see cause for complaint if they require their partners to not use the GPL version.
Now for my good general case answer: "So what?"
To expand on that, Alfresco partners can't develop for the GPL edition, and the Enterprise edition is not OSI-compliant. You have three simple choices
1) Don't use an Alfresco partner. Anyone who is not an Alfresco partner is free to develop for the GPL edition;
2) Don't use Alfresco;
3) Adjust your spec so that OSI-compliance is not required (this is the least desirable of the three and one I would not recommend, but it is a choice).
Essentially what a company does depends on the philosophy of its leaders, but if the philosophy is wrong then their actions will come to bite them in the end.
The downside is that depending on how high up the "leader" is, there can be a lot of collateral damage - to the company, to the culture, to the company's talent pool, everything. And despite the fact that there may very well be a small contingency that DOES know what the hell is going on, can produce results, etc., the only thing that seems to matter is staying the course with an action plan that's a complete failure. Having it come back to "bite them" understatement. This kind of "leadership" wrecks both companies, and the lives of those who put forth significant effort to do the right thing.
business entity and do the OSS support working for it?
My company uses Alfresco for an online collaboration tool between us and our customers. We've been with them for awhile, starting out with the 1.x code base.
We have a license with them to run the Enterprise version, but are not currently paying for support. Our customers are very adverse to change and until we have more than half of them using it it's not worth paying the very high cost of the support contract.
Our install is a little different as we run Liferay on Tomcat 5.5 and use Alfresco as a portlet. We've been working on getting it upgraded to the newest versions of the software, but we don't have any java programmers on staff. We also tried to reach out to Alfresco partners to get some help getting our setup moved to the newest releases, but no one would help us since we're not paying the yearly support.
Honestly it feels like blackmail. Thankfully we found someone who is not working as an Alfresco partner, but had experience with it, even going so far as to use his companies Alfresco support to get help with what is not working. With his help we're getting very close to having it all working.
because, i didnt see too many cubicle people down at the hoospital with amputated limbs or PTSD
Yes, they can do this.
A company writing software is free to license it, as well as any other business contracts surrounding it, however they want.
Whether or not they also happen to release an OSI-compliant version has no bearing on this.
Having their partners agree not to support the free version they also produce is legitimate, as is having their partners not agree to support competitor's products. *
* This might fall afoul of some kind of antitrust or fair-trade practices or something like that, in some jurisdictions, but if it does, it has nothing to do with the fact that they also release their code as OSS.
No, but you can agree not to do so in return for valuable consideration should you so choose.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I have wondered why someone has not taken the "free OSS" version of a given product (Scalix comes to mind), and removed the restrictions it imposes (Scalix limits the number of "premium" users in its free version). Is there anything to stop someone from doing this ? If it's under an OSI compliant license, I don't see why not. Yes, there is the argument that you should support the products creator. But some restrictions placed on "free" version's are _very_ low, and the cost to jump to the paid version is out of proportion for a small user.
What's On Your Network ??? http://www.open-audit.org/
You say software must be OSI compliant, but you cannot use the OSI compliant version of alfresco... So, just don't use alfresco but use another OSI compliant CM system? What's the problem with this?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I think you've managed to misspell "whitehouse". In a URL no less. Congrats.
Understand that all generalities have both counter arguments and some truth.
Look, the Support model for truly OSS is very competitive. If your not damn good people drop you quick, in closed source your the only game in town, or one of a very small and exclusive group. Some closed source support is excellent some is not. With OSS support if your not excellent you die very very quickly.
Why would he want an OSS CRM system anyway? maybe the system he is using is the best for his needs. maybe the cost model makes it worth while. Most of the OSS Projects that are active and long lived are truly excellent. Look at apache as an example.
None of the above addresses his issue. His issue was why would none of the support teams for this supposedly OSS program only commit to do projects for the non-OSS version.... to me that seems like a classic bait and switch type activity.
-jeff
-jeff Thank God that I am Vertical and Employeed!
And which is quicker to type? Do you really think that everybody - even all geeks - writes everything in HTML? You understood that it was a quote, so communication was achieved.
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
'"Idealism is a luxury for the rich" = Slave Logic' = Slave Owner Logic
Having ideals is for everyone. Being able to live by them isn't. Food on the table and a roof over the head comes first for many, and that doesn't mean that those people don't have ideals. It means they don't have a real choice to live up to them. Because of the slave owners.
Legal != Fair || Legitimate
Most laws seem to be made for personal profits of some few.
Or in more wise words:
Good* people do not need laws to know what's right* and wrong*.
Bad* people do not care anyway.
(* from your POV.)
If it can be denied, how is it a right?
I like this thread because it shows the difference between "nominally open source" and "genuinely open source." If you're a company and you want to make money on software, then you have to stop the free flow of information somewhere, no matter how many GNUs you put in your marketing material. If you don't do this, then there is nothing to stop Joe six pack from acting as an agent of your corporation in every way (including taking money from your potential customers) except name.
Genuine open source:
Run by community / foundation / small committed set of highly experienced volunteers.
Examples: Plone, Drupal, Python, PHP
Nominal open source:
Run by a software company whose main business is related to the project.
Examples: Redhat, Snaplogic
(sidenote: if you want an example of how this works in practice, look at the corporate history of zope.com and then look at their product offerings.)
The way I'm reading the above is that it basically works like a no-compete. While it may be somewhat unfortunate from your perspective, I'd say it makes perfect sense for the vendor to disallow (or at least discourage) their "partners" from working with someone that may be trying to fork the project and openly compete with the vendor.
I mean, that is what we're talking about here. The submitter wants to hold onto redistribution rights, the original vendor doesn't want to give both that AND licensed support, lest they end up training the third party support contractors that knock them out of the market.
Yes, it's fair and legitimate. I'd personally push against it if the policy were being discussed at a firm that I was working for, but I wouldn't be able to use terms like "unfair" and "illegitimate" in the process.
That said, surely you can find someone other than their "partners" to do the same job.
Do you think you can set that up at my California company?
It depends. How much do you plan to pay your employees for California's significantly higher cost of living compared to states with less strict interpretations of non-compete clauses?
They object to GPL Affero, which has been almost completely rejected in the marketplace
it's legal, as you surmised.
as for "fair", nothing prevents someone else who is not a "partner under contract" from offering services, so restricting some partners doesn't make a difference... ...in theory anyway
You can terminate your contract, and use the GPL version of the software, then hire someone else to provide support. It might be more expensive or provide inferior support. But there are people out there that will support it if you pay them, generally they are consultants that specialize in open source support. (if you start offering them money, they might agree to start supporting that package, even if they aren't familiar today)
I suspect you won't want to do this though. (I wouldn't)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They make one of the best pieces of software I've seen. The also allow you to deploy the GPL version free of charge while competitors in this space like EMC E-Room and Documentum have 5, 6, or 7 figure license fees and astronomical support costs for their inferior (P.O.S.) CM products.
Matt Assay is a reasonable guy who does a lot for the OSS community. Alfesco Community Edition/Labs meets the needs of folks who need to deploy a basic document management system but have no budget.
I used Alfresco for a program at work that had developed a tower of babel of missing documents. It solved the problem well and and added no up-front cost. It's running on a broke down old linux box that was up for the trash can.
The need for extensions and custom stuff is minimal unless you start doing complicated stuff. If you want to do that kind of complicated stuff and don't have the Enterprise Edition, it's more likely that your organization is cheap a$$ and unwilling to pay for anything than Alfresco's terms being unreasonable. Just try seeing if EMC or Documentum will return your phone calls. . .
Rather it sounds like someone agreed to no longer have it. That's what contracts are... they are formalized binding agreements. Yes, they signed those contracts as part of some deal that they "needed". But that just means that they got something in return for signing away those rights. Only very few rights are inalienable. The right to software use is hardly one of those. Just keep in mind that they got something in return for giving up the right. And they agreed to the exchange.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
OMG Pizza Hut is denying me free delivery if I only order their cheapest product!
The partners have agreed not to support the GPL'd version. There's nothing stopping someone from choosing to setup a business to support the GPL'd version.
It is legal, legitimate and fair. The story author needs to take a course in basic thinking.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.