I was sent this article and just had to laugh when I read it: Open Season on Open Source?
This seems like a bunch of corporate propaganda to me. The author completely fails to make the distinction between the open-source definition and the definition she used for this article. Open-source does not just mean any software that once had open source code (which seemingly she implies).
“Open-source” defines a strict set of characteristics of licenses that open-source software is protected under. Open-Source Software (OSS) is defined as such but the Open-Source Definition (OSD http://opensource.org/). “Under the guidelines defined by the OSD, an open-source license must protect an unconditional right of any party to modify (and redistribute modified versions of) open source software.
(Raymond, 71).
Thus, as soon as the ownership of the code switches hands to a private/proprietary company (if the previous license even allows the code to be re-licensed), the project is immediately forked off to another open-source project where all development is refocused. Essentially the companies mentioned are only buying up programmers. The code they buy is already free (in licensing) and, depending on the license, the owner cannot close the source, sell the source, or even sell derivatives based on that code. The owner cannot even look at the code and then program something similar without violating copyright law. The ownership title only gives the owner the right to maintain the project, not take the source code away from the community. The ownership title is designed to give the owner almost no rights. This is to completely protect the intellectual property from becoming proprietary (similar to what the author seems to think has happened in the past few weeks).
Based on the OSD, she is not using the term “open source” correctly and since she didn’t even give any examples of these OSS companies that are being bought, I have no idea what she is talking about. There is no such thing as an open-source programmer that works by himself without the community because they are required to release the source code under the OSD. Otherwise the code is not open-source. This is a huge flaw in her entire logic. She should define what she means by “open source” because this article is very misleading. The second to last paragraph is the only one that seemed to hold anything but opinion:
Day Jobs Coders such as Danciu have a powerful role model in Linus Torvalds, the Finnish programmer who wrote Linux in 1991. Torvalds strikes a balance between community and cash. He focuses on managing the Linux code while leaving the business aspects to companies such as Red Hat (RHAT) and Novell (NOVL) and the nonprofit Open Source Development Labs [OSDL], which organizes advocacy groups around the operating system. He and his followers haven’t resisted commercialization. Torvalds draws a salary from OSDL, and many of his Linux contributors have day jobs at companies such as IBM and Oracle. Andrew Morton, Torvalds’ top lieutenant, says such efforts have helped make the code stronger.
It is legally impossible for anyone to try and buy up all of free software. They can only feed OSS or choose to not use it at all. If there was any way in hell for private companies to “throw [open-source communities] into tumult,” Microsoft would surely have found a way to do so by now. “Yet in recent weeks the open-source community has been thrown into tumult.” All I can do is laugh at this. No one that I know has ever even heard of this before and I read a lot of free culture publications.
I’d also like to point out that this article was published in BusinessWeek which I’m willing to bet is financially supported by Oracle. Of course she wants to make it seem like Oracle is beating up on OSS.
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