Open Source: More than a License

by John Mark Walker - Nov. 05, 2009Comments (4)

Has the terminology finally evolved in the debate over "who's open source?" It would seem so. After years of haggling over the essence of open source, free software or other monikers, Simon Phipps gets right to the point in "A Remarkable Reversal" - his critique of Richard Stallman's joint letter to the EC regarding Oracle and MySQL.

For the first time, there seems to be a growing concensus that an OSI-compliant license alone is not enough to define one's position on the openness spectrum. As Phipps notes:

"Dual licensing is everywhere in commercial open source. So the letter from Stallman is a surprise because it's the first time I have really seen him acknowledge that the license alone can be no guarantee of software freedom. It takes more - including community governance, trademark and copyright ownership and administration, the percentage of core function in the commons - as partial indicators of software freedom. They need to be taken together to get the full view."

The remarkable thing about the Oracle - MySQL case is that it forces us to put up or shut up in a realistic, fact-based way not clad in ideological robes. Whatever your opinions, you now have a test case against which to apply them. In the past, I decried the software freedom debate as much ado about nothing - the 21st century equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But now we see it in real-world terms where something tangible is at stake. This is no longer a case of visionary hippies vs. business pragmatists engaging in religious combat with no consequences or outcomes. This is now a battle with winners and losers, and in the case of dual-licensed projects, the communities of said projects could very well end up the losers.

This episode has opened up the debate in a way I haven't seen since the OSI was established over 10 years ago. I once said that "open source is boring" because there was nothing to add to the debate. I'm happy to say that I was quite wrong, and that I will enjoy seeing how it all shakes out. If we want to ensure that communities win or at the very least avoid losing in our brave, new world of open source M & A, then we will need to be vigilant in defining the terms.

Previously, an open source approach could be defined in the same way a senator once defined pornography: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." This led to much sturm and drang over whether company X was really open source. By defining the terms more clearly and recognizing that the choice of software license only goes so far, we can hopefully create a stronger ecosystem for all parties involved. We do not yet know the outcome of the Oracle - MySQL affair, but by forcing us to address this shortcoming, it has been A Good Thing(tm). For now it's safe to say that open source is more than just a license, it's a state of mind.

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by Bradley M. Kuhn on Nov. 05, 2009

I definitely agree that the right license for a FLOSS project is a necessary but not sufficient condition to achieve software freedom for users and programmers. It is definitely a change; I think there was a time when just the license was enough, but that time has passed. I also blogged about this very issue recently.

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by Larry Smith on Nov. 06, 2009

keep us informed about it.

thanks

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by lefty.crupps on Nov. 06, 2009

Open Source is a development model, regardless of what OSI says. Free Software is the licensing model.

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by anonymous enterprise sw user on Nov. 06, 2009

There are other companies backing F/OSS projects, but effectively preventing adoption by not including

- trivial backup scripts

- the ability to replace FOSS components and still have a working version

- setup documentation and normal documentation

These companies generally use the FOSS releases as pre-alpha to get the community to be early testers, but retain the fully tested versions - "Enterprise" for paid customers. The enterprise versions are never released.

I'm not against companies making money. We all have mortgages to pay. I am against community abuse where the final result that the community had a hand in creating doesn't get released back to them. At least they should be honest about their intent to not release critical parts of the core software, not to allow community patches back into the core and not remove MAJOR features that have been part of the FOSS version for years without an equiv replacement. We aren't asking for support without payment. These systems are complex.

Basically, I'm talking about the "enterprise software" OSS guys. They make CRM, ECM/DMS, Enterprise Messaging, Monitoring, Alarming and other software that a company would use. You know the names, since they do get lots of press.

As a specific example, there's a company who included Oracle and MS-SQL connectors in their "community" releases until v3.2 when someone internally decided to make those connectors a paid support "enterprise" only capability. v3.1 and prior versions could use either DB and a few others.

There's another company who sells enterprise messaging/calendaring software licenses. Many universities and ISPs use this collection of tools. The MTA included is postfix, but if you try to replace the bundled version of postfix with an updated version (third dot change), the system breaks. Further, you can't use other 3rd party tools like procmail with the bundled 8+ applications. The enterprise version of this software includes connectors for proprietary clients, which is fine. The documentation and community forums are vibrant, useful, and help to solve issues. Is there a Linux distro that doesn't include postfix, patch it for security issues and maintain it? Why did this company choose to require the use of a bundled postfix/MTA? There has to be a better way.

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