- “VA Software describes itself on its Web site as sitting ‘at the center of the open source technology revolution.’ Seems to make sense. After all, the company operates SourceForge.net, a site where developers collaborate on open source projects. It also runs Web sites, like Slashdot and NewsForge, where the anti-Microsoft crowd rails against the evils of proprietary, closed source software.
“So there's no way that VA Software would have anything to do with software that wasn't free and open source, right?
“Actually, it turns out VA Software's main product, SourceForge Enterprise Edition, is as closed-source and non-free as anything made by big, bad Microsoft. Customers cannot view or modify the program's source code or basic underlying instructions (a hallmark of open source software), and they definitely can't share the code with others.”
The above paragraphs are the intro to a piece by Forbes’ Daniel Lyons who has officials at VA Software saying they can't release SourceForge Enterprise Edition as open source because, "if they did, copycats could create knockoffs of the program, and that would hurt sales”.
Cto Colin Bodell is quoted as saying VA will open source the code. Someday. But, “he doesn't know when".
SourceForge Enterprise Edition brought in $1.9 million in sales last quarter, or about 25% of VA Software's total revenue, says Forbes. The rest comes from a division that does online retailing and sells ads on sites such as Slashdot and NewsForge.
“This is the latest twist in the evolution of the free and open source (FOSS) movement,” continues Lyons. “What began as a revolution has now become just another marketing slogan. Startups are latching onto the hype around ‘open source’ to gain interest from venture capitalists and earn street credibility with the FOSS community, but then proceed with a business model predicated on making money by selling closed source code.”
And not only for making money.
Sun Microsystems has mooted Open Media Commons DRM largely, one suspects, to stop Microsoft from monopolizing the field. But open source DRM doesn't make it any less capable of restricting public rights, as Cory Doctorow points out.
Meanwhile, on open source as a marketing gimmick, “EnterpriseDB, a new database-software maker, and Gluecode, a startup acquired by IBM in May” call themselves open source’ companies but, "actually use a ‘hybrid’ business model that involves selling closed source programs that run on top of some open source code,” says Forbes
However, such behavior isn't what you'd expect from VA Software, one of the first big names in the Linux software movement, the story says.
Neither Slashdot nor NewsForge have pressured VA to open source its code, says Bodell, but, “That's no excuse,” free-software pioneer Richard Stallman is quoted as saying, going on, “Non-free software is always wrong. There is no excuse for trampling other people's freedom. Having shareholders who hope to make some money doesn't excuse doing something that is wrong.”
Non-free software is unethical, "because it keeps users divided and helpless, prohibiting cooperation’,” Lyon has the founder of the Free Software Foundation saying.
However, “Richard and his ilk are a very small percentage of the open source community,” Bodell states, according to Forbes. “It's always entertaining to see what he has to say, but, on the normal curve of life, he is at one end. He is welcome to his beliefs. But to me it is not a moral issue. To me it is a matter of commerce. If people are performing work, what is the model for compensation?”
Stallman's response: “The GNU/Linux community is tens of millions strong, but if it were up to people who value freedom as little as that, this community would never have existed.”
See:- Forbes - Has Open Source Become A Marketing Slogan, August 26, 2005, August 24, 2005 Open Media Commons - Sun DRM hooey, August 24, 2005
