I was reading some of James McGovern's posts over at his Enterprise Architecture blog and thought it might be relevant to comment on this particular one. The theme is open source vendors who portray themselves to be more open source than they actually are. I'll avoid naming any names (not due to any conflict of interests with Entiva, just out of common courtesy), but needless to say there are several companies who are not as open source as they allow outsiders to believe. I use the word 'allow' because they aren't so much actively lying about their business model as much as they are calling themselves open source despite barely meeting the qualifications. Nonetheless, it's still misleading tactic that tends to set off red flags more than it aides adoption.
That being said, there is still room for products in the commercial open source space which aren't necessarily 'open source' according to the OSI definition so long as the vendors behind them remain totally transparent about that fact. They also need to ensure licensing terms can be understood without introducing too much room to wiggle on the vendor side. Meaning terms should be spelled out within the license as they will be interpreted throughout the product lifecycle. This is taken for granted with 'mainstream' licenses (a la the GPL) as the major implications of their terms have become common knowledge of sorts.
Another issue is that of vendors taking an open source project and creating a heavily similar commercial version all while steadily claiming to be open source. And only after looking into the matter is it even obvious that this is what's being done. Even though being classified as open source doesn't begin and end with one set of characteristics, it does imply a certain degree of open access to a software product. Without it the inherent strengths of the model are pretty much negated and you're pretty much dealing with [lower cost] proprietary products.
Furthermore, what James was most likely making light of in his blog post are vendors who are guilty of not being up front about these subject areas while holding tight to the moniker open source...one which incidentally implies adherence to the OSI definition. Should those vendors feel obligated to absolve from referring to themselves as open source for the benefit of potential customers? Probably not. Should those same vendors be forthright in making it clear of their standing as an 'open source' company? Definitely. However, since it very rarely happens that way, it falls into the lap of those on the demand side to do the research and investigative work. An admittedly difficult task (I know from experience) that really requires a serious license analysis which should take place amidst the context of ongoing communication with the vendor.
To further what James suggested, it might be even more useful to maintain a publicly maintained list of open source vendors and their products, licenses and approach. Included might be a brief description of how 'open' each one actually is.
someone has to pay for the little things.
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Posted by: Smith Corona Ribbons | April 19, 2010 at 11:38 AM