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  • Roberto Galoppini 10:28 am on March 18, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Licenses: AGPL is OSI approved now, thank you Fabrizio! 

    Last November the Free Software Foundation published the GNU Affero GPL v3 (AGPL), a modified version of the GPL v3 aimed at ensuring cooperation with the community in the case of network server software addressing the SaaS issue. At the end of January Fabrizio Capobianco of the Funambol fame decided to submit the AGPL to OSI for approval.

    On the 13th of March OSI approved the AGPL, sweet victory for Fabrizio, I am sorry for Chris Di Bona, who previously successfully submitted the GPLv3 for approval, but from now on developers can happily close the “GPL Loophole” blessed by the Open Source Initiative.

    I hope at least Benjamin Mako Hill, who is sitting in the FSF board, might help to spread the word among developers, following his own words:

    I’m going to push the FSF to help start several conversation and to begin to follow up on what I think was an important first step with the AGPLv3. While this is not a major organizational priority yet, it’s a major action item that I will beg pursuing through the FSF. If you feel strongly about this issue, whatever your position, become a member, stay involved as these projects develop, and have your voice be heard. We don’t know the answers yet and we need your input as much as we need your action.

    If you are a developer and you can’t stand the GPL loophole consider contact Mako and FSF, to turn AGPLv3 into a FSF’s priority.

    In the meanwhile firms like Wavemaker, a company developing an open-source framework for visual AJAX web development, are now using AGPL, and while I keep thinking SugarCRM won’t adopt the AGPL, maybe others will follow.

    Your guess?

    Technorati Tags: OSI, open source licenses, AGPL, Affero GPL, Wavemaker, Funambol, FabrizioCapobianco, SugarCRM

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 11:13 pm on February 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    European Open Source License: Happy Birthday EUPL! 

    The European Union Public License is one year old now. The EUPL License, created by the European Commission to release software as Open Source, is available in all official EU languages (English, French and German).

    Life in vitroLife in vitro by IRRI Images

    Upon invitation of the IDABC Programme, legal experts and OSS practitioners from across Europe have met on 25 January 2008 in Brussels to discuss their experiences with the EUPL.

    Reading the workshop presentation, I learned that the European Commission understands very well how difficult is to turn the in-vitro conception into a living reality. About 50 lawyers were involved in the legal quality verification of the various linguistic versions of the license, but only CIRCA, IPM and eLINK were actually distributed under the EUPL license.

    The European Community is definitely not a software house. We might better spend our resources on different goals, but maybe we need more time to give up on trying to get EUPL acceptance.

    I wish a more pragmatic Europe, now.

    Technorati Tags: European Community, Open Source License, EUPL, IDABC

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 11:03 am on February 6, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    European Open Source Projects: Qualipso Conference (part II) 

    The second day of The First International QualiPSo conference – “Boosting innovation and growth by fostering Open Source Software trust and quality” – I arrived just in time to attend the “Legal issues in OSS” debate, moderated by Stéphane Dalmas (INRIA).

    A new beginning?The end or a new beginning? by kreativekell

    Stéphane insistently asked the panelists why Europe should accept what he called “US-centric FOSS licenses”, eventually ending to let the audience yawn at the second question on the same topic. I bring some statistics on the table, saying that roughly 75% percent of open source software, at least on SourceForge, is released under GPL/LGPL (of which about 65% under GPL), and I don’t see the point to create a (European) license when EU is definitely not a software house.

    I also asked Till Jaeger, of JBB Law in Germany and one of the driving forces behind the Institut für Rechtsfragen der Freien und Open Source Software, if the AGPL was going to take over in his opinion, at least among small European OS firms. Till represented FSFE in Germany and Harald Welte in GPL enforcement cases, and he said that among the local firms he is advicing AGPL is an emergent phenomenon.

    Last but not least Phil Robb introduced the audience to HP vision to setup methodologies, process and tools to manage licenses’ complexity.

    The following forum – “Business models and strategies” session – was moderated by Franz Kurdofer, Principal Consultant at Siemens, who opened the session saying that QualiPSo future work would be to recommend the best open source strategies depending on selected business models.

    Jean-Noel de Galzain, CEO of Wallix, started apologizing because, he said, he had to set up his presentation in the ten minutes he had before. His speech basically was about Wallix, a promising European OS firm I didn’t know before, but we lost the chance to hear from his voice a definitely much more interesting story.

    Diego Lo Giudice, Principal Consultant at Forrester, being the only analyst among the panelists was supposed to be the keynote speech of the session. His taxonomy of open source business models was basic [slide 19] (SaaS, Product Focused, Service Focused) and filled with inaccuracies, such as listing OpenLogic among SaaS-based firms or citing Funambol’s ten million downloads mark (a number I really wish Fabrizio to reach before doomsday!). He eventually closed his speech with a slide about real truth about the future beyond 5+ years, displaying only a big ‘?’.

    Do we have to think that Forrester analysts have no idea of what will be the possible evolution of the OSS market? This may explain why just a few years ago most of the consulting firms were convinced that OSS was a “flash in the pan” and would have never reached significant market share…

    Björn Lundell, chairman of the Open Source Sweden, a one-year old industrial Swedish Open Source Association, showed a slide [30] relating “commodification” of FOSS, ranging from not differentiating to differentating, to cooperation, from intra company to inter company.

    Cédric Thomas, CEO of the OW2 Consortium, talking about productized services said that the subscription is a healthy market, and that despite there is a lot of traction for SaaS he doesn’t see it replacing the dominant purchase and license mode.

    I asked the panelists about the Sun-MySQL deal, and I noticed that none of them spoke about open source business models, mentioning only specific aspects like licensing. The result was that the company’s strategy, or how a specific firm differentiates itself and deals with the competition, was not effectively described, neither understood.

    Jean-Pierre Laisné, Bull, formerly Chairman of the Board for the ObjectWeb Consortium, moderated the last forum “A network of OSS competence Centres“. He was the only one conducting the session proactively, posing interesting questions to the panelists and doing so eventually catching the audience attention.

    Petri Räsänen, President of COSS, one of the oldest European FOSS competence centers, stated:

    Are you trying to create a compentence center from scratch? It takes years!

    Petri said that the COSS is stimulating FOSS firms to work together with a common “vertical” goal, agreeing with me about the importance of avoiding horizontal aggregation of firms. In this respect I suggested Jean-Pierre to look deeper into the horizontal vs vertical debate, considering the lack of information about consortia and associations in QualiPSo’s deliverables.

    I asked Marco Fioretti, Linux Journal Editor, a comment about the conference:

    In several moments the conference sounded to me like some LinuxWorld show of 6/7 years ago; sure, OSS is a very smart business strategy both for producers and corporate users, but we already knew it and even Qualipso knows it. Personally, however, I have the feeling that Dana Blankenhorn is right when he says that this may be the best way to make EU officially accepts OSS as soon as possible. I’m not necessarily happy about it, of course…

    (Just to recall, Dana wrote “the insights aren’t that deep. They don’t seem to be much more than what you would get from an hour’s worth of Googling.”)

    Summarising:

    • Considering that QualiPSo aims at facilitating the reusability of the results of the project to let the QualiPSo competence centers able to deliver consultancy services on FOSS based business models, a better understanding of business models is a must;
    • Getting involved people from FOSS communities is also a must, especially to avoid self-referentiality. Talking about OSS and not presenting what self-sustaining communities (like Debian or KDE) are doing restrict the range of observed phenomenons (consider that half of the linux kernel is community-developed…)
      .
    • While it is encouraging to know that the Commission is investing quite a lot in OSS, it seems that smaller and more focused projects have obtained in the past (and are obtaining now) more “bang for the buck”.
      .
    • Up to now, most competence centers across EU have demonstrated little impact on the creation of a regional/national OSS market. What Qualipso is doing in improving the situation?
    • For your next conference, organize your roundtables so every panelist has the opportunity to show its true competences…

    Technorati Tags: commercial open source, qualipso, EC funded, StephanéDalmas, TillJaeger, PhilRobb, Jean-PierreLaisné, MarcoFioretti, Petri Räsänen, CédricTomas, FranzKurdofer, DiegoLoGiudice, Jean-Noel de Galzain, Björn Lundell, Open Source Sweden, COSS, INRIA

     
    • Davide 2:37 pm on December 4, 2008 Permalink

      Pay attention to the legal session…. Phil Robb did not attend the conference… probably you are speaking about Martin Michlmayr…

    • Roberto Galoppini 9:10 am on December 5, 2008 Permalink

      Hi Davide, nice hear from you.

      Both Phil and Martin attended the conference, and it was a great pleasure to speak with them about FOSSology and FOSSBazaar.

      Phil was indeed invited to join the panel, as clearly results from his own blog at FOSSBazaar.

      I suspect you didn’t attend the legal session yourself.. 😉

    • Martin Michlmayr 2:13 pm on December 9, 2008 Permalink

      Davide, this blog posting is about the QualiPSo conference in Rome earlier this year where Phil gave a presentation. It’s correct that he didn’t attend the recent event in Paris.

    • Roberto Galoppini 6:12 am on December 10, 2008 Permalink

      Hi Martin,

      if you think that the last QualiPSo conference raised interesting issues I’d be happy to write about it. Let me know.

      Ciao,

      Roberto

  • Roberto Galoppini 8:54 am on January 29, 2008 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Government: Open Source and the Department of Defense, David Wheeler webinar 

    Open Source Software (OSS) and the DoD, a Webinar sponsored by DACS will be held by David Wheeler on the 2 of November at 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EST.

    David WheelerDavid Wheeler by swhisher

    Open source software (OSS) has become widespread, but there are many misconceptions about it – resulting in numerous missed opportunities.
    This presentation will clarify what OSS is (and isn’t), rebut common misunderstandings about OSS, discuss the relationship of OSS and security, discuss how to find and evaluate OSS, and explain OSS licensing (including how to combine products and select a license).
    It will show why nearly all extant OSS is COTS software, and thus why it’s illegal (as well as foolish) to ignore OSS options.

    Title:Open Source Software (OSS) and the DoD
    Date: Monday, February 11, 2008
    Time: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EST

    System Requirements
    PC-based attendees
    Required: Windows® 2000, XP Home, XP Pro, 2003 Server, Vista

    Macintosh®-based attendees
    Required: Mac OS® X 10.3.9 (Panther®) or newer

    .. and what about Linux-based attendees? 😉

    Space is limited, Reserve your Webinar seat now!

    Technorati Tags: Open Source Government, DavidWheeler, dacs, webinar, open source procurement, open source governance

    (More …)

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 8:22 pm on December 16, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Free Software Foundation Fundraising: Mako’s appeal 

    Benjamin Mako Hill, who recently joined the FSF board put an appeal on line, as earlier did Peter Brown,  FSF Executive Director.

    Now is the time to join and give to Free Software Foundation. 2008 is going to be extraordinarily important year for free software.

    Eben Moglen likes to quote Gandhi’s “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” progression when describing the free software movement. As I pointed out when I joined the FSF board, we’re beginning to see powerful interests fighting free software. It’s going to increase in the next few years. Things will probably get a lot uglier for free software before they get better. We can win but things are far from settled. The FSF is the front-line organization in this fight and we need a robust and proactive foundation, and an active and involved membership, if we’re going to win.

    Here are the issues that I’m going to pushing the FSF to pursue in the next year.

    Expanding activism outside our traditional technologist communities:

    In part through the work of projects like Defective By Design, we’ve seen the tide turn for DRM on music in what what may be the FSF’s greatest success last year. I’m going to push the FSF to continue the campaign to attack DRM for video, eBooks, and the other places it is cropping up.

    The most remarkable thing to me about Defective By Design is that its participants and supporters are not, for the most part, people who develop or use GNU/Linux or even know what GNU is! If advocacy for software freedom involves a conversation we can only have with people who understand what POSIX is and how one uses it, we’ve already lost. Through DbD, BadVista, and other projects, the FSF has made major strides in the last year. It need to do much more and needs your support to do so.

    Get proactive about software patents:

    As a community, we’ve had our head in the sand about software patents for far too long. There are companies and patent trolls sitting on massive, growing piles of software patents. They are not our friends and they do not mean us well.

    One cannot write non-trivial software today without running a serious risk of infringing patents. The software patents minefield we’ve found ourselves in is a very fundamental threat to the success of free software and we’ve already begun to see the first casualties and costs. We must eliminate software patents. Now.

    The US is very important in this fight (much patent law is “exported” from the US) and almost no organization is working on software patent elimination there. Not enough people are thinking and acting strategically on this issue. The FSF is planning to make major steps in this fight in the coming year and we need your support to do so.

    Web services and the changing face of software:

    This last year, I worked to help launch the new version the AGPLv3. The license addresses the role of copyleft for software like web-services which, due to the legal particulars of the GPL, did not extend to the purveyors of web services. Of course, access to source code does not make the users of all web-services free (e.g., the GMails and the Facebooks).

    Nobody seems to know what freedom for webserver entails. There might not even be good answers. In the next year, I’m going to push the FSF to help start several conversation and to begin to follow up on what I think was an important first step with the AGPLv3. While this is not a major organizational priority yet, it’s a major action item that I will be pursuing through the FSF. If you feel strongly about this issue, whatever your position, become a member, stay involved as these projects develop, and have your voice be heard. We don’t know the answers yet and we need your input as much as we need your action.

    I am glad Mako  is willing to push AGPL, even if I doubt AGPL will really help to solve the GPL loophole. Loophole or not, I really wish to help FSF to raise funds, and I hope this post helps.

    Technorati Tags: free software foundation, FSF, AGPL, MakoHill,

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 11:14 am on December 7, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Brand: No Logo Open Source? 

    My post about SugarCRM’s original way to abide the GPL yesterday has been reported by Matt Asay, raising the open source brand issue. Building a brand takes time and money, and just like in any other market drives the demand. What is specific to open source branding?

    No logo BrandLogo meltdown by Asta

    On the 20th of August 1997 the Linux trademark dispute was resolved, since then anyone in the open source community knows about the importance of brand names. Later on Red Hat started to protect its trademark, bringing the dispute on a commercial ground.

    The non-excludable nature of open source code makes difficult to prevent competitors from “stealing” customers, and the argument on the table is, in Matt’s words:

    You can give away your software. You should never give away your brand.

    Trademark laws all over the world enable consumers of products to know the (real) source of the products they use, allowing them to distinguish those products from the products of other vendors. Consumers this way can’t be fooled into purchasing a product or a service of one company while believing it is a product of another company.

    Few open source firms have the ability to deliver worldwide open source services and support, and the demand for entrepreneurial open source ecosystems is much greater than the supply. Newcomers and open source incumbents could better exploit the opportunity to collaboratively create ecosystems. Open source product firms could re-invent different channel programs, providing qualified resellers with the real ability to deploy even complex solutions. On the other hand newcomers should stop thinking that re-branding third-parties’ open source products is enough.

    There are still just two ways to make money from OSS, named “best code here” and “best knowledge here” approaches, but none of them scale very well, unless you know how:

    • to become the market leader;
      .
    • to manage collaborative software development.

    But appropriating returns is critical and Open Source Franchising is still a good option.

    PS: Matt, “badgeware” is probably the most used expression referring to the visibility constraint, which I am not saying is bad at all. Protecting Open Source IP is important, I agree.

    Technorati Tags: oss, open business, open source brand, open source marketing, sugarCRM, MattAsay

     
    • Geoff SoftwareClub Dodd 10:10 am on December 15, 2007 Permalink

      As i see it, open source has a real branding problem. Something like OpenOffice just hasn’t had the brand build up of a suite like Ms Office. So people automatically lower their expectations and their interest. Same with Gimp and a branded graphics application. Same perceptions and lowered image and expectations.

    • Roberto Galoppini 9:08 pm on December 16, 2007 Permalink

      I wouldn’t say that Open Source has, at large, a branding problem. Few open source programs and platforms are quite in the know today. For example, talking about OpenOffice.org, I can tell you that only in September in Italy it got mentioned in more than 200 articles. Not bad, I would say.

      On the other side is true that most of OS programs are unknown, and that is why I believe there is a need for open source awareness campaigns.

  • Roberto Galoppini 12:29 pm on December 2, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Licensing: SugarCRM’s original way to abide the GPL 

    After discussing why SugarCRM would have no reason to adopt the AGPL, yesterday I happened to download the Sugar Community Edition from the download page. The About page let me wonder about a possible attribution loophole in the GPLv3.

    New lightA new light by MumbleyJoe

    Some licensing background first. Here an excerpt from the About page of the Sugar Community Edition 5.0:

    The interactive user interfaces in modified source and object code versions of this program must display Appropriate Legal Notices, as required under Section 5 of the GNU General Public License version 3.

    In accordance with Section 7(b) of the GNU General Public License version 3, these Appropriate Legal Notices must retain the display of the “Powered by SugarCRM” logo. If the display of the logo is not reasonably feasible for technical reasons, the Appropriate Legal Notices must display the words “Powered by SugarCRM”.

    Surprisingly it looks almost like the previous version of the about page (courtesy of Koder search engine):

    All copies of the Covered Code must include on each user interface screen:
    (i) the “Powered by SugarCRM” logo and
    (ii) the SugarCRM copyright notice
    in the same form as they appear in the distribution.See full license for requirements.

    I am not a lawyer, but f I got it right, Section 7 of the GNU GPL version 3 permits modifications to the license for certain terms. Section 7 (b) asserts that for material you add to a covered work, you may supplement the terms of this License with terms:

    b) Requiring preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it;

    Section 7 became a viable tool to reintroduce somehow the attribution addendum contained in the SugarCRM Public license (Exhibit A).

    The question is: is requiring a logo a reasonable author attribution? I presume this is the case, at least in Eben Moglen‘s opinion. Moglen in his “SugarCRM’s Sweet Taste of Freedom” stated that SugarCRM is to be applauded, and I believe he knew already what I just found myself.

    Badgeware is not only OSI approved, but it is also endorsed by the Free Software Foundation now, with its flagship license. The debate is over.

    Back to my analysis about SugarCRM’s licensing strategy, it is now clear that SugarCRM and SugarCRM’s VCs do still care a lot about brand protection. Their unique selling points are really strong, but as a matter of fact they found a way to accomplish both goals: branding and the adoption of a much more compatible license.

    Kudos to SugarCRM’s lawyers to sort it out.

    Technorati Tags: oss, open business, commercial open source, sugarCRM, GPL, FSF, OSI

     
    • Johan 3:25 pm on December 3, 2007 Permalink

      Interesting note but you miss a big point, GPL3 does not address the distribution of software over the internet. The terms in the license address distribution or re-distribution by the old methods. Google re-distributes MySql over the web and is not bound to submit their modifications back to MySql. We could all make significant additions to SugarCRM and host the advances with no need to submit them back to the community. We could even host SugarCRM and offer it for free. The cost of hosting has gone down significantly, do I smell a advertising model ? I may host SugarCRM for free just for the heck of it. My company does some modifications and we’ll have a better CRM solution and no need to share this with SugarCRM.

      SugarCRM made a big mistake!!!! I am not sure why you are looking to rationalize bad decisions by a company that should have been smarter. This was a critical mistake and will affect their future!

    • Roberto Galoppini 6:35 pm on December 3, 2007 Permalink

      Johan,

      I have extensively talked about the GPL loophole before, that’s why I didn’t mention it here.

      SugarCRM has some unique selling points (see the above mentioned post), and it is definitely not trivial to spoil their business.

      About SugarCRM’s strategy, I must tell you that I am quite impressed by their community: they look pretty smart, honestly.

    • Johan 1:13 am on December 4, 2007 Permalink

      Hello Robert,

      Thank you for the reply but I still see tremendous exposure for SugarCRM. On a big picture level, I really don’t see how they can go public and file an S-1 listing the business risks and have anyone back their offering. The hosting of SugarCRM for free with focused updates that make “my version” a better solution would be a killer for them. Keep in mind they would be burdened with the heavy lifting of the core system whereas my “company” could focus on additional features. That is a big benefit for me and to Sugar’s detriment.

    • P.Woods 8:31 pm on December 9, 2007 Permalink

      What does “original way to abide the GPL” mean?
      I can’t think of the word you really meant instead of “abide.”

    • Roberto Galoppini 5:40 pm on December 10, 2007 Permalink

      It is pretty original because no one took publicly advantage of the section 7 of the GPLv3 for this purpose yet.

    • Michel 11:28 pm on January 5, 2008 Permalink

      I must agree with Johan’s comment, the GPL3 licensing approach or interpretation of it by SugarCRM is quiet questionable indeed. It is a scary accommodation for anybody planning to use this project in the long term. And the question remains… what and when will be the next amendment made…

      It appears like a big contradiction where one extensive use of available source code and ideas has very little ‘reconnaissance’ in regards to its ‘sub’ stance . What about the amazing community of contributors which has helped SugarCRM expand upon its grand business scheme? Base on its licensing condition, I could just imagine what it would look like if all the ingenuous creators had little icons showing what they did or come up with on SugarCRM.

      As an organization SugarCRM has the merit for good integration of LAMP. One must also admit its marketing attraction strength which brings common richness to all with a lite subtle condition to its use. But one must wonder what this tiny little licensing condition might hold for the future?

    • Roberto Galoppini 12:22 pm on January 6, 2008 Permalink

      Michel I think it is important to sort out if it is the GPL3 licensing approach or interpretation of it by SugarCRM. What I am saying, and I am not alone, is that the Free Software Foundation, Eben Moglen and open source attorneys like Mark Radcliffe they all know that.

      I am not convinced that it is a scary accommodation, on the contrary I firmly believe it doesn’t make free software less free.
      Quoting you:

      What about the amazing community of contributors which has helped SugarCRM expand upon its grand business scheme? Base on its licensing condition, I could just imagine what it would look like if all the ingenuous creators had little icons showing what they did or come up with on SugarCRM.

      Attribution probably is not the best ever solution, but it sounds like the most appropriate when we talk of corporate production model.

      Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions – it only guarantees equality of opportunity (Irving Kristol).

  • Roberto Galoppini 10:28 am on November 26, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Licensing: Should SugarCRM adopt the AGPL? 

    The GNU Affero GPL v3 has recently been published, eventually closing the ‘Software as a Service Loophole‘, preventing code covered by AGPL to be offered as a service without modifications being published. Simon Phipps is surpised SugarCRM didn’t wait for Affero, while Michael Tiemann would like to see the AGPL tested in the marketplace.

    Simon and Michael raise an interesting point, in this post my final objective is to understand whether SugarCRM should or not adopt the AGPL. First, some background on the CRM market and SugarCRM.

    Gartner claimed that worldwide CRM software revenue is forecast to exceed $7.4 billion in 2007 and SaaS-based CRM adoption is growing at more than double the rate of the CRM market as whole.Despite SugarCRM’s Magic Quadrant position is not brilliant, SugarCRM appears to be pretty in the know compared to others, as results also from SugarCRM’s results.

    Back in November 2007 John Roberts Sugar, SugarCRM CEO and co-founder, explaining “why attribution matters” wrote:

    These folks were simply lifting our identifying marks and “pretending to the world” that they wrote software that they indeed had not. They also had no intention at all of adding to the SugarCRM project since that showed they weren’t the original authors of the software.

    Suprisingly few months later SugarCRM announced that the Sugar Community Edition 5.0 was going to be licensed under the GPLv3. As a matter of fact SugarCRM appears to be the most visible among the open source CRM SaaS vendors, if not the only one. At the end of August on-demand installations accounted for 40% of SugarCRM’s customers: as a matter of fact sales SaaS-based were already important. Hence the questions posed by Simon and others:

    Could distributing the software with licence exposed to the GPL loop hole place SugarCRM at risk? How could SugarCRM have possibly changed its mind by embracing GPL considering the importance formerly given to brand protection? Futhermore could competitors easily “steal” customers from SugarCRM using SugarCRM?

    Let’s start seeing some SugarCRM’s unique selling points:

    • SugarCRM is well integrated with other productivity applications;
      .
    • SugarExchange, the SugarCRM marketplace, offers hundreds of module extensions, themes and language packs provided by SugarCRM community members and partners;
      .
    • SugarForge is a vibrant open source community, able to bring SugarExchange to guest 400 applications in less than 4 months. SugarForge can allegidely be considered one of the most important community after the Linux group. SugarCRM is amazing because it’s a community built around an enterprise software application rather than an infrastructural platform.

    Yes, competitors could attract SugarCRM’s customers but in order to do that they would need to:

    • Spend a large amount of money in marketing;
      .
    • Create or replace proprietary plug-ins and add-ons;
      .
    • Close partnerships with those partners that are currently working with SugarCRM.

    As seen with the competition between open source vs proprietary software, it takes time to overtake an existing proposal with a functionally equivalent one. Even using just the same product, as seen with Unbreakable Linux and Red Hat, it’s proven not to be such an easy task, despite Ellison pretends it is. Partnerships, marketing and the addition of proprietary plug-ins makes the overtake definitely complex.

    Keeping all of this in mind I doubt SugarCRM would ever consider using an unknown licence as the AGPL. What matters to the customer is the free availability of the community edition enabling their hassle free try&buy evaluation processess. Going GPL SugarCRM makes customers’ lives much easier than it was with the MPL +attribution thing.

    Unfortunately the AGPL is unlikely to get a broad acceptance even in the long run, just because so much free software is released under the GPL, no matter which version, it’s not going to magically turn into AGPL. ASP welcomed the GPLv3, there is no chance they will move to AGPL considering their attitude to creating differentiating software.

    In conclusion, SugarCRM will likely stay with a well known licence making its customers’ and also partners’ life easier. Now that investors are convinced that SugarCRM doesn’t need to stress the brand through weird licences there are really no reasons to have second thoughts. The GPL loophole is here to stay but it’s definitely not SugarCRM’s problem.

    Technorati Tags: SugarCRM, Commercial Open Source, CRM, AGPL, SaaS, GPL loophole, Open SOurce License, Customer Relationship Management

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 12:14 am on November 22, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Affero License Adoption: Funambol is the first licensor! 

    On monday Free Software Foundation published the GNU Affero GPL v3, a modified version of the General Pubic License v3. Differently from the GPL, the Affero license is aimed at ensuring cooperation with the community in the case of network server software.

    As a matter of fact the General Public License permits making a modified version and letting the public access it on a server without ever releasing its source code to the public. The Affero license instead add a requirement that if the software is used on a public server, users must be able to get the source code.

    I want you!I want you! by Sunbound

    I asked Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO – who formerly addressed the “GPL loophole” creating a new license – to comment the Affero version 3. I was late, he already posted on the subject, announcing Funambol’s decision to go with the AGPL.

    Well done Fabrizio, great move! As a matter of fact you are the first. I am afraid you are not going to win your bet with Mark Radicliffe: AGPL is not going to become more popular than GPL in the next five years.

    While I believe the AGPL is not going to be Google’s worst nightmare, and is not specifically designed for Web Services, I hope you consider taking actively part against the GPL loophole, now!

    Related posts:

    Closing open source loopholes
    FSF releases license for network-distributed software
    A new GPL for software as a service
    FSF finalizes GPL-based license for Web services

    Technorati Tags: Affero, Affero GPL, GPL, Licensing, Funambol

     
  • Roberto Galoppini 7:16 pm on September 21, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source e-learning: Italian conference on e-learning and multimedia 

    Today in Agrigento has been held the Italian Conference on e-learning and multimedia, an event aimed at disseminating multimedia and e-learning practices and researches’ results.

    I really enjoyed joining the conference, actually covering few different topics related to applications, infrastructures, but also pedagogic research and teaching and learning strategies.

    Among speakers, professor Gianni Messina – who kindly invited me to give a speech on my professional blogging experience – spoke about tourism applications and media education. He mentioned also a weird and funny medieval help desk!

    Little surprise I had not been the only speaker talking about Open Source at the conference. Professor Giuseppe Adorni talking about the EPICT project mentioned the usage of Joomla!, Plone and Mediawiki.

    Starting from my blog experience I introduced students and researchers to different blogging styles, mentioning possible usage with Libraries, and stressing the importance of RSS (ignoring RSS is also listed within “How NOT to use blogs in education“). I found students interested into blog metrics, so I spent some time talking about page-rank, technorati, blog juice and “how much is your blog worth“.

    Talking about blog platforms I spent few words about WordPress and MovableType, showing a comparative graph reporting WordPress taking over SixApart.

    I ended mentioning new blog trends, going from video-blogging to mobile-blogging (jaiku, twitter & Co.), and eventually enjoing a great dinner with participants and organizers.

    Technorati Tags: e-learning, giannimessina, agrigento, learning systems

     
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