Updates from December, 2007 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • 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 2:28 pm on December 6, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Marketplace: SourceForge Marketplace goes live! 

    SourceForge last March announced a new feature to buy or sell services for Commercial Open Source on SourceForge, eventually launched in early summer in beta. Right now SourceForge released its SourceForge Marketplace, and 512 Service Providers and 251 Projects are available.
    Openbravo ERP is probably the most famous among the supported projects, nonetheless we should probably pay more attention to the (very) long tail. If we look at the estimation of the real number of active FLOSS projects done within FLOSSMETRICS, there are 18000 stable and mature projects out there.
    The SourceForge Marketplace could help to monetize open-source projects, but can also foster communities and, even more interesting, super-communities.

    Could products like SuiteTwo come to life within the SourceForge community?

    European countries like Germany, Italy, Spain, France and UK sum up about 30% of the SourceForge’s 25 million unique visitors. Here there is clearly space to positively contribute to the European open source adoption.

    Full Disclosure: I am on SourceForge.net Marketplace advisory board.

    Technorati Tags: oss, open business, open source marketplace, sourceforge

     

  • 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 9:45 pm on November 30, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Italian Startups: a Bridge to Silicon Valley 

    “Mind the Bridge” is an opportunity for Italian entrepreneurs to present their ideas to a core group of experienced executives and potential investors in the Silicon Valley.

    bridgeA useful bridge by petetaylor

    The initiative – see also the full video of the event presentation, guested by Cisco – is led by Marco Marinucci (blog), a Google executive and affiliate member of First Generation Network, is aimed at aiding Italian entrepreneurs to get funds in Silicon Valley to build their own startups.

    Fabrizio Capobianco is going to be in the selection committee, so Open Source Entrepreneurs can hope to be welcomed enthusiastically! 😉

    Be fast, the deadline to present your business plan is the 21th of December, there are only seven seats on board!

    I take the chance to meme some friends to spread the word, I know them all are interested in Venture Capital (Alessio Iacona, Amanda Lorenzani, Andrea Genovese, Fabio Masetti, Leo Sorge, Nicola Mattina, Roldano De Persio, Stefano Maffulli, Tara Kelly).

    Technorati Tags: business plan competition, Italian Startup, Mind the Bridge, MarcoMarinucci

     

  • Carlo Daffara 10:41 am on November 28, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Guide: Guide for SMEs published 

    It has been a long, long, long road, but after the evaluation by the Commission, I am happy to announce that we have finally published our guide for small and medium enterprises, designed to help the adoption process of open source and free software.

    We have striven to be pragmatic (no vendor-paid research, for example) and practical; two more editions will follow, every 6 months, to allow for updates and new material.

    DirectionsOpen Source Directions by geraldinha_1/

    The guide (developed in the context of the FLOSSMETRICS and OpenTTT projects) present a set of guidelines and suggestions for the adoption of open source software within SMEs, using a ladder model that will guide companies from the initial selection and adoption of FLOSS within the IT infrastructure up to the creation of suitable business models based on open source software.

    The guide is split into an 80 pages introduction to FLOSS and a catalog of 165 applications, selected to fulfill the requests that were gathered in the interviews and audit in the OpenTTT project. The application areas are infrastructural software (ranging from network and system management to security), ERP and CRM applications, groupware, document management, content management systems (CMS), VoIP, graphics/CAD/GIS systems, desktop applications, engineering and manufacturing, vertical business applications and eLearning.

    The guide is available at the guide web page ; the two pdfs are 2Mb (“FLOSS Guide“) and 20 Mbytes (“FLOSS Catalog“), so take it into account if you are connected by narrowband or cell phone.

    I welcome any suggestion, addition or criticism; I hope that this can become the beginning of a collaborating community centered on helping the use and adoption of OSS in companies. I thank Roberto for the many suggestions and for the use of his blog as a media for future updates and interactions with any welcome contributor. To facilitate conversation on the topic touched by the guide, and in particular those related to open source business model, we are preparing a mailing-list that will be announced soon.

    Technorati Tags: FLOSSMETRICS, OpenTTT, Software Selection, Open Source Adoption, Open Source Strategy

     

    • Paolo Corti 12:14 pm on November 28, 2007 Permalink

      Carlo and Roberto
      this is an invaluable exceptional work!
      thank you very much for it, I am looking forward to have some spare time these nights to read both docs, and maybe give you some feedback based on my experience.

    • Carlo Daffara 4:55 pm on November 28, 2007 Permalink

      Dear Paolo,
      many thanks for your kind words. Our hope is to be useful to as many companies as possible, and any feedback (and of course any criticism) is welcome.

  • 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 2:38 pm on November 23, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source ECM: Nuxeo expands sales for vertical markets 

    Nuxeo, an open source firm pioneering in the Open Source ECM revolution from 2001, announced that Nuxeo has been choosen by the Press Association. Being the second time that Nuxeo addresses the market of press agencies, I asked Stefan Fermigier, Nuxeo CEO, to tell us more about it.

    TayloredTaylored by metrò

    From the press release results that the national news agency of the UK and Ireland (Press Association) has chosen to improve its digital news production process using Nuxeo:

    Rapidly changing requirements and demands for digital multimedia news distribution drove the need for PA to develop a much more robust and efficient ECM platform. Nuxeo has developed an ECM prototype for PA, which PA has approved. Both parties are currently working together on the final release.

    Stefan, is prototyping a valuable business development tool?

    Definitively yes! Prototyping a project with, for instance, the 20% of the functionalities that clearly showcase 80% of the business value, is a great way to startup a business relationship with a new customer.

    More generally, our most successful projects (on the occasions where Nuxeo, and not a system integrator, is asked by the customers to do the developments) have been done in an iterative fashion that goes roughly like this:

    1. start with a proof of concept or prototype;
      .
    2. sign a framework contract with the customer and define the initial scope for the project;
      .
    3. develop the application iteratively, collecting feedback from the future users by making frequent (for instance, monthly) releases, and fine-tuning the specifications if necessary;
      .
    4. deploy the application to a small group of actual users;
      .
    5. support those users and collect their feedback from real use;
      .
    6. start a new phase for the project, with enhancements requested by the users, and roll out to a larger user base;
      .
    7. iterate last part until roll out is complete.

    And later do more projects with the same customer using the same technology, as they are now confident that the technology can be used for real.

    Open sources firm implementing solutions based on open source products often follow a similar path. Tailoring open source software to specific needs requires a deep knowledge of both the product and the specific process. Here customers can see a risk of having no support down the road.
    Did it help you to get it having previous experiences in the field?

    In this particular case, yes. We have already done a successful project with Agence France Presse, and which, according to the agency’s IT directors, led the AFP to raise the production of the journalists using the application by 40%.

    Even though they are competitors (on certain markets), AFP helped us convince PA that we have a great technology and a strong understanding of the needs of a news agency.

    With these projects, as well as several other ongoing projects with AFP, we believe that we are now well positioned to address the worldwide market of press agencies and other news producing bodies.

    Nuxeo in this case is addressing a vertical market in the long tail, betting on the possibility to exploit business process execution within a specific market segment. We will see more and more Enterprise Content Management solutions targeted at particular verticals, and identifying the right ones is really important.

    Is the improvement of PA’s digital news production process of any interest to other potential customers?

    As stated in the press release, PA is in a fiercely competitive market and wants to leverage the application to gain competitive advantage. Hence there are parts of the project that are proprietary and won’t be shared with others. But we can still work with other news agencies on their own particular needs and help them develop news production systems on top of our platform tailored to their needs.

    And there are many enhancements that we’re doing to the platforms we’re using to do the project, Nuxeo EP and Nuxeo RCP, that will come from the project’s requirements, and will be available in the next releases of Nuxeo EP as well as in the first packaged release of Nuxeo RCP, both scheduled for early 2008.

    Unlike some “open source” companies that develop the new versions of their product behind closed doors, the source code for these enhancements is already visible in our source code repository. (While of course all customer-specific code is in a private, secure repository.)

    Open source is often about customization, and moving from artisanship to industrial requires a pyramidal structure. Large System integrators would act as “mediators” towards specialized firms. Maybe partners like Atos Origin, Capgemini or LogicaCMG will play a role to deliver solutions targeted at other verticals.
    “The 80-20 rule” unfortunately applies the other way around: a general purpose infrastructure fits the 80% of cases and 20% of resources are needed to fulfill them, but to cover the remaining 20% of cases you need 80% of the resources.

    No “free” lunch for open source firms today, and congratulations to Nuxeo!

    Technorati Tags: Open Source Strategy, ECM, Nuxeo, Stefan Fermigier, Press Association

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 5:52 pm on November 17, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Mobile: Volantis goes Open Source, first thoughts 

    Volantis, the world’s leading supplier in the field of Mobile Content Adaptation, announced that they are going to release in open source a Volantis solution to deliver content to mobile users.

    The Volantis Mobility Server – a solution enabling content providers and carriers to benefit from a ‘write once view anywhere’ content strategy – is already available for download at the community area. Open Source release, under the GPL version 3, is expected within the first quarter of 2008.

    At the Future of Mobile I didn’t get a chance to meet in person people from Volantis, but yesterday I had a skype conversation with Mark Watson, co-founder and chief executive officer of Volantis Systems.

    My first question to Mark was about why they are going open source.

    It is difficult to write mobile applications without an application server like ours. Mobile web is not moving as fast as it should be, and Volantis by contributing with software to the market can help accelerate it.

    Is Volantis expecting to get voluntary contributions from the community?

    We would like that, we don’t want to necessarily depend on it. We don’t want to bet on that for our success.

    While at the present stage there are no plans in place to cooperate with other open source communities, I believe that commensalistic approaches are likely to happen. Let’s wait and see if eventually the Volantis Community will develop a symbiotic approach towards open source communities, and viceversa.

    As a matter of fact Volantis is the first mover in the mobile content delivery arena willing to publish its code under an open source license, and they spent time and effort to choose the appropriate license (Doug, you should also count them from now on!!).

    While Volantis sounds internally organized to keep its mobile equipment database updated – and they might not run Code Sniper or Phone Sniper as does Funambol – I see other similarities with Funambol. Just as Funambol, Volantis today is basically addressing the “top” of the pyramid (the carriers), but by opening its platform, Volantis can substantially enlarge its customer base with a try&buy formula.

    Last but really not the least, I believe that many small IT firms that couldn’t afford platforms like Volantis in the past can now step into this market. And maybe Mark is right in stating:

    We believe that for every potential web application in the PC world, there is going to be a mobile equivalent.

    My suggestion to Mark is the following: what about organising meet ups among IT firms interested in Volantis, just like the Atlassian Group?

    Technorati Tags: mobile content adaptation, open source mobile, volantis

     

  • Roberto Galoppini 6:20 pm on November 16, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Risk Management: a chat with Doug Levin, Black Duck’s CEO 

    Black Duck Software is an intellectual property management firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts delivering services to identify risks and vulnerabilities in an enterprise’s open-source code.

    Doug Levin, Black Duck’s CEO, today was available for a phone call to tell me more about how they help organizations use open source software and third-party code components while managing software licensing obligations and other business risks.

    Firms offering intellectual assets giving “horizontal” support, meaning companies that sell services not related to a specific package and not related to software development, could play an important in the European market.

    While Asia and USA are historically more acquainted with buying his services, Doug claimed that the European market would develop in the near future and he cited several open source project (Mandriva, ZEA and Alfresco among others) that the company has already worked both directly and indirectly. SourceSense among others is already partnering with them in three different countries, while other two medium sized IT German firms are also Black Duck customers.

    Software patents are not central to business accelerators for Black Duck; copyright and 3rd party and OSS license violations are central to Black Duck’s services, products and training.
    Talking about takers of GPL Doug stated:

    So far small gpl projects associated with FSF were the first to go. We are seeing GPLv3 adoption in relatively small numbers and not being adopted by large projects. SugarCRM and Sambva were exceptions in this respect.

    Doug and I agreed on the fact that SugarCRM made the best decision by not abiding to the OSI “badgeware approved license, and instead choosing the GPLv3, a license which is much closer to the community.

    I am looking forward to meet him soon in Europe, and let you know more about how Black Duck is going to help the European open source ecosystem.

    Technorati Tags: Open Source, Open Source Risk, Open Source, Intellectual Property Management, Black Duck, Doug Levin, Software Patent

     

    • Mark Radcliffe 3:44 pm on November 17, 2007 Permalink

      While I have great respect for Doug, I know that you will soon see more commercial major commercial projects adopting GPLv3. I know that several of my commercial clients are seriously considering it, but are waiting for their next revision to make the announcement. I think that we need to wait until a year after the release of GPLv3 to understand the full extent of its adoption. For more thoughts on open soruce issues, you can go to my blog. http://www.lawandlifesiliconvalley.blogspot.com.

    • Roberto Galoppini 6:03 pm on November 17, 2007 Permalink

      Hi Mark, thank for joining the conversation. Today I just wrote about a mobile platform that will be licensed under GPLv3 terms.

      I agree with you, only educated customers can do such a choice at this stage, that is good for you, right? 😉

    • Doug Levin 7:50 pm on November 17, 2007 Permalink

      I enjoyed my convo with Roberto, love his blog and agree with Mark Radcliffe that in a year it will be a different license landscape. It will take time for software developers to figure out the merits of v3 relative to other OSI approved licenses.

      Black Duck tracks license trends at http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss. We are fastidious about only tracking deployed projects with licenses, not merely projects that express their intent to license in blogs and press releases.

  • Roberto Galoppini 3:56 pm on November 6, 2007 Permalink | Reply  

    Open Source Mobile: Google’s phone, the ultimate technological club 

    Yesterday a broad alliance of leading technology and wireless companies announced the collaborative development of Android, the new open platform for mobile phones by Google.

    The Open Handset Alliance, that’s the name of the most promising technological club after the GSM MoU club agreement, lists already 34 members. Among them names like Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom, Nvidia, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, China Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, NTT DoCoMo, LG Electronics and HTC.

    ExpectationsGreat expectations, by deVos

    From the press release:

    This alliance shares a common goal of fostering innovation on mobile devices and giving consumers a far better user experience than much of what is available on today’s mobile platforms. By providing developers a new level of openness that enables them to work more collaboratively, Android will accelerate the pace at which new and compelling mobile services are made available to consumers.

    So Google is not interested in making money on software (like Microsoft), or hardware (like Apple). As usual they want to make their money on services. As reported by Wireless, according to Opus Research, mobile advertising spending in North America and Western Europe will reach a combined US$5.08 billion by 2012, up from an estimated $106.8 million at the end of this year.

    The Open Handset Alliance describes itself as “the first truly open and comprehensive platform for mobile devices” aiming to develop technologies that will cut the cost of developing and distributing mobile devices and services. But Google knows very well that mobile innovation basically has been hampered by “device fragmentation“, and android is the ultimate answer to this specific issue.

    Despite Android’s license (apache 2.0) enable providers to create a locked-down phone, Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, said:

    It’s both possible and highly unlikely because the more constraints the manufacturers put on the platform the less beneficial it is.While a license would allow that kind of behavior … it’s unlikely you’ll see [a locked down] scenario.

    Is he right? Let’s see what happened before.

    Lessons from the ‘past’:the Symbian case

    The Symbian promise was aimed at a similar goal, when it was established in UK as a private independent company in June 1998. The original shareholders were Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia In October 2003 Motorola withdrew from Symbian as a shareholder by selling is stake to Nokia and Psion, becoming a simple licensee.

    I had doubts on the Symbian technological club since early 2003, as I wrote in an article. The idea was good, but the implementation was quite poor, since even the most important shareholders were adopting incompatible Symbian’s dialects.

    While I agree with Savio Rodrigues saying that is a very pragmatic decision, I believe that platform differentiation is a two fold process of securing individual vendors’ businesses and at the same time prevent lock down scenarios.

    Related posts from other sources:

    Google’s big mobile splash: Handicapping the winners and losers – Larry Dignan describes how Google’s move could reshape the wireless industry

    Google phone won’t pry open wireless business model – Dana Blankenhorn colors himself as skeptical thinking to the North-American duopoly

    Getting all warm and Googley over open source – Alec Saunders puts Google among what he calls “strategic open source” firms.

    Reinventing the Linux phone, Google-style -  Matthew Aslett compares the different open source mobile initiatives.

    Technorati Tags: Open Source Mobile, Google strategy, android, technological clubs, symbian , SavioRodrigues, EricSchmidt

     

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