another example of the hybrid business model I called private source

[Evan Leibovitch]

bob wrote:

>http://uk.builder.com/0,39026540,39294699,00.htm
>  
>
Some business model. Get your customers to do your software development 
and bug fixes for you, and charge them $50K for the privilege. The model 
itself looks like it more resembles the Microsoft Shared Source program 
than anything to do with open source. It's not even a business model 
(since it doesn't relate to how the company earns its revenue), it's a 
software development model.

And yet... this company's software is based on components such as 
PostgreSQL (which is under the BSD license) and Qt (which is either 
proprietary or GPL). Combine this with the non-open-source license of 
the application's own software, and you potentially have a complex mix 
of licenses that's certain to cause something to be breached along the way.

I see, in this article, a company and/or journalist who tosses around 
the term open source freely without actually doing open source. 
Exploitation and bandwagon jumping at its worst, bordering on deception:

> OpenMFG provided clients with its applications' source code, as most 
> open source companies do,

"As most open source companies do"...?" Providing source code is only 
one of the requirements of the description. Using BSD code and closing 
it off, for instance, does not make one an "open source company". That 
would apply to Apple and Microsoft, neither of which is considered 
particularly FOSS friendly.

Because the application is not open source, do customers have to sign an 
NDA, like those given access to Shared Source? Doing so effectively 
prevents switching to another system because the client is, to use the 
old AT&T legalism, "intellectually contaminated". Not doing so allows 
clients to create (or participate in) other open source applications 
using techniques recalled from the company's source code.

This scheme is only of _any_ value if the use of this development model 
allows the software price to be substantially lower than competition. In 
return for paying less, the user bears some responsibility to hire 
programmers to customize and fix bugs, there are subtle legal 
disincentives to switching vendors, and support expectations on the 
developer are reduced.

 From the user POV, I see no user benefit in this model compared to an 
open-source co-op. For a vendor it's good because you get your paying 
clients to do your heavy lifting for you after the initial release.

In conclusion, I offer a snippet of a public statement, one of very few 
to be endorsed by Stallman *and* Torvalds, Raymond, Wall and a bunch of 
others. It talks about Shared Source but applies in general to the 
so-called "private source" model:

> Microsoft's Shared Source program recognizes that there are many 
> benefits to the openness, community involvement, and innovation of the 
> Open Source model. But the most important component of that model, the 
> one that makes all of the others work, is freedom. [...] they hope to 
> get the benefits of Free Software without sharing those benefits with 
> those who participate in creating them.
>
http://perens.com/Articles/StandTogether.html

- Evan

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