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VA Linux to Sell Proprietary Version of Sourceforge

Posted by michael on Fri Aug 24, 2001 07:13 AM
from the brother-can-you-spare-a-dime dept.
VA
Cassivs writes: "There's an article claiming that VA Linux is planning on selling a proprietary, closed-source version of SourceForge, SourceForge Enterprise Edition. See the letter to SourceForge members assuring them that VA Linux will continue to provide free hosting/etc. at SourceForge. They will also continue to maintain a GPL version of the code, SourceForge Open Edition." VA is Slashdot's corporate parent.
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  • not really news... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by UM_Maverick (16890) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:18AM (#2212725) Homepage
    This really isn't a big deal. Linux/dot-com company sells new product. Where's the story? The only reason this got posted is because hundreds of readers would have moaned and griped if it didn't, saying "slashdot is censorware!"...

    As a side note, does anybody know of any companies that are actually using sourceforge enterprise for interenal development?
    • As a side note, does anybody know of any companies that are actually using sourceforge enterprise for interenal development?

      Yeah, HP, according to the article. I've also read elsewhere that a large NY investment bank was using SourceForge - Morgan Stanley IIRC.

      It's a good thing, for those who care about VA Linux. If those two large clients see benefits from using SourceForge, it could present LNUX with an important foothold on both coasts, in the IT as well as the financial market. Not a bad deal.

    • Of course it is news (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not that VA is necessarily doing something bad, but that this is quite a change in their direction.

      "We are firmly committed [valinux.com]
      to Open Source development as a methodology for creating better
      software, faster."       -- Dr. Larry M. Augustin, president and CEO of VA Linux Systems, as quoted in a September 2000 press release.

      Later down that press release we learn that "VA Linux Systems'
      mission is to make its customers successful through the use of Linux
      and Open Source -- whether they are e-businesses rapidly expanding
      their Internet infrastructures, or technology companies leveraging the
      power and methodology of Open Source software development. As part of its commitment to expanding the Open Source community, VA Linux
      Systems operates the Open Source Development Network (OSDN)."

      Take all the references to "Open Source" out, and you have a more accurate and to-the-point statement of what seems to be their current mission.
    • A leading "Open-Source" company is taking the work of the "community", repackaging it into a closed-source product and selling it corporations and government as a proprietary product.

      It is news because it highlights the death of the "Free Software" large-scale business model.

      • Not sure if there is really a lot of work of the "community" in the Sourceforge, sure there have been some patch submited mainly in localisation, but the bulk of the work has been done by the Sourceforge team, and many have complained that the development has not been that open and transparent. There have been an article about this in Slashdot last year but don't remember exactly when.
        • You are correct, of course, they cannot directly re-license the work of independent developers. Not directly, anyway.

          They CAN stop contributing to the GPL-version (they ARE the primary contributors) and extend the functionality of the application with proprietary modules. Who is to say those proprietary modules will not provide "enhanced" functionality that GPL'd code currently provides?

          The notion that the GPL can keep software free is a myth. The same tactics GNU uses to knockoff proprietary software can be used to proprietize GNU software. This job is even easier, since the source is available.

          The difficult part of creating software is designing it, tweaking it and finding/removing performance bottlenecks. The actual coding is not nearly as difficult. This why people & organizations patent the application of certain algorithms to certain problems.
    • It is news. It's an insult. They are just fostering the myth that open source is cute and fun for hippie-types, but not viable for a serious company. The model [tuxedo.org] is free the software, but sell the support and the customizations. You're good name, if you retain it, will bring in the revenue.
  • A closed source version of an open source community? Quite the oxymoron.

  • Let them make their money (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dodson (248550) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:23AM (#2212744)
    There is nothing wrong with selling value added extensions, as long as they aren't violating the lisence on the original body of code.

    The idea has always been pay for people not software.

    Custom modifications and services are the only way Open Source will survive.

    Free as in Freedom not Beer. Get it.
    • There is nothing wrong with selling value added extensions, as long as they aren't violating the lisence on the original body of code.

      Of course, if you own the copyright on that code, then you are free to relicence it any way you see fit.

      You can't change the terms of the licence by which I acquired my copy, but you can make it available from you exclusively under its new terms.

      Of course, if the original licence was GPL-like, then you can't stop me from redistributing my version (although you are free to ask me to stop, you can't force me to)

      Cheers,

      Tim
      • You are -ABSOLUTELY- correct. There were some instances of code that was submitted in some of the glue code that is ope nsource. I nthose cases we contacted those authors and licenced thier code so that we could do this legitimately.

        Chris DiBona

        (Speaking for VA)

    • Re:Let them make their money (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jeroenb (125404) on Friday August 24 2001, @08:28AM (#2212952) Homepage
      It's not about whether or not you can sell GPL'ed software for money or not. Ofcourse you can, nothing wrong with that.

      The only thing everyone seems to miss is that lots of people especially here on Slashdot keep claiming that the GPL will be the license of the future. That businesses will use it and everything will eventually become GPL. After all, information wants to be free, right?

      Now there is this company that has been saying for years that they support Linux and the concepts behind the GPL all the way. Now however, they are trying to find a way for their company to actually make money and the only thing they can come up with is to make proprietary extensions. That's a bit too ironic isn't it? How can you expect a company (meaning: wanting to make money) like Microsoft ever to see the merits of the GPL when a supposed supporter of the GPL turns to the Microsoft model (proprietary software) to make money? That's just ridiculous.

      So no, this is not violating any license or law, it's just a slap in the face of all those people who are trying to convince the world that the GPL is a viable license even for businesses.
      • I don't think that is the case. They are proposing making custom modifications for specific client needs. As long as these modifications are for internal use and not for redistribution by the customer, there is not slap in the face to the GPL.

        I don't think they are making modifications for say a company that sells a shrink rapped source/project management system. Who will then bundle and resell the product. They are making modifications for a customer who needs X in their own source/project management system to execute their business.

        There is no conflict in such a situation.
          • I understand that you were not saying there is a conflict with the GPL.

            I just don't see the slap in the face. The GPL built a robust code base that will be adequate for 95% of the people that use the software.

            We don't know what the nature of these custom modifications are. They may be something so specific that they would not have generated enough interest to be included in the main body of work.

            They may also be interfaces to proprietary systems (like SAP) that couldn't be developed without a change in the license.

            Now if the modifications turn out to be something that the general user base could have used and they end up being kept proprietary, then it will be a loss.

            I think we have to see how some of these mixed mode projects pan out before we will know for sure. But if companies don't try and discover some profitable synergy between GPL software and other lisences, then we may see a plunge in the availability of new software under such a lisence.

            I am going to reserve judgement and see how they handle this situation.

            Have a nice day.

  • What good is it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MSBob (307239) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:29AM (#2212763)
    I can't see why a company may want to deploy sourceforge on site. Maybe I never worked for a big enough company but unless you have hundreds of projects I can't really see why one might one to have sourceforge in the office. Even when I worked for my biggest ever employer they had some sixteen distinct projects and that was a company with well over a thousand employees. Where's the selling point?

    • Re:What good is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Jorrit (19549) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:49AM (#2212833) Homepage
      I think that a company will soon have a number of projects. Even if you only have three projects (which really isn't much for any company) then it is still nice to have a centralized point to control all this. SourceForge gives you cvs, bug tracker, support tracker, other trackers, message forums, mailing lists, ...

      I can certainly imagine this to be very useful for even smaller companies.

      Greetings,

    • Re:What good is it? (Score:4, Informative)

      by GordonMcGregor (27949) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:52AM (#2212840)
      My employer uses sourceforge internally.

      We have approx 8000 designers/ software engineers/ admin and so can quite happily share code and jointly develop projects.

    • Additionally I'd like to add that the value of SourceForge lies not in the number of projects that are hosted on it. Even with only one project in it something like SourceForge would be useful. At my work I only work on one projects (but there are more of course) but even so I would love to use SourceForge to keep track of bugs, supports requests, ...

      So to summarize. Even if you only use the SourceForge code for one project it is still useful.

      Greetings,

    • I can't see why a company may want to deploy sourceforge on site

      There's no way I could get my PHB to use an open off-site SourceForge. The corporate mentality just can't cope with it - they really would rather we shared nothing and we lost half our changes.

      After all, putting any of our product source into SourceForge means that it instantly becomes contaminated with the Cancer of Open Source (tm), and we would have to offer RMS a seat on the board. It must be true, he read it in Pointy Haired Weekly.

      If I have a copy of SourceForge that I can spend proper money on, and I then get to label a box in the machine room as "Our SourceForge machine", then I might get to use it.

      Oh, and VA Linux have to get some revenue from somewhere!

    • I can't see why a company may want to deploy sourceforge on site.

      I can't imagine any company wanting to use Sourceforge off-site. Think of the risks:

      • If anything happens to VA Linux or Sourceforge.net, you could be screwed.
      • Your company's IP is stored on a third-party server that's shared with thousands of other programmers outside the company. Who says it's secure? Sure it uses ssh, but that's only securing the connection. Who says it's still secure on the servers?
      • Keeping it all in-house means you have control over it. Don't want to upgrade? You don't have to!
      • You're not dependent on the Internet for access to your own source code. What if your ISP's router dies? Besides, the internal network is much faster.
    • I can't see why a company may want to deploy sourceforge on site. Maybe I never worked for a big enough company but unless you have hundreds of projects I can't really see why one might one to have sourceforge in the office. Even when I worked for my biggest ever employer they had some sixteen distinct projects and that was a company with well over a thousand employees. Where's the selling point?

      Oh this is *easy*. General Motors, my employer, whom does not necessarily share my opinions and for whom I do not speak, has *easily* 50-100 different software projects going on right now.

      None of of these are centralized efforts. They are scattered across different business units, even scattered across the globe. If they had could have one, centralized place to manage all of that source code, where developers could have access (or not have access, depending on setup) to different developers code, a lot of duplicated effort in the way of configuration management, and even in the realm of libraries and routine and such, could be eliminated.

      In fact, I'm thinking of writing up a proposal right now and sending it in to appropriate management. :)

  • Oracle on the back-end (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2001, @07:30AM (#2212768)
    In a recent meeting with some VA Reps, they mentioned that a closed-source package of Oracle hooks would be coming out in the future, at the request of many of their large customers.

    This was, of course, an answer to our question, "when will you support Oracle?" I felt funny asking that question, but OSS be damned. Oracle has it over any other database when it comes to performance and management.
    • this was the only plausible reason for making proprietary extensions - to provide 'embedded' interfaces proprietary software. Of course you have to make the interfaces between these extensions and the GPL SourceForge 'clean' in licensing terms.

      Otherwise - if VA had really been converted to proprietariness - they'd have just re-licensed the whole thing.
  • Simple fact, if VA Linux goes under they'll be taking SourceForge, Slashdot, and a bunch of others down with them. Its not like they're closing the source completly after having had people work on it openly, it another product (presumeably the GPL stuff (which remains GPL) with closed source extensions). So I say let them sell, coz the profits from such go toward keeping the pretty cool free stuff around.

  • Posted in defence on the trusted sight comment and (Score:3, Informative)

    by q-soe (466472) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:32AM (#2212778) Homepage
    Got modded down - well i thought you could leave it alone but then again who knows - it might have been offtopic there but i have been seeing the misinformed stories all day

    Reposted in CORRECT FORUM

    the end of the world as we know it

    Actually the story says that VA linux is going to sell some investigate ways to make some money from their software development and thus build some applications that move in new ways - this is perfectly reasonable as their employees have mouths to feed.

    I quote: (lifted without permission but maybe this wil stop the register being slashdotted)

    SourceForge is the new ERP - VA Linux
    By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
    Posted: 24/08/2001 at 07:49 GMT

    Barely six weeks ago VA Linux Systems was an open source hardware vendor. Now, the company is undertaking a Napoleonic retreat from the hardware business and it's doing the unthinkable: adding proprietary subscription software to its open source software flagship SourceForge.

    VA swallowed charges of around $230m in the last quarter - $160 million coming under the category of "impairment of goodwill and intangible assets", and almost $70 million as a one-time charge - contributing to a net loss for the quarter of $290 million as it liquidated its PC manufacturing and sales businesses.

    Costs will continue to affect the bottom line for two further quarters, said VA. Its Japanese subsidiary will continue to sell hardware, the company said, but that amounts to chump change.

    The new software-only VA expects to make an operating lost of $10 to $13 million on revenue of $3 to $4 million in the forthcoming quarter. With a cash pile of $83 million, that gives the company as little as six months to ramp revenue, or else seek new investment. VA said its burn rate will continue to decline, suggesting that more layoffs are to be expected.

    But CEO Larry Augustin is bullish. He says there was no competition for the distributed code management system SourceForge. Current development processes and tools haven't kept pace with geographically dispersed or ad hoc teams, according Augustin, who predicts that the impact of SourceForge could be as great as ERP or CRM.

    Typically VA deals with in-house developers using a range of tools (it cites Borland, Rational and Microsoft as well as GNU tools). The company emphasises that seeks to complement rather than supplant existing tools.

    VA is gunning for $600 revenue per seat per year - it claims that buyers typically see a return on investment within six months.

    Augustin talks of adding "proprietary software features and functionality" to the subscription version SourceForge. That VA is looks at the software-hoarding model to save the business is an irony a few will savour, but we guess that by now badly singed VA investors will simply be hoping it flies. ®

    IN OTHER WORDS

    They are not 'going closed source' they have had a subscription service for some time - the code is well developed and they are looking at new areas like ERP - they have a right to do it and if they dont they may very well be down the tubes.

    From someone who works in MIS and who's company has just spent AU$20 Million on SAP let me tell you that this is a field where some competitors would be good - there arent many new products that ar worth buying and three companies have it tied up - SAP, Peoplesoft and JD Edwards.

    And no - no company in their right mind would ever buy a free GPL erp system - these systems are the heart and sould of a business when you implement them - they do all payroll and accounting functions etc and no one would trust a product without a company with cash and controlled development backing it up.

    I have been accused in the past of defending MS - so it might seem strange for the people who can't see past the MS sucks argument to defend an open source company but im not that narrow minded.

    VA Linux have not sold out the GPL - they are simply running their free software projects and at the same time trying to make enough money to survive and build a new product in the meantime.

    And you can only attack them ?

    Christ have you stopped to think what this means if these guys get this right - ERP's are run on Windows or Unix Platforms - what this might give the world is a stable lower cost ERP alternative that is built on linux.

    The problem with free sourcing applications like this is that VA would be expected by their clients to do all the development work but by the brethern to give everyone that work for free and thus give competitors the chance to profit off their hard work when they adapt the code and havent got to pay for the development.

    Open source does not have to mean free IMHO - devlopment of corporate systems costs money - but maybe VA can start the ball rolling and we might win a few of those corporate file and app servers and some corporate desktops.

    So please no more meaningless VA have sold out posts - its boring and innacurate and they are only being posted here because they own Slashdot and your trying to be smart (and failing)

      • Umm im in the middle of a frigging huge SAP implementation - do i know what ERP is ?

        Oh god yes and i wish i didnt - ERP=Hell on Earth (BTW this is implementation 2 of this as 2 different companies and i used to sell and support R5 Camms and JD Edwards so yeah i know what ERP is - DO YOU ??

        The article talks (from what i can see) about being able to leverage sourceforge code to ERP type solutions

  • I saw them present this (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eagle7 (111475) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:41AM (#2212807) Homepage
    Some reps from VA came by and gave a presentation at my company regarding this product about 2 months ago.

    Its actually pretty neat - they'll set up your own internal sourceforge on servers in your organization. And while they are doing it, they'll customize it so that the backend works with all of your already establised CM and problem tracking tools.

    The idea is that even if your company makes closed software, you can benefit from a structured way to share code within the company. They can even close off portions with restricted access, so that classified projects (I work for a defense contractor) will only be available to the developers working on it.

    The product the and the services they bring with it are really amazing... if I was in charge of such things here, I'd switch over ASAP. I really hope they make a go with this.

  • Are they planning to sell buggy software ? (Score:4, Informative)

    by chrysalis (50680) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:43AM (#2212814) Homepage
    Sourceforge is a marvellous thing for developpers and it helps a lot the free software community.
    However, Sourceforge is very buggy. Sometimes the CVS server refuses authentication. Sometimes, uploading new releases is impossible. Sometimes, I have to authenticate dozens of time. And it doesn't like Opera.
    Maybe VA should fix Sourceforge before selling it.
    • If you are refering to yesterdays incident to refusing authentication then I'd like to add that this was a scheduled downtime of the CVS services. This downtime was announced on the Sourceforge Site Status page.

      Otherwise I have almost never problems with SourceForge and especially not with cvs. I use it daily (and more than once every day) for several of my projects without failure.

      Greetings,

  • VA logo graphics (Score:4, Funny)

    by aldjiblah (312163) on Friday August 24 2001, @07:44AM (#2212819)
    Is VA trying to draw its own logo [slashdot.org] with its stock graph [yahoo.com]?

    The V is getting a little to big, time to move on people.

    It does promise good times ahead though!

  • I'm happy about this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SweenyTod (47651) <<moc.dotyneews> <ta> <dotyneews>> on Friday August 24 2001, @07:48AM (#2212828) Homepage
    In my opinion, this is a good sign for companies in the future. I mean, we have a company demonstratably commited to open source able to or trying to make some money from their open source. I hope they succeed.

    To me it shows that they've understood how to make a living out of the free software fad, and are showing others how to make dollars out of the service industry. Good for them, and I truely thank them for what they've given me in the past, in the form of sourceforge.net and sites like /.
  • ...so now maybe some PHBs will take notice instead of being afraid of using hippie commie software to manage their projects...I sure know it would help around here...
  • People don't realize that there is a FEE in
    FREE. VA Linux is only using their right
    to sell Open Source/Free software (GLP'd)
    with proprietary extensions.
  • Polish up your resumes guys,and start recruituing volunteers to help you run /..

    From the article:

    And VA needs a proven business model. It reported revenue of $16 million Thursday; most of its loss was from its abandonment of Linux computer sales in favor of software and services. The company said $267 million of the loss was from non-cash charges for goodwill, intangible assets and restructuring charges because of VA's departure from the computer business
  • Uh I think it's called version management or change control or version libs or problem-queues or something like that. At any rate since the days of Panvalet or CA-something or PVCS we've had this function. All this is a more open ended spin on it. Open ended as in less process bound not open as in (Ta-Da) OPEN. This is great VA gets to sell a product and make some money doing it. What's the big forking deal?
  • Interesting... So what about any Source Forge code wirtten by external developers who did so under the terms of the GPL? Unless they signed over the copyright to VA, then VA can't do this (unless those developers agree to it and license them the code under a different license).

    Actually though I suspect this isn't an issue which leads me to a significant realization about the poor implemtnations of open source based businesses we've seen come out of the recent hype. What are the advantages of open source?

    1) Many eyes to find many bugs
    2) Large collaborative effort distributing cost of development

    Now, if Source Forge was all code written by people in-house, why is it open source? There is absolutely no business justification for this within their business model. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm glad they do it, hopefully out of a sense of community, not just a PR thing. But the result is that they are getting ALL of the drawbacks of open source and none of the benefits. No wonder VA is having financial problems and no wonder they have to make a proprietary version.
    People keep thinking that open source can't make money. That's only because we keep seeing a lot of companies make the same serious mistake, trying to develop an open source project in a proprietary development style then just opening the code.

    If you look at successful open source projects and companies who are making money off it, their approach is entirely different. RedHat actually gets it! They subsidize some of the cost of developing linux, but not all of it by any stretch. They release new products by taking existing open source projects, branding them, and then throwing some developers at it (see also RedHat's new Postgres database).

    Hopefully VA and the rest will soon learn that you can't set out and build an open source project overnight. It is something that has to grow organically by a bunch of geeks recognizing a common usefulness of a piece of software. If you try to force it, fronting proprietary development costs, and then just saying it's open source, your company will fail because it is not a sustainable model. Doesn't mean anything is wrong with open source, just means these people aren't doing it right.

  • Good for them (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HerrGlock (141750) on Friday August 24 2001, @09:11AM (#2213084) Homepage
    That is one of the things I really agreed with as a business model that gives back.

    Make the most current version closed source and binary only, then each time a new version is out, put the last one into an open source license.

    Everybody wins. Sorta like how patents were SUPPOSED to work.

    DanH

  • this is how it should all work anyhow (Score:3, Insightful)

    by the_2nd_coming (444906) on Friday August 24 2001, @09:27AM (#2213171) Homepage
    as long as the base is free and open (I.E. the main program and all the protocols and file formats) then the programs built on top of that base can be either open or closed, it does not matter. what is the one reason that MS is hated?
    because they place a barrior to entry to compete with their products. if windows, the protocols, and the file formats were all open and under the GPL and they sold word and office as a proprietary tool, I would have no issues with them, however, the barrior to entry is huge because they don't let anyone see anything.
    that is why Linux is so great, everything you need to compete equaly is available free and open. the sam priciple applies to sourceforge, the base system is open and free, this allows anyone to compete in this arena, VA is adding extentions to the system that are proprietary, to add value that is exclusive to VA, another company can come along and take the base code and add proprietay extentions on it to make its sourceforge have features that are exclusive to that companies product. nothing wrong with that, just let the market sort them out.

  • Lets be realistic about LNUX (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica (166957) on Friday August 24 2001, @09:32AM (#2213187)
    The target market for proprietary SourceForge extensions is tiny. The market for SourceForge at all, even the free version, above and beyond plain CVS is small as it stands.

    While its admirable for a company to strike out for new business, its probably time for the VA execs to fess up to the reality of it - the negative momentum on earnings is too much for the stock to bear. Once LNUX inevitably goes under $1, the dilution of the stock will bring the market cap to ridiculously low levels. Once the market cap gets under $80 million, the assets of the company are valued more than its valuation as a publically traded company (I believe VA has $83 million cash and securities).

    Why not just sell off the assets and simply redistribute the funds to shareholders? Really, this isn't a slag on the company or its employees - the math is simply against them. Morningstar has given them five more quarters and then they predict it is all over for them.

    I can't figure out why companies insist on spending every last dollar when its obvious that it isn't going to happen.

  • Saw This on a Slashdot Banner Ad! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Milican (58140) on Friday August 24 2001, @10:14AM (#2213383) Journal
    Well I found out about sourceforge last week. The funny thing is a banner ad at slashdot tipped me off. The company I work for happens to be in the market for collaboration software. Unfortunately, I was too late to throw this one the bucket. The decision had already been made for another product.

    After talking to a sales rep from VA Linux on the phone the advantage of buying sourceforge [valinux.com] is support. Which I'm sure is the same reason businesses buy RedHat. Time is money to business and I know first hand we cannot be down from a bug in software or at the mercy of newsgroups for technical support answers. What I found really interesting is VA Linux no longer sells hardware, but they do still provide support. Anyway, good move VA Linux. I really appreciate the open source collaboration sourceforge provides and I think its a great move to supply the same great tools at a price to businesses for proprietary development. Lets hope their stock prices reflect this decision.

    JOhn

      • The authors hold the copyright. It is released under GPL. If you violate the GPL and use the code of the authors, you are either acting under their special permission (likely paid for) or you are breaking copyright law.

        If VA is writing extensions to Source forge, I can't comment... it's a complex issue. Are they or are they not derrivative works?

        • If VA is writing extensions to Source forge, I can't comment... it's a complex issue. Are they or are they not derrivative works?

          First of all VA may have asked the authors to sign over copyright to them - as the FSF does. It's believed by many that this makes it easier to defend against GPL violations. I don't know whether this has happened or not - but I'd guess not.

          Simply charging for distribution of GPL'd software - is not a violation of the GPL. The only possibly violation would be whether the 'extensions' together with the GPL'd stuff constitute a 'derived work' or merely an 'aggregate work'. That's what I meant about 'clean' interfaces.

          My guess would be that we're talking about stand-alone programs which can be called by SourceForge with specific command line flags, input files etc. The fact that they are really designed to be used with SourceForge doesn't matter so long as they can be seen to be distinct programs.

          From what someone else said - it looks as though these extensions are actually doing is talking to Oracle databases. So they have to make these extensions separate and proprietary in order to be able to interface with Oracle and not violate the GPL on the core software. It's a compromise based on the fact that their large customers want Oracle integration.

      • It does not matter.

        They can take sourceforge and sell it right now in its entire form as a closed source product if they want.

        So many people have missed this.

        Think of Quake I and idsoftware. They released it under the GPL and will sell it too you proprietary for your own purposes IF you want to pay.

        Sourceforge is doing the same thing.. They can sell the "GPL'd" version under any lic they want, they own the software.

        Jeremy
        • They can sell the "GPL'd" version under any lic they want, they own the software.

          Yes they can - if they really do own the software

          The big question is - do they? Have the non-VA contributors signed over their copyright? And - something I've always wondered - how much of a contribution do you have to make to allow you to block this? If I make a 1 line change and submit a patch (C) Me - do they now have to consult me on licensing decisions? or is my work not considered significant enough to warrant that level of protection?

      • How hypocritical is it that the people who run this site, while espousing the virtues of open source take an open-sourced program and make it proprietary.

        While they will have a "Source Forge - Open Edition", there will undoubtably be features in the "Enterprise" edition missing from the GPL'd release. Is this fair to those who have contributed to SourceForge on a voluntary and uncompensated basis? Will the open-source contributers receive royalties from the commercial product?

        Where is JonKatz and CmdrTaco crying out against this now? I guess moral superiority stops at the hands of those who sign their checks.
          • The people controlling the site are the people who hold the pursestrings.

            People are free to change their mind of course, but it does not help your credibility when you turn away from a license or a philosophy that is espoused as the only righteous and moral path by the "community".

            What is hypocritical is that employees of VA Linux, namely the editors of this site, constantly and consistantly challenge the validity of copyright & patents as it pertains to "bad" organizations.

            Will those feelings change when VA feels the need to defend it's intellectual property? How about when Slash become a proprietary product? You better believe it.

            Feel free to moderate down to -1 Troll. I don't agree with the hivemind, sorry.
            • I think you need to understand that once something is GPL'd, you can't un-gpl the released software. For instance, if for some reason the slash code has only been written by folks in VA, (assume no pathces for this argument), and we release version 2.2 under the gpl and from that moment on we never release again, slash is still available uinder the GPL. You can't un-gpl software.

              I don't think that will ever happen, mind you. But if it did then fork it and do your own. In fact the same thing goes with SF. IF you want to write the interfaces to rational, pvcs , and open it up. Go for it. Have fun. This is part of what open source is all about.

              Honestly, sometimes I think that 99% of open source software is the willingness to do the work. I don't want to sound blasphemous, but it's just software. Anyone can write software and release it. And , looking at some of the code (oss and proprietary) just about anyone has.

              Chris DiBona

              (speaking for VA)

    • It's that little part not in italics at the end that says "VA is Slashdot's corporate parent."


      Christ, we used to not bother reading the linked-to stories, then we stopped reading the whole Slashdot stories, and now we're not even reading the whole teaser before we post a reply?

    • SourceForge doesn't contain any code borrowed from other GPLed programs, does it? If it does, how are they going to get away with this? Am I the only one who sees the irony in a "Linux" company violating the GPL?

      sf itself is collection of PHP scripts which interface to various tools -- most of which are not GPL'd -- including PostgreSQL, CVS, ssh, Amanda, etc. There's a page listing the various tools they use. sourceforge as a broader concept is a service, kind of like rackspace.com for your software.

      sf is almost certainly not closing the source of the version they sell to companies, though they probably do restrict its distribution. What they are doing is charging for custom modification, such as working with existing project and QA systems. These versions are not distributed to the public, and thus are considered "internal". And it's perfectly within the spirit of the GPL, because there is an otherwise very functional core that is actively developed under the GPL, and not under the complete control of VA. This is that support model that Open Source folks have been going on about ... or did you think support was just about staffing a helpdesk?

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