Open Source Business Found Parasitic, and the ADCL

[Ralph Mellor]

> what license should one use (or can a license be created) that
> creates a symbiotic relationship between commercial and free
> software.

An interesting question. (To begin to narrow down the answers,
I'll start by noting it's obviously not one that is parasitic.)


> Now, I must admit there are a few success stories of commercial
> Open Source products. But I would argue these are far and few
> between, and the overhead of accomplishing such a success is
> cost prohibitive for most smaller entities.

Welcome to the free market: adapt or die. I'm not trying to be
awkward; I'm emphasizing that you need to think in terms of
evolution.


> a services and support business does not scale well, whereas
> the sale (rather licensing to be precise) of soft goods has
> proven to be a very effective business model.

If you're selling software with characteristics that mean you
don't/won't have serious OSS competition, then keep right on
selling it. If OSS is encroaching, then you'd better adapt
faster than both OSS and your proprietary competition, and
that may mean you have to accept a model that generates one
hundredth the revenue.


> So we have two diametrically opposed forces- the free world and the
> paid license world. It's interesting that when the "not-free" world
> tries to move in the direction of the "free" world, there is little
> or no budge from the free world to accomodate this.

Personally I think the forces aren't diametrically opposed, they are
pretty much unrelated. Kinda like democracy and capitalism. To the
degree they are related, the key is for a democratic constitution to
establish limits to abridgement of freedoms by capitalist forces.

But if you wish to see it them as diametrically opposed, then perhaps
the analogy is democracy versus communism. Should democracies alter
their constitutions in order to trade more freely with communist
states? I don't think so.

It's really just a case of welcome to the free world: adapt or die.


> I obviously cannot speak for all commercial entities, but from my own
> perspective, one major point is being overlooked here. Generally
speaking,
> there are very small portions of a product that contain truly
proprietary
> algorithms and/or intellectual property. Thus, there is generally a
> significant portion of a product that a company may be willing to open
> source (without a Capital "O" and Capital "S").

Mozilla/Netscape. Darwin/OSX. etc.


> So what we're really looking for is a license called "Partially Open
> Source" or "Commercial Open Source" that will allow a company to
> protect small portions of a larger product.

MPL etc.


> the OSD. But if there is zero interest here in a Partial Open Source
> license, then I believe that ultimately the commercial world will
> form a consortium to address this concept.

It really seems you completely miss the point of the OSI! To
quote their home page "Open Source Initiative exists to make
[the open source] case to the commercial world." You may feel
it is/has failed, but the interest level is not only non-zero,
it's actually 100%, as it's the entire point of OSI's existence.


--
Ralph Mellor

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