Can an Open Source Project Be Acquired?

prostoalex writes "Can an open source project be acquired? ZDNet's Between The Lines says yes, one just did. Software startup JasperSoft acquired Sourceforge-based project JasperReports, which involved acquiring the copyrights and hiring the lead developer for the project." I guess the point he tries to make is that the new corporate overloads can essentially have a free and non-free version of the code, and more or less orphan the free version. The problem of course is that if the non-free version gets good, others will simply fork.

Not possible in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in some large parts of the EU, for example Germany and Austria: You cannot sell the copyright to the work you did or give it away in some other way. It's just not possible. But of course you can sell exploitation rights.

Yes

[kevin_conaway]

The author answers his own question in the first sentence of the article (emphasis mine):

Here's a wrinkle that many devotees of open source either don't know about or don't talk about: Open source projects can get acquired by commercial software companies.

JasperReport announcement text

[Anonymous Coward]

Open Source Company JasperSoft to Advance JasperReports

A new company called JasperSoft (http://www.jaspersoft.com) has formed to invest in JasperReports and offer support, services and complimentary commercial products for JasperReports. I will be joining JasperSoft as Founder and Architect for JasperReports. This will allow me to work full-time on JasperReports enhancements, and direct a new team of professional open source developers to accelerate the JasperReports roadmap.

JasperReports has become more popular than I ever imagined it would. And the community has been demanding a higher level of investment and advancement in JasperReports than I alone can deliver, even working full-time. JasperSoft will help to increase the investment in JasperReports by adding full-time professional open source developers to the project.

JasperReports will stay open source forever, and its advancement will accelerate with the additional resources now being applied to it. JasperSoft and I are committed to investing in, and building the best open source reporting products available.

JasperSoft will also offer Support and Services for JasperReports, which a number of JasperReports customers have been requesting. See http://www.jaspersoft.com/services_tech_support.ph p for more information.

JasperSoft is a new company, headquartered in San Francisco that was formed by a combination of open source and commercial reporting domain experts. We have some of the brightest minds in the world now working on JasperReports. JasperSoft also has a commercial product line, JasperDecisions that will offer complimentary capabilities for advanced functionality to the JasperReports community. The JasperDecisions product line consists of:

Scope Server: a java server-based operational reporting solution for interactive, self-serve reporting and analytics.

Scope Designer: a swing-based report designer for Scope Server report development.

JasperDecisions is currently deployed in over 50 leading corporations and ISV's including IBM, British Telecom, Informatica and the US Department of Defense.

Today, JasperDecisions is based on its own XML report definition, called RDL (Report Definition Language) and does not support JRXML at this time. However, future versions of Scope Server will have support for JasperReports. For more information on JasperDecisions, see http://www.jaspersoft.com/products_jsps.php

This is a significant day for JasperReports, which has graduated from an open source project developed and supported by me when I could find time, to an open source product supported by a community of developers around the world, and now backed by a company and a team of professional open source developers who are committed to building the best available open source solution. I hope you will continue to work with me to make JasperReports better than ever.

Teodor

No, the sky is not falling.

[dutchd00d]

According to http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/message.html [sourceforge.net]:

JasperReports will stay open source forever

So it's probably premature to cry wolf.

So what?

[spiritraveller]

Yes, like any software project, someone can come along, acquire the copyrights and rerelease it under whatever license they want.

The difference with open source is that you have to track down individual contributors. With any popular open source project, it's going to be very difficult to find and get all those contributors to sell you their copyrights.

Even still, versions released prior to the buyout would still be subject to the GPL (for example) and only new versions could be made non-free.

Yes, it can happen. No it isn't anything to worry about.

It can be tricky...

[Spoke]

It can be tricky to acquire the Copyright an open source project if there are multiple developers involved, as each one will need to agree to the aquisition.

Unless each developer who submits code to the project also turns over the copyright to a single entity, it can only take 1 developer to dissent and prevent the aquisition from happening except under the terms of the original license.

Re:I'm sorry, what?

[swv3752]

Netscape.

Re:You -Really- Don't Get This?

[photon317]

There are some subtleties that most people don't realize, however.

For the sake of example, assume a given project has only a single author. Said author owns the copyright to the code, and distributes it to the public in an unrestricted fashion under the terms of the GPL.

If a random member of the public wanted to fork/commercialize his code, they are bound by the GPL to keep re-releasing their changes under the GPL. However if the original Author wanted to fork his own work and make a commercial effort out of it, he can do that and make his future contributions proprietary, as the GPL doesn't apply to the Author himself (he didn't license it to himself, he owns the copyright to begin with).

Therefore, it is entirely possible for an individual author to write and maintain a peice of free software for years, and then fork his own work into a proprietary commercial derivative that nobody has any future rights to the code of except him. What he cannot do, of course, is revoke any code he already published under the GPL. This leaves his user community able to pick up the work from the last GPL version the Author released and continue the effort under the terms of the GPL.

However, most significant projects have multiple Authors, and all of the Authors would have to agree on this course of action in order to do it. That's why such a thing can't really happen to a body of work like glibc, gcc, or the linux kernel: there are far too many authors with the copyrights in the code all over the place, and you could never get them to all agree to come under one commercial roof together and make a proprietary fork.

Re:I'm sorry, what?

[Redfriar]

I think if you take a look at the TOra [sourceforge.net] project, you'll see an example of the closed fork doing worse than the open one. TOra stands for Toolkit for Oracle, it is a feature competitor to Quest Software's TOAD toolkit.

I was thrilled when I found TORa, and when I found the project had a windows port. It's DDL/Data extraction is by far the best feature for my day-to-day work.

At some point, Quest Software hires the TOra developer, and closes the source on the Windows port. I was still so enamoured with TOra that I pestered the Quest sales staff monthly to find out when it will hit the price sheet, so I can buy the now closed version. I don't think they ever intended to sell a competing product, though.

So, 9-12 months later, the Windows port is defunct [globecom.net], with Quest claiming that all features of TOra are now available in Toad.

I wouldn't call this a successful acquisition, unless you count Quest Software (for squishing a competing product) or the original developer of TOra (which, I admit, has to make a living some how). Perhaps you could count Mac and Linux users as winners here, as they still enjoy an open-licensed version, whose developer is now on a steady payroll related to the project.

Had they kept TOra intact for Windows users, and priced it competitively with TOAD, I would have been happy to be a paying customer.

Re:You -Really- Don't Get This?

[maxwell demon]

Well, actually for code in the GNU project (GCC, glibc, etc.), you have to assign copyright to the FSF in order to contribute your code to the official version. Therefore from a copyright perspective, the FSF could actually make any such code proprietary. Of course actually it cannot anyway, because part of the copyright assignment contract is AFAIK that the FSF contracts not to do that, so if they did it anyway, it would be breach of contract (which is unrelated to copyright). Not that I'd suspect the FSF of a desire to do so. ;-)

Re:Looks good to me...

[tomhudson]

What happens if the author removes all the links to the sourcecode though, are you legally entitled to ask for it?

for 3 years only copy of the gpl [tortoisecvs.org]

Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

Of course, after 3 years the code is pretty stale anyway, so the only people who would want it would be litigious bastards [sco.com] so that they could incorporate it into their trailing-edge products.

And there's always the wayback machine, the internet archive, etc ...

Tora anyone

[IvanHo]

Quest basically acquired Tora to kill-off one of the biggest "competitors" to their Toad product.

A GPL version is still available from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tora/ [sourceforge.net]

But, for how long? Will development continue?

Re:I'm sorry, what?

[swv3752]

Netscape. Worse in Security and worse in bloat.

Re:GPL not retractable

[mindstrm]

No.. as the original author of some code, I am not bound by the GPL.. it's MY code, I can do whatever i want with it, including license it to whoever I want under whatever terms I want. The GPL is irrelevant to me.

The only thing I can't do is revoke the GPL from code I've already released.. you are still free to distribute that code as long as you follow the terms. I myself, however, have no obligations towards you.

Re:Not possible in the EU

[Cow Jones]

There is no such thing as a "copyright" in Germany and Austria. You're probably referring to the "Urheberrecht", which is a very different concept. It can't be registered, it can't be sold, but it can be passed on to your heirs.

Re:Copyright Assignment at FSF

[cheesedog]

Found it. Here's an example [madnom.com].

So why is this not easily accessible at www.fsf.org?

Re:Copyright Assignment at FSF

[k98sven]

The FSF describes, generally, how assignment of copyright to the FSF works for GNU projects, but I am having a devil of a time finding a copy of the assignment questionnaire that they mention.

Yes, that's because the FSF purposefully doesn't have them available online. The reason is that the FSF has several different assignment forms depending on what kind project you are contributing to (e.g. original work or an implemenatation of something else), on what kind of contribution you're making (new original code or old code) and depending on whether your employer (if any) possibly has claims to your work.

Too many people were filing the wrong forms, and it was wasting time.

Does anyone know what this thing looks like? Surely it involves more than emailing the maintainer and saying "I assign the copyright of my contribution to the FSF?"

Yes, they want a paper form, signed and mailed. Typically it'll require you to confirm that all your contributions are your own original work and that your employer does not have claims to your work.
(This being the form for original contributions where the employer has no claim. If you have an employer who might have a claim they want a different form where the employer waives all claims.)

Article missleading: project not exactly bought!

[Arkan]

The article author should have checked the relevant URL: http://jasperreports.sourceforge.net/message.html

It says, black on white, that the company "(...)called JasperSoft (http://www.jaspersoft.com) has formed to invest in JasperReports(...)". "Has formed to invest in". Not "has bought the project". The project has spawned a company, that it.

Again, a wannabee journalist spinning some "news" on the basis that its brainwashed readers won't read the original announcement.

Could some please teach those guys how to read, and how to report unpartially?

--
Arkan

Urheberrecht translated.

[infonography]

For clarification purposes here is the full text translated [216.239.39.104] In Germany one proceeds from a uniform copyright, with which the protection of the material as well as the economic interests are closely with each other connected (so-called monistische theory). Copyright is therefore explained for in principle untransferable. Copyright is by the copyright law and used patent rights ( copyright law - UrhG) of 1965 regulated, last extends by the law for the regulation of the copyright in the information society of 2003 , which particularly with Multimedia applications is concerned. It belongs to the commercial legal protection and thus to private law .

Happened to SSH...

[BookRead]

IIRC this happened to the original version of SSH. It was originally an Open Source project, then later versions were progressively closed down until SSH Communications took it proprietary. The BSD folks picked up the last version that was truly open and made OpenSSH. Of course, one of the things that allowed it to work was that it became a standard that could be written to.

Re:Not possible in the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true.

Under US law, several distinct rights exist as part of copyright law:

- reproduction (the right to make copies)
- distribution (the right to sell or otherwise distribute copies)
- adapation (the right to create derivative works)
- performance and display rights

The owner can sell or license any of these rights separately. So you can sell a right to copy without selling the right to make modifications (derivative works). Just because someone can sell prints of the Mona Lisa doesn't mean they can create a painting with a moustache on the Mona Lisa and sell prints of that, too.

Section 106A of the US Copyright Act of 1976 covers rights of attribution and integrity, which are sometimes called "moral rights", and are probably what you are thinking of. In addition to their presence in the Copyright Act of 1976, these rights are also required by the Berne Convention.

Authors of works of visual art have the rights to:
- claim authorship of a work
- prevent use of his name as the author of any work he didn't create
- prevent use of his name as author in the event of "distortion, mutilation, or other modification of the work which would be prejudicial to his or her honor or reputation"
- prevent any intentional distortion, mutilation, etc.
- prevent any destruction of a work of recognized stature, and any intentional or grossly negligent destruction of that work

The next to last right prohibits "vandalizing" a painting in the sense of the original post; the last point covered literally vandalizing it. These rights always belong to the original creator and cannot be transferred, but may be waived.

The biggest missing piece here is the language that restrictions the rights of attribution and integrity to "works of visual art", as opposed to say written works.

Re:JasperReport announcement text

[hey!]

JasperReports will stay open source forever, and its advancement will accelerate with the additional resources now being applied to it.

Well, then it's a good thing.

As a JasperReports user, I can say the system is fundamentally sound and well designed, but squirrely to use. The big picture stuff is great, but it needs a major dose of attention to detail (like documentation for example). It also needs a decent set of design tools. Out of a half dozen people working with this product at my work place, I'm the only one able to have consistent success with it.

There's no reason this product can't take out crystal reports -- it's basically sound and very powerful, it just lacks polish.

Comments from the horses mouth

[bearklaw]

Hi all, I'm an employee at JasperSoft, and I would like to take some time to clear up some misconceptions going around in this discussion about JasperReports and JasperSoft. First off, nobody ever said anything about JasperReports becoming closed source. JasperReports will always remain open source, and the open source projectwill continue to be enhanced. We are helping Teodor Danciu (the author of JasperReports) devote more time to JasperReports and bring on more contributers. Frankly, to acquire all the rights to a successful open source project and then close the source would be insane - what's the point? Take a look as JBoss as an example of a company doing similar work. They have "acquired" Hibernate, Nukes, jBPM, etc in a manner very similar to what we have done with JasperReports. I think there is concern here because JBoss is an open source company, and the ZD story calls us "a commercial software company". We (and JBoss) are both - a commercial company that offers open source software. The commercial side makes its profit by selling support and services, and possibly add-on functionality. Personally I think a lot of the discussion here is ignoring the real question - "what does the acquisition mean to current users of JasperReports?" The heart and soul of an open source project consist of the developers AND the community using and enhancing the project. What does JasperSoft mean to the JasperReports users? It means that JasperReports development will continue, and that Teodor Danciu will spend more time working on it than he could previously. It means people who want to use JasperReports but require support will have a place to go to. -Barry Klawans

Re:I'm sorry, what?

[Goo.cc]

How about OpenSSH vs SSH?

I did this two years ago

[hpj]

I was the main developer and copyright holder to the open source project TOra (Still on sourceforge at tora.sf.net) and it was acquired and I was hired by the company Quest Software.

One important aspect was that all code (I was carefull about getting copyright to any patches I applied at the time) was owned by me and I was the only person with CVS write access. Otherwise it probably wouldn't have been posible.

Also, at the time I lived in Sweden (Which is part of the EU) so the talk about this not being posible in the EU is simply not true since I've done it.

What happened with the purchase was that Quest forked the code and the designs and in some parts the code was used in Quests own projects. The original project is still very much alive and active though.