SugarCRM 6 Released, But Is It Open Source? 357
darthcamaro writes "SugarCRM markets itself as a professional open source company and this week released version 6 of its Sugar platform. But the main new feature is a new user interface that isn't available to users of the community version — it's only available to paying users. No they don't claim to be open core either, they claim it's all open source, even if you have to pay for it. '"Open source doesn't mean free and was never really meant to mean free," Martin Schneider, senior director of communications at SugarCRM, said. "Open source runs through everything we do, it enables us to be transparent and gives customers more power. We are an open source company and it's why we're better than proprietary companies."'"
He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing about open source that means no cost.
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Not directly.
But (AFAIK) if you pay for an open source (as OSI defines it) product, you are allowed to copy and give it away at no cost.
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Not directly.
But (AFAIK) if you pay for an open source (as OSI defines it) product, you are allowed to copy and give it away at no cost.
That depends upon the license used. With the GPL and BSD, then you're absolutely right.
However, there could be an open source license that doesn't allow this. Find a counter-example is left as a problem for the reader.
Re:He's right (Score:4, Insightful)
If there were it wouldn't be open source. Anything that would prevent this would prevent you from modifying and distributing your modified version. That is the core of open source and without that ability a license isn't open source.
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I think Microsoft came up with one, shared source.
visible source (Score:2)
I'd call it "visible source"
Re:He's right (Score:5, Informative)
Has anyone here actually read the article (I know, stupid assumption). SugarCRM has a dual licence. There's a "Community Edition" and a "Professional Edition" (also an Enterprise Edition, but that's not different from Professional - it's just the support offers sort of thing as far as I recall).
Now the Professional Version is obviously not "closed source" because it's a great sprawling PHP application so they have to give you the source. But that doesn't make it "Free Software". It requires a licence on a per user basis. In contrast, the Community Version is what we call "Badgeware". You can download it free, you can deploy it free with whatever users you like and you're free to make and distribute plugins and such for it. But you can't remove the SugarCRM logo and weblink for example. (In fact, there are some amusing little attempts to prevent people from doing that in the code, e.g. the legal notice that comes up if you alter the SugarCRM image doesn't appear as text in the files, but encoded as base64).
Anyway, there's an open sourcish community around the Community Edition that write tools for it. But, IMO, the whole thing doesn't feel very open sourcey. What it comes down to is not an issue of programming, so much as it comes down to business needs. SugarCRM has a system of "modules" - pluggable business entities such as Contacts, Product Lists, Accounts, etc. The great big difference between the Community and Professional versions is that the Professional version comes with additional modules. And for most businesses (I would say), they're modules that you really need. There are various other bits and pieces like the Professional Edition supports workflows whereas the Community Edition does not.
What it comes down to, is that SugarCRM has a community edition which serves as a good bit of PR, a hook to get in new users and a source of occasional free bug-fixes. But most serious businesses - the ones who actually are potential customers - will end up needing the features of the non-Free Professional Edition. There are attempts to replicate some of what the Professional Edition does in the Community one, but from what I've seen they don't really compare and of course the company itself isn't helping much because primarily they want people to buy the Professional Edition to get those features. Their forums are also littered with unanswered technical questions. If you're a paying customer and you file a support request with them, you get fixes (in my limited experience with them), but if you're a Community type asking questions on the forums, you take your chances. It would also be pretty difficult to make any substantial changes to the code base because you're always tailing the Professional Edition which SugarCRM control. So if you write a wonderful new thing for it (the do-it-yourself Open Source way), expect there to be a good chance that it will be incompatible shortly.
I actually quite like the model of a free version of software and then a paid-for pro version with extra coolness. It's a model that works well. But when you combine that with Open Source, it becomes a little more dubious (maybe) because there's the possibility that you use the name of Open Source but create a system where in practice, people can't meaningfully participate and it's primarily a hook into the paid version. This is where I feel SugarCRM are. I have no doubt that there are people using the Community Edition for business purposes, but I think what I describe is the bird's eye view of the situation.
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ie. they use the "open core" model like what the submitter hinted at: have an open source portion of your system but for any practical use you need to buy the 'professional edition'.
El reg had a small discussion about this a while back due to in part this blog post [ebb.org].
IMHO this is a business/marketing decision that will alienate open source fans. I have had to use similarly-licensed software in the past, don't think I'll actively pitch in with new features or submit bugreports for either the open or licensed v
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I actually quite like the model of a free version of software and then a paid-for pro version with extra coolness. It's a model that works well. But when you combine that with Open Source, it becomes a little more dubious (maybe) because there's the possibility that you use the name of Open Source but create a system where in practice, people can't meaningfully participate and it's primarily a hook into the paid version. This is where I feel SugarCRM are. I have no doubt that there are people using the Community Edition for business purposes, but I think what I describe is the bird's eye view of the situation.
Although I agree with you about the model of a free version of software and then a paid-for pro version, it never works out in practice. Just look at Star Office and the mess it caused when people tried to commit patches to Open Office. Sun would require the patchers to give them copyright on the code, and very few would do that, hence go-oo was born. Oracle is making an even bigger mess of it, even though Star Office has been dropped and is now part of Open Office.
About the only good implementation is Red
Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
I actually installed the community edition of SugarCRM a few years ago. My take on it is that it's got the right problem (a big, big, big part of creating a great piece of software), but that the system design and implementation is painfully amateurish. The database schema was an incoherent joke, the code meandering, verbose and inarticulate. There's no reason for code (even PHP) to be that bad.
Obviously a huge amount of work went into the thing. The kind of work you do when you've got a poorly thought out system and real customers to satisfy. The thing about that kind of work is that if you hack away at a system long enough *in response to customer needs*, eventually it will fill those needs fairly well. Being badly engineered doesn't preclude providing value to users. We certainly found it useful, but whenever I had to fix a bug or tweak something, I was constantly amazed that the system worked at all.
Now we all know there are two schools of thought about software development: the incrementalist (make the software work even if it is ugly) and the purist (make it elegant even if you have to rewrite it). The reason these two schools persist is that they are both right in different situations. There are times you have to live with less than elegant, and times when you have to bite the bullet and do major rewrites. I think most successful programmers balance these impulses, tidying up and refactoring as they fix bugs and meet customer's needs. The sign of a skillful programmer is that the more he works on a body of code, the simpler and more elegant it becomes. But when you have a gawdawful mess like SugarCRM, it makes no sense to invest anything more than occasional trivial effort unless you're willing to commit to a complete fork. You'd have to do major refactoring unless you were willing to spend all your time hacking your way through cruft, and the SugarCRM folks probably wouldn't because they actually understand all that unnecessary complexity.
Overall I'd say that SugarCRM is a useful, but mediocre piece of software. If you can live with its limitations, it is an asset, particularly in a small business where you have to introduce management to the novel concept of CRM before getting them to part with money. SugarCRM is not much of an asset to F/OSS, because it's not likely to attract many talented contributors to the core system, yet discourages them from developing competing solutions because it is "good enough" for not-too-demanding users.
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Quite an insightful and valid assessment, as I have worked on it. The major work I ended up doing aside from configuring the basic objects involved lots and LOTS of jQuery to make the UI more responsive and add in non-Sugar JS widgets (which were fed json with a seperate data model layer I wrote myself). Overall, this suite really pales in compar
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If there were it wouldn't be open source. Anything that would prevent this would prevent you from modifying and distributing your modified version. That is the core of open source and without that ability a license isn't open source.
The term "open" means the source is open for you to view and perhaps compile for yourself. That's it. The problem with today's open source movement is that people now automatically assume that because something is open source, it must be free. There's more benefit to being open source than just being free. You can view the source and see exactly what's powering the program, run your own audits, find your own bugs, and make sure that what's running on your machine is exactly and only what you want running on
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Wrong. "Open Source" is defined by the OSI and besides letting you view the source, it must let you distribute it for free.
http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org]
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Open source was not a term that was in use before the the open source definition. It was described as "comes with source code" or "source code available" or similar.
No.
Open Source, as applied to software, was never in use before Eric Raymond/Open Source Initiative started using it. The term "Open Source" was invented to be distinct from more strict definition of "Free Software". Please note that similar definition used by the other OSI founder, Bruce Perens, is called "Debian Free Software Guidelines" and does not mention anything "open" -- when it was created, the term Open Source Software did not exist.
The term "Open" (without "source") was routinely applied to softw
Re:He's right (Score:4, Funny)
Have you tried actually reading the first criteria of the open source definition?
http://opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org]
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Section 1 only requires that redistribution rights be granted to people when made a part of an aggregate work from multiple sources.
This means you are not guaranteed the right to just copy the code out to anyone and everyone... without created an aggregate work.
Re:He's right (Score:5, Funny)
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That's nice. However, there are other sections besides section 1. They aren't there just to help with the feng shui of the site.
Naturally, and I'd be happy to cover any of the other sections.
Section 3 provides that one can freely distribute modifications and derivative works. We weren't talking about a modified or derivative work, we were talking about redistributing the original.
So I change a few labels then redistribute .......
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Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
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This isn't wikipedia, do you own research. You can start by not being lazy and looking at the main OSI site [opensource.org].
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Someone else already pointed to http://opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org] but he pointed to requirement 1. It's actually 3.
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You deny Section 1, but claim Section 3.
Section 3 only requires the right to distribution to be granted when there is a modification or derivative work.
Section 3 cannot be used to justify simply copying the source code and sending it out to anyone.
Re:He's right (Score:4, Insightful)
When did I deny section 1? I just said it isn't the relevant section.
Change the title and you'd fall under section 3, package it alongside the source to any of the required libraries and you'd fall under section 1.
Any way you slice it, there is no license that could in any practical manner prevent free redistribution and still be open source let alone free software.
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No, Snowgirl is right. Though I see you got your +1 Sounds Confident mods. What you are describing is Free (capital 'F') software, also known as "libre" software. Open Source does not mean anything other than you have the source available. For example, so you can inspect it for security reasons, so you can make in-house only changes. Free Software however, is what you get under the GPL. Free Software must of course be Open Source, but the inverse is not the case.
Hear that booming tread? That's Richard S
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No, Snowgirl is right. [...] Open Source does not mean anything other than you have the source available. For example, so you can inspect it for security reasons, so you can make in-house only changes
No. It used to be fairly common to sell software with source code, with explicit restriction that it may not be redistributed: source was only provided for in-house use. That is certainly not open source.
Open Source does imply the right to redistribute, and that's explicitly allowed in every OSI license, snowgirl's legalistic quibbling notwithstanding: the definition referred is not a license or any other legally binding document, and if someone really tried to make a license that explicitly forbids redistr
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I remember those days, believe it or not. :) No, that really was (and still is) open source. What we have going on here, is a group (the OSI) attempting to re-define Open Source to be synonymous with Free Software. Perhaps one day they will succeed and we'll have to start referring to any open source softw
Re:He's right (Score:4, Informative)
I remember those days, believe it or not. :)
So do I (yeah, I'm old). Did you really use the term "open source" then? I'm sure I didn't, the vendors certainly didn't, actually I'm pretty sure I never heard the term back then.
Of course I may have missed someone using it, but it certainly wasn't a common term.
As far as I can tell, the very term was invented as a generic term for freely redistributable source - as a substitute for "free software", which had too heavy political and philosophical connotations.
Seriously, if you want to refer to software that is both open source and includes the right to distribute and modify, call it "Free Software" like the FSF, or "Libre" software. It's nice, unambiguous, is an existing term and doesn't confuse half the software world which is still filled with people like me who recall Open Source meaning only that the source code is available.
Can you point out any references to "Open Source" that predate the current common meaning (that includes free redistributability)?
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Software licenses, GPL and BSD especially included, are all about legalistic quibbling.
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I imagine this is why people hate lawyers...
everything is couched in such terms that they know are unassailable, and even when a reasonable argument can be mounted against it, there are still the technicalities introduced intentionally at the start to ensure that they can't be wrong.
I cannot claim that the vast majority of people reading what I wrote will not make invalid assumptions about what I meant, and thus make me sound like I was wrong, but seriously...
The OSI requirements for open source license def
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People hate lawyers for many reasons. This is just one of them.
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Note: "The program must (...) allow distribution in (...) compiled form". No mention it has to be derived.
Re:He's right (Score:4, Informative)
http://opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org]
Requirement #1 is "Free Redistribution", i.e. that you have the freedom to, without limitation, redistribute the software.
Would you like ketchup with that ?
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http://opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org]
Requirement #1 is "Free Redistribution", i.e. that you have the freedom to, without limitation, redistribute the software.
Would you like ketchup with that ?
Only in an aggregate work. Not as an individual work... which I believe the original objection was about.
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http://opensource.org/docs/osd [opensource.org]
Requirement #1 is "Free Redistribution", i.e. that you have the freedom to, without limitation, redistribute the software.
Would you like ketchup with that ?
Only in an aggregate work. Not as an individual work... which I believe the original objection was about.
OK so I package it with a picture of your mum sucking my dick
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This whole discussion is moot, because the community edition is badgeware - you can download the source for free on their site, and the Commercial version isn't Open Source*, because it require a per user license.
* as defined by the OSI. I don't respect any other definition
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If you can cite a requirement that an open source license must allow indiscriminate distribution, then I will willingly eat my words.
It would be far more interesting if you could cite even a hypothetical license that meets the commonly accepted criteria of open source but manages to disallow "indiscriminate distribution".
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It would be far more interesting if you could cite even a hypothetical license that meets the commonly accepted criteria of open source but manages to disallow "indiscriminate distribution".
The license does not allow redistribution of the original code in any form except when included in an aggregate work. (Satisfies section 1)
The license requires that distribution of the original source code cannot be done, but that modifications and derivative works may be distributed as patches. (Potentially satisfies section 3)
Alternatively, the license requires that the original code may not be distributed unless modification is made or a derivative work made. (Definitively satisfies section 3)
Thus, this
Re:He's right (Score:4, Informative)
You can't do neither, because you need a key for each copy of the paid version - you pay by the user. It's not OSI approved in any way, it's just a marketing abuse, imho.
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There cannot be a counterexample, not if you use the conventional definition of "Open Source". The two common definitions for that, is the one from the Open Source Initiative, which states as one of the 4 freedoms that must be guaranteed for a license to qualify as open source that: (and I quote)
"The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not requi
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Note my above comments that have all been unfortunately marked "troll" or more accurately should have been marked "rules lawyer".
I can produce a license that the OSI would approve that does not allow for the immediate action that I objected to right here: buying the original, taking the source code, and redistributing it singularly... without any modification or derivative work.
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I can produce a license that the OSI would approve that does not allow for the immediate action that I objected to right here: buying the original, taking the source code, and redistributing it singularly... without any modification or derivative work.
I don't think you can. Feel free to try though. OSI is not bound to your reading of their definition - or any other outsider's reading of it for that matter, and they can ignore obviously unintentional loopholes, or amend the definition to close them if they choose.
Well.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, if it's open source, then one paying customer can take the source and fork it back out to everybody else for gratis.
That's what open source means.
Trying to disguise commercially licensed software as open source is setting yourself up for failure.
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Yes, the community edition is AGPL, but they dont say anything about what license the Pro/Enterprise versions are.
"Open source" and "free" are used to get attention (Score:2)
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correct; mysql have the same business model, and there are places [provenscaling.com] where you can legally grab the enterprise editions.
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Sort of. MySQL has a really interesting clause in the community edition, you are not allowed to bundle the database with 3rd party applications. If we wanted to use MySQL and package it with our Point of Sale software, the cost is $500 per install last time I checked. (That was with Sun, god only knows with Oracle). Hence this was one of many reasons we elected to go with PostgreSQL as part of our installation.
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So does that mean that mysql is not open source as per the osi definition clause 1!
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As I understand it, the problem is not with the database but with the client library. That library is dual-licensed GPL and something proprietary. There's no problem if you use that library in a GPL application, but otherwise you have to use the proprietary-licensed version. Which costs money.
If I'm right, you could work around the problem by writing your own client library (I have no idea how difficult that would be) and using that instead of theirs.
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that's why monty eventually quit sun and made MariaDB
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Informative)
Depends, things like PA-DSS and HIPPA suddenly can throw a monkey wrench into things. We forked an opensource project with the goal of getting it PA-DSS certified so we could use it to continue processing credit cards after July 1st of this year. We've done the audit and now just waiting for the paperwork to go through to get it listed as "certified" software. However, only versions signed and distributed by our organization is certified. Like SugarCRM, we only give out the code to customers who are paying for support contracts.
They are free to download the code and they could even compile and use the code in house and be okay under PCI-DSS. However the monkey wrench comes if they decided to compile the application and then distribute their version to other parties. Technically those 3rd parties would not be able to use the software to process credit cards since the version would not be "PA-DSS certified". And while the software would still be functional, if you used the uncertified version to process credit cards, then one could lose their merchant account. And processing credit cards is a MAJOR feature of the product and too risky for a lot of businesses to consider using it without that certification.
So while one could have all the source code, the source code without the "PA-DSS Certification" certificate doesn't do folks much good in practice.
Magento is doing something similar. Only their "Enterprise" version is PA-DSS certified. The Community Edition is not. And I suspect we're going to start to see more of this as time goes forward. I'm not saying it will be impossible to do it, but it is extremely hard. PA-DSS certification requires a lot of documentation and about $25k up front to pay for auditing, the PCI-SSC, and the best part is the validation is only good for 3 years. That's either a lot of community donations or someone bank rolling the operation.
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No, that's if it's GPL. If it's Open Source, it means that each customer can dick around with the source themselves, and don't have to rely on their vendor to do it. That's what Open Source is - you get the product, you get the code too. IIRC, that's what started Stallman's crusade - he got a binary blob of a printer driver that sucked, and he couldn't fix it 'cause he didn't have the code.
Now, the most popular Open Source licenses (GPL, BSD, etc) don't work that way. BSD puts no restrictions on distributio
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then one paying customer can take the source and fork it back out to everybody else for gratis.
And that's vTiger [vtiger.com], see a comparative review [taragana.com] between the two.
Open source (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Open source (Score:4, Interesting)
A bit of poking around indicates that the community edition is released under GPL v3 and the paid edition is released under this [sugarcrm.com] variation of the Mozilla PL. Someone want to dig through it and work it out?
*reads reads reads*
Section 2.1, and Section 2.2 pretty much say you can distribute the original code with or without modification indiscriminately. ... So... yeah, one should be able to simply buy it once and then "fork" it from the original and provide it free.
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You maybe able to fork it, but you can't call it SugarCRM or use their artwork. Same thing with FireFox, OpenbravoERP, or anything else using a Mozilla style license.
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You maybe able to fork it, but you can't call it SugarCRM or use their artwork. Same thing with FireFox, OpenbravoERP, or anything else using a Mozilla style license.
That's typically trademark issues, etc. If there is no modification involved at all, there's no actionable offense for a trademark claim... you're simply redistributing their product. Their trademark is still being applied solely to their product, nothing more, nothing less.
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I don't see how that's drastically different from CentOS.
Sure, you can use the free version of a "popular mainstream distro" (as the CentOS project describes it) but enough people are prepared to pay for support that CentOS hasn't yet driven RedHat out of business.
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Right, from what I read it's exactly like CentOS vs RHEL. Whether that's open source or open core comes down to definitions more than anything.
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It's what Bruce Shneider terms "Badgeware" (afaik, the term originates with him). You're not entirely free to do what you want with it. You have to keep the SugarCRM logo and link in there unaltered and unadjusted. In practice this means you have to stick with their UI and you'll always have a big old footer at the bottom with their logo.
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A bit of poking around indicates that the community edition is released under GPL v3 and the paid edition is released under this [sugarcrm.com] variation of the Mozilla PL. Someone want to dig through it and work it out?
The Pro edition is being licensed under a proprietary EULA [sugarcrm.com], which even contains Bitkeeper-like non-competition clauses regarding the community edition. It that sense it is even worse than MS-EULA, which at least allows you to mess around with the few open source components Microsoft has released.
Re:Open source (Score:5, Insightful)
"open source" is one of those terms made up of two words who's meaning appears to be redefinable to suit the needs of any given agenda. That's why terms like 'GPL' and 'BSD' are more useful as they define what the terms of the 'openness" are. On slashdot "open source" and "GPL" are mostly synonymous but not necessarily in some industries.
but if there are restrictions on redistribution, it's not open source.
Well even GPL fails at that. It places the restriction that if you distribute the binary then you must make the source available too. That's kind of the opposite kind of restriction to what you were saying but it's still a restriction in that it limits your freedom to do what you want with the code, but only in as far as you can't deny others the freedom you were granted, which is widely considered to be a good restriction.
Even Microsoft open their source to various organisations (academic mostly). I think they don't ever refer to it as "open source" though but "shared source" instead, so I guess they are off the hook.
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That's not true. If they are the owners of the project and I am not a paying customer, they are under no obligation to provide me a copy of the source.
If they claim to be open source (as defined by OSI) then they have to give me 100% of the source as a paying customer, and if it is truly open source, I can choose to distribute that same source code to others, or even create a derivative product, like the folks over at CentOS (and previously White Box Enterprise Linux) do with Red Hat (er, I mean, "a promine
Use "gratis" not "free" (Score:5, Insightful)
Can we please stop using "free" when we mean "gratis". You know, when something doesn't cost anything. "free" is too ambiguous.
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i'd much rather use free as gratis then free as in open
FYI, "Free Tibet" doesn't mean what you think it means.
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"free" is too ambiguous.
And therein lies the fun :)
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The problem is that English (at least as it's commonly spoken) doesn't have different words so as to distinguish between "libre" and "gratis". So while "gratis" does have English origins (IIRC), no one uses it.
Put more simply, it would be like expecting the French to have an equivalent for "entrepreneur".
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Not funny, he has a point. There is Libre and Gratis. Libre is generally what people think in terms of GPL (sorta) or BSD licensed software (more BSD/MIT) that you are free to modify and do what you want with the source code. Gratis would be free in terms of no money needed. It's free as in Frankly GPL probably falls under the Gratis category the more I think about it because there are restrictions.
Or in simple terms: Libre = Free as in speech/do what you want, Gratis = free as in beer.
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Can we please stop using "free" when we mean "gratis". You know, when something doesn't cost anything. "free" is too ambiguous.
How about we stop using "free" to mean "restricted by a particular set of rules that I happen to agree with", since that's a vastly less honest equation ?
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Who modding this as troll? It is exactly what I intended to post. "Free" means "without cost" no matter who has hijacked the term or what contingencies they associate with it.
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"You are free to go" / "You are free to duplicate this"
"This item is free"
All have similar meanings, ie there is not "cost" involved (of whatever kind - monetary, legal, ...), but the currency of "cost" is different in each case.
Nobody hijacked anything. English has been this way for a long time.
What 'open source' means to Martin Schneider (Score:2)
Translation: What "open source" apparently means to the Martin Schneiders of the world is freely given code and other contributions to THEIR product from others for which they
This has bothered me for a while... (Score:3, Interesting)
Strong advocates of "open source" always talk about how having access to the source is a kind of freedom, and that's true. Personally, I would prefer if all software that I purchased came with the source code (and the means to rebuild it) - because this gives me the freedom to fix bugs or make enhancements myself (and also to pay someone else to do it, i.e. to avoid vendor lock-in). It's an important freedom to have, **but** it's a big jump to then say that not only should I have the freedom to see and modify the source, but I should be able to share the whole source - even the parts I didn't write myself - with anyone I want to, without permission from or kickbacks to the original author(s). That is certainly nice, but it's not a "freedom" so much as it is a privilege.
Is the source "open" just because I have access to it along with the software...? I say it is. If I can also give it away to others then it's also "free", but that would be in the as-in-beer sense, not the as-in-speech sense.
The main reason I often prefer "open source" software is because I, personally, get access to the source code - not because it's free in cost, but not either because everyone else "in the wild" can get it too.
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Wrong, to put it bluntly. You miss the point of software freedom/openness. Basically it's freedom from lock-in.
Software freedom means freedom from lock-in. As long as the original vendor retains control about who runs the software, how the software is run and what the software can do then it lacks that *freedom*.
Software openness is about distributed development/ownership of the software. Everybody is considered an author of the software even just potentially so and everyone can use it as they see fit, incl
copyright (Score:2)
It's not about the code, which looks to be covered under GPLv3. The artwork is probably just covered by copyright. Only paying customers get to use this. This is actually not that uncommon. With some other products you are required to buy a license if you want to change the branding/artwork. Doom/quake are open source, but you still need to pay for the content. Does the new GUI provide functionality the old one does not have?
Want open source? (Score:5, Informative)
Check out vtiger [vtiger.com]
SugarCRM has been guilty of decepting customers with their "open source" claims in the past. They originally released under a modified Mozilla public license (the Sugar Public License), with requirements that derivatives remove any and all SugarCRM branding. A few enterprising folks forked it to form vtiger, which supposedly led to SugarCRM threatening to file suit for actually exercising their rights outlined under the license, and the CEO publicly lambasting the vtiger folks for actually taking SugarCRM up on their offer extended by the original SPL.
http://forums.vtiger.com/viewtopic.php?t=11 [vtiger.com]
http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/crm/sugarcrm-vs-vtiger.html [tmcnet.com]
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=188554&cid=15541264 [slashdot.org]
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/is-sugarcrm-open-source/867 [zdnet.com]
I've posted previously about sugar vs. vtiger before:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=223770&cid=18118754 [slashdot.org] (which drew out anti-F/OSS zealots and folks who didn't bother to read the licenses fully and obviously did not compare it to the previous SPL as it was originally written and released)
Now, the SugarCRM folks may have updated their licensing to remove the restrictions about moving to the free/community edition after having used the "enterprise" edition but honestly those folks were so scummy when they threw a fit after folks actually exercised their rights to create a derivative project that I can't be bothered to check.
Does vtiger functionality stack up well against SugarCRM's enterprise version? Not exactly. However, reverse is also true; vtiger offers some bells and whistles you don't get with Sugar - but in any event, vtiger does not use a license to try to restrict using your own data in another product.
Don't get me wrong: SugarCRM is a pretty good product, but I don't like to use products made by companies which engage in deceptive practices, even when some of the product editions may be "free."
Re:Want open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
That smells of "not open source" to me.
Wikipedia page history (Score:2)
My understanding is .... (Score:2, Informative)
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Commercial software WITH source code (Score:3, Informative)
Many commercial software developers provide their software along with the source code. But they do not qualify as "open source". If there is a restriction on forking the source code or maintaining it yourself, it is not open source.
"Open Source" Software is different from "Source Available" software.
Open Source != Free Software (Score:2)
Free software is where you can take source and do mostly anything with it, including forking, releasing for free, incorporating in your commercial product and so on. (restrictions being often that it can't be made "not free", but little beyond that)
Open Source is where you have access to the source code. Little is guaranteed beyond that. It may be only so that you are allowed to audit the code and nothing else. It may be that it's expensive add-on to inexpensive binary, and you are not allowed to redistribu
visible source (Score:2)
They should call it "visible source" in this case, because they only meet one of the two criteria generally associated with "open source":
1.) source code is accessible (visible) CHECK
2.) source code may be changed and redistributed NOCHECK
"visible source" is still a lot better than "closed source"
take Microsoft letting Russian authorities view (some of?) the Windows sources. That's not opensourcing windows, that's selectively visible-sourcing it.
Is just a full work for hire? (Score:2)
Spread the code outside their closed community and its MS like lawyer time for you?
Could it be called it a "source included company"? Your just seem to getting more more long term code support for your $ from day one.
Open Source Product vs Company (Score:2)
Technically, a single company can have products licensed for both closed and open licenses - I know, I work for one. They can even offer the same product under an Open Source license, and under a different license. Owning the copyright, they can fork the product, implement some features only in one version, and release that only under a closed source license.
Of course, nothing prevents anyone from taking a version that ha
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Or one or more of the three "T's": Time, Talent, Treasure
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Heh heh! You're right in theory, wrong in practice. SugarCRM has an important system in it called "modules". These are analogues of various business concepts, so there's a Contacts module, a Product Catalogue module, et al. The Professional Edition comes with some signific
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Well, Microsoft will certainly insist so.
Actually, no, it will not. MS is careful with OSS in general, and this extends to labeling its own products. It will only be called open source if it really is open source - e.g. IronPython or ASP.NET MVC, both released under licenses which OSI considers "open source", and FSF considers "Free software".
For other cases where code is available but there are strings attached (typically this means no redistribution) - MFC & ATL, .NET class library, Rotor etc - different terms, such as "shared source" and "r
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Honestly, it's their business model.
That is not an issue. But them claiming that they're OSS when they really do not conform to the conventional definition is deceiving their customers.
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Is redhat an open source company? I see no difference between what Sugar is doing and RHEL - except perhaps RedHat is more open about it.
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You mean because RedHat opensource pretty much everything and so do Sugar?
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your definition of OSS is pointless and silly since nearly all software fits the criterion of "someone gets the source". Windows would be OSS under your definition since MS happily gives out the source to Windows if either you're the right kind of customer or you pay enough.