Dana Blankenhorn's story How far can open source CRM get? has finally pushed me to respond to the many people who have asked "When is the OSI going to stand up to companies who are flagrantly abusing the term 'open source'?" The answer is: starting today. I am not going to start by flaming Dana. As President of the Open Source Initiative, I feel a certain amount of responsibility for stewardship of the open source brand, including both the promotion of the brand as well as the protection of the brand. The topic of "what is really open source and what is not?" has been simmering for quite some time. And until last year the question was trivial to answer, and the answer provided a trivial fix. But things have changed, and its time to regain our turf. I have been on the board of the OSI for more than 5 years, and until last year it was fairly easy for us to police the term open source: once every 2-3 months we'd receive notice that some company or another was advertising that their software was "open source" when the license was not approved by the OSI board and, upon inspection, was clearly not open source. We (usually Russ Nelson) would send them a notice politely telling them "We are the Open Source Initiative. We wrote a definition of what it means to be open source, we promote that definition, and that's what the world expects when they see the term mentioned. Do you really want to explain to your prospective customers 'um...we don't actually intend to offer you these freedoms and rights you expect?'." And they would promptly respond by saying "Wow! We had no idea!" Maybe once or twice they would say "What a novel idea! We'll change our license to one that's approved by you!". Most of the time they would say "Oops! Thanks for letting us know--we'll promote our software in some other way." And they did, until last year. Starting around 2006, the term open source came under attack from two new and unanticipated directions: the first was from vendors who claimed that they have every bit as much right to define the term as does the OSI, and the second was from vendors who claimed that their license was actually faithful to the Open Source Definition (OSD), and that the OSI board was merely being obtuse (or worse) in not recognizing that fact. (At least one vendor has pursued both lines of attack.) This was certainly not the first attack we ever had to repel, but it is the first time we have had to confront agents who fly our flag as their actions serve to corrupt our movement. The time has come to bring the matter into the open, and to let the democratic light of the open source community illuminate for all of us the proper answer. Dana reports correctly when he says:
Then there's open source, the only way in which CRM start-ups can elbow their way into the market today.
And so it is for numerous classes of applications and numerous software markets. But I disagree completely with his next statement, which is logical but also fallacious:
SugarCRM, SplendidCRM and now Centric have proven [sic] there's a place in the market for this (if you read your license carefully).
It is logical precisely because there really is not room in the market for Yet Another Proprietary CRM system. It is fallacious because THESE LICENSES ARE NOT OPEN SOURCE LICENSES. This flagrant abuse of labeling is not unlike sweetening a mild abrasive with ethylene glycol and calling the substance Toothpaste. If the market is clamouring for open source CRM solutions, why are some companies delivering open source in name only and not in substance? I think the answer is simple: they think they can get away with it. As President of the OSI, I've been remiss in thinking that gentle but firm explanations would cause them to change their behavior. I have also not chased down and attempted to correct every reporter who propagates these misstatements (the way that Richard Stallman does when people confuse free software with free beer, or worse--to him--open source). I have now come to realize that if we don't call them out, then they will get away with it (at least until customers realize they've been fooled again, and then they'll blame both proprietary and open source vendors alike; they probably won't be particularly charitable with the press or careless industry analysts, either). If we don't respond to those in the press who fall (or are pushed) into these logical traps, we are betraying the community. So here's what I propose: let's all agree--vendors, press, analysts, and others who identify themselves as community members--to use the term 'open source' to refer to software licensed under an OSI-approved license. If no company can be successful by selling a CRM solution licensed under an OSI-approved license, then OSI (and the open source movement) should take the heat for promoting a model that is not sustainable in a free market economy. We can treat that case as a bug, and together we can work (with many eyes) to discern what it is about the existing open source definition or open source licenses made CRM a failure when so many other applications are flourishing. But just because a CEO thinks his company will be more successful by promoting proprietary software as open source doesn't teach anything about the true value of open source. Hey--if people want to try something that's not open source, great! But let them call it something else, as Microsoft has done with Shared Source. We should never put the customer in a position where they cannot trust the term open source to mean anything because some company and their investors would rather make a quick buck than an honest one, or because they believe more strongly in their own story than the story we've been creating together for the past twenty years. We are better than that. We have been successful over the past twenty years because we have been better than that. We have built a well-deserved reputation, and we shouldn't allow others to trade the reputation we earned for a few pieces of silver. Open Source has grown up. Now it is time for us to stand up. I believe that when we do, the vendors who ignore our norms will suddenly recognize that they really do need to make a choice: to label their software correctly and honestly, or to license it with an OSI-approved license that matches their open source label. And when they choose the latter, I'll give them a shout out, as history shows. Please join me, stand up, and make your voice heard--enough is enough.
Comments
Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2007-06-20 22:52 Permalink
Thank you
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 12:52 Permalink
Agreed, what a hypocite... resign from RH and uphold your ideals
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-06-22 07:11 Permalink
You misread: I am not demanding logo-ware
It would be hypocritical of me to demand that others badge their software when I myself have argued against badgeware. But I am not. I am saying that if somebody says "XYZ is open source" and lo, XYZ is not available under an open source license, that such use of the term harms the movement.
I try really hard to keep Red Hat out of my OSI-related writings, because I see my role at Red Hat and my role at the OSI as two separate roles. My experiences at Red Hat have certainly informed my understanding of open source, and I do bring that experience to the OSI, but I do not use the OSI to advocate for Red Hat or vice-versa (which would be a conflict of interest).
I will say that as Pesident of the OSI, I'm a lot less agitated when company X, whose primary product is a proprietary database, says "we're an open source company" than I am when company Y making product Z says "our product is open source" when the license is either not OSI-approved, or worse, clearly a violation of the open source definition. To me, open source is something that applies to software, and so I don't need to worry very much when people use the term in non-software contexts.
Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2007-06-22 14:47 Permalink
Open Source Company vs. Open Source Product
Submitted by administrator on Sat, 2007-12-01 11:24 Permalink
the REAL problem and why I like OSI !
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 19:43 Permalink
vtiger CRM: The Real Open Source standing up
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 06:40 Permalink
The need for fast turnaround in acceptance is also needed
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 08:05 Permalink
No legal incentive to come into compliance
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Thu, 2007-06-21 08:16 Permalink
No legal incentive to be "green", either
While the current US Administration rolls back decades of efforts to protect the environment, some of the top US companies, including companies that sell equipment used to destroy the Amazon rainforest, have made their own coalition to make environmental concerns part of their new, collective strategy. In that arena, there is no legal incentive to be green, but there are financial, economic, and social reasons why these large companies have agreed to act more responsibly than the law requires.
My appeal is for the community to assert its own views so that those who wish to flout our standards can be called to account, at least in the marketplace of ideas. We may not win a legal injunction against bad business practices, but neither will they be very successful for very long by ignoring the people they purport to sell to.
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 08:54 Permalink
Who made you king?
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 11:19 Permalink
Difference
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 12:12 Permalink
It is true that the OSI did
Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2007-06-27 12:52 Permalink
Who made Stallman king?
Submitted by nelson on Fri, 2007-07-20 21:30 Permalink
OSI does not have a
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 08:56 Permalink
Zimbra
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 08:57 Permalink
Hardly the first time someone has flouted OSI's definition
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-06-22 06:53 Permalink
Past, Present, and Future
As I said in my post, the OSI policy had been one of private lobbying which was almost always successful. I apologize that Scilab was never on my radar, but now that you've put it there, I'll follow up.
We have a board meeting coming up next month, and we will be at Tim O'Reilly's OSCON in Portland the third week in July. I would love to receive input as to how we should use our newfound voice to address other companies that flout the term open source. I think it would be an extreme measure for us to keep a public list of flouters on our website, at least initially. But I do think it is time that we took a position that more strongly represents broad community opinion, and thus become a stronger voice for the community.
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 09:41 Permalink
standing up
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-06-22 06:47 Permalink
Interesting legal theory...
Can you please cite case law references relevant to us as a California 501(c)3 corporation?
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 09:49 Permalink
Makes no sense, poorly written and off-base
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 10:05 Permalink
Target Red Hat Exchange
Submitted by administrator on Sat, 2009-03-28 15:52 Permalink
I understand your point
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 11:37 Permalink
Agree *almost* entirely
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 13:17 Permalink
Thanks, and more
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-06-22 06:43 Permalink
What to cover? What is open source?
By our lights, software is open source when it is covered by an OSI-approved license. When you consider that there are approximately 60 licenses, and that the GPL alone covers well more than half of all software comprising a typical Linux distribution, that's a fairly long and non-discriminatory tail. And though the OSI is working to address the problem of license proliferation, we continue to approve licenses that are submitted through our process, and I have blogged numerous times that I look forward to reviewing the GPLv3 when it is submitted in its final form--so it is by no means a closed club.
I think you are welcome to cover whatever software you think is informative to your readers. For my own editorial purposes, I prefer not to cover specific proprietary software, but rather to refer to it en masse as "proprietary software". But I'm sure there are many interesting postings to be made about how a given piece of software raises the bar in or for the open source community, and if the license is not OSI-approved, well, license-discuss@opensource.org can always be relied on for a choice comment as to why.
Yes, we do run drupal, and we are happy that there are other open source alternatives we could run if we ever need to.
So to be clear: I have no beef with you writing about any software package you choose. I just ask that if you represent something as open source (or if somebody represents it to you as open source), please check that their license is one approved by the OSI. If that's too onerous, I'm sure we can hack something up on our side to make it easier--right Steve? ;-)
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 13:45 Permalink
What's wrong with the Licenses?
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 14:12 Permalink
What's wrong with the Licenses?
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-06-22 06:32 Permalink
You have to read legalese or take /somebody's/ word for it
If you cannot be bothered to read the licenses (one of which clearly violates the Open Source Definition, one of which has caused a tremendous amount of debate), then you have to take somebody's word for it. A major task of the OSI is to review licenses. We do this in the open, in consultation with the hundreds of people who subscribe to license-discuss@opensource.org, which itself is to which anybody can subscribe. When the list reaches a consensus (even a consensus that there's no agreement), the license approval committee chair (who is a board member) makes a recommendation, and the full board then discusses the recommendation and votes.
Like any public process and like any endeavor that requires human interpretation, we are subject to error, both small and large. We do our best to correct the errors, or at least publish them, and we try to use the sum total of all our experience to inform our judgments in the future.
If you think we're reading our own definition incorrectly, or if you think the definition does not sufficiently represent what the term open source should mean, you can contact us through our public mailing address: osi@opensource.org.
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 14:13 Permalink
A real Open Source CRM
Submitted by administrator on Tue, 2007-06-26 09:11 Permalink
V-Tiger
Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2007-10-10 22:25 Permalink
I want to respond to this point
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 16:10 Permalink
Johnny-come-lately
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-06-22 06:21 Permalink
Is it too late for Open Standards to mean anything?
The term "open standards" came into common use--and began to be adopted in procurement legislation by sovereign governments--before there was any objective definition of the term. Not even the OSI had its own opinion about what should distinguish a so-called "open standard" from a non-open standard until last year. Do you think it is too late for the term, now legislated to have any meaning, or, can you have enough faith in democracy that the people, ultimately, can determine what the language means, and if they ultimately determine that there is no way to fix the language (as happened with "standard"), demand new language.
I think that both "open source" and "open standards" are in a good position for broad groups of people to say "we like these terms--we want to you to use them correctly and carefully" rather than to try to make trademark the only mechanism for proper conduct.
Moreover, a trademark on open source would make matters quite difficult for governments who want to write laws about open source. Open source is a principle--we want that principle to stand for something. If we did trademark the term, I don't see how governments could use the term in procurement legislation and not look as ridiculous as if they legislated for a particular proprietary product.
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-06-21 21:09 Permalink
since youve failed you read your own trademark
Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2007-06-22 05:16 Permalink
Agreement, and a Fair Corollary Question
Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2007-06-22 14:59 Permalink
Common law trademark
Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2007-10-10 20:01 Permalink
The fair corollary to this question is
Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2007-06-22 18:06 Permalink
Should we re-report violators?
Submitted by administrator on Fri, 2007-06-22 18:54 Permalink
Centric CRM to go open source next week?
Submitted by administrator on Sat, 2007-06-23 06:51 Permalink
Good luck!
Submitted by administrator on Sun, 2007-06-24 15:56 Permalink
Finally a healthy discussion!
Submitted by administrator on Mon, 2007-06-25 15:00 Permalink
Another view on the ethics of the debate
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Tue, 2007-06-26 10:05 Permalink
Glad to see you using the OSL!
David,
First, let me thank you for stepping forward into this discussion.
Second, let me applaud you for choosing the OSL as a license for your Team Elements software. I sincerely hope that you find that to be a successful choice, and I sincerely believe that over time, you will see the dividends that the open source model affords (as compared to a proprietary model).
Third, I appreciate your appeal to the history of the Bill of Rights in your argument. I like a well-constructed (or at least well-referenced) argument! And the OSI will be ramping up discussions (which will be kicked off at OSCON) on how we can better be the self-governing, representative body we always intended to be. If you come to OSCON, I'd welcome your participation in that meeting.
But finally, let me say that I do not accept the proposition that "because we cannot fit our business to the model stipulated by the open source definition, we will arbitrarily ignore the stipulations of that definition while retaining the power and promise of the conepts it embodies." It would be like a member of the executive branch of the US government declaring themselves to be free from oversight, free from accountability, or free even from the law, because they believe such oversight, such accountability, and such laws are an inconvenience to their policy and in conflict with their personal interpretation of their sworn sovereign duties.
At the risk of not giving a fuller elaboration here, I will instead create a new blog posting as to why I think that all of the conditions of the OSD, not just a convenient few, are essential to the notion of what is open source, and perhaps we can carry on our discussion of this more specific topic there.
Submitted by administrator on Tue, 2007-06-26 11:08 Permalink
Happy to be involved
Submitted by administrator on Tue, 2007-06-26 17:23 Permalink
Where is this religion going?
Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2007-06-27 04:15 Permalink
If in doubt, call it a religion.
Submitted by administrator on Wed, 2007-10-10 21:53 Permalink
One area where I *strongly* agree with Michael
Submitted by administrator on Mon, 2007-07-09 08:01 Permalink
A personal view on Vtiger x SugarCRM
Submitted by administrator on Thu, 2007-07-26 16:45 Permalink
Taking you at your word -- reporting a "bug"
Michael -
I like the way you phrased this:
"If no company can be successful by selling a CRM solution licensed under an OSI-approved license, then OSI (and the open source movement) should take the heat for promoting a model that is not sustainable in a free market economy. We can treat that case as a bug, and together we can work (with many eyes) to discern what it is about the existing open source definition or open source licenses made CRM a failure when so many other applications are flourishing."
I've written up what seems to me, from the outside, to be a "bug" at length here, but to quote myself in brief:
"The “bug” in the OSI licensing model is that it does not account for this lifecycle view of software development, and does not provide a viable way for start-ups, particularly start-ups developing end-user applications without an existing code based to build upon, to attract the capital required to reach maturity. I would like to see the OSI talk to start-ups and VCs and find a way to accommodate the needs of start-ups. My concern is that, if they stick to their current stance, the current wave of software start-ups will end up reinforcing the view that open source is not economically viable for end-user applications, but only applies to commodity OSes and middleware."
I'd be interested in your thoughts and feedback.
Thanks!
Submitted by Michael Tiemann on Fri, 2007-08-24 07:54 Permalink
No bug in the model
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