Comments on: The Bug in OSI Approved Licenses http://dbstrat.com/?p=82 Observations at the crossroads of digital technology and business strategy Sun, 15 Mar 2009 11:57:22 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Roberto Galoppini http://dbstrat.com/?p=82&cpage=1#comment-26882 Roberto Galoppini Sat, 28 Jul 2007 16:37:32 +0000 http://digitalbusinessstrategy.com/?p=82#comment-26882 I don't see any “bug”, honestly, besides OSI's approval process trasparency. You say that <blockquote>in the OSI approved model is that it doesn’t reflect in any way the natural lifecycle of application development</blockquote>. But getting from release 0.0 to 1.0 is not a license issue, and all "pretending to be" CRM Open Source licenses were just addressing, or at least trying to, the attribution issue (Vtiger CRM is the risk SugarCRM wanted to countermeasure). In other words, I agree with you that in the application arena it is tough to get external contributions, especially at the very beginning, but it is a VC problem, not an OSI one. VCs could start thinking differently, and eventually financing only start-ups able to manage technological clubs, i.e. communities of firms, a non trivial skill, indeed. I don’t see any “bug”, honestly, besides OSI’s approval process trasparency. You say that
in the OSI approved model is that it doesn’t reflect in any way the natural lifecycle of application development

. But getting from release 0.0 to 1.0 is not a license issue, and all “pretending to be” CRM Open Source licenses were just addressing, or at least trying to, the attribution issue (Vtiger CRM is the risk SugarCRM wanted to countermeasure).

In other words, I agree with you that in the application arena it is tough to get external contributions, especially at the very beginning, but it is a VC problem, not an OSI one.
VCs could start thinking differently, and eventually financing only start-ups able to manage technological clubs, i.e. communities of firms, a non trivial skill, indeed.

]]> By: Bob Gifford http://dbstrat.com/?p=82&cpage=1#comment-26854 Bob Gifford Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:47:13 +0000 http://digitalbusinessstrategy.com/?p=82#comment-26854 Jim - Economists often assume that when one company does something, it's just a random decision, but when an entire industry, or segment of an industry is doing something, especially when it's in a competitive market, that there is an economic force at work driving them all to that decision. Of course a sample size of three (SugarCRM, SplendidCRM and Centric) is a pretty weak data set, so you have a point. But my assumption isn't that much of a leap either. Jim -

Economists often assume that when one company does something, it’s just a random decision, but when an entire industry, or segment of an industry is doing something, especially when it’s in a competitive market, that there is an economic force at work driving them all to that decision. Of course a sample size of three (SugarCRM, SplendidCRM and Centric) is a pretty weak data set, so you have a point. But my assumption isn’t that much of a leap either.

]]> By: Jim Balter http://dbstrat.com/?p=82&cpage=1#comment-26835 Jim Balter Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:50:08 +0000 http://digitalbusinessstrategy.com/?p=82#comment-26835 I don't see the relevance of the facts you've presented to the need to keep source proprietary. You have certainly not spelled it out. You enumerate problems that exist for startups quite independently of source licensing. And the traditional fears about theft of product exist independently of the distinctions you have made. When it comes to the actual substance, all you say is "I can only assume they have determined that an OSI license would not allow them to generate the revenue required to obtain financing for the application’s initial development." But that's the very case you need to make to be saying anything of interest. I don’t see the relevance of the facts you’ve presented to the need to keep source proprietary. You have certainly not spelled it out. You enumerate problems that exist for startups quite independently of source licensing. And the traditional fears about theft of product exist independently of the distinctions you have made. When it comes to the actual substance, all you say is “I can only assume they have determined that an OSI license would not allow them to generate the revenue required to obtain financing for the application’s initial development.” But that’s the very case you need to make to be saying anything of interest.

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