Re: [Nagios-devel] Reasons to not release in house GPL'd code (was
Posted: Fri May 08, 2009 10:34 am
Hi,
I did not to intend to reply here, but some comments below seem to
require comments from me
07.05.2009 22:01, William Leibzon wrote:
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Steven D. Morrey > wrote:
>
> When I worked as an enterprise IT consultant, I noticed that lots of
> GPL'd projects that were created for in house use would never be
> released to the public.
> Below are the top 5 reasons given by these organizations, most of
> these decisions came from either corporate legal or some MBA way up
> the chain in middle management.
>
>
> Hi all
>
> I have to strongly agree with what Steven said. I've seen all the same
> too. Best I could do (wich only worked in a few cases) is try to
> convince to release code as my own taking full responsibility but many
> are unwilling since after all they paid money to have it developed. Very
> egoistic enterprise morality unfortunately, everyone for him/her/itself
> and don't do things for the public good eventhough these enterprises are
> themselve using program developed and made available for free.
Similar to what I experience.
> BTW, I did not want originally to comment on that entire thread in
> regards to Icingal and see how things go but my opinion is what's
> happening is related to egoism and personal/corporate/commercial
> interests too. I did not like it when Ethan started changing nagios from
> purely open-source project to a company with commercial interests.
Myself, I couldn't find anything inherently wrong with that move, but
that's because I believe you can have a company and still do "honest"
open source. That's what we do with Bacula Systems SA, for example.
> But
> its his project and he really done A LOT for the public in the last 10
> years so he's entitled to proper compensation and project does need a
> more stable base. I did not like Netways even more because even though
> they were releasing good things I always perceived strong commercial and
> corporate interests and certain greed
Well, that's a company's business... I admit I don't know anything
about how Netways run their business, so I'm not qualified to assess
if they're doing an "honest" open source business or not. But, even if
they don't give much back to the community, they actually are not
required to do this. They need to follow the GPL, obviously, when they
distribute Nagios to customers, but for their own work, not based on
GPL'ed software, they may choose to keep it closed (not that I would
like or do that myself, but they may!)
> - I even had a running with
> Netways myself when I modifed nagiosgrapher and offered to submit
> changes to them (see http://william.leibzon.org/nagios/) if they opened
> project more but they were unwilling and I saw that their interests are
> not inline with a real open-source attitude;
Might be... did they explain their reasons to you? I mean, actually
they did release the NagiosGrapher source...
> and I was actually
> reluctant to post my code to nagiosexchange for long time because I
> perceived commercial interests there too,
Surely there is a commercial interest there, but I doubt that they
would (or could, for that matter) keep things you post there to
themselves.
My question is rather why Nagios Enterprises hasn't set up such
services? It's a relevant part of the community work for a program
that so heavily depends on external contributions (check scripts, in
Nagios' case). Also it would allow them to get in better contact with
their community - and that, as we see now, is really vital for a
company that exists to exploit (yes, I used that word intentionally)
an open source software.
Side note: Making money with services and support for open source
software is in no way immoral or anything. Providing professional
support beyond what a community can do is important if you want the
software being used in critical environments. Also, some organizations
will simply require a company to provide support so they have someone
to strangle / sue / shout at if things go wrong.
...[email truncated]...
This post was automatically imported from historical nagios-devel mailing list archives
Original poster: [email protected]
I did not to intend to reply here, but some comments below seem to
require comments from me
07.05.2009 22:01, William Leibzon wrote:
> On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 9:25 AM, Steven D. Morrey > wrote:
>
> When I worked as an enterprise IT consultant, I noticed that lots of
> GPL'd projects that were created for in house use would never be
> released to the public.
> Below are the top 5 reasons given by these organizations, most of
> these decisions came from either corporate legal or some MBA way up
> the chain in middle management.
>
>
> Hi all
>
> I have to strongly agree with what Steven said. I've seen all the same
> too. Best I could do (wich only worked in a few cases) is try to
> convince to release code as my own taking full responsibility but many
> are unwilling since after all they paid money to have it developed. Very
> egoistic enterprise morality unfortunately, everyone for him/her/itself
> and don't do things for the public good eventhough these enterprises are
> themselve using program developed and made available for free.
Similar to what I experience.
> BTW, I did not want originally to comment on that entire thread in
> regards to Icingal and see how things go but my opinion is what's
> happening is related to egoism and personal/corporate/commercial
> interests too. I did not like it when Ethan started changing nagios from
> purely open-source project to a company with commercial interests.
Myself, I couldn't find anything inherently wrong with that move, but
that's because I believe you can have a company and still do "honest"
open source. That's what we do with Bacula Systems SA, for example.
> But
> its his project and he really done A LOT for the public in the last 10
> years so he's entitled to proper compensation and project does need a
> more stable base. I did not like Netways even more because even though
> they were releasing good things I always perceived strong commercial and
> corporate interests and certain greed
Well, that's a company's business... I admit I don't know anything
about how Netways run their business, so I'm not qualified to assess
if they're doing an "honest" open source business or not. But, even if
they don't give much back to the community, they actually are not
required to do this. They need to follow the GPL, obviously, when they
distribute Nagios to customers, but for their own work, not based on
GPL'ed software, they may choose to keep it closed (not that I would
like or do that myself, but they may!)
> - I even had a running with
> Netways myself when I modifed nagiosgrapher and offered to submit
> changes to them (see http://william.leibzon.org/nagios/) if they opened
> project more but they were unwilling and I saw that their interests are
> not inline with a real open-source attitude;
Might be... did they explain their reasons to you? I mean, actually
they did release the NagiosGrapher source...
> and I was actually
> reluctant to post my code to nagiosexchange for long time because I
> perceived commercial interests there too,
Surely there is a commercial interest there, but I doubt that they
would (or could, for that matter) keep things you post there to
themselves.
My question is rather why Nagios Enterprises hasn't set up such
services? It's a relevant part of the community work for a program
that so heavily depends on external contributions (check scripts, in
Nagios' case). Also it would allow them to get in better contact with
their community - and that, as we see now, is really vital for a
company that exists to exploit (yes, I used that word intentionally)
an open source software.
Side note: Making money with services and support for open source
software is in no way immoral or anything. Providing professional
support beyond what a community can do is important if you want the
software being used in critical environments. Also, some organizations
will simply require a company to provide support so they have someone
to strangle / sue / shout at if things go wrong.
...[email truncated]...
This post was automatically imported from historical nagios-devel mailing list archives
Original poster: [email protected]