You are welcome. Unlike most bloggers, I think anonymous is the smartest way to comment (can’t beat the price) without getting penalized if one indeed has some thing to add to a discussion. It’s just that some folks abuse anonymity to misbehave and misinform. As for me, I am just too boneheaded to go anonymous.

Thanks for being one of the gentle anonymous.

Don.

One other clarification. I think PA is pretty early on in it’s lifecycle. Licensing terms can always evolve from such an early stage.

Thanks.
AC

I do agree customers should read the license carefully. But potential customers might read Marc’s blog. If I stumbled upon Marc’s blog reading praise for OS, I might think he also follows OS in his own product, this may be a bit a of a stretch or naive on my part.

2. SuSE and Redhat have become very successful with an open source approach. BBM doesn’t have to follow this. But hey, it might bring more attention and customers to Marc in the long run! (or maybe it won’t). I’d like to find out if their license ends up looking like double-talk to Marc, or if Redhat, SuSe have pooled the wool over any customers eyes.

3. Marc I appreciate the clarification. I think Social Text is using the definition from opensource.org, and is using one of the compliant licenses. I understand you have your answer, but it’s nice to distinguish your answer from open source for sake of clarity. I liken it to Bush hearing Al Qaeda, and saying Iraq. It’s nice to clarify.

4. I’m just a blog reader. I’m not challenging your integrity. I enjoy following your take on all things web related and I appreciate the issues you have raised to others regarding open standards and social networking.

I really do appreciate you responding. Afterall, you could ignore my comments.

1. I need ot bring up my uneasiness with the dual license approach. I’ve tried ot understand it - for many years now. I’ve expaliend to customers, I metqa nd talked with Marten of MySQL and at the end of teh day - it really seems kind of like a scam. How can teh same softwrae be available under two licenses? I don’t get that. How can you SAY you’re free - but then turn around and say “sorry never mind - we want to get paid”. I thuink our approach is more honest.

2. I have my people looking at the Red Hat and Suse licenses - as we speak. I suspect we’ll getthe same answer as our analysis fo teh MySQL licenses - double talk. IMHO.

3. The issue of how we treat our customers and whether or not its fair - is very dear and close ot my heart. Don is right - they need ot trust US and that’s what counts. This is NOT about terminology, but integrity and relationships with our customers. I don;t ARE about what term its called. I care about delivering them great value.

4. Now back to terms and licenses. I didn;t want to come off like “I’m gonna use the term open source the way I want to, and ignore the ’standard accepted definition’. So that’s y form of honesty. Call it weird - whatever. If SocialText or anybody wants ot call their code “open source” and have their own defintiion that derives from GPL or whatever - god bless them. We got our own answer - and as long as someone gets the source code - who cares what its called. I don’t see that muddying the waters.

5. So now that we’ve gone this far - and you;ve brought this converstaion to this level - now let me ask you this “who are you?” Wy do you challenge and say things to me like you do, while not unveiling who you are. That’s really weird ot me. Chalenge my integrity from a place of anonymity .

You are right that licensing is not nitpicking and that’s my point. Isn’t it common practice already to read the license instead of trusting big red letters on the box?

Protecting customers against confusion is best implemented by certification/logo program and backed with a market education campaign, not this which is not unlike trying to fix the barn door after the horse is long gone. If you want, I am all for getting that going.

Also, I don’t think coercing collegues by implying hypocracy is very productive.

Licensing issues are not nitpicking. They’re essential parts of fair use for software for customers and vendors. For example, many RTOS have source code available, but its not open source, nor do they ever claim, or muddy the issue. Licensing is very important to very big customers (Telecom vendors for one).

Open source clearly states its not just about source availability. The way this term is generally used in the OS/FS community is well known. It may not be known to new customers. Muddying the definition for customers doesn’t help them.

Marc, “require free distribtuion” means you are required to provide a means of free distribution of the software. This doesn’t prevent you from charging in other ways. You can still charge for it via other means. MANY OS vendoors charge (or they would cease to exist). You may be worried some customers (capitalist pigs?) may not want to buy the open source version. How does Redback and SuSE stay afloat.

Marc brings up MySQL. I brought up SuSE and Redhat. It would be nice to get feedback on these open source based business models.

Marc might have more customers and users if he actually did frame it (or change the license) to open source. Developers (who may work for potential customers) may appreciate this.

1) It’s Marc call to open source or not
2) It’s good not to confuse “source code available” with “open source”. They are clearly two different things.
3) It would be nice to know Marc’s thoughts on OS vendors such as SuSE and Redhat amonst others.
4) It would be nice to know why OSing of software for other companies is good, but not for Marc’s company.

No arguments here, just a discussion.

What does “require free distribtuion” mean?