Scalix is not open source...
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| Author | Content |
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| jkouyoumjian Dec 03, 2005 5:20 AM EDT |
Scalix looks interesting, but it is not an open source project. They only distribute binaries and disassembling is forbidden: From the Scalix EULA: "Software Ownership; Software Protection Your rights are defined in this license agreement. Scalix and its licensors retain all right, title, and interest, including all intellectual property rights, to Scalix Community Edition except as provided in this license agreement. You agree that You will not reverse engineer, translate, disassemble, decompile, modify, or otherwise derive the source code of Scalix Community Edition, nor will You attempt to do so or permit others to do so. You agree that you will not 'hack' or otherwise attempt to modify the behavior of Scalix Community Edition for any reason. You agree that You will not remove or alter any copyright notices or other proprietary notices in Scalix Community Edition." Scalix "Community Edition" is a cripple-ware version of their full-function "Enterprise Edition". Community Edition is available for free, but is is "free, as in free beer" not "free, as in free speach". Enterprise Edition is not in any way free. You have to pay for a license. There are no prices listed on the website. You have to contact Scalix or an authorized reseller to get a quote, so I am assuming that it is very expensive and they want to avoid "sticker shock" by concealing the price. I am surprised that Scalix has chosen the name "Community Edition" for the what is essentially a cirppled, demo product of limited use. To me, this name implies that Scalix is an open source project with a development community behind it (like MySQL Community Edition) which is contributing code. This is not the case. Scalix is a traditional, closed-source, proprietary product which is offered for Linux only. Anyone relying on this product in their business faces all the challenges of closed-source software: license fees, license restrictions, vendor lock-in, reliance on source code of unknown quality not subject to independent review, and on and on. Scalix is free to distribute their software anyway they want, but I am tired of the "free crippled version with paid upgrade to full version" tactic. |
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