Pulling the Wool over Linux?

Companies that try to pull the wool over free software advocates, ultimately fool no one. As advocates, we should either make the OSI enforce their definition or disband.

Open-Xchange provides an example of a company marketing inside the GNU/Linux community as if they belonged. Advocates of free software may want to consider ridiculing them into changing their name or demanding they GPL all their code. Either way, who is enforcing the definitions of open source software? If no one plans to enforce them as does the GPL, then we need to do away with the OSI.

Open Xchange reminds me of a company I started using similar packages. We used open source components and added frosted widgets such as an installer and an administration panel. Later, we created a proprietary Exchange Client Extension for Outlook so Microsoft centric organizations could replace Exchange and run the software first on IBM mainframes.

I explained the building concept in this article in Linux Journal entitled "Understanding and Replacing Microsoft Exchange". The article read:

Linux by itself provides a formidable set of Internet applications for mainframes, which have always needed them. IBM's eServer strategy seemed incomplete without a robust set of internet tools, which it promised to provide to all of its brands. Near the end of calendar year 2000, IBM demonstrated it could host a thousand instances of Linux on a single S/390 mainframe.

I wrote the article and cleverly failed to disclose that we used numerous proprietary products in the solution and saved money by incorporating Apache, Cyrus IMAP, Exim, proFTP, SASL and PAM, OpenLDAP, the UW IMAP tookit including the c client code.

What did that do for me? It saved a lot of money in development costs. We didn't have to write our own proprietary functionality already provided by free software. But we did not give back to the community. That's the difference between what I orchestrated and what Marc Fleury orchestrated at JBoss or what Matt and Miguel did at Ximian.

How I got started

I got started when I worked as a contractor at Ericsson. The telephone giant had moved from their own mainframe mail solution to Microsoft Exchange. Unfortunately 30% of the workforce used Sun workstations and Solaris. Those users were locked out of the Exchange environment. So I saw a need for an Outlook clone for Solaris and Linux that could participate in an Exchange infrastructure.

Seeing the niche, I started a little company and developed an email client that could provide primarily meeting management. One of the people I used as a contractor wrote a CDO proxy. Our client spoke to the proxy . We coded the proxy and made it proprietary.

So, here we had a mail client that predated Evolution, used GNU development tools and libraries including GTK. But we didn't open the code to the piece that made the whole thing work.

Who expressed an interest in that client and said they would buy it? Boeing, Intel and Ericsson to start. Intel even sat down and offered to participate as an investor for a minimum $10 million round. One company offered us $50 million in stock to acquire the company.

We didn't sell any of those clients to any of those companies. Why? Their Exchange administrators didn't trust the solution. Had we GPL'd the code, I believe they would have purchased the product because they could have seen what we did and how we did it.

I wish you could have seen the argument that ensued amongst the money people in our own little company. I will say this: I sold out, I didn't open the code, and I went for the quick money. That was a huge mistake. It didn't work. I didn't understand it then and I do now.

Building a server

Sitting with an unmarketable client, I made the decision to built a server. Again, we discovered how to invade the Microsoft empire. Again, we didn't open the code. Unlike Ximian, we didn't attract developers or supporters. We made few sales.

Do I regret that. I consider regret a way to justify wrong actions. So, no, I don't regret it. Did it work? It did not work and the company during my tenure with a complete solution did not attract the attention of a JBoss with a purported value of $400 million.

Making Outlook talk to a Linux mail server

You can click the link in the third paragraph and read all about how I orchestrated the breaking of the Exchange wire-line code. Back then, we thought we had a big winner. Since we were the only company that had done it, people lined up to license the technology to incorporate in their own solutions.

We thought we had struck the mother load. Again, we kept the product proprietary. Like Open-Xchange's MS-Outlook und Palm connectors, our Outlook plug-in remained closed code. Yet we marketed ourselves as an "open source" solution. If you think about our original client and our workgroup solution as proprietary hold backs you might consider those decisions like the movie "Dumb and Dumber".

Making Outlook talk to a highly scalable Linux server is not a niche market. IBM will put it in its marketing materials and talk it up. As a proprietary product it will never scale. As Free Software, the solution becomes a global product that would create enormous demand.

The business model should follow the Open Source Maturity Model used by JBoss. Open-Xchange could create a robust community, excel in offering services, sell training and certifications and become a system integrator. They have the making of a world renown business.

Phony open source companies

Let's look at some of the statements on the Open Xchange web site.

A big "Thank You" to all who has contributed to these Howto's! Please keep them coming; as Open-Xchange™ Server is built and installed on more systems, these How-To's help others make better informed design and development decisions as they port Open-Xchange to more Unix, Linux, and Unix-like operating systems.

Offering code that already exists without Open-Xchange proprietary compoments doesn't make them an open source company. Also, they make a big deal out of their THANK YOU to contributors of documentation as if that means they have a developer community. Companies that claim open source status often make such gestures in a hope that no one will notice what they really represent: a proprietary company trying to take advantage of the open source marketing train.

But Free Software people know what these companies represent. Having lived through the nightmare myself, I have some sympathy for them but that is all. If the OSI isn't going to enforce its definition, then the alternative becomes simple. Brand them and their kind for what they represent: Something other than a real open source company.

Under the fair use clause, we've reproduced a comparison from the Open Xchange web site which shows the difference between their product and their "so-called" open source stack.

Free download or purchase? Comparison of Community and Commercial Version

Recommendations

This applies to any company attempting to use the term open source and the business model of holding back important elements of your solution: Stop doing it. Your success depends on it.

You can reach a niche market without using the open source label. In fact, it might hold you back. Take the free code and just violate the GPL and hope no one notices. Otherwise take the high road and BE what you're pretending instead of pretending.

If you have licensed the Outlook and Palm connectors or any other important component, give the free software community a chance to replace them. We have more qualified developers than you can hire.

Essentially, drop the pretense. Change your name or face more scrutiny. That goes for any company including everybody's favorite: Novell. Open your code, embrace the principals of free software. I can't save you from the fires of hell but you can save yourself.

Here's what Bob Dylan wrote in 1965:

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

For those who despise their jobs and their destinies and speak jealously of those that are free cultivate their flowers to be nothing more than something they invest in.

If that doesn't make sense to you try this. Undeserved money homogenizes your experience. So, everything you see exists in the context of money. Do what you love and the rewards will come. If they don't, then you ain't doing what you love.