Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog

Key Levers of Open Source Licenses

Blogger: Larry Cannell

This is the second in a series of blog posts intended to help IT managers understand open source licensing and its implications. In this post I cover the basics of open source licensing while also highlighting aspects that can enable vendor business models and influence how an enterprise approaches using open source products.

The definition of an open source license is generally considered to be the responsibility of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), a non-profit corporation formed in 1998 to promote the development and use of open source software. The OSI definition of an open source license is called the Open Source Definition (OSD) and is made up of 10 requirements that must be met before a license can be considered open source. OSI maintains a list of approved software licenses that have gone through their license approval process. Software creators can use the OSI Certification Mark logo and notification text if their software is licensed with one of the OSI approved licenses.

OSI presently lists 72 approved open source licenses. However, only a few of them are in wide use. For example, Freshmeat (a site that tracks open source software) says that over 60% of open source projects use the GNU General Public License (GPL). To make open source licenses easier to understand it is best to break these down into two broad categories: hereditary licenses and permissive licenses.

The most controversial, and most recognizable, hereditary open source license is the GPL. The terms of the GPL most relevant to enterprises using open source products are:

• The source code must be made freely available.
• Once software is licensed as GPL its licensing terms cannot be changed (the only exception being an owner, who retains all rights to the original source code).
• Any modifications to the GPL-licensed source code, or any software incorporating GPL software, must also be licensed under the GPL and may also be required to be made freely available. This is also known as the “Copyleft” provision. However, this provision is only triggered when the software is distributed.

In the diagram below, source code licensed under the GPL is mixed with “Your Source Code,” which could be as simple as small changes to the GPL-licensed source code or as complex as software intended to be kept proprietary (either custom developed or purchased). The GPL’s “Copyleft” provision requires the resulting software to also be licensed under the GPL, if it has been distributed. Resulting software not distributed is not required to be licensed under the GPL.

 

For many businesses, which sell commercially licensed software, the GPL is viewed as “viral” and a threat to their business model. Open source products licensed under a permissive license, such as the Apache License, are generally acceptable to commercial software vendors and not seen as a threat. The diagram below illustrates why:

 

The key points from the above diagrams are:

• Enterprises need to be careful when integrating with products with open source hereditary licenses. However, I should also note that care should be taken for integrating with any licensed software.
• The act of distributing the resultant software (“Something New”) triggers the Copyleft provision of the GPL. Unless the software is distributed then the provision is not invoked. In an enterprise context, distribution of source code generally means giving copies of it to someone outside of the enterprise. However, there are other hereditary open source licenses that define “distribution” much more broadly and includes the act of using the software over a network (for example, a web application being used over the Internet) and may not involve the transfer of source code at all.

Other levers that are involved but are not obvious from the above diagrams:

• A source code owner (the original author or somebody who has obtained ownership rights) can license the software any way they like. For example, they can release one version under the GPL and another under a commercial license.
• A few open source licenses have other restrictions requiring some form of attribution. This can be simply attributing ownership in the source code or retaining the use of the owner’s name or logo in screens seen by someone using the product.

To sum it up, the key levers of open source licensing, which can support a vendor’s business model, and which enterprises should be aware of are:

1. Hereditary versus permissive licensing (and the impact of Copyleft)
2. Source code ownership rights
3. Limitations around attribution
4. What defines “distribution”

My next post will discuss the types of open source businesses these levers enable and what this means for enterprises wanting to use open source solutions.

Open Source Software Licensing for IT Managers

Blogger: Larry Cannell

A recent article from Bruce Perens, a leading open source advocate, entitled “How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?” reminded me of how confusing open source licensing can be for IT managers who aren’t plugged into the open source world. Although the article is published on a website intended to be read by IT managers it was clearly written for companies producing open source software. After writing down some of my own ideas for explaining open source licenses to IT managers I decided to turn these into a series of posts.

But first, some background. My research focuses on the use of communication, collaboration, and content management (3C) solutions within large enterprises. What this means is I don’t come to this topic from only a developer’s or a system or network administrator’s perspective. The 3C solutions we cover are usually considered infrastructure components that can be leveraged by applications. We tend to have a foot in both the infrastructure and application side of IT.

What we see driving IT management interest in open source is:

1. Saving money through lower licensing costs.
2. A desire to tap into innovative solutions, particularly those driven by active open source communities.
3. Using open source software to learn about emerging technologies (for example, much of what is called Web 2.0 was first built with open source)

The concerns IT managers have with open source software are:

• How well does the software work?
• Will it integrate with my existing infrastructure and applications?
• How well is it supported?
• Is it secure?
• Are there any risks with using open source software?

In my client dialogues about open source a topic that often drives discussion is licensing. One of the keys to effectively applying open source solutions is to understand a vendor’s business model and the role the software plays in their market plans. An open source license supports that role and business model. Therefore, understanding open source licenses is important because:

• They are an indication of the business model used by an open source company (and commercial software and services companies using open source software).
• Each of these business models has a different set of factors to pay attention to in terms of how they use open source and what they must do to succeed.
• They also influence how an enterprise might use an open source product. For example, maybe you are using an open source library in one of your applications or perhaps you are using a full product (like an open source blog) but are thinking of integrating it with an application. Each of these scenarios comes with a different set of opportunities and risk.

My next post will be an introduction to specific open source licenses, the levers they can bring to bear on a software market, and what they can mean to an enterprise using open source software.

Is Enterprise Search Ripe for Open Source Disruption?

Blogger: Larry Cannell

This past week we’ve seen some attention-getting news from both Autonomy (buying Interwoven) and Microsoft (John Lervik, the FAST CEO is resigning). What you may have missed in all of the hubbub was an announcement about Lucid Imagination. This is a startup which recently received funding to compete in the enterprise search market by providing commercial support for the open source search solutions Lucene and Solr.

In a Burton Group report published last year we highlighted Lucene as an example of an innovative open source product. However, it doesn’t yet have a significant presence in the enterprise market. Lucid Imagination is out to change that.

I should note that Lucene is not an application. Rather, Lucene is a set of Java functions that provide indexing capabilities, which applications can use. It’s not a free enterprise search product that you just download, install, and run like, for example, Wordpress, an open source blogging platform.

Lucid Imagination will provide support for both Lucene and Solr (a younger open source project which extends Lucene). Together they are an indexing engine with a web service interface and frameworks for building search capabilities. These can be used for creating standalone enterprise search sites but may be more valuable for adding search capabilities to vertical applications.

This is not just simple google-style search too. In addition to a number of other capabilities, Solr extends Lucene by enabling the use of faceted search, a compelling approach to information retrieval that is quite powerful. If you are interested in learning more, the Lucid Imagination site has a good example of faceted search. They’ve indexed a number of the Lucene and Solr project websites and provide a faceted search interface to browse across all of them.

I think Lucid Imagination’s approach of supporting developers leveraging their search capabilities, may be a good strategy. First, it would be hard to disrupt a market that already has a low-cost solution like the Google Mini. In addition, this approach provides Lucid opportunities for revenue streams from consulting and project work, buying them time while they continue enhancing core Lucene and Solr capabilities and building a community. In my opinion, this is key. Commercial open source companies based on existing projects must be a leader in the project’s community and this approach may have a better chance of strengthening, even building a larger, more sustainable Lucene/Solr community.

Open source communities can be fabulous sources of innovation, if they are able to sustain themselves. One of the keys to success for an open source community is motivating others to join in and be willing to compete on features which extend the core product. In this case this could mean (instead of competing on the building blocks of search) competing on things such as user experience, navigation, and supporting new types of “content.” This includes, of course, multimedia content but might also include adding faceted search capabilities to applications with structured data sources too.

Lucid Imagination is an interesting company to keep your eye on. But I think the key will be to watch the Lucene/Solr community. If it grows then it’s likely Lucid will too.

Alfresco's ECM TCO Whitepaper

Blogger: Larry Cannell

Alfresco recently released a whitepaper comparing the cost of owning it’s ECM product versus competitor products EMC/Documentum, Open Text, and Microsoft SharePoint. The whitepaper’s conclusions (as you would expect) puts Alfresco in a very positive light.

Usually when a vendor releases information about TCO it is ambiguous and has few (if any) specifics, simply making claims of lower TCO with no data backing it up. However, this is not the case here. Although some of the writing has a marketing flair it is full of cost data culled from publicly available websites (vendor websites and GSA pricing).

Jeff Potts provides an outstanding analysis of the whitepaper and identifies a few shortcomings. The true cost of an ECM product is also hard to pin down given the imaginative bundling vendors can do to get or keep your business. However, even if you were to cut the cost savings in half, the difference is still significant.

Of course, there are many considerations when making an ECM decision. But, cost differentials on this level (that are backed with real numbers) should get the attention of many enterprise strategists. If nothing else, Alfresco’s data can help you prepare for this year’s negotiations with your current ECM vendor.