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Let he who is without proprietary features cast the first stone
Matthew Aslett, April 8, 2010 @ 10:51 am ETIf the recent debate about open core licensing has proven one thing, it is that the issue of combining proprietary and open source code continues to be a controversial one.
It ought to be simple: either the software meets the Open Source Definition or it does not. But it is not always easy to tell what license is being used, and in the case of software being delivered as a service, does it matter anyway?
The ability to deliver software as a hosted service enables some companies that are claimed to be 100% open source to offer customers software for which the source code is not available. Coincidentally, James Dixon has this week highlighted one example in the form of Nuxeo Studio, a configuration and customization environment for the Nuxeo ECM offerings, which is delivered as a hosted service to Nuxeo’s Connect – Developer subscribers.
To be clear, I am referring here not to the practice of offering open source software as a managed service, but specifically to proprietary software delivered as a service as part of “open source subscriptions”.
The nature of Studio’s license came up in a conversation I had recently with Nuxeo CMO Cheryl McKinnon, and I had been meaning to write a post on the subject of hosted subscription services ever since.
Nuxeo Studio is the latest in a line of value-added subscription services that blur the lines between open and closed. It started, arguably, back in 2001 with Red Hat Network, a hosted monitoring and management service. The stand alone Red Hat Network Satellite followed two years later but it wasn’t until June 2008 that the code officially became open source, as project Spacewalk.
Similarly, JBoss Operations Network was first introduced as JBoss Network, part of the JBoss subscription, in March 2005. The code for that was made available in the form of the Jopr project in 2008.
Meanwhile MySQL introduced MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Services as part of MySQL Enterprise in October 2006 as it continued its shift towards subscription revenue (and away from its traditional dual licensing approach).
More recent examples include Nuxeo Studio and Acquia Network‘s remote site management services. And let’s not forget Canonical’s Landscape management and monitoring tool, which is included in server support contracts and available separately to complement desktop support contracts. The client is open source, the server is not.
In his post James Dixon argues that the delivery of a service like Nuxeo Studio or Canonical Landscape is effectively the same as the open core licensing model, in that it is the delivery of proprietary extensions to an open source core. Florent Guillaume, director of R&D at Nuxeo, and Eric Barroca, Nuxeo CEO, have responded in the comments to that post and Eric’s original to argue that it is not.
My own feeling is that Nuxeo’s approach is not open core, since the original definition of open core concerned proprietary products. However, the existence of Nuxeo Studio means that Nuxeo is clearly not 100% open source.
For that reason, I have come to believe that we need to add a new revenue trigger category to our open source business strategy model, that makes a clear distinction between support subscriptions for 100% open source code, and value-add subscriptions that offer additional hosted services.
It is also a reminder of the importance of transparency. Open core vendors are regularly attacked for misleading potential customers with the promise of open source while delivering traditional licensing. Our recent transparency test indicated that for the most part open core vendors are clear about what features are in which version, and with which license.
I spent some time the other day investigating the web sites of various OSS-related vendors and unfortunately the same cannot be said of all vendors (whether they are open core or “pure” open source).
Too often phrases like “open source subscription license”, “commercial open source license” and “value-added component” are thrown around without any explanation of what exactly is meant, and the so-called open source purists are not immune to glossing over the details.
Simon Crosby recently commented that everybody making money with open source actually has a proprietary angle. I don’t think that is 100% true, but it is getting harder and harder to identify the open source purists.
Comments (13) Categories: Business strategies,Licensing,Software
SpagoBI is 100% open source . There is only one version of the BI Suite released under the business friendly LGPL licence. Download does’t require any form compilation and sebscription, just one click. I think that we could cast the first stone but we are to kind to do that
At the end of the day the ones that really have the possibility to throw stones are customers and they use this possibility every time the product does not meet their aspectative no meter if it is 100% opensource, 50% opensource or not opensource at all. My 2 cents.
I’ve only been living the open source world for 6 months, but some of this debate over definitions and models and ‘purity tests’ reminds me of the “what is a record” bombshell that gets my colleagues on the ECM side of the house riled up.
Nuxeo’s main focus is a simple, clear business model that customers and partners can understand right from day 1 – no surprises if/when their requirements evolve or expand. That is essential to how we do business.
Ultimately the tools – ie, Nuxeo Studio as a hosted design environment aren’t important… it’s what the customer can do with it. The value we bring is in making their life easier – it’s worth it to make that investment in Nuxeo Connect to just get things done faster/better. So that’s where we want to benefit commercially.
Hi Cheryl,
I agree it shouldn’t matter, so long as the customer is not misled. That’s what a lot of the criticism of open core is about, but really it should apply to all vendors equally.
Thanks
Matt
Nice work Matt, thanks for your views on this.
The thing that I find odd is that, supposedly, if Pentaho stopped offering on-premise deployments and only offered SaaS, we would no longer be open core. Yet we would have the same open source code and the same proprietary extensions as before. Does that make sense to you?
James
[...] leave a comment » Mat Aslett at the 451 Group has weighed in on the recent postings and comments between myself and the folks at Nuxeo, in a post – Let he who is without proprietary features cast the first stone [...]
Good title for this post! And nice to see that those entitled to it are not eager to cast any stones
I agree with your definition. Open core == not open source as defined by OSD. A Saas offering however does not conflict with OSD, even if it also is not open source. “It’s just a website”. So a new category is deserved.
It seems you left it open what the new category should be called. May I be the first one to throw in something: “Proprietary SaaS offering”.
Henrik
Thanks Henrik
[...] and the delivery of software products through cloud offerings. The 451 Group’s Matt Aslett writes: “It ought to be simple: either the software meets the Open Source Definition or it does not. [...]
[...] http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2010/04/08/ [...]
Hi Matt,
Great series of posts on open core / os business models, but I am not sure if I agree with this last post. See my thoughts here http://jverberg.posterous.com/open-source-business-model
Jeroen
[...] isn’t true across the board though and there is certainly no shortage of controversy about this approach. This report also profiles that are primarily selling support subscriptions [...]
[...] Although they are a step in that direction. The subscription model provides vendors with a mechanism to distribute value-added features to paying customers. Until now the additional capabilities in MySQL Enterprise (such as Enterprise Monitor) have been delivered as a service via the MySQL Enterprise subscription. Although the code for Enterprise Monitor has not been made available, we would see this strategy as distinct from open core since open core results in a product with a different code base, where as the MySQL Server code in Enterprise and Community is the same. To differentiate from regular support subscriptions I have used the term value-added subscription to refer to this type of subscription. Other examples include Canonical’s Ubuntu Advantage and Nuxeo’s Connect. I would also put Red Hat Network and JBoss Operations Network in this category, although the source code for those value-added services was originally closed, it has now been made available as open source (as previously discussed). [...]
[...] Let he who is without proprietary features cast the first stone [...]