Ok… really I have no beef with SugarCRM, just their license. They seem like a good company (revenue and customer focused) and their product appears to be making a good impression with customers. I’ve looked at their demo, and it does look rather functional. OK, that’s out of the way. SugarCRM well funded, eager company, decent product.
However, the fact remains, they are NOT open source (refer here, here, here, here, here) Even recently they signaled to the world what they think “open source is” is in actuality “public source” by releasing SugarCRM under the Microsoft Community License.
Eweek thinks SugarCRM will be alone. I agree… In fact, I encourage SugarCRM to actually standardize on the Microsoft Community License! It meets your needs and actually refers to itself honestly. In other words, if you think of open source like public source (and you do) then just be a community source or public source licensed company. Don’t use the term open source just to get a marketng bump.
You brought something to my attention that I didn’t realize. I didn’t read into their licensing so I didn’t pick up theat they aren’t open source.
I think this is a bigger problem as the open source hype catches on in more and more mainstream media. Companies are using “open source” as marketing, and corrupting the term.
My concernt with this problem is that it will dilute the open source projects out there and eventually remove any meaning from the term. We’ll be back to have to read through license agreements and contracts to fgure out what is/isn’t and therefore what to expect. Let’s hope that the most common licenses become standardized enough that they are adopted more broadly (e.g. GPL 3, etc.)
Well… I completely agree. The term “Open Source” means completely different things to different people. To some, it’s a way to get exposure and a marketing bump. To others, it means a way to develop software in a community driven way.
As the “fast followers” of open source stake their claim, there will certainly be hucksters that will give the whole FOSS thing a bad name. Hopefully the community can help regulate; I fear it though. It will be based on discussions of nuance, philosophy, and perception as much as critia.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were an “Open Source” compatibility toolkit. Run an open source company through it and see how “compatible” it is.