July 27th, 2007
OSI avoids open source war
Let us now praise Michael Tiemann. (Right, by Joi Ito.)
When I wrote about open source CRM recently, I had no idea I was opening a Pandora’s Box of controversy, which Tiemann proceeded to open on his blog.
For a while I was afraid we were about to have a war over open source licensing, and licensing standards.
Thankfully, Tiemann has now averted that war. Following what I suspect were intense discussions, SugarCRM has chosen an OSI-approved license, while OSI itself has created an “attribution” license.
With both sides moving toward the center, we can all get back to business, and that’s vital. Open source is all about compromise, about seeking consensus between the needs of competitive business and the ideals of Free Open Source Software (FOSS).
Finding a solution which puts all sides back under the same umbrella may feel like herding cats, but this week has, in my view, given Tiemann a valid cat herding license.
Everyone in the open source business can now spend their time lapping the milk of business success, rather than clawing one another.
Maybe Tiemann can’t sell books like J.K. Rowling, but with those glasses he’s got a distinctly Potter-esque caste to him tonight.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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