February 16th, 2005
It's a wonderful program
Novell’s donation of the Hula Project to the community reminds me of one of my favorite copyright stories, that of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life(right, from Amazon.Com).
The movie’s great vogue came after its copyright expired. Every TV station with airtime around Christmas played it over-and-over. Then, seeing its new popularity the copyright was renewed, and its popularity ended. (My kids prefer A Christmas Story.)
The point is that market value and value to the public can be different things. More companies like Novell are realizing this, placing software of value under the GPL.
Could the calendar, mail server, and rich Web client offered by the Hula Project make it as proprietary, paid software? I doubt it. But someone is going to say, this is a wonderful program, and other people will work to maintain and enhance it as a result.
Does that make Novell the richest company in town? Let us know in TalkBack.
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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