Are SugarCRM, Socialtext, Zimbra, Scalix and others abusing the term "open source?"

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More murky water

Since we are on a roll criticizing the abuse of the term "open source", lets consider the case organization open sourcing only part of their software stack, holding back parts in the hope that people will migrate to their proprietary version.

This is of course well documented in the case of SugerCRM. Other lesser example is OpenGroupware (withholding Outlook Support).


My view is these are merely sophisticated "adware" +"crippleware" hybrid.

Most importantly, to me, these violates the spirit of "open source".

However, we should not be too critical. A lot of people benefits from these products. And if we throw the net extremely widely, one can fault IBM for only throwing out basic Rational stuff in the form of Eclipse in the hope that people buy Rational later.

Posted by: sinleeh@...   Posted on: 11/21/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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